jason hickel
intro’d to Jason via twitter rec.. as similar to the rules..
taking him in here first..
may 2016 – To Eradicate Poverty We Have to Radically Reorganize the Global Economy
1\ define extent to which most min econ rights remain unfulfilled.. ie: say now fewer than 1 bill living on less than 1/25/day… far too low for even basic human survival.. ie: india..just above this line..60% underweight; niger.. just above line..infant mortality risk 20%.. 3x world avg… if 1.25 not enough..can’t claim that lifting people above this line means bringing out of poverty…
peter edward: in order to achieve 70 yrs… need 3.5 more.. about 5 dollars/day.. very min
unless we bag money.. no? ie: radical econ ness
2 min – what happens if measure according to ethical poverty line… now not just 1 bill via un.. but rather about 4.3 bill.. 60% of world pop.. and has been rising since 1980…. and this is highly conservative.. so 60% remain avoidably unfulfilled..
4 min – i argue that govt of rich countries that created/sustain this inbalance/order.. are violating rights of world’s poor.. have corres responsibility to seek to re org the order.. so that as many as possible have access toward well being.. .. 3.1 trill annually to bring 4.3 bill… up to $5/day line
5 min – ideas for re org of system
realizing human rights does appear to acquire of reduction in global quality.. once poor regain.. rich can gain more..
?
6 min – we can’t increase consumption indefinitely.. rich world consume 3x fair share..
if we want to ratchet up income of poor.. we have to ratchet down the rich..
7 min – challenge of 21st cent… how to max human development while bringing eco footprint back down in sustainable levels..
human devel.. not human monies..
conclusion: *in absence of some kind of miraculous decoupling of incomes from resource use/waste.. which has no sign of happening in any meaningful way..the human rights framework requires not just slight reduction of global ineq.. but actual material shrinkage of richest countries.. which amounts to total re org..
* whoa.. perhaps why we haven’t yet.. not imaginative enough.. not brave enough to call out how we’ve been doing things (ie: measuring transactions) as the ridiculous… thing.
a nother way
then here..
july 2015 – Why microfinance fails:
then here:
no net pos impact from micro finance… in some instances does help certain individuals.. but across board doesn’t.. and some cases worse.. ie: spending money on consumption.. borrowers then unable to fund.. debt ensues.. if do succeed.. usually displacement.. most often businesses fail.. no customer base for them..
3 min – a lot of micro finance lenders are banks.. not so much a charitable endeavor that most of us are thinking..
5 min – no question that micro can work for some.. can lead to empowerment in some situations.. rather that it is a definitive empowering tool… jury is still out… worse when not about to repay..
6 min – one problem.. mico finance regards poverty as a problem that exists out there… on not needing micro loans.. but a fair system..
7 min – causes of poverty.. 1980s structural adjustment programs were pushed on global s countries.. to this day remains most single cause of poverty in developing world... lost 5 bill dollars/year… it was good for banks.. but awful for poor countries.
if we’re serious about solving problem of global poverty.. have to look at basic unfairness of global econ and how that’s producing poverty in first place..
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The Rules (@TheRulesOrg) tweeted at 5:42 AM – 15 Feb 2017 :
Aid in reverse: how poor countries develop rich countries https://t.co/SPgiKOap8U #povertyiscreated #whosdevelopingwhom (http://twitter.com/TheRulesOrg/status/831846028915511296?s=17)
They tallied up all of the financial resources that get transferred between rich countries and poor countries each year: not just aid, foreign investment and trade flows (as previous studies have done) but also non-financial transfers such as debt cancellation, unrequited transfers like workers’ remittances, and unrecorded capital flight (more of this later).
[..]
What they discovered is that the flow of money from rich countries to poor countries pales in comparison to the flow that runs in the other direction.
In 2012, the last year of recorded data, developing countries received a total of $1.3tn, including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3tn flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2tn more to the rest of the world than they received. If we look at all years since 1980, these net outflows add up to an eye-popping total of $16.3tn – that’s how much money has been drained out of the global south over the past few decades.
[..]
Basically, corporations – foreign and domestic alike – report false prices on their trade invoices in order to spirit money out of developing countries directly into tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions, a practice known as “trade misinvoicing”. Usually the goal is to evade taxes, but sometimes this practice is used to launder money or circumvent capital controls. In 2012, developing countries lost $700bn through trade misinvoicing, which outstripped aid receipts that year by a factor of five.
Multinational companies also steal money from developing countries through “same-invoice faking”shifting profits illegally between their own subsidiaries by mutually faking trade invoice prices on both sides.
[..]
