… in that historical sense, a GDP per capita of $600 a year. Or the current global one, something like $8,000 (depends upon who is doing the counting a bit for that one). That we’re worrying about $34,000 a year, that this is poverty, is exactly the example we need of how well that American capitalism has worked over those centuries.
That the poor of our nation live better than 90 percent of anyone only 100 years ago, better than anyone at all from more than 200 years ago, shows just how fabulous an economic system it is.
Sure, it’s not perfect, it could do with some revisions here and there, but this system — the rule of law, markets, and capitalism — delivers in the one thing that truly matters: raising the living standards of the people, most especially poor people. Even more, no other economic system has managed this at all.
Tim Worstall, “Appalachia’s woes show the success of American capitalism”, Washington Examiner, 2018-01-09.
March 20, 2020
QotD: Absolute and relative poverty
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