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.
when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
I like that it uses “wouldn’t” rather than”couldn’t”. So relevant to today’s politics
The idea that they have zero poverty is just absurd.
The source is the World Bank. They are extremely unlikely to lie about this as their ideology is diametrically opposed to communism.
I appreciate your fine estimation of TWB, but a study is only as good as it’s data.
Data from the government, by the government. Have conditions and quality of life improved? Yes. But it was only a few years ago the people were buying gross tonnage of cheap fashion clothes during a rather harsh winter so people could survive the cold by burning it instead of coal to heat their homes.
That’s not even counting the hundreds of millions that live life like it’s the great depression, and the conditions in which they work.
Source? Seriously, if you’re going to dispute sources you have to provide a better one.
You’re arguing with a guy called American economic think tank.
You say that like it’s a bad thing ♡
Well, biased and stalwart in opinion might be more accurate descriptions.
The source: It’s me.
I made it upI work my ass off to keep up on ongoing trade stats and national publications, as well as first hand sources including some colleagues world-wide.If you want to make a hobby of it, I’d recommend putting a little extra spending cash into a good radio receiver and your pick of audio translation software, you can time it to get live updates on policy from almost any country one way or another.
Right…but you can’t swing from one extreme (zero poverty) to the other (hundreds of millions living like it’s the Great Depression). Neither are true.
It should be noted that poverty in China isn’t the same as poverty in the USA, ie when you adjust for wages v cost of living it doesn’t tell us much, because the systems are incompatible. All those people in China making below $1.90 US a day (or whatever your metric is) aren’t in the same boat they’d be in in the US, and vice versa.
But all of this ignores the topic of the post: China did indeed raise virtually all of its citizens out of poverty, and the US didn’t. But it’s really weird to just throw that factoid out there without acknowledging that China did it at the expense of the US.
True, I do have a habit of getting overly enthusiastic in my use a metaphor, lmao and humor as I see.
Compared to what life was like pre-80’s? Yes absolutely things have improved, but even if improvement of conditions exist for those into the billion, that doesn’t exclude the relative conditions on the ground.
Unemployment is growing in younger demographics at rates near the peak of what the US experienced in 33. If you compare overall, sustain unemployment year to year is worse. Continuing lack in stability in land value has changed what was a bedrock backing for generational social mobility into a risky hedge for many.
As you well know, and have said, just going off of say strength of the ren for pure purchasing power or daily wages is misleading. Compare the shifts in collegiate achievements, the chosen international schools that the middle class are sending their kids to get their degrees. Look towards the shifts in lower class, especially in the cities, towards day labor over even extended work contracts or proper salary. Look towards the accessibility of central heating, plumbing, electricity. See the treatment of the lower half a billion of Chinese society when they need to access healthcare, when they need the law. What is their commute like?
China dumped communism a generation ago, in all but the ruling party’s name. Now it’s totalitarian state capitalism. I suspect that the World Bank is just fine with that.
They might be opposed to communism but probably not authoritarianism. I’m sure China is well past its communist days and far into its world bank days.
Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work.
Only a handful of countries manage to produce more money per hour of work.
That’s an important distinction IMO.
Not by choice but by design. America is capitalist hell hole and it will get worse day by day
all i can do is lol and roll my eyes
i don’t believe a word about china on lemmy
Don’t, but it’s worth considering the source. The Guardian while it does lean a little to the left, it is a mainstream news-source with a huge audience, and it has broken some major international news stories in the past.
The Guardian’s writers are a mixed bag, and some of them can be quite credulous. And the Guardian’s political posture is most closely aligned with the Lib Dems and to some extent with the Labour centrists, though Starmer has exercised such appalling judgement and has demonstrated such moral bankruptcy that they’ve published some criticism of his policies.
On one hand, it looks so great.
On the other hand, you got a bunch of people lined up at foreign embassies/consulates, waiting for their interview and hoping for immigration visas.
The answer is socialist policies, or social democrat policies, or whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-name-it-to-come-to-terms-with-it policies. China hasn’t even been particularly good with them, they’ve just managed to have them. That’s all you need, to accept them as good instead of demonizing them. Which makes some trends in the countries that do have them sad.
