Wow, that post was so awesome I drew out a lurker.

But yet at the same time, huge numbers of people in TSB will make the "only stupid people are breeding" arguments for the United States. We had a full motion picture for this



All this gets nothing but cheers and right-ons from the American public. But somehow the "only rapists are breeding" just doesn't go over as well.

Str8Foolish, for one, I'm not racist - skin color is nearly a direct function of latitude, and that's all it means to me. It looks like it means something more to you. I call bullshit right back on you.

[Edited on August 2, 2008 at 2:28 PM. Reason : ]

8/2/2008 2:27:54 PM

haha "lurker"...lol

8/2/2008 3:37:00 PM

^^ Go back and read Grumpy's post because damn do you need an education.

8/2/2008 11:20:01 PM

I'm sorry, I don't have time to pretend that the strawmans you're itching to create are what I was saying.

Quote :

"Unlike many places in the world that were colonized by Europeans, Africa was left with virtually no social, civil, or economic institutions in place. It'd be like handing the car keys to a teenager who had never taken a drivers' ed course and who had, in fact, always been forced to ride in the back seat (or maybe the trunk). In India/Pakistan, local involvement in civil life had been pretty strong for quite a while. In the Americas, you had existing local governments separating themselves from the mother country. Each of these cases involves relatively experienced people working with an existing infrastructure. Furthermore, the inhabitants of these areas often had long history of cities and large governments. In sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, you have large areas where blacks had -zero- experience in government, because that is what they had been allowed. They hadn't had the opportunity to learn from the colonial governments, and by and large they didn't have their own familiarity with municipalities or "national" governments. Outside of Egypt and a few other kingdoms, there was no African history of such things prior to the arrival of the whites. But, the Europeans cut them loose and effectively said, "Good luck." That already left them at a huge disadvantage, because only a minute educated elite had any idea how to run a country. Compounding the problem was the positively brilliant fashion in which Africa was carved up, with national borders cutting across cohesive populations and former colonial masters granting authority arbitrarily to whichever group they thought closest resembled white people. This bred resentment, separatism, and border conflict. These factors, coupled with a Cold War environment that ensured a steady stream of weapons to anyone who asked, meant that virtually every country in Africa ended up with a relatively large, untrained, angry, corrupt military, with its power-hungry leadership in factions that only occasionally sided with the actual government. These factions like to shoot at each other, causing political instability and violence that effectively halts all national improvement. Many African nations are full to the brim with natural resources, but nobody wants to invest in putting meaningful facilities in a country where it is likely to be shelled by government or resistance forces who are cutting off all the workers' hands besides. Then of course there are those regions that simply don't have resources of any kind. Giant, arid deserts are only important when they're full of oil. Ethiopia doesn't qualify. The entire Horn of Africa's only relevance is its location by the Red Sea shipping lanes, and it can't capitalize on that because of political instability and piracy."

This is all perfectly correct and fine, though you would somehow like to pretend that I contradict it. What you numskull, Str8Foolish want to do, is sound panic alarms because I so much as mentioned genetics.

Something like 80% of human genetic diversity is confined to Africa. This is, in itself, can be called a resource, but to some degree also a fragile one. Evolution works on huge time scales, and as such, genetic information is not an easy thing to come by. There are plenty of things that decrease diversity of an animal population, the big human out-of-Africa migration is certainly an example of this, but genocide would be included as well. Population explosions are complicated things through which genetic diversity is a relative constant, and basically all racial groups have had (or are having) a population explosion in recent history. There are many differences in the invisible hand of natural selection that Africans, Asians, and Europeans endured through the last few thousand of years, else we would all be the same, which is clearly not the case. Declaring superiority of one over another (which is what you seem to want to do) is not only impossible but the concept itself entirely inapplicable. The strange curiosity that this leads to, is that human society today is utterly different from just a few hundred years ago and invisible hand existed before driving changes in our species points a different way.

But you, arrogant dumbfuck, are not mature enough to even handle any sort of these questions or even the mention of them.

[Edited on August 3, 2008 at 1:19 PM. Reason : ]

8/3/2008 1:18:05 PM

^ Genetic variation and natural selection in Africa has little to do with any of their woes. Even suggesting that lack of progress in their society (to any degree) has been hampered by their genetics is fucking ridiculous, and your attempt to analyze their situation through the lens of natural selection either betrays a lack of education or a racial superiority complex.

Human society and how individuals, much less individuals' genetic makeups impact that society is a ridiculously difficult question, given the number of other variables that much more obviously and weightily impact things. To engage in this sort of baseless speculation where you analyze Africa like an animal hive is a bunch of racist horseshit.

8/3/2008 1:53:31 PM

Sure, I'll write more stuff for you to misinterpret.

One can speculate about how the original place of origin of a species that recently drastically expanded has certain characteristics without going into impossibly complicated ideas far beyond our comprehension. In particular, that's where the extra genetic diversity of Africa comes from (omg, here come your racism allegations). If certain historical events had transpired differently, Asia would have also had a decent chance to be the first at the industrialization/colonization cocktail. But there was something different about Africa where it didn't have that societal momentum, ultimately having to do with (going back to the original premise) that more than any other place it can be said to be the origin of modern humans (maybe the Sahara desert contributed). Nonetheless, this gives a correlation, having nothing to do with causation saying something about the place of origin of a species. And if anything, Africa should now have even more inherent potential due to the diversity within it. Yes, any effect from that or from genetic drifts here on out is powerless against the rapid pace of industrialized society itself. Like many faucets of human history, if we were to meet an advanced alien race, it is likely that they would have some odd replay of this story.

Is this analyzing Africa's situation through the lens of natural selection? No, it's analyzing it objectively.

Did I say Africa's progress has been hampered by their genetics? No. I don't think I even got close when I was trying to bait people with that one post. Trying your damnedest to make someone who isn't a racist into one is the trademark of a witch hunt, and seriously despicable. Your hair-trigger blowups are exactly what's wrong with how we talk about world affairs.

8/3/2008 5:38:16 PM

Quote :

"Norway and Sweden, with the exception of a few state owned interests, are privately owned and operated"

These "few state owned interests" shouldn't be dismissed so quickly. They generally represent the central industries in both countries. Oil, in particular, which is the bedrock of Norway's success.

Quote :

"You need to remember this was 1960, even America had a fourth of its people living as destitute illiterate sharecroppers in rural areas. Wealth and productivity has a strong educational component"

I don't disagree with any of these points, but I fail to see how commie ideology plays into them. My point was that many African countries were still effectively run in a mercantile fashion up to the point of independence -- and arguably, they still are today. Western nations take their resources at deflated cost, and their only means to acquire most finished goods is to buy them from western nations at a regular (perhaps even inflated) cost.

