Excellent post. I will surely drop by again….

With that said, I look forward to your response.

thanks for replying to my post. i see that we are finally having a conversation. i do think that i do not provide many specifics, but really, even the one’s you provide, do little to convince me. what i would need, is a lot more time to go through the numbers and evidence that backs up my arguments (but this is just my past time, to look at blogs, i remind you that i’m a graduate student). but since you have given me the time, i think is fair that i at least provide one comprehensive post, with some concrete evidence.

i do not know much of Asia, but i do have a good working history of Latin America (especially Mexico and Central America) and the United States. i would concentrate my argument to these regions as this is what i know. in a future upcoming post, i will show you how capitalism in the Americas has needed a strong state, and continues to need one. i have a very different defition of free trade than you do.

i will try to develop the following points: capitalism needs a strong state, capitalism is not solely an economic system or amoral but affects many aspects of our existence, capitalism is extremely individualistic and predatorial. capitalism cannot exist without human exploitation (wether is as slaves, colonies, low wage workers, undocumented labor, etc.).

one thing you are right, i cannot show you a nation-state that looks like my definition of the type of society i envision. for one, i envision a society without a state (crazy ha?), and i do not base my conceptions of what is possible based on what the history books say has been or is. (there are many thins left out of mainstream history history).

so, wait for my post, i’ll need a few days, maybe by Monday.

You give me vague and general comments in your response, not much I could sink my teeth into. Who would disagree with comments like, “i do not believe in the concentration of political power in a few hands, and i do not think the government should dictate anything, but the other way around…. the government should “command by obeying.” the closer to direct local democracy, the better”.

I generally agree with everything you say here yet me and you politically disagree on probably everything, so you understand my frustration in trying to engage your comments.

However, you approach real disagreements when you write, “having said that, i do think that certain human necessities (for both a healthy individual and a healthy society) should be guaranteed by the community things like health care, education, food and housing, all these things should be accessible to all”. But even here, depending on what you mean by ‘guaranteed’ and ‘accessible’ I could also agree with everything you say.

We do start to see clear disagreements in your second post though, but even here, it is primarily limited to misunderstandings of what I believe, you write, [my] conception of society is extremely individualistic, and does not seem to appreciate the interconnections of all human beings to the planet. [my] conceptions is also highly predatory, with the most agressive, the most powerful, and the most privilege trampling over the most vulnerable. so, although i do not think that we need a welfare-state, we do need a society that takes care of human beigns regardless of wether they can contribute or not to the economy.

This begs the question – I believe the very opposite, I believe that capitalism, properly implemented, is the most wide reaching economic policy around. It increases the standard of living of those in a certain country and increases the standard of living of other people in other countries around the world. Also, private property and an economic environment where free enterprise and entrepreneurship can thrive is the least ‘predatory’, ‘agressive’ and ‘privilege trampling over the most vulnerable’ than any other economic system in history.

You show me an economy where people can rise from rags to riches, where even the poor have a higher living standard than the rich did a couple generations ago, and where birthright plays an insignificant role and I will show you an economy that is capitalist. Of course you believe the opposite, but the burden of proof is on you to provide the reasons why.

You continue to misrepresent what I believe when you write, “HP reduces human society/community (global, local) to the market. we are all in relations of production and consumption, things that have valuable do so because they “cost” not because they are useful, human activity has value because it “pays” not because it enriches human life (think of office work, telemarketing, repetitive maquiladora work).” This is a complete misrepresentation of my views. I do not consider economics the end all be all of human life. My discussion here is only focused on that because that is the point of our disagreement. I strongly believe that family, social and cultural bonds, and human integrity are much more important in daily life and should be as so. But here we are talking about basic necessities, things like nutritional intake, life expectancy, and child mortality rates, and it’s inappropriate to discuss the beauties of “enriches [in] human life” when you lack even these basic necessities.

