June 1, 2005
From the desk of Jane Galt:Wolfie for the Bank
Paul Wolfowitz takes the helm of the World Bank today. So far, so good. But fighting poverty nation by nation is perhaps the hardest job in the world today. A while back I had an interesting debate with Laura, of the ever-excellent Apartment 11D, on whether or not "unregulated capitalism" was good for the third world. My answer is that when we look at the third world, our heart cries out, as it should, but that doesn't mean that those in the third world are victims of anything but nature. The appalling poverty of Sri Lanka or Mozambique is not some bizarre aberration that can be tracked to a cause we can cure. We are the aberration; Sri Lanka and Mozambique are the normal state of human history. Trying to figure out how to reproduce those abnormal results in a couple hundred more countries is very, very hard. Fascinating, and unbelievably important. But tricky. If Paul Wolfowitz thought he was controversial before, wait until he tries to finance his first dam.
Posted by Jane Galt at June 1, 2005 1:05 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksThe claim that "those in the third world" are victims of nature is patently untrue. Remember that in pre-colonial days, the wealth of said regions equalled and rivalled that of the European powers. Through the practices of said imperial states, especially in terms of technology and wealth transfer, the third world came to be. One might begin with Dan Headrick's "Tentacles of Progress" and Mike Davis' "Late Victorian Holocausts" to understand this accepted historical fact. Imperial powers, falsely claiming to follow only the free market, created systems where wealth concentrated in the metropole at the expense of the colonies. Arguably this system continues toda y under the aegis of the World Bank and IMF (Stiglitz makes this case effectively in "Globalisation and its Discontents"). Blaming nature, or aberration, for current global disparity represents a highly disingenous point of view - one that, should it persist, can and will do nothing to alleviate the poverty problem today, and perhaps make it worse.
Funny, I don't "remember" that at all. Dependency theory is not the established historical fact you present it to be. And you call others disingenuous?
KK -- Even if what you say is true (which I do not believe it is), how does that make what Jane said untrue? For all of human history, until quite recently, the vast majority of human caloric effort was spent trying to put food on the table and a roof over the table. The third world is still in that condition. The "un-normal" human condition is ours. We are able to spend vast amounts of time in purely recreational pursuits. We may have attained this condition unfairly, but it's hard to say that the third world is worse off (compared to their ancestors) than they would have been absent our (as in prior generations) involvement with them.
Still, if the only way for the third world to gain a comparable standard of living to what we enjoy today is for them to become imperialistic, I hope they plan on colonizing Mars. I doubt many in the West will be willing to atone for prior generations sins by subjecting ourselves to their rule.
Ah, the "lump of wealth" theory of economics rears its ugly head, tilting it to the left as always.
KK, it is a fallacy that there is any kind of practical limit on the amount of wealth in the world. Therefore, it is a fallacy that the only way a country can be rich is by making another country poor. Economic interaction between two countries tends to make both countries richer.
And based on the way you've used the phrase, I would suggest that "technology transfer" doesn't mean what you think it means. To be fair, it appears that "accepted historical fact" doesn't mean what you think it means either.
"Through the practices of said imperial states, especially in terms of technology and wealth transfer, the third world came to be."
How is that reconciled with Niall Ferguson's claim (in "Empire") that the empire exerted a net drain on British fiscal resources beginning in the late 19th century?
KK, colonialism is certainly a blot on the escutcheon of the west, but it's not responsible for third world poverty. In general, most parts of the third world are simply as poor as they were before colonialism, or somewhat less poor. We've gotten rich; they haven't. But no one in the west forced them into poverty--rather, we left them there. Despite trying assiduously to pull them out of it since 1940.
The flip side of that idea, that the west owes its riches to colonialism, simply won't hold economic water; as another commenter pointed out, colonialism has been a net expense to colonial powers, albeit a net benefit to powerful factions within those powers. The fuel of the industrial revolution was British coal and German steel, not Kenyan coffee or Egyptian cotton.
First - Thank you all for your responses. As a first time commenter I feared an embittered backlash, but thankfully found more reasoned disagreement.
I do have some qualms with the arguments presented, however. Yes it is true that Britain fell more and more into debt as a result of the colonial venture, but as far as I know (and if someone has any historical works that claim otherwise, I'd love to read them) Britain covered its fiscal gap by drawing from the treasury of India, often at the expense of say famine relief (again, see Davis) in the Empire.
Furthermore, the English industrial revolution came at the expense of the colonies through trade barriers enacted when the metropole was at a competitive disadvantage with the colonies. Indian textiles, which suffered at the behest of the Lancashire lobby, provide a good example for this.
My own conclusions in this area stem from the reading I have done and courses I have taken at university. I would highly welcome any work that anyone has by historians that counters what I have been taught, as I am aware that the modern university skews slightly left (at best). Please pass on any citations you have.
Again, thank you for your civility.
Jane,
Maybe empire exerted a net drain on British Government's fiscal resources. But that does not mean that British officers and public did not benefit from forced third-world labor and looted raw material (such as cotton etc.) from their colonial subjects.
It is the height of ignorance to claim that the Empire did not cause poverty in the third-world. Contrast the wealth and power of Japan which was not subjected to the colonial rule with other asian countries and you will know what I mean! Japan itself was a imperial power and that it was the one of the most powerful and richest country in Asia before World War II. Can somebody explain the "aberration" here?
There is not doubt in my mind, however, that inspite of all the looting done by the imperial masters, the third-world would have been far more richer than it is today if they had followed free market policy. Telling third-world countries to follow socialism because they were looted in the past is a very cruel joke indeed! If imperialism caused poverty in the colonies socialism entrenched it further and even increased it!
Whew, glad I'm in the US of A and not one of those nasty places that were once British Colonies...
Sorry, had to take the easy shot.
I really suspect that USA and Australia would be concerned to find that their initial colonial days truly hindered their economic expansion. I strongly suggest that a relationship between Government style and productivity/profitability be considered.
I'm hard pressed to find many totalitarian or communist countries with the per capita production or income of a democracy. I think Saudi Arabia, maybe a few others in the oil producing region. However there are equally as many cases of a democracy on a plot that isn't a cash cow due to natural resouces (i.e. Hong Kong) that still outperforms many other places that are "better off" in the resources category. Doesn't Hong Kong have to import both food and water?
Now admittedly, while they were a colony most (all?) countries weren't democracies (or otherwise free Governments protecting private property rights); but those that are such now seem to do well, and those that aren't don't.
At the very least, that is the side I'd take in the pub over a beer. Feel free to dissect.
GekkoBear -
I think your systems of government argument can probably carry weight. I do think that nature of the USA, Australia, Canada etc being settler colonies acts as another argument for inter-colony differences, most likely as a reason why government systems were so different.
KK
Ashish, you're cherry-picking your data by using Japan as your (only!) example of a state not subject to colonial rule. Add in Thailand, the Asian bits of Russia, and inland China/Tibet and your claim that Empire caused poverty in the Third World is far less well supported.
"They took the tea from India and the rubber from Malay." So goes the indictment of colonialism. But tea cultivation didn't exist in India prior to 1820 and was introduced by the British. And rubber is indigenous to Brazil. Sugar, indigenous to southeast asia, was introduced to the Caribbean by colonial powers.
while the US was a colony ,the home country's gov might have had drain on their resources supporting their overseas possessions but they arranged it so that shipping and manufacturing was routed thru england and that impoverished the americas and enriched their private citizens..so telling us how their empire drained gov coffers and neglecting to tell us about the enriched businesses is....short sighted..
Ashish,
I'll see your Japan example and raise you China. China also wasn't colonized in any meaningful way, yet the only part of China that achieved a level of wealth approaching that of the West were the sections accessible to westerners (e.g. Hong Kong and Macao). What does that do to your theory? Similarly, what about Ethiopia, another country that was never colonized? Why is Japan rich and Ethiopia poor? I think it's very difficult to draw conclusions about the economic impacts of colonialism by looking at one country (and only one country) that wasn't colonized. So making accusations that use the phrase "height of ignorance" may be a little premature.
There's no doubt that some British citizens made a lot of money off of third-world labor and raw materials. But there's no doubt that a whole bunch of third-world citizens also made a lot of money off third-world labor and raw materials and continue to do so today -- read any recent account of the African kleptocracies for examples. Just pointing a finger at the white guy seems to be a distinction without a difference.
So I would reject your claim ("the height of ignorance"!) that colonialism/imperialism caused third-world poverty. Per Jane, the poverty was already there. I'll stipulate that in a lot of cases colonialism/imperialism didn't improve the situation much.
Read Hernando De Soto's Mystery of Capital. He has the best research theory I've seen for "Why capitalism succeeds in the west and fails everywhere else". His basic premise is it's all about accessible property law. Property law that allows general access to the benefits of the legal economy is the number one ingredient for economic success. Inaccessible property law generates extralegal economies that are grossly inefficient. Capitalism with inaccessible property law is not that useful.
