Dylan Sullivan & Jason Hickel's extreme poverty of thought.

Between 1880 and 1920, India changed from being a collection of Princely States, or directly ruled territories which were divided up between powerful tax-farmers (zamindars), into a modern nation state worthy of membership in the League of Nations. It could, like Ireland and Egypt, have gotten Independence by 1924. However, as Mahatma Gandhi said to Hasrat Mohani, he was opposed to 'Purna Swaraj' till Hindus and Muslims came together- though they were already together at the beginning of 1922- and it would take hundreds of years for the two ancient religions to learn how to peacefully co-exist. Still, if Indians had accepted partition, they could have got the trappings of National Independence because traditional sources of authority had weakened and a large professional, knowledge based, political middle class existed across the length and breadth of the country. However, this 'barristocracy' had risen, as Gandhi often said, by parasitic chicanery. Still, by taking up the national cause, they could make amends. By imitating the policies of Japan, the country could rise up economically while also securing its own military and naval security. Sadly, Indians preferred to wallow in self-pity and accuse the English of having left India too weak and poor and above all too stupid to ever feed itself or defend itself. Nehru continued Gandhi's politics of demanding that Whitey feed and protect India, and wipe its bum regularly. This was because there is little point biting a hand which isn't feeding you.

Of late, a stupid type of 'wokeness' on University campuses and Social Media has led to a number of Whites jumping on the 'Grievance Studies' bandwagon. They are now demanding that Whitey pay reparations for the crime of turning medieval shitholes into modern nation states. 

As a case in point, Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel, (neither of whom has any knowledge of India) have published a paper titled 'Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century

Extreme poverty is caused by extremely poor people having a lot of babies who are themselves bound to be very poor. This can happen even if young girls don't want to be baby-making machines. They may prefer to get the fuck out of rural shitholes and try their luck in factory dormitories in the Cities. That's how extreme poverty ends. Poor girls refuse to get preggers. They get jobs so as to eat better and wear better clothes and access superior types of entertainment- e.g. reading novels about handsome millionaires who fall for feisty factory girls. 

Men don't like acknowledging the fact that women matter. If Capitalism improves female life-chances, Capitalism is good. But the same is true of Socialism or Islamic Republics. What about Imperialism? The evidence here is more mixed. Annexation and change of land use in new colonies can raise per capita GDP without any amelioration of an involuted agriculture's Malthusian trap.  A free market for Capitalized rents may look like Capitalism but if neither land nor labor is truly free to respond to market signals you merely have a frothy chrematistics, not a Capitalist economy. 

Empires may look opulent but sooner of later there is a costly war which disrupts supply chains and causes entitlement collapse. Consider the Russian famine of 1891-92. The catalogue of errors and the callousness of officialdom reminds us of the Irish famine or the even more lethal Finnish famine of the 1860s.  But there was a political angle to the Irish atrocity, while the Finns were seeking greater financial sovereignty. By contrast, the Tzar had no interest in starving his own people and thus harming his own ability to conscript soldiers. Could the famine have been averted by capitalist methods? Yes. There was a supply shock which created an arbitrage opportunity. Even otherwise, there was a reputational benefit from providing relief.  Capitalist America was able to send food. Russian merchants, however, wanted to sell their stocks abroad as fast as possible. Why? They knew that the autocracy's officials would simply seize their inventory and perhaps throw the merchants in jail till they paid a bribe. You can't have Capitalism if capital isn't safe. The Government, predictably, blamed the Jews. Anti-semitism isn't just 'the Socialism of fools'. It is also a feature of every other ideology as subscribed to by imbeciles. Incidentally, White officials in India and in the Army were turning anti-Semitic around this time. They would often tell any Indian they trusted that all the problems of the Empire were created by clever Levantines who had changed their names to appear posh Anglo-Saxons. This was a big theme in Chesterton- who inspired Mahatma Gandhi. 

Consider the following passage from Sullivan & Hickel's paper- 

Indian GDP per capita increased by 27% from 1870 to 1921 (Bolt & van Zanden, 2020).

Burma had proved a very valuable addition to the Indian Empire. Pax Britannica did have its advantages. But the Great War imposed a heavy fiscal burden and was followed by catastrophic Spanish Flu epidemic.  

Yet during that time, British colonial policy induced serial famines that killed tens of millions of people,

India, like China, was vulnerable to supply shocks. The problem was lack of policy and, under Lytton, a mean-spirited refusal to let the District officers take timely action. This was a self-defeating type of economizing. Demographic collapse reduces rent extraction and thus endangers the administration.  

