

Why some nations become wealthy while others remain stuck in poverty - Mitt
http://www.kurzweilai.net/why-some-nations-become-wealthy-and-powerful-while-others-remain-stuck-in-poverty

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nsns
Amazing, not one word about colonialism.

"by the late 1700s, England had embarked on the largest sustained period of
economic growth since the Neolithic age"

Right, and many countries in the world still try to resurrect themselves from
that "economic growth" (hint: it was based on pirating their national and
human resources). The other "thriving" European countries followed suit (e.g.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa>).

After less than six decades since the abolition of explicit colonialism, it's
still quite early to say why some countries recovered quickly while others
didn't.

While I'm a great believer in democracy, I think we should be aware that a lot
of these approaches are nothing but self serving democratic propaganda
(propaganda, not science).

~~~
_delirium
This article doesn't mention it, but the book itself does discuss colonialism
quite a bit. To simplify, it argues that "bad" institutions are those that are
extractive, in that they primarily benefit a small elite, and that such
institutions tend to perpetuate themselves. They do blame colonialism for the
existence of such institutions in much of Africa, arguing that the
institutions there were originally set up as extractive by the European powers
(since the goal was to extract wealth for the colonial power), and after
independence they tended to perpetuate themselves, but extracting wealth for a
new African elite instead.

The authors were also involved in an earlier, quite influential, paper that
showed a statistical correlation between European _settlement_ and post-
colonial institution quality (<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2677930>). Their
causal hypothesis (which is harder to prove) is that colonized countries with
extensive European settlement were forced to set up institutions that were
less extractive (since they politically had to serve at least these settlers,
who demanded things like basic infrastructure) than those that had only a
small group of administrators living there and no settlement, which were run
completely on a basis of extracting wealth for the remote power.

~~~
nsns
Thank you. After posting my comment it occurred to me that I was only
criticizing the article ,not the book, which I haven't read. So thanks for the
clarification.

------
ilaksh
I am a technological optimist and I do believe a lot of things that Kurzweil
and his friends say, but this is one area where I think that whole group and
most of the mainstream is living in a fairytale land.

I actually think most of the crazier sounding stuff in videos you see on the
internet is more or less correct (not 100% but a lot of it). I think reality
is a lot crazier than fiction.

So, although I used to be completely left-leaning and liberal, now I buy most
of it to a certain degree, not just the crazy left stuff -- from the
singularity stuff, the zeitgeist stuff, but also a lot of that stuff Alex
Jones says (I shouldn't admit that, and I am not sure about a lot of it, for
instance I don't think that there are too many vaccines involved in population
control, but I can't eliminate the possibility).

What I have learned from the "batshit insane conspiracy theorists", well, a
lot of it might be crazy. But I do know that they are right about some things
-- governments aren't good to the people, and the United States is no
exception, and the crap they tell us about world events on TV is just lies.

Empires didn't just happen for the whole of recorded history and then just
suddenly stop around the time that moving pictures came out. I really believe
that the American dominance should truly be considered an extension of the
British Empire and in many ways has been and continues to be even more brutal
and oppressive.

The world bank and the like do exercise economic warfare. The second and third
world are exploited and repressed.

You don't have to be crazy to consider things from this point of view. All you
have to do is stop subjecting yourself to STOPTHINK. In other words, just
realize that "oh, that sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory" is not a reason
to put your fingers in your ears.

<http://www.globalresearch.ca/>

~~~
jbattle
I won't argue the USA is totally benign and acts out of anything other that
crude self interest (in the vast majority of cases) - but I think the evidence
is fairly compelling that the US 'empire' IS more benign and rules with a
lighter hand than most historical empires.

The US for example has killed a lot of civilians in Afghanistan (bad). But you
don't have to look back very far at all in time to see the Russians and even
the British taking a much more brutal approach.

I guess generally I agree with you that the US acts in ways that are contrary
to its stated principles, but I do have some optimism that each world empire
does seem to get progressively "kinder".

~~~
rickmb
If you call that "not looking very far back in time" (and I agree with that),
no approach was ever as brutal as nuking entire cities. But that's besides the
point.