In other words, for every $1 of aid that developing countries receive, they lose $24 in net outflows.
[..]
The aid narrative begins to seem a bit naïve when we take these reverse flows into account. It becomes clear that aid does little but mask the maldistribution of resources around the world. It makes the takers seem like givers, granting them a kind of moral high ground while preventing those of us who care about global poverty from understanding how the system really works.
Poor countries don’t need charity. They need justice. And justice is not difficult to deliver. We could write off the excess debts of poor countries, …
[..]
We know how to fix the problem. But doing so would run up against the interests of powerful banks and corporations that extract significant material benefit from the existing system.
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@jasonhickel
Hi everyone. In case you’re interested, my new book is available for pre-order on Amazon. amazon.co.uk/Divide-Brief-G…
poverty doesn’t just exist, it has been created.
something much more radical is needed – a revolution in our way of thinking.
begs we disengage from making up money.. a nother way
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find/follow Jason:
Anthropologist at the London School of Economics // Writing in The Guardian & Al Jazeera // Global political economy and development with a view from the South
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poverty ness
degrowth ness
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https://therules.org/gates-foundations-rose-colored-world-view-not-supported-evidence/
Why is development failing? This brings us to what the Gates’ letter omits. The letter focuses so unwaveringly on foreign aid that you’d be forgiven for believing that charity is all that’s needed to address poverty. We hear nothing of the systemic forces that drive poverty and inequality in the first place, such as – to name just two relevant examples – tax evasion and avoidance, and intellectual property rights.
let’s go deeper
ie: roots of healing.. via a nother way sans money/property/having ness
For all its candor and color, here, in black and white, is what the annual letter doesn’t tell you: that our global economic system is designed in such a way as to channel our planet’s wealth into the hands of a tiny elite. The proof? The eight richest men in the world – of whom Bill Gates is one, even after donating $30 billion to the foundation – have more personal wealth than the poorest half of the world’s population combined.Changing that system at its root – by *stopping illicit financial flows, shutting down tax havens, creating a fairer trade system, battling climate change and helping to build resilient local economies and communities – would require those with power and wealth to dismantle the very machine that created their privilege. That sounds unattainable but if the Greek roots of the word philanthropy literally mean for “**the love of humanity” surely such drastic change that would benefit people and planet is the point
*how about making finance/tax/exchange ness irrelevant..
**let’s go more drastic..
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Martin Kirk (@martinkirk_co) tweeted at 4:52 AM – 12 Jul 2017 :
Are You Ready To Consider That Capitalism Is The Real Problem? https://t.co/p3NTTOTIuL (http://twitter.com/martinkirk_co/status/885089421082734592?s=17)
..there’s something fundamentally flawed about a system that has a prime directive to churn nature and humans into capital
ours is a system that is programmed to subordinate life to the imperative of profit.
millennials aren’t bogged down by these dusty old binaries. For them the matter is simple: They can see that capitalism isn’t working for the majority of humanity, and they’re ready to invent something better.
Our leaders will tell us that these ideas are not feasible, but what is not feasible is the assumption that we can carry on with the status quo
a nother way ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…]..
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Johann Hari (@johannhari101) tweeted at 4:47 PM on Thu, Aug 10, 2017:
The brilliant @jasonhickel explains how our addiction to economic growth is killing us https://t.co/aRIpKrPHIm
(https://twitter.com/johannhari101/status/895778650792091648?s=03)
let’s try truly disengaging from gdp .. from any measuring of transactions..
ie: radical econ via short bp
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sept 2017 – another via Martin and Jason
@martinkirk_co
@TheNextSystem Thought you might like this, incl. the namecheck. Thanks for all your great work! fastcompany.com/40454254/dont-…
Capitalism has become a dogma, and dogmas die very slowly and very reluctantly. ..to question it can trigger a visceral reaction; it can feel like an attack not just on common sense but on our personal identities.
It would be a sad and defeated world that simply accepted the prebaked assumption that capitalism (or socialism, or communism) represents the last stage of human thought; our ingenuity exhausted.
The path to a better future will be cut by regular people being curious and open enough to challenge the wisdom received from our schools, our parents, and our governments, and look at the world with fresh eyes.
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We’ve been debating whether #hungerispolitical. @jasonhickel #GHI2017 https://t.co/mn8LZSp0h5
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/ConcernUK/status/919990585452199936
hunger is not a natural phenom.. it’s a political one
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if not said otherwise.. these are quotes from Jason
@jasonhickel
Why is microfinance failing to reduce poverty? Check out our broadcast debate on Roundtable. youtube.com/watch?v=U_lgCL…
godfather of the micro loan – muhammad yunus wanting to create a world w/o poverty
borrowing money doesn’t deal w root cause..
