How the New York Times Used the
Misleading Oxfam Report
I often accuse the main Western media of the left and the center-left for bias on economic issues i.e. The Guardian (England), The New York Times and The Washington Post (United States), Le Monde and Liberation (France), El Pais (Spain) etc. I also praise the liberal (center-right) newspapers i.e. The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. Yesterday I uploaded a critique for the Oxfam inequality report and the 62 richest people in the world. See “Oxfam’s Misleading Report about Inequality and the 62 Richest People in the World”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/oxfams-misleading-report-about-inequality-and-the-62-richest-people/
Except of attacking Oxfam, which is a leftist organization, the Oxfam Report is very useful to also demonstrate the propaganda of the leftist western media, and that’s why I am writing this post.
However, before attacking the Western media, I would like to add one more point, one point that I failed to mention in the critique I uploaded yesterday. The point is that approximately thirty six percent (36%) of the poor and relatively poor people included in the Oxfam Report are Chinese and Indians, since the two countries have a total population of 2.7 billion, and that is approximately 36% of the global population. The global population was approximately 7.4 billion in December 2015.
Note that China is a communist country, and India was almost a communist country, closely related to the Soviet Union, until the Soviet collapse in 1991. Therefore most of the poor people in Oxfam’s report come from communist or very socialist countries. You can also see the following data from Oxford University, which depicts extremely poor people by country. You can see that most of the extremely poor people are located in communist, ex communist or very socialist countries i.e. India, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh,, Congo, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Pakistan etc.
Table 1 Absolute Poverty by Country
http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/world-poverty/
You can verify yourself what I say about the Chinese and Indian economies. I suggest that you start with Wikipedia. The following two Wikipedia links describe the India economy before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union i.e. “Economy of India: Pre-Liberalization Period 1947-1992”, and “Economy of India : “Post-Liberalization Period Since 1991”. See:
“Economy of India: Pre-Liberalization Period 1947-1992”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India#Pre-liberalisation_period_.281947.E2.80.931992.29
“Economy of India : “Post-Liberalization Period Since 1991”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India#Post-liberalisation_period_.28since_1991.29
India was an extremely poor country until 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. After 1991 India decide to liberalize her economy a bit, she welcomed the Western companies, and she was significantly rewarded. China was also extremely poor until 1980, when she came to an agreement with the West, and Western companies entered and invested in China. China was also significantly rewarded.
Anyway, the point is that most of the poor people in Oxfam’s inequality report are Indians and Chinese i.e. people from communist or very socialist countries. Add to the poor Indians and Chinese the poor of other communist or socialist countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Moreover the rich in Oxfam’s inequality report include the rich state-sponsored businessmen of the socialist countries, who are closely related to the political elite. Oxfam’s rich also include the members of the royal families of countries with monarchic regimes. Monarchies have nothing to do with capitalism and free markets i.e. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates etc.
Before you examine how the big Western media of the left and center-left used the Oxfam report in order to promote socialism, you need to truly realize how unreasonable it is to use the poor people of communist and socialist countries, and also the rich political elites of these countries, plus the rich monarchs of the world, in order to prove that more socialist is the solution, and that capitalism leads to increasing inequality.
In the articles of the New York Times and the Guardian that I provide below, you will read that the cause of inequality are the tax havens, the banking sector etc. They do not use the word capitalism and socialism explicitly, but they do not mention at all that most of the poor people come from socialist and communist countries, and therefore socialism might actually be the main cause of poverty and inequality. I think it is worth your time to read my critique, and then the NYT and Guardian articles. Not for the Oxfam inequality report, but to realize how state of the art propaganda is used against you.
I would also like to provide the following diagram from Oxford University. The diagram shows the dramatic decline of extreme poverty from 1820 to 2015. The cause of this dramatic decline in extreme poverty was the invention of capitalism in the 17th century.
Diagram 1
http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/world-poverty/
Read the articles, and then try to forget my critique about the Oxfam Report, and imagine how these articles would have affected the way you think if you hadn’t read any critique about the Oxfam Report. And note that critiques about the Oxfam Report are not widely available, while articles like the ones from the NYT and the Guardian are literally everywhere.
Articles
“Wealth Inequality Rising Fast, Oxfam Says, Faulting Tax Havens”, January 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/business/economy/wealth-inequality-rising-fast-oxfam-says-faulting-tax-havens.html?_r=0
“Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world's population, says Oxfam”, January 2016 http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-billionaires-wealthy-half-world-population-combined
World Poverty
http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/world-poverty/