The great Madras famine affected both Princely States like Mysore and Hyderabad as well as British territory. Previously, the Brits had imported rice into Bihar to reduce famine mortality but this was criticized and Viceroy Lytton was determined to follow a cruel Malthusian policy. Mysore did spend a lot on famine relief. A.O Hume responded to this catastrophe by writing a book advocating agricultural reform. He was sidelined and thus became disaffected and helped found the Indian National Congress. Sadly, it neglected the agricultural reform agenda. On the other hand, Hume was an advocate of cow protection- for purely agronomic reasons- and this did become a popular plank for the INC. However, it proved divisive. Hume ended up a vegetarian Vedantist.  On the other hand, the Brits did put in a Famine Code and, thanks to the generosity of an American friend of Curzon, did set up an agricultural institute at Pusa. The problem for the Nationalists was that people believed that the British administration was more capable of tackling such problems than a bunch of seditious barristers. Thus the INC concentrated on issues which mattered to the middle class- viz which caste got more government jobs or which creed got to impose its script. 

with life expectancy collapsing by 20%, ‘‘a deterioration in human health probably without precedent in the subcontinent’s long history of war and invasion” (Davis, 2002, p. 312).

Sadly, there were plenty of precedents. In any case, China took double the casualties that India took between 1876 and 1879. About 400,000 died in far away Brazil. However two famines in the 1780s in India- the Chalisa and the 'Skull' famine- probably killed twice as many as the Great Madras famine. 

GDP data obscures this immiseration and implies instead a significant improvement in welfare

For those who survived- sure. But welfare only really rises when girls aren't forced to have babies like crazy. This does not mean bad economic policies can't kill people. The biggest famines of the Twentieth Century were caused by Stalin and Mao and the North Korean dynasty. But such disasters arise because of earlier military defeats which in turn are a result of a political failure to combine and put up an effective military defense. 

Sullivan & Hickel write-

Between 1600 and 1820, GDP per capita declined by 21% in Poland and 26% in India (data from Bolt & van Zanden, 2020).

Because of political failures in Poland and India which in turn opened the door to rapacious foreigners.  However, these statistics are meaningless. Income is defined as what you can spend without incurring future loss of income. This means we can only know what Income was for countries which don't get conquered or which don't come under the rule of a maniac. With hindsight, people should have foregone much more present consumption to guard against that threat. This is like a Madoff investor who says 'I have a safe income of 1,000,000 dollars and thus can live large'. The truth is the poor shmuck never had any fucking income. He should have been saving every penny he could get his hands on. 

China and India did not return to their earlier peak until the 1960s and 1970s.

They had never had a peak. Both should have been investing in a kick ass Navy with big big canons. Instead Chinese and Indian elites were preoccupied with fucking their concubines and writing shitty poetry.  

 As we have noted above, GDP data cannot be used to assess trends in poverty.

We don't know who is truly poor. It could be the guy buying a Rolex coz he thinks Madoff is a financial genius who will keep getting him a 15 percent return on his capital.  

But if it could be used in this way, starting the analysis in 1820 omits three centuries of evidence, producing a partial and misleading representation of historical trends in human welfare under capitalism.

It is misleading to speak of capitalism unless all factors of production are free to move to their most efficient usage thanks to market signals. Men don't get that girls, in some places for long periods of human history, simply had no choice but to be baby-making machines. Ending poverty is about letting girls choose to live well and earn and spend their own money even if priests and pundits disapprove. Human welfare means women's welfare. Men are happy when women allocate resources because the true homo economicus, as Wicksteed pointed out long ago, is the sensible 'managing' woman.. She alone understands opportunity cost which as Coase emphasized is a global concept. Choice has to first concern itself with being consistent with its own continuance. If you do stupid shit, your choice menu will contract. 

Sullivan & Hiskel come to three conclusions

1) , it is unlikely that 90% of the global population lived in extreme poverty prior to the rise of capitalism. 

But Capitalism can't arise if everybody is extremely poor. Nor can it flourish unless some of the extremely poor are willing to work in return for nice shiny things. Of course, killing and enslaving people also works. But that aint Capitalism, though it may feature as part of the 'primitive accumulation' anterior to the establishment of financial markets. 

Historically, unskilled urban labourers in all regions tended to have wages high enough to support a family of four above the poverty line by working 250 days or 12 months a year.

Their wages could pay for food for four people and extend to renting a room for them to huddle in. But wifey was having to do a lot of manual work seven days a week. 52 weeks of the year. As for the kids, they had to run errands and make themselves useful as soon as they started to walk. The problem for this laborer was that an invasion or an internecine conflict could suddenly make him and his family vulnerable to starvation or enslavement. Life was 'nasty, brutish and short' but only for the lucky ones. 

 Extreme poverty seems to arise predominantly in periods of severe social and economic distress, like famines, wars and institutionalized dispossession, particularly under colonialism. 

