History Why are poor countries poor?

[Old Spice]

I cannot believe the ignorant glorification of hunter gatherer societies, by any objective indicator they lived short, cruel and brutish lives. They lacked any of the comforts we all take for granted, they lacked the cultural depth, technological prowess, philosophical thought, knowledge, means of preserving information and left nothing to show for their existence except a few cave paintings and if you are lucky a language or two and perhaps a few quirky and now redundant technologies.

Their cultures were utterly crushed when put up against modernity, so if we are to take a cold Darwinian (though of course we are not talking about evolution of species here, merely the principles of competition and survival) and look at the outcomes we can only really draw one conclusion as to superiority. Civilisation is simply greater than lack thereof.

And the Gaiia worshiping of coexistence with nature is also bullshit. Primitive peoples did not manage or sustain their land perfectly, they expoited it to the fullest of their capabilities. Do you think there was anyone tracking woolly mammoth populations or voicing concern over the destruction of Australian megafauna? of course not. Rather than managing the land the land managed them; they were unable to rise above their environment and were subjected to it, except for in the aforementioned instances when they exploited the land just as anyone would. So how do we judge the success of a hunter gatherer culture? By what twisted Orwellian logic can that way of living come out on top? We have to completely invert any objectively based values to come up with an idea of eudaimonia sourced from drudgery and ignorance?

And even if we are to take an approach of complete unalienable cultural relativism, what is left? Just a state of utter nihilism where everything is subjective and no one is better than anyone else, which only lends itself to conclusions that "might is right".

Anyway, I have to laugh at these oh-so-edgy Luddites who want to return to a state of nature, but would not last a second in the wilderness. The world we live in should not be taken for granted, life was a bitch. Don't romanticise what you know nothing of just because you are now full of angst about the pressures of modern society or whatever it is that is getting you down. At least you have enough time to feel sorry for yourself, that should be something to be proud of.

(well that rant got out of control)

Darwin would go all shades of crimson and purple if he read the above. This one is hilarious 'Civilisation is simply greater than lack thereof.' Do you think civilisation was a pre-determined destination we landed upon, or a process? More importantly, do you think there is one example of a civilisation?

If so, which is the right one, the Babylonian, the Ancient Greek, the Ancient Roman, the Holy Roman Empire, Pre-Copernican, post Luther, the Britsh Empire of the 19th Century, the American 20th century?

It may just be possible that your opinion of civilisation is a value judgment and that it's not a zero-sum game when it comes to cultures. There might be a few options

 

[medusala]

Still, things were pretty shitty in Europe if you weren't Catholic.

England???

 

[Jentleman Geff]

England???

Was still Catholic prior to Columbus reaching the Americas.

 

[cancat]

Have you got a link to back up that claim?

Just for you

http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-FETICI.PDF

 

[kickazz]

Good thread.

I do recall reading somewhere that there is a theory that certain nations/cultures 'got lucky' by living where there were animals that were both:

- useful
- able to be domesticated.

It was these cultures that grew more quickly and then were more powerful and went on to dominate the others.

 

[Si Botak]

Geoffrey Blaine pretty much puts it down to the ability of an early developing culture group to cultivate and store cereals of one type of another. Those that could/did formed cities. Those that couldn't/didn't/were late doing so weren't as technologically advanced in overall terms by the time they met the descendants of those that did. Not sure I completely agree, but it's an interesting theory.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

Geoffrey Blaine pretty much puts it down to the ability of an early developing culture group to cultivate and store cereals of one type of another. Those that could/did formed cities. Those that couldn't/didn't/were late doing so weren't as technologically advanced in overall terms by the time they met the descendants of those that did. Not sure I completely agree, but it's an interesting theory.

Haven't read Blainey but I'd say: sort of. Except that 'ability' doesn't really come into it. 'Hungry enough to eat grass' and 'in a grassy savannah with high protein dense cereals conducive to being domesticated' are likely to have been much more important pressures at the time.

There's no question that domestication leads to dense population centres and larger scale organisation, I think a much more interesting question is the stages that lead to domestication, what pressures and necessities lead people to take up a life that, at least for the transitional periods that seemed to last hundred if not thousands of years, life for a settled farmer was poorer than that of a hunter gatherer. In the places where agriculture did evolve it must have come at a cost, it would have been pressure that drove people to that kind of a lifestyle.

 

[Jentleman Geff]

Wasn't the Sahara reasonable verdant 100,000 years ago? Maybe the desertification of the northern mid-latitudes forced people to congregate around massive rivers and made them so hungry they had to eat grass.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Good thread.

