Message-ID: <3383A317.4A5B@squirrel.com.au> Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 12:36:23 +1100 From: resolve <mailto:resolve@squirrel.com.au> Subject: Reply - reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
I'm sure this is a tiresome rehashing to many of you on the list, as some of you have indicated, and I apologise for that. It helps me as a newcomer to determine the political flavour of the list, which I think is important.Is the list as a collective interested in sending over technology to the under-developed countries because it believes that the west is the best model that everyone else should be following, or because there are certain aspects of Western technology that can be of indisputable benefit to those that don't have it and may not be able to come up with it in the foreseeable future?
And now to address a challenge or two (delete if totally tired:)
> 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.
Yes, but it wasn't heading down that path, Jon. What you are doing here is polarising the discussion. You're not addressing what is being said so much as addressing what you think would probably be said by someone who has the political beliefs you assume that I have, i.e. "If someone sounds a little left, then these are the arguments they will trot out." That wouldn't matter so much in itself if it were isolated to one post, but I find that once someone hints that another has made some point or other, others assume that they must in fact have made that point, and then they start lobbing all their anti-extremist barbs in the general direction that the alleged point is presumed to have originated from. Then we have a polarised discussion which has lost sight of the more constructive middle ground, not that I was necessarily aiming for middle ground in my original post, but it wasn't heading down the path you speak of until you took it there yourself.
> 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?
The problem I have with this line of reasoning (as I perceive it) is that it assumes that the Western model of development is the most beneficial for all. That the industrialisation path that the Europeans launched into must be emulated by the under-developed countries, if they are to "progress" and what they need to do is to learn the way the game is played; they must adopt the self-same economic hegemony that is rapidly destroying our natural habitat. As things stand, they're playing whatever role that the more powerful nations will let them play, and that's pretty much fetching oranges at half time, and making footballs on an assembly line.
> 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?
No, I don't believe throwing money at the situation is the answer. I made that exact point in a previous post: "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"
> I don't think it is ever possible to compensate a people for historic injury they
> may have experienced
No, but it certainly helps to openly acknowledge it and officially and publicly apologise. That assists in the healing process on the individual level and on the international level. To say "yes but the guy down the street did it as well!" or "It wasn't my fault, I was just trying to make some money" or "Well I can't do anything about it now" is not helpful, and just as we wouldn't tolerate our children offering such retorts when asked to make amends to a sibling, we shouldn't tolerate similar excuses in international affairs.
> 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.
Not talking about compensation, Jon. More like a marked improvement in behaviour. However, if we were, this is what Paul Harrison, author of "Inside the Third World", 1993, has to say:
"It should be possible, in summary, to calculate how much the western-dominated world economic order extracts from developing countries, by methods which the Third World itself does not regard as legitimate. This is not the place, nor am I the perosn, to make such a calculation, but a rough order of magnitude can be outlined.
"One: Paul Bairoch has estimated that declining terms of trade cost the Third World between $3.5 billion and $11 billion dollars in 1962, and anything from $5 billion up in 1970. Taking the lowest 1962 figure as average for the whole period of declining terms of trade between 1953 and 1973, one could estimate that the cost to the poor countries was anything from $70 billions up. repayment of this at prevailing interest rates might cost $7 billion a year.
"Two: the multinationals are now taking out at least $7 billion a year more than they are putting in, on official figures alone, and probably a good deal more via transfer payments.
"Three: the brain drain is costing the Third World at least $5 billion a year.
"Four: service payments on non-oil countries' debts, accumulated as a result of all the imbalances of the international economic order, averaged around $16 billions a year between 1971 and 1976.
"Five: it might do to think about a figure for reparation: for the exactions of colonial regimes in taxes, rents, tributes, thefts and plunder, trading profits, raw materials bought at a fraction of their value. Plus the damages wreaked on life, property and industry by uninvited conquest and repression and enforced 'free trade'. Less, to be fair, an allowance for any genuinely productive investment such as raliways, roads and irrigation systems. I shall not even attempt a guess at the total, which would probably be astronomical."
This taken into account, the foreign AID, begrudgingly doled out with the hypocritical air of the rich temple-goer is not as charitable as it seems on the surface.
> I think you are spectacularly wrong
I think this is "flaming" language, Jon. Perhaps you might tone it down a bit if you disagree in the future. I'd appreciate it, thanks.
> 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.
It wasn't my assumption, Jon. The idea was presented by another author, in print. I simply cannot find the darn thing at the moment, much to my chagrin, or I'd quote it for you. I'll be more careful to reference any claims I make in the future, however the "proof", which someone else on the list called for is another matter. I think proving US involvement in the oppression of third world workers would take a great deal more resources than I alone have, but perhaps I'll put the idea to others who have more first-hand experience with under-developed countries and who have read more widely on the subject. The McLibel case gives us all hope, I'm sure.
> 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?
Yes, I agree that many third world governments have not served their people well, but I believe in many cases that this is also linked to the transplantation by Europeans of structures which were alien to the cultures prior to colonisation. This is not to say that idyllic, egalitarian cultures were or are the rule prior to or beyond Western influence - there are caste systems, dowry customs and so on which serve to disadvantage the bulk of various eastern populations, and have nothing to do with western influence.
> 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.
Why not start today then?
> 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).
Sending all their raw materials over to the west might give them their main source of income at present, but it is quite obviously an unsustainable economic foundation, isn't it? Focusing on their internal needs and production capabilities would serve them better, it seems to me. If their small businesses, informal markets and so on were able to thrive and grow instead of having to compete with multinationals, they would begin to develop at their own pace and in a way that is more culturally relevant.
Exploding populations are, of course, rather hefty handicaps to overcome, and perhaps western technology and education can be of service here, as it can in teaching what it knows about sanitation and sewerage and so on. Mind you, the west isn't showing a great deal of intelligence in this area either, by pumping it all out to sea... And so it goes on.
> Shall we have another
> discussion of entropy? I thought we beat this into the ground ad nauseum
> earlier.
Have you? I'd be interested to receive back posts on this topic if so. "Entropy: Measure of the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work" Sounds very interesting.
Lee
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