

Why Poor Countries Are Poor - eru
http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are-poor/print

======
bad_user
This article is (almost) accurate.

I live in Romania ... and of course, we are doing a lot better than Cameroon,
the country got accepted in EU, and the average salary is something like
$25-$30 / day (and people with college degrees do better than that).

But the corruption has reached unimaginable levels ... and it's not just the
government, it's everyone.

For example, we have a public health system, and while I paid something like
$15000 last year in taxes (a big amount for us), my wife got pregnant, she's
having problems ... and we've had to bribe a doctor to even speak to us, not
to mention they demand big bribes for doing a clean caesarean section, and my
wife needs it. The poor souls that don't have money for bribes simply get
fucked.

And for anything you'd want to do, like buying/selling property or starting a
company, getting permits ... the bureaucracy is so awful that the only sane
way of doing it is (you guest it) by bribing.

> _The roads, they have not been fixed for 19 years_

Well ... in Romania roads get fixed every year ... badly, so every year new
repairs are needed, with millions of euros going down the drain. And the
companies doing the repairs ... get contracted by nepotism. I guess Cameroon
got lots to learn from us about misusing funds :-)

Our elections are mostly for real ... but it really doesn't matter. It's the
people ... although everyone is blaming the government, instead of looking in
the mirror.

~~~
fbailey
Yes, sorry but as another EU citizen, I have to say I'm not sure we should
have accepted Romania into the EU before this problem is fixed.

Do you think it's helping against corruption or is any incentive now gone? Do
you think it's getting better with rising income? (this was not meant against
romanians it's just that EU institutions are pretty far away from EU projects
and are usually terrible at detecting corruption)

~~~
bad_user
> _I'm not sure we should have accepted Romania into the EU before this
> problem is fixed._

If I lived anywhere else, I'd have the same opinion :)

> _Do you think it's helping against corruption or is any incentive now gone?_

Actually, it's helping, since we are monitored and we get warnings and
sanctions now and then ... one of the main concerns being corruption. I don't
think that the end-result can be predicted though, we'll see ... although
since we entered the EU, I can see things improving.

Unfortunately with this economic crisis, we're back to square one.

> _it's just that EU institutions are pretty far away from EU projects and are
> usually terrible at detecting corruption_

My impression is that they are pretty good :-) ... I've heard of reports more
accurate than what is published in our media.

~~~
m_eiman
I just saw something related in the news, apparently corruption in Afghanistan
is on the scale of 23% of GDP. I can imagine that changing an economic system
with that much corruption to something better is hard, since everyone depends
on how things are now. Imagine what would happen if everyone's salary was
suddenly cut to three quarters...

Actually, that's more or less what's happening in the Baltic countries now.
The economic crisis has hit hard there, and the government is taking rather
drastic measures to handle it.

Sources: [http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/01/20/Corruption-
biggest...](http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/01/20/Corruption-biggest-
concern-for-Afghans/UPI-61151263967760/) and <http://www.dw-
world.de/dw/article/0,,4320882,00.html>

~~~
eru
Fortunately honesty seems more prevalent in the Baltic countries.

------
eraad
I'm impressed this article basically explains why do I live in a poor country.

I live in Ecuador (South America). Our land is packed with high-quality oil,
virtually unlimited food and impressive biodiversity (google "yasuni").

Although our country looks perfect, 15% of us live in extreme poverty (this
means living out of less than 2 bucks a day). The other 60% is mid-low class
with less than $1000 of annual income.

The only explanation I have is that our presidents had not been doing their
homework. Corruption, organized crime, economic crime, you name it.

~~~
zzleeper
But then, how do poor countries end up getting day after day such lousy
governments? Is the people/society a factor in that? (after all, they DO vote,
at least in Ecuador)