30 yrs on.. and yunis micro finance success.. reviews are split
(after saying.. true.. microfin has helped some.. but have to zoom out).. net impact against poverty of microfinance is zero – jason
scale of effectiveness.. but nothing counterfactual.. more than 80% of beneficiaries are women.. a gender dimension to who is succeeding.. my point is that the success of microfinance is due to the work of women.. – Dr Kate Maclean @dr_kate99
the way microfin works is a groups of women who trust each other.. Kate
for every story of success.. there’s a story of deep failure.. so impact is zero.. why.. because don’t have enough money.. using money for consumption.. how do we get money into pockets of poor people… debt not working.. so why not cash transfers.. – Jason
18 min – i think the principle of micro fin is fine.. it’s not a solution to poverty.. the structural drivers of impoverishment… yunis peace prize is important point..
they give nobel peace prizes to people who do not ultimately threaten the status quo of existing arrangements of economic and political power.
others get assassinated.. Yunis gets a peace prize because he validates our sense of being able to save the world as rich countries/individuals.. to save the world from poverty w/o any threat to our own privilege.. for keeping their own status in the liberal econ.. and that’s fundamentally a problem i think – Jason
not saying Yunis is a bad person at all
this is great.. just not sure how the principle of micro fin is fine.. and how money/cash is fine.. i mean if we’re trying to create a nother way that doesn’t perpetuate oppression
the same kind of exploitation.. that women have to do more work voluntarily .. hasn’t changed.. – Kate
poverty is political problem.. imbalances of power in global econ.. micro fin may help.. may not.. but ultimately it’s a distraction from the real causes of the problem we’re trying to address.. going to require sacrifice on part of rich countries who presently control global econ
or.. disengagement from money/measuring.. ie: a nother way
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 4:49 AM – 6 Nov 2017 :
Thanks to the folks at Brave New Europe for this very thoughtful review of The Divide: https://t.co/on2U2dcHXm (http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/927503230380232704?s=17)
The idea caught the imagination of citizens of wealthy nations, not only confirming their superiority ethics and efficiency as advanced economies, but offering them the opportunity to exercise Christian charity.
Current examples are Bill Gate’s foundation, “which profits from an intellectual-property regime that locks life-saving medicines and essential technologies behind outlandish patent paywalls”, or Bono, who has prolifically used the tax haven system “that siphons revenues out of global South countries”. It is the old American Robber Baron philanthropy in hipster garb.
The Author then goes over to myth busting mode.
Hickel concludes with a raft of suggestions for changing this skewered system. Many of these, such as recovering the commons, ..
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dao ness ish
Cryptocurrencies are a potentially crucial transition mechanism. But Bitcoin is a disaster of outrageous volatility. Here’s a solution – maybe? makerdao.com
why do we need to measure transactions..?
don’t we have the means to not..?
tech as it could be
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on steven
Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 7:07 AM on Tue, Feb 27, 2018:
Steven Pinker’s new book is American mansplaining at its finest. Are you suffering from global warming? Ecological collapse? Dispossession? Drones? Stop complaining… you’re earning $1.25 per day! Everything is awesome!
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/968487820443734017?s=03)I’m struck by how much of Pinker’s narrative of Progress relies on claims about how global poverty and hunger have decreased dramatically. Sadly, neither claim is true. But he conveniently doesn’t bother engaging with the scholarship on this. @sapinker
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/969602638009511936
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:32 AM – 15 Mar 2018 :
Ideas are proliferating like a thousand butterflies. What once seemed impossible now seems imminent. https://t.co/QzTsFsW0eG #ucustrikes #UCU #USStrike #ussstrikes @ucu @GoldsmithsUCU @UCL_UCU (http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/974247010621632512?s=17)
But we’ve also been thinking way beyond pensions. Pensions are the last thing on our minds now. What we’re really after is nothing short of reclaiming our universities from the banal and reductive logic of neoliberal capitalism – including the uberization of lecturers, the CEO-ification of managers, and the customerization of students. Because really, what’s at stake here is the public university itself. Across the country, staff and students are forming groups, sharing ideas, discussing strategy, even staging occupations toward the goal of making our universities fairer, more caring, more democratic places. We’re not content to weed around the edges of this broken system. We’re going straight to the heart of it.. t
perhaps it’s time to go straight to the heart of us.. ie: city as school/uni.. as the day
not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake
reading undercommons
After the pensions dispute is over, the status quo will no longer be an option. Our employers are kidding themselves if they assume otherwise. Ideas are proliferating like a thousand butterflies. What once seemed impossible now seems imminent.
yeah.