You also confuse capitalism when you write, “i had mention earlier that capitalism has historically needed a strong State, it currently does too. it needed the state to ensure the colonization of the Americas, the preservation of slavery, of war, protection of monopolies abroad. capitalism needs the state to protect its interest from a growing poor. to protect its patents. capitalism relies on governmet subsidise, low taxes. capitalism needs the state to carry own trade agreements and to enforce payments to loans and interest rates, etc. i do not think that capitalism could exist without a state”.

Where to begin? This confuses what capitalism is and what capitalism needs. Capitalism does not need a strong state and has historically thrived more with a weak one, take Hong Kong as just one example – Hong Kong under British control was neglected, John Cowperthwaite decision to leave Hong Kong as it was, to limit bureaucratic interference, to say no to tariffs, personal taxes higher than 15 percent, and limit red tape created a near perfect example of ‘pure capitalism’. For example, Hong Kong didn’t have import or export duties, restrictions on investments coming in or profits going out (near complete free trade), no capital-gains tax, no interest tax, no sales tax, no minimum wage, no unemployment benefits, no pro-union legislation, no social security, no national health program, and little to no welfare……yet Hong Kong in that same period was one of the “Asian Tigers”, and Hong Kong poverty reduced at the quickest rate in the history of mankind.

To give another example, take slavery and its abolishment in the Americas. Donald Boudreaux, chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University, notes this:

slavery had been an ever-present institution throughout human history until just about 200 years ago. Why didn’t slaveholders of 2,000 years ago in Europe or 500 years ago in Asia accumulate wealth that triggered economic growth comparable to ours? Why is Latin America so much poorer today than the United States, given that the Spaniards and Portuguese who settled that part of the world were enthusiastic slavers? Indeed, the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery was Brazil — in 1888, a quarter-century after U.S. abolition. By American and western European standards, Brazil remains impoverished.

And why, having abolished slavery decades before their Southern neighbors, were Northern U.S. states wealthier than Southern states before the Civil War? …

The fact is that slavery disappeared only as industrial capitalism emerged. And it disappeared first where industrial capitalism appeared first: Great Britain. This was no coincidence. Slavery was destroyed by capitalism.

To begin with, the ethical and political principles that support capitalism are inconsistent with slavery. As we Americans discovered, a belief in the universal dignity of human beings, their equality before the law, and their right to govern their own lives cannot long coexist with an institution that condemns some people to bondage merely because of their identity.

In other words, slavery is the antithesis of capitalism and history has shown that the two cannot, for long, co-exist together.

So even here, two posts into your comments, we have yet to reach something fundamentally of disagreement between the two of us.

In your last post we reach some disagreements, but even then there is still little to work with. For example, you write, i very much disagree with your statement that poor countries are communist or communist leaning, this is an absurd statement.…Fine, if you want to define communism differently than the leaders of these countries or even historical supporters of their movements did, that’s fine. My point here is that poor countries are ‘non-capitalist’ and rich countries are capitalist. Those non-capitalist countries also tend to follow a pattern very similar to communism, for example they have little to no free trade and little to no property rights.

It should also be noted that communism, strictly defined in your terms, cannot be accomplished. History has shown group after group trying to do just that, and in every case, it has resulted in gross human and civil right violations (nobody in history has killed more people than governments trying to follow communist doctrine) and the poorest standard of living in the world. In other words, communism as defined by academics is pure utopianism, and a dangerous utopianism at that. One that F.A. Hayek, as early as 1944 in his groundbreaking book, The Road To Serfdom, showed could not be realized.

Whereas capitalism has been implemented and in doing so has brought in unprecedented prosperity to places and people that have previously been forgotten and ignored – the differences between the two systems couldn’t be more staggering.

1. Capitalism is inhuman

This is one of the many aspects of capitalism that lefties often confuse – capitalism is not based on greed, capitalism is based on self-interest and the two are not the same. One person may be greedy at times and s/he may be charitable at times, but that same person is always self-interested. Whether you are a priest or a corporate CEO, you are always working on your own self-interest – you just happen to have different self-interests.

