131–140 of 147 posts
> It ranks 107th out of 180 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, which is middling, but not especially bad, roughly comparable to Indonesia and Brazil. I would still guess corruption is a major reason. Sometimes the way it’s measured and how it’s reported is not accurate. People internalize corrupt practices as normal and stop viewing it as corruption. A bribe is a gift, a nepotistic appointm…
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Malawians have a reputation of being extremely kind people, maybe that makes them bad at capitalism?
I mean, is it beyond belief that many of them are OK with living a simple agrarian life? Or have very little opportunity to learn that there is any other way to live?
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This isn't responsive to anything I wrote. Nobody has counted any marbles here.
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As the article states, that Malawi hasn't developed much industry or exports is more of a description of poverty than an explanation. Malawi can grow coffee, but mostly doesn't. They have rare earth element deposits, but little mining. Why haven't they developed more?
Could it be that they haven't been so infected by the money bug that for now they still have a society oriented around happiness and maintaining traditional ways of life rather than economic attainment?
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Yes, I was thinking as I wrote it that there are likely parallels to places in US. And yes, it’s a complex issue for sure. I’m convinced that the way out of poverty here is through education and sadly there is just a huge amount of apathy (when not corruption) at all levels here by the people who are supposed to be making it happen, from pupils, their parents, teachers, etc, all the way to the minister of education.…
Parallels. The wrong people capturing the resources that were earmarked for useful purposes and using them to enrich themselves.
When my mother was doing community service at a clinic some years back (required by law for people who get medical degrees before being allowed to practice privately), the clinic failed to spend their allocated budget.
The money was made available, it just wasn’t used, this despite people like the speech and hearing therapists applying for things like hearing aids for patients from week 1 of the annual budget period.
I suppose it’s a product of corruption/nepotism, people get into positions of power and focus their time on “stealing” and perks rather than the job they are being paid for and supposed to be doing.
> The fertilizer subsidy program (FISP) consumes up to three-fourths the agriculture budget in some years to subsidize maize inputs for smallholders. It is politically untouchable because rural maize farmers are the median voter. Several administrations have made some attempt to reform it and backed down. Resources that could go to roads, irrigation, or diversification go to propping up the existing structure. Idk, t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Malawians have a reputation of being extremely kind people, maybe that makes them bad at capitalism?
I mean, is it beyond belief that many of them are OK with living a simple agrarian life? Or have very little opportunity to learn that there is any other way to live?
"70% of Malawians live on less than $2.15 a day. Under the World Bank’s revised $3-a-day poverty line, it’s 75%." This sounds like an extremely bimodal distribution -- a 40% increase in the cut-off line only captures 5% more of the population, so only a small number of people are in this "poor but survivable" zone, with most well under and some well over, I assume. Does this map to the usual rural/urban divide?
Also countries where a large % of the population works in agriculture / fishing, and/or have high rates of corruption, tend to have significant informal economies.
From developed-country point of view that may appear as an almost non-existent economy, while in reality people are still growing / building / manufacturing stuff (be it low-tech / low-value mostly). And could be happy living so.
Not saying that's the case for Malawi. Just be aware that "$2/day" paints only part of the picture of how 'rich' people are.
I think just you can get a glimpse by what they export (from Wikipedia): - Malawi: tobacco (55%), dried legumes (8.8%), sugar (6.7%), tea (5.7%), cotton (2%), peanuts, coffee, soy (2015 est.) - Rwanda: Gold, tin ores, coffee, malt extract, rare earth ores I can easily see why one has a higher GDP than the other. Very little mistery to me.
On the other hand while the people had nothing, they didn't seem terribly upset by it. Everyone just got on with their lives, there was (compared to the surrounding South Africa) very little to no crime or violence, it was a poor but not miserable country. Do you need to be well-off to be happy?
The Central African Republic, which has a low population density, lots of water and arable land is also very poor. As is South Sudan. It must be very hard to trade your way out of poverty if you are landlocked in a poor continent. All the countries in Europe are well off by world standards because there's an enormous market next-door.
It's the combination of factors that make up the environment to work in: geography, politics, education, healthcare, culture, etc.
Seems like Malawi is stuck in a kind of "local minimum" where the direction to get unstuck is a political no-go area. A charismatic (and competent!) leader with a long-term vision might help. Maybe that is what's lacking?