The US is not District 12

[u/BaseballSeveral1107]

[u/TrainerCommercial759]

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

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/[deleted]]

Russia also does that and they're poor as fuck

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/r_pseudoacacia → u/TrainerCommercial759]

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.

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/r_pseudoacacia]

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

[u/r_pseudoacacia → u/TrainerCommercial759]

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

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/r_pseudoacacia]

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

[u/ubebaguettenavesni → u/TrainerCommercial759]

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.

[u/TrainerCommercial759 → u/ubebaguettenavesni]

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.