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Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

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Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#81

Post by pydry »

zozbot234 wrote: post #69
pydry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>protecting your own marketing against much stronger competition is another. That's the whole point. Most countries that do this are locked out of rich markets. They're said to be competing "unfairly". They know mercantilism works they just can't practice it without being slapped with countervailing tariffs. It was US policy both to allow and encourage mercantilism for South Korea because that meant it could function…

They're not locked out, they just might have to pay retaliatory tariffs. The whole issue is countries that institute such mercantile tariffs in the first place tend to be exactly the ones where elites do not believe in export-driven growth, and pursue failing top-down schemes that increase their own petty influence within those same countries.

>they just might have to pay retaliatory tariffs.

That was, again, the whole point.

A nascent Hyundai + retaliatory tarriffs => no Hyundai => South Korea remains 3rd world

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#84

Post by mathverse »

mdp2021 wrote: post #72
rejectfinite wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay and? Look at Samsung phones. They so good!

Neither the original post nor this answer make clear sense in the context. The original post seems to relate that "South Korea went from 6% of the GDP in the USA in 1953 to that of the UK in 2020" with a history of dictatorship, while the point of the article is exactly the - noted - "strangeness" of the results. The above reply mentions some quality in products of Samsung while the article is explicitly about the di…

South Korea tried their take on Wirtschaftswunder. They had a model and they knew how to achieve it through propping their industries. To some extent you could say they were state owned companies as they were intentionally directed to do certain things.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#87

Post by dusted »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #56
dusted wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on this.. There can only be rich countries if there are poor countries.. Otherwise there would just be.. countries.. One of the reasons that the standard of living is so high in rich countries, is because we're paying poor countries to do the work + pollution, if they had as much money as rich countries, they'd be unwilling to do that work/polution for that price, and the "true" price of the work would r…

Easy to say from an easy chair in a rich country. But that paying poor countries to do work, that's their current route out of poor. To take that away over some social-action-theatre objection is just cruel and thoughtless. From one point of view.

I'm not arguing that it's a good, just or right thing.. Only that it is. (this is not an argument for or against the status quo, only a statement of my interpretation of it)

I'm also not suggesting any course of action (including inaction).

I'm just saying that the way things are currently set up, it looks like rich countries are rich, but in fact, they're only rich in difference of wealth, that is, they're only able to sustain their high standards of living by the fact that other countries are substantially worse off, and so will provide them with goods and services at rates far lower than they themselves would be able or willing to work for.

To be purely rich, a country would be able to maintain such standard of living entirely from using its own goods and services, which is rarely the case.. Except for the ultra-wealthy, most people in "rich" countries cannot actually afford to exclusively consume the goods and services produced by their peers.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#88

Post by throwaway294566 »

aflag wrote: post #66
throwaway294566 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are trying to put a racist spin on something that is simply a matter of time and circumstances: You cannot instantly, just by declaring it to be so, have technology, infrastructure, efficient agriculture. You need to start where you are and continuously improve the status quo in your country. That takes time. How much depends on things like corruption, means, climate, openness for change, local resources and topo…

Quoted post unavailable.

A person's behavior and its abilities are determined by genetics ("nature") or family/society/circumstances ("nurture") or some ratio of mixture of both. Current political sensibilities prohibit talking about genetic aspects and demand that all, or at least as much as possible is ascribed to family/society/circumstances. Ascribing traits, especially negative ones, to genetics, is commonly called racism.

However, for the given discussion, it is unnecessary to dip into the nature/nurture debate and expose oneself to accusations of racism: People just are as they are, different in certain ways, which leads to differences in economic outcomes and therefore being more or less rich. Uniqueness isn't really a criterion in most cases, except sometimes if a society ruled by a uniquely crazy dictator. Usually, a lot of people, the society as a whole or at least a certain ruling class, determines the direction through their behavior. E.g. corruption, which is strongly correlated with bad economic outcomes, is always a problem of the society as a whole. That crazy dictator on top isn't involved in most of the corrupt interactions that happen.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#89

Post by zozbot234 »

mdp2021 wrote: post #72
rejectfinite wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay and? Look at Samsung phones. They so good!

Neither the original post nor this answer make clear sense in the context. The original post seems to relate that "South Korea went from 6% of the GDP in the USA in 1953 to that of the UK in 2020" with a history of dictatorship, while the point of the article is exactly the - noted - "strangeness" of the results. The above reply mentions some quality in products of Samsung while the article is explicitly about the di…

South Korea was a dictatorship that managed to democratize peacefully. That already makes it unusual compared to most dictatorships.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#90

Post by laputan_machine »

Koshkin wrote: post #60
docdeek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: In 2019 there were about 648 million people living in extreme poverty, subsisting on the equivalent of $2.15 per day or less. Those 648 million people made up 8.4% of world population — representing an improvement over 1990, when 35.9% of people lived on that little. This seems to be the inverse of a zero-sum game: the West might have got a lot richer, but hundreds of millions of people were lifeted out of extre…

> equivalent of $2.15 But what does this even mean? The buying power of the dollar (or its “equivalent”) where those people live can be much higher than in the US. (Unless you mean to compare with living on that much per day in the US.)

Even then, $2.15 in Jackson, MS will get you further than $2.15 in NYC.
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