Second, capitalism offers protection against those who are greedy – it gives them avenues to exercise their greed in a way that also increases the wealth of others.

As the 20th centuries greatest economist Milton Friedman said, “The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system”.This is what Adam Smith referred to when he wrote, “…by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” When a CEO works hard to make her business more profitable, she must do so by, ultimately, pleasing the customers. Thereby raising the quality of life for those at the bottom.

Economist Walter Williams explains it this way:

It’s popular to condemn greed, but it’s greed that gets wonderful things done. When I say greed, I don’t mean stealing, fraud, misrepresentation or other forms of dishonesty. I mean people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. We don’t give second thought to the many wonderful things others do for us. Detroit assembly-line workers get up at the crack of dawn to produce the car that you enjoy. Farm workers toil in the blazing sun gathering grapes for our wine. Snowplow drivers brave blizzards just so we can have access to our roads. Do you think these people make these personal sacrifices because they care about us? My bet is that they don’t give a hoot. Instead, they along with their bosses do these wonderful things for us because they want more for themselves.

People in the education and political establishments pretend they’re not motivated by such “callous” motives as greed and profits. These people “care” about us, but from which areas of our lives do we derive the greatest pleasures and have the fewest complaints, and from which areas do we have the greatest headaches and complaints? We tend to have a high satisfaction level with goods and services like computers, cell phones, movies, clothing and supermarkets. These are areas where the motivations are greed and profits. Our greatest dissatisfaction is in areas of caring and no profit motive such as public education, postal services and politics. Give me greed and profits, and you can keep the caring.

In other words, I would much rather be part of an economy based on self-interest than an economy based on altruism – just think of the radical difference in standard of living between capitalist and communist economies.

Lastly, another important point that should be mentioned in discussions like this is that there is a give and take in human nature between self-interest and status seeking. In economies where self-interest plays a lesser role status seeking becomes its substitute and given the trade-offs between the two I would rather be in an environment where self-interest plays the dominant role.

Economist Arnold Kling explains it this way:

“Many people think that we should look down on “economic man,” who rationally calculates costs and benefits. They believe that people should have higher motives.

Instead, I suspect that the most likely alternative to economic motivation is a worse motive: status-seeking. I believe that is more important to curb our lust for status than our lust for goods and services.

The drive for economic gain helps the individual, and, as Adam Smith famously showed, helps others. Trade and economic growth are positive-sum games, in which there can be winners without losers. Moreover, when people seek economic gains, this is usually transparent. You usually understand when you and others you transact with are trying to improve your economic well-being.

Status, on the other hand, is typically a zero-sum game, in which one person’s gain comes at the expense of others. Adding to the evils of status-seeking is that people often deceive themselves and others into believing that they are doing something for a higher motive when in fact they are seeking status.”

The full article, which I recommend everybody interested in this topic read, can be found here.

With that out of the way…now I can devote my full attention to tin’s comments above.

As I said in my previous post, I am not ignoring your posts or even the remaining post of P-3000…my problem here is time. Because of other commitments, I can only post a response once every other day, or depending on what day of the week once every day – at most. Give me a few days and I will respond to you and P-3000 more fully.

Btw, as far as my scholars go, I challenge you to find me a scholar, especially an economic scholar, from either the left or the right, who disagrees with anything I have quoted above. Capitalism, and the overwhelming good it has done around the world is self-evident and unquestioned by economists on all sides of the political spectrum. Sure, you may find a historian or a Chicano Studies professor (or a linguist), who can say some bad things about capitalism, but that would be like me quoting an economist as an authority on a historical matter (or linguistic matter). Not fair at all….As far as the economics profession goes, both the left and the right side are unabashedly committed to capitalism and especially free trade. Again, as I said in a previous discussion with you, it is only really the sociology and Chicano Studies majors that still entertain communist views…all majors that directly deal with economies and which ones work and which don’t have already been convinced by the overwhelming evidence of capitalism.