This isn't me saying, "I think X resource is worth Y no matter what we're willing to pay for it." This is me saying that the Western world has set up and exploited systems largely independent of natural supply-and-demand. We have a demonstrated willingness to go in and shoot people who try to negotiate higher prices for their goods. Forced labor was (and is) still common. None of these things, last I checked, fit in real well with the concept of a "free economic system." And in the case of monopolies like DeBeers, which you could argue are part of the free economic system, I start to wonder if that's actually what I want at all.

As for education's role, well, no shit. Thanks for the revelation. Africa's atrocious educational standards are a direct result of European meddling in the region for the past few centuries.

Quote :

"As such, I feel safe in my assertion that African economies were productive and competitive at that time with what they were doing."

I don't see how this follows from the rest. Plz to elaborate.

Quote :

"As such, when eastern europe collapsed and foreign companies flooded in to take advantage of cheap wages, those wages started to rise quickly once the surplus labor ran out."

I get the concept, but I think you're mistaken about why companies didn't rush into Africa. Foreign investment doesn't really have to care about whether or not they're going into a place with a history of free market trade. They care about going into a place that has the infrastructure, stability, and level of skill necessary to ensure that operations run smoothly. Eastern Europe had all these things. Sure, the equipment may have once been state-owned and the skilled labor didn't understand how markets worked, but who cares as long as they know how to build shit?

Africa had none of this. It's industrial (and even agricultural) infrastructure was virtually nonexistent. The commies may have had disastrous collectivization plans for farms, but at the end of the day they at least had technical knowhow (and heavy equipment) for making shit grow out of the ground. African skilled labor was also almost nil. And stability...well, one place western companies didn't immediately pour into was Yugoslavia, and I think in large part that's because it was also the place in Eastern Europe that most closely resembles African stability.

Quote :

". But they did not, because the philosophical consensus at the time was that they already had too many foreign owned companies and the government needed to start state owned companies"

I agree with parts of this assertion, but I differ strongly on how it plays into your theory that the timing of Africa's independence was a chief factor in its current situation. The consensus wasn't necessarily that socialism was good, but rather that foreign operations were bad (as they had frequently proven themselves to be). Because of the factors I've mentioned there wasn't a big crop of native-grown African entrepreneurs at hand. That didn't leave a lot of options.

I also don't want to seem as though I disagree that state-run economic factors did Africa anything but harm. They were generally atrocious. But they weren't a product of recent philosophical swings, they were a product of the failures of colonialism and the haphazard creation of countries. I think there are a few things to point to here to give this some backing:

1) State-mandated land redistribution and appropriation of industries are much older than African independence, and they are very common after revolutions and newly-granted independence. Virtually all of South and Central America went through similar procedures during independence and at various intervals afterwards. When you spend hundreds of years shitting on somebody, they are naturally going to be averse to you and wary of your intentions. A momentary prominence of socialism isn't to blame. Hell, even your Eastern European references do something to demonstrate the idea -- communists were assholes to them for decades, so they wanted to get away from communism as soon as they got the chance. That's fine, I can accept that. Unfortunately the only logical way this plays into the discussion of Africa is if you want to say, "Africa would be better off now if it had been run by socialists during the colonial period."

2) East Asia managed to find explosive growth despite heavy government intervention in and occasional ownership of industries. South Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore -- all of these have their capitalist elements, but they also have government involvement in the economy ranging from communistic to fascist-esque. They all also became countries during more-or-less the same era as Africa did.

Quote :

"Traditional economies such as barter and trade in a marketplace with sanction and protection from local authority?"

"Sanction and protection," when it exists, is almost exclusively corrupt, not so much an authority as a third wheel in the business transaction.

Quote :

"One of Africa's recurrent problems was the resumption of tribalism."

"Resumption?" What makes you think it ever left?

And besides, tribalism has proven to be an essential safeguard of democracy (and, yes, free markets) in some places. In doing a research paper on Ghana's prospects in these regards, I found several instances of people mentioning that the tribal structure, properly integrated into government operations, proved a successful way of maintaining support for elected government, resolving local conflicts, and maintaining healthy communication between the population and their leadership.

That said, of course, in many places tribalism has been disastrous. But how often is that because of Europe's incompetent handling of the issue both before and during the independence process? We all know the deal with Rwanda: the god damned Belgians and Germans before them came in and played the Hutus off the Tutsis and vice-versa, generally for preposterous reasons like one side more closely resembling whites, then said "Peace out!" and left them with generations of distrust and hatred. Prior to their involvement, the Tutsi subjugation of the Hutus was present, but nobody was chopping arms off.

Quote :

"It is my belief that what you list as Africa's problems were symptoms."

How can so many things that happened prior to African independence be symptoms of problems that happened after? Even you go on about education -- is that the fault of the bad economy? Or is it the fault of a foreign power that ruled the country for decades or centuries without ever bothering to demand a fraction of the level of literacy in its colonies that it did in its home country?

You keep claiming that the African economy "worked" prior to independence. In order for that claim to be meaningful, Africans must have had real, mutual participation in that economy. Frankly, I've seen virtually no evidence of either.

Quote :

"places that the British colonised are way better off years after colonisation ends, than with other colonial powers - especially the French and Belgians"

I've noticed the same. Partly that's because the French liked to shoot a bunch of people before they left (Algiera, Indochina), and partly because the Low Countries seem to be a fountain for some of the most appalling racism on Earth.

---

Quote :

"Not to mention, while I am unconvinced by it, the racists do have an argument that has yet to be conclusively refuted."

For the time being, discussion of any sort of genetic role in Africa's situation is almost exclusively speculation -- so much so that I'm not even sure it's worth our time. The differences in "nurture" are so vast there is really no ground on which to assess the "nature." Too many very important variables are different. I'm this country I'm a fairly successful, well-educated person. On considering the question, I find it very unlikely that I would be the same in Africa, even proportionally to the overall difference.

Quote :

"Or to put it another what, what is the smallest set of factors that we could change today that would cause Africa to converge towards the rest of the world. This I don't think we know."

This seems more reasonable, but I'm still not sure I understand the thrust of your response to the bit you quoted. That is, assuming that indicators oscillate over time around a baseline trend, I'm not sure if enough time has passed to see the more recent decline of Africa (since the late '80s) as anything more than a negative oscillation.

8/3/2008 7:06:18 PM

It's been a pleasure to read the Grumpster's posts in the thread. Good going, dude. I haven't time (or knowledge) to contribute in similar fashion. I'll only note how unbelievably horrible King Leopold's Congo Free State was. Of course, it reminds of what the Spanish did here in the Americas. Europeans are trouble.