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.
My favorite idea is that the Mainland regime – then under Deng – took their economic development ideas and business customs from Japan – including industrial espionage – and basically modified those for Chinese needs while addressing the problems which led to Japan’s later bubble burst by the late 80s. That local corporations were given first priority, with a lot of incentives, tax breaks, programs to increase productivity and cut away inhibitions, hire young people from the far provinces who are willing to work for less, anything to have the world buy cheap from China. So they treated business like warfare, as essential for national survival and prestige where by 2049 the world must look up to Mainland China, never to be humiliated again.
However, China in its current state has its younger generations in urban areas having to deal with overwork burnout (996工作制 or 996 working hour system for example) and so creating basically its own anti-work culture. That there are godawful displays of wealth by tuhao almost everyday, while most others complain how it’s so expensive to live in, say, Shanghai. I could try to go on, but I put it that it’s still not a happy place as long as there is class conflict.
China, in large part, raised people out of poverty at the expense of the so-called “west”…so it’s no mystery that the US was unable to do the same. The wests’ corporations needed cheap labour, and China was happy to accept the jobs. We all know this. Trump got elected because he was the first to overtly acknowledge that reality and propose a solution. Now, his “solution” will only exasperate the problem because he’s ultimately a corrupt fascist…but there’s a lesson there that hasn’t been learned yet.
his “solution” will only
exasperateexacerbate the problemMy eyes are so bad I can’t tell which way either of those words is spelled.
So did Taiwan, Eastern Europe and dozens of other countries without sacrificing human rights as much as China. So tired of “they’re evil but hey that’s the only way to not be poor!” bullshit that validates dictators.
Expected better from The Guardian than to use this bait to illustrate US’ shortcomings. The world does not revolve around US and to poke america you don’t need to validate dictators.
Sadly, the world does revolve around the US. It seems to be changing with The Stupids in charge, though.
Over 90% of Chinese households would be below the US poverty line. Their GDP per capita is only $13k.
Germany has a GDP per capita lower than Alabama. Yet the average German has a quality of life that is significantly higher than that of an average person in Alabama. GDP doesn’t tell the whole picture.
You are mistaken, GDP of Germany is greater than Alabama, even moreso when you account for PPP.
I got the data from this Wikipedia page. Which says that nominal GDP per Capita is greater for Alabama.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP
Alabama = $53,061
Germany = 59,993
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
I’ve spent a good amount of time in China. Sure, Chinese household earnings would be below the US poverty line, but you also have to consider that things in China cost about 1/5 to 1/6 of what they do in the US. Their purchasing power completely blows us out of the water. They also have great public transportation, fantastic infrastructure, and free healthcare. And they are at this point more cutting edge than we are with regard to pushing the limits of medical science. The US is a failed state. China is prospering and all the US can do to defend against it is run smear campaigns that propagandize against it.
Free healthcare? When I went to a people’s hospital, I saw people paying. I think they have a public option or something that covers a portion of the cost, and even the uncovered portion is hilariously low to an American, but it didn’t look free.
Sorry, I mispoke on the healthcare. It is nearly free as they have near universal insurance coverage and their out of pocket costs are extreme fractions of what people pay in the US.
Yep, the only thing is free is entering the building. At some point decades ago, a scam like traditional natural shit that was invented in the 50th was free, but even that isn’t free now for the most part.
PR is cheap though.
Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k. Also, healthcare is not free in China for most people in most circumstances. If there was any country that had a terrible way of financing healthcare as the US, it would be China. Healthcare bankruptcy is common in China. Chinese healthcare would be a bargain for me, paying with a US income. It is absolutely unaffordable for someone living on Chinese wages.
PPP bottom 50% Chinese are more affluent than 50% USians https://wid.world/share/#0/countriestimeseries/ahweal_p0p50_z/US;CN/2019/eu/k/p/yearly/a/false/-4297.1145/8000/curve/false
PPP means how much shiet they can buy locally.
Share of national wealth is not affluence. It is a measure that gets distorted when a country has a disproportionate number of billionaires relative to their own population and to other countries.
