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I've heard that around 130k people are delivered from poverty each day lately. That's due to markets and such, not the good intentions of people like Pol Pot.

There is some argument to be made along these lines, but it involves changing human beings themselves, e.g. through something like meditation. These kinds of articles never have and never will mention such things that might actually effect the changes they seem to want to make in the world but are unable or unwilling to make in themselves.



> I've heard that around 130k people are delivered from poverty each day lately. That's due to markets and such, not the good intentions of people like Pol Pot.

Can you provide a citation for such a wild claim?


https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

This page provides some useful info.

With just the briefest of glances, some cited numbers: 1.9 billion people in extreme poverty in 1990, 730 million in 2015, 650 million in 2018.

The 1.9 billion -> 650 million in 28 years is 120k people / day. The 730 million -> 650 million in 3 years is 73k people / day.


Wild claim? How is it wild? It is well established that China’s economy was stagnant for decades until free market reforms. Same with India. There is absolutely nothing wild about this claim as it is common knowledge to anyone who’s followed economic reforms in developing countries.


Is it due to markets or to due to people who had their formative years in the 1960 student revolts selling out hard won Western IP and production processes starting in the 1980s?

Thereby impoverishing the middle class in the West but driving the stock market up.


Capitalism (or free market, there is a difference between the two) is just a mechanism, and as such doesn't have any values. It is impartial to whether there is poverty or not. The values have to come either from individuals (provided they can participate in the system, and if they are poor, they can't by definition); or social institutions, such as government.




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