Thoughts...

To me a recent discussion I got into raises some questions that might make a nifty study to undertake. Such a study might ask;

• What share of the populations of what developing countries work either making things that are exported to the developed world or are employed by developed world companies?

• What alternatives to this work are available?

• Are the old ways pre-employment still available?

• Over what time scale have people's material circumstances changed?

• How have those circumstances changed?

• And what are the likely future trends for such people?

Those are crucial questions in identifying who is living under what circumstances and to correctly identify the reasons for those circumstances. But since a £40k grant from a major university hasn't just fallen into my lap I ain't going to be doing any such thing.



DEATH

Some basis for claims about how many people die worldwide for what reasons every year;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate

A graphical breakdown of total 20th Century mortality by cause;
http://infobeautiful3.s3.amazonaws.com/2013/03/iib_death_wellcome_collection_fullsize.png

I don't see where the correlation between large numbers of annual human deaths on Earth and the existence of capitalism rests. Everywhere it's been tried there is a weak correlation but it's negative - that is capitalistic places see less death, at least after a few decades' worth of economic development off the back of that same capitalism;



SPREADSHEET LIVING

Humans are heterogeneous, human actions are heterogeneous, and land and capital are heterogeneous.

Therefore totting up quantities of stuff - and of, say, people in poverty or numbers of people who die of starvation per year - that exist on Earth and saying one of these aggregates can alleviate the other does not represent the real-world challenges of implementing such a solution - otherwise central planning would work.

Otherwise such things would have been solved by charitable giving and government foreign aid by now.



POVERTY

A report on the effects of Zimbabwe's socialist land reforms on agricultural productivity - that is, actual production of food that humans can eat. One of the sub-articles deals with the on-the-ground consequences for food production and mass starvation of imposing a commons in land;
http://www.cgdev.org/page/scorched-earth-zimbabwe-and-after-satellite-photos

A fabulous news story elucidating the same point as the link just above;
http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/zimsit_agriculture-tale-zimbabwes-sleeping-giant/

Poverty rate lower than ever because of capitalism, including in Africa - will be extinct in 25 years tops absent WW3;
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/05/for-the-first-time-less-than-10-percent-of-the-world-is-living-in-extreme-poverty-world-bank-says/

Dambisa Moyo explains why government to government aid is a non-starter - points out that $1 trillion has been spent on it to no long-term positive effect at all;
http://dambisamoyo.com/publications-articles-videos/books/dead-aid/
http://www.cfr.org/world/aid-dead-discussion-dambisa-moyo-foreign-aid-development/p34548



ESCAPE

M-PESA offers an easy way for farmers in Kenya & Tanzania to get access to credit to improve their farms through eg. fertilisers and machinery;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

The European Union Common Agricultural Policy is one of the biggest obstacles to more productive agriculture in Africa;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy#Anti-development

Clearly any attempt to turn the continent into a commons ain't going to work QED Zimbabwe farming commons;
http://www.cgdev.org/page/scorched-earth-zimbabwe-and-after-satellite-photos

Africans are not somehow magically different from other people. They will escape poverty in their own ways ('their own ways' meaning each person will find their own way) and the best thing an outsider can do is;
a. let them by leaving them alone
b. donate to a charity that doesn't interact with Western or African governments
c. invest in African enterprise