So, the UN finally admits it's Capitalism not welfare that is ending poverty!

[theVOID]

the United Nations admits in its newest report on the progress of the so-called Millennium Development Goals that wealth creation and not wealth redistribution is the main driver behind reduced levels of extreme poverty around the world.

"The fastest growth and sharpest reductions in poverty continue to be found in Eastern Asia, particularly in China, where the poverty rate is expected to fall to under five per cent by 2015," says the report, released Thursday, by the UN's Economic and Social Affairs Department.

"India has also contributed to the large reduction in global poverty. In that country, poverty rates are projected to fall from 51 per cent in 1990 to about 22 per cent in 2015."
In fact, by 2005, eastern Asia — essentially China — had already exceeded the MDG target of halving the percentage of its population who live on $1.25 day, reducing the figure from 60 per cent to 16 per cent.

By contrast, sub-Saharan Africa — the world's biggest per capital recipient of overseas development aid — reduced the percentage of its people living in extreme poverty from 58 per cent to only 51 per cent between 1990 and 2005.

http://www.canada.com/business/grudgingl...story.html

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Interesting view on welfare.

I worked in welfare for 3 decades as well as formally studying welfare systems in several countries. It has never been my view that welfare is about ending poverty. Ideally, welfare is a safety net,to look after people who cannot look after themselves.

In my opinion it is untrue to claim capitalism per se has reduced poverty. Some regulation and control of capitalism has done that.

Unchecked laissez-faire capitalism is greedy,brutal and parasitic.

NOW please be upstanding for a rousing chorus of The Red Flag, after which I will read selected parts of "The Wretched Of The Earth"


PS I could not give a flying fuck what the UN says about anything.

[Autumnlicious]

The UN also agrees that blasphemy is a very Bad Thing ™.

PS I could not give a flying fuck what the UN says about anything.

I know, we all know. But anything to support an ideology, right?

[theVOID]

Interesting view on welfare.

I worked in welfare for 3 decades as well as formally studying welfare systems in several countries. It has never been my view that welfare is about ending poverty. Ideally, welfare is a safety net,to look after people who cannot look after themselves.

While I agree with you that welfare is suitable as a social safety net that does not change the fact that the UN's plan for ending poverty had such a system at it's very core - They approached the problem from that exact angle and it didn't take long to realise that letting businesses get on with it was a far better solution.

In my opinion it is untrue to claim capitalism per se has reduced poverty. Some regulation and control of capitalism has done that.

Unchecked laissez-faire capitalism is greedy,brutal and parasitic.

Laissez-faire is only a subset of capitalism and it is always subject to the rule of law, in contrast to democratic capitalism which has the state as a planner, social capitalism which has the state as a major economic player or anarcho-capitalism where there isn't even so much as the rule of law, therefore to claim that capitalism didn't reduce poverty because you dislike free markets is frankly horse shit Capitalism and regulation aren't mutually exclusive, free market capitalism and regulation however is.

And the level of "greedy, brutal and parasitic" in free market capitalism even in a worst case scenario is but a fraction of what is present in a corrupt social-capitalist system. In a free market you can chose not to work for, buy from or deal with the businesses in question and sue them should they do wrong, in contrast the state coerces cooperation with threats of imprisonment and there is no force to restrain them should they enforce their will.

NOW please be upstanding for a rousing chorus of The Red Flag, after which I will read selected parts of "The Wretched Of The Earth"

Huh?

PS I could not give a flying fuck what the UN says about anything.

I do, mostly because they have their fingers in everyone's pie. If they would stay the fuck out of it I wouldn't care, much like if religious douchebags weren't trying to enforce their will I wouldn't give a flying fuck about them either. that being said, their work promoting solutions to climate change is admirable, as is their efforts to disarm nuclear capable nations - I just happen to think they are wrong about the causes and solutions to poverty, they have for such a long time blamed capitalism in many forms, now they've collected a vast sum of data and have been proven dead-wrong, frankly I'm a little surprised they had the balls to admit it, even in the sheepish face-saving way that they did. Hell, their outlook for improving poverty in African nations now becomes contingent upon the growth of private enterprise and property... That's about a 180% flip.

I know, we all know. But anything to support an ideology, right?

Now let's get this straight; When an entity with an ego the size of the UN admits they were wrong, contrary to their typical face-saving biases, the only reason to pay attention to them is if it supports an ideology? Huh... And here I was thinking it was the massive collection of data that they could no longer ignore.. Silly me!

[Jaysyn]

China, at least, may not be the shining beacon you were hoping for.

[Anymouse]

Quote from Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha: "My class is winning. But it shouldn't be."

It does seem very strange how those who basically support the interests of corporations can rally the voters, especially the right-wing, the mostly uneducated, and the very definitely Fundamentalist Christians to go along with giving corporate welfare to oil companies and call unemployment benefits and a minimum wage "evil socialism." But when you only get your news from Rupert Murdoch controlled media like Faux News and the Chicago Tribune. . . .

The same folk seem to knock "socialism," while telling the government to keep its hands off Social Security benefits (especially if they are elderly). Social Security is apparently not socialism.

Neither are public roads, public schools, the military, the courts, the prison system, police, fire, rescue services, etc. etc.