In my opinion, the US is historically one of the most destructive "empires",
in that it unlike a true empire, it takes very little responsibility for the
nations it interferes in. It just takes what it needs and moves on. It doesn't
even bother to properly conquer a place, just a long as resistance is
sufficiently broken for the US to do it's business. It's more like a swarm of
heavily armed locusts than an empire.

With true colonial style empire building comes responsibility. Many former
colonial nations are still dealing with that responsibility. Post WW2 US just
aggressively raids and meddles, but takes very little responsibility for the
people and societies outside its own borders. To call it an empire is an
insult to empires.

~~~
Zimahl
> If you call that "not looking very far back in time" (and I agree with
> that), no approach was ever as brutal as nuking entire cities. But that's
> besides the point.

This is a ridiculous point. You do realize that the allies (not just the US)
were fighting the 'Empire of Japan' that was running rampant throughout China
and SE Asia, raping and pillaging along the way?

To use no other term, Japan was lucky to be nuked because they weren't going
to stop. They were going to fight to the last, and let me tell you (as the
husband of someone who's grandfather fought on Leyte and Okinawa), the
Japanese were brutal and vicious. Millions of Japanese civilians would've been
killed trying to land and take the Japanese mainland. The Japanese were so
adamant about fighting that it took a second bomb to change their minds.

If you said the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden, then I wouldn't have
responded. Those were retaliatory in nature - a punishment that affected
civilians more than soldiers (specifically Dresden).

------
grepherder
I know Daron Acemoglu as a prolific academic, and he has some good ideas but I
don't buy the general idea he has established here. As pointed out by others I
find it to be serving democratic propaganda rather than any rational train of
thought. Otherwise he couldn't have overlooked such a big flaw in his
reasoning, one of cause and effect.

The only possible example - if even that - he could use in his argument could
be the divergence of North and South America. There are no other regions in
the world which weren't already poor because of a myriad of other reasons,
where he can say "Oh look, they were doing good, but then turned to repression
and declined."

Back to Americas, he argues it can't have geographic reasons because at the
time of colonialism South was actually more advanced than North. And it should
be emphasized here the sole reason South was more advanced was geography. The
flaw is, what happens thereafter is, indeed not anymore a function of the
geography of Americas, but also not of the democratic institutions in place,
but of the economics and politics of the colonial empires involved. Unlike
North America, South America was exploited and then left without a
concentration of central political authority, leading to huge regional gaps of
power which then lead to those kind of extractive institutions with some kind
of elite on the top. That is the effect, the result, not the cause. To grossly
simplify, the region becomes poor or the power controlling the region
declines, which leads to extractive institutions, which then keeps the region
from developing but that is a wholly different assertion than what Acemoglu
defends for this specific case.

The reasons for the outcome in Americas could be found by looking at the power
struggle between the colonial empires, and the decline of the Spanish Empire.
North America, where mainly England and France had influence was of course
bound to overtake South America. I see no reason at all to buy this romantic
"because the people were given freedom!" idea.

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wslh
This is overthinking and the answer is pretty simple many times. I live in
Argentina, a perfect and beautiful country from the weather, geography,
agricultural, business potential, touristic perspectives. But the corruption
IS the system and there are not incentives to work harder. So, it is the
society (including politicians) in this case.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
That explanation just begs the question. We have to ask: why is the system
corrupt?

~~~
wslh
It is really difficult to find the root cause. An explanation from historians
is required for that.

I can say that historically people in Argentina does not have a strong
incentive to collaborate economically because in the past you could live very
well from the land within less than 2500 m2 that was easy to obtain. In some
places you are enforced to collaborate.

Also the system was always corrupt in some areas. For example the port of
Buenos Aires.

------
hansbo
It's a very simple premise, but I've always felt it to be true. Give people
the sense of being in control, or at least have the potential to be in control
(Democracy, property rights, et.c.), and they will work hard for a better
future. This tends to give a lot of stable growth.

~~~
alexro
In Soviet Union people had no property rights but there were millions
enthusiastically working for the future. Now there are property rights and
everybody fights for them. Also, investment bankers economics is killing the
West too.

