Sorry you've lost me, IDK what fairtrade, a niche store owned by the Spark eCommerce Group, or how much profit the Volkswagen Group makes on selling vehicles relates to producing things cheaply and selling them for as much as possible.
That doesn't mean it is in any shape or form possible to have low prices and ethical manufacturing at the same time. How many people do you think would be willing or even able to pay £5000+ for a smartphone if in return all resources came from conflict free sources, dangerous chemicals used during production would be disposed of properly rather than dumped in some random river half way around the world and workers would be paid a living wage, given proper contracts and protection from exploitation? Oh wait no, there wouldn't be any manufacturing left because no one could afford pointless shiny stuff.
I can pull up the citations for if you want.. The destitute poor of Germany and the US (bottom 5%) would be somewhere around the 60-70% mark on the second graph. They are middle class by global standards. The people of India, Africa and especially China really have "profited that much" in recent decades. http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth Put your own information into that. You're almost certainly part of that hated top 10% Notice the "real"on the axis. A little something to ponder "Did King Louis the 16th of France (who was probably the richest person in the late 1700s) have a lower or higher living standard than an average American today? It depends on what you value. If you have a big ego, and like to live in a big house and be surrounded by people who flatter you, then you'd say he had a higher living standard. But he only lived 38 years (not untypical of that period) and lacked cell phones, TV, films, jet trips to exotic locales, Japanese and Thai restaurants, the internet, fast cars, etc. In some ways his life was quite monotonous."
The only reason those 5% are middle class by global standards, is because 80% of the worlds population lives on less than £6.41 ($10) a day, almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than £1.60 ($2.50) a day. And while your global rich list link is, for most people, going to show they are classed as rich. It doesn't show that you only need to have just £2341 ($3,65) – including the value of equity in your home – to be among the wealthiest half of world citizens.
the richest 1% of a country has 95% of the wealth - with around 50% in `poverty`. even those who consider themselves `middle class ` , once income/outgoing are in the equation , are at a similar sustenance level to those in poverty
So we agree basically. A lot of the world is horrifically poor. Personally I think "capitalism" (free trade essentially) is doing a good job of of fixing it. I also support the foreign aid budget. harlequin You believe that the typical Westerner isn't incredibly well of? You even equate their situation to subsistence levels? You're crazy. And yes jrs, real values are used for comparison across time periods. The graph below uses purchasing power parity (PPP) to adjust for cost of living differences between countries. For example India has a nominal per capita GDP of $1500 but due to the very low cost of living its increase to a princely $5300 using PPP. For comparison the UK goes from $39,000 to $36,000
We could well do, although I'm not sure what on. I would disagree that "capitalism" is fixing anything, and so called "free trade" is probably doing more harm than good, free trade is essentially capitalism without regulations, without controls. Capitalism isn't a moral structure it's an economic structure, it's the governments of the world that impose a framework of rules and regulations that prevent capitalism behaving in an immoral way.
Compared to harlequin and jrs saying how the western middle class have are somehow comparable to the bottom 50%? We agree on something. I never claimed it was a moral structure. Its just rather good at raising living standards which is "good". Guess who is most appreciative of the benefits of trade 78% of Bangladeshis agree that trade improves wages. They're not forced into a cloth factory job but they take it because its an improvement on the alternatives options.
I got to call you out on this one dude. Public opinion doesn't necessarily reflect reality. I'm not saying its right or wrong. It's just a baseless info piece.
Sorry maybe i have misinterpreted or misunderstood, but isn't "good" and "bad" a moral structure ? Capitalism maybe good at raising living standards for a minority, but that comes at a cost to the majority (IMHO). You only have to look at the growing disparity between the rich and poor over the last 50 years odd. Yes it can be argued that even the poorest have had their living standards raised but when it's only a 16% rise can that be seen as "good" when compared to how much others living standards increased ?
That is only after tax income, if you include the fact inflation would have increased by more than 16% which means they actually have less.
There's plenty of empirical evidence as well. Raising living standards is morally good according to such and such set moral beliefs. Capitalism achieves that aim so is a desirable institution/system. Go back to post 24 and the same graph of income changes but globally. I'm always talking globally here. The inequality within western countries is insignificant comparatively so its a non issue to me. You can see the top 5% doing rather well. Thats the same top fifth seen in your USA graph along with other developed countries. And you can see the stagnant region you're referring to. But below that there is 60% of the earths people who saw huge improvement in the time period.
But when 99% have had their living standards raised by 1%, and 1% have had theirs raised by 99% is that still good ? Note: that's an example not accurate percentages.
If your view subsistence agriculture as the good life fine. Go live like that. But thats not exactly a common view. No. With such figures of course not. My beliefs would change. Its not the actual outcome,in part due to redistributive taxes. I'm not an anarchist who believe in some unfettered capitalist utopia.
Wouldn't there be a problem if everyone decided to live like that thought ? I mean there are around 7 billion people living on this planet, could the viable farming land mass be divided between 7 billion people ?
Most of the time the larger something is the more efficient it is, speaking in strictly resources terms, it's why we moved from single mom 'n' pop farms to large scale industrial farming many years ago. I'm not saying you're wrong when you say about not enough resources to sustain the western lifestyle for all those 7 billion people, hell if i had my way i would limit the amount of children people could have, not that it would be a workable solution.