I expected the newly elected Labour government to withhold British support for this foul war [Vietnam]...and when this expectation was disappointed I began, along with many, many of my contemporaries, to experience a furious disillusionment with "conventional" politics.
- Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22
We're Failing Capitalism: Part 2 of 5
This is the second part in a five-part series on how we're failing capitalism. Although I've been quite willing in the past to blame capitalism for the world's problems, in this post we'll look at some of the measurable successes of humanity's application of capitalism. The five parts to the series are:
- The source of the world's problems?
- Some of capitalism's successes
- The winning formula
- We're failing capitalism
- The way things are. Or not.
Aligning values
I was raised Catholic, went to Church every Sunday of my youth, and I prayed a lot, off and on again, as a kid and young man. I read an illustrated Bible as a 3rd and 4th grader, and I think I was pretty engaged during religion class in my Catholic elementary school.
Somewhere I read or heard that the best prayer we can say to God is a prayer to become a better person. So in 6th or 7th grade, when I started to notice that I was kind of a bully, I made that prayer a mantra. I remember saying it in my head as I walked across Cooks Lane to play touch football at recess. I said it to myself as I fell asleep at night and when I woke up in the morning.
In early college I met a pretty cool Civil Engineering grad student named Luke, from Korea, who, with his wife Maria, led 1-on-1 bible studies with students. I really enjoyed those conversations. He would pick a verse from the new testament, bring in some old testament, and I really liked the practical considerations of some of Jesus' teachings. To this day I aim to live by some of those teachings as a useful philosophy, despite my current atheism.
Hypocrisy
When Bush was appointed President by the Supreme Court in 2000, his administration's environmental and economic policies weren't surprising. But for 20-year-old me, the seeming hypocrisy of a "born-again Christian" was a bit surprising, and I felt frustrated and a bit disillusioned.
However, the administration's economic, immoral, and duplicitous push for the war against Iraq was another level. When 58% of the seemingly better party, the Democrats, also voted to authorize military action against Iraq, I was looking for another solution. The International Socialists were there with an answer that seemed to work with my personal values (until it didn't).
Somewhere I read or heard that the best prayer we can say to God is a prayer to become a better person. So in 6th or 7th grade, when I started to notice that I was kind of a bully, I made that prayer a mantra. I remember saying it in my head as I walked across Cooks Lane to play touch football at recess. I said it to myself as I fell asleep at night and when I woke up in the morning.
In early college I met a pretty cool Civil Engineering grad student named Luke, from Korea, who, with his wife Maria, led 1-on-1 bible studies with students. I really enjoyed those conversations. He would pick a verse from the new testament, bring in some old testament, and I really liked the practical considerations of some of Jesus' teachings. To this day I aim to live by some of those teachings as a useful philosophy, despite my current atheism.
Hypocrisy
When Bush was appointed President by the Supreme Court in 2000, his administration's environmental and economic policies weren't surprising. But for 20-year-old me, the seeming hypocrisy of a "born-again Christian" was a bit surprising, and I felt frustrated and a bit disillusioned.
However, the administration's economic, immoral, and duplicitous push for the war against Iraq was another level. When 58% of the seemingly better party, the Democrats, also voted to authorize military action against Iraq, I was looking for another solution. The International Socialists were there with an answer that seemed to work with my personal values (until it didn't).
Capitalism's successes
Since then, I've been mostly unwilling to concede that capitalism has had any of the positive impacts for which people often acknowledge it. Social, educational, environmental, and health problems, as well as exploitations of all kinds, have been capitalism's fault; there's no room for success against all that. Yet....
What follows is a very brief overview of some AMAZING global statistics from the last 200 years. Any one of these charts should be enough of a glaring success for humanity that it knock me off my chair if I'm paying attention. Seriously - the significance of these improvements to global health and wealth is staggering from a human wellness perspective, and capitalism is in large part to thank for these results.
What follows is a very brief overview of some AMAZING global statistics from the last 200 years. Any one of these charts should be enough of a glaring success for humanity that it knock me off my chair if I'm paying attention. Seriously - the significance of these improvements to global health and wealth is staggering from a human wellness perspective, and capitalism is in large part to thank for these results.
In the following bullets, if a statement lacks a reference, it has come from Factfulness: Ten reasons we're wrong about the world - and things are better than you think. I highly recommend that you spend just 10 minutes playing with the graphs on gapminder.org - they're certainly a source of hope and excitement for me, and they're fun. Also, you can click on the charts below to make them bigger.
*** The authors of Factfulness and the creators of gapminder.org have committed themselves to educating the world on its current state, not as our teachers taught it to us decades ago. A lot has happened in the last few decades. ***
*** The authors of Factfulness and the creators of gapminder.org have committed themselves to educating the world on its current state, not as our teachers taught it to us decades ago. A lot has happened in the last few decades. ***
I agree with the author of Factfulness that it's important to be two-minded about these numbers: while they demonstrate positive impacts that are worthy of praise, the world's still got problems that need solving.
Disclaimer - these results are not solely due to capitalism's impact on the world. Some people, including a former me, would even claim that these results are in spite of capitalism, not because of it. As we'll see in the final post in this series, I think that capitalism's successful impact in these areas is in spite of us, not the other way around.
Health
- All countries in the world have a higher life expectancy than the highest life expectancy in 1800. Just 200 years ago, all countries had a life expectancy of 40 years or less; today, only 7 countries have life expectancies below 60 years old (and they're still above 50!).
- In 1980, around 20% of all kids in the world received vaccinations. In 2016, 86% of all kids in the world received vaccinations.
- Global child mortality was 18.2% in 1960. In 2015, it was 4.3%.
Wealth
- 200 years ago, 85% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. Today, around 10% of the world's population (800 million people) lives in extreme poverty.
- The vast majority of the world lives within the same standards of living that the US and Western Europe experienced in the 1950s.
- In the early 1980s, China's poverty rate was around 80%. Less than 40 years later, it's around 2%.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, please comment. I hope you'll visit again to read more!
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