No matter what our domestic economic problems, it is still essential to remind ourselves that for humanity as a whole the years since 1980 have seen the greatest improvement in economic well-being, globally, of any forty-yer period in human history. We have been truly blessed:
Noah Smith: Globalization Has Cut Inequality Between Rich and Poor Countries https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/globalization-has-cut-inequality-between-rich-and-poor-countries: "Up through the 1980s, the blessings of the Industrial Revolution seemed largely confined to a handful of countries in Western Europe, East Asia, the U.S., Australia and Canada. But in the past three decades, there has been a sea change, and developing countries have made great strides in catching up. Although inequality has risen within some nations, at the global level it’s going down: Much of this catch-up is happening in countries that are still largely poor, such as India or Indonesia. To an economist—or someone who cares about alleviating the suffering of the world’s poorest people–this still represents a miracle. But a skeptic of globalization might wonder whether it can really be called a success if broad middle-class living standards still remain the exclusive privilege of a handful of nations, many of them former colonial powers...
#noted #globalization #notebookslouching #notebookecon135 #2019-10-31