8/3/2008 10:43:25 PM

Indeed. The roll European powers played is clear (as in negative). But the future is uncertain. DeBeers is an interesting, nightmare-ish example. China can play the exploit Africa game too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/world/asia/08darfur.html?ref=todayspaper

With various resource production peaking, and many new countries developing, it could possibly make foreign pressures essentially more competitive. An odd statement, but I see the value of Africa's resources increasing and not decreasing. And yet somehow, that won't be good for the people. I understand that much. It won't be the same players, but ya think it'll be the same game or a different one?

8/3/2008 11:23:13 PM

Quote :

"How can so many things that happened prior to African independence be symptoms of problems that happened after? "

Symptoms can have more than one instigator. My assertion was that many of Africa's ills were a symptom of economic failure: tribalism, political collapse, genocide, etc. To assert in response that their existance prior to independence disproves my assertion is to suggest that economic failure never occured prior to independence, which we know to not be true, since they were economically oppressed colonies.

Quote :

"The consensus wasn't necessarily that socialism was good, but rather that foreign operations were bad (as they had frequently proven themselves to be)"

Then you too are a victim of this idiology. Foreign direct investment is never bad, whatever history you think you are reading. What is bad is government favor and corruption, not foreign ownership. As you point out, Africa had a distinct shortage of an investor class, so you believe the solution is not to import them, as many colonies granted independence prior to WW2 did, but to create government firms even if we all know it will result in failure.

Quote :

"When you spend hundreds of years shitting on somebody, they are naturally going to be averse to you and wary of your intentions. A momentary prominence of socialism isn't to blame."

That would be fine if they banned French, Belgian, or whoever's companies from doing business. What they did was ban all foreign direct investment, not just that of their former opressors. To this day Japanese firms face harassment whenever they attempt business in South Korea, where-as a British or French firm will enjoy the same rules and protections as domestic businesses. The reason for this is pure idiology: while Korea was a brutalized colony of Japan, they are not as stupid as you suggest Africans are. Even Africans understand that Americans are not their former oppressors, that dishonor belongs to some Europeans.

Quote :

"East Asia managed to find explosive growth despite heavy government intervention in and occasional ownership of industries. South Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore -- all of these have their capitalist elements, but they also have government involvement in the economy ranging from communistic to fascist-esque. They all also became countries during more-or-less the same era as Africa did."

Absolutely. As long as your labor and product markets remain free, as they did in the countries you mention, it does not matter what your government does. Free markets are remarkably resillient. The government can tax everyone at 50% and give the money to the monarch to spend on pink shoes, it does not change the equation: if local wages plus the cost of doing business leaves enough revenue over to offer competitive returns to capital, then foreign capital will flood in to bid up those wages. Lack of infrastructure? Cost of doing business: Dole or whoever will build the railroad since they are free to do so. As that point, of course, it is not a cost of doing business but a business of itself earning profits.

Quote :

"Western nations take their resources at deflated cost, and their only means to acquire most finished goods is to buy them from western nations at a regular (perhaps even inflated) cost."

Lots of Australians work in extraction industries for the purpose of export, often the same resources you mention. I do not consider them deflated prices, but you do. Are the Australians working in these industries as poor as the Africans engaged in the same trade? No, because the Australians use machines which allows one Ausie to produce as much as 100 Africans without machines. And that is the impossible solution: 90% of Africans working in the fields and mines need to seek employment in foreign owned factories. After a decade or so, the Africans working for these firms will leave and begin starting their own firms to compete with their former employers, usually with borrowed money. This is what has happened in China, and the only reason it did not happen in Africa was idiological. The difference, of course, is China survived the era of socialist economic failure intact and able to try the 1980's era of capitalism, most African states did not survive.

8/4/2008 12:47:15 AM

I was taking that to mean that the 'deflated' costs are obtained on a contractual basis. The world's price for a resource is... well the price determined by supply and demand and you can't really change that, even if those prices are too low. Just buy futures, and go long.

On the other hand, the details of any particular mining or extraction operation are very negotiable. Basically, somehow the company must pay the government for permission to take said resources. I don't know all that much about how this is done, but there is plenty of room for corruption and exploitation - particularly if the leaders don't have the interests of the citizens in mind.

8/4/2008 10:24:23 AM

In response to mrfrogs earlier posts: I don't think it's too hard to believe that there exist some substantial differences between races. Obviously, there's skin color. Doesn't it make sense that, perhaps, people that evolved in different parts of the world may have evolved differently? I'm not saying that any race is inherently superior, but we're not all the same, either. Unfortunately, you can't so much as bring up a subject like "genetic diversity" without being shouted at and called a racist. Hopefully, a time will come when this subject can be openly discussed.

8/4/2008 11:13:07 AM

I think we're almost to the point where we can openly talk about this. After all, in 20 years, medicine and gene therapy could render this all a mute discussion anyway. Trying to add freakeconomics into the discussion creates problems and revolution, of course. No one liked it when it was proposed that legalizing abortions decreased crime 18 years later.

I see there as being 3 factors determining a person

- genetics
- hormonal
- environment

In the thread about abortion gays I was already expounding on this. Not only are there many changes that can be made in a person without changing their genes, there is endless untapped potential remaining. Some of my favorite futurist blogs are claiming that we'll invent a drug that makes everyone on Earth 5 IQ points higher. So much for those genes mattering... but at the same time, they contain value that we will never ever be able to replace. As genetic information as a commodity, go long a few million years, as that's when the gains and losses will matter.

8/4/2008 11:35:03 AM

Quote :

"To assert in response that their existance prior to independence disproves my assertion is to suggest that economic failure never occured prior to independence, which we know to not be true, since they were economically oppressed colonies."

This is exasperating. Africa during colonization had a working market -- except when it didn't. Africa after colonization didn't have a working market -- except when it did. Socialist ideology caused all the problems, but before that capitalist ideology caused all the problems. If you don't come up with a clearer picture of your ideas here I'm afraid my head might explode.

Quote :

"Then you too are a victim of this idiology. Foreign direct investment is never bad, whatever history you think you are reading."

When a company sets up a mine in your country that is run by slave labor kidnapped from rival tribes in a decades long civil war, that is bad foreign direct investment.

Quote :

"What is bad is government favor and corruption, not foreign ownership."

Government favor? You mean, like the joint-stock companies and similar ventures that ran Africa with European colonial favor for centuries?

Quote :

"As you point out, Africa had a distinct shortage of an investor class, so you believe the solution is not to import them, as many colonies granted independence prior to WW2 did, but to create government firms even if we all know it will result in failure."

