Why are so many countries in the world “developing” and poor, while essentially only Western countries have a high standard of living?
Everyone seems to be focusing on colonialism, but that really only brought Europe to a standard of living near India and China.
The real major thing that happened was that "the West" started industrializing before the rest of the world did. Some of the wealth came from colonial holdings that industrial countries had, but a lot of it came from having citizens who were more than a order of magnitude more economically productive than citizens of other countries for over a century.
Why the Indian subcontinent and China didn't industrialize at the time is up to debate, but some theories are related to lower labor costs not sparking the positive feedback engine of industrialization until it was too late to compete against the West and going into periods of relative decline that Western countries could take advantage of.
The West was able to make itself the factory of the world, pushing the rest of the world into resource extraction.
It wasn't until after World War II that other parts of the world were able to industrialize.
I have always assumed that white light-skinned people have a leg up because they're white light-skinned. That is, they've lived for an evolutionarily relevant duration of time in places where you need low melanin to get sufficient vitamin D to survive. Places with low sunlight and harsh winters, which means places where failing to develop efficient agriculture, food preservation/storage, insulated shelters, and textiles meant starving or freezing to death.
Non-white light-skinned people lived for an evolutionarily relevant duration of time in places with more consistent sunlight and milder winters, where sun over-exposure was a more pressing threat than under-exposure. That means more forgiving crops and climates, so less pressure to streamline agriculture and subsequently industrialize.
Edit: I feel the need to specify that I am not talking about "white people" as a coherent race, but as a loose term to describe light-skinned people from harsher climates in general. Don't read any racial commentary here, I'm not making any.
I get what this guy is trying to say but the phrasing and unnecessary racialising explains the downvotes. A better and less offensive way to put this could simply have referred to climate: that you suspect the harsher climate in Europe rewarded industrial and penalised agrarian lifestyles in a way that wasn’t true for civilisations near the equator. Being white or not has nothing to do with it - correlation versus causation.
There are several times in history that Europeans would not be considered the peak of human development due to very measurable differences in quality of life.
You'll also find other pseudoscience bullshit trying to justify the superiority of one group over another from at least Roman times.
The fact of the matter is that several areas had the resources and technical development to start the Industrial Revolution; it just happened to spark in the United Kingdom first and spread through Europe quickly.
The "Western" countries pillaged the rest of the world for centuries.
Guess who colonized whom...
1 The middle income trap. Many countries used their cheap uneducated population as an opportunity for cheap labour, for large companies. This brings lots of capital to the country and people, and the country develops. Building more schools, infrastructure etc. but as a country develops, pay increases for workers, and suddenly their labour is no longer cheap. Their country's economy is now effectively stuck.
2 Conflict and instability. Investors don't want to pour money into a country where it might have a coup, leadership change, etc. They don't want to lose what they invest, since these events usually result in lots of private property being taken or destroyed. This fact leaves a lot of countries in a catch 22. They need investment to stabilize, but need to stabilize to gain investment.
A lot of countries are also unstable because of badly drawn borders. This often leaves a lot of ethnic tensions that continue to boil away indefinitely. Sometimes the borders give a country horrible geography and incentivise them to invade their neighbors.
One example would be that country #1 is downstream of a major river, behind country #2 and #3. Country #2 and 3 use a lot of the water and there is none left for country #1 and their only option is to invade.
The final and probably most common reason is that dictators don't care about prosperity, and that dictators lead to more dictators. Far more often than not, coups lead to another, worse dictator, focused on holding power than their country's success.
The reason that south Korea and Taiwan are successful and democratic today are because they rolled the 1/1000 chance on a benevolent dictator that WILLINGLY steered the country into democracy and genuinely improved the economy.
There's a lot but it mainly comes down to how Europeans were more developed than the rest of the world due to their frequent wars, so when they went to colonize the world nobody stood a chance. And since colonialism and the subsequent horrible decolonization messed up those countries, we get the state of the world today.
To be more specific, colonialism basically turned affected countries into oversized plantations run by foreigners. Any political development that was already there went out the window, and of course no more could be made. Then you got decolonization, where you had countries either being fought off (like France) or packing their bags and leaving (like the British). This created massive power vacuums, and when you have power vacuums you get power struggles and dictatorships and from there we see the world's current state. On the other hand you have Botswana, where they actually had a native ruler class who could rule when the British left. They were an occupied country, not an oversized plantation, so they're virtually one of the best places to be in Africa. Also specifically in Africa colonies would have their borders drawn with no care for the relationship between the people living there, and occasionally they'd actively set them up for failure by putting rival ethnic groups together.
And of course you have neo-colonialism and shit that even now continue to hold back African development.
TL;DR: Europeans came, turned everything into a plantation, then when they left the plantation collapsed and either a dictator came or things returned to survival for the fittest which then produced war-torn dictatorships. These countries should be able to become decent countries with time, and there are many examples of that happening, but the West is still preventing it in many places. See: France in Africa, cold war-era US in Latin America.
