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Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Timothy Taylor — The Remarkable Fall in Global Poverty


There's a problem here in this analysis. It ignores the informal economy, much of which is not monetized. The push of capitalism is to monetize it. 

The problem arises in comparing quality of life before and after monetization. The people appear to be wealthier and to receive more income, but their quality of life may be much, much lower, since they no longer have access to the resources and processes they had previous to monetization and capitalization (privatization). It's like saying that enclosure of the commons made those who lived off the commons wealthier.

 It's just nonsense that only economists would be blinkered enough to fall for. They need to get out of the ivory tower, put away their axioms, and study history, economic anthropology and economic sociology. Studying Marx and Engels, Veblen, Polyanyi, etc., would also be a step forward for them.

Poverty cannot be adequately measured in monetary terms. It can only be measured in terms of quality of life and access to real resources.

Conversable Economist
The Remarkable Fall in Global Poverty
Timothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

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