History Why are poor countries poor?

[Pie eyed]

Is it simply due to having too large a population, which isn't in the habit of consuming goods? If not could someone give a quick run down?

Lack of Education and a surfeit of religious faith.

 

[radiojake]

Lack of resources. Either human or natural.

Plenty of poor countries had an abundance of natural minerals and resources - Modern day Bolivia, largely considered one of the poorest states in South America, had the biggest silver mine deposit ever found when the Spanish first got there...

The wealth from those silver mines went straight back to Europe while the locals and slaves were working the mines...

That is just one example -


In regards to the OP - Poor countries are poor because the wealthy western states have historically used them for a toilet - Extracted all their minerals, pissed all over them and taken them for all they're worth - more or less -

 

[RIOLIUSTAR]

Coz the USA made it so

 

[Old Spice]

Britain was a piece of shit until steam and coal became important.

Persia, Athens and Rome were important for a time, then became medicorities.

China was powerful them became enfeebled, now it's strong again. Bah, too many explanations.

But if you're asking why countries today are poor, I'd put it down to imperialism, the subjugation of weak nation states for economic or geo-political interest.

 

[cancat]

Britain was a piece of shit until steam and coal became important

Britain was the world's leading colonial power by 1763. This might have coincided with the start of the Industrial Revolution but it owed nothing to it.

But if you're asking why countries today are poor, I'd put it down to imperialism, the subjugation of weak nation states for economic or geo-political interest.

America, Australia and Canada were all subject to imperialism and subjugation but are now wealthy.

The common thread amongst rich countries is acceptance of Western ideals such as stable democracy and capitalism. That, or having a shitload of oil and not being recently invaded by the USA.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

America, Australia and Canada were all subject to imperialism and subjugation but are now wealthy.

How many indigenous peoples in those countries are wealthy? They're the only ones who were subjugated by British imperialism, the rest were the beneficiaries. Even the revolution in America was less about British subjugation than it was about who gets to raise taxes. Most were quite happy to identify as loyal British citizens until well after hostilities broke out.

The reason those places prospered is because the imperialists made a concerted effort to displace the original inhabitants and populate the place with colonisers to whom the benefits of British imperialism flowed.

But tell the remnant populations of the displaced people here and in North America that they are wealthy. You'd he laughed off the reservation.

 

[cancat]

How many indigenous peoples in those countries are wealthy? They're the only ones who were subjugated by British imperialism, the rest were the beneficiaries. Even the revolution in America was less about British subjugation than it was about who gets to raise taxes. Most were quite happy to identify as loyal British citizens until well after hostilities broke out.

The reason those places prospered is because the imperialists made a concerted effort to displace the original inhabitants and populate the place with colonisers to whom the benefits of British imperialism flowed.

But tell the remnant populations of the displaced people here and in North America that they are wealthy. You'd he laughed off the reservation.

How many indigenous peoples in those countries were wealthy before subjugation? If we are comparing different country's relative wealth then America, Australia and Canada would have been piss poor before colonisation.

I do sympathise with indigenous communities that get displaced. But it is the way of the world that hunter gatherer societies with bows and arrows get overrun by farming societies with guns. And most 'indigenous' people these days have mixed blood. They can choose to identify with the winners or become part of the victim mentality and the welfare culture.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

How many indigenous peoples in those countries were wealthy before subjugation? If we are comparing different country's relative wealth then America, Australia and Canada would have been piss poor before colonisation.

Just a sec'. You were discussing comparative wealth as a poor measure of the merits of imperialism, I'm just pointing out that your examples are not ones of imperial subjugation therefore do not support your argument. In the examples of British imperial subjugation things didn't turn out quite so good for those being subjugated - think India, or Africa is an even better example as you can still clearly see the stratification in a society where the subjugated are in the majority while the wealth still lies with the descendants of the imperialists and colonisers

I do sympathise with indigenous communities that get displaced.

I'm not after your sympathy, just your acknowledgment that the argument you put forward is flawed.

 

[tigers_of_old_08]

Geographical reasons, type of governance, culture, education, population, etc, all interrelated

Hmm, so same answer I assume applies to the question why are some countries rich.