I will address the rest of your comments soon – I promise.

hello HP, you asked for me to stay in the conversation but then don’t engage my comments. a lot of the points you make you back up from scholars and economists who I and other very much disagree with. i could also spend time citing scholarly work, economist, revolutionaries, community and environmental activists, indigenous people fighting de-colonial struggles all around the world, but you wouldn’t believe or respect that. so really, it doesn’t help when you quote from one of your heores. i could do the same. I could cite, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, John Holloway, Eduardo Galeano, Subcomandante Marcos, Rigoberta Menchu, Vandana Shiva, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, Gloria Anzaldua, hey, even Michael Moore, who have a very different view of Capitalism than you do. but i don’t think you would change your views.

We see capitalism very differently. Capitalism is not amoral, it is not simply an economic system. it enters our system (minds and bodies). the way we work, the way we live, the way we interact with others/relationships, what we consider of value, our dreams and apirations, etc.

i very much disagree with your statement that poor countries are communist or communist leaning, this is an absurd statement. not even Cuba or Venezuela are communists, where do people own the factories, where do we have a system of direct democracy or close to it? Marx and many other Marxists (although not the majority) criticized the state and state control over society and the means of production. communism would require the dismantling of the concentration of power in the state. but what Marx and marxists say is not the point, i don’t think of myself as one. the issue for me is about communities and people deciding by themselves how they want to live and what type of society they want to have (if capitalist want to be capitalist, that’s great, but have themselves exploit each oter). capitalism or state socialism do not respect democracy (unless you think that in the US we have a democracy), and will use force and whatever means to impose their ways on others. if you disagree with this, then you are completely ignorant of US history and the history of Russia and China, which is precisely what they did. if you do not know this history, then we cannot have a conversation, if you do not see how capitalism needs a strong state, then i don’t think we can have dialogue since we see things from a very differnt point of view.

talk to your friends, your professors, etc. having discussions over a blog are not going to change how you or i see the world. (if anything, it lets me know that capitalist fundamentalism does exist)

if you want to continue our discussion, please take the time to read my previous post and have a thoughtful response. if not, have a good life. and maybe the people you love (that is, if they are not walking oxymorons “libertarian-conservative”) can change your mind. but like i heard a commedian say, “have you ever tried to convice a rich person that capitalism doesn’t work?” is just not possible, and i don’t mean you are rich, but you are obviously very comfortable with the privileges of living in the world’s greatest super power (power over the rest of the world, or do you think is about diplomacy?).

peace.

Why would you think that we would not change each others minds? I certainly believe that my opinion follows the data and I certainly hope you think the same of yours. In fact, my life is one big change of opinion – I am, afterall, a conservative-libertarian who is Mexican and grew up in Compton….how many of those do you find? Trust me, you certainly can change my opinion.

You write,

Just because one is dying from hunger, does not mean dying from obesity and its related diseases is any better.

Are you really trying to say that living an obese life in the United States is ‘somewhat’ equivalent to living in starvation in, say Africa? The two are miles apart – and I don’t see how anybody could draw any comparison between the two. An early death from obesity is radically different than an early death from starvation. Countries that suffer from absolute poverty have life expectencies of 30 or 40′s at most, some have a life expectency much shorter. Whereas the poor in the United States, those exhibiting obesity problems the most, have a life expectency of only a couple years to at most 5 years below that of the rich. In other words, we are comparing life spans of 30′s and 40′s to life spans of 70′s and 80′s, a radical difference by anybodies measure.

I should also mention that capitalism is amoral – in other words, it does not deal with morality and what habits should be changed because of that extra wealth – it only cares about producing that extra wealth. If because of an extra abundance of food people eat more and become obese, capitalism has nothing to say about that. To say it a different way, obesity and the problems of peoples indulgences is not an economic problem, it is a religious problem, or a discipline problem, but not an economic problem (it is also a ‘problem’ that those in underdeveloped countries wish they had).