I do recall reading somewhere that there is a theory that certain nations/cultures 'got lucky' by living where there were animals that were both:

- useful
- able to be domesticated.

It was these cultures that grew more quickly and then were more powerful and went on to dominate the others.

That is a one part of Jared Diamond's reasoning as well, though it should also be recognised that the great cultures of the Americas by and large did not have pack animals.
They did have domesticated meat and milk animals, so certainly useful ones.


Domestication of animals probably came after domestication of crops though, which may have begun largely accidentally. Gatherers pick the largest grains, fruits, etc, refuse and accidental spillage incorporates the largest grains around the dwelling areas, and what grows closest to the people is descended primarily from those grains increasing yield nearby.
Permanent settlement and deliberate cultivation then follow.

This could also flow into Blainey's theories (which I haven't read) mentioned above, where "ability" would includes not just the culture of the society but the nature of available foodstuffs.

 

[Roobs321]

Sometimes its a case of resource abundance becoming a 'resource curse'. There are a number of factors that contribute to this, but namely a lack of institutional quality. If the leaders of a country ineffectively use the wealth generated by a resource, the country pays eventually. The more precious the resource, the more it's inherent 'lootability' increases, or the potential for civil land conflict over it.

Resources can be beneficial (ie. Norway, Botswana, US), but they can be disastrious if a nation state isnt mature enough to manage resource economy effectively (a number of African nations).
Other countries were pillaged of their resources by colonial empires. ie. Barbados was once richer than the US, but the brits excavated a lot of their national value.

Those colonised countries that never had empires walking all over them throughout history were better set up to benefit from resource wealth.

Most of the asian miracle economies were built on manufacture, with little natural resources available. Diversification of economy is really an essential.

 

[Admiral Byng]

You also need to factor in that some poor countries were rich once, but the commodities they produced have fallen out of favour or been superceded by technology.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

You also need to factor in that some poor countries were rich once, but the commodities they produced have fallen out of favour or been superceded by technology.

Yup. Take Mali for example. Mansa Musa is still the richest man ever to have lived!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...chest-human-being-in-all-history-8213453.html

 

[cancat]

Haven't read Blainey but I'd say: sort of. Except that 'ability' doesn't really come into it. 'Hungry enough to eat grass' and 'in a grassy savannah with high protein dense cereals conducive to being domesticated' are likely to have been much more important pressures at the time.

There's no question that domestication leads to dense population centres and larger scale organisation, I think a much more interesting question is the stages that lead to domestication, what pressures and necessities lead people to take up a life that, at least for the transitional periods that seemed to last hundred if not thousands of years, life for a settled farmer was poorer than that of a hunter gatherer. In the places where agriculture did evolve it must have come at a cost, it would have been pressure that drove people to that kind of a lifestyle.

Don't remember the source but I read about a mutation of cereal crops occurring where the grains stayed attached to the stalk - making it much more easy to cultivate. And this was effectively the birth of modern farming and all the rest that followed. Anyone help out here?

 

[placebo]

Muppet.

I provided a link. I guess renowned anthropologist and historian and a Professor Emeritus of King's College, Cambridge wasn't good enough for you. What are your qualifications?



Lol with the CAPS. Are you a Hunter Gatherer who is offended? Perhaps your mother should have put you down at birth, YOU RUNT.

can, isn't Old Spice the one who used to have Lenin as his avatar? If so, best not to waste your time.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

You also need to factor in that some poor countries were rich once, but the commodities they produced have fallen out of favour or been superceded by technology.

Nauru being a case in point. While the resource was still there it was the colonial power which took the wealth, once the resource was depleted the nation gained independence.
Some have the resource wealth and squander it, Nauru had the resource wealth taken away and was left without any chance of benefiting rom it.

East Timor could become another where the resource gets wasted, but they are at least attempting to use the wealth raised as a long term investment fund to give themselves a national income once the oil runs out.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

Don't remember the source but I read about a mutation of cereal crops occurring where the grains stayed attached to the stalk - making it much more easy to cultivate. And this was effectively the birth of modern farming and all the rest that followed. Anyone help out here?

Guns germs and steel - essentially, plant stock that retained seed would be selected during later harvests iirc

 

[Roobs321]

Nauru being a case in point. While the resource was still there it was the colonial power which took the wealth, once the resource was depleted the nation gained independence.
Some have the resource wealth and squander it, Nauru had the resource wealth taken away and was left without any chance of benefiting rom it.

East Timor could become another where the resource gets wasted, but they are at least attempting to use the wealth raised as a long term investment fund to give themselves a national income once the oil runs out.

