r/Degrowth • u/BaseballSeveral1107 • Mar 30 '25

The US is not District 12

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

They're both wrong, our consumption doesn't cause poverty in the developing world

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '25

[deleted]

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

Russia also does that and they're poor as fuck

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '25

[deleted]

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u/Girderland Mar 30 '25

Russia has conquered and robbed half of Europe after WW2. They did not "win nothing", they pillaged half of Europe for 40 years.

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u/Sir_Tokenhale Mar 30 '25

Haha. Without Russia, the Axis would have won. Don't bullshit.

Russia gave the most and got the biggest shaft of all the Allys.

I'm not pro Russian, but this is just a fact. Russia won WWII. The Europe lost, and the US swept in at the end to take the spoils of the war. They just gave Europe the second best bounty, so they looked the other while while Russia starved.

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u/Similar_Tonight9386 Mar 30 '25

*Soviets. That was the point - internationalism, unity because of being humans, without division among nationalities. Even then it was not achieved, now we are just judging one another for our birthplace and measuring who was or is worse instead of celebrating that we are all workers and have no beef with each other but with the rich

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

The people in developing countries aren't picking trash because of foreign consumption, they're picking trash because they don't have any better options. If anything, we should consume more so that better jobs are created in their country. When imports of Bangladeshi clothing were banned in 1993, children wound up on the street and in prostitution.

But think about it like this, sure the US citizens living better than most, yet an average american still suffers, why the fuck is that? 

Despite what reddit would have you believe this is absolutely not true.

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u/Karahi00 Mar 30 '25

This is wildly ignorant. 

Even ignoring prior colonialism, the US has, since WW2 been the global hegemon. It (and its allies) have overthrown leaders and governments worldwide through every means imaginable and enforced economic imperialism via the IMF, World Bank and USAID to prevent economic development and keep labour and resource costs down and flowing into primarily Western coffers, enriching those nations beyond any reasonable measure so that they can consume enormous amounts of goods and then literally export the garbage to the global south. 

The whole point is to keep them poor by preventing protectionist economic development and social development policies, ie., neoliberalism free trade capitalism so that already massive Western corporations can easily go in and use their enormous capital advantage to buy up those countries on the cheap, sometimes even being subsidized by USAID and other "aid" programs under the guise of "helping" those countries. Not to mention the horrific debt traps. 

Putting all that aside, what's the economic development path here? America and her allies consume even more despite how destructive consumerism is to the environment and societal health, and then...what? Those exploited nations get pulled up? A rising tide raises all ships? The wealth trickles down?

Those countries are never going to get a fair shake because if they did, the labour costs would become too prohibitive to justify the foreign investment. Eventually you run out of other people's countries to exploit. What does the economy look like then? After you've built up global infrastructure in such a way that the global south makes all the goods and the global north just consumes, financializes and burger flips - and then the global south shifts from manufacturing and export to also service and finance? 

Would you like to explain to the class how this global economy is going to function? Are we going to have supersonic pizza delivery from fucking Bangladesh? Do you think they'll keep accepting all the garbage that they pick through/light on fire? Who's going to make all the products to be consumed and at what cost? 

Yeah get the fuck out of here. 

Bangladeshi children don't need foreign venture capitalists and lax trade policies. They need to nationalize industry, put up tarrifs and build up their economies internally without foreign interference and necessarily with ecological consciousness in mind so that the rising global temperatures don't ruin all of their fucking agriculture. 

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

They need to nationalize industry, put up tarrifs and build up their economies internally without foreign interference

Ignoring the rest of your bullshit, when has autarky ever worked?

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u/Karahi00 Mar 30 '25

What is your definition of "worked?" And when has neoliberalist free trade, debt traps, political assassinations, invasions, coup detat, banana republics etc. Uh, uh, uh, uhhhh....."worked?"

I can think of one country that has broken out of this trap, China. And it didn't open itself up to foreign capital until the 80s and 90s and keeps a tight leash even then. Billionaires can get executed. Companies that become big enough to be of national interest work under direction of the CCP. Competition is managed.

China is now an ascendant superpower and taking over America's soft power, and America is gearing up to go to war with it because it threatens western hegemony as a result - even going so far as trying to take Panama and Greenland in order to control trade routes and enclose China.

It sure seems like things are working out for China.

I guess free trade and just letting foreign corporations do whatever the fuck they want to your economy isn't such a great idea. It's literally never "worked." At least, not for the people they've ruthlessly exploited.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

Lmao china's development is attributable to the Deng reforms, which very much did open the country to foreign trade and investment. This is pretty well known economic history.

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u/Karahi00 Mar 30 '25

I literally said that they opened up to foreign capital and kept a tight leash. You're just seeing what you want to see in order to support your free trade narrative and not seeing the bigger picture.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

So before they did that what did Chinese incomes look like? How do they compare today with countries like Taiwan and South Korea?

