Ursula K. Le Guin Calls on Fantasy and Sci Fi Writers to Envision Alternatives to Capitalism

[PETRUS]

34. A few things:

I notice that you're referencing only "extreme poverty," which is a technical definition subject to some dispute. If we're going to be thorough, we should also consider other measures - and you haven't commented on my observation that these statistics only reveal so much.

More importantly, I don't have access to the study I read years ago so I can't really comment on its methodology (my recollection is that it talked about caloric intake and access to medicine and the main takeaway included the short time frame during which conditions changed) and how that compares to the statistics you're quoting. So it's difficult for me to argue from it - and it would be rational of you to doubt it - but I do have reason to challenge the other poster's belief.

As a final thought, I think this subject is complex and involves too many interacting variables to draw the simple conclusion offered by the other person. Can we say whether industrial revolution happen because of capitalism? Are we making any attempt to include the downsides to all this - the rise of abject and relative poverty, accounting for external costs with impacts yet to be felt (e.g. climate change and other negative environmental impacts) - in our calculations? I find it both irresponsible and dishonest to say capitalism is the bestest and that people will never come up with a preferable alternative.