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For more on why #capitalism is causing the ecological crisis, check out our interview with anthropologist @jasonhickel https://t.co/0KbHj8dgNi
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast/status/993547132161282049
10 min – degrowth does not mean voluntary impoverishment.. rather.. shrinking of footprint.. costa rica doing well at this
11 min – challenge of 21st cent: aim at sustainability while improving well being
12 min – climate change causing rise in violence.. and.. climate change as a violence
14 min – get mugged.. there is recourse.. victim of climate change.. no recourse
15 min – tom shoes as capitalism selling us the feeling we are resisting it.. so gets co opted into consumption itself..
17 min – naomi klein.. only reuse and recycle have gained.. to reduce consumption is not compatible w capitalism.. so that is where the real challenge lies
21 mi – paul mason’s idea of postcapitalism (new potential) seems more compelling than socialism (old school)
22 min – so reliant on idea of aid.. ie: rich to poor countries.. this narrative is dominance and obscures what’s really happening.. rich became rich by making poor countries poor.. ie: colonialism.. destroyed indigenous econs et al.. de developed large portion of the world..t
25 min – using gdp to show growth.. sometimes helpful
ugh
27 min – we have to puncture that conclusion that rich countries are givers of aid
29 min – tinkering around w fossil fuels and aid isn’t going to cut it
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On the phenomenon of assholery in academia, and how to defeat it. https://t.co/2GRs79jA5T
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1014863713294315521
even assumed nice anthros (i’m thinking graeber, wesch, hickel. ..) can’t listen to all the people.. that’s why we need a diff approach/mech/means.. that can.. ie: 2 convos as infra
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 3:48 PM on Thu, Jul 05, 2018:
“If all nations in the world were to pursue the highest HDI (which is of course presently the plan), we would develop ourselves into ecological collapse.” https://t.co/SPrgf8v86o
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1014989332040609792?s=03)HDI is calculated as the average of three different indicators: life expectancy index, education index, and income (where 1 = GNI per capita of $75,000, on a logarithmic scale). Of course, it makes perfect sense to compare life expectancy and education against EF. But *it does not make sense to compare income against EF.. t
ef = ecological footprint
none of those three make sense.. to an undisturbed ecosystem
The reason is because income, like GDP, is almost inextricably linked to EF. While it is possible to achieve enormous gains in life expectancy and education with relatively little EF, it is not possible to grow average income up to $75,000 without vastly outstripping biocapacity.
the way we’re doing ed and life expectancy are directly linked as well..
begs holmgren indigenous law.. where we play out rev of everyday life.. (of alive people).. ie: 2 convos as infra
We need a better measure, one better suited for the Anthropocene..t
rather no measure.. suited for eduaimoniative surplus..
let’s focus on getting to a meadows undisturbed ecosystem
Consider this thought experiment..t
consider this one: short; short bp; short bit; ..
Nearly 30 years on, it’s time for a better measure – one that will aid rather than hinder us in our efforts to build a more ecological model of development.
again.. am thinking it’s all the measuring that’s messed with us.. time to let go..
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on Dambisa Moyo
“Dambisa Moyo has a lot of fans these days. When she appeared at a recent Oxford Debate the crowd was packed with admiring students eager to take her side … But as heroes go, she’s a strange choice” — @jasonhickel
https://t.co/YbAgtfPToF
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/africasacountry/status/1017372066717331456But as heroes go, she’s a strange choice – a millionaire who sits on the boards of major Western banks and extractive companies, including Barclays, Chevron, and Barrick Gold. Peel away the slick image and you find that her ideas stray little from the dusty old neoliberal mantras so endlessly recycled by establishment elites in the US and Europe. Yet the Western media can’t seem to get enough of her – and perhaps that’s precisely why
Moyo’s new book, Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth, is a perfect case in point. If you’ve heard of it, it’s probably because of the controversy over her outrageous idea that we should “fix” democracy by introducing a system of weighted voting, whereby the votes of people who have specific qualifications and higher levels of education would count more than the votes of those who don’t. Maybe it was always just a PR gimmick – a way to get media attention. But while critics obsess over the voting thing, the rest of Moyo’s book has gone unchallenged. And that’s where the real trouble lies.
Indeed, this is why she proposes weighted voting: because she thinks these ordinary folks don’t know what’s best for them, and we can’t trust them to decide on important matters of economics.