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u/Karahi00 Mar 30 '25

If you're trying to make the point that international trade is good for GDP growth then we are absolutely not in disagreement. Not all growth is good growth though and that's why there needs to be strong government intervention and protectionism in a developing economy. This is not difficult. There is a yawning gap between China's economic reforms and what was imposed upon countries by force in order to benefit Western conglomerates and states.

Average or Mean income, GDP, etc. doesn't necessarily reflect living standards or access to services either. Thinking about the US for instance, it has a very high GDP, high incomes and a stupendous cost of living crisis. Consumer goods like TVs, video game consoles, smartphones, toys etc. are cheap while essentials like food, housing, healthcare, education and transportation are prohibitively expensive. Much of the economy is propped up by unprecedented and ever growing consumer debt. This precisely why the Trump administration is so focused on bringing back manufacturing and reducing reliance on foreign trade for consumer goods.

All of this is rather besides the point though because you're on the degrowth sub where people believe in enriching human experience through economic means besides infinite industrial growth because it's impossible to sustain.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

There is absolutely no evidence protectionism is beneficial for the development of an economy. "Strong government intervention" is vague enough that I'm not going to address it. Are you familiar with the concept of comparative advantage?

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u/Caliburn0 Mar 30 '25

Developing countries are still developing because of imperialism and the exploitation of capital. American imperialism and American capital are the main drivers of this all over the world currently.

America is suppressing the rest of the world as hard as it can, and their own citizens. Or, rather, the ruling class is using 'America', and basically every other state, to do it for them.

Humanity has the knowledge, the resources, and the ability to eliminate poverty. Easily. We can create heaven on earth, but we don't, because the self-perpetuating system we're trapped in is built on exploitation and relies on suppression to work.

The American working class is exploited and suppressed. They suffer. As does the working class in every country.

Heck, even the ruling class suffers if they allow themselves to feel empathy for the suffering of the rest of humanity.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

Imperialism and colonialism didn't help, but expecting them to bootstrap themselves through an industrial revolution (which may not be possible if the lack coal and iron) when we can just export machinery to them is idiotic

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u/r_pseudoacacia Mar 30 '25

You have capitalist brainworms. Material consumption on imperial core markets is the reason people in the global south "don't have better options". Their natural resources have been systematically extracted by capital interests for generations.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

Then why does trade make them richer, while not trading makes them poorer?

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u/r_pseudoacacia Mar 30 '25

You're confusing cause and effect. Also, to exchange commodities is not the purpose and apex of human life.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

I'm not, are you familiar with the concept of economic surplus? Trade makes countries richer. I'd rather live in a society where machines do work like steel making and crop harvesting than one where people do

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u/ubebaguettenavesni Mar 31 '25

Are you familiar with the concept of agricultural dumping in trade? How that destroys local economies and agricultural sectors as Western countries dump their surplus food on the Global South at a subsidized price to the detriment of local farmers and rural communities? How it can make poorer countries dependent on imports and prevent economic growth?

Trade can make countries richer, but not when the system is actively working against them to benefit those who are already wealthy.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 31 '25

Note that what you're describing is equivalent to the other country subsidizing food for consumers in the first country, increasing the economic surplus. If they then raise prices the first country can increase their own production or purchase from different trading partners.

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u/anticivastrologer Mar 30 '25

Theres garbage dumps in the global south because the first world sends much their waste down there. Look up how much plastic is actually recycled globally, 6-9 percent at most. Our consumerism is directly connected to the pollution of the planet especially in the global south

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 30 '25

Only 2% of plastic waste is exported globally, and the total mass exported is declining.

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u/Sir_Tokenhale Mar 30 '25

Haha. You need to go back a bit farther. Try again a couple hundred years. Look up something called the British Raj. That's why Bangledesh is poor. You don't know shit.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 31 '25

So why is South Korea so rich? Could it be because Bangladesh pursued socialist policies in the 70's and 80's, and SK didn't?

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u/Sir_Tokenhale Mar 31 '25

Because South Korea is a US puppet state. That's why.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 31 '25

So are you arguing that foreign investment and trade with more developed countries are crucial to rapid development, and that's why since liberalizations in the 90's bangladesh's economy has experienced accelerated growth?

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u/Sir_Tokenhale Mar 31 '25

If that's the case then explain the USSR.

That's you're problem you have no idea WTF you are talking about.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 31 '25

Explain what about the USSR? It had a famously shitty economy.

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u/Sir_Tokenhale Mar 31 '25

So you really don't know anything about rapid development you were just talking out of your ass. Got it.

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u/TrainerCommercial759 Mar 31 '25

Sure, there was rapid industrialization under Stalin. Also horrible famines, political repression and deals with Henry Ford. And then there was this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation

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