Make Poverty History

My point was that it's an exageration. This post, like much of what Akrasia posts, had the subtext that the only solution is some kind of wacked out anarcho-sydicalist, or god knows what, reordering of society a la the khemer rouge's year zero.

Yes, some redistribution of wealth is necessary to eradicate poverty -- though the argument being put forward lately is that this temporary redistribution would ultimately result in wealth growth for all because human (i.e. intellectual and labor) capital is wasted by the conditions that arise from poverty.

But to say that poverty will always exist as long as there are (very) wealthy people is patently absurd and demonstrably false. Sure, there will always be people who are relatively poorer than other people unless we achieve some end-of-history socialist paradise on Earth. But the point of this thread, I think, isn't that everyone has to have equal wealth, it's that we ought to get rid of poverty.

YAWG and Sknow: both of you are adhering to the zero-sum view of wealth the Akrasia is obsessed with (obsessed with, in the sense that if he abandons it, he has to abandon key planks in his belief system, meaning he isn't about to abandon it anytime soon). At any given instant in time, yes, there is a fixed amount of wealth, and the more of it you have the less I can have, but that's hardly enlightening. Wealth creation is a dynamic process involving the combination of labour, capital and entrepeneurialism, and in that light, it is simply NOT true that some people becoming wealthier implies that other people must become poorer. This is simply false.

(YAWG, you have also confusingly conflated income -- a flow variable -- and wealth -- a stock variable.)

Stiles: thank you for the Wikipedia link. It saves me from having to run around googling "Card and Krueger". Your response to peart is spot on -- get out of the intro class and do some advanced labour economics! The short answer is that the net effect of minimum wages is an EMPIRICAL question and assertions based on a simplistic labour-supply-and-demand diagram just do not cut it. The consensus from empirical work seems to be that marginal increases in the minimum wage result in minimal changes to employment (and unemployment), leading to some transfer "from capital to (low paid) labour", which if you're a crybaby liberal pussy like me sounds like an OK thing.

Of course, substantial increases in the minimum wage will result in serious pressure on employment, but I don't think such things are on the table.

It's also good to see stockula getting his facts straight, with verification, from time to time.

[Edited on Feb 07, 2005 by TheFuckOffKid]

Economics is one of those subjects that never really clicked for me. Every time I come up with an answer to a question, there seems to be 100 other things there to contradict it. My basic belief however, is that there is no way to eliminate poverty and that there will always be different economic classes. This is fine with me, as I don't think everyone posesses the same amount of intelligence, motivation, gumption etc. as everyone else and generally I think this is where the difference in class arises from. Yes, there are people who swindle their way to the top and make money off the backs of hard working individuals and yes, there are extremely intelligent, hard working people out there who simply never get a break in life and are victims of circumstance. But this isn't the main reason behind class difference imo. Generally, I believe you get what you give and if you really have the right spirit you will most likely succeed in the end. Not everyone makes the same amount because not everyone outputs the same amount (or holds a position with the same amount of importance or availibility), and I think thats how it should be. I believe the best system available is capitilism with a tilt to simply keep the lowest class from starving on the street. Thats what makes sense to me at the moment atleast, but I'm completely open to anything else anyone has to say.

Economics is one of those subjects where you see firsthand how it is possible to extract true conclusions from flawed assumptions.

Economics works on a large scale, but a lot of things in it just break down in real life.

Also note: From reading the above posts its pretty obvious i'm out of my league here and in comparison don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Forgive my ignorance (I only took high school econ). I'm trying to learn more I swear!

stockula, when I was there back in August (Sydney, New South Wales), the minimum wage had just been increased to $20 AUD an hour, with today's conversion rate meaning it's $15 (give or take a bit) USD.

Oh, and TFOK, yeah, I understand wealth creation (especially in these days of intellectual property), but was just trying to make a general point using mercantilism (which, really, is still the basis of economy).

Were talking Global Poverty here.

Raising Global minimum wage means there are no other places for companies to relocate for cheap labor. Fucking Fair trade. No fucking out sourced sweat shops. and EU subsidies. US import taxes on bloody everything. and definately no World Bank (who by the way force lower min wage)

The problem goes beyond minimum wage. You cant live on minimum wage here in the UK so it means shit worldwide.

(i wish they let me swear in lectures.)

Yeah, I find it really interesting how people are able to make money off of the disparity of income between countries. Like the outsourcing of tech support, or having things assembled in other countries where labor is cheap, and sold in countries where labor is expensive.

Sknow, my bad -- do you have a source? I clearly haven't followed this closely enough, but stockula's link looks several years out of date. ($15US sounded high to me too. I obviously wasn't paying attention in August, although I was out of the country for a bit around that time. Yeah, that's what happened! )

I understand mercantilism to be a doctrine about trade, and (put simply) using exports to earn gold, where gold becomes the measure of your accumulated wealth.

One of Adam Smith's central contributions was to challenge this view and point out that the whole benefit of exporting was that you could then import goods and services from elsewhere, which was what it was all about -- hoarding gold for its own sake was of no particular use to anyone.

Hence, I"m not sure what you mean when you say mercantilism is the basis for the economy. I suspect it's not central to the discussion anyway, so I'm not about to press the point, but that's why I'm puzzled anyway ...

Yeah man!! Right on!! Fuck those fucking third world fuckers!

That's what you're saying, right? Er, right?

[Edited on Feb 07, 2005 by TheFuckOffKid]

TFOK, I got a link that's out of date here too by about two months earlier than when I asked the International office at the University of Technology Sydney. The second article down you have to pay for but in the summary it says that the minimum wage was increased to $19.

Here is the link: Minimum Wage Second One Down

I'm trying to find a more recent quote but this is the best for now. Yeah, the ACTU hasn't updated that page in three years (look at the copyright at the bottom).

And yeah, forget the mercantilism thing...

[Edited on Feb 06, 2005 by Sknow]

The minimum wage rose by 70% in 2 years? There's only one reason it could climb so rapidly, and I dont think Australia has a problem with inflation. That I've read about, anyway.

My guess is that you're confusing union jobs with ordinary, non-union jobs.

"only one reason" doesn't include at least two I can think of:
- idealism;
- manifesto commitment;
- it being a recent introduction (as in the UK), with more recent data suggesting it was set too low;
- public opinion. (That might even count as democratic...)

But I think what you're actually trying to do is slander unions.

[Edited on Feb 06, 2005 by waldo]

Man, the people at General Pants Co. and Billabong were in a union, as were the students at UTS who worked for the school. But yes, that may be the case.

[Edited on Feb 06, 2005 by Sknow]

So it's a question of changing the income flow? Like a guaranteed income that would be based on the wealth that is created by a country.

edited because I can't spell. But I can spiel.

[Edited on Feb 06, 2005 by YAWG]