The real issue with this book is that Moyo fundamentally misdiagnoses the problem. She accuses democracy of being short-termist. But it’s not democracy that’s short-termist – it’s capitalism. The logic of capitalism is to seek short-term gains at the expense of more important things: workers’ welfare, people’s health, the ecosystems on which we depend.
there’s a deeper problem.. let’s go there..
just when we most need fresh thinking, Moyo urges us to double down on the status quo. Meanwhile, the voices of real thinkers across the African continent – ..never find a platform in the global media.
begs a mech to listen to all the voices.. everyday..
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:42 AM on Thu, Aug 30, 2018:
“The morally relevant metric of progress against poverty is neither absolute numbers nor proportions, but rather the extent of global poverty compared to our capacity to end it. By that metric, we are doing worse than ever before in history.” https://t.co/LUtcMhBQwo#globaldev
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1035130734741209093?s=03)There is a third approach, however, proposed by Yale philosopher Thomas Pogge. Pogge argues that the morally relevant metric of progress against poverty is neither absolute numbers nor proportions, but rather the extent of global poverty compared to our capacity to end it. By that metric, he says, we are doing worse than at any time in history.
@ThomasPogge
Pogge is right: by this metric, poverty is worse now than ever before. Our world is replete with unprecedented riches, and yet we cannot ensure that everyone has a decent basic share of it. Morally, we have regressed as a civilization.
We live in an age where more than 4 billion people – some 60% of the human population – live on less than what is required for meeting basic human needs. This is a ringing indictment of the global economy by any standard. But it is particularly unjust given that their suffering could be ended with only 4% of the income of the world’s richest quintile.
*I’ll be working on refining this method further, testing different thresholds, and exploring national-level results. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them either through my contact form or in the comments below.
if only .. you could hear me.. as it could be..
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 8:53 AM on Tue, Sep 04, 2018:
There’s a dominant narrative out there that says global inequality has been getting better since the 1980s. But it’s not quite so simple. In absolute terms, global inequality is in fact getting significantly worse. https://t.co/k86cqRrZci
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1036990767041007616?s=03)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 4:38 AM on Wed, Sep 19, 2018:
Our addiction to economic growth is killing us…
Let’s imagine our way toward a #postgrowth future. https://t.co/VaHQRM1zit
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1042362371942039552?s=03)
our addiction to measuring things is killing us
econ model that promotes human flourishing in harmony w planet: commoning – sans measuring things
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SustainabilityAgenda (@sustain_agenda) tweeted at 6:06 AM – 11 Oct 2018 :
Last year on the Sustainability Agenda we talked to @TonyJuniper who told us that the real threat to the #environment that no one talks about is #inequality
We take this conversation further in a eye-opening conversation with Dr @jasonhickel Listen here: https://t.co/IQY5lSqNZh(http://twitter.com/sustain_agenda/status/1050356844424818688?s=17)9 min – poverty decrease.. that pinker, gates et al claim.. has only happened in one place.. china.. if take china out of the equation. and doesn’t exist
12 min – on 5% of new income goes to 60% of poor.. so growth is not a means to eradicate poverty.. have to do 175x amount to make an affect.. which would ecologically kill the planet (paraphrase)
13 min – something about the ineq built into growth that is the problem
16 min – we need to move from charity to justice.. ie: debt cancellation
20 min – gdp growth has been driving ecological degradation
21 min – sdg’s call for growth.. how to reconcile firm objective for econ growth w confirm for sustainability
23 min – absolute decoupling of gdp from resource use is not possible
52 min – we’re not calling for degrowth.. some poor countries are going to need to grow.. we need the growth to be pro poor.. now .. fast majority of income growth goes to richest..
