[James_K]

Pick a metric, it really doesn't matter. The claim that western economic systems are presently lifting people out of poverty is absurd, and my point is that China is responsible for the decreases in global poverty that have taken place over the last decades. Both of these facts are relatively uncontested.

[maxerickson]

Yes, in recent decades the US has barely had the sort of poverty that China has been eliminating, so it hasn't really made any progress against it.

I think it would add a lot of clarity to your comparison to name the metrics you are using.

[James_K]

I wasn't really intending to compare the countries. Just to point out that something which was being attributed to America (a decrease in poverty) was actually happening because of China.

[alisonatwork]

This doesn't make sense. If your point is that global poverty is decreasing because people in China are moving from subsistence farming to factory jobs, then the people ultimately doing the "lifting" are the ones buying the products the Chinese factories are producing, i.e. not Chinese people.

But that point is a couple decades out of date by now and even then the situation was more complex than just "people in rich countries want cheap products, people in poor countries make them, therefore people in poor countries get richer, and people in rich countries get poorer".

[James_K]

> then the people ultimately doing the "lifting" are the ones buying the products the Chinese factories are producing

You know money is just paper, right? When we give China paper in return for something of value from their country, that is a bad deal for them unless they can trade the paper and get some actual good in return. China runs a trade surplus, which means they give away more than they get back, so it is actually a bad deal for them. It's one that makes their country poorer because they are giving away more than they get back. Almost all economists agree that China's trade surplus is bad for its economy, is even worse for its citizens, and should be reduced.

People in China were lifted out of poverty through the creation of manufacturing centres. These cities and factories were built by the Chinese, not by the west. It is ridiculous for us to try and take credit for their advancement when all we have done is exploit them.

[maxerickson]

Fascinating.

[philwelch]

It's Western economies that lifted China out of poverty in the first place. China's economic development was built on the foundation of being a cheap sweatshop for the Western world. We'll see how well they navigate the middle-income position they've managed to reach in the coming years.