Third-world countries

Why are they so poor? Surely if they were managed properly they could be quickly industrialized. The Soviet Union is good example of this, though far from perfect.

Are they poor, or is the wealthy poorly distributed?

Lots of these countries are also hit hard by the Free Market. The little money they do have goes directly to whatever foreign power sells to them, because their own production centres simply can't compete with those who are already on top.

A good example of this would be Haiti. Yes, they grow rice on their own, but the farmers can't make any money of it, since no matter how cheap they sell, American-grown rice will always be cheaper thanks to their heavy machinery that the Haiti farmers simply can't afford. So the farmers go out of business, and the money goes somewhere where the population will never, ever be able to benefit of it.

I'd say the best way to solve the problems of a lot of third world nations would be to allow them to protect their own industry as long as they do not have the means to compete yet.

edited 5th May '11 12:06:46 AM by Kayeka

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Why not? Why are people starving to death when we make and waste so much food?

Obviously, because they can't afford food.

Yes, capitalism can be a bitch like that.

Money. Most people starve because they can't buy food, not always because food was unavailable.

Workers in third world cannot raise their wages because there are still many more unemployed who would take their work. Peasant cannot raise their income because mostly they didn't own the land.

That's not quite the same thing as "post scarcity".

"Obviously, because they can't afford food."

So it's entirely artificial? Then why is there not more outrage?

Yes.

However, I think (living in a third world country in this lifestyle, I consider myself really lucky. Take my words and disagree or agree, but it's my own thoughts, not yours) that it's also because of being born in poverty.

Born to a poor family > no (complete) education > no higher class jobs = jobless OR low-wage jobs (plus family equals even more poverty)

People want jobs, even if they're low wage. However, these jobs, even if they pay what they're supposed to, aren't always enough. For example, in my country, the minimum wage isn't even enough to buy a can of sardines(recent news((obviously there is outrage within the people))), but enough for some bread. What more if it's a whole family on that wage?

So, if the population is mostly people in poverty (or a great deal of it is), then that means that there's not much to do about progress. Unless the government somehow handles it, some foreign help comes in or it's a miracle.

So all in all, I just blame the job shortage. (Not an expert though, so I'm probably wrong...)

I have a feeling I'm wrong.

There'd probably be a whole lot more jobs if people could set up businesses that would actually make profit.

> So it's entirely artificial?

Not entirely artificial, farmer have to get a profit too. fertilizer and seed is expensive. and farmer have to raise family too.

Believe it or not, some of the problems with third-world countries are that they have expensive resources and that they are exposed to the cheap food of industrialized countries.

First, the expensive resources: this is an extremely lengthy topic that could take pages upon pages to fully-study, so instead here's a quick before-and-after type of picture: Nigeria before oil was discovered, and Nigeria today.

EDIT: Just thought of some more quick comparisons:

• Look at Middle Eastern countries that don't have oil, such as Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Dubai. Then look at Middle Eastern countries that do have oil, like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. Look at how they were doing in the year 1930 compared to today - especially their politics. Or, for a really dramatic example, look at how well Palestine is doing despite its interactions with Israel.
• Look at states in the USA that were based primarily on mining, with little else to support their economies.

Second, exposure to cheap food: this makes it unprofitable, and in many cases, totally unsustainable for farmers to grow their own food in the short term. Thus, in the short term, they are put out of business and have to find (very scarce) jobs to feed themselves instead. Then, over, the long term, nobody is growing food, and those who control the imports are unlikely to feel generous, and thus people start starving to death en masse. Another interesting variation on this is the Great Depression of the USA, in which food-growing land was being repossessed by banks who were taking massive losses, meanwhile people were starving to death not far from farms who were unable to sell their crops.

There are endless detailed studies on why third-world countries are the way they are, but "they don't work hard enough" is seldom one of the real problems. Usually, "they don't work hard enough" is a problem of first-world countries.

edited 5th May '11 1:06:23 AM by ssfsx17

I think it's probably useful to draw a somewhat fuzzy line between 3rd-world countries like China or Egypt (which actually have a decent degree of industrialization and wealth, but manage them very poorly) and what some term “4th-world” countries, like most of sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and the Caribbean (no economy, no money, often brutally oppressive and lawless to boot.)

I would also characterize some countries as only partly 3rd-world, like South Korea, Israel, Spain, or Brazil, where large portions of the population live about like an American or European, but the majority are still in the dark ages, and there are often peculiar tatty holes in labor laws.

Ending food subsidies, which give American, European, Indian and Chinese farmers an edge over others by the government subsidising their crops, over and above the tech bonus they already have, would do a lot. I think its disgraceful the way the governments of the 1st and 2nd worlds enforce this sort of inequality. If I could break things like the EU's cap policy and the American corn subsidies (I don't know about China and India, I only know it goes on) I'd do it tomorrow.

Better idea: Get all the money used to subsidize exports to the 3rd world and redirect it into foreign aid.

Nah, it's better off in something like NASA. As is foreign aid money. I think China has some kind of subsidy program for a crop, but I think it was textiles.

It's a vicious cycle caused by a number of factors: history of wars and colonialism, corrupt government, disease, malnutrition, lack of infrastructure, poor education, etc.

Many of those factors reinforce each other.

^^ Research would be an awful lot easier if we added the other five billion of humanity to the pool of potential scientists.

But we'd have to slow down, so I'm good without them. Most of them would wind up on that whole "keep the majority of humanity from dying/being uncfomfortable" thing most people are used for.

Foreign aid is to be quite honest, extremely useless. It doesn't lift countries out of poverty and it doesn't create anything meaningful at all.

Basically foreign aid is money pissed away on nothing to make people feel good about "helping" the less fortunate.

We receive enormous economic and scientific boons from Europe and Japan, and could potentially receive the same from the rest of the world. As is, it acts as an enormous sinkhole in countless ways (for instance, it's the primary reason we maintain militaries) and will continue to until they rise from poverty. Saying that foreign aid is a waste of money is myopic, if we succeed in raising them up, the rewards would make up for it in spades.

Foreign aid can be a wonderful thing, but a lot of times countries with corrupt governments will take the aid for themselves rather than give it to the people of their country. It's hard to help the people of a country when their own government is stealing what you try to give them.

^ Which is what happens to nearly 90% of US foreign aid disbursements. Basically not a single dollar of aid that goes to Africa and wide swathes of Asia don't amount to anything other than lining people's pockets in government.

The same is true for a number of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

For another thing, most of the aid goes to low middle-income countries that can serve commerial and political interests, as opposed to desperately poor countries that need it the most.

edited 6th May '11 8:10:31 AM by StrangeDwarf

The problem with foreign aid is it is often used as a bandage and not a cure. Yes, they can use that money to do things like buy food and medicine that can't be provided to the population normally and keep the government running, but that does no good for the actual economy of the country if that foreign aid money is used to buy foreign exports which trickles back to the countries that gave the foreign aid in the first place, leaving only what was taxed in the local economy, a pittance by comparison.

Foreign aid being used to enhance the industry of a nation is more of a cure and not a bandage, the problem is that you would need to start companies based within that country to do any good by doing so, or else the profits still trickle away elsewhere. The reason for this is there aren't any people with the financial capitol, properly skilled personnel, or technological access to actually get any of these industries running, upgraded, and making a profit before they run out of money. On top of that they will still have to compete with foreign markets that have already become experts at these industries, and either have more efficient systems that required a hefty initial investment, or are being subsidized by wealthy backers such as a first world government.