54 min – the solution is to evolve past capitalism to something better.. find a way to evolve into a better way of being human
56 min – we need to speed our consciousness along
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the divide.. dang.. first few chapters.. ginormous
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“And that is exactly what people find so terrifying about the question of reparations. It’s not that they fear the prospect of paying. It is that even just thinking about what is owed reveals the hard truth: that what is owed, is everything.” https://t.co/XiL16aDBKc
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1051402893272764416
moten abolition law: i also know that what it is that is supposed to be repaired is irreparable.. it can’t be repaired. the only thing we can do is tear this shit down completely and build something new. – Fred Moten
a nother way – roots of healing
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 2:45 AM on Wed, Dec 19, 2018:
Here’s Stiglitz complaining (rightly) about GDP, wondering why nothing has changed since “Mismeasuring Our Lives” came out 10 yrs ago. The reason is that GDP isn’t actually the problem. Capitalism’s growth imperative is the problem. GDP is just a symptom. https://t.co/UtEiQUWHeR
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1075326198996221952?s=03)
capitalism’s growth imperative ..also a symptom
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 7:07 AM – 14 Jan 2019 :
“The objective of #degrowth is to scale down aggregate resource use and emissions while improving people’s well-being. How do we make this happen? Here are five first steps: https://t.co/lxb9uvc4IF (http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1084814318460391424?s=17)1. Abandon GDP as a measure of progress
2. Scale down throughput
3. Shorten the working week
4. Expand universal social goods and reinstate commons
5. Distribute national income more fairly
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:29 AM – 3 Feb 2019 :
“By this metric, poverty is worse now than ever before. Our world is replete with unprecedented riches, and yet we cannot ensure that everyone has a decent basic share of it. Morally, we have regressed as a civilization.” https://t.co/LUtcMhBQwo(http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1092037418860060672?s=17)
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feb 2019 – letter
Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 3:30 AM – 4 Feb 2019 :
“The story of global poverty is more complex than you and Gates have been willing to acknowledge, and the data do not support your rosy narrative about neoliberal globalization.” https://t.co/O5rHzaUekU (http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1092369881713004544?s=17)Suddenly your grand story of progress seems tepid, mediocre, and – in a world that’s as fabulously rich as ours – completely obscene. There is nothing worth celebrating about a world where inequality is so extreme that 58% of people are in poverty, while a few dozen billionaires have more than all of their wealth combined. .t
This claim is intellectually dishonest, and unsupported by facts. Here’s why: The vast majority of gains against poverty have happened in one region: East Asia
It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. We can end poverty right now simply by making the rules of our global economy fairer for the world’s majority..t
why not for everyone
has to be everyone or the dance won’t dance
ie: meadows undisturbed ecosystem: ‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:50 AM on Mon, Feb 25, 2019:
I don’t have kids, but if I did I imagine that the sense of outrage and urgency I feel regarding climate breakdown would be magnified considerably.
I cannot fathom why parents are not out in the streets en masse, demanding radical mitigation and toppling govts that fail them.
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1100015250840174592?s=03)
perhaps the unfathomableness is a sign that this isn’t a deep enough issue.. today we can go deeper than .. (which would also hasten climate restoration/regen)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 6:35 AM on Sun, Mar 10, 2019:
Yeah this is madness. Here’s a quick interim solution: one tax-free flight per person per year, and every flight after that is taxed exponentially until even the richest frequent flyers squeak like piglets. https://t.co/lDIPmlTRTz
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1104722407829528576?s=03)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:23 AM on Mon, Apr 15, 2019:
The #SDGs suffer from a fatal contradiction. Empirical evidence shows that Goal 8 (annual GDP growth of ~3%) violates Goal 12 on sustainable resource use and Goal 13 on climate change. For a flagship piece of international policy, this is unacceptable. https://t.co/WG75zny1mM
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1117750169150345216?s=03)’
Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:23 AM on Mon, Apr 15, 2019:
“Indeed, reducing global inequality becomes the only method by which the SDGs can hope to accomplish their human development objectives without violating their sustainability objectives.” This requires “changing the rules of the world economy to make it fundamentally fairer…”
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1117750173638299649?s=03)
any measuring (of people) is a ‘fatal contradiction’ to humanity – we’re counteract ing ourselves at every turn..
rather.. ‘changing rules of world econ to make it fundamentally’.. irrelevant
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 2:12 AM on Wed, Apr 17, 2019:
I have finally put up direct links to free PDF downloads of my articles that aren’t already open access, so you don’t have to go through the rather cumbersome (and increasingly neoliberal) academia-edu platform. Hope this is useful! https://t.co/DGwSv0VLce
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1118427119443431424?s=03)
some still show up at academia edu.. but can scroll to see it (just can’t download)
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extinction rebellion
The @ExtinctionR and the #climatestrike are among the most important movements of our century. It is vital that we vocally reject media efforts to cast them as crazy. They are not. They are imminently sane and indeed more aligned with science and reason than our politicians are.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1120014262683013121
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:31 AM – 7 Aug 2019 :
In a timely turn of events, the feature I wrote for New Internationalist earlier this summer on global poverty and inequality is now available for free online. Check it out here: https://t.co/8zc95voPSW (http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1159064614467973121?s=17)Gapminder lists Gates as one of its biggest donors; as for Vox and Buzzfeed, Gates is a major investor in both. Indeed, Vox has been pulled up by FAIR, a US media watchdog, for functioning as a sort of propaganda arm for Gates and Microsoft. But Gates isn’t the only one who has tapped into the power of this story. The Koch brothers – billionaire oil barons known for promoting climate denialism and extreme market deregulation – have thrown their hats in too, bankrolling media sites like Reason and Human Progress, a project of the libertarian Cato Institute, whose writers promote New Optimism as part of a nakedly rightwing agenda.