In the interest of throwing out all the evil socialist ideas, lets throw those socialist programs out too, for they are indeed socialist (taking money from everyone to finance a military service, or a public school, &c.) Let's have corporations do what government fails at, because they are so much better at it (Cash for Kids scandal in the Pennsylvania court system, selling the Chicago Skyway to a Spanish company, &c.)

The Republicrats (that would be the Republicans and the Democrats) are actually two sides of the same wooden nickel. It was once argued in a political campaign "it's the economy, stupid," and neither party cares about that. And yet one party seems to keep harping on the idea of a "partnership between business and government for the good of the nation." That is the definition of fascism, a method of government which has always proven to protect the liberties and interests of citizens in the past.

James.

[theVOID]

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.

[Anymouse]

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?

I am genuinely ignorant of your political philosophy.

I am even mostly ignorant of my political philosophy.

I am aware of how badly the government can interfere with supply/demand signals (that is, how badly the government can interfere with business). I am also aware of how badly the government can interfere with individual liberty (TSA, Homeland Security, warrantless wiretapping, ad nauseum).

One possible solution: let the lions and tigers go after each others' throats in the government and in business, and destroy the survivors. Whoever is left from such a fight is too dangerous to allow to govern, or run a business.

[theVOID]

I am genuinely ignorant of your political philosophy.

I was talking to Jaysn

I am aware of how badly the government can interfere with supply/demand signals (that is, how badly the government can interfere with business). I am also aware of how badly the government can interfere with individual liberty (TSA, Homeland Security, warrantless wiretapping, ad nauseum).

One possible solution: let the lions and tigers go after each others' throats in the government and in business, and destroy the survivors. Whoever is left from such a fight is too dangerous to allow to govern, or run a business.

Or have a separation of state and enterprise so there is a genuinely impartial police force to prosecute crime, both in the markets and in social life. As long as a business has not used force, fraud or neglected their contractual obligations they have done nothing wrong, regardless of how successful they are. If someone can out-compete the competition ethically they're entitled to the spoils that come from market dominance, just like the successful sporting team who doesn't cheat gets all the trophies and pussy.

Quote from Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha: "My class is winning. But it shouldn't be."

It does seem very strange how those who basically support the interests of corporations can rally the voters, especially the right-wing, the mostly uneducated, and the very definitely Fundamentalist Christians to go along with giving corporate welfare to oil companies and call unemployment benefits and a minimum wage "evil socialism." But when you only get your news from Rupert Murdoch controlled media like Faux News and the Chicago Tribune. . . .

The same folk seem to knock "socialism," while telling the government to keep its hands off Social Security benefits (especially if they are elderly). Social Security is apparently not socialism.

According to many if you're not a liberal you're automatically working for the interests of corporations, regardless of stating specifically that no special interests should receive a cent of taxpayer money for any agenda.

And socialism is a broader political approach, there is no contradiction between Capitalism in general and social programs... Socialism is the idea that the means of production should be owned by all those who work in a given organisation, Capitalism in general is the idea that the means of production should be treated like any other kind of private property, the owner of the business owns the business, not the people he employs for an agreed wage. All the specifics, whether or not to regulate, whether or not to have a social safety net etc simply lead to different flavours of Capitalism.

Neither are public roads, public schools, the military, the courts, the prison system, police, fire, rescue services, etc. etc.

Again, not necessarily. Socialism is completely the wrong word to describe those services. Even Free-market capitalism at it's bare minimum advocates Police, Courts, prisons and a military - These are necessary functions of government and the rule of law - Having publicly owned schools, hospitals, roads etc lead to 'social capitalism' or 'democratic capitalism' depending on the extent to which these things are pursued and even then there is no clear distinction between them, more like a blurry line that you have to cross significantly before you can tell where you are.

In the interest of throwing out all the evil socialist ideas, lets throw those socialist programs out too, for they are indeed socialist (taking money from everyone to finance a military service, or a public school, &c.) Let's have corporations do what government fails at, because they are so much better at it (Cash for Kids scandal in the Pennsylvania court system, selling the Chicago Skyway to a Spanish company, &c.)

I don't think anyone credible considers socialism evil, it's merely a scare tactic used by those with a vested interest in various positions, much like the more socialist leaning folk and their "evil capitalism", both caricaturisations of the opposing position are petty and unproductive, both miss the real heart of the disagreement by focusing on worst-case scenarios and then delivering ad-homnimens based on that scenario.

The Republicrats (that would be the Republicans and the Democrats) are actually two sides of the same wooden nickel. It was once argued in a political campaign "it's the economy, stupid," and neither party cares about that. And yet one party seems to keep harping on the idea of a "partnership between business and government for the good of the nation." That is the definition of fascism, a method of government which has always proven to protect the liberties and interests of citizens in the past.
James.

That I entirely agree with, which is why I advocate the impartial state with no power over or vested interest in the goals of industry. That's the only kind of state we can truly trust to work towards upholding the rights of the people when they are lied to, coerced, have their property damaged or their contracts betrayed.

[Jaysyn]

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?

No, I'm just trying to point out what a bad example China is when you are patting your pet economic philosophy on it's head. The rest of your examples stand fine on their own as far as I know.