Hot take but the nonsensical portrayal of the third world being entirely made of absolute destitution is an important propaganda element that keeps workers in the first world (Particularly the USA) complacent with a lifestyle that will literally kill them.
This rice farmer survives on $2 a year! Think about how much they must be suffering! Now get back to your third job stocking shelves so you can pay the $1,500 rent for your studio apartment and eat your 25¢ ramen packet like a good little wage-slave.
The question that we should be working to inject into such conversations is not “my god how can those people survive on so little” but rather “why does our own survival require so MUCH?”
This is an excellent framing - and there is an answer.
When average people have their needs met - they are no longer desperate for basic survival. Comfortable workers have the most energy to challenge the hegemony and organize their community, thus material security and comfort is a direct antagonist to capitalism.
In a society that has an abundance of resources, desperation must be artificially created through material barriers (needing a smartphone for work, etc) and increasing sources of debt obligation. (Rent, student loans, etc.)
In other words - we do not require so much, rather new requirements are perpetually created to keep the proverbial carrot just out of reach and the stick chasing our tail.
This is also why public activities are discouraged in favour of individual distraction. The loss of parks where people may meet without payment. The lack of folk schools which might foster skills in the community. The lack of workshops where people might engage in non-industrial manufacturing.
And for clarity I do not condemn entertainment as frivolous when I say distraction. That we do not have public (as in “a free community space”) theatres and arcades, is another way to deprive a community of social bonding opportunities.