~~~
dschobel
Some poor countries are able to bootstrap themselves out of it though. The
article cites China, Taiwan, South Korea, Botswana, Chile, India, Mauritius,
and Singapore as countries which historically were chronically poor and now
are some of the fastest growing economies in the world.

~~~
eru
And they all share relatively competent and honest government (to some extent)
nowadays. Europe also picked itself up quite well after the second World War,
perhaps because people there knew how to run a country with some efficiency?

------
sridharvembu
Being Indian, this is a subject I think about a lot - I do mean a lot, almost
as much as I think about our company (Zoho). I have also read a lot of
literature on this subject - most recently the wonderful book Capitalism with
Chinese Characteristics, by Yasheng Huang. I follow China closely because Deng
Xiaoping China's track record of lifting people from poverty is unequaled and
will likely never be equaled - given that only India has those kinds of
numbers, and India hasn't done anywhere as well as China in lifting people
from poverty.

It is worth looking at Deng Xiaoping's early rural reforms in China, to see an
example that lifted the most people out of poverty in the shortest amount of
time.

I can summarize it with the biblical saying: don't give a man fish, teach a
man how to fish.

China's record illustrates a few things: a) a society where there is some
order and stability, so people can _focus_ on development. Way too many poor
countries, including the poorest parts of India, have little or no stability
on the ground. You have to be able to make a plan, and have a reasonable
assurance that the overall environment around you is stable enough to execute
the plan. This Deng provided.

b) Remove barriers to rural entrepreneurship, particularly light industry -
shoes, textiles, everyday low tech household goods and the like. It should be
possible for these ventures to be funded - they need fairly small amounts of
capital, but the system has to be in place to provide access to that capital,
and conversely, provide reasonable security to that capital. This is why order
and stability matters - both sides on the capital equation have to be able to
make a plan with some assurance.

c) Build roads in the countryside, so the rural entrepreneurs have market
access, so they can get a higher price by selling to nearby urban areas (i.e
they can get better terms of trade in exchange for other urban-made goods -
this lifts both sides).

That is it. Note that I did not say anything about literacy, healthcare and so
on. All of those things are important, but getting the first steps I listed
above right would unleash a wave of human energy that would lift incomes on a
massive scale. Even the poorest, most illiterate villages in India have a
labor force that can produce these light goods _for their own consumption_ ,
and have enough talent to organize that production - that is the crucial part
to remember. They can lift consumption only if they lift production.

Step back and think about this: what is poverty? At its rawest level, it is a)
not enough food b) not enough simple material goods. Unleashing rural
entrepreneurship allows a) more food to be grown b) allows that same
population to produce the simple material goods that vastly improve the human
condition. I am not talking here about iPhones here, I am talking about the
shirt on your back, shoes, toothbrush and the like. Once people take that
first step on the ladder, they move up pretty fast.

Fortunately, where our company is (in India) and our current position (doing
well) allows us to experiment. But there is that crucial first step, stability
and order, we cannot provide, which means we can only go where there is
stability and order, which obtains relatively more in Southern India than in
the North, though (or should I say "as a result") Northern states are poorer.

Deng's China is the existence proof that it can be done.

------
jonallanharper
Societies fail when individuals discover they can vote themselves money from
everyone else. If there is no objective rule of law firmly establishing
individual rights ( property rights and freedom to engage in commerce,
essentially), a society will inevitably cannibalize itself, IMO.

------
DenisM
In older times a dysfunctional country would be quickly conquered and fixed by
the nearest competent neighbor.

I don't even know what a solution could look like today?

~~~
nostrademons
That still holds. The problem is that it's been taken to its logical
conclusion: all dysfunctional countries have been conquered by their competent
neighbors, which means that there are large landmasses that contain
exclusively competent nations (North America, Europe, Australia/Oceania, and
soon Asia) and large landmasses that contain exclusively dysfunctional ones
(Africa, Arabia, and South America).

There are natural barriers that prevent competent but distant nations from
conquering dysfunctional ones. Colonialism was an attempt to ignore those,
until people realized that it cost far more than it was worth to the
colonizers.

I should probably mention that much of the reasoning behind the Bush invasion
of Iraq was along these lines. It was hoped that Iraq would become a "beacon
of democracy" in the Mideast. Then, all of its neighbors would either adopt
Western institutions to maintain their relative positions, or they would be
conquered by a U.S-supported Iraq.

Somebody forgot to factor in the effect of an 8000-mile supply line, or the
reluctance of a people to give up deeply-entrenched customs.

~~~
fbailey
maybe one of you could show at least one example of a "competent" nation
conquering disfunctional ones before building your complete world view on it.

~~~
nostrademons
The first that comes to mind is the Ottoman empire. World power in the
1600-1700s, but it failed to develop the institutions mentioned in this
article and fell to Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Britain over the latter half
of the 1800s.