KK-
Welcome to the funhouse. In addition to Ferguson's "Empire," which is narrow in scope, you might look at David Landes's "Wealth and Poverty of Nations" which, while it carries an oddly protectionist tone, is very good at pointing out how the Dutch, Spanish and British Empires missed the boat (get it? I crack me up.). And of course, for a look at the painful attempts to help the third world, Jane's favorite, William Easterly's book is outstanding.
china: warlords, divided amongst many foreign powers, not that rich (although coming up fast)
macaus: hundreds of years old portugese colony, decent living standards as compared with mainland. reverted to china in 90s
hong kong: no resources, about 200 year old colony, one of the richest places in the world. took in thousands of refugees from communist government in china (as well as russia, etc). reverted to china in 97.
singapore: british colony separated from malaysia after a brief civil war, independent since the 60s. very wealthy.
zimbabwe: british colony, was very wealthy under minority government (when known as rhodesia) and did fairly well until recently. mad dictator who is shoring up his positiong by attacking minorities. economy is accelerating towards the ground (government is in the process of attacking informal markets as part of attempts to suppress opposition. new north korea in the making).
uganda: british colony, gained independence in 60s. tyrranous dictator idi amin chased out merchant classes, destroyed economy, ate subjects. uganada is now very poor.
but yeah, it's obvious that being exploited by colonists is obviously how ones country becomes poor. friendliness/antipathy to free markets, capital formation, and private enterprise has absolutely nothing to do with it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
zimbabwe: british colony, was very wealthy under minority government (when known as rhodesia)
Of course Zimbabwe's in trouble now, but I have problems with calling it "very wealthy" before Mugabe. That requires a colonialist point of view that the experience of the native peoples doesn't really count--it's only the lifestyles of the "people like us" that reflect the country's wealth.
I'm sure the white per capita GDP in Rhodesia was quite high, but so was it in British East Africa, and in neither case was the national standard of living so wonderful.
KK:
The claim that "those in the third world" are
victims of nature is patently untrue.
I'm more than a little intrigued by this as well, as it has long been an axiom of mine that the natural condition of man is abject poverty. Your second statement, from all accounts of which I'm aware, appears to be true. At around the 16th century the disparity between nations was relatively small by comparison to today.
It also appears that a fantastic amount of wealth has been generated since this time. Agriculture has improved at a near miraculous pace (e.g. Noman Borlaug being just one of MANY examples) -- how did the development of high yield farming in the west reduce the quality of life in Bangladesh? How did electrification here in the US lead to an underdeveloped Indonesia? How did the emergence of telecommunication networks (Morse, Bell, Marconi, etc.) in the west make Egypt poorer?
How did the invention and development of aviation take wealth away from Afganistan?
As for technology transfer, this is something which has puzzled me to no end. The US (and many other nations') patent system facilitates technology transfer. Patents expire, releasing what would otherwise be a trade secret into the public domain. "How to make a tractor" isn't stowed away somewhere in the dark. "How to build a road" isn't exactly top secret, either.
Thoughts?
I think Brittain hit the nail on the head -- whether under tribalism/pharoahism, colonialism, or the modern kleptocratic system, the impoverished nations of the third world tend to be characterized by a small group of immensely wealthy people ruling over a population living in squalor. There is no productive middle class, which appears to be the primary generator of wealth in first world nations.
Lending money in a fashion that somehow stimulates the growth of that middle class strikes me as the herculean task the World Bank and IMF have before them.
I disagree that "Sri Lanka and Mozambique are the normal state of human history."
In fact, their populations have grown tremendously over the last century. Whatever their problems, they appear to keep many more people alive for longer than before. So in some sense, even the third world is rich by historical standards (although I'll grant that a reduction in premature death does not necessarily imply a nicer life for those who survive).
Whoa, Nate. You have a gross misunderstanding of the patent system. A patent is a limited monopoly granted by a government in exchange for full disclosure of the invention. So, the technology becomes public knowledge as soon as the patent is granted, and nowadays, the patent application is published 18 months after the first filing of the invention disclosure as an application. In addition, a patent only protects in the country it is issued, so if U.S. companies file for patent protection only in the U.S., the technology is immediately available for legal use in every other country (as long as the invention wasn't made in the U.S. for overseas sales).
CRP,
No...what you said is my understanding of the patent system. What I had meant in my "public domain" statement was the unecumbrance of licensing after the patent has expired. I know that the filing becomes public knowledge much sooner. (I've read more than a few of them.) Also, I know that they're only protected in the nation which grants them, but there are mechanisms which facilitate patenting across nations. From memory, the US PTO (and I'm certain that it is not unique in this respect) gives special consideration to patents that have been filed in several other nations. (e.g. The UK, Germany, etc.)
Nonetheless, this is all in favor of my argument about technology transfer. Even if some nation repsects the intellectual property laws of the US (via treaty, etc) the wealth of information in *expired* patents that are not encumbered is fantastic. Again, it's no secret how to make a tractor...at least with technology from the '80s and early 90's.
Expanding on what ed said, it is also patently true that the huge increase in absolute population of Sri Lanka and Mozambique and the like is largely due to advances in agriculture and medicine that have originated in the west. So if you’re going to keep a tally of grievances of the third world against the west, you had better add the very existence of a billion or so souls to the other column.
Of course, that’s very easy to ignore if you’re just a plain misanthrope…
A couple of other books:
How the West grew rich: the economic transformation of the industrial world by Nathan Rosenberg & L.E. Birdzell, Jr.
The lever of riches: technological creativity and economic progress by Joel Mokyr.
1. At least Canada, Australia, and U.S. colonies escaped the distinction of being "bloody wogs."
The American colonists were so gently treated that
it seems hard to see why the Revolution occurred (even only being supported by 1/3 the population).
Had George III had any sense, an amicable solution would have been worked out.
2. Wealth comes from savings not consumption.
Savings is invested if property rights are secure.
If not, it flows to where it's welcome (Switzerland, Grand Caymans, etc.). The poor countries are kleptocracies where savings are confiscated, so why bother not consuming all of it before it's stolen?
3. Advances in health care, largely produced by the First World nations, have far outstripped the
economic growth of the kleptocracies. Far more
people live beyond childhood than ever - if resources aren't allowed to grow, the static pie is consumed by ever more people.
We know a few things. First, before about 1500, there were several civilizations as wealthy as Western Europe: the Ming, Mogul, and Ottoman empires come to mind. Around 1900, Western Europe and the settler colonies of Britain ("the West") were far wealthier than any other civilization. Now, it is still basically those countries and ones that have since mimicked the West that are comparatively wealthy.
The only other thing we know is that almost everyone has written a book trying to explain why this is, citing everything from law to morality to to war to geography. Have fun!
It's true that the "natural condition" of people is poverty, since wealth has to be created. But it's also true that the natural nighttime condition of people before electricity was darkness, since we didn't have the technology for bright lights. Candles just aren't the same.
If countries that are technologically behind and hence poor want to catch up, they need to modernize. I think we're making it too complicated by worrying about the fact that the natural conditions before technology involved not using the technology that they didn't have. Legal, political, economic and financial systems are technology, just like cell phones and computers. Countries that are using outdated technology are behind, and the solution isn't all that complicated!
If all poor countries would adopt state-of-the-art technology in terms of political, legal and economic systems, world poverty would be dramatically reduced. It would take some time, and there's still room for improvement, but countries would have better prospects if they would adopt what has worked elsewhere, rather then clinging to the failures of the past.
"There is no productive middle class, which appears to be the primary generator of wealth in first world nations."
Here's that darn causality problem again. Does a middle class cause growth, or does growth generate a middle class? If we simply print money or take it from the pockets of rich people (who don't need it anyway) and give it to poor people to create a middle class, that by itself won't automatically generate future prosperity. But if we educate people, give them good incentives and get the bureacracy and vested interests out of their way, then a sustainable middle class can build itself (which makes demoncracy sustainable).
Good examples are Taiwan and South Korea, which were dictatorships a few decades ago. Economic growth generated a middle class, which increased demand for democracy. After all, the rich can usually buy their way through any system, while the poor are struggling to survive and can't spare much energy for issues such as freedom of speech. It's the middle class - beyond the daily struggle for survival but not rich enough to buy off bureaucrats - that most value the rule of law.
I'm not saying that dictatorships are the best route to prosperity and democracy. The overall data goes against that claim, since dictators usually hurt the economy. But I think that the evolutions of Taiwan and South Korea deserve more attention than they get.
Ann: With regard to your 10:35 post, you're right, but it's a bit more complicated than you make it sound. All technology requires some base for it to be useful (e.g. computers require a power grid, otherwise you just have a lot of really expensive paperweights). The base that is absolutely necessary for "state of the art...political, legal, and economic systems" is a culture that will support those political, legal, and economic systems. The most important part of our political/legal/economic system is the rule of law--the fact that when the law says "x," we know that it means "x." We're not perfect, but for the most part you can't buy or bully your way out of the law (the effects, yes, but not the law itself). But this isn't a result of any law we've passed--it's not something that Mozambique or Haiti can just wake up one day and decide to have. It requires a culture in which the vast majority of people accept the written law as legitimate and follow it of their own free will--where they don't try too hard to cheat and don't feel it's justified to help other people cheat.
Which brings us to your 10:46 post. You talk about how a middle class doesn't help if it's created by wealth transfer. While I agree, I'd argue that an artificial middle class like that really doesn't count. It seems to me that the distinguishing feature of a middle class is more attitude than wealth. A middle class is a group that earns its wealth through trade and production; they have to work to support themselves, and they feel like they've gotten where they are by the rules and by themselves. This has an important effect that they 1) want the rich to follow the rules, just like they have, and 2)feel that the poor can afford to follow the rules--after all, if I made it, why can't he? Thus a middle class is uniquely positioned to be a force for the rule of law. Once a society has the rule of law, it's halfway there, and can start trying to figure out which laws it ought to have.
