What is the cause of poverty in the third world?

[Marat]

The problem with controlling foreign markets and resources by colonial occupation is that it requires a large military investment to maintain, since it provides an obvious target for the restless natives to shoot at. The reason why General 'Chinese' Gordon died at Fort Khartuom in 1889 was that the British were already starting to realize that colonial wars were unprofitable, so they delayed in sending General Wavell to rescue him until it was too late.

 

The military power which maintained colonialism until circa 1960 was eventually overcome by the countervailing military power of a suddenly more enlightened and educated Third World population producing such costly rebellions in French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and Africa that the colonialists had to withdraw. The colonial powers also realized that there was a new, much cheaper and much more effective form of colonialism that could achieve the same results as the old military administration, and that was an international trade regime slanted in favor of the First World and against the Third World, supported by corrupt local governments, and ultimately backed by the threat of military force if the less obtrusive methods of control proved ineffective (as in the cases of Cuba in 1962, Arbenz, Chile in 1973, Mossadegh in Iran, Nicaragua and the Contras, etc.). Now all the globalization treaties, the World Bank and IMF loan conditions which require Third World countries to cancel progressive policies to get loans, and foreign aid with anti-socialist strings attached, accomplish more effectively what colonialism used to do more expensively.

[jryan]

I read an interesting and fairly well balanced article by Theodore Dalrymple regarding the effects of colonialism on Africa. The article is often misread as a celebration of colonialism, but it really isn't. Dalrymple

(Anthony Daniels) was an outspoken opponent of apartheid. But as he observes in this article, African culture has been inundated with western values that it is not prepared for and that are at odds with traditional African culture.

 

Anyway, it's thought provoking:

 

After Empire - By Theodore Dalrymple

[needimprovement]

Why is it that the US dollar is so strong while the currency in third world countries are weaker? What makes a particular country's currency "strong" and another's "weak"?

Many things. When you talk about a strong vs weak currency, you're referring to its exchange rate in terms of some standard or relative to another currency.

[Zolar V]

To honestly understand much of what you question, you need to look at the background politics involved between the major economic contributors to the world. These major contributors play an important role in who and how other countries develop, by discriminating against other countries with goods and services. Often these politics are corrupt and severely unjust

[JohnB]

The military power which maintained colonialism until circa 1960 was eventually overcome by the countervailing military power of a suddenly more enlightened and educated Third World population producing such costly rebellions in French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and Africa that the colonialists had to withdraw. The colonial powers also realized that there was a new, much cheaper and much more effective form of colonialism that could achieve the same results as the old military administration, and that was an international trade regime slanted in favor of the First World and against the Third World, supported by corrupt local governments, and ultimately backed by the threat of military force if the less obtrusive methods of control proved ineffective (as in the cases of Cuba in 1962, Arbenz, Chile in 1973, Mossadegh in Iran, Nicaragua and the Contras, etc.). Now all the globalization treaties, the World Bank and IMF loan conditions which require Third World countries to cancel progressive policies to get loans, and foreign aid with anti-socialist strings attached, accomplish more effectively what colonialism used to do more expensively.

 

What absolute bollocks. There were a number of differences between the colonial powers, the foremost being that some encouraged the "Rule of Law" and Democracy and others didn't. If you check the histories of the members of the Commonwealth of Nations, you'll see that the majority gained Independence without bloodshed and in a couple of cases Independence was granted even though not wanted by the locals. The move towards self governance was enforced from the time of the League of Nations and reaffirmed by the United Nations later in the 20th Century.

 

The whole "Neo-Colonialism" schtick is getting very old. It might appeal to the ideology of some but it is bereft of factual basis.

 

One of the main reasons for third world poverty is time. A number of years ago Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia called the attitude of the West "unfair". It got a fair bit of play down here and I, like many others thought it a bit strong. When I checked what he said and meant, he was correct, the expectations of the West are many times "unfair".

