Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined? • Hacker News Board

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#91

Post by coldtea » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 12:38 PM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #89

coldtea wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Poverty" today is not the same as "poverty" decades ago. So? Would you be satisfied living with the sanitation, health-care, technology level, etc of "decades ago" today? There's no absolute "poverty level". You can perhaps starve (that is absolute), or be homeless (also absolute), but there's no such thing as absolute poverty level against which to measure all ages. You have to measure poverty as it relates to wh…

What do you think of this [1] measure of Poverty? It is based on questions like: Has a child died in your family? Do you have electricity? Do you cook with wood, charcoal or dung? Seems pretty absolute to me. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidimensional_Poverty_Inde...

Seems pretty crude to me. It's mostly a test to determine "are you living in 19th century shoe-shine boy conditions" -- not "are you poor".

Sure, the poor of today can have access to electricity and running water, and even basic drugs like penicilin. Things that even the kings of 18th didn't have.

That doesn't mean the kings of 18th century were "poor", nor that the trailer-park people of today are "rich". Both would be absurd statements.

What's acceptable is not static.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#92

Post by coldtea » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 12:40 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #90

coldtea wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because if people live better than dustbowl era farmers, we should all be satisfied and not check if they got a relative improvement compared to society's riches as well. With this logic, anybody living better than a caveman should be grateful, even if he has to sleep in the streets and can't afford health care, because, hey, cavement couldn't afford those things either.

So I think if people are living a better lifestyle in absolute terms, then yes they should be grateful. And yes, we should always try and improve this. Whether their personal wealth is a larger or smaller proportion of global riches is irrelevant.

>Whether their personal wealth is a larger or smaller proportion of global riches is irrelevant.

That's what the guys that get the larger proportion of global riches say -- people who play life in "easy" mode.

Re: Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?

#93

Post by gadders » Fri, Jun 06, 2014, 7:50 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #92

gadders wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I think if people are living a better lifestyle in absolute terms, then yes they should be grateful. And yes, we should always try and improve this. Whether their personal wealth is a larger or smaller proportion of global riches is irrelevant.

> Whether their personal wealth is a larger or smaller proportion of global riches is irrelevant. That's what the guys that get the larger proportion of global riches say -- people who play life in "easy" mode.

Is this where I need to check my privilige? Apart from being born white in a first world country, I wouldn't claim any advantages for myself. I grew up poor (poorer than today's standard of poverty) and the only advantage I had was a modicum of intelligence.