The Economist does a decent job with an unbiased portrayal of the lives of two poor men. The mountain man and the surgeon Dec 20th 2005 | HAZARD, KENTUCKY AND KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO From The Economist print edition Reflections on relative poverty in North America and Africa ENOS BANKS tells a cracking yarn about ketchup. One day, he spilled a splurge of it on his shirt. For fun, he persuaded his brother in law to shout angrily and shoot through the window. When their two wives came rushing in, they saw Mr Banks lying there covered in what looked like blood. “My wife passed out,” chuckles Mr Banks, “and my brother-in-law's wife shook him till his [false] teeth rattled.” Mr Banks lives in a trailer in eastern Kentucky, amid the majestically forested Appalachian mountains. He is in his early 60s and has no job—he used to work as a driver for a coal-mining firm, but left after a heart attack 25 years ago. He wears a cowboy hat and talks with an accent that outsiders find nearly impenetrable. He is clever with his hands. When the price of petrol soared this year, he grafted a chainsaw engine onto a bicycle to make a moped. He is a loud, jovial man, but suspicious of the young folk who live nearby. There is a drug problem in the mountains, and Mr Banks was recently burgled for the painkillers he takes for a bad back, hip and ankle. But he is ready for any mugger. He walks with a walking-stick-c*m-rifle, with a plastic cap on the end of the barrel to keep out the dirt. If someone attacks him, he is ready to “shoot them plumb between the eyes.” And if he runs out of bullets, he has a big knife strapped to the contraption with duct tape. When Americans hear the words “poor” and “white”, they think of someone like Mr Banks. He has half a dozen cars in varying states of disrepair parked outside his trailer, car-parts everywhere and a pile of crushed Pepsi cans below his porch. He “draws” $521 a month in supplemental security income (a form of cash assistance for the elderly, poor and disabled). He laments that the authorities deduct $67 a month because he won $3,600 on the slot machines. Why, he asks, won't they take account of all the money he has lost gambling? It is a fair question. If middle-class America had this problem, accountants would surely find a way round it. Mr Banks also complains that he cannot draw food stamps. In order to qualify, he would have to sell his truck, which he cannot bear to part with. Mr Banks would probably be surprised to hear that, thousands of miles away in central Africa, there lives a prominent surgeon whose monthly income is roughly the same as his. Mbwebwe Kabamba is the head of the emergency department at the main public hospital in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. After 28 years as a doctor, his salary is only $250 a month, but by operating on private patients after hours, he ekes it out to $600 or $700. Given the lower cost of living in Congo, one might guess that Dr Kabamba is better off than Mr Banks. But the doctor has to support an extended family of 12, whereas Mr Banks's ex-wife and three sons claim public assistance. Indeed, the reason Mr Banks split up from his wife, he says, is because they can draw more benefits separately. She still lives in the trailer next door. Why juxtapose the lives of a poor man in a rich country and a relatively well-off man in a poor one? The exercise is useful for two reasons. First, it puts the rich world's wealth into context. A Congolese doctor, a man most other Congolese would consider wealthy, is worse off materially than most poor people in America. That, in itself, is striking. The second purpose of the exercise is to shed light on some ticklish questions. What is the relationship between wealth and happiness? And what is the significance of relative poverty? Mr Banks makes $521 a month in a country where median male earnings are $3,400 a month. Dr Kabamba earns $600 a month in a country where most people grow their own food and hardly ever see a bank note. The two men's experiences could hardly be less similar. But which of the two would one expect to be happier? Before trying to grapple with these questions, take a look at the places where the two men live. Eastern Kentucky was where President Lyndon Johnson stood by a shack in 1964 to launch a “national war on poverty”. Since then, Appalachia has had tons of government cash and seen real improvements in living standards, but it retains large and stubborn pockets of distress. Mr Banks lives in one. His trailer stands in a hollow near a disused coal mine in Perry county, where the official poverty rate is 24.5%. The region is poor partly because it is remote. Steep slopes and heavy rain can make it hard to get around. Julie Zimmerman, a professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky, notes that Appalachian folk sometimes make appointments with the proviso that “I'll be there, God willing and the creek don't rise.” Another problem is that the region's mineral wealth has corrupted local politics. For decades, argues Mil Duncan, another of the