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We don't know why Malawi is poor

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Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#141

Post by y0eswddl »

The West steals $10-$12 Trillion/yr in embodied raw material equivalents, embodied land, embodied energy, and embodied labour:

>The economic growth and so-called advanced economies (think Germany, The U.S, Japan, etc. What's been referred to as the “Global North”) relies by a large proportion on a significant net appropriation of resources and labor from the “Global South” (think Kenya, Peru, the Philippines, etc). This appropriation reaches astronomical levels. In 2015 alone, the north appropriated 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labor; worth [a total] $10.8 Trillion in northern prices. Enough to end extreme poverty 70x over.

Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015 | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#142

Post by kilroy123 »

zikani_03 wrote: post #114

This was an interesting thread to read as a Malawian living right here in Malawi and frustrated about our situation. As the article mentions, we have a lot of things going for us that should have us in a better situation - very few natural disasters, no wars/civil unrest, even though the rains are sketchy sometimes we generally have good rainfall and even though we have challenges with food sometimes, it's rare to he…

Really cool to see someone from Malawi actually chime in. I get so frustrated that, strangely, a lot of these conversations happen without people from the countries in question involved.

I've traveled a fair amount across Africa. I've seen a lot of NGOs trying to "help" in the most clueless ways.

It's like, did you even _talk_ to anyone there about these plans?

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#143

Post by nearbuy »

asdff wrote: post #94
nearbuy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

When you consider places that do have significant mining, it isn't like that investment is exclusively home grown. Often what happens is it comes from external capital seeking permissive governments willing to give claims to these natural resources to these external companies to make a profit off of. The fact that there is little mining of the natural resources in Malawi paints a picture of a government that might be…

Are you suggesting that the lack of development and poverty is caused by good government?

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#144

Post by MichaelZuo »

marcosdumay wrote: post #116
MichaelZuo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone even give them credibility in the first place…? Such an exceedingly complex thing just seems improbable to take at face value, without an enormous amount of proof and well reasoned methodology backing it up.

I've never seen a press outlet that didn't give them credibility. A few times they notice that fighting against corruption is known to increase the index at a footnote somewhere. But that's rare.

I meant on HN, who takes mass media output at face value about anything that complex?

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#145

Post by ViktorRay »

therein wrote: post #48
ViktorRay wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Malawi an incompetent democracy? Based on the article it seems to have a functioning stable democracy. Are you implying that a dictator would lead to Malawi becoming wealthy? Seems like a disturbing argument. If that’s not what you are implying then what are you implying?

Are you implying that a "functioning" democracy automatically leads to good decisions being made and crowd always has good wisdom regardless of the attributes of the crowd? To lead a country to prosperity is as simple as letting a nation vote and counting their votes and then giving power to the guy they voted for?

After Malawi achieved independence in 1964, it was ruled by a dictator until 1994. During that time the country was poor. After 1994, the country transitioned into a democracy.

Now maybe somebody could come in here and say that perhaps that dictator just wasn’t good enough or something….

But I still think arguments like this are disturbing. Throughout the 20th century so many horrors have happened because someone stood up and demanded absolute power be given to them. That democracy wouldn’t take the nation to the greatness it deserved. And again and again we have seen the dark road this takes a nation toward.

I mean come on now. We have all learned about the horrors of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Even then we see comments like yours being negative towards democracy?

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#146

Post by sofixa »

ViktorRay wrote: post #40
peterfirefly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like: Rwanda has a competent dictator (and has had the same one for 26 years, more if you consider the years where he was the strongman behind the President). A competent dictator is better than an incompetent dictator -- or even, in many ways, an incompetent democracy.

Is Malawi an incompetent democracy? Based on the article it seems to have a functioning stable democracy. Are you implying that a dictator would lead to Malawi becoming wealthy? Seems like a disturbing argument. If that’s not what you are implying then what are you implying?

> Is Malawi an incompetent democracy? Based on the article it seems to have a functioning stable democracy.

If a large portion of the state budget is spent on a fundamentally unproductive thing - subsidies to enable subsistence farming to be sustainable - yes.

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#147

Post by edbaskerville »

alephnerd wrote: post #71
edbaskerville wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rwanda case cannot be told without Paul Kagame, one of the rare authoritarians who is also a real nation-builder, analogous to Park Chung Hee (South Korea, 1960s-1970s). He locks up his opponents but also has leveraged aid to really help socioeconomic conditions. E.g., the very close and productive collaboration with Partners in Health/Paul Farmer.

Kagame cannot be compared to Park Chung Hee or LKY. Park's economic policies actually helped South Korea climb up the economic value chain, though a lot of that was also due to Japanese technology transfers to Korea in the 1960s-90s. On the other hand, Kagame's execution on economic reform has been a failure when compared against Uganda, as Uganda [0] has a significantly more complex (ie. higher value) economy than R…

Thanks, that's interesting.

& that is a great website...

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