A strange example since back then South Korea was a dictatorship that massacred over 100,000 of its own citizens:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre
Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
31–40 of 230 posts
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#32One reason is how much ever we try to disagree, the socio economic construct is still a zero sum game with an ever increasing pie. People who argue otherwise point to the size of the pie without practically ever stating what those in difficult positions can realistically do to get more of it. Other reasons are that honestly there is not much "real work" to be done so we can argue that a very small % of existing popul…
If there has to be poor people in order for there to be rich people, let’s make robots be the poor people. The best endgame we can probably hope for is for there to be a sustainably small number of really comfortable, happy humans on this planet, and an army of robot servants/AI to keep us all fat and happy.
But the tiny proportion of very rich people can never get enough and therefore what will actually happen is we'll end up with an army of robot servants making the rich people richer and more comfortable, while the rest of us fight over the scraps.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#33Wealth is unevenly distributed because the acquisition of wealth by agents is (and has been) unevenly distributed.
What property do all extant technologies possess (that some, yet undeveloped technologies, may not,) that has ensured that none of them have been able to flatten that distribution? Is it comprehensibility?
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#34My personal (purposely incomplete!) answer is because the whole world doesn't deserve to be rich. Imagine this scenario to help understand why: Let's say the top richest people gave away so much money that every person on earth was a millionare. What would happen? People wouldn't change their spending and other habits, in fact they would buy more useless stuff. Prices would thus rise and rise until they matched the n…
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Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#35One reason is how much ever we try to disagree, the socio economic construct is still a zero sum game with an ever increasing pie. People who argue otherwise point to the size of the pie without practically ever stating what those in difficult positions can realistically do to get more of it. Other reasons are that honestly there is not much "real work" to be done so we can argue that a very small % of existing popul…
But if the pie increases, it's not really a zero sum game, is it?
Entities without competition inflate prices until they capture all the extra new pie.
You receive increase in salary from your boss one year and next year it gets eaten away by monopolies like healthcare, education, housing and landlords.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#36My personal (purposely incomplete!) answer is because the whole world doesn't deserve to be rich. Imagine this scenario to help understand why: Let's say the top richest people gave away so much money that every person on earth was a millionare. What would happen? People wouldn't change their spending and other habits, in fact they would buy more useless stuff. Prices would thus rise and rise until they matched the n…
There are several studies which have shown that cash transplants have a lasting beneficial effect on poverty.
That must be to a very limited degree to the point where you can't extrapolate the effect to my hypothesized scenario.
In fact there is evidence in support of my thesis: Most lottery winners lose all their won money within a few years.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#37One reason is how much ever we try to disagree, the socio economic construct is still a zero sum game with an ever increasing pie. People who argue otherwise point to the size of the pie without practically ever stating what those in difficult positions can realistically do to get more of it. Other reasons are that honestly there is not much "real work" to be done so we can argue that a very small % of existing popul…
If there has to be poor people in order for there to be rich people, let’s make robots be the poor people. The best endgame we can probably hope for is for there to be a sustainably small number of really comfortable, happy humans on this planet, and an army of robot servants/AI to keep us all fat and happy.
I used to have the same utopic dream, but I have started to question whether a "small number" is actually desireable. If everyone on earth is working on great things, having more people might be better. Maybe even Elons vision of people spilling out into the stars.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#38Because "rich", in many definitions, is a moving goalpost. If you define rich and poor as related to some global average, inevitable differences (we are not a Borg collective) will always produce some rich and poor people.
If you, however, define "rich" and "poor" as related to a fixed criterion based on the necessities of life, like "will/won't suffer from starvation during their >60 year average lifespan" or "child mortality <2%": then the world is steadily improving and humanity has never been richer.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#39Some of the reason must include culture. Innovation, investment, risktaking are all subject to local acceptable values. Some places they thrive.
For instance bribe-taking, strong-man-rule, abuse of power (from dog-catcher to president) are not correlated with those things.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#40The formula is pretty simple. The US not only allowed South Korea to pursue export oriented industrialization, it actively encouraged it. It saw South Korea as a military bulwark against the Soviet Union. Why can't every country follow in its footsteps? Well, some did and were encouraged for similar reasons. Taiwan, Japan, etc. However, without preferential access to the markets of the world's richest nation(s), expo…
It's a combination of a lot of factors. Access to a rich market is one thing but protecting your own markets against much stronger competition is another.
South Korea was a mercantilist nation and it protected its core industries in the early stages. That's why companies in traditional industries (construction,banking,insurance,food etc etc) in Korea are still mostly Korean when in Eastern Europe they are German,French,Italian etc etc