[andrepd]

>The trend is the same regardless of which poverty line you pick. Poverty is decreasing, education, literacy and health are rising.

The story changes quite a bit - and you know it. If we use $7.40 per day, we see a decline in the proportion of people living in poverty, but it’s not nearly as dramatic as your rosy narrative would have it. In 1981 a staggering 71% lived in poverty. Today it hovers at 58% (for 2013, the most recent data). Suddenly your grand story of progress seems tepid, mediocre, and – in a world that’s as fabulously rich as ours – completely obscene.

[barry-cotter]

You say that African poverty is obscene, and it is. But that obscenity is not for a lack of effort to help. Aid has been a constant in Africa and in other formerly more dreadfully poor places since WWII when the Soviet Union and the US sought to buy influence and it’s never stopped. Development aid hasn’t helped Africa much though it has far, far surpassed aid to Europe after WWII. Absent colonialism you need a functioning state if you’re going to help. Aid doesn’t work unless the government does. Ghana was richer than South Jorea in 1951. Now Ghana looks promising, like maybe it will develop over he next thirty years but South Korea is developed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/opinion/the-politics-of-a...

> By comparison, Africa is already relatively flooded with aid. The continent as a whole receives development assistance worth almost 8 percent of its gross domestic product. Exclude South Africa and Nigeria, and aid jumps to more than 13 percent of GDP — or more than four times the Marshall Plan at its height — for the other 46 African countries.

[dahart]

The quote you replied to is referring to global poverty, not Africa specifically. And maybe you missed that it’s a quote from Hickel straight out of the article.

[LUmBULtERA]

A global decline from 71% to 58% over 30 years would be tepid and mediocre? In the scheme of the history of the human race? This is subjective, of course, but if $7.40/day is the standard, this looks like significant progress relative to our history.

[sonnyblarney]

"in a world that’s as fabulously rich as ours, obscene"

???

Wealth is mostly a function of intelligent social organization.

Why are we so much more vastly wealthy than we were 100 years go? Just because we pump more gas? No - we're smarter.

Wealth is what a country generates, not what it has.

It's not like a 'pile of gold' that we have that magically turns into iPhones.

Most places that have extreme poverty are rife with systematic problems. Total lack of social organization on most levels, corruption, missing or 'never existed' institutions (education, justice, civic etc.). Lack of literacy, education. An absent, stupid or corrupt elite. Etc. etc.

Swedes don't have any real natural resources, not particularly fertile land. They are 'rich' because they are organized.

It's a very hard thing to 'pass on' to other places.

[cuspycode]

Swedes have lots of real natural resources. Check your facts.

[sonnyblarney]

My facts are correct.

Natural Resources comprise of less than 1% of Sweden's GDP.

Here is a map [1] where you can see the % GDP comprising of Natural Resources by nation.

Notice that the wealthiest nations tend to derive almost no value from the export of natural resources. They are creating value added products and services, which is what intelligently organized people do.

[1] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/NY.GDP.TOTL.RT.Z...