I was saying the fact that the living conditions are increasing in the developing world (which is a good thing) is a trivial fact. I.e. it's true and not really disputed.
What is more disputed is that it's also increasing for the developed world.
Saying it's trivial that the developing world is improving could be interpreted as the developing world lacking importance in comparison to the developed world.
Did you mean it was easy to achieve (not that I would agree with that either).
I doubt you have data to back that claim up. We should not be too quick to assume things about "the developing world" (whatever we think that means, and I'm sure we won't even agree on that) unless we have solid real information.
To be honest, it seems that living standards are declining all around most of the developed countries. The USA is very much included in that.
Some developing nations have seen living standards raise, mostly because the baseline comparison to 20-30 years ago was pretty low (China, India, Brazil, etc.).
You ever notice that the countries where the people are pissed off at the rich for taking too much, pissed of at the government and pissed off about climate change are all countries where basically everyone is fed, clothed and has running water and stable electric power?
Advancements in technology (including GMO crops) and productivity in general have massively raised standards of living in the developing world.
Raised standards of living are what permit people to give a crap about things like oppressed people in the next village over and climate change. Reducing the cost of commodities, like energy and grain, by any means raises standards of living, especially at the margins, and is what permits more people to care about abstract things.
It is fascinating how frequently modest increases in quality of living in third world countries is wheeled out as justification for the predations of capitalism. If we're going to have a serious conversation about how the world is doing that has to include the fact that the global economy is predicated on continuous growth despite finite natural resources. There is also a few environmental issues that might be relevant.
For some more optimistic aspects of the developing world (and especially Africa), see the newest special report of the Economist (http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?sto... (be sure to click "next article" at the bottom, if you want to read all of it).
since the origin, sure, but without eg phone call centers in the Philippines because they've been replaced by AI, and without tourists to boost the economy because they've all also been fired, who's to say living conditions in develop countries will actually continue to improve or even be sustainable at current levels?
We don't expect or desire (or IMHO even consider it acceptable) for these places to stay poor - the less developed countries on average have had steady improvements, a major reduction in poverty and the associated increase in consumption. The growth in emissions of China are not caused by some population growth but by the increase in prosperity of Chinese people, and we'd also expect places like DR Congo to steadily grow their consumption-per-capita.
Have you spent any time in developing and undeveloped countries? Do you have any idea what would happen to your life if we averaged out the standard of living across all countries?
After living in Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, etc for years, I honestly believe the majority of people in the developed world would die if they were forced to live like that.
Global living standards have been rising sharply for the last 50 years, first in China, then South East Asia, recently India and there are signs it's going to start happening in Africa.
The idea that the newly middle-class in Asia ( including software developers working for international companies ) are increasing desperate and precarious is simply not true.
...except for the prosperous and peaceful part, right?
Prosperous: clearly people in Asia & Africa are much, much more prosperous than in 1987.
In the developing regions, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 47 per cent in 1990 to 24 per cent in 2008. [snip] The number of extreme poor in the developing regions fell from over 2 billion in 1990 to less than 1.4 billion in 2008.[1]
Even in the US and Europe income per person has grown substantially since 1987[2]. Don't let the current economic problems overshadow longer-term trends.
Peaceful: If you live outside central Africa the last 25 years haven't been bad. In 1987 Iraq was at the end of the Iran/Iraq war and Afghanistan was in the middle of attempting to expel an invading superpower. Not much change there.
Of course, the various central African wars have been a complete disaster - only WW1 & WW2 have been comparable.
OTOH, there hasn't been a nuclear war, which was what people expected in 1987.
Less developed countries seem to be growing faster than developed ones. That said, while gratifying huge numbers of people in China, India and smaller countries are moving up in the middle class, they're leaving many of their poorer countrypeople behind.
(Also, beware of any attempt to present the numbers so simply that commodity price swings are allowed to have a major influence.)
Inventing fake argumentation points doesn't actually work. I said nothing about such and such nation being smarter or harder working. You said that.
I said, directly and indirectly, that developing nations benefit immensely more from developed nations than vice versa. It was similarly true for the US as well when it was a developing nation. It's factually true and very easily demonstrated: it's why the global median standard of living is at the highest it has ever been, famines are almost non-existent globally, the median life expectancy globally continues to expand, there is less extreme poverty today than at any other time in recorded history, global equality is at an all-time high and has continued to improve, food security is at an all-time high, infant mortality is at an all-time low, etc.
If you were right, none of that could be true, because all the wealthy & powerful nations would be busy oppressing all the poor nations, such that they could never climb the standard of living tiers.
Over five decades Vietnam suffered repeated occupation, genocide, famine, civil war, a brutal form of Communism, and overall had a large percentage of its population killed. Today they're on a booming express train toward a middle income economy. What excuse could you possibly present next to that? Countries like Vietnam (and China before it), or Czech, or Estonia, demonstrate very clearly what's possible and they deserve credit for their accomplishments.
I travelled the world and learned a long time ago that the world, as viewed through macroeconomic lenses, is pure delusion. GDP does not correlate with actual quality of life by any stretch of the imagination. The definition of "developed" versus "developing" is purely arbitrary. Life is highly context-dependent, i.e. there are plenty of places and people in developed countries who are much worse off than some places in "developing" countries (try comparing crime + cost of living in Baltimore to Lviv). Furthermore, the religion of "economic growth at all costs" is considered harmful. Wellbeing is not measurable in dollars. Even adjusted purchasing power fails to take into account cultural expectations of ownership (say, for example, necessity of owning a car).
I was saying the fact that the living conditions are increasing in the developing world (which is a good thing) is a trivial fact. I.e. it's true and not really disputed.
What is more disputed is that it's also increasing for the developed world.
I hope that clears up any misunderstanding here.
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