If bandwidth were resources:
Before the use of traffic shaping, Bell says five per cent of users were chewing up 33 per cent of available bandwidth. “In other words, 95 per cent of Bell subscribers were being negatively impacted by a very small minority of Internet users using P2P file sharing applications.”
and wishes were horses:
U.N. figure — the world’s wealthiest 20% consume a massive 86% of the world’s resources
[In other words, 80 per cent of Earth's subscribers were being negatively impacted by a very small minority of resource users using food sharing applications.]
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Louise | 17-Apr-08 at 7:12 am | Permalink
Question. I’ve always wanted to seek clarification on this point, fine though it may be:
Does this statement “the world’s wealthiest 20% consume a massive 86% of the world’s resources” mean that “86% of all the worlds resources are currently being consumed” or does it mean “86% of what is currently being consumed”? There is a difference, and I’d like to know which one it is. There are things like renewable resources and there are non-renewable resources that are as yet untapped. The quantity of as yet untapped resources is shrinking, to be sure, but the answer to that question goes toward clarifying the difference in meaning of the bigger question, namely: 86% of what?
I’d also like to know how to fit the following facts into this supposed imbalance. If you were to visit any number of third world cities today you would see people driving North American cars and people using North American inventions, such as cell phones. Are the folks that own these gadgets included in the group that is doing the 86% of the consumption? Little nuances, I know. But I think it makes this blanket statement not just somewhat over done, but perhaps a bit over simplified as well. Just curious.
themusicgod1 | 17-Apr-08 at 2:01 pm | Permalink
Louise: it would pretty much have to be “86% of what is currently being consumed”. Considering the amount of iron in earth, we aren’t using more than a fraction of a percent of the resources this planet offers. There’s about, what, nine hundred million kilograms of iron[1] for every man woman and child(I’m going to guess that would be at least a couple of saskatoon-sized iron anvils); There’s plenty of resources to go around, it’s just that we don’t always need iron and silicon. Sometimes we need stuff like water, organic molecules, helium and usable energy.
[1] http://qntm.org/?destroy. I might doublecheck my calculations later, but I’m pretty sure that’s more than an iron anvil the size of saskatoon
Zhu | 17-Apr-08 at 8:48 pm | Permalink
The second fact worries me more than the first one for some reason…
Saskboy | 17-Apr-08 at 9:01 pm | Permalink
As it should, Zhu, since everyone lives on Earth, and only the unfortunate subscribe to Bell.
Louise | 18-Apr-08 at 10:10 pm | Permalink
Music God, that’s why I’m asking. This statistic is quoted so often but there are so many questions and so many angles to explore about it, I just wonder if it is creating some false understandings. Standards of living are rising in the Third World, for example, but this portrayal of an imbalanced world never seems to be adjusted. It’s just repeated over and over.
themusicgod1 | 18-Apr-08 at 11:46 pm | Permalink
It’s true the standard of living is rising in “the third world” if we consider “the third world” as a single entity(especially so if we include china, which is by all non-environmentally sound measures improving their conditions by leaps and bounds every year). However it’s not true everywhere. Some of the countries are getting better, many aren’t. (We did a survey of the development of the developing world for my econ 296 class last summer, looking at a variety of development indices, and that’s where I’m getting that from. I don’t know the data for the past year or two, which is the important part, so I won’t name any names, but excluding china not a whole lot has changed since then, except that there’s a “global food crisis” going on right now which might make things slightly worse/more chaotic in the near-term).
It’s repeated over and over because a lot of the time things aren’t changing — people still starve, people still live in squalid conditions, with little freedom to change their situation, political or material, while there is a lot of waste, and a lot of careless selfishness in canada and a lot of the rest of the west. One need only turn on muchmusic on this front.
We not only benefit directly from their suffering(in terms of cheap consumer goods and resources), but are often directly related to the causes of their suffering, Canadian mining companies, for example, are known worldwide for their violence and disregard for local democratic processes.
Saskboy | 19-Apr-08 at 12:46 am | Permalink
The standard of living is certainly a subjective thing, but taken on a country wide average it’s a fair enough indicator between nations. And it’s not too hard to calculate which nations are using the most resources per person, and thus have the highest standard (in a materialistic sense).
Louise | 19-Apr-08 at 5:26 am | Permalink
Another point about the 20%/86% that rarely gets much attention is who actually produces the stuff that constitutes the 86% of resources? Which society created the techniques used to turn the raw materials into usable products? And what is it about that society that enables their tremendous capacity to be so predominate in the extraction of the raw materials that, through their own creativity, are turned into the 86% of stuff they consume?
These are the kinds of questions that are always left out of these blanket statements. Instead, it’s posed as a statement illustrating some supposed flaw in the society of the 20%. If those 20% weren’t so brilliantly creative, the other 60% likely wouldn’t be much better off than they are now, and could possibly be even worse. The same 20% utilized the same technical and intellectual prowess to create some very beneficial methods and tools, such as the small pox vaccine, crops with greater yields, more high tech gadgets, etc., etc., that are now in common use all over the world and which contribute to the support of a greater population than has ever before been possible.