That is a rather sad line isnt it, and just a recipe for socioeconomic disaster.

 

[cancat]

Guns germs and steel - essentially, plant stock that retained seed would be selected during later harvests iirc

Ta.

Here's an interesting alternative to your 'hungry enough to eat grass' theory

May beer have helped lead to the rise of civilization? It's a possibility, some archaeologists say.

Their argument is that Stone Age farmers were domesticating cereals not so much to fill their stomachs but to lighten their heads, by turning the grains into beer.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20022058-501465.html?tag=channelMore;pop

 

[Slax]

Ta.

Here's an interesting alternative to your 'hungry enough to eat grass' theory


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20022058-501465.html?tag=channelMore;pop

Ahh, beer the cause and solution of all of life's problem - Homer Simpson

 

[Upton Sinclair]

Ahh, beer the cause and solution of all of life's problem - Homer Simpson

Without getting all technical and **** but according to chemistry alcohol IS a solution.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Interesting question. But I'll ask it another way - Why are rich countries rich?
I say that because the poor now are no poorer than their ancestors of millenia ago. When civilisation (living in cities with complex social structures) arrived 5000 years or more ago (which is where Guns, Germs and Steel stops) it was in the fertile crescent (Iran, Iraq, Syria), then India, China. They are obviously not the rich now. But civilisation spread - most importantly to Europe. Around 1500 Europe was just another "civilised" part of the world. Look at The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by Landes to see a good discussion of comparative states. However Europe developed a dynamic of innovation and advance across its various constituents, aided/driven by no one ever dominating the continent. This technological advance worked with social and business changes to allow more rapid advance, see The Lever of Riches (mokyr). But there is only place and one time at which this became a self sustaining system whereby economic growth was faster than population growth - the Industrial revolution in Britain starting in 1780ish. Read about that in The Unbound Prometheus (Landes), How The West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation Of The Industrial World (Rosenberg and Birdzell), As Time Goes By (Freeman and Louca), and many others.
Look at The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (OECD and Maddison) to see stats going back about 2000 years. From 1780 in the UK, then slowly over Europe and then spreading to some European collonies (British mainly) then Japan the mechanisms fo the industrial revolution spread. That is, modern captialist economic growth spread. The World War 1 and 2, and after that the rise of Asian tigers etc all following the model of modern capitalism driven by innovaiton and technological change.

So the (rough, inexact and quick) answer to your question is - The poor countries are poor because they do not have modern capitalist economies.


Why is this not readily understood? Well, what is a modern capitalist economy? Difficult to answer. The key issue is that they are economies/societies that are structured around continual change and innovation. They are characterised by 'creative destruction' (Schumpeter). Economics is effectively an equilibrium theory, in which innovation is by definition something that destroys equilibrium. So innovation is outside of eocnomics. As economics is how people explain this stuff it has no language to explain modern capitalism. Strange how the world works.

 

[LouisCK]

Geography plays a huge part too. Not many landlocked countries that are wealthy (Switzerland and Luxembourg is probably the entire list).

 

[The_Reaper]

Geography plays a huge part too. Not many landlocked countries that are wealthy (Switzerland and Luxembourg is probably the entire list).

Czech Republic was pretty good before WWII.

Also 'countries' like Liechtenstein.

 

[R00StaR]

Interesting vid on this subject

Niall Ferguson: The 6 killer apps of prosperity


1.Competition
2. Scientific revolution
3. Property rights
4. Modern Medicine
5. Consumer society
6. Work ethic

 

[Dr Tigris]

Easy answers abound. But history shows that rich, by modern standards, are all pretty much capitalist countries. The exceptions are the very resource rich (oil) countries that are rich in terms of massive resources, but I wonder what happens when that one off resource runs out.
Anyway, geography is important - after you have the right institutions (rules, regulations, laws, cultural traits - especially the rule of law), then infrastructure and business culture, education and training system and so on. The poor are poor because one or more of these factors don'r 'work' in that country.
Until recent times (i.e. before 1800 ish) all countries were either fairly poor or poor or very poor by modern standards. The lifestyle of the very rich was probably worse than the average person now - in terms of access to health, food etc. The rich had many servents, and lots of food. But they didn't have refridgeratino so couldn't get everythign 'fresh' all year round. travel was difficult. Most of all death was common, as was debilitating sickness. Modern sanitation and medicine has changed all that. In many poor countries nowadays they still have poor sanitation and medicine.
It's a system that all has to work. It can work different ways, but being part of the global succesor to the industrial revolution is central.