[davmar]

If the capitalist mindset you described were accurate, then we would have the kind of society you described because we’ve had a very capitalist economy from the start. But that’s not what we see, so unfortunately what you assert cannot be true.

However, you’re right that we live in capitalism. And it creates child poverty.

[h0l0cube]

I'm couching a problem in a capitalist frame, I made no assertion that we live in a perfectly capitalist economy. The irony is that China understands the economic value of quality of life better than the US, with the latter making a lot of fuss about the primacy of economy in decision making.

[seanmcdirmid]

> China understands the economic value of quality of life better than the US

I don’t get what you mean, quality of life can be really low in China (eg no indoor heat in southern China in the winter mean the girls selling snacks at the train station are wearing jackets and gloves while still freezing), but people put up with it.

[h0l0cube]

I might be naive here, but to my understanding the vast majority have access to housing and quality education in comparison to the US?

[seanmcdirmid]

Nope, you are being naive. Compulsory education only goes through the 8th grade, so many (40-60%) don’t have a high school education, let alone a quality education (if from the rural area, your school will suck, and the hukou system means you might not be able to get an education at all in the city your family moved to to make money).

China doesn’t technically have homeless people since many of the grifters in their cities have land back home (again, because of the hukou system, your home is hard to change). However, they migrate to cities to try and not starve to death, and might wind up sleeping under an underpass (or somewhere the police can’t find them, to avoid getting beaten). A lot of people who are poor but still have money live in basement rooms (no window, would be illegal in the USA, it’s actually illegal in China as well but rule of law is not a Chinese thing), see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_tribe.

Middle class Chinese do well, but they are just a small part of a country with 1.4 billion people. Not everyone lives like they were from Shanghai.

[h0l0cube]

Fair call. You seem to know more than I do

[davmar]

So you're saying that if we did live under perfect capitalism, these problems wouldn't exist. But it's impossible to live under perfect anything, so it seems that instead of trying to become more capitalist, we ought to pick the system that works best while imperfect. Today I handed out survival kits at a homeless encampment. People are cold, tired and hungry. Child poverty, homelessness....this system is not working.

Anyway agreed on China. They've pulled 800 million people out of poverty.

[h0l0cube]

> So you're saying that if we did live under perfect capitalism, these problems wouldn't exist

Nope. But going back to my OP, I think this is a sound rationale for someone of a capitalist mindset to support welfare. It's fair to say that a capitalist society with perfectly rational actors does not exist. Its also quite possible that there are rational counterpoints within the capitalist frame that completely invalidate my argument - but I haven't seen that yet in this thread.

> Today I handed out survival kits at a homeless encampment. People are cold, tired and hungry. Child poverty, homelessness....this system is not working.

I agree.

Disclaimer: I think that unchecked capitalism is wrong, not just because humans are irrational actors, but that it's immoral for humans to serve an economy instead of the economy serving humans. The latter requires broad geopolitical intervention and the global will of people to hold their governments to account. But we always must remember that economies are human constructs, and one that can be changed with enough motivation.

[mensetmanusman]

China did this by becoming more capitalistic and interacting with the whole world. Many countries like India also eliminated hundreds of millions of cases of poverty, and it didn’t require forced sterilizations or a dictator.

[xyzzyz]

> However, you’re right that we live in capitalism. And it creates child poverty

You don’t have to create child poverty, as child poverty is the natural state of nature.

[h0l0cube]

The 'natural state of nature' is pre-civilisation, where the definition of poverty doesn't really make sense. Everything since the dawn of the civilisation is our own artifice, including the economic systems that we have become subservient to.

[zaroth]

That [some] child poverty exists in a capitalist society does not mean that capitalism creates child poverty.

[heavyset_go]

You can say the same thing about feudalism and the conditions of those who lived under it.

[troupe]

If we kept the threshold for poverty at the same threshold it was 200 years ago, we'd probably say that capitalism reduces poverty. But as the standard of living moves upward, the threshold for poverty moves up too.

[h0l0cube]

Poverty (in addition to staggering population increase) is a consequence of mercantilism and civilisation, thus recent technological advances in quality life that reduce poverty are bringing those people back to square one. It's hard to say if those technological advances would not have emerged under alternative economies.

Edit: Communist countries did have extensive well-functioning public health care systems (Cuba is an extant example) but that has to be balanced with the central planning in some larger communist states (namely China/Russia) that caused unprecedented famine and misery. Perhaps in an alternate timeline, if communist states weren't living in a world that was economically hostile (sanctions etc.) they might have thrived and focused on quality of life as a technology driver