 

[Seeds]

How much capital you have is what determines how wealthy you are. Richer countries have more capital and better technology. It is as simple as that. Developing countries can accelerate their economic growth by simply providing incentives for foreigners to invest and bring their capital over.
To do this they need:
- Open barriers to foreign investment (it seems obvious but up until the 80's most developing economies were overrun with socialists and their economies collapsed and millions if not billions of lives were destroyed over a period of 50 years)
- A stable government
- A sound financial system which is properly enforced
- Good infrastructure (governments will be needed to provide this)
- Good intellectual property rights.

If you have these five things then the standard of living can improve 100 fold wihtin a persons life time and countries can go from basket cases to developed economies within a space of 30-50 years. Japan and Korea have done it within this time frame. South East Asia have done it. China are currently progressing along this path. There is no reason the others can't do it as long as they get these five variables right (or atleast to a sufficient enough standard).

Now that we have globalisation and free movement of capital and goods the Guns and Steel view that wealth is due to luck and geography does not exist anymore. It was only an explanation for the past when capital and goods had much less mobility.

 

[Seeds]

Plenty of poor countries had an abundance of natural minerals and resources - Modern day Bolivia, largely considered one of the poorest states in South America, had the biggest silver mine deposit ever found when the Spanish first got there...

The wealth from those silver mines went straight back to Europe while the locals and slaves were working the mines...

That is just one example -


In regards to the OP - Poor countries are poor because the wealthy western states have historically used them for a toilet - Extracted all their minerals, pissed all over them and taken them for all they're worth - more or less -

This is so wrong I don't know where to start. Yes rich mining countries have abused these countries resources in the past and given very little back. This was enabled though by the crony dictatorships that were in power who accepted large bribes for them to do this. This is the source of the problem. However you don't need a lot of resources to be a rich economy anyway so this in itself is not a cause of why developing economies are poor. Look at Japan, they have no resources and they are wealthy. Wealth is created by capital accumulation, resources in most countries play very little part (the exception being the middle east). Its the drivers of capital growth that create wealth.

 

[radiojake]

This is so wrong I don't know where to start. Yes rich mining countries have abused these countries resources in the past and given very little back. .

Yeah.. it was so wrong that you went on to agree with me -

I didn't pretend that my post was supposed to say the whole story, it was merely an example of one of the historical inequities of the global economic system -

Quick question - Do you think that the rich industrialised nations should continue to operate under the assumption of perpetual growth based ideologies? Studies have shown that once a certain point of affluence has been reached, further growth in the economy does little to raise living standards and life expectancy -- Rather, it just serves as an instrument towards over consumption -

Sure - allow growth in the developing states that still have very poor living standards to improve their living standards, (that could plausibly even happen sooner if the West stopped being so superflously glutoneous) but surely we need to start considering different modes of economic prosperity - Stable state economics...

Even economists, despite their blind faith in the dominant hegemony, need to conceed that infinite and perpetual growth can not continue on a finite planet with ultimately finite resources

 

[cancat]

Just a sec'. You were discussing comparative wealth as a poor measure of the merits of imperialism, I'm just pointing out that your examples are not ones of imperial subjugation therefore do not support your argument. In the examples of British imperial subjugation things didn't turn out quite so good for those being subjugated - think India, or Africa is an even better example as you can still clearly see the stratification in a society where the subjugated are in the majority while the wealth still lies with the descendants of the imperialists and colonisers

Point taken. Need to separate subjugation and imperialism. Imperialism per se does not cause countries to be in poverty, indeed the opposite is usually true if the country is colonised and a stable capitalist democracy is founded.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

<b>Upton Sinclair said: </b><br />Just a sec'. You were discussing comparative wealth as a poor measure of the merits of imperialism, I'm just pointing out that your examples are not ones of imperial subjugation therefore do not support your argument. In the examples of British imperial subjugation things didn't turn out quite so good for those being subjugated - think India, or Africa is an even better example as you can still clearly see the stratification in a society where the subjugated are in the majority while the wealth still lies with the descendants of the imperialists and colonisers<br /> <br />

<br /> <br />Point taken. Need to separate subjugation and imperialism. Imperialism per se does not cause countries to be in poverty, indeed the opposite is usually true if the country is colonised and a stable capitalist democracy is founded.

... And if for all intents and purposes the land is eradicated of its original inhabitants and populated by imperial colonists, which us the case for each example you listed. No need for subjugation when the people you are ruling are all subjects already loyal to king and country. Different story though when you're trying to rule millions of upstart Zulu or bloodthirsty Hindus.

