How Nations Succeed: What's the Secret to Ending Poverty?

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[gofjohn]

GREAT PRESENTATION! Finally we are beginning to recognize that markets are not simply a means to shop around for lower prices, THOUGH THAT'S ALL THEY TEACH in EC101. The real benefit from free markets is INNOVATION. Innovation is what suppliers have to do to survive in free markets--but they don't teach that in school. Shopping around is all we can do as consumers- but the real benefits from free markets come from what suppliers have to do to survive and please those customers shopping around.

[gofjohn]

Abuses are a separate subject. You surely cannot deny that most all the innovations we enjoy today come from the private sector where voluntary suppliers from all walks of life are responding to needs of customers who are free to choose, not government dictates or regulations. We do need government as referee to keep the game clean, but not as a player in the game. The problem is that gov't tends to regulate symptoms, without ever asking "WHY?" and thus actually discourage innovation.

[gofjohn]

It's true, Gordon Hilgers, that FDR's New Deal helped spread electricity consumption in the 1930s, but the innovation occurred long before. Electricity arrived in Burlington WI, where my grandmother lived, around 1875 with street lights hung by a private Elect. Co. at key street intersections, and the first light bulbs in private homes cost so much that they were rented, not sold. Yes, it took time for light bulbs to spread everywhere, but innovations spread far more rapidly today than back then

[gofjohn]

This video's point is that competitive markets, not government, cause innovation, and innovations can originate throughout society, not just among the rich. Involvement by government planners and regulators restrains innovation. More innovations occurred in the US than other countries because we had more economic freedom, not because of FDR. We do need gov’t involvement and regulations to preserve competition, but without the special interest cronyism that tends to accompany gov't intervention.

[Counterintuitiveidea]

In order to get innovation, you need freedom, property rights, and a spirit of entrepreneurship among the middle class and merchant class. Government tends to stifle innovation to the extent it oversteps its narrowly defined function of securing people's rights and property.

[iliaadamanthark]

The problem is, many people like to complaint and whining about their live standard without actually try to study or work hard.
So, in my thought it is not solely through capitalism the poverty end but also education plays a great role.

[UikjKT]

Our success in America did not come from markets, it came from a culture that prized innovation and pushed technological breakthroughs. Those things were achieved, not by a private sector alone, but by the involvement of our government. You have a case in point with our going to the Moon in the 1960’s. While you’re on YouTube search for the speech by President Kennedy in 1962 delivered in Houston explaining why we are going to the Moon. That’s what made (and makes) America great.

[LarryFarlow]

Good grief. If you can't disagree with someone without all that, please don't talk about anyone else's way of argumentation - in fact please don't talk at all. Everyone knows name-calling is a sign that one has no argument at all. Thanks for reinforcing that point for us all.

[supafly]

This free market sounds great. Maybe if we can get out of this fixed market economy we could give it a try here.

[leiatskynet]

Standards of living increased. They used to be starving to death. They're not any more. HDI used to be 0.41 in 1980. Now it's 0.7. Life expectancy has increased from 67 to 73.7, general mortality has fallen, infant mortality has fallen, years of schooling have doubled, gender inequality has fallen, poverty has fifthed, and just in general, life in China is better than it was thirty years ago, fifty years ago, or at any point in its history.

[leiatskynet]

Ten percent of exports does not make a monopoly, nor a near monopoly, nor even particularly oligopolistic, and it is most certainly not a 'stranglehold'. If consumers prefer higher quality goods, they will vote with their money. If China cannot produce higher quality goods, companies will open factories in other countries; in fact, some have recently been opening factories in Mexico.
Under-5 mortality almost thirding is a landmark stride. Most of us, after all, would prefer to not die.

[gofjohn]

Gordon H, you talk about “failed laissez faire policies that have caused Americans great harm.” Where is the harm in all the technology innovations we enjoy today such as air travel, refrigerators, telephones, radio, TV, computers, open heart surgery, iPads, Google, etc. etc? All brought to us by providers responding to free markets. (DARPA paid for 1st internet, but was not the innovator and it was a browser from U. Il. (Netscape) that made it widespread.) The innovations were NOT from gov’t.

[richardmaloney]

1:16 "Where did all this progress come from?"

And here I thought he was going to say 'collective action'. XD

Hey, did you hear that 3.5 billion years ago, there was a planet where there was no New Balance cross-trainers? That planet was the EARTH. Look how many cross-trainers we have today! That's the power of markets.

[GordonHilgers]

So. Markets did all this? Hardly. Until the New Deal, most Americans had no electricity. And before the government decided to untangle the mess caused by the railroad barons in the 1870s, the possibility of a transcontinental railroad was possible, but not without government coordinating and cooperating with businesses in order to get everyone on the same page. In other words, unregulated markets always end up a total mess. Markets possess no inherent equilibrium, do not self-regulate.

[leiatskynet]

The facts within the country is that the quality of life is greater in Singapore and Hong Kong than they are in Britain. So a few people more off themselves each year in Hong Kong. So what. That's barely a tenth of a per cent of people. What does matter is that people in Singapore and Hong Kong, by this statistic, earn more, live longer, and go through more years of education than people in Britain.

[leiatskynet]

On the contrary, the proponents of fascism upheld Germany and Italy as model states (as exemplified by the myth that Mussolini made the trains run on time) with plenty of supporters in the United States during the 1930s. At the same time, communists upheld the Soviet Union as a model. Even today, some on the left (e.g. Michael Moore) point to Cuba.

[leiatskynet]

If by trickle-down you mean the belief that what is good for the rich is good for all of us, how it is usually phrased as, then no. But that is how the government always operates, if only for a different 'rich' depending on who's in office. Over the last century, government regulations have increased in agriculture and banking, only for their profits to grow, the number of farms and banks to shrink, and competition to fall. Government regulation promotes the status quo, prevents upstarts.

[leiatskynet]

I don't see how citing HDI is irrelevant, you still have not explained that.

[spiritmatters]

If the markets can produce such abundance, why does the US agricultural sector require such large subsidies, subsidies which distort and severely impact much poorer developing nations and have been one of the prime causes of the collapse of international trade agreements? Surely, these subsidies are an impediment to ending poverty.

[Freddelastound]

So often we try to ameliorate poverty with charity and government transfers and foreign aid. This only deals with the current problem, and ignores the future. Economic development is important to cope with improved future living standards, and capitalism (not socialism) is the system that frees people to succeed.