 

20th Century Western affluence and Democracy didn't come about overnight. It is the result of more than 5,000 years of wars, rebellions, civil wars and strife, all gradually and incrementally evolving the "West" as we know it today. The legacy of the early times is still with us. The crossed R of the pharmicist derives from the "Eye of Horus", the healer of Pharonic Egypt. The number of seconds in a minute and the number of minutes in an hour, as well as the 360 degrees in a circle all derive from the ancient Sumerian method of using base 60 in accountancy. The size of trains, cars and wagons are directly resulting from Roman war chariots. It has been a very long and bloody road.

 

Yet for some perverse reason many in the West expect Africans and other nations to make this jump in mere decades. That is unfair. This doesn't claim that Africans or anybody else are inferior in any way. I state quite bluntly that we whites couldn't do it either. We are often asking people to make the societal jump in decades that took us thousands of years to do. That is expecting people to be superhuman. If some outside power had come to Europe in the 12th Century offering advanced weapons provided we "used them wisely" and for our own "defence", what would have been the result? The rulers of the times would have gone "Yes, of course, only for our defence, gotcha" and promptly gone to war with each other.

 

The point being that the West didn't do it and since it is beyond belief that the West could do it, why do we expect others to make the societal jump so quickly?

 

We see this in australia on a smaller scale. The last Aboriginal tribe was contacted in 1984. They were a neolithic, hunter gatherer tribe with all the world view that this entails. Bringing them and others into 21st Century society is a problem. I would say that many of the problems we have are due to this "clash of cultures", this demand we place upon the Aboriginal people to integrate into the 21st Century. We try many different programs and often fail in spectacular fashion. The fact that so many of the Aboriginal people in Australia have made the leap from neolithic culture 200 years ago to modern 21st Century culture is a testament to the resiliance and fortitude of the Aboriginal people.

 

Look at the civil rights movement in america in the 60s. How hard was it to change the thinking of a nation? How much harder must it be to go from doing what the tribal chief says to the concept of a central chief for the nation who speaks to other leaders on the world stage? I'm not talking about the leaders and intelligensia here, I'm talking about the farmers and common people who make up the bulk of society. Yet even amoung the leaders, tribal affiliations can be more important than national interests. We see this time and again and wonder why, yet the answer is very simple. Time.

 

How long did it take the West to go conceptually from "I'm the ruler and I get all the good stuff. And I get to make special dispensations for my friends" to Democracy? Compared to our rate, the development towards Democracy, Rule of Law and Human Rights in Africa and other places is lightening fast.

 

Poverty for the masses has been the standard for human society for most of its history. We have in the West, to a great degree, removed this problem, but it took us 5,000 years to do so. To ask "Why?" about third world poverty is to complain that the third world hasn't achieved in decades what it took us millenia to accomplish. Give them a break, they're doing better than we ever did.

 

I fully expect that the third world will be developed and integrated into the planetary economy well before the end of this century. A developmental change in economies, societies, systems of governance and world view that is 10 times faster than the rate of the West.

 

However to achieve this transformation the third world need a number of things. They need cheap, plentiful and reliable power for their people, which means coal, nuclear or hydro power stations. They need fresh water which means dams. They need food and arable land for their crops with increased yields which means fertilisers and pesticides. They need an economic base for their nations which means mines and industry.

 

The Western "Green" agenda is directly opposed to all these things. The another big barrier to the end of poverty in the third world is the "Green" philosophy. Always as part of the answer to any ecological "catastrophe" for the last 40 years is that the third world should stay poor. From "Global Dimming" in the 70s where they shouldn't industrialise because it would lead to more airborne pollutants, through the "Ozone Hole" where they shouldn't have cheap refrigeration, to "Climate Change" where they shouldn't have cheap and plentiful power. Opposition to dams because they flood a forest ignores the fact that the dams will provide cheap electricity for cooking, rather than dung or wood fires, so the horrendous infant mortality rates will go down. They will provide sanitation and clean water rather than dirty water and open sewers running in ditches with all the death and disease that brings.

 

Again we see examples of the same thing in Australia. The "Green Left" supports Aboriginal Land Rights and Aboriginal control over traditional areas. So long as those rights don't include building a house, or fresh water, or electricity, or schooling, or fishing in the rivers, or any sort of development, in any way, whatsoever.