I'm struggling to think of any examples where imperial colonists were outnumbered by the natives and the natives shared in the wealth of the imperial system - certainly it didn't work out so great for blacks in southern Africa, or Indians in India. The only examples that go against the grain a some places in South America, like Brazil, where the cultural melting pot is do pervasive that the old borders of cultural identification have simply been washed away. But even then, the breaking down of colonial power structures has been a very recent development, requiring significant social reform.

 

[omit]

Thetan levels

 

[Goat 53]

If the poor dont want to educate themselves then they deserve to be exploited.

 

[radiojake]

If the poor dont want to educate themselves then they deserve to be exploited.

[*puts on Q&A hat*]

I am going to take that as a troll

 

[Upton Sinclair]

If the poor dont want to educate themselves then they deserve to be exploited.

Thanks for the contribution, Gina

 

[JoondalupJ]

Is it simply due to having too large a population, which isn't in the habit of consuming goods? If not could someone give a quick run down?

Basically
its that in the beginning the environment, that different peoples developed in, determined how they would actually survive and to what standard.
I have a theory see what you think. Perhaps you flee from an enemy, or migrate out of curiosity to a newer place, and a seriously harsher climate, so you need to develope ways of being safe and comfortable and not hungry. Where as before, where you came from, may already have had good hunting fishing and surroundings, milder climate, where the people may not have needed to find "new ways" to eat and live and more to the point survive.

Peoples who kept travelling onwards may have found their paradise. An example would be pre European first nation north Americans , with not large population and thousands upon thousands of square miles of country, perhaps also the indigenous people who came to Australia over many centuries also had good hunting etc.

They populated well and didn,t need to develope any thing fancy and new, they were happy. BUT!! what about the ones that stayed in the harsher climates and needed to move around their territorys a lot and find ways to keep warm and become exceptional thinkers. Just to find and kill food and find hidden plants in harsh cold climates would take a lot more endeavor unlike say living in a temperate forrest and plains region where animals roamed free by the millions, fruit and vegetable were easily found and surviving was , in relative terms easier.

Is harsh environment the mother of invention? As war sometimes invents new weopons.

So here is the debatable point.
People whose environment lead them to invent and develope things as well as a mindset to not do anything else BUT try out, and experiment just to survive. Could these be the developed brains that found the wheel and the sharper stone then the metal and the mining and the formation of gatherings of people
into towns and villages rather than hunter gatherers whose lives may have been just one big simple travelling existance, finding new sights and plenty of food and comfort.

Perhaps the harsh climate peoples, pre historic environment developed their brains in a different way (NOT A BETTER OR BIGGER WAY) just a different way, that they had no choice but to struggle with new ideas. Their whole existance to survive depended on new thinking. Where others in better environments didn,t need to struggle or search for better ways. So they stayed the same. Happily!!

Now if these inventor tribes through the many generations got better and better at invention , are they the ones that invented engines and steel weopons and airoplanes and bombs and yes business' and became hungry for things and for travell and exploration and wealth because they were movers and thinkers. They advanced in the direction of the ones who didn,t need any of that. The ones who were happy like the plains tribes of North America.Or the the people from the place it all began. Africa.

Then we get colonisation. Thats when abuse of peoples and races and indigenous governments get over run and over taken and used as fodder for the developed races that invaded them.
Over centuries these colonials took all the wealth and ruled over millions of lesser knowledgable people who were not worse or stupid people, but, just throughout their history never had that much trouble surviving . Didn,t need guns or giant sail ships , they had a settled (relatively speaking) easy lifestyle.

I suspect that is why the people from the harsh European climates were the ones who developed the airoplane, eventually, and engines and the industrial revolution, that made them almighty powers.

Population in what we call the third world, of today, probably prospered enormously from, as I said in relative terms, having it easier therefore never needing to develope and invent to the extent the Europeans did.
They surely must have been in awe and terror when they first saw the Spanish say , and so they should have been, as we now know. Now their developement is comming in the 21st century .
But colonisation by far more advanced peoples in the last 3 to 5 hundred years has left them massively disadvantaged, thats why they are poor. They are NOT LESSER PEOPLE BY ANY STRETCH.