In other words, things could be a lot worse for the 60% than they are now, if it hadn’t been for the creative impulses of the culture of the 20%. And, besides, if you go back in time to the very earliest days after agriculture emerged 10,000 years ago, when permanent settlements were slowly developing, I suspect a similar divide between folks with gadgets and plenty and folks without would be revealed. This has been part of human society since some of our ancestors left the old hunting and gathering way of life and adapted to new ways of wresting a living out of the environment. So if this 86% line is supposed to heap guilt on the 20%, I’m sorry to inform you that I’m playing that game, because it’s way too simplistic.
Louise | 19-Apr-08 at 5:28 am | Permalink
Should be “I’m NOT playing that game…”
Saskboy | 19-Apr-08 at 9:22 am | Permalink
An interesting defence Louise, yet still I think all I have to do is point out that it’s a defence of relative greed and opulence. Guilt is implicit. How could we not feel guilty if we have a soul? We know that using *everything* while most have *next to nothing* is a greedy scenario. Life doesn’t have to be like that for us humans, because we know we can survive on less, and through our example we know that they could survive on more if we shared power/resources.
The only plausible explanation I can think of that might excuse our greed is IF there is some kind of unknown tipping point, where if we share to be equal, we doom ourselves to the kind of poverty if the scales of power tip instead of level. If it’s human nature that we can’t allow our neighbours to be equals, then we may always be doomed to have a grossly rich population that is small, and a large one that is poor. I don’t want that, because it endangers us all.
What I think is simplistic is our North American economy. It has no direction designed to benefit humankind, only individuals who already have more than enough to live a lifetime and more. The purpose of that kind of economy is selfish in nature, it’s little wonder it ends up repressing people with less power. Saying there is 80-20 quality disparity in the world is the opposite of simplistic. It’s looking at the BIG PICTURE. What’s overly simplistic is looking at North America and judging Canada based on America, instead of also against Haiti, and Peru.
All this doesn’t absolve Haitians (for example) from picking themselves up, yet the economy we’ve constructed for the world (because face it, we dominate and that’s why we’re at the G7) doesn’t give them a ghost of a chance.
Louise | 19-Apr-08 at 10:35 am | Permalink
Lovely humanistic statement, Saskboy, but based in Never-Never Land, I’m afraid. A good part of the reason for inequality is the kind of government countries have as well as the basic values of the population. I like to point to Japan as an example. Sixty years ago, their economy lay in ruin and two of their major cities literally vapourized. They have very little in the way of raw materials with which to produce things. But today they are an economic powerhouse. Why? Because of their ingenuity and an extremely strong work ethic tied to family honour. No one else is placing barriers in Haiti’s way. They could pull themselves up if they had the will.
I would also note that one of the big factors in lifting people up into economic health and on to wealth is free trade. Most lefties are opposed to this because they believe in fairy tales about a supposed inherently exploitative nature of trade. This idea that economies should be “directed to benefit mankind” is straight out of Karl Marx. It doesn’t work that way. It’s when individuals in multitudes set about each looking for opportunities to make a living by producing things that others want and need, that economies thrive. The Big Brother central planning approach has proved to be a dismal failure. The main reason the Soviet Union collapsed was because the centrally planned economy could not put bread or milk on the shelves of the stores. The main reason economies fail to develop is corruption in government and lack of functioning infrastructure that those governments should be building and maintaining.
themusicgod1 | 19-Apr-08 at 11:13 pm | Permalink
This idea that economies should be “directed to benefit mankind” is straight out of Karl Marx.
Actually, that idea is also right out of Adam Smith, and a good reason why we keep markets around is that they do just that.
Also, I find it amazing how in the same post you’ve chastised central planning and yet argued in favour of central planning being implemented in the form of ‘infrastructure’. (While I’m not 100% sure, ) Japan seems also to be the quintessential poster-child for central-planning in a lot of respects; there are rather huge firms in Japan and those firms control one hell of a lot of resources, yet to your acknowledgement have managed their resources such that the Japanese economy as a whole isn’t doing too bad. Also; a lot of US investment went into making japan functional, again, taken directly from US taxpayers, and often invested on behalf of the US government/their “central authority”.
Of course, the most important thing in that case is probably education; Again, I am not sure on the specifics, but I seem to remember education being one of Japan’s higher priorities before and after the war; their situation just proves that properly educated people can build a functioning country faster than a group of nonliterate, noneducated people can. No big surprise there.
Louise | 20-Apr-08 at 7:26 pm | Permalink
Actually, that idea is also right out of Adam Smith,
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Adam Smith had quite a different idea than Karl Marx, or at least there ideas have been accepted by quite different political ideologies. Disciples of Karl Marx chose the central planning mode as was best illustrated by the Soviet Union. Adam Smith devotees, on the other hand, are those countries where the idea that governments should restrict themselves to ensuring infrastructure was in place for the great masses of individuals could go about serving their own self interest by engaging in economic activity that made them money. I’m obviously a Smith devotee.