Lithuania. Largest country in Europe in the 14th century. Lost large sections
of its territory to Sweden and Russia in the late 1600s and 1700s.

All of the Native American nations that were swept aside by the United States.
Much of that was because of disease, but a lot was also because the U.S. was
better organized and could pick off individual tribes one-by-one.

Mongolia. Genghis Khan's empire, once one of the largest on earth. Great
fighters, poor administrators. Eventually overshadowed by China.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Agree with you on all but the last example; I think the Mongol Empire was one
of the marvels of human history, in terms of sheer size and coordination. It
succeeded in uniting friendly tribes and warring tribes alike by allowing them
to retain their cultural traditions and self-administrate, so long as it
didn't violate Mongol law.

Unfortunately, the government that developed was mostly a dictatorship, and as
usual it was relatively short-lived once some key family members died off and
left an opportunity for others to squabble.

~~~
dkimball
I think the other thing is that governments rot: almost every state begins
cohesive and ends decadent. The Mongols went from cohesive to decadent in less
than a generation; the North African groups that ibn Khaldun lived among
tended to last 2-3 generations; the western Roman Empire lasted somewhere
around 1400 years.

The history of the rulers of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul also
illustrates this cycle. The Byzantines began dynamic and powerful, then they
became self-seeking and were conquered by the fiercely cohesive Ottoman Turks
(omitting the history of the Latin Kingdom of Constantinople, which went
through this cycle almost as quickly as the Mongols did), then the Ottoman
Turks went from fiercely cohesive to fiercely self-interested (look up the
Auspicious Incident) and collapsed in turn.

Now, the collapse part of the cycle is slowed down by a world peace that will
last until/unless the United States disintegrates (and it's in trouble; look
at the self-serving corruption of groups as unlike each other as the Pentagon
and the labor unions) -- but I discussed both the merits and the problems of
this situation in another post on this subject.

------
thaumaturgy
I've been thinking about this for a few years. Like the author said, once you
start thinking about it, it's hard to think about anything else.

Not all poor countries are poor in the same way. Although there are clear
correlations between crime and poverty -- and corruption -- there are also
countries like Thailand, which are poor but with relatively little crime or
corruption.

So, let's say culture is one factor. If you reduce the education of the people
down to what can be passed by word of mouth from one generation to the next,
then if that culture's "story" is largely one of war or self-interest, then
it's more likely to be reinforced by the next generation. On the other hand,
if a culture's history includes a somewhat recent spell of relative peace --
even under a dictatorship -- then it's more likely that the next generation
will work towards establishing stability.

Resources is certainly another factor. It is simply impossible for a country
to make roads, high technology, and infrastructure materialize from nothing.
It must have natural resources available, either to directly build
infrastructure or to trade with other countries for raw materials.

Education is another factor -- or, maybe more specifically, the _value_ of
education. This is one of the things that concerns me about anti-
intellectualism in the U.S.; when education becomes devalued, citizens lose
the perspective of history, the opportunity to learn from other countries'
mistakes, and the notions of what might be possible in the future.

Poverty and corruption are self-reinforcing, too. You can see this even in the
poorer communities in "wealthy" countries: homes that are in disrepair, common
spaces that are mismanaged and poorly kept. I'm sometimes tempted to wonder
why people in those communities don't spend a few dollars on paint, or a few
hours here and there working on a few repairs, and bring their community out
of poverty. Then, I remember how I felt when I was poor: exhausted. There is a
tremendous spiritual toll taken by abject poverty; it defeats you the moment
you wake up. Your day will likely be a struggle, and if it isn't, then it
becomes a rare and valuable rest day. It's a difficult catch-22 to understand
if you haven't been in such a situation, but if you're constantly struggling
to survive, the last thing you want to do is spend effort to improve your
situation.

Cameroon at this point isn't likely to change soon, because its poverty and
corruption has become cultural. Changing its situation will probably require
first a massive sea-change in the government; the death of the current ruler
and replacement by someone less politically savvy, or less self-interested.
Or, direct intervention by other governments.

Then, it will take time. Someone will have to find the energy to build
infrastructure while the rest of the citizens learn what it can be like not to
struggle every day.

