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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

#51

Post by SoftTalker »

RobotToaster wrote: post #30
rwyinuse wrote: post #11

Perhaps there are cultural reasons that explain this, such as attitudes towards work, entrepreneurship, private ownership etc? I have no idea if Rwanda and Malawi have difference there, but globally one can see clearly see the impact of culture. Just look at how well Japan did despite losing WW2 and having little natural resources, or how badly Russia has done despite its huge landmass and resources, because the poli…

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?

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#52

Post by nradov »

rdtsc wrote: post #46

> 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…

It is notoriously difficult to gather accurate quantitative data on illegal or unethical activities. And the weightings in the index are rather arbitrary.

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#53

Post by ExpertAdvisor01 »

boelboel wrote: post #45
xandrius wrote: post #16

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.

There's barely any mines in Rwanda btw. DRC is closer to the later in terms of exports and I wouldn't say it's doing better.

Rwanda controls significant amount of mines in eastern drc(north kivu) through the m23 rebels.

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#55

Post by dudeinjapan »

rdtsc wrote: post #46

> 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…

So corrupt even the reporting of corruption is corrupt?

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#56

Post by sofixa »

londons_explore wrote: post #43
alephnerd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, foreign aid. Rwanda received massive amounts of foreign aid unlike Malawi [0] and de facto colonized the DRC's mine fields [1] [0] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DT.ODA.ODAT.GN.ZS?locat... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/rwanda-exercises-comman...

Foreign aid is rarely a gift - in almost all cases it is a business transaction. It is given as a loan, or in return for some mineral rights, or for an important UN vote, or for allegiance in a war. For the loan cases, the terms are often unaffordable, effectively handing effective control of the entire country to the entity who has the other end of the loan - it is the modern empire-by-debt.

No.

A lot of foreign aid is direct things like food, medicine, doctors, AIDS prevention programmes, vaccines for specific things, maternal care, containment of an Ebola epidemic, etc.

Do you really think that e.g. Kenya is voting alongside EU members because the EU paid for a part of a highway between two cities in Kenya?

Then yes, there are loans and grants for infrastructure things.

> For the loan cases, the terms are often unaffordable, effectively handing effective control of the entire country to the entity who has the other end of the loan - it is the modern empire-by-debt.

That's not true. The rates are very public, and while sometimes they are on the higher end, unaffordable is a stretch, and that's how loan rates work. It is inherently risky to give loans to a developing country with high corruption rates. That's why there are also lots of direct grants or direct physical aid with stuff instead of money.

The IMF also sometimes gives loans with strict requirements on market reforms, which can be controversial. Notably in the former Soviet/Warsaw pact bloc, economic shock therapy under instruction of the IMF had some devastating short term consequences, and in some countries led to mass dubious privtisations. In most though, it paid off and led to rapid and sustained economic and social growth.

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#57

Post by nradov »

amoorthy wrote: post #50
rwyinuse wrote: post #11

Perhaps there are cultural reasons that explain this, such as attitudes towards work, entrepreneurship, private ownership etc? I have no idea if Rwanda and Malawi have difference there, but globally one can see clearly see the impact of culture. Just look at how well Japan did despite losing WW2 and having little natural resources, or how badly Russia has done despite its huge landmass and resources, because the poli…

Immigrants to any country are a unique slice of the population because they chose to migrate for a better life. Hence immigrants in most countries tend to do well economically (sometimes after a generation). Uncertain that cultural differences are the reason for different economic outcomes you observe.

Which immigrants? A significant fraction of native Finnish citizens speak Swedish as their primary language. It used to be the same country.

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#58

Post by edbaskerville »

londons_explore wrote: post #43
alephnerd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, foreign aid. Rwanda received massive amounts of foreign aid unlike Malawi [0] and de facto colonized the DRC's mine fields [1] [0] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DT.ODA.ODAT.GN.ZS?locat... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/rwanda-exercises-comman...

Foreign aid is rarely a gift - in almost all cases it is a business transaction. It is given as a loan, or in return for some mineral rights, or for an important UN vote, or for allegiance in a war. For the loan cases, the terms are often unaffordable, effectively handing effective control of the entire country to the entity who has the other end of the loan - it is the modern empire-by-debt.

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.

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#59

Post by nearbuy »

xandrius wrote: post #16

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.

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?

Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor

#60

Post by marcosdumay »

rdtsc wrote: post #46

> 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…

The Tranparency International's index is a horrible measure.

It's more dependent on the press reporting corruption than of any other factor, for the extent that it measures anything real it focuses exclusively on small scale corruption, and it incredibly biased by cultural factors.

It's a mistake to use it to compare one country with another, and it's a mistake to use it to spot trends in a single place. AFAIK, it's a mistake to use it.

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