many sociologists to have pondered Appalachian poverty, coal bosses exerted an unhealthy influence, and politicians won support through patronage. The 13 coal-producing counties of eastern Kentucky have consistently worse poverty than the others, notes Justin Maxson, director of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, a local microfinance group. “Corruption by public officials has been a significant contributor to poverty in the region,” he adds. Congo is also remote, and its politics have also been corrupted by mineral wealth. But corruption in Kentucky consists of mining firms leaning on local officials to go easy on environmental regulations, or school boards appointing their members' relatives to sinecures. In Congo, it means half a dozen armies and dozens of militia groups fighting over the country's gold and diamond mines between 1998 and 2003, leaving perhaps 3m dead. Sporadic fighting continues in the east of the country, but this does not directly affect Dr Kabamba, who lives in the west. Still, the soldiers in Kinshasa, where he works, are a menace, because they rob civilians to supplement their wages. Dr Kabamba is shaken down about twice a month by men in uniform. Dr Kabamba's hospital is healthier than it was during the war, or under Mobutu Sese Seko, the leopardskin-hatted crook who ruled Congo until his overthrow in 1997. There are no medicines unless patients can pay for them, and many of the sick lie huddled on the ground. But it used to be worse. In the early 1990s, patients who could not pay were sometimes held hostage for weeks until their families found cash to free them. Dr Kabamba's income fluctuates with his country's fortunes. His $250-a-month salary is a fivefold increase from last year, and the fact that it is paid only two months in arrears is an improvement too. The cause of his good fortune is that Congo was given a huge debt write-off when the civil war ended in 2003, so there is more money around. What do Dr Kabamba's wages buy? He has a four-bedroom house with a kitchen and living room, which would be ample if there weren't 12 people under his roof. His home would be deemed unacceptably overcrowded in America. Even among the 37m Americans officially classed as poor, only 6% live in homes with more occupants than rooms. Having seen how doctors live elsewhere, Dr Kabamba would quite like running water and a regular power supply. His family fetches water in jars and the electricity comes on maybe twice a week. Air-conditioning would be nice, but “that's only for VIPs,” says Dr Kabamba. In America, three-quarters of poor households have air-conditioning. Dr Kabamba earns enough to feed his children, but not as well as he would like. The family eats meat about twice a month; Dr Kabamba calls it “a great luxury”. In America, poor children eat more meat than the well-to-do. In fact, they get twice as much protein as their government says is good for them, which is why the Wal-Mart near Mr Banks sells such enormous jeans. “Poverty” describes two quite different phenomena: utter penury, of the sort experienced by the billion or so souls who subsist on $1 a day or less; and the situation of people in rich countries who are less well off than their compatriots. For the first group, finding enough to eat is a daily struggle, and a $2-a-day job hand-washing mineral ore in a river is a lucky break. Shortly before meeting Dr Kabamba, your correspondent interviewed a group of Congolese ore-washers who were delighted to have found such lucrative work. European countries tend to use relative measures of poverty. A household with an income less than 50% or 60% of the national median counts as poor. This has the perverse result that if the country gets richer, the poverty rate can still rise, as long as incomes at the top and in the middle rise faster than those at the bottom. America, more sensibly, uses an absolute standard. The “poverty threshold”, created in the mid-1960s, was based on an estimate of how much an adequate diet might cost, multiplied by three. This figure is adjusted for inflation each year, but is otherwise unchanged. So the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, the share of Americans in poverty rose between 1974 and 2004, from 11.2% to 12.7%, ought to be a cause for shame. But it is not, because American poverty statistics are misleading. For one thing, the poor rarely stay that way. In 1996-99, only 2% of Americans were poor every month over the full four-year period. And life appears, by most measures, to have improved. Poor people today live longer, spend longer in education and are more likely to have jobs. Fewer live in substandard houses, more have cars, fridges, boomboxes and other necessities that were luxuries a couple of generations ago. How, then, to account for the apparent rise in poverty? It is partly a matter of definition. Some non-cash benefits, such as food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid, are excluded from the calculation. And the raw data must be wrong. Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, notes that while reported annual income for the poorest fifth of households in 2003 was $8,201, their reported expenditure was $18,492. Nobody can explain this vast discrepancy. All one can say is that whereas the poor in Kinshasa complain about the price of bread, the poor in Kentucky complain about the price of motor insurance. Fair enough—they need to drive to work. Granted, the poor in America do not starve. But their relative poverty can hurt in other ways. To be poor in a meritocracy implies failure. Eastern Kentucky is one of America's least meritocratic enclaves, but failure still carries a stigma. Though few Americans say that the poor have only themselves to blame, many believe it. Many of the poor believe it, too. For a Congolese peasant, there is no shame in living in a hut made of sticks. Everyone you know does too. In America, by contrast, the term “trailer” denotes more than a mobile home, and the people who live in one know it. They are also acutely aware of how richer folk live, because they watch so much television. A typical poor household in America has two televisions, cable or satellite reception and a VCR or a DVD player. Dr Kabamba, though hard up, enjoys the respect that doctors receive in all societies. Perhaps more, for people can see that he does an essential job under the toughest of conditions. That his hospital still functions despite years of war, corruption, economic decline and the occasional “grand pillage” by unpaid soldiers is, he sighs, “almost a miracle”. His compatriots might add that it is almost a miracle that Dr Kabamba, whose skills would allow him to emigrate, has chosen not to. Those who know Dr Kabamba treat him with deference. When your correspondent was detained by the police outside his hospital, for the crime of appearing to possess a wallet, one telephone call to the doctor was enough to fix the problem. The officers even apologised. Mr Banks, by contrast, though outwardly cheery, has no illusions about how other Americans see people like himself. Of the officials who hand him his monthly cheque, he says: “Some are okay, but some act like the money's coming out of their own pockets.” His great-niece, Rosie Woolum, tells a story about growing up in the hollows. She was the girl on the school cheerleading team who could not afford shoes. A teacher who lived nearby could have offered her a lift home after practice, she says, but never did. So she had to wait a couple of hours for her mother. At the time, she did not understand why her better-off neighbours shunned her. Now that she has a good job (running a project that provides health care for the homeless), she finds they no longer do. It is hard to guage the pain of relative poverty because no one knows how to measure happiness. Simply asking people “Are you happy?” only gets you so far. The answers people give depend in part on cultural factors. Few English or Japanese will offer anything more ecstatic than a “mustn't grumble”, but that does not necessarily mean they are glummer than say, Americans, 86% of whom told Gallup this year that they were “completely” or “somewhat satisfied” with their jobs. Indirect evidence of unhappiness is equally hard to gather, since so many potential proxies, such as drug abuse and wife-beating, are hushed up. Nonetheless, for what it is worth, when your correspondent asked Ms Woolum and three of her local social-worker colleagues to share their life stories, those stories shared a common thread. All four women had been beaten by husbands or boyfriends, most of whom had problems with drink or drugs. One recalls being knelt on so that her arms were pinned to the floor and punched repeatedly in the face. Another says she was stabbed. Without excusing the abuse, the women assume that it had something to do with their menfolk's sense of frustration at the poor hand life had dealt them. As the last of the quartet puts it: “He wasn't happy. We got hit.” Happily, all four have escaped their abusers. Ms Woolum reckons that the welfare reforms of the 1990s have, indirectly, made local women more assertive. “Welfare is more demanding. [To receive it], women have to get out and work, so we're getting out into a different environment.” This, she argues, fosters self-reliance and self-respect, so “Women don't take it as much now.” The personal is political Both Dr Kabamba and Mr Banks feel bitter about the state of politics in their respective countries. Dr Kabamba resents the fact that Congo is run by a mob of unelected thieves and warlords, who for the most part only pretend to care about good governance so they can continue milking western donors. The country was promised an election by June this year, but the ruling class somehow never got around to organising it. They now promise to have one next year—they held a constitutional referendum this month—but Dr Kabamba is not holding his breath. He takes such a dim view of the probity of Congolese politicians that he once turned down a job in the cabinet. In his spare time, he is the leader of one of Congo's many opposition parties, but no one is tipping him to be the next president. He