Capitalism vs Welfare : the error?

TV interview with Greta Thunberg today. Interviewer says that Capitalism has lifted billions out of Poverty.

It seems that Capitalism is linked by some to human welfare, even if it is detrimental to the environment.

Intuitively this seems wrong. If Capitalism is so essential to human welfare then how did humans survive before it? And while humans survived before Capitalism, the planet cannot survive with Capitalism.

An initial look suggests that we should get rid of Capitalism.

Everyone is agreed that Capitalism is bad for the planet. The only possible escape is that somehow Capitalism can be changed to be good for the planet. The principles of Capitalism are the opposite of the principles of environmental concern. You cannot turn a wolf into a sheep. So this looks like the least fruitful approach.

The debate remains then whether Capitalism has been good for humans.

As argued many times in this blog Wealth is Relative and this leads to a paradox. Growth actually leads to poverty. The reason is that the future makes the past look poor. And if people in the future think we are poor today then how does that feel? It feels okay.

The blog has concluded that Poverty is not absolute. Even in Auschwitz Victor Frankl observed a hierarchy of poverty so that happiness was present for the now tiniest blessings. I can't remember the details but its easy to see how a bigger bowl of soup at the end of the day "from the bottom" rather than the watery liquid that was usual would feel like a banquet.

The blog argued at one point whether there was an absolute level of poverty. But this is hard to justify. Even amongst the dying a quick painless death is a luxury compared with a painful slow death.

All things are relative.

So has Capitalism raised people out of poverty?

Yes, financially at least it has. The number of people living in "extreme poverty" has rapidly fallen in the last 40 years (mostly due to changes in China).

It is pretty impressive that "extreme poverty" has been virtually eradicated.

Firstly this is clearly the result of Machines and this leads directly into the environmental debate. Machines need fuel and the primary fuel is fossil fuel which creates CO2. The levels of CO2 are directly related to the running of machines. 

Now its more complicated than this as lots of technological advances have also happened like improved crop yields through breeding and now genetic modification.

This is all very much Science however not Capitalism. Humans have had the capability for invention forever its not just something that happens in Capitalism. So Capitalism is rather stealing something that doesn't belong to it. Again if Capitalism was needed for life then humans would never have survived the millions of years its taken to get to Capitalism.

One story to illustrate where Capitalism prospered where other systems failed was the creation of new crops. Under original socialist theory humans were the product of society. All the ills of humans could be traced to society. Especially hated was Aristocracy and Feudalism and the idea that people inherited wealth and titles. Its odd how the West has very gradually and carefully adopted these ideas so that now you can chose almost anything like Sex and Gender with no regard for your genes. But the West is reluctant to complete create a flat society free from inherited wealth and status. Not so socialist countries. But this social justice rather backfired in Russia because it meant that Stalin was ideologically opposed to funding breeding programs for better crops. He had world leading scientists on the verge of fundamental break throughs but the support was cut. This opened the door to the Capitalism who while out bombing the planet found a variety of wheat in Vietnam I think which became the basis of a new super wheat. So its very interesting how the various ideologies of the world be that Capitalism or Socialism feed into Science. But Science itself is the driver here and this is independent of Capitalism. 

The second thing is how did they get into "extreme poverty." Have humans always lived in "extreme poverty?" How can a species have evolved to be so miserable all the time? Species evolve to match their environment. How could humans be so poorly adapted? A worm is "happy" being a worm, and human should be "happy" being a human. Something is wrong here.

When you travel into the Outback of Australia or into the jungles of South America and you meet people who have evolved to love there they are happy. I remember reading an account of Afghanistan and the journalist was lamenting that the kids playing happily in the fields would have to grow up to live under the oppression of the Taliban. How strange that kids without XBoxes or iPhones or the latest highstreet fashions or even a full meal of McDonalds and fries could be happy? How odd is that.

Humans evolved to be happy. So something has gone wrong if they are not happy. And if "extreme poverty" means unhappy then something has gone wrong.

Well I suspect and I don't get know the answer for sure but if you look at History the most notable thing about the last 300 years is Capitalism/Imperialism. Imperialism is just overseas Capitalism where investors pay people to take over countries and mobilise their resources for profit. All the countries of the world with the few famous exceptions like Russia, China etc have been colonised and the people forced of the land so that Capitalists can take over industry and secure profits. The result of course was mass poverty. Famous examples of the extremes of poverty that Capitalism caused are the many Bengal Famines the most famous being the Bengal Famines of 1943 where millions of people were left by Churchill to starve to death "they deserve it for breeding like rabbits" Churchill is reported to have said. Such is the real nature of Imperialism and Capitalism.

So it seems to me that the "poverty" people are being brought out of is actually the fault of Capitalism itself. Trickle Down Economics if you like. The global Capitalists are so unbelievably wealthy today that even the crumbs that fall off the table are enough to bring the world out of poverty.

Now one interesting country is China that has not been colonised. Extreme Poverty in China has fallen from 88% in 1981 to 0.7% in 2015 (as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms). Certainly the Capitalist economics of the last 40 years has put money in people's pockets.

But this appears to conflict with other issues. I heard from a farmer who travelled regularly to China on business that the spread of Capitalism and intensive monoculture was destroying traditional farming techniques. The problem is that while yields on these farms are huge, to be profitable they only cultivate certain soils. And putting traditional farmers out of business the huge areas that were once cultivated are now falling into disuse. He thought that the overall food production had fallen, but worse instead of cultivating perhaps 100s of different plants the majority of plants in Chinese farms are now cash crop monocultures and extremely vulnerable to disease. It may be that there is more money, but on the plate how has Chinese food benefitted?

#TODO discover the actual on the ground changes that Chinese have seen rather than buying power.

The other thing to consider is these changes in the context of China. Like Russia it was a feudal system before the Communist Revolution and people lived in farms controlled by aristocrats. England was like this after the Norman Conquest if 1066 and it took centuries for England to emerge as a "modern" nation. China's evolution into a "modern" nation is still in its infancy and I'm wondering whether assuming it is just "catching up with England" is a realistic idea. How do we know whether the Industrialisation of China in the last 40 years is really "Capitalism" or is it just the use of more machines. #TODO

The other thing to look and the most important thing, is Happiness Studies. "Money cannot buy happiness" so dollars in your pocket may be of no use if you just spend them on drugs like much of the US. Is China actually better off for having more dollars? #TODO

I'm assuming here that "extreme poverty" is a meaningful measure. Many monastics chose to live in what is extreme poverty because they recognise that this is the way to true happiness. Its a complex equation.

Anyway there are many reasons to doubt that Capitalism actually makes people any better off.

And unless Capitalism can be proven to be essential to human welfare (which obviously it isn't cos humans lived without before) then its damage to the environment is the most important thing about Capitalism.

There is then the argument that Capitalism is actually bad for people and those extra dollars in the pocket have a personal cost attached to them that is not worth it.

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From a biological perspective the ultimate measure of a countries economic and welfare status is the fertility and population. A country of famines and hardship is not a country able to grow in population. People are hungry and infant mortality is high.

It requires explaining then how the Communist Revolution in 1949 in China led to a very sudden increase in population. Much is said about famines and the failures of Communism but the complete opposite seems to be the case. People had more food and welfare and were clearly able to breed better.

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