~~~
Tichy
I don't know much about Thailand, but I think last year they had civil war, or
were on the brink of it. I remember one Thai waitress telling me that she
worries about her family back home. So not everything is peachy there, either.

As for public spaces, having lived in a student hall puts things into
perspective. It is VERY demotivating to repeatedly clean up other people's
dirt, if they don't care.

I once visited a home for asylum seekers and was a bit shocked about the dirt
(for example in the kitchen). But there were lots of different nationalities
there, who might not even understand each other. When I moved in the student
hall and saw that even people with equal backgrounds have problems to
cooperate, I understood why the conditions for asylum seekers were so poor...

Likewise for run down neighbourhoods: what is the point in replacing your
windows, if other people will just smash them again within days? Besides I
suspect the worse it gets the more people think about moving away rather than
improving things. Once you have decided you want to move away eventually, you
are even less likely to invest into improving things.

------
dkarl
It sounds like government in Cameroon is effectively organized crime, but I
imagine most criminal organizations would run the country more efficiently and
more profitably. Would the government do a better job if it stopped mimicking
the institutions of high-functioning countries and was frankly exploitative?

~~~
angelbob
You'd think. But actual organized criminals like bootleggers are/were
generally not terribly efficient either.

Here's one way to look at it: very, very smart criminals should do much less
damage to their victims than they seem to, just for reasons of self-interest.
This is primarily because the first world has made it more individually
profitable for very, very smart criminals to go legit, either in business or
politics. This leaves actual visible criminal activity to those not smart
enough, or not disciplined enough, to take that route.

Don't shake your head at how awful it is when a high-up executive at a major
corporation turns out to be a complete sociopath. Marvel that society has
gotten so much good out of that clever, ambitious sociopath. And be glad that
crime is emphatically not as good a career path for him.

~~~
dkarl
You have to assume Cameroon has as many clever, ambitious sociopaths as any
other country. Why aren't they providing basic services? The article explains
why long-term investment doesn't take place, but it doesn't explain why simple
for-profit services don't crop up in competition with the official ones. For
instance, if it costs too much to get a contract enforced legally, then there
is a market for enforcing contracts illegally. This is obviously bad news for
the government officials profiting from the legal enforcement of contracts --
_unless_ they are the ones running the illegal service, and they structure it
as an inferior, low-end alternative to their legal service. (Corrupt
government officials have an advantage over the mafia: corrupt government
officials don't have to worry about getting shut down by the authorities. They
just have to share the loot with their superiors.)

The article also doesn't explain why government officials, even corrupt ones,
fail to make cheap investments that pay off over a few years. For instance, a
kleptocrat should want a reliable supply of clean water to ensure that the
farmers are healthy enough to plant and harvest crops, so he can steal the
profits. If an epidemic means the crops rot in the fields, that's money out of
his pocket. Money is readily converted to power, via bribes, weapons, or
propaganda. Losing money means losing power. Why wouldn't a kleptocrat spend
money on sanitation, especially if that means getting good marks from foreign
governments and NGOs and qualifying for more aid?

~~~
angelbob
All of that looks like a good investment _if_ you have sufficient stability
(including cooperation from fellow kleptocrats) to have a serious chance at
harvesting what you sowed.

It's probably simply too unstable to do so right now, and a lot of that comes
from the top.

And _that_ would be a lot of the difference between Cameroon and a poor-ish
but more culturally Western country.

------
vitaminj
More discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=382899>

~~~
eru
Thanks. I suspected I posted a duplicate.

------
uuilly
Corruption is the degree to which a government prioritizes its needs over its
people's needs.

An early example of an anti-corruption measure would be the Magna Carta, which
established limits on what an English monarch could do to his subjects. Anglo
/ American history is essentially one long struggle against corruption. It
eventually manifested itself in the form of a government that by definition
serves it's people rather than a group of subjects who serve a monarch.
Hundreds of years of war, revolution, writings, beheadings and torture
eventually eroded the power of government to where it is today. There are very
few shortcuts around that. In order to stop corruption people need to be
willing to risk their lives, freedom or well being.

~~~
eru
> [...] form of a government that by definition serves it's people rather than
> a group of subjects who serve a monarch.

There is quite an interesting argument claiming that the German Kaiserreich
(1871-1914) served its people better than the modern federal republic of
Germany.