What do you reckon about that. Sorry it was so long but I had to explain what I think without sounding like some bigot or racist.
There's a reason, there has to be, why we all developed over different times in different ways .
Because we did.

 

[JoondalupJ]

So many reasons. Usually more than one factor is at play, but among the more common are:
- Governance, greed, etc (eg Zimbabwe, North Korea)
- Limited set of major resources which could be of national benefit but where violence is the way of having control and very large benefits go to very few people (eg diamonds in Liberia, oil in Nigeria)
- Historical lack of foresight or knowledge making the environment tenuous (eg Haiti's deforestation)
- Colonial powers pulling out without a local population having been educated and trained in national governance (eg Papua New Guinea, probably much of Africa)
- Cultural and historical in-fighting and pressures making national government virtually impossible (eg Afghanistan)
- Geography keeping nations apart, making effective governance nearly impossible (eg Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea). This could tend to have a feeback whereby the money isn't there to build roads, which aren't there to facilitate communications, which isn't there for governance, which means there is no money for roads, etc.
- Lack of natural resouces (eg Nauru)
- Cyclic over-population (eg Rwanda)

While many disagree with his stance, I suggest reading books like "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond which attempt to outline how and why largely natural advantages saw Europeans becomes the dominant powers despite civilisation being older elsewhere.

You,ve probably expained it quicker and simpler than me , good.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

There are lots of different factors, but there are exception wherever you look (eg countries with awesome natural resources which are dirt poor, countries with nothing and rubbish geography who are rich, etc etc)

The one constant is bad government. Countries with good governments are not poor.

 

[Seeds]

Yeah.. it was so wrong that you went on to agree with me -

I didn't pretend that my post was supposed to say the whole story, it was merely an example of one of the historical inequities of the global economic system -

Quick question - Do you think that the rich industrialised nations should continue to operate under the assumption of perpetual growth based ideologies? Studies have shown that once a certain point of affluence has been reached, further growth in the economy does little to raise living standards and life expectancy -- Rather, it just serves as an instrument towards over consumption -

Sure - allow growth in the developing states that still have very poor living standards to improve their living standards, (that could plausibly even happen sooner if the West stopped being so superflously glutoneous) but surely we need to start considering different modes of economic prosperity - Stable state economics...

Even economists, despite their blind faith in the dominant hegemony, need to conceed that infinite and perpetual growth can not continue on a finite planet with ultimately finite resources

No worries on the first part, I misinterpreted what you said as I thought that was your answer to the whole question.

I think your quick question requires a thesis length answer (its a very good question). We desire economic growth because we believe it will improve our standard of living and create more happiness. Economists and politicians often miss this last point and think economic growth is the ends in itself. Which it is not. And yes you are right, studies have shown that reducing poverty through economic growth leads to sharp improvements in quality of life and happiness but after poverty is removed the relationship slows down and in many studies compeletely disappears. We as a society do waste alot of the opportunities that economic growth provides by wasting it on pointless consumption that gives only very fleeting improvements of happiness. This is something as a society that we need to address. I believe this is something that can be done through education. Teaching students the findings of happiness studies and running ethics classes in high schools could change the way we live by making people readdress their life goals. It will be a very slow process though.

Getting back to your question, I do believe further economic growth can improve our standard of living and degrees of happiness remarkably (I don't believe there is anything special about our time in history that we've reached some magical mark where economic growth stops being beneficial towards happiness). One of the reasons that reducing poverty improves happiness is that it improves health. The research and scientific study going into health (that is enabled by economic growth) looks like delivering some major improvements to our lives and our kids lives over the next 50 years. We will be living longer and be living healthier and be able to do more activities which will certainly make us happier. Then there are the developments in genetics which may mean in the not to distant future that we may actually be able to genetically modify babies to make them happier (as well as live much longer). This will deliver remarkable improvements to humans standard of living. Even if we ignore this health aspect, increasing economic growth ultimately enables us to take more leisure time. Working hours per week have been gradually falling across developed regions for the last century. Eventually human society will arrive at a point when the three day weekend becomes the norm. More leisure means more happiness and better standard of life. New technologies also reduce the amount of chores that we have to do. We don't have to spend as much of our time on the weekend or after work running around doing monotonous activities. This can only be good for us. Yes alot of people don't use these benefits that economic growth has given us to improve our lives. Rather they prefer to work longer to get ridiculously big homes that provide them with no real beneift. Or people get bored with have nothing to do with there extra free time which makes them depressesed. This isn't caused by economic growth, its caused because they haven't used their extra leisure time to go find hobbies or passions that make them happy. Do you disagree with whats in this last paragraph and if so why?