If your country has been colonized, it means you guys either have a shitty mode of production or else are crap at politics. Whether you suffer demographic replacement depends on whether your terrain aint too harsh or you yourself can be sufficiently productive to make it worthwhile for your masters to keep you alive. 

This will be Humanity's fate if a more advanced alien race finds our planet habitable. If we are being vaporized by ray-guns, writing about the inequity of xeno-economics won't do us much good. On the other hand, if Super-models kidnap me and use me as a sex-slave- which I have every reason to fear might happen any day now- then my own Socioproctological critique of Feminist Sex-Slavism is bound to lead to some considerable amelioration in my living conditions. 

Rather than being the natural condition of humanity, extreme poverty is a symptom of social dislocation and displacement.

Very true! If I am currently absolutely famished and don't have a clean pair of underpants it is not because I'm a lazy bum. Capitalism and the historical legacy of Colonialism are responsible for my condition. Rishi Sunak should ensure Pizzas are delivered to me and that my laundry and washing up and done to an acceptable standard. Why the fuck is Rishi not fixing the problem of my social dislocation- I should be the sex-slave of Super Models- not to mention my displacement from the pub earlier tonight? 

2) he second conclusion is that the rise of capitalism coincided with a deterioration in human welfare.

Capitalism only arose and survived in places where the people were cohesive enough and smart enough to defeat invaders or grab valuable territory. Not being killed or enslaved is what the welfare of any species is about. Madoff's clients may have thought they had a lot of human welfare. They were living in a fantasy world. 

It is only with hindsight that we can be sure human welfare has risen. If your country has ICBMs and faces no big internal problem, they human welfare probably does correspond to nice shiny stuff. But climate change, or the invasion of lizard people from Planet X, might fuck you over when you least expect it.  

In every region studied here, incorporation into the capitalist world-system

by conquest which could also feature demographic replacement 

was associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence,

that's not what happened to Europeans in settler colonies. As for India, as Disraeli said in 1857- it hadn't really been conquered. The Brits simply administered it along traditional lines though, it must be said, they did make improvements and thus created the Modern Nation State of India. China had a tougher go of things but ultimately did come together under indigenous leaders. Once it adopted financial capitalism, it lifted more people out of poverty more quickly than had ever happened in human history. India could have done even better. Sadly, Indian savants can get more money and fame by indulging in 'Grievance Studies' rather than doing anything useful for the country. A.O Hume made sensible recommendations to reform Indian agriculture and thus unleash endogenous growth. Dadhabhai Naoroji pretended Viceroy Sahib was constantly creeping into the huts of poor Indians and draining its people of their precious essence through aggravated acts of fellatio and cunnilingus.  

a deterioration in human stature, and a marked upturn in premature mortality.

because people who would not have survived to have babies had babies who survived to have babies.  

In parts of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, key welfare metrics have still not recovered.

But there are lots, lots, more people.

3) Our third conclusion is that in those regions where progress has occurred (as opposed to recovery from an earlier period of immiseration), it began much later than the Ravallion/Pinker graph suggests. In the core regions of Northwest Europe, welfare standards began to improve in the 1880s, four centuries after the emergence of capitalism.

There was no big Continental war between 1815 and 1914. But plenty of Europeans starved or were killed in the two World Wars. What is incontestable is Capitalist European countries quickly became much richer and nicer than Communist countries. The contrast between North and South Korea is even more stark. But affluence means girls have few or no kids. South Korea's fertility rate is now 0.9.  

In the periphery and semi-periphery, progress began in the mid-20th century.

Unless there was military conflict, internecine or otherwise. There is no prosperity without peace. If you have to fight- do it as far from your own borders as possible.  

Further research is needed to establish the causal drivers of these improvements,

Further research by cretins will only establish them more firmly in their cretinism.  

but existing data indicates that progress was achieved with the rise of organized labour,

which is only possible if the boss isn't employing goons to knife you and rape your wife. Capitalism only prevails where there is the rule of Law. Otherwise, all you have is gangsterism.  

the anti-colonial movement,

which fucked up minorities big time before fucking up majorities as well. This is why the descendants of 'anti-colonial' heroes tend to have Green Cards or to own nice houses in Western cities.  

and other progressive social movements,

which tended to retard economic development 

which organized production around meeting human needs,

What 'human need' is met by woke whining?  

redistributed wealth,

to the descendants of the great anti-colonial heroes 

and invested in public provisioning systems

That's hilarious! Passing around the begging bowl is not a provisioning system. It is merely the mendicancy which the intensive cultivation of mendacity makes inevitable. 

