Comment by keybored
6 months ago
This time period coincided with China and it’s large population “lifting people out of poverty”, a not-neoliberal economy.
If you look at the income graph for this period you’ll see that the bottom part of the world did get more money. Meanwhile the working class and middle class (what’s the difference?) in the West got more money. And finally the wealthiest got a stupendous amount of more money. Now look at the US for example. GDP has grown at the same rate since the post-war period. The distribution is just more lopsided (neoliberalism). Thus it seems that the worldwide economic system could have “lifted people out of poverty” at a higher rate/given the former poor more money. But instead the vast amount of money went to the very rich.
The wealth/income/money distribution since the neoliberal period began demonstrates that it is really designed to lift millionaires into billionaires.
Finally one would have to look at what “extreme poverty” means in order to judge these percentages. I can easily define that term with the global living standards of the 1970’s in mind, put it slightly above that, then declare victory when the global population gets a slight improvement. I don’t recall any such discussions off the top of my head but apparently you can easily spend at least twenty minutes going through all the details. Meanwhile while the fact-checker puts on his shoes, claims about increasing or decreasing poverty are already half-way across the world.
China is not a liberal country, but it's economy was relatively liberalization from the 80s onward.
I agree that liberalism has lifted many billions of people out of poverty, and that we could be doing more than we already have. I believe that turning around backwards toward socialism and centralized economic planning would be a grave mistake that would undo the gains made by liberalism since the 1970s
> China is not a liberal country, but it's economy was relatively liberalization from the 80s onward.
You’re the one who said “neoliberalism”. You weaken your claim now? Why am I asking.
> I agree that liberalism has lifted many billions of people out of poverty, and that we could be doing more than we already have.
Key word “I believe”. China has made their own progress and a look at worldwide poverty reduction would have to take that into account.
And thanks for collapsing my whole discussion of the poverty rate down to “I agree”. We could do the same for you by bringing up the fact that the Soviet Union economy grew a lot compared to Tsarist Russia—I guess you will have to concede to being a planned economy supporter as well.
> I believe that turning around backwards toward socialism and centralized economic planning would be a grave mistake that would undo the gains made by liberalism since the 1970s
Meaning lifting millionaires into billionaires.