is neither rich nor ruthless enough. Mr Banks, for his part, expresses an intense dislike of President George Bush. “If someone shoots that sonofabitch, I'll celebrate,” he says. Some of his complaints echo those of the coastal intelligentsia—he thinks the president should create more manufacturing jobs, for example. But some of his gripes are of the sort rarely aired in the New York Times. For example, he berates Mr Bush for allowing too many foreign doctors into the country. In eastern Kentucky, as in Congo, those with marketable skills often leave as soon as they graduate. Unlike Congo, however, Kentucky can attract doctors from poorer parts of the world, such as South Asia. Mr Banks does not think much of these immigrant medics. He fears they may give him the wrong medicine, perhaps deliberately, and threatens to “shoot them plumb between the eyes” if they try. He is not serious about this threat, one assumes, but his sense of grievance is no less real for being incoherent. The point of this article is neither to mock Mr Banks nor to praise Dr Kabamba. Both have their virtues and flaws, and your correspondent cannot reliably judge which is the happier. But here are two concluding observations. First, if poor Americans were to compare their standard of living with what is normal elsewhere in the world, let alone in Congo, they would see they have little cause for discontent. Then again, were Americans not so incurably discontented with their lot, their great country would not be half as dynamic as it is.
Would your rather have your left hand, or your right arm, hacked off with a hatchet? Hm? Okay, so since you'd rather have your left hand chopped off, that means you made a decision for the better, right? So having your left hand chopped off is a good thing, since your other option was having your right arm chopped off, right? Good, glad we got that clear. You may now chop off your left hand, since it's a good thing to get your left hand chopped off. Ain't this the greatest country in the world? To think there are actually people here who are lucky enough that they can afford to keep all their limbs! Hell, that person might even live within driving distance! What a great country! The point is: This article is not unbiased at all. It does present information that would seem to counteract its thesis - but that doesn't mean it's unbiased. It's riddled with faulty logic and based on unquestioned assumptions. And those assumptions are its thesis. Articles like this present a few ugly pictures of poverty, and justifiably ugly pictures, but pretend like that somehow gives them a free pass on having to prove their assumptions. This entire essay, though it doesn't state it directly, is just a new slant on the tired old "there are children starving in China" bull**** that every parent has been using (usually unsuccessfully) to get their kids to eat brussel sprouts since the dawn of time. Or at least since the dawn of brussel sprouts. There is nothing new in this article except the manufactured appearance of objectivity. It's the same old pro-I'm-rich-and-you're-not-and-you-shouldn't-complain argument. Just because it's couched in more pleasant language than the typical pro-market buffoon cares to muster doesn't mean it's suddenly more valid.
This is a rather typical and ignorant response, don't you think? Anyway. For one thing - why did the article pick that particular American to use as its example? (I say "the article" because I have no idea who the author is). There are better examples of people who deserve far better than what they've been given by fate - and those people should have an opportunity to develop their skills and talents. College is not a given, for anyone - there are plenty of cases where it's simply impossible for an American in poverty to get a college education. Another thing - following the same rationale of the argument presented here; Does it follow that, since Americans should be grateful for their circumstances when they compare it to the experiences of the Congo, that an American surgeon should gladly pay taxes, and even more taxes, because he has it so much better than a Congolese surgeon does? Wouldn't that be adequately grateful? Another thing - most people in the Congo are quite poor. There is no economic infrastructure there to support the same type of wealth the upper classes have here. The U.S. is a wealthy country - why should poverty exist here at all? I'm not talking handouts (except where they are justified), I'm talking about a level playing field that truly allows everyone the opportunity to progress according to the best of their abilities - and also allows everyone the possibility of failure if they don't have the skills and intelligence to live a productive life. The assumptions of the article (both direct and implicit) 1. The U.S. is a meritocracy - Really? So everyone who lives well does so because they deserve it, and everyone who does poorly deserves to live poorly as well? That's news to me. 2. A man in Hazard, Kentucky can act as a representative of poor people in the U.S. - Wow! It should be noted that the article also states "When Americans hear the words “poor” and “white”, they think of someone like Mr Banks. " - Well, this article surely isn't helping that misconception any, but it makes folks comfortable to imagine that poor Americans are ignorant, loud-mouthed, backwoods idiots who have no desire to make anything of their lives. Most of them aren't any more ignorant than you are - some of them are less ignorant. 