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Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

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Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#211

Post by imtringued »

Tade0 wrote: post #136

My country's(Poland) GDP per capita grew 8-9x over the past 30 years. My personal take is that it's not just the political system during this time, but the transition from communism to a market economy that made it happen. The centrally-planned economy back then had interesting features, among them generally full employment and frankly ridiculous expectations regarding the amount of work(at least in terms of hours).…

Are you saying that organized production is the precursor to a wealthy market economy? That would mean a lot of text books would have to be rewritten, especially the ones that assume barter out of nowhere and then magically introduce money.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#212

Post by imtringued »

greenbit wrote: post #3
version_five wrote: post #2

Thermodynamics. You can only extract work from a gradient

Nah, it's gravity. Money attracts money. It coalesces into dense lumps, a few thin clouds of gas, and a whole lot of very empty space.

That would imply money doesn't result in a nash equilibrium and that it is not very neutral.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#213

Post by imtringued »

dusted wrote: post #87
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are people who have been cocoa farmers their entire lives and they have never tasted chocolate. Kind of absurd.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#214

Post by imtringued »

naikrovek wrote: post #189
leshow wrote: post #186

I thought this question was a joke based on the title. Our economic system itself creates inequality between nations. It's in the best interest of wealthy countries to keep developing countries poor so we can continue extractive processes for their resources. I wasn't aware the question had 'vexed economists for decades'. You can say the same of inequality within a country. Wealth accumulates because we have an econo…

> It's in the best interest of wealthy countries to keep developing countries poor so we can continue extractive processes for their resources. it really bothers me that people think this is an OK thing to do. We can choose to improve both the importing and exporting countries when these negotiations are set up, but we don't, because it's cheaper to turn people into slaves and drive them into the grave. There are exa…

Well, I agree but the problem is the nature of money itself. So far no country has adopted a neutral money system.

If you give people a different money system e.g. like the Chiemgauer, they suddenly behave very differently. That kind of questions the whole human nature is the problem thing, if human nature is this fluid or whether there is a government monopoly that forces a specific "human nature" onto people.

It sounds like just how communism dooms a country to self harm, capitalism forces people to do self harm of a different kind.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#215

Post by imtringued »

naikrovek wrote: post #197
leshow wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize with the sentiment, although I don't blame the issues on a dearth of altruism. If you grew up in the 1400's could you expect widespread equality during feudalism? It doesn't matter how magnanimous a king was, inequality was built into society. The question then becomes, IMO, what sort of economic organization would help solve these issues?

there is no economic system which treats people equally, and there never will be, because it is the creation and use of money which turns good people into bad people. money is Aladdin's Lamp; money grants wishes, and no matter who you are or what you have, you will always want more . there will always be a non-zero number of people who want "more" enough that they feel it is ok that others suffer so that it be obtain…

This may interest you:

https://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/suhr/nngengl.html

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#216

Post by yucky »

l3uwin wrote: post #198
yucky wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course people in South Korea worked hard to get where they are. So did people in Ghana. By what measure did Ghana work as hard as South Korea did? Is that just an assumption?

Think reaaaaaaaal hard about who you're calling lazy and what might be influincing your opinion there.

Think reaaaaaaaal hard about why you filled in your own blanks and called them lazy..

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#217

Post by klibertp »

mathverse wrote: post #19

South Korea's success also stemmed from centrally-planned authoritarian regime. Park Chung Hee made it happen because only through economic success can country achieve the necessary status on the world stage. But Park Chung Hee could not have done it alone. It was koreans humility and willingness to be guided that achieved this dream. For example if we compare the generation that built Korea and those from Eastern Eu…

> They never understood how wealth generation works.

From your description, neither did Koreans. You say they "believed" and that they were "willing to be guided". It was exactly the same behind the Iron Curtain. People believed in the vision of their leaders and were willing to follow them along the path they wanted to take. The only difference is that the vision of communist leaders was less practical than that of similarly authoritarian but capitalist regime.

The funny thing is that centrally-planed economy might have become a more practical choice now due to IT revolution. I think it will pay off to look at what happens in China in the next decade.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#218

Post by ninkendo »

imtringued wrote: post #209
ninkendo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn't work. You have to pay the full costs of the robot yourself. If you hire a human the production cost of the human has been borne by their parents. In fact, employees are expected to pay for their own education via college tuition.

Let’s make other robots build the robots.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#219

Post by kornhole »

jongjong wrote: post #12

Simple answer; people from rich countries will use flaws in the political structures of certain other countries to install corrupt politicians; these politicians are then going to work for the interests of their rich foreign patrons and against the interests of their own people (for kickbacks/self-enrichment). The corrupt politicians will do things like saddle their people with significant public debts (which will fo…

If your politicians are the most honest and working for the people, they can be branded as tyrants by the empire's propaganda machine which will use it as justification for military and economic warfare until they submit to the neoliberal rules based order. Look at many countries like Syria, Iran, and Cuba who are being crushed by crippling sanctions.

Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?

#220

Post by l3uwin »

yucky wrote: post #216
l3uwin wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think reaaaaaaaal hard about who you're calling lazy and what might be influincing your opinion there.

Think reaaaaaaaal hard about why you filled in your own blanks and called them lazy..

If you're going to defend calling an entire African country lazy, maybe this is for you

https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/links/essays/vcu.h...

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Lazy-Black-stereotyp...

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