> Poverty, illness and starvation are the default state of mankind
A most wretched lie. Systems of entrenched inequality and widespread poverty mostly emerged after agriculture and centralized state systems, not during early human history.
That lie serves to shift the blame for people's struggles away from oligarchs and owners and onto their victims. Do you own a company perchance? ... What do your down-stream labourers earn per hour, compared to you?
... Do you think billionaire CEOs and trust-fund nepo babies work harder than people in sweat shops? In mines? Nurses?
Poverty, illness, and starvation are not inherent states. They are outcomes of structural and economic choices.
> the fact that almost nobody lives in deep poverty any more is because people get up in the morning and work hard to produce value.
Another lie, long debunked, labelled "The Protestant Work Ethic Myth". It can be disproved with Nobel economist research [0], World Bank reports [1], or a simple graph [2], not to mention the first few pages of 'Capital'.
Historical evidence and economic research overwhelmingly show that poverty, illness, and starvation are due to structural forces and political choices, and that poverty reduction comes from systemic changes far more than from individual work ethic.
To say otherwise is to blame the victims of terrible crimes of exploitation, while absolving the perpetrators, despite mountains of evidence.
It's fine and good to work, yes. But we have green power, machines, 120 IQ AI, instant global communication... A world where everyone works 20 hours a week with no reduction in Quality of Life for 99% of us is entirely possible, right now; but the current owners of the world would rather see us all burn than move toward it.
0 - https://www.supersummary.com/the-great-escape/summary/
1 - https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
2 - https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/23410.jpeg