If you adjust for purchasing power, the median individual in China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
I guess their point is if you exclude the upper half, China has managed to fare better.
Basically if we torture the numbers either side can get them to say whatever that side wants, by cherry picking criteria or excluding certain portions of the population.
Which is frankly a fantastic outcome for China, where in the past there was no way to make the numbers even close, now things are close enough as to each side being able to point out a way of measuring which makes them look better.
Yes, but you also need to look at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). PPP compares the relative value of currencies by measuring the price of a basket of goods in different countries. Accounting for that, China’s GDP per capita is more like $30k. To do that in a little over 70 years, when in 1952 83% of China’s workforce was engaged in agriculture, is nothing short of amazing. They are already well on their way to reducing their dependence on non-renewable energy and seem poised to overtake the US as the technological powerhouse of the world within the next 50 years.
When rent in city center of a T2 city is 300 USD, a meal costs 1USD, and bus/subway fare 14 cents, its easier to make ends meet.
Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
Your numbers don’t match reality on the ground. You add up rent, transportation, utilities, food, childcare, “healthcare” and its a much higher fraction of your income in America
Are you familiar with purchasing power parity? It is a measure that specifically takes into account local costs of rent, transportation, food, etc. Check it out --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity
Your numbers do not match reality, I’ve lived in both places. Idk, maybe they’re making bad assumptions like that americans have cheaper food options than reality. Come over here and see, subway fares are 14 cents, meals 1-8 USD, rent is <500 outside Shanghai snd Beijing, you can get an x-ray and doctors consult for like 6 bucks.
Compare that to a 250/mo car payment, 8-20 USD meals, and then rent and healthcare, and its clear your model is flawed or has bad numbers.
These are not my numbers. They come both from the IMF and the World Bank. Chinese GDP per capita PPP is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k. You don’t have to believe it. Yes, China is cheap, but low prices produce low incomes to those selling their goods and services.
And I am telling you the predictions made by your model don’t match observed reality.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. GDP per capita is not really a good measure of quality of life on its own.
Historically the USA has brought a lot of people (most?) out of poverty by the world standard. Recent policy seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Quality of life has been declining for a long time, IMO mostly with our sense of community, the completely broken healthcare system, media consolidation, absurd levels of car dependency, high cost of having children, and a whole bunch of other location-specific factors (like cost of living in metro areas)
I think immigrant desire for relocation speaks volumes of where the greatest opportunity exists. The migration patterns vastly favor the US as being the place for the greater hope for the global poor, as evidenced by their footprints.
The US isn’t even in the top 10 most desirable counties for migrants (as a proportion of their population).
That’s an odd measure. The population of the country being immigrated to doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with which country an immigrant will want to go to. Immigrants want to go to the place that’ll give them the best opportunity. By all measures, the US, Canada, and western Europe are the places people want to go. China isn’t.
it’s an appropriate measure.
You can’t compare a large country with low population density to a small one with high density, for example.
No, not “all measures”…by your words - you appear to be making an American exceptionalism argument. Canada is in the top 10, the USA isn’t. I agree that China isn’t.
Check out this chart. Tell me how migration numbers correlate with density.
No, thank you. I’m not interested in some random chart with no sourcing.
US cost of life has got nothing to do with Chinese cost of life though.
You need to understand that most basic stuff is cheap, in China. I can feed myself heartily for like a dollar a meal. And that’s if I don’t want to cook!
I appreciate you talk about GDP, but those $13k are more like $130k when you live there. I was earning $20k and that was a comfortable life with no worries, on par with what I have now in Europe around 40k€.Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
Well, this is confusing then.
GDP is good measurement only for rich people yacht money though
Nobody should use GDP to measure the health of a region…all it really measures is how many rich people are present.
Also…how can you compare apples to oranges like that? Income is half of the equation. Are you aware of the corresponding cost of living/spending power over there? You have to know it’s significantly more affordable.
Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
PPP also isn’t an appropriate measure because it partially assumes capitlaism.
You are going to have to explain why PPP isn’t appropriate for non-capitalist countries. Besides, what country isn’t capitalist in this analysis? A country calling itself communist does not make it so.
