this is very important. For 10 years now we've been fed a lie that "capitalism" is causing massive reductions in global poverty. In fact global poverty has been getting worse. Now COVID is making the debacle precipitous .@jasonhickel
on a personal note, I might add I've got incessant attacks, personal targeting, & abuse when I once asked who was out there countering the triumphalist narrative - by people who said I had fallaciously presumed my conclusions 2/
I'd never seen anything like it since I once signed a petition against some guy who was trying to bring back "race science" - or once when I annoyed Jacobin, who use similar wolf-pack tactics borrowed from the right - it was continual & virulent 3/
in fact, I'd been working with anti-poverty groups in the global south for over 20 years, had lived in one very poor country for years, if the triumphalist narrative contradicted what everyone I knew had been saying, I had every reason to assume there was another narrative 4/
but these guys were so insane they actually edited my wikipedia page to say that I was caught admitting bias on this issue, despite the fact they were the ones guilty of presuming their conclusions since they had no idea & didn't asked what the basis of my skepticism was 5/
in fact, as .@jasonhickel elaborately demonstrated, the World Bank came under huge pressure to change the poverty line to something that could look like things were improving; if you choose almost any other number, things are clearly getting worse 6/
even then, things are basically only getting better in 1 country, China, w an enormous population, & most of that positive change was in a single decade. That was BEFORE covid-19 started causing actual starvation & let's not even talk about the coming effects of climate change 7/
back in 2000, when that was the instant response to Global Justice Movement e.g. from The Economist: "free trade policies are great for the poor, if the activists stop structural adjustment that's literally killing the poor it'll cause everyone to become even poorer." 8/
this is course implied the poor, and all the organisations they'd created in the global south, were stupid & didn't know what was good for them (but Warren Buffet did) - but in fact, those movements were successful in blocking new trade agreements, structural adjustment halted 9/
so the new line was "any resulting improvement isn't because the poor self-organised to stop those policies, it's because of the policies themselves! Capitalism is making everyone rich!" Even then they had to largely cook the books be able to make the case 10/
but it's very clear there'a a huge investment in maintaining this illusion when you look at the virulent wolf-pack-like reaction that occurs when you cast doubt on it in any way. Interesting to speculate why, 11/
