Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system

Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system

The Chinese did rather well in the age of globalization. In 1990, 943 million people there lived on less than $3 a day measured in 2021 dollars – 83% of the population, according to the World Bank. By 2019, the number was brought down to zero. Unfortunately, the United States was not as successful. More than 4 million Americans – 1.25% of the population – must make ends meet with less than $3 a day, more than three times as many as 35 years ago.

The data is not super consistent with the narrative of the US’s inexorable success. Sure, American productivity has zoomed ahead of that of its European peers. Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work. And artificial intelligence now promises to put the United States that much further ahead.

This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.

  • tornavish@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    158·
    23 hours ago

    China has pushed huge numbers of people into poverty in different ways over the decades — the Great Leap Forward basically wrecked agriculture and caused a massive famine, the Cultural Revolution tore apart schools and workplaces and left tons of families with nothing, and long-term policies like the hukou system kept rural migrants stuck in low-income situations even as cities got richer. On top of that, big relocation projects for dams or new city districts have displaced whole communities with compensation that often didn’t match what they lost, and pollution from rapid industrialization has hit farmers and fishers hard. Outside China, some Belt and Road projects have piled unsustainable debt onto poorer countries, aggressive fishing in disputed waters has squeezed local fishers in Southeast Asia, sudden trade restrictions have hurt industries in neighboring economies, and resource extraction deals abroad have pushed aside local communities.

    References (searchable titles):

    • The Great Famine: China’s Great Leap Forward, 1958–1962 – Frank Dikötter
    • The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History – Frank Dikötter
    • China’s Hukou System and Migrant Workers – China Labor Bulletin
    • Dam Displacement in China – Human Rights Watch
    • Pollution and Poverty in Rural China – World Bank reports
    • Belt and Road Initiative Debt Sustainability Analysis – Center for Global Development
    • South China Sea Fisheries and Regional Livelihoods – Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative
    • China’s Trade Retaliation Effects – Peterson Institute for International Economics
    • Chinese Overseas Resource Projects and Local Impacts – Global Witness
    • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
      83·
      13 hours ago

      Your sources do be like:

      -Freedom Eagle Burger Institute report on China Badness 1990

      -Austrian Painter Legacy Institution report 1984

      -Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America, Propaganda Department report 2024

      -Victims of Communism Memorial Association compilation of Top 10 China Bad arguments

    • arrow74@lemmy.zip
      3·
      13 hours ago

      This is basically everything that’s happened in the US the past 100 years. They just did it much faster and rose more people out of poverty by the end.

      Still plenty of bad, but it does have me wondering how many nations have industrialized without harming the poorest of society

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      109·
      22 hours ago

      This is largely Cold War propaganda which neglects the atrocities of the Second World War and subsequent ecological impacts on the population and infrastructure.

      You’re displacing the deaths of millions of victims of Japanese genocide onto the next generation, via misinformation published through the John Birch Society and other well known reactionary media institutions.