The first word in PPP is “purchasing”. It should be self-evident.
My comment wasn’t intended to be zero sum. Both countries have elements of socialism and capitalism…but one certainly “leans” more in the capitalist direction.
Different starting points, it used to be 8/10 Chinese living in extreme poverty.
Yeah, that graph scale is absurd for comparison… I get it, they want to highlight the ‘trend’ but the scale of the US graph is nothing but a neglible slice of the boottom of the China graph, it’s just impossible to intelligently compare the ‘trends’ in that manner…
Also skeptical of a claim of 0.0% for anyone. It looks to me that, by the criteria of the graph, china has managed to effectively tie the US on this sort of metric, and the US has roughly held it flat for the last 30 years.
As others point out, this particular metric may not be a good one, and depending on how you slice the other metrics, either China or US technically comes out ahead, but broadly a more comparable standard of living.
It seems someone is not watching YouTube documentaries where people visit country side to see people are living worse than poverty conditions and eating rats, bugs and whatever they can find, they literally live without any infrastructure or modern amenities, healthcare etc… While Chinese government is actively censoring such videos, news any and all information about it, so much so that they went and arrested poor villagers sharing videos of their villages.
I’m all for helping people and development, but you’re literally spewing bullshit about things you don’t know. Especially when the Chinese government is infamous when it’s come to faking their data and information.
I’d like to hear your views about how much they helped the Uighurs as well.
It’s dangerous to censor, certainly…but it’s also dangerous to base your opinion on YouTube videos that surely have their own agenda and lack of breadth.
China is neither the poverty void this article presents, nor is it the hellhole you’re suggesting it is. It’s also a fact that China raised the vast majority out of its citizens out of poverty…and used that boom to make it sustainable.
It seems you’re putting words in my mouth that I didn’t say. I didn’t say it’s a hellhole nor it’s a bad place to live. I merely pointed out the BS in this article and what else is going on. I don’t see it as a objective and homogenously spread thing and I definitely don’t share your optimistic approach about the sustainability where the government basically choosing who has the right to be elevated with its so social credit system. When people from said poor countryside and so called outcasts like Uighurs are not allowed to freely move to the cities and aren’t allowed to have the other basic opportunities like education, healthcare etc… This so called miracle elevation from the poor status loose it’s allure in my eyes. If you would like to believe it’s a good thing then you’re cherry picking and can’t even see it.
Your last comment was talking about people eating rats and bug and living without healthcare…if that doesn’t describe a hellhole, I don’t know what does.
But in this comment you’ve changed gears and everything seems reasonable…and I’m on board.
Pointing out the realities doesn’t mean I see China as hellhole. If you see it as such it’s your own view. So, don’t reflect it on me.
I’m pointing out the fact that government doesn’t provide equal opportunities and they use heavy censorship on such realities.
When you chose who gets to have the opportunities and who doesn’t, it’s not a miracle! Any authoritarian government can do that and they do it to an extent.
This is article is just a puff piece without real information in my eyes and I stated that. Rest is up to you.
Non thing to disagree with here….reasonable and I agree.
It says they brought millions out of poverty, didn’t say they eliminated it entirely. Every day in America we’re intentionally and purposely driving more and more people into destitute living situations, declaring they very existence as illegal and punishable by law, and literally locking them in cages to die as a direct and act of cruelty, I’d argue there is room for comparison when you’re looking at two hyper authoritarian countries side by side. I’m not a fan of china, their government is also committing unacceptable and irredeemable acts of cruelty, but they at least have done things that actually improved the lives of some Chinese citizens, our government in America is dead set on destroying at least half of us and our ability to get by, they’re not interested in improving anything for American citizens, they literally want to ruin peoples lives on the level of entire demographics without concern for anything other than enacting expensive cruelty.
I didn’t ask them to eliminate anything in it’s entirety did I? You can’t even understand what’s been written and come here tell me how I’m wrong to say what’s what… I’m not even American, I don’t care what’s going on in America and you giving what’s america doing wrong as a counter argument to what I said is clear you’re either a Chinese troll or an ignorant person who thinks they know what they are talking about.
