Global

In 1990, about 1.9 billion people were living in extreme poverty. In 2015 about 730 million were¹. The number of people living in absolute poverty has gone down by a factor of about 2.6 in a generation: the number of people living in extreme poverty in 2015 was less than half of that in 1990.

But that's not really the right number: in 1990 the world's population was about 5.3 billion people: about one person in 2.8 was living in extreme poverty in 1990. In 2015 the world's population was about 7.4 billion people: about one person in 10 was living in extreme poverty. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty has gone down by a factor of about 3.6 in a generation: the chance of a person being in extreme poverty in 2015 is just over a quarter of the chance in 1990.

This is what globalization did for us. Of course, most of those people were in China and other far-eastern countries, and a relatively tiny number of them were white, and we don't care about that sort of people, do we? Globalisation must end so that a small number of rich and really whiny white people, some of whom got a little poorer as a result of it, can get little more poor, while a huge number of poor non-white people can starve to death.

It's good to know what we're fighting for.