3. Although it makes a few concessions, this article is essentially capitalist propaganda. It makes this particular comparison between two people in vastly different worlds - one of whom is taking care of 12 people, and would probably be living much better if he wasn't - to suggest that A.) The dissatisfaction of most poor Americans is mostly with minor, unimportant quibbles like gambling's influence of public benefits and foreign doctors. Things like lack of healthcare, and sometimes insurmountable difficulties in achieving an education are not real concerns of poor people. They just want to shoot foreigners. In the Congo, people are legitimately concerned with the corruption of government. Poor Americans just want to shoot Bush between the eyes, but they have no valid complaints really. B.) That, because life in the Congo is worse, that living in poverty in America is actually pretty good. This is a faulty argument that one learns to detect in Logic 101. Because A is worse than B, that means B is good. And - for his economic and social data, the article gives no source, no reference, and nothing that would suggest that the information could be interpreted a different way just as easily. This is the "blind 'em with science" approach that economics majors with nice cars are smitten with and will frequently trot out in conversations at cocktail parties and in editorials. Then - the "time" argument; Things have gotten better! No reason to complain, right? - Some improvements are not special bonuses for humanity, but simply changes that make societies more just and fair. Should every descendant of a Southern planter get a special medal for being super guys just because they don't lynch black people anymore? It doesn't bother me that there are people in America doing pretty well. It does bother me when they force out giant turds of an argument like this one and expect it to sit pretty in the heads of people who know better. But, of course, they don't really expect that. What they expect is that it will simply confirm the beliefs of those who find it necessary to justify the American system in the first place. If you're comfortable with your condescension, why not take a quick trip to the nearest poor section of town and say, "Hey! You all have it great compared to people in the Congo!" and see how far that argument gets you. For all the sham even-handedness this article cloaks itself in, it's just the same old tired we're-rich-and-we-deserve-it-you're-poor-and-you-deserve-it blueprint that has been spat out by financially-comfortable ideologues since the beginning of the Industrial era.
There is nothing "turd-like" about the argument. It lays out the facts. Obviously, you despise the American system so good news like the following just makes you attack the messenger: -Life appears, by most measures, to have improved. Poor people today live longer, spend longer in education and are more likely to have jobs. Fewer live in substandard houses, more have cars, fridges, boomboxes and other necessities that were luxuries a couple of generations ago. -The poor rarely stay that way. In 1996-99, only 2% of Americans were poor every month over the full four-year period. - While reported annual income for the poorest fifth of households in 2003 was $8,201, their reported expenditure was $18,492. -86% [Americans] told Gallup this year that they were “completely” or “somewhat satisfied” with their jobs. No one is saying that since living in the Congo sucks then life in America is stupendous. But comparing life for the poor in America to other countries exposes the flaws in liberal arguments against capitalism. I thought poor people were "exploited" by capitalism? I thought the rich got richer and the poor got poorer? Oops, I guess not.
The truth is that the American poor are better off than a lot of the world. That some places do not even have the barest of surpluses - that good, educated men such Dr. Kabamba still face a far tougher existence than the uneducated, backwater hicks living on government stipends. The writer does pick an extreme example in the doctor from Congo. What I got from the article is that many places in the world still suffer from plights which make America's problems seem rather trivial in comparison. I don't quite understand Thadeus's hostility. Your country (I assume that it is America) faces long lines of people trying to get in so they can make a better life for themselves. I'm on of those economics majors that you seem to disdain. No - we don't commonly use the "why don't you move to congo" argument at cocktail parties. Just because things are better here doesn't mean that things can be improved.