I don't think it was a particularly wise move either, but I can see why it was made and I can see how in their position I'd probably have done the same. And government firms are not -- at least, they have not demonstrated themselves to be -- failures by their very nature. Norway's Statoil, and then Statoil Hydro, have been very successful and provide the backbone for Norway's high standard of living. It matters less whether the people running a company are private actors or government employees than it does whether the people running a company are competent.

Quote :

"That would be fine if they banned French, Belgian, or whoever's companies from doing business."

This is a bit silly and demonstrates a profound lack of empathetic ability on your part. Virtually all of Africa's interactions with the outside world prior to independence were negative. They were enslaved, kept in poverty, stripped of their culture and religion, forced to go to war, and all manner of other terrible things by pretty much every outsider they encountered. If every non-black person I ever met treated me like that, it would get pretty hard for me to trust anybody who wasn't black, regardless of what nitpicky type of not-black they are.

I also think you're making the Sino-Korean business environment into something it's not. For one thing, Korea is an extremely monoracial country that was oppressed exclusively by another monoracial country. That not withstanding, I think by far the biggest part of Korea's aversion to Japanese business is the nature of Japanese business, the practices of which are radically different from those in most of the rest of the world.

Quote :

"As long as your labor and product markets remain free, as they did in the countries you mention"

I'm beginning to wonder how familiar you are with import substitution industrialization. It isn't really a "hands-off" approach to government involvement in any part of the economy.

Quote :

"Lots of Australians work in extraction industries for the purpose of export, often the same resources you mention."

Australians also live in a modernized state with such concepts as a "minimum wage" and company as well as government benefits. They aren't relatively well-off because they have machines, they're well-off because it's illegal for companies (foreign or native) to leave them any other way. It's impossible to do any of the other ridiculously shady things done in Africa in a modern nation as well.

8/4/2008 3:54:15 PM

Quote :

"Australians also live in a modernized state with such concepts as a "minimum wage" and company as well as government benefits."

Quote :

"This is exasperating. Africa during colonization had a working market -- except when it didn't. Africa after colonization didn't have a working market -- except when it did."

This is exasperating. Why are you purposefully being dense? "Africa before independence" usually covers a century or more with various winds of ideological shifts on both sides of colonial divide.

African colonies were playgrounds for the elites back home where their ability to interfere in economic affairs were always far greater than their power back in the host country. Invariably, the host government could grant monopolies, ban whole sectors, and levy ruinous taxes. But, as I said, markets are remarkably resilient and all this did was make Africans far poorer than they otherwise would have been.

But, again, this can never be mistaken for capitalism: it was state-dominated capitalism, or fascism to brutalize a definition. But, the beauty of this form of economy is that it is easy to make it free: fire the bureaucrats, ban special privilege, and make sure the police and courts understand things have changed. Africa instead just changed one foreign oppressor for a domestic one.

Quote :

"Government favor? You mean, like the joint-stock companies and similar ventures that ran Africa with European colonial favor for centuries?"

Yes, that form of government favor which destroys wealth and makes us all poorer.

Quote :

"I don't think it was a particularly wise move either, but I can see why it was made...This is a bit silly and demonstrates a profound lack of empathetic ability on your part."

Then what are you arguing? Just because we understand why a mistake was made, even that we would have made the same mistake in that situation given the prevaling beliefs of the time, does not change the fact that it was a mistake.

Quote :

"Norway's Statoil, and then Statoil Hydro, have been very successful and provide the backbone for Norway's high standard of living"

Why? They produce and export oil, even a failed country such as Nigeria manages to do that. It does not take any particular competence to hire a contractor and have them drill a well, connect it to shipping terminals, and collect the profits. Businesses with margins as high as oil, or even some mining, will still operate no matter how incompetently they are run (look at any OPEC country). What is hard is when it comes to actually producing a high standard of living, not importing one. For example, if Norway had to buy its oil instead of exporting it, Norway would still be a rich country because it is a free market economy with secure private property. However, Saudi Arabia lacks the requirements for competition, as such, without the oil, Saudi Arabia becomes poor. We saw this happen when oil became $10 a barrel back in the late 90s; Norway's economy grew, Saudi Arabia's shrank. Statoil shrank, maybe even lost money, but Norway's privately owned and operated companies created jobs and built wealth.

Quote :

"I'm beginning to wonder how familiar you are with import substitution industrialization. It isn't really a "hands-off" approach to government involvement in any part of the economy."

I am fully aware of it and import substitution industrialization is a dead end. People can brutalize the numbers to argue it was helpful at times, but there is no mechanism for it to be so. If your country lacks industry it is because your people lack the skills required to build and operate an internationally competitive industry. The solution looks exactly like what China has done: you import the skills needed in the form of foreign direct investment. You even get the added benefit of not having to pay for the investment yourself, which is good, because poor countries rarely have the free capital needed for such things.

Quote :

"Australians also live in a modernized state with such concepts as a "minimum wage" and company as well as government benefits. They aren't relatively well-off because they have machines, they're well-off because it's illegal for companies (foreign or native) to leave them any other way."

What bullshit is this? I seriously doubt when you get a job your wage will be $6.55 an hour, which would be perfectly legal here in NC. As such, please, for the love of God, what law dictated that my current hourly wage would be $24? Absolutely none: Americans are well paid because we have machines and processes that make me worth at least $24 an hour, so if my current employer refused to pay me $24 I would easily find an employer willing to do so. The only law that has an impact upon my salary is the one that guarantees me the right to quit and find another employer. That you somehow believe otherwise is absurd and implies that you have no idea how labor markets operate, as such why am I wasting my time talking to you about economics?

[Edited on August 4, 2008 at 6:44 PM. Reason : sp]

8/4/2008 6:42:19 PM

I agree with Shark that the difference is not minimum wage by any means. But I agree with Grumpy that these are completely different beasts. An Australian mining operation operates under many regulations that are benefit to the environment and people. You have the ability to find another $24/hr job, but none of those jobs available subject you to a health hazard. They can't. Environmental stewardship probably isn't much of a bother either when the government officials are in your pocket.

But you also must distinguish between what has happened and what is happening. In the past, slave labor helped colonialist ventures. A lot. But now, suffice it to say the local populous and political situation is more damaging than helpful to most operations.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2692

Slave labor used to be good for a lot more before machines. Now, I just don't see where uneducated masses are going to help you drill for oil. Labor is still exploited in different ways, but I this discussion applies mostly to past operations. I think.

8/4/2008 9:11:26 PM

Quote :

"African colonies were playgrounds for the elites back home where their ability to interfere in economic affairs were always far greater than their power back in the host country."

Quote :

"Yes, that form of government favor which destroys wealth and makes us all poorer."

OK, this is my problem:

I said that Africa was fucked because of a variety of institutional problems because of European colonialism.