It has become a kind of last-ditch battle cry for the status quo.
New Optimists are careful to present themselves as rational and scientific
The idea is that if you’re a rational person, you have to admit that free-market capitalism is serving humanity beautifully, and we need to stick with it. To believe anything else is ideology.
And yet, despite their insistence on ‘reason’, the New Optimists are often strikingly uninterested in the nuances of the historical evidence they invoke.
For people who stake such a vocal claim to science, they can be remarkably unscientific – sacrificing robust analysis for the sake of political expedience…t
And nowhere is this tendency more apparent than when it comes to the centrepiece of the New Optimist narrative: the story of global poverty…‘We are, right now, living through the golden age of poverty reduction. Anyone serious about tackling global poverty has to accept that whatever we’re doing now, it’s working – so we should keep doing it. ..’
This line of argument has been repeated ad nauseum in the years since. It was used by the conservative psychologist Jordan Peterson in his much-publicized debate with philosopher Slavoj Žižek. And Bill Gates wheeled it out in early 2019, as world leaders and business elites arrived in Davos for the World Economic Forum. As if to pre-empt the usual critiques of inequality that surface during Davos, Gates tweeted a graph of global poverty, developed by Our World In Data, to remind his 46 million followers that the world is getting better and better (see below left).
we have mountains of evidence showing that people who live just above this line remain crushingly poor in every respect, with terribly high levels of malnutrition, infant mortality, and low life expectancy.
What’s more, the vast majority of the gains that have been achieved over this period have come from one region: China and the East Asian tigers. Even if we take just China out of the equation, we find that the proportion of people in poverty today is almost exactly the same as it was in 1981, with no net progress at all.
Roser’s graph relies on two different datasets: one that goes from 1820 to 1970, and one that goes from 1981 to the present. The latter is based on actual poverty surveys. The former, by contrast, has nothing to do with poverty at all, but rather GDP.It reports on national accounts of commodity production.
If you enclose a forest and sell it for timber, GDP goes up. If you burn subsistence farms and turn the land into cotton plantations, GDP goes up. But this accounting tells us nothing of what local communities lose in terms of their use of that forest or their access to food. The costs to their livelihoods and wellbeing is swept under the statistical rug.
Gates’ favourite infographic takes the violence of colonization and – through creative use of irrelevant statistics – repackages it as a happy story of progress..t
Our economic system has failed to deliver any meaningful progress against poverty, not because the problem is inherently intractable, but because the yields of our economy are being locked up at the top.
when myths fall apart, new worlds emerge..t
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 3:27 AM on Mon, Nov 04, 2019:
We’re told that humans are naturally selfish and competitive, and that capitalism is therefore the inevitable product of human nature. But the opposite is true. We’re wired for fairness and cooperation. Capitalism pushes us to behave against the grain of our intrinsic values.
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1191301054878617601?s=03)
science of whales in sea world
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jason on schooling the world ness
Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 9:30 AM – 13 Jan 2020 :
Economists call them “underdeveloped countries”, but this is a misnomer that obscures the power relations that have produced this condition. A more accurate term would be “historically plundered countries”. (http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1216759309943459840?s=17)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 0:30 AM on Tue, Feb 25, 2020:
People say that the Nordic model only works because those countries are relatively small and homogenous. It is a myth. Size and diversity pose no barrier to social democracy. The barrier is posed only by elites, who propagate and benefit from this myth in the first place.
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1232206092408627201?s=03)
perhaps ‘social democracy’ part of the myth.. we need to let go of ie: consensus ness and try curiosity over decision making. .et al
but agree that size/diversity no barrier to ie: commoning/well-being.. in fact.. won’t work unless it’s all of us
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 3:18 AM on Wed, Feb 26, 2020:
When indigenous people fight for their legal rights to land, they understand this relationship as them *belonging to* the land rather than the other way around.
This difference represents the ontological shift that we must achieve if we are to build an ecological civilization.
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1232610987074826240?s=03)
agree with the belonging to part.. but we have to let go of rights ness.. ie: if we truly believed we belonged.. why would ‘legal’ ‘rights’ ‘fight’ .. even exist..
our problem.. why we can’t get back/to that state of being.. is we keep making it about only part of us.. ie: we’re always against/fighting somebody
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intro’d to braiding sweetgrass via jason here:
Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 6:30 AM on Thu, Jan 30, 2020:
My understanding of the deep drivers of the ecological crisis, and what is required to reverse it, has been enhanced immeasurably by reading indigenous philosophers. In this vein, I highly recommend the extraordinary Robin Wall Kimmerer, and her book “Braiding Sweetgrass.”