~~~
neilk
Yeah, I think you should try this argument on a Ukranian sometime.[1]

In this and other comments, you seem to be attributing all the achievements of
the Soviet Union to their ideology. That's certainly a factor, but it's about
as dumb as Americans claiming their nation is blessed by God with a special
destiny. The Russians had just kicked out a severely anachronistic monarchy,
so achieving progress was almost inevitable. And the Soviet Union had an
empire of its own after World War II as well, and their centralized system was
very good at capturing resources for a Moscow-centric elite.

But I agree it's not black and white, either. Just as the USA sometimes lives
up to its own ideals in an inspiring way, you could find examples of that in
the history of the Soviet Union too.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor>

~~~
alexro
Holodomor was part of the Ukranian political agenda during Yushchenko ruling
and is a made up 'fact'.

During same Holodomor times people dies through out Russia as well, and the
event was caused by coincided mismanagement and bad seasonal conditions.

------
forinti
The high standard of living of Europe and the US is a very recent achievement.
If you look at the last 3000 years, India and China had the technological edge
for most of that period. Looking at the future, China will probably get back
to the first position. Latin America seems to be finding its own model and
will soon reach a pretty decent standard of living. So I think it was too
narrow a period of time that was analysed to reach such grand conclusions.

~~~
iwwr
For most of human history (and before that), the norm is not growth, but
stagnation. Centralized empires tend to strangle economic development. The
ascendancy of Europe was not a fluke, but rather a condition where a free
market philosophy could take hold in a decentralized political system. Had
Europe been ruled by a monolithic empire, it would have been very easy to
snuff out the industrial revolution before it had a chance to be entrenched.

~~~
Symmetry
Yes and no. Too much centralization can be bad, but then again it took until
around 1600 or so for Europe to finally catch up with China in terms of
general wealth and technology. So clearly the fact that China was a
centralized empire at peace with itself had something to do with it having
developed such a large lead. I suspect that the actual situation is far more
complex than either "centralization is good" or "centralization is bad", and
that different ways of being centralized or decentralized are better or worse,
and that different stages of technological development might have different
ideal conditions.

~~~
iwwr
The point about decentralization is to ensure development can continue
unhindered by political factors. With an empire it's very easy for the ruling
aristocracy (or autocrat) to kill development. Yes, you can have enlightened
rulers, but then the system hinges precariously on just a few people.

For that matter, it's much more devastating when an uncontested empire falls,
rather than when one of many powers may fail.

~~~
Symmetry
Yes, that's one of the _mechanisms_ by which centralized empires can inhibit
development. But on the other hand the lack of them can mean too many wars
which destroy advances people are trying to build, and a lack of trade that
prevents regional specialization.

------
nickik
The other of the Book was in the Econtalk podcast (talking about the book). I
highly recomend it.

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/03/acemoglu_on_why.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/03/acemoglu_on_why.html)

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kstenerud
Another major factor is geography. America could not have become the
powerhouse she is today if she didn't control the entire Mississippi river and
bordering lands.

The only other country that comes close in this regard is China.

------
ballstothewalls
Although I suspect what he is saying is a factor, to say it is THE reason is a
major oversimplification. You have to examine a whole host of things.

For instance, geography/natural resource endowments have to be taken into
account. Just look at Saudi Arabia. It is a country where a few do really well
but compared to other developing countries it is doing pretty well as a whole,
all because it has large oil deposits.

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lifebeyondfife
I can't recommend Tim Harford's 'The Undercover Economist' enough. There's a
great chapter on Cameroon and exactly why it's the way it is.

------
spurgu
Wealthy? Doesn't the US have massive debt?

~~~
maxerickson
The government has significant debt. It owes quite a chunk of that money to
the people of the U.S. (no really) and there is plenty of wealth split up
among the citizens (I suppose much of the private debt is also owed to other
U.S. entities).

Even setting those factors aside, the debt represents ~1 year of economic
output for the U.S., the infrastructure and goods sitting around in the
country represent much more than that.

~~~
alexro
Even if you are right 'technically' how about being right 'psychophysically' -
what are these willing to occupy the wall streets do not understand?

