Neoliberal globalisation is making those exploited foreigners richer than us
MAKING people rich that is, that’s the justification for all this neoliberal globalisation stuff. And it works too: it’s just not us that are getting rich.
Nearly 1.7 billion people planet-wide live in countries where the average income per capita was above $10,000 in 2010. That’s above the average income in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium in 1960. And more than 3.5 billion people worldwide—around half the planet—live in countries with a 2010 average income of $6,000 or above according to the Penn Tables. That’s nearly as high as the GDP per capita of Italy in 1960 and above that of Ireland or Spain in the same year.
Fifty years ago the great worry was, well, how do we make the poor rich? And we’ve found the answer too. The poor need to have their industrial revolutions and we need to buy the shit that they make. And, amazingly, it really is just as simple as that.
Now, the problem with this is that we don’t get to exploit those dusky foreigners any more. So our standard of living doesn’t rise as fast as it used to. And it also pretty much screws over the people in our own countries who used to do low skilled work. When there’s 100 people in Indonesia willing to do the job for $5 a day then peeps here can’t insist on getting £50 a day for the same work.
But the great worry really was for the truly poor of the world. And they’re going great guns, getting richer by the moment. Which is what all this neoliberal free trade stuff was all about. How do we make the poor rich? Well, we buy their stuff, that’s all, and ain’t it great that it actually works as advertised on the tin?
Posted: 14th, August 2013 | In: Money Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