~~~
uuilly
Interesting... Link?

~~~
eru
There's a German book called "Preußen und die Marktwirtschaft" ("Prussia and
Capitalism") by Ehrhardt Bödecker. ([http://www.amazon.de/Preußen-die-
Marktwirtschaft-Ehrhardt-Bö...](http://www.amazon.de/Preußen-die-
Marktwirtschaft-Ehrhardt-Bödecker/dp/3789281875))

It cites a lot of statistics showing how the public sector swelled in the
federal republic compared to the Kaiserreich. (Prussia made up the vast
majority of the Reich.) Alas, it seems to be only available offline and in
German.

------
dkimball
I've read the book about this: _War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of
Empires_, by Peter Turchin. ([http://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Rise-Fall-
Empires/dp/0452288...](http://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Rise-Fall-
Empires/dp/0452288193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264020585&sr=8-1) )

Turchin's model of asabiya is much more developed than the article's, but goes
in exactly the same direction. He emphasizes the importance of frontiers and
warfare -- the civilizational counterpart to Darwinian selection pressure, and
a reminder that there are worse enemies than one's neighbor and higher causes
than one's checkbook -- for asabiya development and, thus, the cohesion of
societies. All this is borne out with some very impressive styles of
measurement; he's the founder of a new discipline called "cliodynamics,"
taking its approaches from ecological population modeling.

On the other hand, before we embrace war as the road to prosperity, we need to
remember what commentors here observed -- that most civilizations wage war
lawlessly, to the point of torture and genocide; so some sort of authority to
control the intensity and severity of warfare would be a good idea. I don't
think the United Nations will cut it; but Chesterton thought that the Pope
would have, had the medieval project been taken to its conclusion...

------
papersmith
Cameroon only had independence for 50 years, which is as much experience as
they have in running two nation-states (later became one). When people look at
the developing world, they see what is going on but rarely its history.
Prosperity happens gradually through an osmosis of many factors, and you have
to start somewhere. The level of social stability Cameroon is able to achieve
within only 50 years is fairly impressive for a western African country, or
any country for that matter.

------
codexon
Here's an older article which basically says the same thing from someone who
lived in Africa.

<http://www.theothersideofkim.com/index.php/essays/36/>

------
aero142
One conclusion to be drawn is that many countries were better off under
colonial rule.

~~~
plinkplonk
"One conclusion to be drawn is that many countries were better off under
colonial rule"

Umm no. That depends on defining "better off" as "ruled by invaders from
another country but with some economic or social benefits(probably)".

Just try offering colonial rule to former colonies, who have experience of
being "better off". People might _joke_ about that, but an independent
country's citizens would fight to the death against any attempt at
colonization. Which means they do think they are better off without colonial
rule. Unless you think millions of people don't know what is "better off" for
them, your notion is hard to sustain logically.

Unless you want to volunteer to be colonized by China (say)? They seem to be
good at economic development, which seems to be your metric for "better off".

~~~
aero142
I agree. I would not choose to trade freedom and self governance for economic
benefit. I was however pointing out that when you look at things from a purely
utilitarian perspective, you often end up with strange conclusions.

The other thing I find interesting is that we seem to be left with no options
for solving the problems of these struggling post-colonial nations. Some
certainly prospered economically after the ruling colonial powers left. Some
suffered immensely. If one accepts that institutional order is a prerequisite
for economic prosperity, then one might conclude that an outside power should
take over and institute order, but the obvious moral problems prevents this.
Not to mention the historically supported unlikelihood that the country would
actually benefit. The only solution appears to be institutional order that
grows organically from within the country. Outside aid doesn't seem to help
much. This leaves very few options for the Haiti's and the Camaroon's of the
world.

------
techiferous
This is a chapter in _The Undercover Economist_ , a book that I just finished
reading last week: [http://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Exposing-Poor-
Dec...](http://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Exposing-Poor-
Decent/dp/0195189779/)

It's a great introductory economics book for the layman.

~~~
GFischer
I was going to point out the same. The author, Tim Harford, has a blog in the
Financial Times:

<http://blogs.ft.com/undercover/>

I still believe Freakonomics to be a better read :) but the Undercover
Economist book was pretty good too (I read it because I was looking for
similar style books)

------
Perceval
Those interested in the topic might pick up a copy of Robert Bates' _Markets
and States in Sub-Saharan Africa_ which details some of the political-
institutional points of failure for developing economies in Africa.