You said that Africa was fucked because "of the era most of it gained independence" and because "the practice at the time was state centric socialism."

Now you are perfectly willing to blame many of Africa's endemic problems on the economic influence of European colonialism, which is central to the institutional differences that I was arguing about from the beginning.

Quote :

"Then what are you arguing?"

Primarily that timing and the prevailing economic philosophies of the day are irrelevant to the question. The era is not centrally important to the circumstances. Countries in similar situations have been doing similar things for hundreds of years. The primary example you can point to in support of your "era" theory is Eastern Europe, which is in fact a much, much better example of countries behaving as the Africans did in a similar situation -- as soon as they had a choice, they stopped dealing with the guys who had been assholes for so long. In one case it's Europeans and in another case it's commies.

---

I'll refer to the statoil section as a whole. A large chunk of your response seems to miss the point, which is that state-owned statoil did quite well for itself, thereby demonstrating that state-owned companies are not doomed to failure by their very nature. More importantly the state managed to use its windfalls in a fairly constructive way, which is more than I can say for Nigeria. Producing and exporting the oil is only part of the problem. State-owned Norwegian company profited and so too did Norwegians. State-owned Nigerian company profited and so did the Nigerians who had close ties to the state. The difference is competence and corruption.

Quote :

"I am fully aware of it and import substitution industrialization is a dead end."

It seemed to do a reasonable job of getting South Korea from making t-shirts to making shitty cars.

Quote :

"The solution looks exactly like what China has done: you import the skills needed in the form of foreign direct investment."

Yes, I know: foreign direct investment is great. I agree. I've also explained time and time again why it isn't thundering to Africa's doorstep, and all those reasons are the result of -- wait for it --

Institutional and cultural problems created by European colonialism.

Quote :

"I seriously doubt when you get a job your wage will be $6.55 an hour, which would be perfectly legal here in NC."

That's true. When I get a job it's probably also not going to be digging up diamonds with my bare hands in a deep, unsupported mine shaft, either. Even if the rest of the world's miners were working with the exact same expertise and equipment as their African counterparts, they would be making more because 6.55 or whatever is more than .10, or just nothing.

Quote :

"The only law that has an impact upon my salary is the one that guarantees me the right to quit and find another employer."

This is the larger part of the issue anyway, as it is something that Australians have and many Africans, at least in any meaningful sense, do not.

8/5/2008 3:47:57 AM

Quote :

"Yes, I know: foreign direct investment is great. I agree. I've also explained time and time again why it isn't thundering to Africa's doorstep, and all those reasons are the result of -- wait for it --Institutional and cultural problems created by European colonialism."

Ok, it seems we are talking past each other. Let me rephrase the point of contention. You believe that under the circumstances the Africans found themselves in at independence left them no option to build and operate anything but failed states. I believe that human beings have a choice in life and the Africans did too. We know this because many of them made different choices at independence. Some maintained a corrupt yet free system and struggled on for decades before attempting to impliment socialism and collapsing. At least one, Botswana, never fell down that hole, shunning socialism the entire century and living to tell about it. Some states threw themselves into socialism and failed within a matter of years. As such, there was clearly a choice being made by the Africans themselves, a life or death choice being made over and over and they only need to choose death once.

Quote :

"It seemed to do a reasonable job of getting South Korea from making t-shirts to making shitty cars."

Again, you can twist the history to argue it has helped at times, but there is no mechanism for it to do so. South Korea, like any more-or-less free country, was destined to achieve a modern standard of living. The best we can figure is that South Korean industrial policy retarded industrialization by restricting the importation of capital goods and hampering the rise of the electronics industry in the name of proping up heavy industry (cars, ships, etc). Some even say the lack of competition at home is why Korean cars sucked for so long.

Quote :

"That's true. When I get a job it's probably also not going to be digging up diamonds with my bare hands in a deep, unsupported mine shaft, either. "

The reason you will not, I suspect, is because you would quit such a job, since such a job could pay no more than 10 cents a day. Let me state it another way: IF Australia for whatever reason never had any labor regulations outside of common law protections (right to contract freely), your wage would not fall and your working conditions would not dramatically worsen. That is because if you want workers to work in poor working conditions then you must compensate them for it, otherwise they will quit and take a lower paying job that doesn't kill them. And in an economy where workers are already earning $15+ dollars an hour to work a safe comfortable desk job, it is cheaper to pay to make the mine safer and more comfortable than it is to pay workers the $25+ dollars an hour it would require to get them to work in a hot and collapsing mine shaft. This is basic labor economics and it is why companies spend millions air-conditioning office buildings when there is no law requiring them to do so: they are trying to save money on labor costs.

[Edited on August 5, 2008 at 9:40 AM. Reason : .,.]

8/5/2008 9:26:41 AM

Quote :

"Again, you can twist the history to argue it has helped at times, but there is no mechanism for it to do so."

It's almost as if you consider economics a science. Cute. In reality, there are countless mechanisms for material progress beyond those you recognize. it requires resources, technology, and organized humans. Not markets, not money, not private property.

8/5/2008 5:32:44 PM

No. there are no mechanisms of material progress beyond resources, technology, and organized humans. Markets, money, and private property do not exist in the real world, they are concepts conjured up by humans to aid in the organization of humans.

[Edited on August 5, 2008 at 6:02 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/5/2008 6:02:22 PM

The countless mechanisms come in the organization. We humans can be motivated by nearly anything.

8/5/2008 6:13:39 PM

it's all the naggers

8/5/2008 6:26:58 PM

Quote :

". Africa's atrocious educational standards are a direct result of European meddling in the region for the past few centuries."

If it were not for the european "meddling" half of africa would still be living in tribal villages and chucking spears at gazelles.

[Edited on August 5, 2008 at 6:33 PM. Reason : l]

8/5/2008 6:33:39 PM

Quote :

"You believe that under the circumstances the Africans found themselves in at independence left them no option to build and operate anything but failed states."

More or less, although "failed states" is a pretty loaded term that, strictly speaking, only applies to a few countries even within the colossal shit hole that is Africa. Nigeria is a functioning state, but it is, as the thread title puts it, a "terrible place."

I'll also agree that countries that opted for policies of centralization and collectivization tended to do worse than places that didn't, or that did to a lesser extent. What I disagree with is that those policies, in and of themselves, were the problem, but rather incompetent and corrupt administration, combined with the various other difficulties we've discussed. State-centric socialism makes things worse than they have to be, but it doesn't make them, well, Africa.

Quote :

"Again, you can twist the history to argue it has helped at times, but there is no mechanism for it to do so."

