So, We Conclude That Grace Blakeley Is A Know Nothing Ignorant

So, who didn't know this already?

From this video here. Given that Grace herself posts it she must approve the content.

Because the way that capitalism generates prosperity for some is by generating misery for others. You cannot have universal prosperity in a capitalist system. Just think about, like, this phone. What has happened for me to be able to hold this phone in my hands right now? A bunch of kids in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at gunpoint, have been sent to scratch coltan out of the ground…..

So, first thought. If the world, the economy, is a zero sum game then yes, we can only have some prosperous if others are not - some can only have more pie if others have less. On the other hand if we know how to bake the pie bigger then all can have more at the same time.

So, do we know how to make the pie bigger?

That source of Brad DeLong means yes, this is correct. Where’s that inflexion point, that bend in the curve? About where we start doing capitalism with free markets. As Marx, K himself pointed out capitalism is really very productive.

OK, so we know how to increase the size of the pie, it is possible for all to gain. It is not necessary for some to get less in order for others to gain more. The central contention is wrong. Provably, obviously, wrong.

Oh, sure, sure, it could work out that we take stuff off others in order to feed some. You know, say taxing child carers in order to pay train drivers massive salaries, as we do. But it’s not in fact necessary.

We can also check this another way:

So, lots and lots have become better off in this period of capitalism. Sure, sure, we should do better as a civilisation, we want all to do so. But while so many have got better off no, it is not possible to say that this has been done at the expense of those in extreme poverty. Because extreme poverty itself is set at the subsistence level. If you take stuff off the extreme poor then they die - that’s what subsistence level means. So that majority of humanity has not got rich by nicking it off the extreme poor. Because if they had there would be no extreme poor as they’d all be dead.

So, the overall claim is simply wrong. But it’s also wrong in specifics.

That’s what Grace means by that evil slave mining. And, well, sorta. There are coltan mines (properly, columbo-tantalite) in DRC that are run on a seasonal basis by just the local folks. No compulsion, no child slaves, no guns. When there’s nothing to do with the crops why not take the spade up and see if we can find $50 worth of ore?

No, really, this happens. This is why there’s such difficulty in stopping those mines where there really are men with guns forcing the slave mining. Because we cannot just say “No Coltan!” because to do so would be to deprive tens of thousands - some say hundreds of thousands - of artisanal miners of their only way to make a few hundred $ a year. Their only cash incomes in fact.

This is why the whole thing is difficult. We wholly want to stop the violence and oppression and yet not the voluntary actions.

And now the know nothing ignorance. That’s not capitalism in that picture. This is a capitalist mine:

That’s a capitalist tantalum mine. Capitalists use, see, capital? So mining is done by great big fuck off machines not armies of starveling slaves. Each worker there is using a $million and more of capital, see? Which is why it’s called capitalism. Buckets and spades are replaced by great big fuck off machines.

This also means that labour productivity rises, therefore workers get paid more which is why we’ve that reduction in extreme poverty and that rise in GDP per capita. Because capitalism, see?

We’ve been using this capitalism stuff - fair, in varying amounts in different places - for a couple of centuries now. The global pie is the largest it has ever been, the level of extreme poverty the lowest ever in the history of the entire species. Grace uses the example of non-capitalist mining to show how bad capitalism is.

So, Grace Blakeley is a know nothing ignorant or what?