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I'm from Poland. I was born around the time socialist system fell, and was replaced by capitalism.
Mistakes were made, hyperinflation destroyed all the wealth that remained in the early 90s, everyone was impoverished billionaire. Wherever you looked it was neverending gray desolation, broken, disfunctional infrastructure buliding falling apart and so on. But then government employed western economic advisors, budget has been balanced, money printing stopped, necessary reforms were made and over the next three decades Poland grew from a complete africa-like shithole into an european economic powerhouse.
Just to put it into number average monthly salary was like 100-200 USD equivalent in the 90s vs around 2000 USD now.
How can you dismiss achievement like this? You can't. You probably were never told about this in the first place. What you should ask yourself is why nobody talks about it?
I was told about this. In fact, it's about the only thing I was told about former USSR nations prior to becoming an adult.
When did I dismiss it? I acknowledged it in fact. The USSR siphoned wealth out of these countries to benefit the elite. It sucked.
You're dismissing that you're now benefitting from extracting wealth from these "shithole" African nations. How is that a good thing? The people there are making less than what the people in Poland were making under the USSR, yet you ignore it. You get to live the life you live by buying products made by the impoverished in Africa, China, Vietnam, and everywhere else where the poor are being worked and not being paid their fare share. All of this is happening under capitalism (yes, even in China).
It's easy to say "I'm doing better" while ignoring the suffering and exploitation you're told to ignore that you benefit from. Whatever group is at the top tends to exploit some other group. It just so happens that Poland used to be the group exploited and is now the exploiter. The USSR needed to find nations they could siphon wealth from just as Poland needs to (and is).
You can still find many people who benefited from the USSR's control and long for it to return because they ignored people like the people of Poland who suffered, just as you're ignoring the people you benefit from today. You're as bad as those people who wished for the USSR to continue, but you don't realize why they were bad yet. You just see yourself happy and ignore anything else, because you're only worrying about yourself.
First, the notion that somone producing goods I'm paying for the amount they ask is somehow exploitative is ridiculous.
Second, Poland has almost no economic ties neither with africa, nor vietnam. We have a lot of trade with the rest of EU and China
Third: CHINEESE ARE EARNING ON AVERAGE TWICE WHAT WE IN POLAND DO
Forth: European Union has Tarifs on products from OUTSIDE
EU DOESN'T EVEN WANT CHEAP PRODUCTS FROM VIETNAM OR AFRICA
They want the goods to be produced INSIDE the EU!!!
What you just said is all wrong on so many levels that's it makes me cringe.
No, child slaves on cocoa farms or mines aren't being exploited at all! They are choosing freely to barely have enough to survive without anyone withholding basic necessity under the requirement of labor! /s (Your electronics require this.)
On average. What about the minimum?
You don't have electronics without them. Sorry, yes they do. Also, tariffs are only on the products coming in, not the raw resources used in the production. It isn't counting those. Look up where the raw resources in your products come from. They almost certainly aren't from Europe.
So you're blaming capitalism rather than uncivilized governments of these countries that fail to uphold basic human rights? Horrible take is horrible.
I think you mean median - minimum is just arbitrarly set number. I cant find any median figure. Anyway the point is that Chinese aren't exactly poor.
You know what the funny thing is? That if there was no tarifs, there would be more demand for these goods and poduction would create more jobs with better salaries there. But EU has policy of protecting its internal market.
I've said this entire time, authoritarianism is the issue. You say socialism causes this, yet it exists under capitalism too. You don't blame capitalism for this but yet blame socialism when it happens under socialism. Tell me how that makes sense. I'll wait.
No, I meant minimum. The average person may live a fine life, but it's built on the backs of those at the bottom. If they aren't there then the average person doesn't get what they're used to today.
Possibly, though unlikely. There are more people than jobs, and the owner class controls the means of survival, so workers are forced to work for them and can't bargain for anything better. What would help them is union, worker ownership, or a government that protected them. These are socialist things though, and the owner class will prevent them from happening.