RE: So, the UN finally admits it's Capitalism not welfare that is ending poverty!
July 27, 2011 at 12:38 pm
(This post was last modified: July 27, 2011 at 12:43 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(July 26, 2011 at 6:07 am)Jaysyn Wrote: China, at least, may not be the shining beacon you were hoping for.
It is nontheless a shining beacon of economic policy over aid whatever its blemishes.
In 1980, Chinese GDP was three times that of all of subsaharan on PPP basis. 90% of Chinese lived in abject medievel rural destitution comparable to sub-Saharan Africa. The other 10% lived a barely modern urban existence comparable to the slums of Manila or Mexico city. The only thing China had on Africa in 1980 was a generally higher standard of education and a government interested in tapping people's innate capitalist drive to create wealth.
According to UN aid agency, between 1980 and 2010, Sub-Saharan africa received 16 times more relief, development aid and grants per capital than China.
Yet today Chinese GDP is 20 times that of all of subsaharan Africa on a PPP basis. In that same period, China managed to lift 500 million, a population approximately the same as sub-Saharan africa, all the way to existence that would be considered middle-class even by developed world.
Even if China's recent growth is overblown, what is certain is the infrastructural and productivity foundations of a middle-class existence for 500 million people is now there. Even if Chinese economy were to hit serious skids, those 500 million people with a first world education, the training and the facilities to produce everything from financial services, to ipads, to 3-D TVs, to manned space capsules and stealth fighters are not falling all the way back to sub-saharan povery. There is rock hard wealth and capital creation underneath any accused blemish.
In 1980, it's not clear if many subsaharan africans would trade his Africa income for the income of the average Chinese. Today, after receiving 16 times as much aid as China did, one would truly be blind to not see that your average subsaharan africa would trade his income for just a fraction of the income of the average Chinese in a heartbeat.
