Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system
The Chinese did rather well in the age of globalization. In 1990, 943 million people there lived on less than $3 a day measured in 2021 dollars – 83% of the population, according to the World Bank. By 2019, the number was brought down to zero. Unfortunately, the United States was not as successful. More than 4 million Americans – 1.25% of the population – must make ends meet with less than $3 a day, more than three times as many as 35 years ago.
The data is not super consistent with the narrative of the US’s inexorable success. Sure, American productivity has zoomed ahead of that of its European peers. Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work. And artificial intelligence now promises to put the United States that much further ahead.
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
They have also put millions into poverty.
Citation?
China recently lowered the earning amount for poverty to just below what most Chinese people make, thereby “reducing” poverty.
You want to cite what you’re talking about here?
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202509/1343992.shtml
According to the latest announcement from the State Council Information Office, as of 2024, the average life expectancy in China has risen to 79 years. That’s not an abstract figure - it represents the standard of living and the health of ordinary people across the country.
Now, let’s rewind 20 years. In 2005, the average life expectancy in China was about 72.1 years, while it was 77.6 in the US. That’s a difference of more than five years.
At that time, China was rapidly moving from being an agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse, but the healthcare system was still playing catch-up. Many older adults in rural areas had to walk several miles to see a doctor, and even hospitals in big cities could be cramped and under-equipped.
Fast forward two decades, and China’s life expectancy has surged by almost seven years, from 72.3 to 79.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56194622
I guess that was 4 years ago, but I remember it as more recently.
I don’t live in the USA. I consider the USA a 3rd world country cosplaying as a 1st world one. Healthcare in the USA is one of the most broken and predatory in the world. So it’s not a meaningful comparison IMO.
Ah yes, the time China invested enormous sums in it’s infrastructure to improve the economy and quality of life of it’s poorest residents.
I guess if your devalue that investment, you can claim China cheated
I never said China didn’t invest into their national programs. I said their definitions of “poverty” are in question.
Just to clarify something. People tend to confuse the terms of “absolute poverty” and “poverty”.
The claim of “completely eliminating absolute poverty” (which is a claim the CCP makes) is almost true. Supposedly the number of people in absolute poverty in China is now 0.7%.
However, this is often reported as China “eliminating all poverty”, which isn’t true. The World Bank puts people still living in poverty in China at 13% (exact numbers are hard because of the CCPs information control), which is higher than what China self claims. Because China doesn’t use the World Bank’s definition for poverty.
I’ve been to China and have family from there. Don’t try to make this about some nationalistic nonsense. It would be amazing if people in China had as much access to the things in life everyone deserves, but the CCP isn’t exactly known for being honest.
I’ve also been to China and I also have family from there.
Taking the train from Nanjing to Wuhan is a fundamentally different experience than driving from Houston to Denver. If you simply refuse to acknowledge the scope of public works and economic development, then dismiss these radical changes by citing the exchange rate between the USD and the Yuan as proof extreme poverty still exists, you’re lying to yourself and to everyone around you.
I did acknowledge it.
I said not a single word about exchange rates and never once mentioned the USD. Either your strawmaning what I said or you can’t read.
China has pushed huge numbers of people into poverty in different ways over the decades — the Great Leap Forward basically wrecked agriculture and caused a massive famine, the Cultural Revolution tore apart schools and workplaces and left tons of families with nothing, and long-term policies like the hukou system kept rural migrants stuck in low-income situations even as cities got richer. On top of that, big relocation projects for dams or new city districts have displaced whole communities with compensation that often didn’t match what they lost, and pollution from rapid industrialization has hit farmers and fishers hard. Outside China, some Belt and Road projects have piled unsustainable debt onto poorer countries, aggressive fishing in disputed waters has squeezed local fishers in Southeast Asia, sudden trade restrictions have hurt industries in neighboring economies, and resource extraction deals abroad have pushed aside local communities.