 

So yes, another reason for Third World poverty is the anti-development political power that greens have in Western nations. Since they support some de-industrialization of the West, why on Earth would you expect them to support the industrialization of the Third World?

Edited January 25, 2011 by JohnB

[Marat]

I think that analysis mistakes the limits of development of an entire culture for the limits of development of an individual. When I was born into the developed world of the 20th century, I knew as little about its usages, culture, presuppositions, rules, discoveries, and advances as an Aborigine in Australia born at the same did. There is no reason why we should not both have learned the usages of modernity just as easily starting from birth. The primitivity of the Natives of Australia is not genetic. So if the barrier opposed by third-world cultural structures to the absorption of Western ideas were removed for new children just born into those cultures, there is no reason they couldn't be perfectly Westernized in a single generation. The problem is finding the institutional will to remove the cultural blocks to a more option reception of new ideas from outside the culture in the primary education of each new generation.

[rigney]

I think that analysis mistakes the limits of development of an entire culture for the limits of development of an individual. When I was born into the developed world of the 20th century, I knew as little about its usages, culture, presuppositions, rules, discoveries, and advances as an Aborigine in Australia born at the same did. There is no reason why we should not both have learned the usages of modernity just as easily starting from birth. The primitivity of the Natives of Australia is not genetic. So if the barrier opposed by third-world cultural structures to the absorption of Western ideas were removed for new children just born into those cultures, there is no reason they couldn't be perfectly Westernized in a single generation. The problem is finding the institutional will to remove the cultural blocks to a more option reception of new ideas from outside the culture in the primary education of each new generation.

 

Using the aboriginal Australians to demonstrate productivity, class differential and overall knowledge of a situation is rediculous. Checks and balances have determined these gentle people's lives for many centuries, perhaps for even thousands of years? Theirs is no third world economy, nor a fourth or fifth! The economy they have known for so long is what they are clinging to. No, they don't make automobiles, airplanes, trains or sky scrapers; and many have never seen the inside of a class room, but most are content with their lives.

Have you ever witnessed a hoard of "maggots" devouring a carcass? They are no more parasetic than their parents, Flies., but they leave nothing. The Aborigine. like the Inuit; takes from the land that which is needed to sustain them, not to devour, destroy or lay waste to. Hopefully one day, we; being the elite, may learn this lesson.

Edited January 27, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

The point being that the West didn't do it and since it is beyond belief that the West could do it, why do we expect others to make the societal jump so quickly?

I generally don't like this argument because it implies that the West modernized as a team with all players cooperating and contributing to development. Many, probably most, westerners benefited from modernization by proxy. All have inherited shoulders to stand on at birth. Some rise to the challenge of continuing the struggle for further development while some or most simply try to secure the most benefit they can and insulate themselves from detriment through commerce and other social-political means. I'm not saying this kind of profiting from a subsidiary relationship to development is good, but why is it seen as natural when the people doing it are identified as being part of the same society/culture as the innovators and developers? How can someone whose grandfather worked in a factory building Model T Fords claim that his ancestor contributed more to modernization than someone who could have done the same job if they would have been at the right place at the right time?

 

However to achieve this transformation the third world need a number of things. They need cheap, plentiful and reliable power for their people, which means coal, nuclear or hydro power stations. They need fresh water which means dams. They need food and arable land for their crops with increased yields which means fertilisers and pesticides. They need an economic base for their nations which means mines and industry.

They also need a model for economic culture they want to work toward that addresses sustainability concerns and doesn't simply aim to maximize revenue from trade with wealthy clients.

 

The Western "Green" agenda is directly opposed to all these things. The another big barrier to the end of poverty in the third world is the "Green" philosophy. Always as part of the answer to any ecological "catastrophe" for the last 40 years is that the third world should stay poor. From "Global Dimming" in the 70s where they shouldn't industrialise because it would lead to more airborne pollutants, through the "Ozone Hole" where they shouldn't have cheap refrigeration, to "Climate Change" where they shouldn't have cheap and plentiful power. Opposition to dams because they flood a forest ignores the fact that the dams will provide cheap electricity for cooking, rather than dung or wood fires, so the horrendous infant mortality rates will go down. They will provide sanitation and clean water rather than dirty water and open sewers running in ditches with all the death and disease that brings.