Dismissing the possibility out of hand as a perversion of history doesn't really do much to facilitate the discussion. But I suppose really it doesn't matter. There are two points to be made here that aren't really up for debate:

1) Several post-colonial countries opted for ISI.
2) Those countries are better off than Africa.

Quote :

"The reason you will not, I suspect, is because you would quit such a job, since such a job could pay no more than 10 cents a day."

Yes, but then again I have an education. There are also other jobs available in the world. My choice is not between $.10 a day and unemployment.

Quote :

"That is because if you want workers to work in poor working conditions then you must compensate them for it, otherwise they will quit and take a lower paying job that doesn't kill them."

Again, many of these countries have stratospheric unemployment and not a lot of options, especially for someone who is possibly illiterate and very likely does not have a high school education. Of the options there are, many of them will tend towards equally backbreaking, low-paying work. This, of course, to say nothing of the no-paying work.

If you don't have to worry about workers leaving your business to go elsewhere, your labor cost concerns go down dramatically.

Quote :

"If it were not for the european "meddling" half of africa would still be living in tribal villages and chucking spears at gazelles."

That's a bit naive. Other civilizations, having come into contact with western practices and philosophies, have often incorporated them for their benefit. Look at the Japanese. It didn't take them very long to go from feudal wars to Pacific powerhouse. And they did all that without the benefit of Europeans coming in, shooting a bunch of them, enslaving a bunch of the rest, and essentially stealing its resources. How amazing.

But perhaps just is important is the question of whether or not they'd be better off living in villages and, as you so delicately put it with your normal flair for thinly-veiled racist commentary, "chucking spears." Normally I'm not a big "back to the land" kind of guy. I like air conditioning, Bojangles, the internet, antibiotics, and cheap, effective birth control too much to want to run around the Kalahari digging up tubers and eating warthogs.

But plenty of nations in Africa already have life expectancies equal to or even lower than what you would expect to see in pre-colonial Africa. Crime, warfare, and disease can exist on a whole new scale. Neighboring tribes could not kill each other nearly as fast by "chucking spears" as they are managing to do as part of large armies in Congo with guns, or as they managed to do in Rwanda with machetes and radio broadcasts. Africa gets the all the worst from the benefits of "modernization," and gets very little of the best.

And all that can be traced to the manner in which Europeans handled the continent.

I'm not even all that opposed to colonialism, really, not when it's implemented with some degree of decency. I'd argue that India benefited from it. Central and South America came out alright, though the Spanish and Portuguese did some bastardly things, because at least they left behind a core of leadership that served to transition it to an essentially native-run government. I think it essentially did alright in North America. Most of the intentional indian slaughtering came after American independence, but during the colonial period at least we were mostly genociding them by accident through disease.

8/5/2008 7:07:40 PM

Most smart Africans do not go back to Africa after getting an education in a westernized country (not many opportunities to get an decent education in Africa). They stay in that westernized country and work instead of going back to help fix their home country. If that westernized country forced them to go back home, so they can fix it with their talents, then everyone would be screaming about racism, Nazis, fascism, etc.

8/5/2008 7:14:56 PM

Quote :

"Central and South America came out alright, though the Spanish and Portuguese did some bastardly things, because at least they left behind a core of leadership that served to transition it to an essentially native-run government."

Eh, no. The natives remain oppressed in the Americas to this day. That core of leadership, as you put it, has remained rather white. Much of Latin American history involves elites, both liberal and conservative, attempting eradicate Amerindian culture. Latin American government continue to treat Amerindians horribly. Consider how the Guatemalan government massacred tens of thousands of Mayans merely a few decades ago.

8/5/2008 7:49:54 PM

Quote :

"I'll also agree that countries that opted for policies of centralization and collectivization tended to do worse than places that didn't, or that did to a lesser extent. What I disagree with is that those policies, in and of themselves, were the problem, but rather incompetent and corrupt administration, combined with the various other difficulties we've discussed. State-centric socialism makes things worse than they have to be, but it doesn't make them, well, Africa."

Well, to equivocate a bit, a competent and uncorrupt government would quickly recognize the deliterious effect new policies were having upon the society at large and promptly backtrack. But, even western governments, arguably the least incometent and corrupt governments on the planet, allowed Britain to become a backet case for a decade before backtracking. But as of now I do not believe there is major disagreement between us on this issue.

Quote :

"Dismissing the possibility out of hand as a perversion of history doesn't really do much to facilitate the discussion."

I mispoke. What I meant to say was that I knew of no mechanism for it to do so. The economy of even the smallest country is unknowably complex, so it is possible that government direction could increase effective investment in pet industries without curtailing investment efficiency overall, but I have never seen it. In all instances, either the government directed investment of pet industries redirects investment away from other more profitable sectors, curtails unfavored investments due to regime uncertainty, or, worse of all, causes firms to redirect efforts away from investments and towards the lobbying of government favor.

Quote :

"Again, many of these countries have stratospheric unemployment and not a lot of options, especially for someone who is possibly illiterate and very likely does not have a high school education. Of the options there are, many of them will tend towards equally backbreaking, low-paying work. This, of course, to say nothing of the no-paying work. If you don't have to worry about workers leaving your business to go elsewhere, your labor cost concerns go down dramatically."

And fairly implimenting a minimum wage in these countries would cause unemployment to increase and for situations to get worse. If workers are unable to go work elsewhere then the problem cannot be fixed by passing labor laws; the problem is their inability to go work elsewhere. Competing employers must be granted the right to compete for their labor, which requires the wholesale scrapping of the socio-economic systems of many African countries and replacing it with a freer less corrupt economic system. I believe this job needed to be done at the time of independence. Regretfully, Africans at that time felt they should instead build a terrible place.

8/5/2008 10:20:22 PM

Quote :

"Again, many of these countries have stratospheric unemployment and not a lot of options, especially for someone who is possibly illiterate and very likely does not have a high school education. Of the options there are, many of them will tend towards equally backbreaking, low-paying work. This, of course, to say nothing of the no-paying work. If you don't have to worry about workers leaving your business to go elsewhere, your labor cost concerns go down dramatically."

I just want to point out that this is obviously not telling the complete story. How, does bringing the demand for slave or dangerous low-wage labor degrade people's other options? It doesn't. What we're dealing with are changing and conflicting expectations of living.

People in Africa are poor. But how does that compare to how they were before foreign influence? Okay, I'll post a really cheesy picture...



Note that, many of the pictures of 'tribes' you see in Africa still contain some relic of modern society. They use products of modern society. If they didn't, they won't need these "jobs" in the first place, it wouldn't make any sense if they were living off the land. Obviously they still grow their own food (most...), but there's some combination of past ways and modern. And this example is only the most extreme. Most of Africa still contains a gradient of decently constructed buildings to open-air markets.

