OXFAM: "100 richest people could end world poverty"

[ecoli73]

David, most republic fail for other reasons than social injustice. For example, the Roman republic failed not because of the injustices of the Roman society. Rather it fell because the Senate failed early on to create a national army loyal to the State(the senate); that resulted in private funding of legions that are loyal to their pay master; and thus given rise to men like Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar.

As for the fall of Chinese dynasties, the seed of failure was not rich/poor disparities; but rather a refusal to modernize. That seed of destruction was laid in about a couple of hundred of years before Qing actually fell. The collapse of the economy was due to the lack of technology to resist foreign advancements and unfair trades resulting from that.

Instead, if China followed Japanese example and modernized, it would have been an entirely different 19th and 20th century in China.

 

[ecoli73]

Knowing and organizing are different things.

What's your point? That things in China are / will remain stable and happy?

We're still cleaning up the (environmental, social, financial) messes of our industrial revolution... The experience of the US should be viewed as a cautionary tale vs. smug finger pointing...

Matt

Most Chinese do not want major social unrest or any attempt to overthrow the current system. We would much rather reform gradually; this is natural given that our families and friends actually live there. Have you seen on Chinese TV exposes of real government corruption cases? No? How about consumer watchdog shows? Do you know those shows actually exist, in China? Have you actually watched any Chinese TV? Or does your knowledge of China only consists of CNN and Fox?

 

[dogofwar]

Of course people don't want major social unrest. They want to live their lives... not have them turned upside down. That doesn't mean that people have or will be satisfied with bad conditions.

Are you saying that the media is free and open in China? The watchdog group Reporters without Borders ranked China 174 out of 179 countries in its 2012 worldwide index of press freedom. I can't say I watch much Chinese TV but I try to learn what I can (like this report from the Center on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515).

Maybe I'm still missing your point...

Matt

Most Chinese do not want major social unrest or any attempt to overthrow the current system. We would much rather reform gradually; this is natural given that our families and friends actually live there. Have you seen on Chinese TV exposes of real government corruption cases? No? How about consumer watchdog shows? Do you know those shows actually exist, in China? Have you actually watched any Chinese TV? Or does your knowledge of China only consists of CNN and Fox?

 

[Miguel]

Ecoly, i understand your point and would like to stress that no one is 'attacking" China. But i am sure that as the masses of, say India, start feeling empowered ( they were/ are almost inexistant, yet ) they will want more, be it social state, be it the right to have higher salaries or subsidies, be it the right to have a car or two, or television set in any room ( all societies go the same way ) of any house they own or feel entitled to own.

Of course the mood is more upbeat in China. They are on the rise. We, in the west, are on the low. We've been there, saw that, and are irrevocably loosing it because there simply are no conditions to maintain it.

It is a change in paradigm, but, imho, human naturee is unchangeable and, sorry to say, inherently bad.

 

[ecoli73]

Of course people don't want major social unrest. They want to live their lives... not have them turned upside down. That doesn't mean that people have or will be satisfied with bad conditions.

Are you saying that the media is free and open in China? The watchdog group Reporters without Borders ranked China 174 out of 179 countries in its 2012 worldwide index of press freedom. I can't say I watch much Chinese TV but I try to learn what I can (like this report from the Center on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515).

Maybe I'm still missing your point...

Matt

TV in China is not open, but it is much more open than before. From someone who travels between US and China constantly and have families on both side, more and more I view the words and true motivations of NGOs like Reporters without Borders etc with larger and larger amounts of salt...enough I think to treat ich.

 

[dogofwar]

So this is just made up?

From: http://en.rsf.org/report-china,57.html

China is the world’s biggest prison for journalists, bloggers and cyber-dissidents. Most of the around one hundred prisoners have been sentenced to long jail sentences for “subversion” or “divulging state secrets” and are held in harsh conditions, with journalists often being put to forced labour. The local authorities, fearful of bad publicity from reports on corruption and nepotism, continue to arrest journalists.

For their part, the political police concentrate their efforts on human rights activists. First dissident Hu Jia then academic Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced in December 2009 to a long prison term for online posts, were imprisoned for their involvement in the launch of Charter 08 that was signed by thousands of pro-democracy activists. More than one hundred of the signatories have been arrested, threatened or summoned by the political police from one end of the country to the other.

The communist party has marshalled massive financial and human resources to keep control over news. Most international radio news programmes in Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur are scrambled via hundreds of aerials positioned throughout the country. Thousands of websites are blocked and tens of thousands of cyber-police and cyber-censors constantly monitor the Web to purge it of “immoral and subversive” content. All this while the government bolsters its propaganda output by throwing money at a multiplicity of official media, particularly the Xinhua news agency and the broadcast group CCTV.

...we're getting pretty far from the OP's topic by the way...

Matt

TV in China is not open, but it is much more open than before. From someone who travels between US and China constantly and have families on both side, more and more I view the words and true motivations of NGOs like Reporters without Borders etc with larger and larger amounts of salt...enough I think to treat ich.

 

[Miguel]

Yep..

Let us get back on topic, please.

 

[David R]

but, imho, human naturee is unchangeable and, sorry to say, inherently bad.

Couldn't agree more. IMO there are a lot of naive westerners still trying to "feed the world" rather than look at a long-term sustainable population level. The UN wants to cure Aids and poverty in Africa, if you look at how many people die of Aids then imagine them all living and reproducing it seems the two goals are completely at odds with each other.



I'd like to know, in the context of the OPs original title, to what level could the 100 Richest People cure "poverty"? What is poverty? How do you define it, in a global sense? There is a lot of talk here in New Zealand about poverty, especially child poverty, yet when I mention it to a South African colleague he says "that is why I love this country, your 'poor people' live in houses"...

 

[ecoli73]

Matt, lets just say that ordinary Chinese view the cases you cited with the same attitude of Americans if Chinese NGOs suddenly start to support the Branch Davidians against American oppression or the ideals of Republic of Texas.

I also like to point out that the reason Chinese government survived and the old Soviet government fell was due to the economic opening and the policy to "allow certain portion of population to get rich first"(a direct translation of Deng's policy). It irks the leftists to no end but that worked.

As to David R's point; there were not too long ago where someone here was saying they used food stamps to buy market shrimp for their fish. Poverty is very different in the eyes of different people.

 

[Miguel]

As to David R's point; there were not too long ago where someone here was saying they used food stamps to buy market shrimp for their fish. Poverty is very different in the eyes of different people.

What i have been saying from the onset. None of us knows what poverty is. Real and true deprivation, lack of bare minimums.