------
chubbard
'Of course, it is hard to describe what an "institution" really is. It is even
harder to convert a bad institution into a good one.'

How does the government keep from eating itself in corruption? We assume this
government has reached a steady state by taking only half but not all.
However, as the article cites the more corruption you do the more your
supporters will do, and the only way to stay in power is to let your
supporters be corrupt. Since you're not really building any value, or letting
value take root it seems like a prolonged history of this will eventually eat
itself without fresh infusions of capital from outside parties. The article
hints at this, but it's hard to control it because your supporters are doing
it too and might not realize you can't take too much. Plus when outside
markets go down I doubt corruption wants to take less in those times. It seems
like it will lead to eventual erosion because rebuilding value when markets
come back are less likely to happen.

------
brazzy
The article is a bit too much of a case study to justify the generalization in
its title...

~~~
mynameishere
Especially when there are a variety of similar countries in the vicinity with
a variety of governments but with similar levels of poverty.

~~~
techiferous
Gabon is nearby and is relatively wealthy.

~~~
mynameishere
Gabon:Cameroon::Oman:Yemen. Oil.

No, really, the author is saying nothing. Wealth is just one part of a
society. Effective government is another part. They are both effects of other
causes. And they themselves feed back. It's not hard to point out the
essentially gangster-like attributes of almost any government. The USA seizes
its citizens' property and kills people all across the world. Oddly, since it
steals so much more from a wealthier population, the theft isn't as painful.
It requires infrastructure to efficiently transfer taxes up and back down to
government parasites, rather than have the parasites take it by hand, as in
Cameroon. So people rarely think of the USA as a gangster demanding protection
money.

This guy is just another reductionist sociologist trying to come up with that
one...one...one...reason why an extremely complicated situation is perpetually
botched.

~~~
houseabsolute
I don't think it's that complicated. And I think that various reasons might
explain portions of the problem. For example, maybe this reason explains 70%
of the problem. We can use science, mathematics, and statistics to test
hypothesis about this, and journalism to publicize the results of our tests,
as this guy and the people he cites have done. But I don't think calling
someone a reductionist sociologist without providing significant refutation is
among the useful possible responses to the article.

~~~
mynameishere
To respond to techiferous quickly, I'll just point out that the author is
basically advertising the fact that he is reductionist by heading sections
with "The Missing Jigsaw Piece", etc. Maybe the book is different, okay.

 _We can use science, mathematics, and statistics to test hypothesis_

You can't, though. It's really hard to make the world a laboratory, though it
does _sometimes_ happen by accident. The differences between N and S Korea, E
and W Germany, China and Taiwan, I think, settled the question of Communism
vs. Capitalism. But good luck in getting the grant money to set up such an
experiment. I've pointed out that the USA itself is really a quite corrupt,
thieving, murderous entity, but this hasn't really mattered that much. Another
example? Nazi Germany. They had a ridiculous war economy, they sent all their
young men to butcher people, they imprisoned millions of citizens and
foreigners, they had brutal police and internal security, etc, etc. All the
worst possible things. Worse than Cameroon could possibly aspire to. And yet
the country was prosperous almost to the end of the regime. And this was
coming off the heels of the worst historical instances of hyperinflation,
depression, and world war. All of which were _also_ caused by politicians.

That's a _lot_ of bad government but it ultimately didn't matter at all.

~~~
techiferous
"It's really hard to make the world a laboratory"

I agree completely. The sort of thing we're discussing isn't amenable to
repeatable, controlled experiments. And it's very complex.

~~~
wisty
That doesn't completely defeat empiricism though. Controlled experiments are
best, then uncontrolled experiments (checking that the theories are backed up
by real data), then pure reason (non-reductionism) is a cop-out.

------
Arun2009
I think the first step in overcoming poverty is for all of us to propagate a
value system where citizens are held responsible for their countries.

For example, if India is poor and backward, then I am responsible for
contributing to its poverty and backwardness, and so are all other Indians.

~~~
Tichy
I strongly disagree, I think it is more important to look at the system that
brings about the results (poverty). Not everybody is in a position to change
the system - for example not everybody has the skills to become elected as
president to be able to change the laws.