But simply, they can't go back to not having jobs, a trial hunter-gather existence. Many live in shanty towns. Many make peanuts harvesting cacao. But if nobody at all preformed these activities, the current population of Africa could not be sustained, which is 887 million today, compared to 106 million in 1750. And is largely children.



There is still a lot of room for disputing here. I don't exactly think all the millions in Africa before the industrial revolution were supported by hunter-gather livelihoods. And you don't exactly need computer technology to increase farm yields from pre-industrial levels to many times over.

Quote :

"If it were not for the european "meddling" half of africa would still be living in tribal villages and chucking spears at gazelles."

As a statement applicable to most of the world, had it not been for such meddling, the population wouldn't be what it is now - one way or another. Turning backwards is simply not an option. Those who are working for 10 cents an hour in a diamond mine are likely doomed to do so until the nation can organize itself to get higher value added jobs, which must be the final result discounting a mass die-off.

Quote :

"That's a bit naive. Other civilizations, having come into contact with western practices and philosophies, have often incorporated them for their benefit. Look at the Japanese. It didn't take them very long to go from feudal wars to Pacific powerhouse. And they did all that without the benefit of Europeans coming in, shooting a bunch of them, enslaving a bunch of the rest, and essentially stealing its resources. How amazing."

feudal wars?

no no no no no no no. How about 250 years of isolationism coupled with complete peace?

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is a completely divorced topic from colonialism. We had unequal treaties with Japan. We also used the threat of force to get them to open up (yes, more the US than other nations, but it was basically a race between all colonial powers to threaten the fastest to get the best treaties).

In 1850, Japan had little technical prowess to boast but was one of the socially most advanced on the globe.

8/5/2008 10:51:09 PM

Quote :

"And they did all that without the benefit of Europeans coming in, shooting a bunch of them, enslaving a bunch of the rest, and essentially stealing its resources"

Japan even before as ^ noted; was far more advanced technologically with a fully functional gov't bureaucracy unlike much of pre-colonial africa. The European powers would have had a very rough time trying to colonize Japan who was well renowned for their warrior spirit. European contact merely enabled Japan to get the "newest gadgets" in order to fully catch up to the European powers of the time.

On the other hand the few countries in Africa that had established a centralized gov't bureaucracy with a fledgling modern economy like Ethiopia escaped European domination.

This thread has even more relevance to native American N. America. However, we managed to pretty much wipe out the entire local populace. Along with a greater white colonialzation then what happened in Africa, there was never any grumpy natives trying to retake control of local gov't institutions after the 19th century.

8/5/2008 11:57:51 PM

Quote :

"Along with a greater white colonialzation then what happened in Africa, there was never any grumpy natives trying to retake control of local gov't institutions after the 19th century."

Mostly true, but angry Amerindian groups remain in North American politics. Consider, for example, the Mexica Movement. Some of the Mexican and other other Latin American immigrants to this country identify primarily with their Amerindian heritage. Amerindians are currently reasserting themselves in parts of Latin America. The same could happen here eventually.

8/6/2008 10:52:53 AM

well the latino countries are a lot different. unlike england; spain and portugal made no considerable effort to colonize their colonies with their people from back home. Mostly the people over here were just out for money/work/glory. In the process they ended up mating with many of the local women. So there never was the "whites versus indian" conflicts as they existed in the US. Instead it was just revolution to kick out their european sovereigns or ethnic conflicts between groups.

8/6/2008 12:18:54 PM

Eh, that's not really true. While Iberian model absolutely involved more mixing, the elites still attempted elevate European culture above indigenous culture. There were and are explicit conflicts between the Amerindians and colonists. Consider Tupac Amaru II's rebellion, for example.

8/6/2008 1:14:20 PM

The "whites versus indians" thing wasn't really an issue for Latin America early on, due to the depopulation of natives. Disease killed somewhere between 85-95% of the native population. Europeans having to ship in African slaves to do the work that Native Americans could no longer do led to more conflict, really. In the end, the elites looked down on even the people that were pure European as far as blood, but were born in the settlements (creoles).

8/6/2008 1:25:14 PM

There are still millions of Amerindians in Latin America. Despite the disease and violence, they didn't disappear as a racial and social category. You can add to this that some mestizos identify as Amerindian first and foremost.

I'd say the conflict between whites and Amerindians began Latin American history and continues to play an important role.

8/6/2008 1:33:32 PM

Quote :

"The natives remain oppressed in the Americas to this day. That core of leadership, as you put it, has remained rather white."

There's a smattering of more recent incidents, but I wouldn't say it's the norm. Outright native leaders have been elected in several countries, and part-indian mestizos have a great deal of influence owing to their large number.

Quote :

"If workers are unable to go work elsewhere then the problem cannot be fixed by passing labor laws"

I'm not suggesting that it can. I was merely pointing out that Africa has lower wages for comparable labor than Western Countries in part because we generally have a minimum wage. One assumes that, were it not for this wage, some American laborers would make less money. Perhaps not so little as his African counterpart, but it's still a difference. And all of that isn't even to say that minimum wage is a good idea, it's just a reason why comparing the relative success of African and Australian miners isn't entirely valid.

Quote :

"How, does bringing the demand for slave or dangerous low-wage labor degrade people's other options?"

No, it's vice-versa -- lack of options makes dangerously low wages possible. The reasons that there aren't a lot of employment options go back to the range of institutional concerns discussed elsewhere in this thread.

Quote :

"feudal wars? no no no no no no no. How about 250 years of isolationism coupled with complete peace?"

Well, um...maybe I'm misinterpreting this:

Quote :

"In 1543, a Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China, landed on Tanegashima Island Japan. Firearms introduced by Portuguese would bring the major innovation to Sengoku period culminating in the Battle of Nagashino where reportedly 3,000 arquebuses (the actual number is believed to be around 2,000) cut down charging ranks of samurai."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan#Feudal_Japan_.2812th_-_19th_century.29

But it seems to me like at the time of European contact they were having some pretty substantial feudal wars. The fact that the era was called the "Warring States Period" lends itself further to my statement.

But, again, maybe I'm just misreading phrases like "intense internal warfare."

Quote :

"In 1850, Japan had little technical prowess to boast but was one of the socially most advanced on the globe."

Well, that's great...of course, 1850 is a good 300 years after the first contact and trade with Europeans.

Quote :

"Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is a completely divorced topic from colonialism."

The whole point is to demonstrate to geniuses like HUR that colonialism is not a prerequisite for advance.

8/7/2008 3:36:58 PM

Quote :

"There's a smattering of more recent incidents, but I wouldn't say it's the norm. Outright native leaders have been elected in several countries, and part-indian mestizos have a great deal of influence owing to their large number."