Of course we can get into infrastructure and education and all that, but all these things have their roots in the simple fact that these countries had a horrible start (whether a civil war or a dictatorship) and in many cases had to build states from scratch, and in politics a bad start can cost you decades.
It's true, former British colony The United States is still a developing country for this very reason.
Due to the lack of functioning government, the mafia/corporations took over and nowadays the government is but a puppet. I send my thoughts and prayers to the Americans.
HAHAHA.
You don't know what a developing country actually is. Iran, Syria, Russia... it's just tough.
At any moment, someone or something could fall on you from the roof, not only sites are blocked, but VPNs are at the level of the Great Firewall of China, terrible education, medicine, basically you can’t buy anything because of sanctions, there is no justice, there is no private property, all banks, convenience store chains, Internet providers, EVERYTHING “belongs” to the state intelligence service, even food, and even of poor quality that you are afraid of either getting poisoned or dying from eating them.
Therefore, when Americans say that “the USA is a developing country,” it’s not even funny anymore, it just looks like, excuse me, a mockery for those who live in real developing countries.
By the way, in our country even the likes of McDonald’s, and in general all businesses in the country “belong” to the state mafia intelligence service (structure)...
Living in this country (and I live in Russia) you constantly live in stress, fear and panic. I have already developed some mental illnesses this way, such as C-PTSD. But I’m afraid to get treatment in this country, because, for example, you have to tell a psychologist everything, and if you say something like “Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine,” then they can simply inform on you, and then put you in prison for 15 years, and this person, who reported on you, you will not be able to see again, even when you get out of prison (because some Russians act vilely).
I, of course, followed the events in the United States and knew that under Trump you almost had a coup d’etat, and this is terrible, of course. But, frankly speaking, knowing that Trump has a suspicious biography, and he collaborates with the Russian (Putin) mafia, then if he, I want to say, becomes president, then you can really start to have the same crap as in Russia: massive and systemic human rights violations, murders of the opposition, poisoning of activists, degradation in education, science and medicine (at a minimum), political and economic instability, extreme corruption, Internet censorship, lifelong presidential terms, totalitarianism and the like...
Moreover, the US dollar is one of the most stable currencies in the world, and if Trump is elected president, it will simply be a threat to the whole world.
In this case, I am more than sure that education will decline even in developed countries, organized crime will increase around the world, not to mention democracy and private property, which will certainly not exist in the USA (if Trump is elected).
Also its created a cyclical problem. (And Im going to do a terrible job of explaining this but I hope people can grasp what I'm on about.)
Getting any kind of significant change going in a "developing" nation requires MASSIVE investment that they cant afford, which requires investment from mega-multinationals or foreign nations, who then (either rightly or not) have to tread super carefully because it looks like they are trying to buy the country by proxy, which means they dont want to make the super-mega investments because one little leadership change and a little nationalisation makes their investment worthless.
Basically you need either a super benevolent form of colonialism or super ethical capitalism to get the ball rolling without just repeating the mistakes of the past.
Extractive capitalism pulls resources and wealth out of "developing" nations, leaving them poor. Power and money maintain power and money through a boot on the throat militarily and economically and by fomenting internal conflict within the "developing" nations.
Why then is there not such corruption in developed countries as in developing countries? Is it a matter of culture?
Be careful of falling into the exceptionalist trap (my culture is special, we don't do corruption), or the natural progress fallacy (you have to be corrupt and warmonger first, then you grow up, mature and become a stable and moral democracy, it's the way it happens). Both are false premises that stem from cultural hegemony. There's plenty of corruption (lobbying is a form of legal bribery too), and instability in the developed western world. The US survived a coup attempt just a few years ago. Lots of officials and politicians are caught stealing public funds every year.
The difference lies in the narrative lens. When it happens to the west it's "a few bad apples", or a lone bad actor. When it happens in the developing world it's that filthy culture struggling to become as civilized and democratic as us. It's the pure expression of neo colonialism. The real material difference is that the West has accumulated more wealth for longer. And they control the mass media machinery.
Because developed countries already went through their corruption. The processes by which these countries became democracies tend to be bloody. Other countries were behind the curve, then their political and social development was frozen in time by Western colonialism.
Riches have high standarts of living. Poors have no life, they survive. "Developed" countries has more middle class than others, which are promised to be rich by rich if they help rich to get richer by stealing from poor by capitalism.
Because you need a middle class to have a high standard of living.
And you can't have a middle class when your culture has internalized class oppression that tells you to never question your superiors.
There will always be 50% of countries poorer than the 50% richest countries
Imagine 3 people, with different amounts of wealth. 1 of them will always be richer than the other 2 by definition. There’s nothing wrong with this.