Technically economic growth can occur on a planet with finite resources if its done through efficiency improvements. Economic growth isn't just about using more resources, its also about using resources more efficiently. Ignoring this fact, there are actually only very few resources that we are actually nearly running out of and they aren't necessary to our standard of living. Oil is one such fuel that may actually be disappearing (although there is still alot of oil in the earth - its just a bit more expensive to dig up), but it is not a necessary resource, we can replace it with coal and gas or solar power for that matter. Solar power is a renewable resource with infinite supply (as long as the sun is there), it just costs a little bit more to use it - but not a massive amount as a proportion of our incomes. We don't switch to it now because there is still more than enough coal, gas and oil. When we do run out of those things, we will just switch. It will provide a small negative shock to GDP but that is it. Food is definately not running out. For starters it is not a non renewable resource. We can grow it. If we really wanted to we could grow it in skyscrappers on mutliple levels. We will never get to this stage for atleast a couple of hundred of years though as we have more than enough land. The problem with people not getting access to food in certain parts of the world is nothing to do with a lack of land, its solely due to disruptions to distribution channels. Mainly this is caused by poor governments and military conflicts which make it unprofitable for the food to be transported to certain regions on the planet.

Okay think I've written enough for now.

 

[radiojake]

You are right, my 'quick question' doesn't really allow for a quick answer...

Most of what you wrote is rather sound, but you sound like a technocrat - (i.e - progress in science will ultimately improve - we don't need to worry about problems of resource depletion/climate change because ultimately we will discover (market driven, as always) ways to counter it ). I am not as convinced that this is a certainty.

David Owen released an interesting book called 'The Conundrum' - He argues that improved efficiency actually contributes to more consumption, as the more efficient we make products/services/energy etc, it makes them cheaper and therefore more accessable, which ultimately leads to more total consumption than more expensive, inefficient modes -

---
there is plenty more to respond to - you certainly put in a lot of time to your response and I appreciate that - Unfortunately I have procrastinated way too much as it is and I have these assignments to finish this weekend - I look forward to being able to respond in full in the near future

 

[skipper kelly]

By default

 

[Seeds]

You are right, my 'quick question' doesn't really allow for a quick answer...

Most of what you wrote is rather sound, but you sound like a technocrat - (i.e - progress in science will ultimately improve - we don't need to worry about problems of resource depletion/climate change because ultimately we will discover (market driven, as always) ways to counter it ). I am not as convinced that this is a certainty.

David Owen released an interesting book called 'The Conundrum' - He argues that improved efficiency actually contributes to more consumption, as the more efficient we make products/services/energy etc, it makes them cheaper and therefore more accessable, which ultimately leads to more total consumption than more expensive, inefficient modes -

---
there is plenty more to respond to - you certainly put in a lot of time to your response and I appreciate that - Unfortunately I have procrastinated way too much as it is and I have these assignments to finish this weekend - I look forward to being able to respond in full in the near future

No worries. It is a very interesting topic and one that never gets any serious debate when it should be one of the main debates in society. Climate change is a bit different to resource depletion issues. Even though I'm skeptical about it having serious world changing ramifications, I do think we should take serious global action against climate change purely as a risk averse strategy , ie. for the same reason we take our insurance against devastating but unlikely events. Costs of doing something about it aren't really all the big. For instance energy expenditure makes up around 4% of total expenditure in developed economies. We could quite easily switch to purely 100% clean energy and only double our expenditure on energy. The costs of doing this is basically nothing in the great scheme of things. In terms of economic growth its the equivalent of having a recession for a year and then going back to normal growth.

You are right on efficiency. Effciency doesn't necessarily stop you from using other resources. It doesn't force you to use those other resoucres either though. Thats purely a choice that society makes. All efficiency does is enable you to produce more from a given level of resources and therefore enables GDP to growt with a given amount of resourses. Thats the point I was making, Some efficiency can make us stop using resources however. For instance when we become efficient in solar power we will no longer have the need for oil, coal and gas and we will stop using them.