“What is the biggest benefit that the relatively poor have experienced over the past two centuries? It is surely the terrific reduction in the cost of food. Two centuries ago, food was the biggest part in a family’s budget. It was hard for a poor family to get enough to eat. If there was a shortage, there could be a famine, resulting in thousands of deaths. Even in the 1920s, people on average spent a third of their income on food. Now they spend only a tenth. Look at any chart of the price of the basic foodstuffs, such as wheat, barley and milk, and you will see almost continuous and deep falls. What has caused this massive benefit to the poor? A series of government regulations? A good-looking politician with an easy smile and a “vision”? No. Capitalism”. –James Bartholomew, writing in the Telegraph about the need to give “a revision course on why capitalism is a good thing”
But I believe that the lower prices on food in one corner of the world (West) will have consequences in another corner of the world (South).
One example of this is the industrial fishing fleets which produces very cheap fish by trawling their nets all over the oceans. This has lead to over fishing the stocks and less fish left for the local small fishermen who instead get a higher rate of famine and poverty.
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Ahhh, but that is not really related to capitalism itself…my point here is that because of capitalism we can now get more from less. In other words, now those fish are feeding many more people than they would otherwise have fed.
If your problem is over fishing per se, there are much more efficient ways to fix that. Property rights, for example, or a larger tax on fishing there, etc…
this seems like a strange thing for which to laud capitalism, especially if we consider the high rates of nutrition-related illnesses in poor communities (e.g., diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease).
i guess you could say that at least the poor are no longer in danger of starving, but when considering the aforementioned illnesses, their lives still seem to be on the line.
But those countries that suffer from “high rates of nutrition-related illnesses” are not capitalist, they all tend to be collectivist by nature, whether that be communist or socialist.
Which is precisely why so many people and organizations, including the UN and IMF, push to make more and more countries adopt capitalist principles. In short, capitalism saves lives.