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.
Though there's also a plus side. I assume that world consumption of resources will go down, since one person not born in a developed country is equivalent to probably 2+ not born in a developing country.
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.
It doesn't, really. A society that plateaus at a high standard of living is a very good end result.
However, the world isn't equal, nor is the wealth equally distributed. If all of the rich, developed world was to slow down and become stagnant like Japan, where will the demand for goods and commodities made by the developing world come from?
Huge western demand helped lift hundreds of millions in China and India out of poverty, for instance.
Stagnant growth might be good for an individual country, but it can doom developing countries to similar stagnancy.
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.
There's no short-term solution effective enough to make much difference, that doesn't reduce the standard of living in rich countries, and/or cap the standard of living in developing countries. It's not happening. Rich countries aren't gonna say "OK, everyone, you get a lot less stuff and can't travel as much now" and developing countries aren't going to accept that they can't aspire to a "Western" quality of life. Hell, an abrupt decline in standard of living is one of the surest ways to get political unrest, violence, and revolutions, even when the reduction is from "very, very high" to "very high" (and even "very high" would probably still be too high, in this scenario).
Yes - a classic public goods problem. Lots of global inequities with minimal interest in solving. The average standard of living is substantially lower than developed countries, and global resource expenditure would skyrocket if parity occurred.
The standard of living in these developed nations is due to exploitation that is outsourced to other nations. For example, regarding that $1200 cell phone? This is on the front page right now: https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/29/iphone-workers-forced-labor/
We have the best medical care, but results are uneven. If you are so poor that you are rationing your medicine to the point it doesn't work, what does it matter how good it is?
Was the food the king ate really worse? Today's poor eat sugar disguised as "food" that leads to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. You can say what you want about medieval diets but at least they didn't have an obesity epidemic. I'm not sure who is better off.
At any rate, even if what you say is 100% true, that doesn't really change the fact that homelessness, hunger, and poverty are solvable problems today. To say that things were worse before and therefore the moral failings of society today are tolerable is just baffling to me.
Unfortunately most of the audience here has no experience with the situation you're correctly describing.
I find it both funny and a bit frustrating when people try to impose standards from wealthy developed countries on the developing world without further critical thought. Just because it's not a reasonable measure for your situation doesn't mean it's not a reasonable measure in a different one.
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.
reply