Election of Amerindian leaders has been something of a recent shift. Amerindian movements do appear on the rise currently. However, leaders like Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez are facing plenty of opposition.

8/7/2008 4:09:46 PM

If you're talking about the Sengoku and not Tokugawa period then well yeah, it just didn't make any sense that you were referring to Sengoku. If we're talking about the Nanban trade contacts, then how are you using this as an example of incorporation of European practices and philosophies for a country's benefit? They adopted a few things, notably used the more advanced European design guns in some battles, and after that they banned guns altogether (for the more civilized lightsabers swords) and levied the death penalty on any foreigner who set foot on a main island. By this example, if colonialism isn't a requisite for advancement, then neither is foreign contact altogether.

The end of Tokugawa was when the foreign contact mattered as it completely changed the country, which is why I would assume that's what you were talking about. If you argue that contact made a difference, sure. The more advanced guns were used through the Battle of Sekigahara, which ushered in the end of the Sengoku period. But, it did not change them from a barbaric or primitive existence into something better. One, they were not a primitive country to start out with, two, they didn't exactly change into something better, and three, the ideas that foreigners brought didn't exactly bring about the change. And by no means did it change them into a pacific powerhouse, that happened through the Meiji period. The 'first' contacts turned them into a pacific hermit.

Quote :

"No, it's vice-versa -- lack of options makes dangerously low wages possible. The reasons that there aren't a lot of employment options go back to the range of institutional concerns discussed elsewhere in this thread."

Okay, sure. So they were in some way displaced from what they had been doing, that makes sense. I don't know if it follows directly how good or bad the low wage operations were.

8/7/2008 4:56:00 PM

Quote :

"well european colonization didnt help"

just like North America huh?

8/11/2008 10:43:40 AM

^ huh? the native americans practically got wiped out.

8/11/2008 10:50:39 AM

Quote :

"I'm not suggesting that it can. I was merely pointing out that Africa has lower wages for comparable labor than Western Countries in part because we generally have a minimum wage. One assumes that, were it not for this wage, some American laborers would make less money. Perhaps not so little as his African counterpart, but it's still a difference. And all of that isn't even to say that minimum wage is a good idea, it's just a reason why comparing the relative success of African and Australian miners isn't entirely valid."

Yes, it is quite possible that some would have lower wages were it not for the minimum wage; the potential number was around 1% of the U.S. workforce before the minimum was increased recently. However, some Americans would have higher wages were it not for the minimum wage as there is no way to know how many Americans are rendered unemployable by the minimum wage. But, as I said, other than that 1% of the U.S. workforce, our wages are solely determined by competition among employers for workers, something which does not take place in Africa due to perverse regulations.

8/11/2008 2:01:00 PM

Destruction by European colonization is the SOLE REASON why Africa is the way it is today. The Aids issue doesnt help, but having trillions of dollar worth of gold, diamonds, and other rich resources stolen from a country by numerous other countries would do that to any nation.


What was the point of this posting? Have you ever been on an African Safari?? If youve never been there, one loses credibility to post about it.

8/11/2008 4:39:29 PM

^ Obviously it's not the "SOLE" reason, but it's a meaningful part.

I think (I can't remember the name of the theory right now), it's geography played a big role. Most of Africa is pretty detrimental for developing societies.

8/11/2008 4:42:17 PM

Quote :

"but having trillions of dollar worth of gold, diamonds, and other rich resources stolen from a country by numerous other countries would do that to any nation."

I don't want to drum up old topics, so I want to discuss just this statement.

Now, suppose God came to Earth and stole every single bar of gold, diamond, and "other rich resources" from the North American continent without inflicting any other damage. As upsetting as that would be, would America and Canada suddenly become similar to Africa?

A second scenario. Let us suppose that God, as a laugh, suddenly burned down all the buildings, offices, and computers from the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, WA. Could we reasonably expect Microsoft to stop making software because of this? Of course not, the culture and human organization that was the Microsoft Corporation would still exist and after rebuilding whatever was physically lost the people would go right back to doing whatever they were doing.

A third scenario. Let us suppose that instead of burning them down, God transported the Microsoft Campus to Maputo, Mozambique. Should we expect to see whoever wandered onto the campus upon arrival in Mozambique dominating the OS, gaming console, and server markets? I would say of course not: they wouldn't know what to do with it other than just selling whatever is not bolted down back to either Microsoft or some other established software company.

8/11/2008 6:23:17 PM

Quote :

"our wages are solely determined by competition among employers for workers, something which does not take place in Africa due to perverse regulations."

Do you have some example of perverse regulations in Africa directly impacting competition among employers for workers? I ask strictly out of curiosity.

---

America and Canada got their economies started through resource extraction. If God had come to Earth and taken all of the good stuff in about 1650, they may not be better off.

8/12/2008 6:15:04 PM

Yes. Foreign employers were banned from entering most African nations at least for awhile. After that foreign employers faced harassment, corruption, and confiscation of property.

Even in well grounded African nations, such as South Africa, regulations mandating a relatively high minimum wage leave whole armies of the unemployable living in the countryside.

Quote :

"America and Canada got their economies started through resource extraction. If God had come to Earth and taken all of the good stuff in about 1650, they may not be better off."

It is possible that depriving America of resources would have curtailed technological advancement, but it is unlikely that the English tradition of free enterprise would have been squashed by the shame of importing raw materials. Based upon Ricardian comparative advantage, depriving America of physical resources would have driven its people to become the workshop for the world, just as Britain did when it found it didn't even have enough food to feed itself, much less the iron ore, cotton, and lumber needed for a 19th century standard of living.

That Americans were so resource rich actually curtailed our rise as an industrial power as Americans made a better living extracting resources from the ground and letting the British, which had no alternative, turn them into finished goods.

8/12/2008 6:35:03 PM

colonialism is such a half answer to this question.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RfobLjsj230

Apparently they're still messed up, and guess who's fault it is?? *surprise* US!

But yet, they can't advance without foreign interaction (by this point). So now we come around to the frequently seen argument that the free market would have already fixed all the problems long ago, but someone tried to tweak it and messed it all up.

8/18/2008 11:26:02 PM

The president of Zambia died today.

I'm actually anxious to see what changes now. If anything.
It's not a perfect country, but especially compared to some of its neighbors, it's a damn good place to live, if you're gonna live in southern Africa

8/19/2008 5:53:15 PM

bump by request

10/5/2009 6:30:16 PM

I wonder why the request? I hadn't heard that Africa has gotten remarkably more or less shitty in the past year.

10/5/2009 6:50:13 PM

AIDS

10/5/2009 6:59:52 PM