RE: So, the UN finally admits it's Capitalism not welfare that is ending poverty!
July 26, 2011 at 6:22 am
Jaysyn Wrote:China, at least, may not be the shining beacon you were hoping for.
Are you genuinely ignorant of my political philosophies or do you really think that pointing out how badly government interference butchers the supply/demand signals is going to be some kind of revelation to a free-market capitalist?
And besides, what part of this discussion stated that "High GDP is responsible for lowering poverty"? It is the creation of wealth through capitalism that is seeing the standard of living in china increase, it's pretty well correlated with their economic liberalisation over the past 20 years, in the regions with the most economic freedom (china has differing policies by region, making a rather useful resource for case studies) the standard of living is even higher. Yes, paying people to build huge unused cities or pointless high-speed rail systems increases GDP, but it doesn't help the people who aren't able to pay the rents or fares demanded. However, given their economic freedoms continue on their current path and the demand for labour continues the price people in china can demand for their productivity will continue to increase in terms of real wages, that means the GPI (genuine progress indicator) and HDI (human development index) scores will continue to rise, albeit at a slower rate than the bullshit GDP measurements.
Contrast this to america, their GDP is rising but their GPI and HDI is falling - If you really want to know how people are doing looking and GDP is stupid.
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