What about ANTIFA?

[MERIZoC]

The World Bank... well they would say that wouldn't they? How exactly did they manage to manipulate the calculation so that a bunch of people who were just under this poverty line are now just above it ($1.91 to $2.50 per day)?

PPP is a standard used by economists of all stripes to get a "real exchange rate." You'll realize that they revised the poverty line upward almost 30% in 2011, because $1.25 in 2005 is only $1.48 in 2011. Despite this the fraction of people in extreme poverty continues to decline as neoliberalism advances.

And yet those countries remain poor but for a filthy rich elite. And we keep hearing about one famine after another, so something must not be quite alright despite all these policies being imposed.

In the IMF's case I can also point to Greece, where unelected income-tax-exempt IMF elitist Lagarde demanded brutal austerity for everyone except the rich and corporations whose tax rates Greece was not allowed to increase.

Besides, economic growth comes mostly from population growth (the #1 factor) which you can clearly see in countries with a decent legal system and infrastructure, nothing to do with "free trade" or other neoliberal stuff that only benefits the rich.

Imagine being this wrong

Again, you continue to ignore the important data.

[UniversalCommons]

I would not call the groups being formed nazism, with the style being used it is much closer to Mussolini's Corporativism which is a form of fascism where corporations merge with the state and are managed by the state. This looks like what is going on right now.

[Aellex]

Again, you continue to ignore the important data.

(Image)

Here, I have an as credible and well sourced data to present to you too!

[MERIZoC]

Again, you continue to ignore the important data.

(Image)

Here, I have an as credible and well sourced data to present to you too!

Interesting, Taihei Tengoku should also take this into consideration

[Hirota]

Totalitarian Communists =/= every Communist ever.

I'm sure that's true. You still have to convince that the current generation as a whole are any less totalitarian than their predecessors.

[Patridam]

says who? you?

Are you implying that most Communists want to kill in the name of economic and social equality?

Communism begins with (during the infinitely long "building communism" stage as they take over control of all aspects of life) and ends in (when it inevitably collapses in chaos) death from fighting, starvation, sickness, and probably inhospitable political imprisonment to boot.

I have had communists on here proclaim I'll be thrown into the gulag and worked to death when communism takes over.

[Taihei Tengoku]

PPP is a standard used by economists of all stripes to get a "real exchange rate." You'll realize that they revised the poverty line upward almost 30% in 2011, because $1.25 in 2005 is only $1.48 in 2011. Despite this the fraction of people in extreme poverty continues to decline as neoliberalism advances.


Imagine being this wrong

Again, you continue to ignore the important data.

dude I don't know what to say to you but those are just lines, not data

[The of Japan]

PPP is a standard used by economists of all stripes to get a "real exchange rate." You'll realize that they revised the poverty line upward almost 30% in 2011, because $1.25 in 2005 is only $1.48 in 2011. Despite this the fraction of people in extreme poverty continues to decline as neoliberalism advances.


Imagine being this wrong

Again, you continue to ignore the important data.

what?

[Kubra]

Which is, of course, insufficient.
You are our interlocutor, you are our window into your mind and its readings. We rely on you to explain, in your own words and in tandem with that of cited sources, your position and arguments for such. To that end, you gave the first three chapters and a table of contents.
Look, a bit of intellectual laziness is fine, this is just a forum after all, but it's blue-balling if you won't actually give with the take. You're no doubt aware of the contents of this particular source, so by all means, it would be appreciated if you'll elaborate, and summarize the work to the best of your abilities. Demonstrate to us why the author is correct in their assertions.

1) People were incredibly poor (one bad turn away from death) from the dawn of time until about 1800. Now a good part of it is very rich, in that survival is mostly a given, and a good part of the rest is on their way.
2) The transition to this is because of "capitalism," i.e. social acceptance of merchants + the pursuit of wealth. Nothing else is sufficient. Politically it is "liberalism" in the Enlightenment sense of pluralism and respect for the private life.
3) Exploitation is insufficient, because plunder economies like Rome never mechanized nor did feudal China. Spain even plundered itself into poverty.
4) Materialism is insufficient, because this would mean India or China would've figured it out before Europe. More recently, "lost causes" like Hong Kong or Singapore develop basically overnight without the influx of free money/goods that other places in the Third World had.
5) Eugenics is insufficient because the rapid pace of development (now within one working lifetime) outstrips genetic "improvements" in the racial stock, never mind that what constitutes suitable racial stock always expands. The examples of the two Germanies and Koreas show that race isn't the deciding factor because people of the same race can get it right or wrong depending on the ideas they allow to develop.
6) Societies enrich to the extent that they are capitalist and liberal. The West is mostly capitalist and mostly liberal, and therefore very wealthy. China is somewhat capitalist and somewhat wealthy, but vastly better than when it wasn't capitalist at all. Even within the West the United States is the most strongly pluralist and (one of) the most strongly market-friendly polities, and we see the results as it is wealthier than most of the rest--Swedes in Sweden are poorer than Swedes in America, so are Frenchmen, Indians, and Chinese.