Where does this information come from? Is there any sort of statistical data on boomboxes? How does one define "substandard" housing? Does "spending more time in education" mean college or does it mean that people have high schools now in places they didn't 40 years ago? Is that statistic pre- or post- truancy laws? What about from 2000 - present? What about generational changes? How does this particular statistic define "poor?" Does "EZ-CREDIT" count as an expenditure? If the "poorest fifth" is spending $10,000 more than they're earning, what are they spending it on? Does the increased cost of healthcare, electricity, education have anything to do with it? Where exactly is that extra money coming from? What was the sample in the Gallup poll? What does it mean to be "satisfied" with your job - does it mean that you think you can't do any better? Does it mean that you don't think you'll quit? Did the Gallup people ask anyone at McDonald's if they were satisfied with their job? Did they ask anyone at Microsoft? If they did, did they ask the janitor or the programmer? Who's a liberal? Most liberals are in favor of capitalism, just like most conservatives. How exactly does this sort of comparison "expose the flaws" in arguments against capitalism? Isn't the Congo capitalist? (Yes, it is). It's not a difference of kind, it's a difference of degree. I'm not arguing that poor people are exploited by capitalism. I'm arguing that capitalism prevents many, many people from realizing their true potential as human beings. It also allows people to rise to levels that neither their abilities, nor their intelligence, nor their work ethic justify.
What would you have then? The Socialist utopia that is Cuba? The paradise that is North Korea? Heck - even immigration from those Western European quasi-Socialist nations to the US far outnumbers American immigration to Western Europe. No system is not perfect - because human aren't perfect. But it seems to me that America has done pretty good with capitalism. At least - here we can argue about the social benefits of public programs - we have the freedom to do so, and there actually exists a societal surplus to dispurse. In China - loosening of the command economy has improved the lives of the most number of people in human history. I think energies would be better spent working on ways to improve your system - not bashing it because it is not perfect.
He also picked an extreme example in the hick from Kentucky. And I can give you facts that will make anything you ever suffer in your entire life seem trivial by comparison - that doesn't mean you don't suffer. That's an unending cycle that can go on forever. Someone, somewhere, always has it worse than you do. Maybe there's one guy out there who has the ultimate claim on suffering, but how exactly do you gauge that? Many of the places in the world that are suffering are capitalist places, and many of them have become capitalist because of world-market pressure. I'm not saying they were better off before, though surely some where, I'm saying that capitalism is not good. And besides, why should we be concerned with the Congo? We don't live there. Maybe you've never had anyone suggest that you're poor because you're lazy, or stupid, or just all-around worth less than they are. Or had an entire country imply through television and editorials that you are just not as deserving of comfort as they are. I hate to say it again - but, if you haven't been there, then you don't know. Maybe you've never had any reason to think about it, other than to dismiss it. My country is America, but my nationalism is vastly different than most. Again, people try to get in here because this country has more money than other countries. That's the reason. I know that's a typo, but I'll point it out anyway. And you'll have to allow for a bit of polemics here and there. Also, you probably don't have anyone at your cocktail parties that you'd have to say that to, right?
Ha, very sneaky there. The US doesn't just "have" more money, as if we just happened to find it sitting there on Plymouth Rock. It creates more wealth. But even more than that, the poor and immigrant have the OPPORTUNITY to get that money. One might even say that the more they reach their true potential, the more money they make! And on top of that, they get legal protection and freedoms missing in other countries, ie China. Yes, "that's the reason." And what are you talking about when you say editorials and tv imply poor people deserve to be poor? What tv shows and newspapers are you talking about?