OFF TOPIC BUT NONETHELESS ECONOMICS ALERT:
Can anyone comment on "social credit" theory? Ann's post about wealth transfer made me think of it... I just came across the concept while reading a posthumous "novel" (more like "philosophical treatise") by R.A. Heinlein, who apparently espoused it for some time while involved in California politics, and I just don't get it. I take it it's had some popularity in ?Alberta? too.
From Encyclopedia.com:
The central idea is that the problems fundamental to economic depression are those of unequal distribution owing to lack of purchasing power. To solve these difficulties Douglas proposed a system of issuing to every citizen dividends, the amount of which would be determined by an estimate of the nation's real wealth; the establishment of a just price for all goods would be the result.
So it seems to me to be almost pure wealth distribution, super-duper communism, and I do NOT understand how Heinlein, the original TANSTAAFL proponent, ever embraced it even in his wacky youth. Eagerly awaiting any insight from the many talented folk herein...
It is interesting how many seem to believe the issue has been decided. Remember that China and the Middle East were once centers of power and wealth. Note that colonization remains an active process in many parts of the world (e.g., Arizona). History has an ebb and flow. The net effect of european imperialism was that the world as a whole is a richer, smarter place. Was european imperialism good? - or bad? Its a matter of perspective. One thing for certain, power has been used to advantage throughout history. The only question is who will use it in the future.
Good point Ann, and Jadagul beat me to the response. A so-called "middle class" that is created simply by taking money from the rich and handing it to the poor is not really a productive one and is unlikely to do much in the way of additional wealth generation.
That said, I think it is a better solution than currently exists in many third-world countries. Most of the kleptocracies of the third world are characterized by a small governing class that sells the natural resources (oil, diamonds, uranium, whatever) of their country to foreigners, then uses the proceeds to buy themselves palaces, fleets of Rolls Royces, private jets, big bank accounts in Switzerland, and villas on the Riviera -- or of course tanks and machine guns to kill their neighbors. These things are hardly wealth-generating investments, and so the vast majority of the population continues to live in abject poverty.
So while taking money from rich people and giving it to the poor is not a good way to generate wealth, it strikes me that a lending arrangement that results in more of a country's natural resource wealth going to the general population would be economically beneficial. I think this is the first task for the World Bank and IMF.
Jadagul -
I agree with what you said about the middle class. And you're right that I implied that it was easy to fix the problems of poor countries, when it's a long process. It takes time to build institutions and the rule of law, but that's all the more reason to hurry up and get started, instead of waiting for a magic, culture-specific shortcut to appear.
The worst excuse, in my opinion, is the idea that "cultural differences" are a barrier to be respected rather than overcome, when it comes to issues such as corruption. Corruption is in the background/culture of every country and society. It has been reduced in some countries through hard work, not because they were simply 'born that way'.
I spent 6 years teaching about financial markets in Hong Kong, and one of the most interesting presentations I saw was by someone from the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). HK was wildly corrupt, like most other countries in the region, up through the 1970s, and then the public and government decided that it had to stop. They largely changed the culture and got rid of corruption, and more countries should be looking at how they did it. It took about 20 years - a generation - but that's probably faster than the US process, in part because they made a concerted effort.
I asked the ICAC guy how they changed the culture in HK. To my surprise, his main answer was made-for-TV movies. Every year, they worked with a local TV station (TVB) to dramatize a real life case of someone getting caught, to show how it hurt the family, etc. The ICAC worked hard, through commercials, movies, etc., to convince people in HK that 1) corruption hurt society as a whole; and 2) those caught in the future would be punished.
After all, if everyone else is taking bribes, you almost feel stupid not doing it. There's a huge free rider problem, and somehow societies have to get to a cooperative equilibrium where most people obey the laws. It's not easy, but it's entirely possible. Cultures are endogenous. They can and should be changed, in order to adopt modern "technology" such as the rule of law.
In other words, Mozambique or Haiti could and should just "wake up one day and decide to have" a rule of law, as Hong Kong did. HK had the advantage of being a British colony at the time, but still the drive to get rid of corruption was local. There will still be a lot of work to do, but that's life. Poor countries have to start somehow, sooner or later, and we should all be pushing them to start sooner.
Jamie -
I'm not sure if "social credit theory" is describing communism (the government physically confiscates everything) or just some silly "let's print money and we'll all be rich" scheme. It sounds a bit like a proposal to escape from the depths of the Great Depression, which means that the idea should have died out decades ago.
DRB -
Simply redistributing to create a middle class might indeed be better than the status quo in many countries, but it's still a second-best solution. There's a quote by someone (which I'm probably mangling) that the problem with second-best policies is that they're designed by third-best politicians and implemented by fourth-best bureaucrats.
Sorry if I'm getting carried away with these posts. This topic really interests me - what's more important than helping poor countries? - and this is a great chance to hear other people's ideas and air my own.
DRB - I read what you said more carefully, and better sharing of resource wealth (as opposed to printing money or, say, 'land reform' which involves shooting farmers and taking the land that they've worked for years) would indeed be a great idea. I was hoping that, in Iraq, they'd set up a fund like they have in Alaska, where the oil revenues go to everyone. For countries that have abundant natural resources, this could really help to get people the capital they need to start businesses and build a middle class. They'd still also need property rights, the rule of law, etc., so that they could produce with what they got, but what you're suggesting could contribute one necessary step in the process. Sorry I misunderstood it at first.
I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again. Democracy and capitalism go hand in hand precisely because they both depend heavily on the rule of law. And capitalism provides the incentive for the people in a country to keep it that way.
No worries, Ann. In fact, something like the Alaska Permanent Fund is exactly what I had in mind. Instead of natural resource revenues being taken by the dictator-of-the-month to pursue some white elephant projects, they would be distributed to citizens as dividends.
It clearly wouldn't be a cure-all. In Alaska for example, the main industry is still oil -- and you don't exactly hear a lot about Alaskan entrepreneurs using their dividend checks to build new local businesses. But some of that I think is the result of Alaska's extreme geographic isolation.
Presumably a lot of folks in the population would fritter away their dividend checks on useless items that don't result in any substantial economic gains, i.e. a poor person's version of the kleptocrat's white elephant. And there is a concern that you could develop a culture of dependency, where people are comfortable doing no work because the dividend check will bail them out. This "welfare queen" culture is a problem in some parts of Alaska.
But regardless of the downsides, I have no doubt that *some* people would use their share of the resource wealth to start new businesses, grow the economy, create employment, etc. It would certainly be better than the situation that currently exists.
I think organically this would start a push for a culture of law, which would encourage more economic activity, which would encourage a stronger culture of law, etc.
Thanks for all the suggested readings!
Hong Kong and Singapore are very good example of countries that did very well even under imperialist rule (or because of imperialist ruler). But that doesn't mean that colonial rule did not cause poverty in India, Sri Lanka, African countries and elsewhere.
My point is that in many of these colonies, exploitation of raw materials and involuntary labor was a major cause of the poverty. Those countries would have been better without the colonial rule.
I have already acknowledged that socialism contributed to further decline in those countries. In fact, colonial rulers handed over a very well-oiled government machinery to socialist elites. This allowed socialism to take hold in those former colonies. A good example is India. The british beaurocracy, railways, post and telegraph all were handed over to socialist Indian Government. This allowed centralization of political and economic power right from the begining. The consequences were disastrous.
Even if these colonies had somehow adopted capitalism after European powers left and progressed because of property rights and rule of law, it wouldn't have changed the fact that they were exploited during the colonial rule!
Furthermore, even if the colonies had rule of law and property rights (in however crude form) before the colonial rule does anybody think that would prevented colonial rule? Because of the industrial revolution and the improved navigational techinques, European powers were far superior to the Asian colonies and would have conquered them and subjected them to the colonial rule. Even under those circumstances we would have still seen poverty in the colonies because of the colonial rule!
Also, lot of people mentioned here that rule of law and property rights were the main cause of prosperity (or lack of them were the main causes of poverty). Does anybody knows economic history of Japan? Did they have property rights, rule of law and other features of capitalism?
Ashish -
I don't think that any of us are defending colonialism. It was wrong (just as dictatorships are wrong, in my opinion). It shouldn't have existed even if it had led to economic development, which it generally didn't.
But even though I'm against imperialism, I think it's used as a scapegoat for too many problems. How could it cause poverty that had already been around for centuries?
Hong Kong was different from most colonies in that virtually 100% of the population was there because they or their ancestors had chosen to come to a British colony. There were hardly any people living there when it was turned over (nasty climate, isolated, with no resources except a good harbor), which is why the Chinese negotiator thought he'd gotten a great deal at first. [The Manchurian emporer wasn't pleased, though - he resented giving up any of the occupied Chinese territory to non-Manchurians.]
I don't think that the British should have gone to war with China over tea in the 1800s, just as I don't think that China should have been occupied by Manchuria (or Mongolia), or that Tibet and Xinjiang should now be occupied by China. However, Hong Kong as a colony offered a refuge and opportunity to many Chinese without displacing existing residents, which is very, very different from the usual colonial experience.
Back to colonialism - it was wrong and caused suffering. But 1) it's not clear that the net economic effect was negative; and more importantly 2) even if it caused additional poverty, the important question now is how to fix it.
