My grandfather was born in 1886. At that time 72 percent of humanity lived in “extreme poverty.” In “Relative Poverty” —85 percent—were those who “from the social perspective have a much lower living standard compared to the economic standards of the surrounding population. This is a measure of income inequality.”
Karl Marx, who died in 1883, wrote that poverty was caused by capitalism. He was wrong.
Steven Pinker is one of the world’s leading authorities on language and psycholinguistics. In The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined he writes that prior to the Industrial Revolution and “capitalism,” “The murder rate in medieval Europe was more than 30 times what it is today.”
Marian L. Tupy, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity: “For most of human history, life was very difficult for most people. People died young. People with ailments spent their lives in agonizing pain. Entire families lived in bug‐infested dwellings that offered neither comfort nor privacy. They worked in the fields from sunrise to sunset, yet hunger and famines were commonplace.”
Marx never lived to see that between 1820 and 1914, real or inflation‐adjusted income per person rose by 127 percent in Western Europe. In Great Britain, life expectancy at birth rose from 41 years in 1818 to 52 years in 1914. The 20th century saw the greatest improvement in human living conditions in any 100-year period in history.
About 9 percent of the world (700 million) now lives in extreme poverty. And if you eliminate the most god-forsaken poverty areas on the planet—South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Central African Republic—the percentage falls by one third.
But as much as governments say they “hate” poverty, they “love” poor people more. The poor are the greatest political weapons ever invented. Almost anything done by government can be justified in the name of “helping the poor.”
September 22, 2021: “United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres blasted private space flights as indicative of global wealth inequality in a grim opening speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday. “Billionaires joyride to space while millions go hungry on Earth.”
Who could disagree with that? By July 2014, Jeff Bezos had invested over $500 million of his own money into Blue Origin and has been spending $1 billion a year since then.
However, the total of all contributions to the United Nations that Mr. Guterres oversees could instantly reduce the number in “extreme poverty” by 10 percent. The US is by far the largest contributor to the UN with $675 million. Yet, even that amount is only a “rounding error” on the US annual government budget of $4.1 trillion.
But to hear Mr. Guterres talk, global hunger and poverty would be gone if not for Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos.
Governments “hate” poverty and “love” poor people. Or is it the other way around as to what and whom they love and hate?
The story is the same around the world regardless of the form of government and the type of the economy. A small percentage of people control the overwhelming majority of the wealth and a small percentage of the wealth are at the very bottom. The few nations that have the lowest wealth inequality all have populations between 5 and 10 million. The countries with the highest wealth inequality are Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, US, Brazil, Thailand and Denmark.
The King to his Middle-Class Subjects: “I know you’re upset about some of my tax policies. But rest assured it is all because we have to support the homeless shelter.” The King to the Queen: “Politics 101: Blame the poor.”
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.