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1222874820142161920?s=03)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:30 AM – 11 Mar 2020 :
The New Optimists’ “progress” narrative collapses when stacked against actual science. In this new book the economist Rodrigo Aguilera examines their core claims. I’m afraid Pinker and Rosling (and a number of others) do not fare well. https://t.co/RTRUOfRrB9 (http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1237702308496060420?s=17)Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 6:16 AM on Wed, Mar 11, 2020:
Ironically, the “progress” narrative promoted by figures like Pinker and Rosling isn’t progressive at all, but a conservative defense of a status quo that’s leading us to disaster. This new book by economist Rodrigo Aguilera explores their core claims: https://t.co/T413ijaNKm
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1237713977314082816?s=03)
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degrowth ness
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 6:44 AM on Tue, Apr 14, 2020:
This research is really inspiring. Scientists find that, when left alone, destroyed tropical forests can almost completely regenerate in only 66 years, and in some cases as little as 21. https://t.co/zQnN1PkkzC
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1250042204153884673?s=03)
much like people
left to own devices
ie: cure ios city
‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
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The “economy” is ultimately the sum of our exchanges with each other and with the rest of the living world.In other words, it is a relationship.
We need to decide what we want that relationship to look like. One based on extraction and domination? Or one based on reciprocity?
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1260231298565705729
reciprocity: ‘In social psychology, reciprocity is a social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action, rewarding kind actions.’
is there a 3rd?
i don’t think we’ll get to common\ing et al (knowing what enough is) if we’re responding-to/rewarding/adding-up exchanges
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giorgios kallis and limits
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 2:24 AM on Wed, Jul 22, 2020:
US stocks have been restored almost to their all-time historic high, despite record unemployment that’s left millions of people reliant on food aid. The federal “recovery” package was clearly designed to guarantee the recovery of capital, rather than the recovery of society.
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1285853215385432064?s=03)
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The UNDP has just released a strategy proposal to provide a temporary basic income to the 2.7 billion poorest people, to get them through the COVID-19 crisis. It’s an excellent idea. My only suggestion: make it permanent. https://t.co/688zLr1gFi
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1286606100415078400
yes permanent sounds nicer.. but won’t get to roots of healing
let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence
w/ubi as temp placebo.. needs met w/o money.. until people forget about measuring
need to do this for everyone – in sync.. or it won’t work
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quote from less is more
Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 2:10 AM on Tue, Aug 04, 2020:
https://t.co/wS4LcSb1Ry
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1290560685487816704?s=03)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 1:24 AM on Thu, Aug 13, 2020:
Today’s the big day! LESS IS MORE is out now. I wrote this book to be accessible to everyone – a hopeful story about climate justice and post-capitalist possibilities. If you’re looking for a copy, https://t.co/422b7mZvAn is doing 25% off w/ free shipping. https://t.co/vGqrv0O0gp
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1293810518994628611?s=03)
we should quit saying ‘accessible to everyone’ ..until we have that figured out.. actuated..
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Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) tweeted at 11:11 PM on Thu, Aug 20, 2020:
“Less Is More” by @jasonhickel is a book that I wish was in the hands of every single person. It is a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom. Everyone should read and discuss its arguments. If people did, the world would be better off. https://t.co/jJqN4ew3eG
(https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1296676281254383616?s=03)
get publisher to put ebook on overdrive so libraries can access
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The pages above are from Less is More.
“People around the world are yearning, quietly, for something better…”
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1322152866560311296
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 9:04 AM on Sat, Nov 07, 2020:
People believe we need growth because they start from the assumption of scarcity. But there is no scarcity. There is inequality.
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1325106934538760194?s=03)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 5:45 AM on Fri, Nov 20, 2020:
What does a post-capitalist economy look like? An economy that’s organized around the principle of reciprocity, with one another and with the rest of the living world.
(https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1329767945690603523?s=03)
reciprocity ness.. just as deadly
there’s a nother way.. sans any form of measuring/accounting
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The “economy” is our material relationship with each other and with the rest of the living world. We have to decide whether we want that relationship to be based on extraction and exploitation, or on reciprocity and care.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1513151974216282116
deeper issue.. reciprocity just a seemingly nicer version of extraction/exploitation.. steiner care to oppression law.. et al.. we need to let go of any form of m\a\p.. ie: bachelard oikos law – econ our souls crave
answers reply question as well.. because it has to be something all souls crave or it won’t work
@jasonhickel We know what we want; there are just a small number of powerful actors that exploit others and extract vast sums for themselves.
The question is how to stop them?
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/ecomarxi/status/1513152741111177220
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be you. 