Japan, in the ninteenth century, had a feudal system that was closer to a rule of law than most Asian countries at the time, even though it was dominated by powerful nobles and an emporer. There was a clear and well enforced system that allowed commerce.
After WWII, Japan was forced to adopt much of US law and regulation, which overall seems to have helped them. Again, I'm not saying that the US should go in and force all countries to adopt laws, as we did with Japan during the occupation, but I think that the institutions helped them. Much of the Japanese success is extraordinary hard work and intelligence, but the system still matters.
Ann: that's actually sort of my point. Not that a culture can't change, but it's really hard. Even in Hong Kong--fairly small, quite dense, relatively homogenous, and starting out with some good values--it took twenty years to change the culture. In a place like Haiti, where there are more people, spread out a lot more, and most of whom don't have access to made-for-TV movies (not to mention most of them can't speak the country's official language), it's an order of magnitude harder--which isn't to say that it couldn't be done. Contrast this with, say, if the solution were "have the central bank print more money." That just takes an executive decision on behalf of whoever runs the central bank. This kind of cultural shift requires the entire country to get behind it--including those who are benefitting from the corruption--and is thus much harder to accomplish. In that sense, they can't just wake up one morning and decide to change. But you're right, people who say it's impossible or wrong to change the culture are both wrong and jackasses, and aren't helping.
Ann: Actually, quite a bit of attention HAS been paid to SE Asia (or did you mean just in this thread?) -- try entering "Asian Tiger" or "Developmental State" into your local academic library's catalog search engine.
However, even more attention was paid after the financial crisis, whereupon it was revealed that some of the "success" countries -- Korea most notably -- had developed substantial cronyism and corruption problems over the course of that radid development.
Ashish,
Like Ann, I'm not here to defend colonialism. I'm just not going to put it on trial on economic grounds. I think it's incorrect to say that colonialism *caused* poverty, the exploitation of raw materials, or involuntary labor in the third world -- as was the point of Jane's original post, that was all there before the colonialists showed up and it keeps going on now that they've left. If you're going to point an economic finger at colonialism, I think the strongest point you could argue is that it didn't make anything better (though some would disagree with that point).
But also per Ann's point, the important question now is how to make things better. One example might be the Asian Tigers, who grew their economies not through some genius for business (although they liked to pretend it at the time), but primarily through capital investment in an underinvested environment. Similar growth occurred in the Soviet Union when it industrialized (for a good laugh, read the scare stories in old economic journals about the coming economic dominance of the USSR -- they read just like the Japan Incorporated scare stories of the 80's).
To solve the problem of poverty, attention must be paid to cultures and even gene pools. Assuming they are all interchangeable is a recipe for continued frustration.
Ann's ICAC guy anecdote is enlightening. Chinese culture's emphasis on unity/harmony and its glorification of bureaucrats renders it especially vulnerable to corruption, and after the problem was fully identified it took 20 years to bring it under control in the relatively small locale of Hong Kong. But ultimately, the culture was successfully changed for the better.
Just like Chinese bureaucrat corruption, African "big men" are a cultural impediment to effective rule of law. Artifically low IQs due to poor nutrition and education (African-American IQs are a full standard deviation above African IQs) are a major problem as well. But both problems are solvable, IF they are properly focused on. The elephant in the living room of sociology, the low average IQ of African-Americans, will still remain, at least until genetic engineering is sufficiently advanced. But, if men like Thomas Sowell are any indication, even this problem can be tackled, and it's a shame that America itself has backslid on this.
(Yes, the previous paragraph touches on topics under the general heading of "crimethink". But if crimethink is sufficiently accurate and important, it may not be wise to ignore it forever. In any case, the Economist isn't ignoring it this week. Link to the paper being discussed by the Economist article: http://homepage.mac.com/harpend/.Public/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf)
My point is that in many of these colonies, exploitation of raw materials and involuntary labor was a major cause of the poverty.
Like that never happened under the native rulers.
Basically, what colonialism does is replace on set of exploitive elites with another. I doubt very seriously that (a few horrific examples like the Belgian Congo aside) it has much impact on the overall wealth of the country or on the living conditions of the masses.
Unless - and here is the important part - the new rulers import a culture that is either beneficial or inimical to economic activity and wealth creation. Its hard to argue that the Brits didn't import just such a culture into their colonies. Where that culture stuck, well, you have economic success. Where it didn't stick, you have pretty much what you started with before they showed up.
It is a very serious mistake to believe that China, which was equally as wealthy as, say, Europe during the Enlightenment, got poorer in absolute terms as Europe got richer. I suspect that China stagnated, and only looked poorer compared to increasingly wealthy Europe. This illusion of relative impoverishment may be at the root of the fallacious belief that colonialism results in a significant transfer of wealth from the colony to the imperial center.
That India, for example, would now be more prosperous without its history of British colonialism seems unlikely. Looking at India's neighbors who had less exposure to their colonial masters and you can basically chart how badly off they are today by how little exposure they had to the West. Pakistan is much poorer than India, for instance, and Afghanistan is far poorer than either. Certainly there are many other factors at work, but the overall analysis is sound.
I think there is a dark tendency to mimize how brutal and desperate life is in subsistance cultures. This attitude sprung from anti-capitalist dogma and not vice-versa. If you had your choice between living as an Aztec with their life expectancies and so for, and living as a modern day Mexican, the choice is pretty clear, even if modern day Mexico is no paradise. Of course surviving genocide was often a key to success for the colonized, which cant be forgotten.
Zimbabwe is an example for the argument that there are worse things than colonialism. Kristoff, of the NY Times recently got in there for some interviews that revealed that most of the people felt they were better off under the old regime. That is not an argument for colonialism, it just points out that colonialism was not the problem. Incompetance in government is the current problem and Mugabe is trying all the wrong solutions. Taking away property from producers and giving it to non producers does not create wealth. No one becomes wealthy by taking from those who have no wealth to begin with. Wealth is created by producing goods and services that others are willing to pay for. No one on wall street markets their services to the poor.
"I'm sure the white per capita GDP in Rhodesia was quite high, but so was it in British East Africa, and in neither case was the national standard of living so wonderful."
Didn't the blacks "inherit" this wealth when the whites were expelled? Did they invest it wisely and prosper or did they dissapate it in third-world fashion?
"Of course surviving genocide was often a key to success for the colonized, which cant be forgotten."
Really? Was genocide a hallmark of colonizing? Was it to the benefit of the colonists to exterminate those they undertook to exploit? Did any abuse of the colonists compare with that of the third-world "leaders" of today? Think Idi Amin or the Hutu's v. Tutsi's.
Mark,
Well Pakistan, of course, was part of British India, so that doesn't totally apply.
I think one of the key points of British imperialism in India is that the Raj was at least as legitimate as the regiems it replaced. There was no country called 'India', just parts of the Mogul empire (itself an external imposition) and lots of small principalities, none of them democratically (as far as I am aware) governed. The Brits weren't saints, but they brought the rule of law producing a hybrid culture that now seems poised for takeoff.
@Jane Galt: You've nailed a pet peeve of mine. The Liberals have spent billions of dollars studying poverty and trillions of dollars fighting poverty. Poverty is the natural condition of humanity, what you need to study is the wealthy and how they got that way. And I don't mean Fidel Castro, who has hundreds of millions of dollars directly out of oppressing the workers of Cuba. Which of course, was the old Marxist charge against Capitalism and why it was doomed to fail.
Check out Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else and The Other Path for the way out of poverty. Hint, it's not nature, at least it's not nature any more. The key is clear, legal, secure, transferable and open property rights.
It seems that many former British colonies are very successful (US, Canda, etc.) but it is the colonists that are successful - the natives are mostly gone (Indians) or are on failing reservations. India, Hong Kong, Isreal and Jordan even, maybe South Africa are instances where former British colonies now run by the natives are doing better than their nieghbors.
How about French colonies - any ringing successes? Spanish colonies? When there is talk of the rich West, France and Spain are inluded but when we talk successful former colonies we mean former British colonies.
Another thought - are there any successful 1st world economies in Muslin nations?
Zimbabwe wasn't just a wealthy country for the whites; the blacks were reletively well off as well. I think only the blacks in South Africa were wealthier out of sub-saharan africa until Mugabe went off the rails.
Anony-mouse -
I agree that much attention has been paid to the success of the Asian tigers in general. I was referring specifically to how Hong Kong drastically reduced corruption. Singapore, as well, is relatively clean of corruption.
You said that "some of the "success" countries -- Korea most notably -- had developed substantial cronyism and corruption problems over the course of that radid development."
I strongly disagree with the implication that corruption and cronyism only developed during rapid economic growth. It was always there! There were far too few changes during the SE Asian boom. I was teaching MBA and undergrad students in HK at the time, and spent a lot of time trying to convince them that the financial markets should be better-regulated. The attitude in most of the Tigers was "we're booming, so our 'Asian values' must be optimal and there's no need for reforms or changes." It seems to be part of basic human nature that people don't want to consider reforms while things are going well - don't rock the boat - and so the traditional corruption was allowed to continue, but it was far from new.
This reminds me of the ridiculous claim that corruption has only recently blossomed in China under the flirtation with markets, as if there wasn't corruption in the glory days of Mao! It's true that the monetary value of bribes are higher when there's more prosperity and growth, but that's not a fundamental shift. Bribes and extortion were less likely to be monetary under Mao, since the government had already confiscated pretty much everything (if taking everything isn't corruption, then what is?). But, for instance, women that got sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution often had to sleep with the local party leader before they were allowed to leave. I'd rather pay money! Party members had many ways of extorting various forms of payments under communism.