Why would I want to have those? There are far more possibilities in the universe than the numerous systems we've already seen, and already seen fail. I'm not a communist, and I'm not making an argument in favor of communism. No, humans are not perfect. But we can imagine perfect, otherwise there'd be no point in saying "humans are not perfect". Why not try for it? That would involve, first, freeing ourselves from our investments (pun intended) in a system that benefits us, personally, simply because it causes harm to so many others. Because it does not allow others, in Kentucky or in the Congo, the same benefits we have in our goal of living a good life. (How does one define a good life anyway?) And, again, this is not precisely what I'm arguing for - I would rather see a true meritocracy develop. That necessarily means that life is not going to be rosy for many people. I'm not sure that such a thing can be implemented - but, if it can't, then we should try to make the system as equitable as possible for as many people as possible, because it's impossible to truly determine who deserves a good life and who doesn't. I'm an elitist, not an egalitarian - egalitarianism is just a back-up plan. So we have the freedom to disperse a societal surplus (do we really? Who are "we"? Why do "we" have a surplus? Why is a surplus necessary? Why do we measure the good of a society in terms of a "surplus"? Are there other ways to measure it?) - how exactly is it dispersed? Yes, we've already established that there are starving kids in China who would love our brussel sprouts. I'm bashing the people who unquestionably believe in the system's fairness. And, I agree, our energies would be better spent working on ways to improve the system. Unfortunately, and this is an important point, no matter how much some governments, people, policies, will protest - the entire world is organized around capital. And, since the entire world is organized according to capital, it makes no sense to make arguments in favor of Capitalism by comparing life in one country to life in another. Poor countries are poor because of capitalism. Rich countries are rich because of capitalism. Saying "We have it so much better here" means, essentially, nothing. It means our army is bigger and better at protecting property than the Congo. It means we have more banks here to hold money in. It means "we" (and by "we" I mean people who lived in the same geographic area 300 years ago and might be distantly related to some of us) started the process 300 years ago, and it benefits those who have power to spread it as far and as deep as possible, regardless of the human consequences. Since I'm not quite up for writing a book yet; Capital is active in every aspect of our lives. In the clothes we put on, in the food we eat, in who we know and don't know, and, most importantly, in how we view the world. It's difficult to think outside of it because the "outside of it" can only exist in our criticisms of it - at least for now.
There are a lot of assumptions in there that I don't agree with. Like the number of banks actually has anything to do with how good an economy is. More banks are an effect of wealth creation, not a cause. Also, you seem see property rights and a strong defense cynically. "America isn't any better, they just have better property rights." Um, ok. But isn't that part of why America is better? And I don't buy that capitalism made certain countries poor. They were poor way before capitalism became the engine of the richest countries.
One could make the argument that it was sitting there on Plymouth Rock - sort of. The natural resources available in North America is what led to it being colonized by Europeans in the first place. Looking for gold, not finding it, so settling for plenty of farm land, timber, etc.,. This is definitely an argument that could use its own thread though. How is wealth created? If it can be created, why not create enough so that everyone in the world benefits from it? Why not just print up enough money so no sick person has to go without medicine? So that everyone in the world who is capable of doing well in college can attend college? What prevents that from happening? And, for the reasons that you have for what prevents that from happening, who invented those reasons? Do they really? Surely most of them would have more of it then, right? Many who come here come here with money - many of the ones who are successful come from families that already had more money than most of the families where they're originally from. And, again, this is a circular argument; If there wasn't more money here, there'd be no opportunity to get that money. No Mexican would swim across the border just to do dishes at a restaurant in Houston if they could have the same job with the same pay two blocks away. One might say that. One might also say that the higher people fly on a brontosauraus, the less likely they are to enjoy hot sauce on their cousin's ankle. Neither really says anything, but they both sound good. (I think so anyway - flying high on a brontosaurus would be ****ing AWESOME.) This is a good discussion, but unfortunately, I can't keep at it right now - other obligations. Here's a question though; Why is every argument in favor of capitalism made using the terms of capitalism? Isn't that like arguing that butter is tasty because it's made from milk? Meaning; If you don't find butter tasty, why would it matter that it's made from milk? Does arguing that butter is made from milk prove that it's tasty, or just explain what butter is made from? You're arguing that capitalism is good because it's good according to what capitalism says makes for good capitalism; surpluses, property, etc.,. It shapes how we view the world.
Well if you want to start comparing "systems", nothing gets better than the Olympic Medal Count. One thing I miss is the old CCCP in big red capital letters. There was nothing scarier. They even always seemed to have a world class 100m sprinter for gawd's sakes. All the ex-Soviet nations should at least team up for the Olympics so we can have the big, scary CCCP back. Makes for good sports-drama.