Neo-nazis are bad because they want to rip up the liberal order and replace it with one that demonstrably brought death and ruin wherever it was tried. Antifa is bad because they want to do the same thing but think they're the good guys because World War Two. Resting on the laurels of a past crusade to justify the rest of your ideological baggage is Robert Mugabe thought and it leads to the same place.

Pardon the wait, it's been a long weekend.

Anyways, our author gives us the example of $3 dollars a day, which she states in the video as half a cappucino, and is a value that predates history (this is particularly weird). This is a gross oversimplification, but more on that later.

What exactly is meant by exploitation here? Simply the act of mugging ones neighbours for whatever valuables they might have sitting in their village? over-importing bullion metals? That's a bit off the mark of what is generally called exploitation in the context of economics in the last couple centuries. I assume you're well aware of what is generally considered exploitation, could you then perhaps provide more relevant examples?

In what way is indian or china more materialist than Europe? Furthermore, why are Hong Kong and Singapore, places that became britains most important colonies in the east, "lost causes"?

China of the republic era was more-or-less capitalist and more-or-less liberal. It was not, however, a particularly prosperous place. Marcos-era Philippines was not as liberal as one may like, but more-or-less capitalist. However, by the end it severely underperformed compared to less capitalist and less liberal places, like indonesia or even vietnam. Perhaps macroeconomics is a particular complex subject, instead of reducible to only two or so variables?
I mean, let's consider your swedes example. I assume it is on the grounds that an american swede has a higher GDP per capita than a swedish one, and we can go ahead and say americans in general have a higher GDP per capita than swedes. But then again, Sweden outcompetes the states on numerous metrics including obesity rate, average work week length, life expectancy, reported levels of perceived safety, and so on. Money is of course great, but it is only worth what it is exchanged for, which is better expressed in a multitude of other metrics, such as the ones listed. Which, of course, brings us back to the $3 example. I can imagine what $3 now is good for, but I cannot imagine what it has been good for throughout the centuries, especially the ones of "pre-history", where money was not actually a thing. I could perhaps express it in life expectancy, but it's generall acknowledged that life expectancy has always been on the upward path, especially compared to currently existing hunter-gather societies. Perhaps in daily caloric intake, but I know not how an anthropologist would go about calculating historical caloric intake. That it's something of an incalculable with very obvious variation in historical consumption really shows just what an oversimplification that $3 model is.

[Taihei Tengoku]

1) Exploitation here is rent-seeking, collecting (economic) rent from labor or from natural resources as opposed to trade and development. Rome and colonial Spain were plunder economies, and so was (imperial) China and India, which had greater capital and technological accumulation for most of history compared to Europe. The two wealthiest (per capita) countries in the world at the beginning of industrialization were also the two that embraced classical liberalism most thoroughly, the Netherlands and Britain.

2) Hong Kong and Singapore, like most of Asia, was given up for lost (eternal poverty) by most Western experts at the time of independence in favor of the continent of the future, Africa. Britain's most important colonies weren't wealthy ones (they all turned a loss in the end), just important anchorages. In 1959 South Korea was poorer than Ghana. Hong Kong and Singapore, by the economic models then in vogue, could never generate enough wealth on their own to lift themselves from similar levels of poverty. Africa and India had the influx of well-meaning expert advice and NGOs by the truckload but stayed poor while the Asian Tigers developed (mostly) out of the blue.

3) Vietnam was dirt poor until the Doi Moi reforms and Indonesia has oil rents. China of the republic era (which was very dubiously liberal) fought three major wars entirely on its territory and then suffered Mao, who inflicted the equivalent of a fourth (and almost started a fifth) on his people.

4) Swedes in the US also outperform (or at the least, keep up with) Swedes in Sweden on these other, softer, social metrices, which is pretty impressive considering it was mostly the bottom strata of 19th-century Sweden that make up the current Swedish-American community.

5) $3 is a stand-in for the kinds of goods that $3 can get you, because money is a substitute for having goods on hand, as semi-nomadic herdsmen discovered circa 9000BC. For most of history people produced enough barter goods that would equal about $3 Geary-Khamis dollars today.

[Hirota]

It's adorable that people think twitter has any influence and is used for anything other than twits shouting at each other.

>Implying a vast social media network that millions of people use has absolutely no influence whatsoever on anyone's thoughts or opinions

Like I said, twits.