You also write, being poor in a rich country or rich in a poor country. This reeks of arrogance. He ASKED his student’s opinion and they were split. There is no right or wrong answer!!!

Maybe you misunderstood his question, he didn’t just ask this question he gave certain qualifications – the most important of them being the standard of living you would have. He wrote, also quoted above,

I gave them the following terms for thinking about the question:

1. Assume you care only about your own consumption
2. etc

He is not talking about family bonds, or environmental beauty, or wheather, or culture, etc…he is talking in pure economic inductators, and when you qualify the question with that, there is a right or wrong answer. The very poor in the United States, for example, have more access (three times more access, actually) to nutrition, to health care, to education, to growth opportunities etc, than the very rich people in underdeveloped countries do. Again, the differences couldn’t be more shocking.

You also write, That fact is in this the richest country of the world our children have been born into poverty at a faster rate in a short amount of time, without healthcare, without quality education, and without anyone questioning how or why this is happening.

Yet this is the country that immigrants, especially poor immigrants, from around the world continiously flock to knowing full well that they will be amongst the poorest of the poor in this country….it seems that they know something you don’t know. But let’s not get into a tangent discussion regarding the USA economy, though I disagree with your analysis, suffice it to say that even if it was true, capitalism is still the miracle I claim it to be. Bringing 400 million people+ out of a poverty that gave them a life span of 30 or 40 years, to a life span that now gives them 70 or 80 years is a huge achievement, and doing this in the shortest time in the history of man is an astronomical achievement. Bringing up economic indicators that have very little to do with lifespans is still irrelevant (though I would say that the solution in the United States is to make the economy more capitalist, but that is another topic for another day).

You also write, Here you are simply overgeneralizing and again making this into a ‘you are either for capitalism or you are a communist’ view. You don’t know what the countries’ economic system is/are.

No I am not, this is a factual statement. As my initial post on this blog stated (did you even read it?) the richest countries in the world are capitalist and the poorest countries in the world are communist or communist leaning. It is a pretty close one to one connection…so I am not assuming anything, I am following the data. Second, you again make the mistake of assuming that being poor in a developed country is the same as being poor in an underdeveloped country. Can we atleast agree, from here on, that being poor in the United States is not the same as being poor in, say, sub-saharan Africa? Can you atleast agree there is a fundamental difference between relative poverty, what we experience in the USA, and absolute poverty, what people in Sub-Saharan Africa experience? I am not saying that relative poverty is unimportant, I am just trying to get you to see that they are still radically different from each other. Can we agree on that?

You also write, You don’t see many Black Cubans coming to Amerikkka do you?
It is better for them in Cuba where now they are allowed to go to school and get PhDs.

Yes, as a matter of fact you do. How many Cubans have you met? Black Cubans come to the United States just as much as non-Black Cubans…besides, what does it matter that they can get a PhD in Cuba if they are not allowed to use it? Cuba, remember, is the country where people with PhD’s get more money driving taxi’s than working in their profession.

You also write, Even IF Cuba’s infant mortality has dropped, it is still higher than the US!!!!! Even if their economy has dropped, their literacy rate is higher than the US!!!!! Where is your head at?

I don’t know where you get your data from but the infant mortality rate of the United States is statistically equivalent to that of Cuba and our literacy rate is actually higher (97% vs. 96%)….sure, Cuba has more doctors, hospital beds and teachers but this amounts to little in actual results. Even on where Cuba supposedly excels the most, the United States still holds her own and this is without even mentioning the numerous areas where Cuba has an abysmal record (human rights and civil rights as well as economic indicators). Factor all of this in and it makes sense why so many try to flee the country year after year.

You write, Ofcourse people want to come here, this is the land of oppurtunity. That is undeniable. This country was built on theft, exploitation and lies and if you got a great crime or great lie to tell you can get paid for it here in the US of A.

but you fail to mention that so was Mexico and all of Latin America (or is Spanish and Portuguese colonialism excused?) , yet that is precisely where most of the poor immigrants coming into the United States come from. Could the reason the United States is ‘the land of opportunity’ be something else then? Hint: Look at the USA’s economy

You also write, Blind faith will just lead you into bumping into walls.
I can read that you are studying this and your positions obviously are loved by your teachers. You will get good grades.

