The editors of the Washington Post lament that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is impoverishing the world:
IT IS NO exaggeration to say that the years since the Cold War’s end have been something of a golden age for poverty eradication around the world. Thanks in part to reforms in China and India, as well as direct investment and aid from developed countries, economic growth has reduced the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty — defined by the World Bank as an income of $1.90 per day or less — from 36 percent of the world’s population to 9.2 percent in 2017.
Now, tragically, the deep global recession due to the coronavirus pandemic has brought at least a temporary halt to the progress. The World Bank announced Wednesday that its latest estimates show a likely increase of 88 million to 115 million people to the ranks of the world’s poorest by the end of 2020. Accordingly, between 703 million and 729 million people will be trying to get by on $1.90 or less per day, in contrast to the institution’s pre-pandemic estimate of 615 million. This is a bleaker picture than the one presented in a recent Gates Foundation report, which showed that extreme poverty would grow by 37 million people. The main point, though, is that both sources show the numbers headed in the wrong direction — backward.
I have been warning of this for months but the editors are characterizing the situation incorrectly. COVID-19 has not halted the progress against poverty. What has had that effect is the strategy of lockdowns, particularly by the richer countries of Europe and North America, to slow the spread of the virus. If we want to reduce the impact of that strategy on the poor countries of the world, the best thing we can do is avoid returning to the lockdowns of six months ago and fully reopen our economy as quickly as possible.
While I’m on the subject here are the measures I think are most needed to end world poverty:
- End U. S. agricultural subsidies
- Reduce or eliminate the dependency of U. S. corporate supply chains on China
- Better government in the global South
Increased food aid might help in the short run but it won’t do anything to end poverty in the long run.
“COVID-19 has not halted the progress against poverty. What has had that effect is the strategy of lockdowns, particularly by the richer countries of Europe and North America….”
Overly nuanced. The WaPo lies. Period, full stop. Blame COVID, not their advocated policy.
However, the WHO was clear, we have not considered the cost benefit of the lockdown strategy. (Better late than never) There are people on this blog who have pointed that out; others with their head in t…….uh, the sand.
Next comes the efficacy of masks. So pointless and avoidable.
Government subsidies for ANYTHING ought to be eliminated. As it is they are mainly wealth transfers from the poor to the rich.
We are in agreement concerning China and trade.
Better governance in the Southern Hemisphere that’s not part of the Anglosphere ain’t gonna happen until the political factions stop considering government to be a fief instead of a service to their constituents. And IMO that ain’t gonna happen either.
People leaving subsistence agriculture in China has eliminated more poverty than all anti-poverty measures implemented by Western governments put together. What is the net effect of our agricultural subsidies and government policies in the global south? Encouraging the continuation of subsistence agriculture.
I am certainly hoping we can avoid any more lockdowns. Wearing masks (the literature shows they are pretty effective), distancing and avoiding large indoor groups looks like we could achieve most of what we need. Locally, we are seeing an uptick with a lot of this seeming to relate to kids going back to school.
Steve
Encouraging the continuation of subsistence agriculture.
That’s a pretty fair description of how we grew up.
Indoor plumbing , a furnace or air conditioning would have been nice. We never had all we wanted to eat but didn’t starve and no one was overweight.
We traded eggs for groceries, raised a steer a year for meat.
Chickens, ducks, a few pigs, kept four milk cows, drank their milk and sold their cream.
Raised 140 acres of dry land corn, wheat, and milo. Fourty percent of that went to the landowner .
Mother and father had part time hourly jobs off the farm, we did too, soon as we turned 16 and could drive.
We never thought of ourselves as poor, always voted Republican, put money in the church envelope, went to school regularly and took a bath every Saturday.
But we never had to worry about drug runners, kidnappers, burglaries, corrupt cops, Indian agents or revenues.
I’ve never been to central or South America, but I suspect that if they had stability, security, and faith that they would be able to keep what they earn they’d do OK.
That we had these things was not the result of strong government or active policing,
we policed ourselves.
Half a dozen varieties of Protestant churches in town all seemed to be able to instill an aversion to shame in most people. God was real. Awake and aware. And we were aware of him.
Why doesn’t this work in devoutly Catholic Central America and Mexico?
Don’t say it’s America’s appetite for drugs, I could have made a lot of money selling drugs too, I would never think of it.
Because it’s wrong.
Because it’s shameful.
‘Why doesn’t this work in devoutly Catholic Central America and Mexico?
Don’t say it’s America’s appetite for drugs, I could have made a lot of money selling drugs too, I would never think of it.’
It’s a completely different culture than ours in Central and South America, thanks to the insular feudalistic priest-ridden culture of the Hispanic colonizing nations and the top-down viceregal mercantilist model of governance they put in place, still all-to-frequently emulated today despite a gilding of democratic forms of government. Authoritarian and bureaucratic in nature as opposed to the (former) Anglospheric tendency towards local popularly-derived self-government blessed from above. License rather than liberty. You are permitted to, not prohibited from. Where civil authority is weak semi-feudal family fiefdoms operating on the same principles take the place of the central government (and not just in outlying parts of the country).
Bureaucracies grow rules like rain grows weeds, but since they never can afford enough police to do more than selectively and too-frequently preferentially enforce them what you get is endemic corruption combined with wide-spread contempt for civil authority. As a result illegal activity is frequently considered by the populace to be legitimate enterprise. There is also considerable resentment towards the oh-so-superior and bullying Norteamericanos who many look at as legitimate prey. The vast riches derived from contraband sales in the US has simply accelerated a turn towards a refeudalization of our southern neighbors.
I would also point out that differences between cultures can go very deep. In particular the prevailing family structures in Central and South America are distinctly different from those prevailing in the U. S. or Western Europe.
I know this close up from family history. My great-grandfather Schuler attempted to maintain the traditional Swiss family structure here in the U. S. and that produced some pretty odd results, particularly after his death.
Also, real subsistence agriculture is even more hard scrabble than the childhood you described, GS. What you described was wealthy in comparison to the subsistence agriculture of China or sub-Saharan agriculture.
even more hard scrabble
And always will be, less they change their way.
Admiring the problem?
”It’s a completely different culture than ours in Central and South America,”
Fault of Europeans.
So, build that wall. These people are monsters