What China is doing is to choose who they will elevate and will give this chance by using the social credit system. Those countryside Chinese people can’t freely move to the cities because they are not allowed, they don’t have the opportunities like those elevated. Yeah they elevated millions while literally discarding the hundreds of millions. Not to mention the lives they ruined like Uighurs and the people they called outcasts etc… So, if you think it’s such a miracle you’re nothing but a naive gullible person.
Well yeah, you’ll get a bigger change having an industrial revolution than continuing to fine-tune an already developed economy.
I’ll take Republic of China over the People Republic of China anytime. Free West Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong SAR and Manchuria. None of them wanted the CCP and PLA rule.
Lol.
“West Taiwan” is a funny meme,
but as a anti-CCP Chinese American, I cringe every time I hear white westerners on the internet say this, especially in a serious discussion.
It just make you look un-serious.
I visited Hong Kong SAR and the PRC numerous times for business, which included several 6 to 7 week stays in Guangdong (Shenzhen area). I always looked forward to the weekend in Hong Kong, because I considered the city to be far more civilised than the shit I saw in the PRC. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore are far superior to anything under CCP rule.
I mean, yes I agree that CCP sucks, but please don’t “West Taiwan” under a serious news article lol. You’re not gonna convince any Mainland Chinese when you argue like that.
Usually when you say stuff like that, people double down on their beliefs, so you’d just inadvertently make someone more pro-ccp rather than making them more open minded.
you know these people like to fanatasize about ccp/russia and but never would live there or properly intergrate into the culture. its like that 90-day fiance, the white girl went to russia to pick upa dude, and she was "infatuated’ with russia but would never live there permanently or learn the language.
I think we can credit them for what they’re doing right while holding them accountable for what they’re doing wrong.
Trying to paint it as “i’d rather be here than there” is just a chucklefuck way of ignoring what other places could improve.
That’s not true. I mean…I’m sure you’re being hyperbolic, and there’s certainly discontent in a 1 party system…but I have some exposure to ordinary Chinese people as well as regular people in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the sentiment is mixed, at worse.
That’s not true. I mean…I’m sure you’re being hyperbolic, and there’s certainly discontent in a 1 party system…but I have some exposure to ordinary Chinese people as well as regular people in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the sentiment is mixed, at worse.
The sentinment is this: “黑猫白猫，做到老鼠就是好猫。” (“Doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or white cat, if it can catch mice, its a good cat” “cat” referring to the political system)
Doesn’t matter who’s in power. Mao Zedong or Chang Kai-shek.
Doesn’t matter if it’s Obama, or Hillary, or Trump, or Biden, or Kamala, or Pence, or Vance, as long as they prosper under it, anything is fine.
“Don’t worry son, ICE is only going after the Mexicans and ‘illegals’, just don’t draw attention and everything is fine! What’s there to worry about, we all came legally.”
That’s my parent’s attitude towards politics, no matter what country. Do not be a dissident, is their motto. Low profile, just worry about your self, stop worrying about others.
You know what the irony is. They disagree with the One Child Policy, gave birth to me against policy, then mom got had to get sterilized as a result of the violation and had to pay a huge fine.
Then moments after they tell me about that, they just brush it off like it’s no big deal. Then I criticize CCP and they’re like: “but the party wasn’t able to terminate you, and you’ve alive, so stop talking about it” Already making excuses for a party that they disagree with on policy. I guess its that mentality again: didn’t affect me, I managed to have a second son, who cares about the policy anymore
Thank you very much for this response. I must admit, I’m in over my head when it comes to deep engagement on this issue. I have several friends in the regions I listed who are of middle to low socio-economic importance in their respective areas, and I keep in touch with them almost exclusively online.
I understand and appreciate your perspective and thank you very much for sharing it with me. I’ll definitely be considering it when I think about this in the future.
Communism works. Who knew?
China is not and never was even approaching communism, never ever tried. That is, if we go by definition of the word, and not by whatever the fuck we decide words to mean this second.
Ok. Socialism works. How’s that?
I’m pretty sure it does. It doesn’t apply to China either, for the most part, but they at least do some policies that socialist country would also do.