Not so, I am an electrical engineer by trade and have been working as an engineer for coming up on nine years now. I have only taken one course in economics and that was in undergrad. Currently I am taking upper division electrical engineering courses at UCSD in the hopes of getting my masters there – not a single economic course. All that I have learned I have learned by personal reading.

You also write, In the broader world of ideas expect challenges and I hope you learn to see the other side. Just because some one has no money, does not make them any less and their views of the world any less valid. There is some truth in everything, relative at times, but with openess and discussion general truths will rise.

I believe in everything you say here. I have never believed that money makes someone better or more important, on the contrary, I think the poor have a special eye to see the world that is often missing in the rich. I grew up (relatively) poor and all of my friends, both past and present, have done the same. My point in this discussion is not to say that rich people or rich countries are objectively better, but to argue that a higher nutritional intake, longer life span, and better standard of living is better for those who lack exactly those. As far as looking at other opinions, that is what I spend the most time doing. Look at my blogroll and you will see many people who disagree with me politically, look at the forums I visit, the blogs I visit, and the people I interact with – practically all have to do with the opposing views.

Oh yeah, as far as contracts go, you always have the right to change contracts (personal auto seller, for example) or opt out of them completely. Nobody is forcing you to do anything and just as much as you have the right to state the minimum requirements for you to enter into a contract, so does other parties involved.

You wrote:
“In the United States and developed countries in general (which, btw, happen to be the most capitalist countries in the world) the poor people have an obesity problem, whereas in underdeveloped countries the poor people tend to have a starvation problem, and it would be wrong to bundle up the two like they are the same thing.”

Ofcourse they are not the same thing, but both lead to an early grave. This is a flaw in logic. Just because one is dying from hunger, does not mean dying from obesity and its related diseases is any better.

As far as your example about the professor who asks his students what would they choose: being poor in a rich country or rich in a poor country. This reeks of arrogance. He ASKED his student’s opinion and they were split. There is no right or wrong answer!!! He asked what they would choose. For him to go on to say there is RIGHT ANSWER on a question that asks for an opinion brings into question his role as a so-called educator.

Next you wrote:
“the fact that capitalism has “cut global poverty by half, lifted 400 million plus people out of absolute poverty” is still a miracle in itself, and the fact that capitalism did this in the shortest time in the history of man demonstrates the power of markets in doing what no other economic system has been able to do.”

Now this is the usual play on words people who want to keep the status quo use. Just like when discussing the unemployment numbers. They say unemployment has gone down because they changed the definition of what is means to be unemployed. Are they unemployed and looking for work? Are they unemployed and not looking? Are working at a temporary position? Are they part time? etc. That fact is in this the richest country of the world our children have been born into poverty at a faster rate in a short amount of time, without healthcare, without quality education, and without anyone questioning how or why this is happening.

Next: in response to some of my stats.
“The problem here isn’t capitalism, the problem here, as you have mentioned, is the lack of capitalism. What these countries need is to move away from their communist or atleast communist leaning economies and move more towards capitalism (among other things). In other words, it is the Chicano Studies students and their ilk that need to move out of the way and let the capitalists, especially through free trade, move in.”

Here you are simply overgeneralizing and again making this into a ‘you are either for capitalism or you are a communist’ view. You don’t know what the countries’ economic system is/are. Again here in the most capitalist country we have some of the worst social welfare conditions. We also have a track record of violating human rights. We have rid our courts of habeus corpus. We torture and imprison dissidents (see COINTELPRO). We bad mouth the poor and defensless and blame them for EVERYTHING wrong in our society. While allowing corporations to destroy the environment, families (Enron and other high crimes), and benevolent instititions (schools, social security, natural resources) We do this because we are cowards. Because it is too hard to fight the big guys (they got lawyers) Instead we pick on the little guy and suck up to the bullies in hopes that they will let us slave for them.