Japan’s big corporations are not its government. The kind of central planning I’m talking about is that done by government. Saskatchewan has lots of them. Their called crown corporations. And yes, I know the US propped up Japan (and Germany) after WWII. The question that needs to be asked is how is it that the US was able to do that and stare down the Soviet Union until it collapsed while they were at it. There’s not much central planning done in the US, although they have flirted with it from time to time.
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but I seem to remember education being one of Japan’s higher priorities before and after the war;
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And the value the Japanese put on education is part and parcel of the value system I was referring to in my earlier post. It’s long been a core part of their culture. China is the same. That’s why they are now surging ahead and communist in name only. They still have too much central planning, though. But at least their central planning isn’t causing massive starvation like it did in Chairman Mao’s day. Watch out for the day when they shake off the last vestiges of that system.
themusicgod1 | 21-Apr-08 at 5:18 am | Permalink
Now following specific people aside(Now that both Marx & Smith have been credited)…
1) “There’s not much central planning done in the US”
Surely you jest; the US is involved with more central planning than any other country in the world. Ever heard of “the pentagon”? Their budget dwarfs the budget of most of the centralized economies in history (and unlike my next example, they keep a fairly tight grip on the political freedoms of their employees can consume).
2) Why is it that the central planning which does not conform to your belief structure as bad(infrastructure and firms) isn’t seen as central planning? If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it’s a duck — firms are government-like structures. We can argue whether or not they need to exist but they do exist, whether or not they turn out to be a good thing, but they do develop every single characteristic that centralized power structures always does, pretty much without fail. Power, once centralized, always seeks to centralized it’s authority further, unless there’s checks and balances. Always.
You’re arguments for Infrastructure, albeit your opinion, and a completely valid one, I think are misguided; You’re arguing for centralized control of resources, by an authority claiming to represent other people; I think you’re well aware of how bad central planning can work, so I don’t think I have to go into that in this post, but you seem to be afraid to observe that the central planning that you don’t like, functions exactly the same as the central planning which hat you do seem to agree with.
Louise | 21-Apr-08 at 3:36 pm | Permalink
Good lord, MG. Defense spending is not central planning in anyone’s imagination. Central planning is when the government decides how much consumer goods should be produced, what sort of services should be supplied and when and where and how much the workers should be paid, and what sort of training the workers should receive. That is the old style Soviet system. Nothing of the sort exists in the US, or for that matter, in Canada. Governments may influence such decisions, make recommendations and provide incentives but they don’t dictate them. Individual entrepreneurs are what drives most of that in both the US and Canada.
As far as your second point, I guess you have defined the concept of central planning much differently than the standard definition. What you are describing here may be concentration of power with respect to decisions, but that concentration of power rests in the corporate world (ie. the private sectorl) rather than in government.
In your last paragraph you come closer to an argument based on the standard definition of central planning. So, with all due respect, you seem to be all over the place without a clear idea of what it is you are talking about. Central planning as I have used the concept in this exchange we are having is government planning and control of the market, pure and simple. Corporate planning is by it’s very definition in the private sector. A concentration (centralization) of corporate power is a totally different animal.
Louise | 21-Apr-08 at 3:48 pm | Permalink
Here. This is what I’m talking about. The Pentagon does not decide what farmers will produce and what they should be paid for their produce. The Pentagon does not decide what technological innovations General Motors should implement in their next line of energy efficient cars. The Pentagon does not decide what career path a bright young high school student should pursue. Those are the kind of decisions that were made by government in the Soviet Union. The Pentagon may decide what sort of innovations it may pursue in the art of warfare and the government may finance the implementation of those decisions, but neither the Pentagon nor the US Congress decides that Joe Blow should start up a restaurant in a booming resort town. In the Soviet style of central planning, Joe Blow would not have been free to pursue his dream owning a restaurant. That’s the difference between central planning and the free market.
themusicgod1 | 01-May-08 at 9:08 am | Permalink
I’ve written a few replies here, but unfortunately my computer crashed for at least two of them, and the others were kind of washed away during final exams.
However this is a matter of degree; your own wikipedia article seemed to point out that “After all, most corporations are essentially ‘centrally planned economies”, but regardless; how much of the economy must be under control of centralized power interests before it’s a centrally planned economy? How much of the economy must be “planned” by each market participant?
What if 83% of all manufacturing in a country was for one market entity(which also happens to be the state?) Although I’ve lost the reference, the Soviet Union sat at between 90-95% of the economy
being taken up by the state; If not 83% what about 70% That’s still pretty massive, especially for a large market. Must the entire economy be decided by the state(even the former Soviet Union did not…there were some decisions made by it’s members, and there also the black market, would that make the USSR a non-centrally planned economy)?