Thadeus; No offense but your arguments seem to be all over the place. You're criticizing your capitalism yet agreeing that its the prevailing system and capital is what is used to measure the success or failure of a country or a person. Is your point that the whole idea of capital should be chucked to be replaced by something else? I will never argue that Capitalism is inherently good but given the examples of other economic systems that have been tried it has done a far better job than others. The key to Capitalism is that it harnesses individual desires and any economic system that fails to take that into account is doomed to failure. Yes its true that we as humans are compassionate but at the same time we're greedy too. On a large scale its almost impossible to rely on compassion to create and economic system of each contributing what they can and taking only what they need. In the end basic human greed and jealously will corrupt that system. To get to the story I found it a very compelling story and find it interesting on an anecdotal level and not statistical level. Yes, its very true that poor white Americans aren't all like Banks and Congolese are all like Dr. Kabamba what they do provide is interesting case studies. What this made me think of wasn't an argument about global capitalism but something in regard to my recent experience in New Orleans. About a month after the tsunami I went to Thailand and got to see first hand the recovery in Thailand and frankly from what I saw the clean up and recovery there about a month after tsunami had proceeded faster than what I saw four months after Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. What I also found troubling was that many of the same problems that I heard out of Thailand and Sri Lanka was plaguing New Orleans, lack of aid, confusion in regard to recovery and resettlement, and corruption. Considering how much of a richer country we are with supposedly a much cleaner government than the countries hit by the tsunami it was very dissapointing to see that we can't do a much better job than those countries.
Yes, it's a bit scattered - trying to cram too much into too little space. Yes, that is part of my point. I believe the modifications required to make capitalism equitable will necessarily change it so much that it will no longer be capitalism. Of course, one could argue that it already has been modified to that extent. The fact that capital is used to measure success or failure, and, on a wider scale, personal worth, is one of my primary problems with it. People are far too comfortable in accepting it as some sort of de facto standard for organization - and many believe in it the same as they would believe in a religion. I got a bit carried away, but originally my intention was just to counter the myth that American capitalism can function as an objective and accurate measure of who a person is. It's a myth that many find in their best interest to believe. How so? What are the definitions of a 'good job'? Hopefully this doesn't seem too pedantic, but there are so many underlying assumptions in a statement like this that its scope extends far beyond what one would expect from its brevity. I don't believe that capitalism has always been bad - but I do think it has run its course. The ancillary results from people pursuing the profit motive (mostly technological advancements) have become completely subsumed now under the profit motive. Capitalism easily frustrates as many, and probably more, desires than it harnesses. Since basic human greed and jealously can corrupt any system, why not have a system that takes that into account? Capitalism, in its infancy, never did - and now we're seeing the results. It worked well for a couple hundred years, in varying degrees but mostly beneficial ones. It has now become an impediment to the same goals it was intended to achieve in the first place.
Maybe if it was an earthquake in Brentwood or Beverly Hills, **** would've got done faster.... It's the Economist, my friend. Their main bias is as subtle as the invisible hand. It tries to portray both angle from that focus, though it usually draws criticism from vested interests for not including enough...and people do sound off in their letters saying so. I definitely believe that the US is a dynamic society that allows plenty of second chances. Does that fit the definition of a meritocracy? Well: Poor in America do not starve. But their relative poverty can hurt in other ways. To be poor in a meritocracy implies failure. Eastern Kentucky is one of America's least meritocratic enclaves, but failure still carries a stigma. Though few Americans say that the poor have only themselves to blame, many believe it. Many of the poor believe it, too. If I assume that Brits, who publishes the Economist, are the subtle type, that's a hard hitting statement. It exposes a subtle flaw with the current system many of us have bought into. I also think the cases are anecdotal. Banks isn't an idiot. He seems socially loony, but the article portrays him as inventive and skillful, traits any capitalist system would accept. I don't think the Economist is implying that the poor in America has to be truly poor. Maybe the reader could get the sense of ridiculous extraneous expenditures that poor Americans can now enjoy (and do). I personally don't see the piece as a "What's wrong with Mr. Banks, aka, the American poor?" article. Perhaps that's factored into my bias. What I definitely think what the Economist is getting at is that Americans have far greater chances and the personal potential to make something of it, whether its economic or communal gain. In the big picture, the American poor helps sustain the capitalist system for their unwillingness to accept their fate. Yet for the poor who do try and fail, what was the flaw in the system that made chronic failure possible? I assumed it was an introductory piece. It doesn't have to neatly answer the world of problems in the heads of people who know better.