AND as far as how you link Chicano Studies to stopping free traders, that logic is all your own and holds no water. I didn’t know we had that much power, but now that you mention it, hey maybe we do.

You need Chicano studies because one day you will need to remember something real and translatable to more people in this world. More people in this world speak more than one language than not; more people have crossed a border than not; more people are negatively categorized because of where their family came from than not; more people have been victimized for their documents, for their country losing a war, for their country being raped by a corporation, for having an accent, for their appearance. Chicano/a studie is giving voice and power to so many around the world who have been living in the/a Nepantla we have named. What have you given in balance to what you have taken?

Finally Cuba:
You don’t see many Black Cubans coming to Amerikkka do you?
It is better for them in Cuba where now they are allowed to go to school and get PhDs. Even IF Cuba’s infant mortality has dropped, it is still higher than the US!!!!! Even if their economy has dropped, their literacy rate is higher than the US!!!!! Where is your head at?

Ofcourse people want to come here, this is the land of oppurtunity. That is undeniable. This country was built on theft, exploitation and lies and if you got a great crime or great lie to tell you can get paid for it here in the US of A.

Blind faith will just lead you into bumping into walls.
I can read that you are studying this and your positions obviously are loved by your teachers. You will get good grades. In the broader world of ideas expect challenges and I hope you learn to see the other side. Just because some one has no money, does not make them any less and their views of the world any less valid. There is some truth in everything, relative at times, but with openess and discussion general truths will rise.

The simple answers are seldom the correct ones.
That is why I cannot propose an alternative at this point. The answer is not easy. One system or another. Maybe we still need to come up with a new one. Debating what is, in the light of the current state of the planet demands we need to find another way of doing things.

-ps
I read somewhere else about allowing two parties to be able to negotiate the terms of thier affairs without interference. Well if you can tell me how to get around those pesky credit card contracts, auto dealer contracts, or even how to get around agreeing to click on the terms for this blog site or another website, tell me. I would love to hear how you negotiated with all these business to terms that are agreeable to both parties involved.

Point taken on the communist charge – I will try to refrain from assuming you are arguing the communist case in the future (I’ll even stop calling you a ‘damn communist’ under my breath ).

As far as the stats you give it is important we make it clear that we are not comparing apples to apples. Economists like to separate poverty into two categories, there is what they call absolute poverty – which is the poverty I was referring to – and then there is what economists call relative poverty, which is the poverty you are now referring to.

The difference between the two poverties hit home to me when I was reading an article, dont remember where maybe National Geographics, and it had a native from Africa visiting the United States for the first time. The journalist thought it would be a good idea to show this African the ‘ghettos’ of the United States, so he drove him around some of the most poverty stricken areas and was shocked to hear the African, after looking around for some time, shout out, ‘I want to live in the United States’, the journalist, with a confused tone, asked how he could say such a thing after seeing what he has seen and the African immediately responded that “it is in the United States where the poor people are fat“.

In the United States and developed countries in general (which, btw, happen to be the most capitalist countries in the world) the poor people have an obesity problem, whereas in underdeveloped countries the poor people tend to have a starvation problem, and it would be wrong to bundle up the two like they are the same thing.

This is not to say that relative poverty is unimportant and does not need to be addressed – it isn’t and it does, but you can’t group the two as if they were one. To give yet another example, I grew up in Compton, California, in what many people in the United States would consider severe poverty but my father, who came to the United States in his mid-twenties, grew up in a small town in Guerrero, Mexico, where he has had to lift old food off the floor to eat because poverty was so bad. Clearly, as bad as Compton is, it is nowhere near the absolute poverty those in other countries have had to endure (I’ve blogged more on this here).

