
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty - lief79
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134/
======
Dove
You can't found Lubeck without Henry the Lion clearing away the raiders. The
solution has to be at least partially military, and that raises a big problem
with legitimacy. States are seen as the only legitimate owners of armies, and
then only inasmuch as they don't attack each other unprovoked. I like the idea
of a sponsor state--that's a good compromise on the legitimacy front. But the
reaction he got in Madagascar underscores that it might not be good enough.

The problem is partly the lack of space in which to experiment. On the
internet, you can simply create a new site--draft your own rules, draw up
whatever security measures you like to enforce them--and ask the world to come
if they find that appealing. You don't need anyone else's territory, you can
just make something new and experimental. People naturally vote with their
feet, and the result is pretty good.

In the real world, that's much harder to do. You cannot simply draft a
constitution, enlist a private army and police force, break ground, and invite
the world. The ground is already claimed. Nobody likes private armies.

That's too bad. As the article notes, reform and revolution are a lot harder
than simply building something new. If nations could simply experiment the way
web sites do, if people could easily vote with their feet, we might have
gotten government better figured out by now.

~~~
kiba
Sea-steading might be the solution to the problem.

Of course, it might be a pipe dream, but it's the only concrete effort that I
am seeing around here.

~~~
stretchwithme
its coming. I suspect nanotechnology will create new materials and
technologies that will make whole new countries possible in oceans everywhere.

It is a dream that will happen. And, yes, there will be pipes, but not sure
what kind of concrete will be used :-)

~~~
sailormoon
I suspect that the advent of nanotechnology is going to cause civilisation
upheaval the likes of which we haven't seen since the industrial revolution,
if ever. All this shit will happen, and much, much more.

Hell, why limit ourselves to the surface of the sea? The materials nanotech
promises to deliver will make it possible to live far above or below sea level
with equal ease. Sky-steading, anyone?

~~~
stretchwithme
and don't forget what modifying the human genome will do. It could give us the
means to winnow out the very imperfection that has enabled us to survive. I
refer to the inherent variability that creates so many different personalities
and immunities that we've been able to survive in spite of everything else
that has evolved on the planet.

We must take care not to lose this quality. The minute we do, we become as
vulnerable as the plants and animals we raise, most of which would quickly
fail in the wild.

------
CapitalistCartr
I've read essays about Paul Romer's views before. Of course regions are poor
for reasons. Poverty is the outcome of the prevailing conditions, and changing
those conditions is the obvious recipe for changing the result.

But the people who are ruling the poor nations have a vested interest in the
status quo, which is why the region is poor, and those organizations that pour
"aid" resources in without changing the cause of the poverty also have a
vested interest in not solving the problems.

Unless this changes, theorizing about changes is fruitless. Until Paul Romer
or someone else has the wherewithal to MAKE changes, it's all air.

~~~
westbywest
_But the people who are ruling the poor nations have a vested interest in the
status quo, which is why the region is poor, and those organizations that pour
"aid" resources in without changing the cause of the poverty also have a
vested interest in not solving the problems._

Likewise, wealthy nations also have vested interests in certain poor nations
staying that way, since that arrangement yields very cheap labor, coltan,
electronics recycling, diamonds, etc. Globalization has seen to it that
poverty often doesn't exist in a vacuum any more.

Indeed, since the article already drops the term 'neo-colonial,' I don't see
how the economic approach described should be considered anything but that. At
least, it's a bit disingenuous to label this approach 'revolutionary.'

~~~
fgf
"Likewise, wealthy nations also have vested interests in certain poor nations
staying that way."

No, they don't. Heard of China? Growth in China? That shit makes capitalists
giddy. And when the guys at Goldman Sachs are happy, your political elite
smiles too. Would they like 800 million africans to become another china? Yes,
they would. Industrialization of a nation does not make it's raw materials
more expensive. Africa's cheap labour is of little use to the west (or china)
(extraction of raw materials is not labour intensive, africas commercial
agriculture is underdeveloped). Growth in africa would not hurt the evil
imperialists.

Considering the catastrophe* de-colonization in africa has been the smugness
of those who dismiss all ideas carrying the faintest whiff of colonialism is
nauseating.

*Africa is the only continent on earth were falling levels of gdp per capita has been the norm in several countries. THis picture becomes bleaker if you consider the fact that the increase in gdp per capita is from resource extraction that brings little benefits to the people. De-colonization was a disaster on the scale of maos great leap forward.

~~~
weego
The US has been proven time and time again to only want countries to grow on
the US' terms (China is the example of a country that was too big to control
or stop).

You can look at Cambodia and Vietnam prior to the Vietnam war, and you can
analyze the history of Central America to discover why all these places are
basically third world still when they have had thriving economies at one time
or another. The problem was they weren't thriving on the ideals of Capitalism,
rather some of them adopted a socialist workers structure.

The issue is the structure of success and how it feeds into the powerful
states and their corporations and not success itself. Success that is not
wrapped by Capitalist values is very dangerous to the US, EU.

The reason everyone turned on Hugo Chavez after being a man named in Time's
influential people list is that his socialist policies (especially the
distribution of oil wealth away from large corporations) started being
successful and other Southern American states were taking notice (combined
with trade deals with China). Of course, since then he has been shown to be
misguided in a number of things so I fear even mentioning him.

