In the foreword to Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Society, author Jared Diamond mentions "The Problem of Yali."
Jerry, a politician in New Guinea, asked Jared Diamond, "Why do you whites make so many goods and ship them to New Guinea, while we blacks have almost no goods of our own?" ”
Yali asks the question about the differences in the modern world – what causes the gap between rich and poor? What are the causes of inequality in modern society?
Jared Diamond used these questions as clues to write Guns, Germs and Steel. Economics master Thomas Sawel also explores these issues in his book Wealth, Poverty and Politics.
Thomas Sawwell is a well-known liberal economics master in the United States, a senior researcher at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and has received many honors such as the President's Humanities Achievement Award, the National Humanities Award, the Bradley Foundation Award, and many other honors.
In the book, he uses a series of data and facts to restore the truth that caused the gap between rich and poor, and explore the causes of income inequality. And some facts will undoubtedly have an impact on some people's existing prejudices, triggering a re-examination of reality.
The real cause of poverty
If too much attention is paid to the issue of income distribution, it is impossible to discover the real problem that causes poverty – production. In most cases, the poor do not cause poverty because their income has been taken by others. It's because they can't provide valuable outputs to society.
If poverty is only a matter of distribution, then in solving the problem of poverty in the country, direct printing of money can allow people to achieve a state of common prosperity. But this is not the case, the standard of living of a country's people depends on the level of production in that country.
A man's desires or greed do not bring him wealth or status. Behind the affluence is the production process of creating valuable goods and services.
And output and wealth do not appear for no reason, but behind them are the hard and wise efforts and efforts of ancestors or parties.
Behind this, it is true that there is the role of geographical location, the differences brought about by culture, and the support and guidance of policies. But the core of the gap between rich and poor is inseparable from the difference in value creation.
The fallacy of this view will cause some social problems. In many countries, there are a small number of people from outside, and they have achieved local achievements that have surpassed those of the locals.
And the public sometimes demonizes this achievement, believing that the foreign population has robbed the country's industry. But in fact, it was these minorities who brought these industries to their countries, which had no relevant industries at all before that.
Cultural segregation creates backwardness
At the beginning of the 15th century, China strictly forbade people from contacting the outside world and chiseled and destroyed many ships. Later, the Ming government banned going to sea and destroyed all the previously preserved navigation records, calling other places barbarian lands.
The rejection of the progress of other cultures has had disastrous consequences, leaving China with a growing gap in science and technology with the West, and its inability to fight back when it is attacked by imperialism.
And a culture of rejection of others is a form of self-isolation that, like geographical isolation, leads to backwardness.
In the era of underdeveloped transportation, mountain villages around the world were relatively poor. A 20th-century scholar described the greek mountain villages this way: "I once met a Greek who grew up in the countryside and had not seen olive trees, fish, or even oranges until he was 12 years old. ”
After China regained strength, many Chinese also achieved remarkable results in other countries. However, the native residents of some countries are rarely willing to accept the Chinese culture, but instead hate the status and wealth obtained by the Chinese.
And this hostility is irrational. Only by confronting different cultures with an inclusive attitude and drawing more advanced human capital and opportunities from them can the gap be narrowed.
"Equal opportunity" does not equal "same probability of success"
The Economist once wrote, "Whatever the government does, it cannot make the children of Cabin Creek, West Virginia, live in the same situation as the children of Bethesda, Maryland." ”
Even if society gives different groups the same opportunities and rewards, it does not mean that these different groups can get the same results.
Economically backward groups are often also lagging behind in education, and when choosing a university major, they are more inclined to choose a relatively easy major, which also makes it difficult to find suitable job opportunities after graduating from college. In Europe, Asia and elsewhere, "educated unemployed" is often heard.
In the United States, low-income immigrants show a state of "upward mobility" in society, while native Americans have not changed much in economic status.
Not all groups are able to take advantage of the same climbing opportunities.
Wealth is generally accumulated by bits, and Thomas Sawwell, in the book Wealth, Poverty and Politics, provides a different perspective on the gap between rich and poor.
Whether the facts in the book are "pleasant" or "harsh", they can make people more realistic about the current situation.
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