Jadagul -
OK, you're right, it will take time and hard work to change the culture in places like Haiti. But I'm not sure that Hong Kong had such great values to begin with in terms of accepting change. The Chinese are extremely hard-working and excel at working within the system, but they have almost a horror of even thinking about changing the system. They're a model minority in the US because they can simply work hard in accordance with an existing system. But places run entirely by Chinese aren't model communities, because their culture is focused more on exploiting the status quo than on improving it. Changing the system means instability, which they fear (largely because they never work towards good, truly stable systems, so change usually comes from the collapse of a system that has stagnated).
So, the idea that another system (less corruption) would be better and hence that we should change the way things have always been done wasn't an idea that the people of Hong Kong were naturally drawn to. I think that, relative to the rest of the world, one unusual, extreme feature of US society is our acceptance of change. Much of the world is willing to accept many, many problems in order to avoid change.
Last, let me make my 20 year claim clear. Hong Kong in the late 1970s was massively corrupt. If you went to a government office to apply for a driver's license, you not only had to bribe someone in order to pass your driving test, you had to bribe someone just to get the free paper application form to fill out. What changed public opinion was that the chief of police was accused of murder and was in police custody, but he was allowed to escape and leave the territory. It took Hong Kong a bit less than 20 years to go from massively corrupt to a level that exceeded most European standards. Before the 1997 handover, at least, Hong Kong was probably less corrupt than France or Italy. That's a long way to go in less than a generation!
My overall point is that changes take time and hard work, but I don't think that conceptually the task is all that complicated. Rather than scapegoating large corporations, or global trade, or imperialism, we should accept the idea that economies are built on a solid legal foundation, good government, functioning markets and good incentives, and so we should get started on the slow but necessary process of building modern societies.
"Like that never happened under the native rulers.
Basically, what colonialism does is replace on set of exploitive elites with another. I doubt very seriously that (a few horrific examples like the Belgian Congo aside) it has much impact on the overall wealth of the country or on the living conditions of the masses."
I totally agree that the native rules also exploited people. And not just the rulers, but in case of India, whole set of things came together to exploit ordinary masses. For example, casteism. But the reason I believe that colonial rule caused serious damage and poverty is many-fold:
1) British used advanced technology (weapons, railways and others) that increased the rate of exploitation. It is pretty simple. If you can ferry raw materials over long distance you are going to try to exploit more.
2) British did not replace the native rulers. Atleast, not until later stage of the colonial rule. They contracted with the native rulers and landlords to continue and increase the exploitation. They used the existing power structures as a means of revenue collection and consolidate their grip on power.
3) They created a centralized administrative structure which came handy for socialists to continue their grip on power. Without that I doubt if India would have went from feudalism to socialism without going through industrial capitalism. European countries also had socialism but after industrial growth had already taken place. That's why you can see that they have relatively much richer than the colonies. Basically, British exploited and expanded the feudal structures of the colonies as long as they could and later handed over to the socialists. A perfect recipe for poverty.
KK,
I am guessing others have already responded to you on this, but I don't think you have any clue about what has been typical for the vast majority of humans for the vast majority of their time on earth. In virtually all indigenous cultures, the vast majority of the populace lived a very day-to-day/hand-to-mouth existence, with appallingly high infant mortality rates, no way to cope with/anticipate the occasional rages of nature, etc. There is plenty of information available in National Geographic magazines on this. In almost all societies until very recent (last 150 years or so, and then in just a few areas in the world), a very few people lived the high life and, the other 99% lived in misery.
exhelodrvr,
Granted that most of the people lived in misery. But during colonial rule (200 years or so) these people were denied freedom to improve their lives. If Europe progressed inspite of Napoleanic wars, plague, fighting among various empires, two World War II I am sure many other countries would have done so if not for the colonial rule.
Let me take a different approach to this question of whether imperialism made the Third World an economic disaster.
If it did, so what?
I feel no guilt about whether or not the Third World is poor and why. I would suggest that if anyone needs to feel bad, it's the Third World. After all, they were too weak and incompetant to be able to prevent themselves from being colonized. Up until the last century or so, that would have been the shameful fact, not the fact that another power was strong enough to take their land from them. Further, once they were freed, they made a disaster of their countries despite having plenty of models of success in the West. They didn't have to invent anything, just copy it. The fact that they couldn't even do that ought to shame them as well.
In fact, in the whole history of the world, are there any examples of "imperialist" nations being as generous as those of the West? I doubt it. Did the Romans or the Mongols feel guilty for conquering more territory? Hell no, they felt proud of it. The history of the world is the history of peoples conquering other peoples and taking their land, and this includes everyone in the Third World. So the people of the west were more competant, stronger, more capable of developing superior technologies...well, more power to them. That's life. If you can't hold on to your own territory, and when you are given it back, you can't make a go of it even when given billions in free money and aid, well, I'm not interested in your whining.
Frankly I don't think it's as interesting, instructive, or important to study the failures of the world as it is to study the successes, such as the imperialists. And I really couldn't care less to wallow in some kind of silly guilt because our civilization was so superior to these others.
When it was good to be strong and imperialistic, we were strong and imperialistic; then when it became "good" to be non-imperialistic and caring, we became non-imperialistic and caring, giving billions to these Third World incompetants. I really don't think we're the ones with the problem.
BTW, check chapter two (IIRC) of Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About America (note the lack of question mark). It's about the Raj, and it's called 'Two Cheers for Colonialism'.
Japan is an interesting case study in economic development. Many scholars have noted that pre-modern Japan had a feudal system remarkably like that found in pre-modern Western Europe, which was not found anywhere else in the world. Was this a necessary or at least helpful pre-condition for modernity? What are the elements of feudalism that conceivably lead to modernity? A highly evolved system of rights in real property might be one. A political and legal system that recognized the rights of numerous participants (i.e., lords, barons and dukes, and their vassals and sub-vassals) and not only the power of a single overlord (an emperor or king or President for Life), might be another.
In Japan's case, the absence of colonial domination certainly helped, although it required the kick start of Admiral Perry's gunboats to get the Japanese started on the road to modernity.
As for the rest of the word, I'm with Megan. What we call the third world today was wretchedly poor long before contact with the West, and if anything, it's better off today.
KK - give me even one example of a country anywhere in the world that emerged from colonialism with a lower GNP (either per capital or total) or a lower average life expectancy than it had beforehand.
Ashish,
"I am sure many other countries would have done so if not for the colonial rule."
I find that extremely unlikely.
Look at the Islamic world, for instance. During the Dark Ages, they were clearly far advanced relative to Europe, but then stagnated, and never advanced technologically.
There is no way, in my opinion, that sub-Sahara Africa would have made any technological advances if left on it's own. The same for the American and Pacific indigenous populations.
China, which at one time was quite technologically advanced relative to Europe, fell apart on it's own.
It is really just luck that European civilization was interested in technological advances, and held together well enough to not slide back into darkness, as the Islamic world and China did.
I don't know enough about the history of technology in India prior to the colonization to be able to comment on that, but based on the history of most of the rest of the world, I seriously doubt that they would have broken free of the shackles of tradition, etc. to move forward.
This site is excellent discussion. For the most part reasoned and civilizied. Extraordinary!!!
Thank you all!
Whenever I follow these debates I find myself thinking of the many tales of people who won millions in the lottery and ended up bankrupt five years later. There is no shortage of such tales.
Unearned wealth is much the same thing whether it's development aid or Paris Hilton's inheritance. It inspires many things, but rarely discipline and wisdom.
Money is of course essential, but so are the social and intellectual resources to use it properly. These are ultimately far more important. Europe and Japan circa 1945 were a complete mess, with hard infrastructure like factories, transportation systems, banking, etc. all pretty much smashed to bits. Needless to say it didn't take them that long to regain and surpass their pre-war states.
The most important effect of globalization has been to give people in the third world greater access to our social and intellectual capital, and also to our markets. It still takes a lot for a poor Indian to gain Internet access, but it's a lot easier today than it was in 1920 for him to get a steamship ticket to London.
Now, *why* the Western nations figured out how to escape the wheel of history before the Egyptians, Chinese, and Arabs is an interesting but altogether different question.
Regarding colonialism and third world failure, I cannot recommend Gavin Kitching's Why I Gave Up African Studies highly enough.
quote:
In short, and to conclude, I left African studies because what was happening to a continent and a people I had grown to love left me appalled and confused. But I also left it because I felt that the emotionaly stressed and guilt-ridden debate which arose within the African studies community about the causes of Africa's decline was itself a powerful testimony to a fact even more depressing in its implications than anything that was happening in and to Africa. This fact is, to put it simply, that the most damaging legacy of colonialism and imperialism in the world has not been the global economic structures and relations it has left behind nor the patterns of modern 'neo-imperialist' economic and cultural relations of which it was the undoubted historical forerunner. Rather its most damaging legacy has been the psychological Siamese twins of endemic guilt on the European side and endemic psychological dependence on the African side, legacies which make truth telling hard and the adult taking of responsibility even harder.