How different are these two categories? Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is fond of asking his students that very question, he asks,

I asked the audience a favorite question of mine: would you rather be poor in a rich country, or rich in a poor country. I gave them the following terms for thinking about the question:

1. Assume you care only about your own consumption
2. Define poor and rich as someone who is the in the bottom or top decile of a country
3. Define poor and rich country analogously as a country in the bottom or top decile of the distribution of per-capita incomes across countries.

The audience was divided evenly between those who would choose to be rich in a poor country and those who would rather be poor in a rich country. The real answer is that it is not even close. This has important implications for how we think about poverty reduction in the world.

So what is the correct answer, he gives that here,

Actually a lot of respondents got this right, but the answer is counterintuitive as some also mentioned. The correct answer is that a poor person in a rich country is three times better off than a rich person in a poor country (given my definition of what “rich” and “poor” mean in this context). It is not even close.

He goes on to explain that the same comparison can be given with regard to health indicators, and I would be willing to bet for literacy, infant mortality, and all the other standards mentioned above.

So in conclusion, though child poverty in the United States may have increased (something that fluctuates up and down all the time), the fact that capitalism has “cut global poverty by half, lifted 400 million plus people out of absolute poverty” is still a miracle in itself, and the fact that capitalism did this in the shortest time in the history of man demonstrates the power of markets in doing what no other economic system has been able to do.

As far as the rest of your stats, where you write,

-500 children die everyday from lack of access to food (not that their isn’t food, there just are not capitalists willing to make it available to them, because of ‘market purposes.’)
-3 billion people today live on $2 a day

The problem here isn’t capitalism, the problem here, as you have mentioned, is the lack of capitalism. What these countries need is to move away from their communist or atleast communist leaning economies and move more towards capitalism (among other things). In other words, it is the Chicano Studies students and their ilk that need to move out of the way and let the capitalists, especially through free trade, move in.

I do find interesting your comments on Cuba, where you write, “Cuba and other countries with much weaker economies and ‘un-pure capitalism’ have all the opposites of our super mega rich country.”

Cuba is a favorite of lefties, it is brought up often as a proof that an alternative to capitalism exists, but what is often left out is a broad picture of Cuba, a deeper understanding of how the economy really is. Here is a broader overview of the Cuban economy,

Before Castro, Cuba was as rich as Italy, and richer than Spain. Cuba has not merely lagged behind, it has actually grown poorer, and is now more than five times poorer than these countries. It used to be among the richest in Latin America, now it’s among the poorest.

Cubans had better access to food than all other Latin American countries, except Argentina, before Castro, but now they have worse access than almost all the others. Cubans are the only people in Latin America who have seen their intake of calories decrease since then. It is now better than in the 90s, but more than every tenth Cuban is chronically undernourished.

Cuba had lower infant mortality than all other Latin American countries before Castro, and lower than France, Italy and Japan. It is the only area where progress has continued since then, but it has been much slower than in other similar countries.

We can also discuss their protein intake, one of the lowest in Latin America, their standard of living, their job growth or even their freedom of expression and civil rights record. We can go on and on showing different stats but what I like to focus on when discussing Cuba with people is the actual preferences of Cuban citizens themselves.

I ask you this, if Cuba is so great, especially compared to the United States, why is it that citizens of Cuba risk life and limb trying to escape it year after year? Do you think it is the rich people trying to escape? Of course not, it is the poor, and circumstances have to be really bad for people to risk their lives (and imprisonment if caught) trying to cross an ocean and in the process leave family and friends behind.

Also, where do you think most of those Cuban immigrants wish to go? To the most capitalist country in the world, of course, and they are no different than poor immigrants the world around. There is a reason why the poor from all over the world continue to choose the United States as a place to call home, and I assure you, it is not our welcoming attitude – it is our economy, an economy based on capitalism, the same capitalism that has relieved poverty throughout the world at large.

tin,

Please, stick around I will get to your posts in time. Like you, I have school work to do as well and have a limited time to blog…but I am not ignoring you, I promise.