[UniversalCommons]

I wouldn't call China purely communist. They are a one party state much like Sweden was a one party state. If anything, China is moving away from "communism" except for its authoritarian core and trying to become more like the early Swedish one party state. There effectively will be no pure systems in the near future, every single country is going to slowly move towards a mix of mixed economies with programs to designed to deal with automation.

[The Grene Knyght]

The "antifa are suddenly relevant and dangerous" is an alt-right, Russian rhetoric promoted by the so-called propaganda "bots". The coordinator of these propagandists ordered them to spam about antifa, so they now spam about antifa.

See this Russian guy named "David" on Twitter, for example. Posts 8AM-8PM Moscow time and his subjects change as if someone order them to go from topic A to topic B.

http://imgur.com/gallery/6flYH

Right now their orders are to demonize "antifa". Once they succeed/fail we will suddenly stop hearing about how evil antifa is. Wait and see.

It's adorable that people think twitter has any influence and is used for anything other than twits shouting at each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spring

[Catochristoferson]

I see them much like I see SJW's. Do they exist? Yes. Do they do some pretty stupid shit? Also yes.
Are they as prevalent as everyone seems to think they are? Nah. Are they the end of society as we know it? Nope.

Do I still hate SJW's? Yes
Do I still want to ban them? Yes

And by doing so the government can easily abuse their power and label people who question their agenda "SJW's" and have them arrested.

I wouldn't call China purely communist. They are a one party state much like Sweden was a one party state. If anything, China is moving away from "communism" except for its authoritarian core and trying to become more like the early Swedish one party state. There effectively will be no pure systems in the near future, every single country is going to slowly move towards a mix of mixed economies with programs to designed to deal with automation.

Was China ever really a communist country? State ownership over the economy was not meant to be the final communist society, it was supposedly meant as a stepping stone to one.

Not that I agree with Maoism or anything.

[Lilinia]

ANTIFA is useless, they should just go join the International Brigades and go to Syria to join the final offensive against ISIS. They might be able to help Rojava finally bring some peace and calm to the Middle East.

Um. They are.

[Proctopeo]

ANTIFA is useless, they should just go join the International Brigades and go to Syria to join the final offensive against ISIS. They might be able to help Rojava finally bring some peace and calm to the Middle East.

Um. They are.

I don't trust that source.
It's not even on Media Bias Fact Check.

[Community Values]

Um. They are.

I don't trust that source.
It's not even on Media Bias Fact Check.

It's also blocked on my school's internet.

[Lilinia]

Um. They are.

I don't trust that source.
It's not even on Media Bias Fact Check.

Have another?

[The Grene Knyght]

I don't trust that source.
It's not even on Media Bias Fact Check.

It's also blocked on my school's internet.

Open it with google translate. Thats what I used to do in school.

[Kubra]

1) Exploitation here is rent-seeking, collecting (economic) rent from labor or from natural resources as opposed to trade and development. Rome and colonial Spain were plunder economies, and so was (imperial) China and India, which had greater capital and technological accumulation for most of history compared to Europe. The two wealthiest (per capita) countries in the world at the beginning of industrialization were also the two that embraced classical liberalism most thoroughly, the Netherlands and Britain.

2) Hong Kong and Singapore, like most of Asia, was given up for lost (eternal poverty) by most Western experts at the time of independence in favor of the continent of the future, Africa. Britain's most important colonies weren't wealthy ones (they all turned a loss in the end), just important anchorages. In 1959 South Korea was poorer than Ghana. Hong Kong and Singapore, by the economic models then in vogue, could never generate enough wealth on their own to lift themselves from similar levels of poverty. Africa and India had the influx of well-meaning expert advice and NGOs by the truckload but stayed poor while the Asian Tigers developed (mostly) out of the blue.

3) Vietnam was dirt poor until the Doi Moi reforms and Indonesia has oil rents. China of the republic era (which was very dubiously liberal) fought three major wars entirely on its territory and then suffered Mao, who inflicted the equivalent of a fourth (and almost started a fifth) on his people.

4) Swedes in the US also outperform (or at the least, keep up with) Swedes in Sweden on these other, softer, social metrices, which is pretty impressive considering it was mostly the bottom strata of 19th-century Sweden that make up the current Swedish-American community.

5) $3 is a stand-in for the kinds of goods that $3 can get you, because money is a substitute for having goods on hand, as semi-nomadic herdsmen discovered circa 9000BC. For most of history people produced enough barter goods that would equal about $3 Geary-Khamis dollars today.