=darwin
KK seems to misunderstand the relationship of the colonial powers and their third world holdings during the 18th and 19th centuries. Colonialism provided new markets and raw materials; in other words, many of those colonies sold materials to Europe, only to buy some of them back in finished form. The European powers certainly gained from the arrangement, but the wealth gained by the European powers was not simply a matter of stealing wealth that had already been accumulated by the third world.
Much of the third world saw no development until the 20th century, even nations like China and India; they didn't get poorer, they have simply *stayed* poor, unable to keep up.
It's easy to think otherwise when you consider the various local cultural traditions that were displaced by the colonial powers, along with all the other harm they did. The differences in standards of living are magnified by the fact that by modern standards, 19th century Europe had a terrible standard of living, even for the wealthy. Think about all the things we take for granted now, like, say, the dental care I got this morning (paid for in cash, mind you). Even the wealthiest 19th century European could not have bought what I got this morning.
We've gone far beyond 19th century Europe, while the third world hasn't come along much at all.
June,
As a former Alaska resident (19 years), I take some issue with your description of the Permanent Fund and the way it's used.
First some history: When Alaska was first opened up to oil interests, auctions were held for drilling rights. The monies from those auctions were deposited in the state treasury and were spent in something like 4 years. There's a small town called Igigik that has two olympic swimming pools. There's your white elephant.
After the first fiasco, the monies from the second auction and all royalties from then on are deposited into the Permanent Fund. After inflation-proofing, all interest from the fund is divided amongst all eligible Alaskan residents.
This free money does lead to a dependency of sorts, but the money is never enough to support a person for a year. I believe the record amount is ~$1800/person.
A lot of the dividend checks are invested towards college (my case) or sunk into various communities. Some are used to help out small business, but, just as they're not big enough to support an individual for any meaningful length of time, they're not large enough to bankroll a small business, either. Often, they are used for larger purchases that would normally require months of saving.
Saney
I am getting irritated by repeated arguments of the form:
"they didn't get poorer, they have simply *stayed* poor, unable to keep up."
The couldn't keep up because there no freedom. They couldn't have improved their condition even if they wanted to. Without colonial rule they would have progressed naturally just like other European countries. Isn't keeping people poor for centuries disastrous enough?
When I make this argument people point out that many colonies remained poor or worsened even after they received independence. But that is a different issue. The colonial legacy of centralized power of government makes it easy to for dictators to capture power and loot them. To just give an idea of how deeply entrenched British beaurocracy was in India, every district in India has many central government representives: a Collector to collect revenues, a Supritendent of Police to oversees law and order and various others. Every state has various central government officers to oversee state administration. That's why central government in India was able to overthrow duly elected state government at will. To just give one example, within a 10 years span Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India, dismissed duly elected state governments for a record of 41 times! US got independence before British could consolidate their colonial rule in a centralized way. Each of the New England states still had lot of autonomy and independence. Do you think if US had gotten independence few centuries later (say in the year 1949) with a strong federal government and beaurocracy, US would still developed the strong individual rights based constitution?
Now some will argue that if people wanted to throw this arrangement they could have. Yes, they could have overthrown such an arrangement only if a dictator or power interests do not take over colonial machinery!
"Whenever there is in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785. ME 19:18, Papers 8:682
In the talk about respect for law leading to improvements in economies, I was reminded that Jefferson had some insights as to the creation of wealth. Specifically, the fundemental right that leads to wealth creation and a wealthy society is the right to property.
It is the protection of this right to property that must be upheld if any society is to progress from a state of abject poverty to something resembling productivity. Without the guarantee of property rights, no incentive exists to develope the property (create wealth).
"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.'" --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy's "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:466
The issue for any society is not a lack of natural resources or previous exploitation (witness Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore) but the protection of property rights. The society will progress to the degree property rights are protected.
Saney
Ashish,
"They couldn't have improved their condition even if they wanted to. Without colonial rule they would have progressed naturally just like other European countries."
When you state that, you are ignoring the multitude of societies that were completely uninterested in making that progression on their own when they had the opportunity. The indigenous Americans and Pacific Islanders, for instance. There was no interest in technological advancement; they were hundreds of years behind the Europeans when they were colonized. What makes you think that they would have magically done it on their own? What did the pre-colonial ruling classes of India do with all the wealth that they were accumulating from the lower levels of their society? Did they put it into scientific studies, and use the results to improve their society as a whole? I'm guessing the answer is no.
exhelodrvr,
Your argument goes like this: some people are uninterested in living. Evidence: some people committed suicide. Therefore, if I kill some of them I did not cause their murder because what proof you have that they would been interested in continue to live otherwise!
Here is Wikipedia link to Social Credit Theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
I think it worth noting that the property rights which so many on this post have credited, were not won easily. It took several hundred years for the English to escape from corruption and tyranny.
This is an excellent discussion, and I would like to add a few comments in areas that I feel haven't been dealt with adequately as yet.
First, it is crucial to recognize that governance over the course of human history has generally been little more than the rule of armed gangs not much different than mafia families.
The current example of Zimbabwe, among any number of dictatorships, would have been the rule, not the exception, for millenia. Everyone, and everything, existed at the whim of the leader, whose rationality or lack thereof might determine modest success, or flaming disaster.
Secondly, the relative wealth and advancement of various societies at the time Europe began exploring the world was not grossly uneven. There were stone age cultures in many areas of the world, it is true, but there were also societies in Asia and the Islamic world which were probably more advanced in some ways than Europe.
Across the globe, the vast majority of people lived a very precarious life, at the mercy of nature and their rulers, with little or no recourse in the event of natural disaster or man made chaos. It is important to note that the wealth which we associate with modern society is very new, and very different, qualitatively different, than the situation that existed just a few hundred years ago.
My firm belief is that the key difference was the recognition of the rights of individual citizens to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, protected by the rule of law which minimizes predation by the political or gangster elements in society. In a sense, humanity was being held down until the concept of individual rights released its creative energy.
There was a sea change in the human condition a few centuries ago. The revolutionary ideas of the Enlightenment brought that change about, and it is ongoing today. It is the power of ideas that has been somewhat ignored, and that needs to be given its proper weight.
veryretired,
There is no doubt that natural disasters and diseases were rampant in an earlier age. However, colonial rule introduced the concept of man-made famines. Just read about the Bengal famine in which killed millions. I doubt if natural diasters and diseases would have killed so many in such a short period of time. That's the power of having so much control over other people's lives.
The indigenous Americans and Pacific Islanders, for instance.
Actually, one of the inidigenous cultures of the Americas -- the Aztecs, IIRC -- had central sewer plumbing at a time when the Western Europeans were still pouring filth of every kind into the street, to run down open gutters and into the ground or river by whatever path it might take.
Of course, that same tribe also practiced human sacrifice, so there were some non-trivial tradeoffs at work in terms of cultural advancement.
Your argument goes like this: some people are uninterested in living. Evidence: some people committed suicide. Therefore, if I kill some of them I did not cause their murder because what proof you have that they would been interested in continue to live otherwise!
If that's his argument, then yours is that some other people, having an interest in living, might spring into existence from nothing by sheer will power.
Or, in less snarky terms: If you believe that some of the colonized lands might have progressed on the same path as Europe in the absence of colonial exploitation, how about citing a plausible case and reviewing the favorable pre-colonial conditions that were subsequently wrecked by colonization? The phrase "well some of them might have done so", in the absence of additional evidenced argument, is not damaged in the slightest by ammending it with "and I want a pony."
Ashish,
From your post:
"Your argument goes like this: some people are uninterested in living. Evidence: some people committed suicide. Therefore, if I kill some of them I did not cause their murder because what proof you have that they would been interested in continue to live otherwise!"
Now you are being silly.
You are postulating that colonialism kept the Third World from advancing. However, there is absolutely no indication that what is now the Third World would have moved farther ahead on their own had their not been colonialism. In fact, all evidence (with the possible exception of Japan) points to the contrary. Some societies reached a high point, and then slid backwards completely on their own. Some societies reached a high point, and then stagnated. Most societies never reached a "high point." And that has also proven to be true in every case where societies were completely untouched by the developing world. For a combination of reasons, Europe and its offshoots continued to advance technologically, while none of the other societies did. And that is the reason for the Third World's problems of today. Not colonialism.
The reason for the larger scale famines that occur today is because modern technology has enable MANY, MANY more people to live on the same amount of land. THerefore, when something does affect that particular piece of land, MANY, MANY more people are suddenly out of food. Instead of just one family starving because their wheat crop failed, you now have ten families starving, because they were all being fed from that same piece of land.
"I doubt if natural diasters and diseases would have killed so many in such a short period of time."
Umm... Black Plague anyone?
I'm not saying malfeasance in the part of BEIC didn't cause the Bengal Famine, simply that natural disasters do a good job at thinning the herd.
Back to property rights, feudalism for all it's pro's and con's established the rights and responsibilities of all parties and started the formation of something approximating property rights.
The only ones that I think might come close would be some of the states in India. Some, like the Sikhs, were observant enough to attempt to emulate European (well, British) military organization on their own. It didn't help them in the end, but they did put up more of a fight that way.
The New World Empires, (Aztecs and Incas), were handicapped by, I'll hazard, certain natural issues (no real beasts of burden for instance).
But both of those Empires went down due to some pretty incredible coincidences more than anything else. Still, absent colonialism, I don't think they'd be where the US or Europe are today. Not even close. The Aztecs were probably doomed because the hate they generated among their neighbors, (look how the Spanish managed to exploit that). The Incas were too totalitarian to foster the middle class needed to get anywhere.
