For all of my crabbing on here, the world is actually getting to be a much better place in which to live. There's a lot of good news out there and if are diligent, you can find it. The best place to start is The Christian Science Monitor as they are usually very unbiased and shy away from sensation. The last issue, for example, had a plethora of good news and I'm going to be highlighting some of their stories over the next week or so. This, by the way, keeps my promise to put up more world news content as well:)
The first one that caught my eye was this story on poverty. I had to read it twice before I believed that it was real. Extreme poverty in the world has been...cut by half?!?
In fact, the rate of decline in extreme poverty everywhere in the world has more than doubled in the past decade, Ravallion says. That's after adjusting for China, whose sheer size makes it an outlier.
Simply amazing.
Now, the article does go on to say that there is still a great deal of poverty in the world but we are heading in the right direction. With the changes seen in China (as noted in the article), the direction we are heading as a world is very, very positive. In fact, I think the prediction that Bono made a year or two ago is going to come true: within 50 years, there will be no more hunger on this planet. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, there will be no going back to "Live Aid" days. (Note: this includes climate change, incidentally, which is actually quite "foreseen" and will be eventually dealt with in an appropriate fashion).
So, why has this happened? Well, mainly, it's because of us. Our country has spread prosperity around the world in the form of liberal economic theory. Communism is gone and capitalism and free markets are spreading everywhere. If countries don't want to be a part of this (and there aren't many left out there), they will find themselves on the outside. Our new world certainly is not perfect and we have had some growing pains but the increased prosperity has no other explanation. Everyone on the planet wants an iPhone.
And, as the countries of the world begin to need less aid, we are going to see greater wealth in the Global North countries. In fact, my children will likely live in a time where there will be no delineation between the Global North and the Global South.
It's simply going to be Planet Earth.
4 comments:
I can't stand the thought of you being optimistic, here is some Stigltiz shit to put you back to normal.
While it's good news that poverty worldwide is going down, the fact is the majority of Americans are experiencing a decline in net wealth. In large part, that's due to American corporations offshoring jobs to Mexico, Asia, Eastern Europe and South America, the same places that are experiencing reductions in poverty.
We are witnessing one of the biggest redistributions of wealth in world history, away from the Western European and American middle classes to the rest of the world, and incidentally, the coffers of multinational corporations.
American companies have literally given away our technological edge to Asia, first moving all factories to Asia to take advantage of low wages and now moving design there as well.
It's ironic that the most rabid capitalists in the world engineered the economic salvation of the last remaining Communist strongholds in the world. Soon Chinese corporations, tied to the Chinese government, will have more economic clout than the multinationals that made them rich.
In the global scheme of things it seems quite enlightened. But is it in America's self interest?
For the answer to that question, Nikto, see my upcoming post on reshoring!:)
juris, I'm not worried about climate change. It's a problem but it's going to be solved. We are not all going to perish on a burning earth. The climate deniers aren't going to get their way either. The only thing to decide now is how much of an industry leader do we want to be on renewables.
My two favorite parts were:
Here, unfair trade agreements – including the persistence of unjustifiable agricultural subsidies, which depress the prices upon which the income of many of the poorest depend – have played a role.
Uh, rent seeking on the part of American farmers? Which always makes it even more ironic when you hear Americans bitch about other countries' farm subsidies.
and,
An economic and political system that does not deliver for most citizens is one that is not sustainable in the long run.
Deliver what? Equality, prosperity, benefits, justice? This is a fantastically muddle-headed statement.
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