Maybe everybody could do something to change things, but it certainly isn't
obvious WHAT to do. Therefore I can't blame people, if they don't know any
better.

~~~
Arun2009
> Therefore I can't blame people, if they don't know any better.

This sounds to me as patronizing. I refuse to think that Cameroonians "don't
know any better".

I was not really speaking for Cameroon anyway. My main target was India, where
you'll see the most demeaning, wretched kind of poverties. I am responsible
for it, and if I choose not to do anything about it, then it's my deliberate
choice. That's all I am saying.

> for example not everybody has the skills to become elected as president to
> be able to change the laws

We are not all born with the tools required for the things we need done. We
_acquire_ them over time.

Waiting for a messiah to materialize is what I'd call the Kalki-complex.
Kalkis (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalki>) are myths. If there's to be
change, it must come from us. And that sense of responsibility is what would
inspire each of us to strive to be mini-Kalkis, and with any luck, some of us
might even become major-Kalkis.

~~~
Tichy
"I am responsible for it, and if I choose not to do anything about it, then
it's my deliberate choice."

What could you do about it? Granted, you could somehow dedicate your life to
trying to end it. But even then, you'd need a starting point. Suppose you are
extremely poor, how to you start? If you have to spend 20 hours/day to find
food, you don't have time to practice becoming a good speaker to rouse the
masses.

I don't mean it as patronizing, quite the opposite. I think it is patronizing
to say it is the people's own fault for not doing anything about it.

If you were a Cameronian, what would you do? If you chose to work against
poverty in India, what would you do?

I wouldn't know what to do as a Cameronian. As the article says, if you try to
start a business to improve economics and infrastructure, thieves will take it
apart. If you go into politics to try to change the situation, I suppose you
will be murdered or something like that. If you start a revolution, there will
be lots of bloodshed. I don't see an easy solution.

~~~
Arun2009
> If you chose to work against poverty in India, what would you do?

:-)

See, my version of your question is: What would Gandhi (or Nehru, Bose, Azad,
Bhagat, Savarkar, et. al.) do?

I don't have an answer to that _right now_ , I am afraid.

~~~
Tichy
I am not fully convinced that everybody could be a Gandhi. Wasn't he from a
wealthy family and got sent to England to study?

Probably everybody could do fasting (although even that might require a
certain amount of dediction). But to come of with the psychological strength
and dedication would be another matter.

Maybe for everybody there is a path of possible actions that would lead him to
become like Ghandhi. But that is what I was saying: it certainly isn't obvious
what actions that would be. Therefore I think a certain amount of luck is
involved.

If you don't have an answer to my question, then why do you disagree with me?
How is the poverty in India your fault? I suppose you could at least decide to
study and try to find an answer, but there is no guarantee that you would find
one.

~~~
yannis
Not everybody can be a Gandhi, but here is a suggestion. You can light a room
with a candle but not a City, you can help by helping in your 'little corner'
and I don't mean charity. India has come a long way. I remember when every
other year there was a 'Faminine' in India no more. Just by working hard and
improving yourself and your family you are helping pull India out of poverty.
Don't pay a bribe to no-one. Don't support the system this way. I have a
couple of Indian acquaintances that I know made a lot of money out of bribes.
Good luck to them. Give your children a good education and good moral support.
Help others in indirect ways (ie, give a chance of a job to a kid from a poor
family - if he deserves it). I believe education lifts people. If you can find
a way to support education do it. Support the small trader rather than the big
store.

------
ghostwunder
"how europe underdeveloped africa" by walter rodney goes into a decent
discussion about this topic.

[http://www.amazon.com/Europe-Underdeveloped-Africa-Walter-
Ro...](http://www.amazon.com/Europe-Underdeveloped-Africa-Walter-
Rodney/dp/0882580965)

------
mnemonicsloth
Paul Romer has a possible fix for the problem of bad governance. It seems to
have worked out OK for China:

<http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer.html>

------
tulsidas
Another reason is that rich countries usually benefit from poor countries
staying poor, so the try to keep them that way

~~~
JulianMorrison
That's obvious nonsense. Look what Japan, China and India have done for the
world. First cheap fast-growing investments producing low cost goods (aka
sweatshops), then a rich economy that can do its own investing. Even countries
that get a smaller slice of the pie now still have cause to be glad that the
whole pie is larger.

~~~
ytinas
I don't follow. You don't think the US has interest in China labor being so
cheap? What do you think would happen if standard of living for the average
Chinese reached that of the average American and they had to be paid the same
amount it would cost us to produce materials?