References (searchable titles):
Your sources do be like:
-Freedom Eagle Burger Institute report on China Badness 1990
-Austrian Painter Legacy Institution report 1984
-Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America, Propaganda Department report 2024
-Victims of Communism Memorial Association compilation of Top 10 China Bad arguments
This is largely Cold War propaganda which neglects the atrocities of the Second World War and subsequent ecological impacts on the population and infrastructure.
You’re displacing the deaths of millions of victims of Japanese genocide onto the next generation, via misinformation published through the John Birch Society and other well known reactionary media institutions.
OK, provide some citations that argue against those, or… Don’t respond
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril
So you fail to make any other argument than calling me a racist? Well, I’ll accept the win and remember this for the future.
This is basically everything that’s happened in the US the past 100 years. They just did it much faster and rose more people out of poverty by the end.
Still plenty of bad, but it does have me wondering how many nations have industrialized without harming the poorest of society
and enslaved millions more. how are they going to explain the college graduates that dont have jobs in the country while they are gettin mad how the ccp is tring to lure USA talent pool to the country, from what ive heard they over-graduated, enrolled in specific fields so its super saturated. plus they have current population crisis and HCOL issue too. China isnt exactly upfront about its statistics either, they also self-sabotage thier innovation
Seattle alone has spent billions specifically on poverty and yet there is a very large homeless population.
Probably has to do more with the fact that the U.S. can’t force people out of poverty and sugar coat their numbers because there are a lot of checks and balances unlike a communist ran nation.
Apparently some users have misplaced the definition of communism or maybe are having brain farts from huffing too much copium, holy shit…
you are forgetting the fact that red states are literally truncating thier homeless to blue states burdening them, its not by accident theres sudden increases in the homeless population year after year.
I would agree with you on the information control that China has, however I would not call them Communists. They are definitely capitalists. It’s just capitalism without the perceived freedom lol
It is officially a “people’s democratic dictatorship” and a unitary state, where the CCP has a monopoly on political power.
Wtf do you mean “I would not call them communists”?
Do you call cats puppies too while you are at it?
People here really are out of touch with reality, holy shit…
They have “communist” in their name “Chinese Communist Party”, but they aren’t communist by definition.
You can say we are out of touch with reality but that does not make your reality actual reality. To be a communist country you cannot have billionaires. If you have billionaires then not everyone is equal. That is the end of the conversation
Communism mandates a single-party government, which inevitably becomes a corrupt dictatorship that does not follow the idealized plan. But that’s the problem: the plan is too idealistic and doesn’t account for human psychology. So, you can’t just say, “oh, that society isn’t communist because the outcomes aren’t right. Name one example of a communist country that actually produces the results you expect to see.
Communism doesn’t mandate a single-party government though. Single-party government is just authoritarianism. That’s why there are, and have been, communist parties in democratic countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
“Communism (from Latin communis ‘common, universal’) is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need. A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state. Communism is a part of the broader socialist movement.”
By this definition, PRC is decidedly not communist as the common people do not own the means of production; products in society are not solely allocated based on need; private property exists; social classes exist; and money exists.
Whose definition of communism are you relying upon?
As torn said. ML aren’t communist. They’re authoritarian and generally capitalistic. Also the US brought millions out of poverty as well. But that doesn’t play well with biased authors and readers. See social security.
Bringing X numbers out of poverty however doesn’t justify or excuse either of their genocide and oppression. Not to mention since China speed ran the 20th century. They are already seen burgeoning inequality and returns to poverty. But campus have to camp and distort.
Which country would you expect to solve wealth inequality first?
Neither are likely. Though the fact that arguing against the government that created/enabled it in China would get you disappeared. China is even less likely. The party ultimately serves itself, not the people.
Communism is when the state gives you a home and this is a bad thing
Okay bud
That’s a Cliff’s Notes, high-level, distilled to one sentence version of the definition. The reality of what communism entails is much larger than that.
And the Chinese CCP is as much a communist government as the United States government is a democracy.
Whoosh
Ok, maybe I didn’t get the context of what you were saying. There’s a lot of craziness happening in these comments