The problem comes when richest has much much more than the poorest. There’s little problem if poorest has 1 and richest has 3. There’s a huge problem if poorest has 1 and richest has 1 billion.
It’s not about how we sort countries, it’s about how wealth is distributed.
It's only my interpretation of it, so be wary. My idea is that after ww2, USA was terrified of USSR, so they did their best to avoid countries "falling" to it.
This best was of two categories: if it was an old power, feed it with all possible money, so they can can develop an industry to get all of the modern commodities (home, car, a fully equipped kitchen...) If it was a colonised or USSR friendly country, forbid all trade, and feed civil war with all means possible, so that this country stop being communist.
Then, democracy had that people had to be listened to a bit, or they would vote communist. Car industries were favoured because it can be converted into a war industry if it needs. Roads and trains are also war assets. Healthcare and food are priorities to make people happy. Education and research are priorities for any country that want to stay relevant, and these benefit from co-operation with other countries.
The way I see it, the west built solid infrastructures and invested in the people in order to fight USSR, while USSR progressively fell into an oppression that prevented these progresses. The third world countries were left alone because no side would allow them to join the other side.
Now the world is full capitalist, so no one will invest in the countries that were left behind. With less investment they progress more slowly.
Look up 'Elite Capture'. It's really hard to build good institutions and keep them strong and free from corruption, and they will be under siege by special interests from day one.
I'm just curious. Considering that, for example, there is political and economic instability in RuSSia, there is no justice, RuSSia does not pay for international debts, even because of sanctions. What happens if other countries refuse to pay?
A question beautifully answered by marxist theory. See unequal exchange.
If you're interested in a good read check out "Guns, Germs, and Steel"
Check it out to throw in the trash. Jared Diamond's book is thoroughly condemned in anthropological and archaeological circles.
I think it is because of population vs resources allocated per person. When a nation is developing it is still trying to catch up with the high number of population it can service, but with little resource it can utilize or there is but not yet utilize. It has no choice but to cut corners in turn lower standard of education, health, social services, housing and unutilize laws. This in turn having some or majority of the people receiving less and some none at all. This makes them vulnerable to bad influence and bad decision e.g. vote buying, rebellion. They cannot participate in the nation building process in a right mind since they are trying to survive. Anyways, I'm probably just talking bullshit. To be fair not all Western nations have high standard of living e.g. some nations in eastern Europe.
I think a big factor is the western labour movement wrestling away some of the prosperity created by the industrial revolution. Developing nations have profitable industries but the wealth doesn't make it's way down to the average citizen because they haven't forced it to happen. The small minority of people who do profit from dirt cheap labour are quite happy for things to stay that way indefinitely, and so it does, because they are the ones who hold political and financial power.
In this topic: people who underestimate the importance of infrastructure and low crime and low corruption.
1st answer: developing countries don't have enough infrastructure to benefit from wealth. Not enough trains to move raw goods around, not enough roads or not enough electricity to do anything even if those good arrived.
2nd level: when governments get the money for such projects, they steal it from the people through corruption. See Turkey and all the invested dollars on earthquake-proofing buildings, it was all stolen in ways people didn't understand or realize until the earthquake happened.
3rd level: even if the government didn't steal the money, criminals can. Even in the USA we deal with transformer thieves (transformers are bundles of copper that convert long distance high voltage power into short distance power for houses). These copper bundles can sell for $$$$ in the black market.
So even if #1 and #2 miraculously happen, a criminal will steal the infrastructure and they gotta start all over again.
Everyone knows how to make cities more advanced and better. Build highways, trains, mass transit. Invest into freight (trains or boats). Invest into education so that people can run these machines.
And many 3rd world countries advance forward. But it's harder to do than it looks.
China and other advanced nations prove that an export based economy can work though.
I will say that export driven economies are very difficult though. See Taiwan and their export of chips. It only works because Taiwan is basically modern Vulkans / Wizards who have chip technology that no one else in the world has.
A system of top level universities to build that kind of knowledge and infrastructure is difficult and outside the reach of most countries.
You can see this in painful clarity watching the Argentinian railroads. Created and operated by the UK originally, it has a clear shape of a funnel from all over the country towards the main port city, Buenos Aires.
But the USA and western EU countries are rich, but, for example, China, India, Russia, Vietnam, Nigeria, Mexico and others are not very rich, how is this possible?
Even New Zealand is rich, but other island countries are not.
Is it all culture or not?
Culture and wealth. But wealth creates better culture, and better culture makes more wealth.
Only Russia seems to be the only country doing things wrong in your list btw. I expect China, India, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Mexico to all be richer in 10 years than they are today.
It takes a lot of hard work, smarts, and money to catch up but countries like those are scrappy and are doing good work to catchup. China is a bit risky, I think they're funding it with too much debt though in weird ways, but their hearts and minds are at least in the right place with regards to expansion of their country, economy, and education.
China's main problem is corruption. But everyone's got corruption issues,.