I also think Ashish is forgetting the time line of colonialism here.
What I think he's referring to (full blown Colonial Imperialism) didn't really sit into place until after the middle of the 19th century.
So, if you're saying that the Africa of 1850 would be where the Europe of 2004 is today absent colonialism, I think you haven't thought enough about the organization of societies, how they progress, industrialization, or any of that.
DBL-
examples of countries made worse by colonialism are easy, if you count Japan's colonies before WWII. Of course, the Japanese claimed that they were "liberating their Asian brothers" from those horrible Western imperialists, but that wasn't how it was seen by those 'liberated'. The first time I visited Singapore, I was struck by the relatively positive attitude they seemed to have towards the British. I asked several of them why they didn't seem more angry at having been made a British colony. They all said that, after the Japanese, the British didn't seem so bad anymore.
Ashish -
I think most of us agree that colonialism was wrong. Of the British I met in Hong Kong, while it was still a colony, I was struck that not one of them tried to claim that the UK had taken colonies for the good of the colonies. They all quickly and freely said that Britain took colonies to try to make money, and none of them defended it in any way.
But it's time to move on. First, you need to accept the idea that things could have been much worse. Read the descriptions of what the Japanese did in China, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, etc. Look at what Africa is like even today, and particularly at what Mugabe is doing to Zimbabwe. Look more carefully at the many examples of non-colonized countries that still didn't thrive economically. And, to top it all off, read the descriptions of communist countries. Even the worst of British imperialism was far better than what Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot did to their own people.
Yes, India deserved better, but the past is the past. The people you're angry at are all dead now, as are their children and grandchildren in most cases. You seem to have a lot of energy and intelligence and passion. Wouldn't it be better spent helping your country to move ahead?
I think that my grandfather's parents (on my mother's side) came from England. If it helps, I'm very, very sorry about colonialism and think that it was wrong.
KK,
Hate to be the one... No, that's a lie. I'm only to happy to be the one.
Happy to be the one who calls you on your bullshit, sorry it was so late in the post.
You don't get to come in and show your ass to an established host and crew like the one found here with your, "Remember"'s and your "patently untrue"'s only to come back and thank people who have corrected you with your (pathetic)"I should read some books on the subject first".
Most here were content to simply let that slide, which allowed you to thank them for not getting what you...well, deserved.
Karma demands otherwise. Consider yourself served, child.
Art Wellesley
I think that you're being a bit harsh on KK. My take was that her comment seemed more the product of a certain naivete, rather than a willful desire not to understand the issue. It seems to me that your response would have been more appropriate if KK were, say, a professor of economics, in which case KK's initial post would have been less excusable.
It's rare that one has the opportunity to change another's mind through reason and evidence, rather than simply slapping them down for putting forth an opposing point of view.
KK seemed geniunely gracious in responding to other people's responses to the original KK post, and it seems to me that Karma demands something more productive in this case than using words like "bullshit" and "pathetic".
Just my opinion.
Ashish: pretty much all famine is man-made famine. Amartya Sen points out that "There has never been a famine in any country that's been a democracy with a relatively free press...It applies to very poor countries with democratic systems as well as to rich ones." Famine "is the characteristic of some people not having enough to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough to eat." William A. Dando says that "Natural factors cause crop failures, but humans cause famines." It's virtually impossible to find a famine that isn't primarily political.
That said, the Bengal famine was weird. Per P.J. O'Rourke: "The British in Bengal in 1943 had no weird ideas or evil designs. But they wanted to keep rice supplies out of the hands of possible Japanese invaders, and they wanted to feed the masses in Calcutta and keep the vital industries there running. So the British confiscated rice that was stored in rural Bengal. This set off a price panic, and mass starvation followed, even though there was no great scarcity of food." What the British did was dumb, but not evil, and certainly no worse than what the rulers of, say, India and Russia had been doing to their own people for much of the past millenium, and China for the past couple centuries.
Wow, what a fast-moving discussion.
Saney - great point about the black death. Roughly one-third of the population of France, Italy and England died in less than 2 years around 1348. Think of that! And then the plague resurfaced every 12 to 15 years for the next century.
Ashish - It's hard to argue that India would have developed along the exact same path as Europe if it hadn't been for colonialism, since it hadn't been developing along those lines before the British showed up. But you could blame that on the earlier invaders, the Mongols (Moguls). Believe me, the British were nothing next to Genghis Khan and his heirs (was it a son or grandson that came to India?). Who knows what might have happened if the entire history of the last millenium had been different?
veryretired - beautifully put. One could argue that the ultimate property right is the right to one's own "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". Before that fundamental property right was fully and consistently recognized, development was held back. Societies that did relatively well (the Roman empire, China long ago, Japan more recently, Europe beginning in the middle ages) recognized at least limited rights for at least some. By extending those rights to all, even more human resourcefulness could be utilized.
Hmm
interesting, KK, I hope you have found enough references to at least test your faith in your original premise. If you want more,i suggest you go to the World Bank website or to DFID in the UK - there you will find some very fine minds trying to answer the questions of poverty in the third world.
The current thinking is that it is really about governance and property rights, aid doesnt fix poverty, the ability to safely save and invest, predictable and accessible laws, and non-corrupt state actors are what matters. If your country doesnt enforce property rights you cannot safely save or invest because someone will try and steal it. ITs really that simple, regardless of whether its buying a couple of chickens to make a bit of cash in the egg business, buying a generator for your shop or building a new warehouse or shed for your goods. If you cannot guarantee that you can keep your possessions, or you spend large sums of your savings bribing officials not to steal the rest, you will remain poor. QED.
Ashish, I can see you want to continue believing your view that its all the fault of evil colonialists, well, thats fine, but your premise is fundamentally flawed. Those previously rich societies you point to had enormous disparities of wealth - then there's the slavery and short life spans etc, you are looking into a pre-colonialist past with rose tinted spectacles my friend, very romantic but utterly wrong.
I for one would much rather be a colonial subject of the British than any moghul emperor, of course if the colonial master was Belgian (or French) i may have a different perspective!
On *her* comment? Where are you getting that from, "just one jot"...
Wellesley nothing, I should sign in as Conan Doyle.
Listen. Now you're making me rude - this conversation doesn't belong here, what you (and now I) are doing is tantamount to "thread hijacking". So I'm done talking about this, just as soon as I hit "post"
Want to really make me the bad guy? Try signing back in as KK again, and simply post:
"All concerned,
You're right, that was rude, I'm sorry."
..and displace all that anger back at me. It's so simple, so obvious, and trust me, you'll feel so good about it that once that cookie's gone, you'll feel right as rain. You'll remem...oh hell, you know the rest (g)
Jane,
Your general assertion and others in the comment section do no reconcile with the current situation in China. How can your 'theory' be sustained when you consider the monarchy-colonailist-communist-neocommunist thread of history that that country has expereinced? And consider that against it's current burgenoning capitalist middle class?
Capitalism does not fail as an -ism as much as its application. Property rights is one issue that is a cornerstone of the system. But that is not the whole solution. One could have property rights, have most of the property under the control of an oligrarchy and see rampant poverty in a capitalist country. What is interesting is that when MacArthur started instituting reforms in Japan; one of the first was land reform. He busted up the large feudal estates and sold the land to the farmers on the land at reduced prices.
The engine of capitalism is free exchange. The more hands at play in the exchange the higher the velocity of the monetary system. The faster the monetary system churns the quicker the general population rises out of poverty. Kinda sounds like the logic of the Sherman AntiTrust Act don't it? Capitalism can get locked into an monopoly or oligarchy system in various industries. When that happens free exchange becomes dampened and the exchange velocity grinds to a halt.
You can then couple that with wrong headed public policy and have an inverted capitalist system that goes against the little guy. So if the tax system favors large holdings then enterpernaurship suffers. If capital formation is stiffled then you have the same effect. So the 'solution' is not monodimensional in nature or even rooted in history.
History is a place, time and past that given the right emphasis has little to do with the future. Enable the little guy and poverty can disappear.
I HAVEN'T NOTICED THAT ANYONE MENTIONED POPULATION AS A SOURCE OF POVERTY IN THE THIRD WORLD. UNTIL THE ADVENT OF AIDS, THE MAIN CONTIBUTORS TO POVERTY WERE THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY DOCTORS WHO TRAVELED THE GLOBE BEARING SCALPELS IN ONE HAND AND BIBLES IN THE OTHER. "LET ME SAVE YOU" AND DAMN YOU TO GRINDING
POVERTY, AS YOU MULTIPLY BEYOND THE AREA'S ABILITY TO GROW ENOUGH FOOD- HENCE TO FAMINE. SEND THEM MORE FOOD TO PREVENT THE FAMINE! LET THEM HAVE MORE CHILDREN, BUT LITTLE IN THE WAY OF EDUCATION. LET THE CHILDREN GROW TO ADULTHOOD IN THEIR IGNORANCE TO BREED MORE CHILDREN THAT THE WEST WILL SUPPORT AND MEDICATE TO HEALTH SO THEY CAN HAVE EVEN MORE CHILDREN, AND ANOTHER FAMINE, AND EVER MORE CHILDREN AND ANOTHER FAMINE..............
