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0 pointsBurningFrog7y ago0 comments

> They differ by methods, but little by outcome.

They differ they same way rape and regular sex does: By consent.

Sure, to an outsider watching it can look very similar. But it's not.

Our grandparents were probably just as poor as the third world laborers are today. They were allowed to work their way up and build prosperous countries. The third world is well on their way doing the same.

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groby_b7y ago· 2 in thread

They don't differ by consent. You might want to read up on how workers in the third world are actually treated.

And no, our grandparents weren't close to as poor. And the reason they got to live in prosperous countries is that those prosperous countries exploited the shit out of poorer countries. (For an example: Britain extracted ~$45 trillion from India during colonial rule)

Third world labor exploitation is continuation of colonialism by other means, free market apologists notwithstanding.

BurningFrogOP7y ago

A slave and a poor free man working equally hard look exactly the same, and differ only by consent. The difference is hard to tell for rich people, but poor people are very clear on it.

I strongly disagree with your history telling!

Before industrialism, the whole world was poorer than the third world is today. Britain didn't get rich from plundering India or anywhere else, in part because there wasn't much to take. Every country was dirt poor by current standards.

In the last ~250 years industrialism and capitalism created wealth through inventions, industrialization and hard work. Now more than half the world is rich. China is already a medium income country, after having been desperately poor only 30 years ago. India isn't far behind.

Some pockets of real poverty remain, but the world will run out of poor people a few decades, unless trends take a serious turn for the worst. None of this depends on exploiting poor countries. Quite the opposite. The more advanced countries there are to trade with, the better off everyone is.

groby_b7y ago

You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

Starting wage in the US, 1931: $820/year[1]. Even without inflation adjustment, there are currently 21 countries with less than that as gross national income[2] (which is higher than starting wages)

On the $45 trillion, the original research is in book form, but try [3][4]

For the US stealing from South America, try reading up on the "Banana Wars"[5]. Far from the only thing, but it's well documented and somewhat more widely known.

As for running out of poverty, go for climate refugees - there's a good chance there'll be 1 billion of them in a few decades[6]. And, fwiw, this already plays a large part in the mediterranean migrant crisis right now.

Oh, and as for the idea that slavery doesn't exist: 35 million people, roughly[7]. And that's not accounting for wage slavery and debtors prisons that just happen to loan out workers.

Laissez-faire capitalism is far from an unmitigated good. In fact, except for the people holding the capital, it's an unmitigated disaster.

[1] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112032654953;v... [2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-lowes... [3] https://www.globalresearch.ca/legacy-of-colonialism-britain-... [4] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/britain-stole-45-t... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars [6] https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-migrants-might-re... [7] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/the-horrors-of-modern...

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