General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Sorry, It's Not a 'Law of Capitalism' That You Pay Your Employees as Little as Possible. It's..." [View all]HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Last edited Thu Aug 8, 2013, 05:08 PM - Edit history (1)
India was one of the richest & most civilized countries in the world when the British colonized it, with a more advanced textile industry than the Brits had. By force of arms the British destroyed the Indian industry (and others) & turned India into a giant 'farm' for production of cotton & other basic commodities the British could use in *their* industries & trade. The british deindustrialized India & impoverished it.
A similar process took place in China, with the added gift of turning 10% of its population into drug addicts.
British capitalist colonization & theft was the direct cause of the poverty you now say capitalism is relieving in india and china.
but it's not really the case. all that's happening is the center of capitalist investment is moving. the 'new middle classes' you see developing in china & india are the corollary of the 'declining middle classes' you see in the US & Europe. The centers of capitalist development are becoming peripheries and the peripheries are becoming centers.
It's the same process you saw when the auto industry left detroit, only on a global scale.
Furthermore, in a global sense, capital is taking an ever-larger share of total value created, and labor a smaller share. which means, even though some 'average' global standard of living may be increasing, most of the value created is taken by a small fraction of the global population, which means an increasing percentage of the global population becomes, effectively poorer/more powerless. it's like mine & bill gates' 'average' income is in the millions, but my power compared to bill gates' is that of an ant to an elephant.
oh, and those chinese workers you say are 'becoming middle class'? they may be becoming middle class in that they have a better house, can buy more consumer goods, etc. but in the big picture, chinese workers as a whole are taking home a lower percentage of the value they are creating, and capitalists are taking home a bigger share. dramatically so.
So even though there may be a rise in some aspects of living standards globally (e.g. a higher fraction of the population has access to consumer goods, or electricity, etc) that does not mean there is any reduction in global poverty, if poverty is defined as access to hard assets (land, capital, productive tools) or distance from average wealth/income (i.e. if wealth/income is right-skewed so that the 1% has most of it).
Result = more poverty, not less.