 Sullian & Hickel next look at different statistical methods of proving of disproving their thesis. The problem here is that there was simultaneous demographic changes without invalidate the results. 

Proponents of the standard public narrative about the history of human welfare hold that extreme destitution is a natural condition, which only began to decline with the rise of capitalism.

There's no point not being, or appearing not to be extremely destitute, unless property is safe. That's what Capitalism is about. Of course, if people prefer to have babies like crazy while expecting foreign agencies to feed and defend them, then extreme destitution will persist. But the same effect would be achieved by voting for Communists or Gandhian nutters. Still, most poverty at most times was either Malthusian or arose out of the radical insecurity of persons and property. 

Yet the national accounts data on which this narrative relies cannot legitimately be used to draw these conclusions, and extant data on wages, height, and mortality do not support them.

National accounts are only collected for a fiscal purpose. They must be very intelligently interpreted if we require them to serve some other purpose. Big Companies hire smart people to do this so they can make more profit. The Grievance Industry has to be content with paranoid cretins. 

Wages are misleading where self-produced goods extensively feature. Height correlates better to race and non-income related dietary preferences. Mortality is affected by drugs, drink, the prevalence of STDs,  and a habit of drive-by shooting.  

In all of the regions reviewed here, fully-employed unskilled labourers in the early 18th century had incomes higher than the extreme poverty line.

Because they weren't unskilled at all. Only after you have extensive division of labor does the distinction arise in any meaningful manner. It is probably true that early eighteenth century populations were under higher selection pressure. But welfare correlates to less, not more, selection pressure.  

Far from a normal or natural condition, extreme destitution is a sign of severe social and economic distress, arising during periods of upheaval and dislocation such as war, famine, and state repression.

But stable, well-functioning states are the exception not the rule save where incentive compatible defense and other public goods are fiscally sustainable.  

As for the impact of capitalism on human welfare: data on wages, human height and mortality indicate that the rise and expansion of the capitalist world-system from circa 1500 caused a decline in nutritional standards and health outcomes.

It led to the collapse of indigenous populations and widespread demographic replacement save in places destined to remain shit-holes by reason of endemic diseases or resource poverty.  

Recovery from this prolonged condition of crisis occurred only recently: the late 19th century in Northwest Europe and the mid-20th century in the periphery.

i.e. once a racialist ideology replaced a class or caste based ideology. Capitalism isn't enough. Nationalism too is required for the working class to flourish. But this involves not having babies like crazy. The word 'proletariat' means 'child-bearing'. 

If one starts from the assumption that extreme poverty is the natural state of humanity,

whereas Darwin taught us that initially our ape like ancestors lived in luxury condos and piloted their own private jets.  

then it may appear as good news that only a fraction of the global population lives in extreme poverty today.

It isn't good news at all. If you aren't starving it is only because Neo-Liberalism has stolen your soul. The devil will have his pitchfork up your ass for all eternity. You will wail and gnash your teeth and scream- 'why didn't I kill the class-enemy when I had the chance? If only I had stormed into Eton and Harrow with a machine gun and killed every young toff I could find, I would not now be suffering the torments of the damned!'  

However, if extreme poverty is a sign of severe social dislocation,

it is a sign of a severe inability to relocate from a social shithole. This may be involuntary. Nice places have stringent visa requirements because the indigenous working class wants to protect its standard of living.  

relatively rare under normal conditions,

normal conditions, for our species, involves not existing.  

then it should concern us that - despite many instances of progress since the middle of the 20th century - such dislocation remains so prevalent under contemporary capitalism.

Very true! The UN Special Rapporteur on Food Security says that Scottish people are at severe risk of famine because women have inadequate access to arable land to grow turnips for their wee bairns. 

I suppose these two authors are pleased that more and more Western leaders are following in the footsteps of Orban. Keep out filthy foreigners. They represent 'social dislocation'.  

Depending on the subsistence basket one uses to measure poverty, as of 2008, between 200 million and 1.21 billion people live in extreme poverty 

Since then wars and probably raised that number substantially. 

While direct comparisons with the wage data are difficult because of the variety of baskets used, this suggests that under contemporary capitalism

of the sort they have in Yemen and Syria- right?  

hundreds of millions of people currently live in conditions comparable to Europe during the Black Death (Figures 4 & 5),

in which case their population must have halved- but nothing of the sort has happened. These guys truly are cretins.  

the catastrophes induced by the American genocides

have you noticed that many Third World countries are now inhabited almost entirely by European people? No? In that case there has been nothing comparable to 'American genocides'.  

and the slave trade

That part is true. Billions of elderly bleck peeps like myself are being held in sex-dungeons where they are forced to pleasure Super Models. This is the inevitable result of Global Financial Capitalism- which is why I'm for it.