~~~
JulianMorrison
We've seen the answer to that - it already happened in Japan.

The search for cheap labor moves on to another poor country, and the newly
rich country is an economic benefit to all as a trading partner.

~~~
ytinas
And when we run out of poor countries? You could say that that can't happen
because when the Chinas/Indias of the world get to our current standards we
will be at a higher standard and they will still be poor relative to us, but
this doesn't appear to be happening. The American middle class had a lot more
money e.g. pre-Reagan than they do now.

------
sprachspiel
What does "eight times poorer" mean?

~~~
asmosoinio
I guess it means that average income (or whatever they are measuring) of X =
1/8 x Y. But is it a valid way to say this in English? In Finnish they use
this sometimes in the newspapers and so, and I am thinking I need to get over
it. But I still hate it.

It's kinda like "X is 8 times less expensive than Y", which I assume means X =
1/8 x X, but to me would make more sense as X = Y - 8Y = -7Y...

~~~
sprachspiel
Interesting. In Russian and Polish this kind of phrase is quite common. In
German it's not common, and I would consider it bad style. How about English?

~~~
fbailey
achtmal ärmer ... yes doesn't work in german, weird

------
nazgulnarsil
the government as bandit hypothesis makes a lot of sense to me. at the least
it explains where money came from (did not arise naturally from barter, was
originally a tally for taxes and looting).

the article was tl;dr. did they at least cite mancur olsen for the stationary
bandit hypothesis? AFAIK it originated in his book the rise and decline of
nations:

[http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Decline-Nations-Stagflation-
Rigid...](http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Decline-Nations-Stagflation-
Rigidities/dp/0300030797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263961437&sr=8-1)

------
vlisivka
There is no difference in behaviour of two systems, when each element of the
system behaves like corresponding element of the another system.

It will be much easier to understand what happen in Cameroon, if you imagine
similar system you can understand.

Imagine, you have group of web-servers. You hire administrator to administrate
your dedicated servers in dedicated data centre. He changed all locks, root
passwords, identity information, and then installed his own servers in
addition to your own. The only right you have now is to pay bills. His servers
produces too much load on your system, his incompetent administration causes
outages, so your own income is suffers down. There is no "provider" to
complain to.

What you can do in that situation?

a) Pay more to administrator, so he will take some courses and will provide
more competent service in future;

b) register new web-domain, create new, separate, data centre, hire new
administrator;

c) hire a gang to kill old administrator, blow up doors, reformat hard drives,
hire new administrator.

------
c00p3r
There are two things which builds a person - genes and environment. In some
places of the globe both of them are spoiled. Russia is the good example.

~~~
KonaB
Would you care to elaborate on that?

If Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Kandinsky, Mayakovsky, Markov, Kolmogorov,
Gelfand, Arnold, Gromov, Perelman have / had spoiled genes, then I wish such
"spoiled genes" were more common in the West.

------
bmunro
So the reason that poor countries are poor is Corruption

~~~
dschobel
This trend of reducing every HN story to a glib one-liner is really starting
to be obnoxious.

The article is actually quite interesting in that it examines the motives a
dictator has to foster stability and financial growth (so that there is more
to plunder). But to achieve this growth the dictator needs help from the army
or the police (any group of men with guns will do) and that comes in the form
of letting them indulge in their own corruption. This leads to a national
death spiral as the only way to get support for your corruptive endeavors is
to let your subordinates pillage their subordinates. It is a toxic trifecta of
mistrust/corruption/lack of institutions which leaves the country entirely
dysfunctional.

It's a fascinating article. You should read it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So what you're saying is that yes, the reason poor countries are poor is
corruption? But for some reason that sticks in your craw?

A politician can win the support of the people, including the armed enforcers,
by other means than threat of death. If it were possible to have a political
group that, I don't know, laid out a plan for the countries future and won
support that way. Then, winning support of thugs with guns, by allowing them
to plunder, in order to subdue your population by force wouldn't be necessary.
Then you could start to rebuild the pride and position of your country and its
people and those people could work together to help build a nation.

Pipe dreams I suppose.