~~~
philwelch
Have you ever considered the possibility that socialism just doesn't work?
That always seems more plausible to me, in an Occam's Razor sort of way, than
the conspiracy theory that the US prevents socialist states from succeeding.

------
jewbacca
Russia is trying this with Skolkovo [1]. They're even equipping it with an
(supposedly, though I wonder where they'll be drawing their manpower from)
independent police system to try to isolate it from the institutional
corruption that's usually considered the main barrier to foreign investment.

[1] This was partially subject to HN discussion a few days ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1409194>

------
codexon
There's one giant flaw in this argument.

Lübeck was subsidized by the tax money from King Henry's other lands. How else
do you support a private mint and an army to protect merchants from pirates
and bandits? Is it any wonder why the merchants moved there when they were
essentially being offered free money?

Now fast forward to Africa today. The warlords are happy receiving millions in
aid and not creating a powerful merchant class that could usurp their
position.

~~~
dasil003
Right, which is why he proposes spending money on developing legitimate
business in the country directly rather than giving aid to corrupt local
officials.

~~~
codexon
African warlords letting a business on their turf get rich without their
permission? I think not.

~~~
tomjen3
Which is why he neefs the sponsorship of a rich country, so there would be a
legitimate army to force the warlord to stop.

------
chrismealy
Peter Dorman had a sharp post about it here:
[http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2010/06/romers-charter-
cities...](http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2010/06/romers-charter-cities-
really-witless.html)

------
brc
Forget foreign countries and cities : as I've posted in the past, how about
experimenting with somewhere like Detroit? No Federal or state taxes, no
federal or state rules, no Federal or state help. A mini Hong Kong stuck
between USA and Canada. Go there, set up shop, pay whatever taxes the city
decides to levy, off you go.

------
electromagnetic
One of the biggest reasons poverty stricken countries stay poverty stricken is
because the money is never reinvested. Dubai is a modern example of the Lubeck
model. There was great potential to improve the land and a supply of outside
cash and free-trade/immigration laws provided everything that was needed.

Lubeck was subsidized by Henry, Dubai was subsidized by foreign oil investors.
If we want to help African countries, we shouldn't be sending aid in the form
of food but in the form of business.

Find an area where a suitable trade port could be established and where rail
can easily be constructed to neighboring regions, add money, free-trade and
liberal immigration laws and you'll have a major change in very little time.

------
pornel
His TED talk about charter cities: <http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer.html>

~~~
mmaro
My favorite response to that: [http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-cr...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-cromer-to-romer-and-back-again.html)

~~~
stcredzero
60% sophistry. Governments are coercion? _Rules_ are coercion!

------
eagleal
"Why do these kids have access to a cutting-edge technology like the cell
phone, but not to a 100-year-old technology for generating electric light in
the home? The answer, in a word, is rules."

So the reason Albania has no regular electric power, but children have iPhones
it's because it hasn't rules. Come on, it's not it has not rules, it's just
that the current administration wants more money.

[Edit2: Part of the problem is that in a way we are a charter country.]

We actually have rules, the financial capability, IP laws that conform to
WIPO, enforcing agencies, and all you need to "kick ass". Our problem is that
by kicking ass as a country (richer overall population), the administration in
power cannot make the same money they make today, at least not that easy (I
mean very very easy, like we already know what cut they'll require for the
next financial aid).

Edit: "Starting in 2001, he began to channel his energy into a start-up
software company that he named Aplia."

Looks like the power of monetization has striked again.

------
photon_off
Is the answer "less people"? Because that's basically the solution.
Unfortunately, people like to fuck.

~~~
stratomorph
It's pretty disingenuous to say it's that simple. Some poverty-ridden heavily
populated areas have been poor since they were lightly populated. It is in the
nature of humans to make babies everywhere, rich and poor areas alike. Being
snarky doesn't advance anyone's understanding.

~~~
papachito
"Rich" countries have tiny birth rates compared to others, you can't ignore
that fact by saying "people love making babies everywhere" (I live in Peru
btw).

~~~
ph0rque
So maybe the way to reduce population growth is to make poor areas rich(er)?

~~~
stratomorph
Bingo, birth rate is a consequence, not a cause. He's trying to put the cart
before the horse.

------
gojomo
As long as we're talking radical sovereignty hacking, perhaps the Lakota
Nation could host a charter city:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Lakotah>

------
gruseom
_In the aughts, [Romer] became rich as a software entrepreneur._

What was his software business?

Edit: oh, I see this is discussed in TFA. It was Aplia.

------
kiba
What's politically incorrect about his solution?

~~~
hugh3
Probably just because the politically-correct answer to poverty is "rich
people should give their money to poor people, then they won't be poor any
more". (This is, coincidentally, the same solution that most seven-year-olds
come up with. It doesn't work in practice.)

~~~
alsomike
Yes, way to buck the system and advocate neoliberal ideas from political
outsiders like Reagan, Thatcher, Bush, Clinton, Blair, W & Obama.

------
Detrus
It's just like A/B bucket tests on websites.