Are you assuming that it is impossible to live in harmony with nature without enduring major health problems, short lifespan, high youth mortality, etc.? Couldn't access to medicine and other basic technologies improve living conditions greatly without culminating into a highly-polluting industrial economic/consumerist culture?

 

 

Again we see examples of the same thing in Australia. The "Green Left" supports Aboriginal Land Rights and Aboriginal control over traditional areas. So long as those rights don't include building a house, or fresh water, or electricity, or schooling, or fishing in the rivers, or any sort of development, in any way, whatsoever.

Aboriginal people haven't always built houses of some kind? They haven't always fished and educated children how to live from the land?

 

So yes, another reason for Third World poverty is the anti-development political power that greens have in Western nations. Since they support some de-industrialization of the West, why on Earth would you expect them to support the industrialization of the Third World?

Because they think it will increase their profits (this is a bad reason btw). I don't think the goal should be to develop or prevent development. It should be to promote balances of power that generate more individual freedom for people to determine their own cultural development. I think there can and should be intervention to steer away from developments that can lead to unsustainable economic practices developing and people from exploiting each other to increasing degrees. Why shouldn't people in developing economies be doing the same thing for those in the developed ones?

 

 

The Western world is doing everything to keep the 3rd world poor.

We give huge amounts of money to the 3rd world, which they have to pay back with interest (so they pay more to us than we give to them). As any creditcard holder knows, borrowing money costs money.

But isn't it sometimes better to buy something very useful on credit than to go without in order to stay out of debt? In general I agree, but I think it depends on the specifics of the situation.

 

We don't mind to sell weapons. In fact, all conflicts in Africa are fought with weapons manufactured outside that continent.

What do you do when some people get guns and start dominating others? Do you not try to come up with a way to balance power to prevent warlords from monopolizing and abusing power? Ideally this would be done by de-escalation of violence instead of escalation, but is that possible in all situations all the time?

 

We allow companies to employ people in poor countries under their own unhealthy badly paid labor agreements... heck, we act as if it's a healthy and understandable practice when companies move oversees to "cheap labor countries" or whatever euphemism they use for "producing the same as before, but spending a lot less on the people who do the work". And we get cheap goods, and we buy it... and we're even arrogant enough to say that we help the poor countries.

 

It sounds generally exploitative, but is it necessarily so in all cases? Is it not possible to offer someone a job so they can learn a skill while producing for someone else? Is "underpaying" people always a problem, e.g. when their cost of living is proportional to their wages? Wouldn't it do more to harm a poor economy to pay people relatively high wages, which would cause inflation and promote people around them to cater to them with services and luxuries instead of developing more important skills that contribute to a more robust local economy?

[JohnB]

I think that analysis mistakes the limits of development of an entire culture for the limits of development of an individual. When I was born into the developed world of the 20th century, I knew as little about its usages, culture, presuppositions, rules, discoveries, and advances as an Aborigine in Australia born at the same did. There is no reason why we should not both have learned the usages of modernity just as easily starting from birth. The primitivity of the Natives of Australia is not genetic. So if the barrier opposed by third-world cultural structures to the absorption of Western ideas were removed for new children just born into those cultures, there is no reason they couldn't be perfectly Westernized in a single generation. The problem is finding the institutional will to remove the cultural blocks to a more option reception of new ideas from outside the culture in the primary education of each new generation.

 

Absolute rubbish. While you didn't have the kowledge at birth, you were surrounded by it due to parents and friends. The only way to do what you are suggesting is to remove the children from their parents and tribal lands. If the culture is the barrier, then the only way to remove the barrier is to remove the children from the culture.

 

We tried this and it didn't bloody work. It was an unmitigated f*cking disaster.

 

Try Googling "Stolen Children" or "Stolen Generation". Your idea is 40 years out of date, and doesn't work.