The answer is socialist policies, or social democrat policies, or whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-name-it-to-come-to-terms-with-it policies. China hasn't even been particularly good with them, they've just managed to have them. That's all you need, to accept them as good instead of demonizing them. Which makes some trends in the countries that do have them sad.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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So did Taiwan, Eastern Europe and dozens of other countries without sacrificing human rights as much as China. So tired of "they're evil but hey that's the only way to not be poor!" bullshit that validates dictators.
Expected better from The Guardian than to use this bait to illustrate US' shortcomings. The world does not revolve around US and to poke america you don't need to validate dictators.
Sadly, the world does revolve around the US. It seems to be changing with The Stupids in charge, though.
China, in large part, raised people out of poverty at the expense of the so-called “west”…so it’s no mystery that the US was unable to do the same. The wests’ corporations needed cheap labour, and China was happy to accept the jobs. We all know this. Trump got elected because he was the first to overtly acknowledge that reality and propose a solution. Now, his “solution” will only exasperate the problem because he’s ultimately a corrupt fascist…but there’s a lesson there that hasn’t been learned yet.
his “solution” will only ~~exasperate~~ exacerbate the problem
My eyes are so bad I can’t tell which way either of those words is spelled.
all i can do is lol and roll my eyes
i don't believe a word about china on lemmy
On one hand, it looks so great.
On the other hand, you got a bunch of people lined up at foreign embassies/consulates, waiting for their interview and hoping for immigration visas.
Not by choice but by design. America is capitalist hell hole and it will get worse day by day
when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
I like that it uses “wouldn’t” rather than”couldn’t”. So relevant to today’s politics
The idea that they have zero poverty is just absurd.
The source is the World Bank. They are extremely unlikely to lie about this as their ideology is diametrically opposed to communism.
China dumped communism a generation ago, in all but the ruling party's name. Now it's totalitarian state capitalism. I suspect that the World Bank is just fine with that.
They might be opposed to communism but probably not authoritarianism. I'm sure China is well past its communist days and far into its world bank days.
I appreciate your fine estimation of TWB, but a study is only as good as it's data.
Data from the government, by the government. Have conditions and quality of life improved? Yes. But it was only a few years ago the people were buying gross tonnage of cheap fashion clothes during a rather harsh winter so people could survive the cold by burning it instead of coal to heat their homes.
That's not even counting the hundreds of millions that live life like it's the great depression, and the conditions in which they work.
Right…but you can’t swing from one extreme (zero poverty) to the other (hundreds of millions living like it’s the Great Depression). Neither are true.
It should be noted that poverty in China isn’t the same as poverty in the USA, ie when you adjust for wages v cost of living it doesn’t tell us much, because the systems are incompatible. All those people in China making below $1.90 US a day (or whatever your metric is) aren’t in the same boat they’d be in in the US, and vice versa.
But all of this ignores the topic of the post: China did indeed raise virtually all of its citizens out of poverty, and the US didn’t. But it’s really weird to just throw that factoid out there without acknowledging that China did it at the expense of the US.
True, I do have a habit of getting overly enthusiastic in my use a metaphor, lmao and humor as I see.
Compared to what life was like pre-80's? Yes absolutely things have improved, but even if improvement of conditions exist for those into the billion, that doesn't exclude the relative conditions on the ground.
Unemployment is growing in younger demographics at rates near the peak of what the US experienced in 33. If you compare overall, sustain unemployment year to year is worse. Continuing lack in stability in land value has changed what was a bedrock backing for generational social mobility into a risky hedge for many.
As you well know, and have said, just going off of say strength of the ren for pure purchasing power or daily wages is misleading. Compare the shifts in collegiate achievements, the chosen international schools that the middle class are sending their kids to get their degrees. Look towards the shifts in lower class, especially in the cities, towards day labor over even extended work contracts or proper salary. Look towards the accessibility of central heating, plumbing, electricity. See the treatment of the lower half a billion of Chinese society when they need to access healthcare, when they need the law. What is their commute like?
Source? Seriously, if you’re going to dispute sources you have to provide a better one.
You're arguing with a guy called American economic think tank.
You say that like it's a bad thing ♡
Well, biased and stalwart in opinion might be more accurate descriptions.
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Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work.
Only a handful of countries manage to produce more money per hour of work.
That's an important distinction IMO.
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