Again, regarding the spanish example the spaniards went after gold and silver. It was kind of an economic disaster. But y'know, you don't exactly win brownie points for pointing out that plundering currency as opposed to useable commodities will generally lead to hyperinflation and no one buying much more than they bought previously, after the initial rush of plundered gold and silver into circulating currency. And in any case, as for the rest, it's generally agreed upon from friedman to bastiat to marx that landlord economies making their official economic activity taking land from their neighbours is generally not conducive to economic growth except in the sense of growing an empires borders arithmetically increases how much it produces. We cannot compare the acquisition of greece by the roman republic with, say, the acquisition of indian territories by the british empire. They were different economies with different ideas of what ought to be done with their frontiers.

Hong Kong was still a crown colony by the time it started industrializing, had an influx of the little skilled labour China had after the end of the civil war, was already one of the biggest ports in Asia, and had easy access to both mainland China's and the UK's markets. Liberalism or no liberalism, that's a winning set of conditions. As for Singapore, the first industrial infrastructure and factories were entirely state owned, then sold them off once the EDB found folks willing to buy them. Furthermore, they weren't selling em off to just anyone, priority was given to foreign multinationals with hefty capital to reinvest. It's quite similar to the japan's economic policy, the state builds everything out of its pocket and then sells it off at a fraction of the price to private investors (albeit in the japanese case ones with military connections).

Mao is quite obviously not included in the republican era bruv. That was kind of a different state. Anyways, on the books of the official government there were not many barriers to investment and trade. But, y'know, once you'd reach one end of China to the other you'd have paid enough tarrif's and toll's that weren't on the books to make your goods unsaleable at the cost of getting them to market. You'd do alright if you limited your trade to Menjiang and Manchuria, although you'd be in a far less "permissive" environment, especially if you decided to compete with the government backed zaibatsu's. But you'd do alright compared to in ROC territory proper.

I'll rescind the bit about Vietnam, it appears that its eclipsing of the filipino GDP for a moment was based mostly on overreported figures by other members of the comecon, with later figures after representing a more realistic picture of the actual vietnamese GDP. But that aside, indeed, indonesia has oil rents, which it has managed to ride dispite a very rocky 1997. It appears, therefore, that there is more at play than given in the formulation you gave earlier.

Wait, 19th century swedish migrants? So not, like, 1st or 2nd gen swedish-americans? Well, that's something different entirely, innit? I mean German-Americans and French-Americans by the same token have higher median household incomes than their native born counterparts, because of course they would, going from being one guy among many to being nearly at the top of a racial and social hierarchy then planting roots over a two-century (and longer) period. These days, according the Migration Policy Institute, swedish migration to the US per year as a little less than 50k, down from 200k in the 60's. Evidently, there is less incentive to emigrate than in decades previous.

And how much barter goods? How much coffee can I buy? Can I buy coffee? What is my daily caloric consumption? How long do I have to work in a week for my daily earnings to average $3? Again, what is that $3?

[Republic of the Cristo]

to be fair ther are more than a few videos of ANTIFA assaulting people, it's not exactly difficult.

Assaulting far right people yes. But that's not the point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkqccnXGHZE

I didn't know this CBS journalist was far right...

[Taihei Tengoku]

And how much barter goods? How much coffee can I buy? Can I buy coffee? What is my daily caloric consumption? How long do I have to work in a week for my daily earnings to average $3? Again, what is that $3?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geary%E2% ... mis_dollar

Three of these. You have to make up whatever is your caloric consumption (likely not much) and your caloric expenditures from work (likely too much) to average that $3, to buy whatever goods you can (not enough) when most everyone makes that much.

[Kubra]

And how much barter goods? How much coffee can I buy? Can I buy coffee? What is my daily caloric consumption? How long do I have to work in a week for my daily earnings to average $3? Again, what is that $3?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geary%E2% ... mis_dollar

Three of these. You have to make up whatever is your caloric consumption (likely not much) and your caloric expenditures from work (likely too much) to average that $3, to buy whatever goods you can (not enough) when most everyone makes that much.

you haven't answered the question, only said "I assure you, it's not much".
Give me an example of a 1750 shopping list. Then a 1450 one. Illustrate it.

[Taihei Tengoku]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geary%E2% ... mis_dollar

Three of these. You have to make up whatever is your caloric consumption (likely not much) and your caloric expenditures from work (likely too much) to average that $3, to buy whatever goods you can (not enough) when most everyone makes that much.

you haven't answered the question, only said "I assure you, it's not much".
Give me an example of a 1750 shopping list. Then a 1450 one. Illustrate it.

You are missing the point of "purchasing power." "Not much" is a perfectly adequate measure when the big story is the gulf between past purchasing power and present purchasing power.

[Kubra]

you haven't answered the question, only said "I assure you, it's not much".
Give me an example of a 1750 shopping list. Then a 1450 one. Illustrate it.

You are missing the point of "purchasing power." "Not much" is a perfectly adequate measure when the big story is the gulf between past purchasing power and present purchasing power.

and what does "not much" buy me?