Message-ID: <s382e405.099@crs.loc.gov> Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 11:53:55 -0500 From: Jonathan Sanford <mailto:JSANFORD@CRS.LOC.GOV> Subject: Re: Boring reply & sustainable IT -Reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Dear Lee,I posted my comment about original inhabitants because I saw the discussion tending towards a reassessment of ancient claims. As though all the people of European ancestry could be evicted from Central America and Mexico so that the various Native American groups could realize their aspirations. My point is this: we have to deal with people and situations as they are and we can't reverse history in order to get back to a time we think more just.
I believe you are doing this in your discussion of trade relations. You ask whether "Are present inequalities, going on right now, being addressed adequately, or are they simply being denied and covered up with token "AID" programmes which mask the fact that even if the money sent over to under-developed countries were trippled, unequal trade practices established in the last couple of centuries prohibit the under-developed nations from getting ahead. They are stuck with producing raw materials for western consumption and manufacturing which they can't eat or put to much use themselves."
Countries on the periphery of the world economy in the 18th and 19th century were disadvantaged. Unequal trade practices cost them dearly. However, they were also injured by limitations in their own economies, by unfamiliarity with international trading practices and inability to capitalize on the opportunities they had. The issue is what these countries should do now. Should they insist that they be compensated financially for presumptive losses in the past or should they organize their economies in ways that take advantage of commercial opportunities now before them? Even if they got a big compensation payment to put them back on an equal footing with the developed countries in terms of asset levels, would they be able to stay there if they lack requisite skills and they invest the money badly?
I don't think it is ever possible to compensate a people for historic injury they may have experienced in the past or to identify the people who should properly pay that compensation. Presumably all the people who immigrated to North America after 1950 would be exempt. Maybe even the people who came from Eastern Europe and Russia in the 19th Century. I think there is a guy in Cleveland of old industrial stock. Maybe we can sock him with the entire bill.
I think you are spectacularly wrong in your assumption that developing countries only make economic progress when the developed countries get distracted by other things and leave them alone. When the rich countries are involved in "distracting" wars, for instance, exports of raw materials and semi-manufactured goods from developing countries increase. Prices collapse after the artificially high levels of international demand cease with the end of hostilities and the exporters then import lots of stuff to raise living standards temporarily rather than investing their gains. Many countries failed to build the basic transportation, energy, and communications infrastructure they need to be competitive in world commerce. So they have trouble getting investors to be interested in them. Their own efforts to break into manufacturing often have been catastrophic because they've build white elephant facilities and run them like employment agencies rather than firms. Who wants to by steel from Togo anyway? Maybe the world would be better if the Europeans and North Americans reduced their consumption of the world's resources, as you suggest. However, they'll just build lighter products and their living standards won't go down much if at all. The raw material producing countries, on the other hands, will be devastated, since their raw material exports will drop and they will not have the industrial capabilities to produce the more technologically demanding "light" products (substituting, for example, graphite bonds for steel and aluminum). Shall we have another discussion of entropy? I thought we beat this into the ground ad nauseum earlier.