I HAVEN'T NOTICED THAT ANYONE MENTIONED POPULATION AS A SOURCE OF POVERTY IN THE THIRD WORLD. UNTIL THE ADVENT OF AIDS, THE MAIN CONTIBUTORS TO POVERTY WERE THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY DOCTORS WHO TRAVELED THE GLOBE BEARING SCALPELS IN ONE HAND AND BIBLES IN THE OTHER. "LET ME SAVE YOU" AND DAMN YOU TO GRINDING
POVERTY, AS YOU MULTIPLY BEYOND THE AREA'S ABILITY TO GROW ENOUGH FOOD- HENCE TO FAMINE. SEND THEM MORE FOOD TO PREVENT THE FAMINE! LET THEM HAVE MORE CHILDREN, BUT LITTLE IN THE WAY OF EDUCATION. LET THE CHILDREN GROW TO ADULTHOOD IN THEIR IGNORANCE TO BREED MORE CHILDREN THAT THE WEST WILL SUPPORT AND MEDICATE TO HEALTH SO THEY CAN HAVE EVEN MORE CHILDREN, AND ANOTHER FAMINE, AND EVER MORE CHILDREN AND ANOTHER FAMINE..............
JohnM,
And how does one enable the little guy? By securing his or her property rights. If I can see a possibility of gain through my efforts, I will put forth effort. If not - not.
JohnM -
I don't understand what you're saying about China. It had massive poverty and destruction under communism. Now, they're starting to grant people some property rights (although not yet political rights) and things are drastically better than they were.
I don't think that what Jane said contradicts your last statement: "Enable the little guy and poverty can disappear." The sad truth is that it has been rare, throughout history, for governments to make choices that enable the little guy.
There is a point-of-view that unites both Ashish and her critics.
Ashish argues that India would have been better off had Britain brought Democracy instead of colonialism. Her critics maintain India was better off from having received the benefits of British government, such as schools, railroads, and respect for the rule of law.
The way I see it you're both right.
Ashish brought up Japan as a counterexample. I see Japan as definitive proof.
America destroyed Japan utterly. Before Pearl Harbor Japan was a rising industrial power whose political understanding was pretty much the same as the Mongols under Ghenghis Khan: most Japanese believed Emperor Hirohito was a God.
In the course of firebombing Tokyo, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, invading Okinawa, and effectively besieging the entire nation by annihilating their shipping, we destroyed Japan's industrial infrastructure and killed countless numbers of soldiers and civilians. We also took away their religion: who can believe in the God-King's mythical Kamikaze when Americans bring it for real?
Then we gave them Democracy and left.
Now they're a first-world power, the second-largest economy in the world, and a major exporter of sophisticated technological products, software, and even youth culture. (First cultural export, fittingly, Godzilla.)
Japan today is also one of our greatest allies, committed to helping us in the critically important defense of Taiwan.
Of all the destruction we wrought -- and understanding the covenant of Pearl Harbor I make no apologies -- what we brought was more valuable. We destroyed Japan, but we never exploited her.
Though Britain never firebombed Tamil Nadu, they also didn't bring Democracy, or at least not all of it, just the parts needed for their mercantilism to function. Those parts made India better, but not all it could be.
I think most of the rest of the history of colonialism could be summed up that way.
The "good news" is that countries like India that in terms of democracy got half a loaf from their "sponsors" will bloom into first-world status just by attaining the other half. I wish I knew the name of the Indian blogger who said, "In the 12 years since India rejected socialism we have gained something we never had in thousands of years of history: respect."
That brings me to my conclusion: the past is less important than the future. From the past we got what we needed: knowledge of what works and what doesn't. If we, Americans, Japanese, Indians, we lucky ones who live in the wholeness of democracy, if we want to make the world a better place we needn't look back any longer. We need to move forward.
Neocon Historian -
I agree with most of what you said but have to point out one problem with the example of Japan. There was something unique, before WWII, about Japan's willingness to learn from the outside. Japan and China, in the mid-1800s, were both faced with the technological superiority of the west (cannons, safety matches, clocks, industrialization...). China's response was essentially 'we're the superior race and we didn't come up with this, so it can't be any good', and they refused to learn anything about the west for fear the people would get the idea that China wasn't the best.
Japan's response was 'we're the superior race, but somehow these barbarians managed to get ahold of some good stuff. As the superior race, we owe it to ourselves to adopt this barbarian techonology so that we can be strong'. Japan got busy getting all the western technology it could and was able to decisively defeat China in 1896 (?), which is how it got Taiwan. Then, a few decades later, it managed to colonize much of Asia.
Other countries shouldn't imitate Japan's ethics of a century ago, but they would do well to imitate Japan's willingness to adopt what works. Perhaps it's living on an island (although a big island) that forces Japanese to face reality. Rather than worrying about being victims, they get things done. I believe that the system that the US gave them after WWII helped, but we have to credit Japan's willingness to keep and expand on the cutting-edge legal and political technology we gave them, rather than rejecting it as not being part of their cultural tradition.
Your general assertion and others in the comment section do no reconcile with the current situation in China. How can your 'theory' be sustained when you consider the monarchy-colonailist-communist-neocommunist thread of history that that country has expereinced? And consider that against it's current burgenoning capitalist middle class?
You do realize that the 'burgeoning capitalist middle class' in China isn't a nationwide phenomena? It is confined mostly to the south and east in the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that were set up to promote a limited experiment with capitalism. Said experiment has grown to include, among other things, a focus on securing property rights.
Having most of the first world available for a willing export market doesn't hurt, either.
Ashish, your assertion that colonised nations would have continued to develop "just like europe did" just doesn't stand up. Europe didn't even develop "just like Europe did". The industrial revolution progressed in outward concentric circles from England and America. If you map GDP, it's pretty clear; if you want to be rich, be near one of those two countries (or Japan, after 1950). Eastern europe and central Asia, untouched by colonial hands, stayed dirt poor. China, barely grazed by the fist of the colonial conquerer, was still using the same animal power in 1960 to move objects that it had in 50 BC. I have no doubt that colonialism did little to improve Africa, that the political aftermath of colonialism has adverse effects on Africa's people. But economically, there's little evidence that it did permanent damage. If colonialism were the culprit, we would expect the areas most heavily colonised to be the biggest economic basket cases. But rather the reverse is true, particularly of former British colonies; the areas with the heaviest British presence are the areas with the best economies (including Zimbabwe before the land reform).
Ann:
Would you be willing to compromise?
On the one hand I categorically reject the arrogant view that "some cultures just can't handle democracy."
On the other it is obvious that cultures historically given to certain values are at an advantage.
If I had to name those values off the top of my head they would be education, hard work, independence, cooperation, ambition, respect for competence, and intolerance of corruption.
Of those "hard work" seems the most important, as all of the other values for success flow from it.
(Don't like hard work? Hey, look on the bright side: at least it's not "chastity".)
Ashish,
Before you hammer too long on the British and their colonial effort in India, I suggest you read V.S. Naipaul and Nirad Chaudhuri, particularly the latter's "Autobiography of an Unknown Indian." As a doctoral candidate in imperial British history, I've run across many the subcontinental who had no hesitation about affirming that no part of what was once British India has EVER had, before or since the British, as honest and incorruptible a government as they had under British rule. That's no mean accomplishment. Law and order are the minimal prerequisites to any form of economic or social advance.
I concede that the British were not able, particularly in the later stages of their rule in India, to take the actions that were necessary to make India a truly advancing nation. Read P.J Cain and A.G. Hopkins 2-volume set on British Imperialism to get some input on how the British Government and Britain's ruling classes looked at the colonies.
First and foremost, and this was solidly inculcated in every colonial official from the late 19th century on, was THE MAINTENANCE OF THE PEACE. Any official who allowed the locals to get up in arms over something which he could control was on the fast track to being cashiered. Disorder of any type in a colony was not well received by the capital markets back home in Britain, much less of a type which cost large sums in extra troops, punitive campaigns, etc. After the Boer War Britain's policy everywhere was to keep the locals as quiet as possible by coopting them or by preempting their problems and concerns.
It worked pretty well, and particularly so in India. Britain ruled a country of 400-plus million people with approximately 100,000 personnel. If they hadn't been doing a pretty good job of governing, odds like that would have seen them wiped out to a man darned quickly.
As for your comments about centralization and socialism, you're right that the British did those things to India. THEY WORKED OUT FOR INDIA'S GOOD. How many languages are there in India? What language does the Indian Parliament use to this day? It's English, and the reason is that English is the one language that EVERYONE in India can feel benefited by learning without thinking themself and their ethnic group slighted by being forced to learn some other group's tongue. Tell me that India is worse off for having such a large population of people for whom the world lingua franca is almost a native tongue.
As for the socialism, it certainly didn't make India as ready for a Rostow-style economic takeoff as a rough-and-ready capitalism might have. On the other hand, given the major ethnic tensions remaining in India even after partition, socialism at least had the virtue of looking as if it were endeavoring to help all the people rather than certain favored groups. The Tatas and the Birlas got on just fine but the Congress governments could drape the whole cloth of Gandhi's "Mother India" around their protectionist, high-tax model of government and it provided fine political cover--just as roughly the same thing (Beveridge Report, anyone?) did for Attlee and Labour after World War II.
Bottom line: India was damned lucky to have Britain as a colonizer. Someone was going to do it, given India's discord and disorder in the 17th and 18th centuries. Do you think India would have been better off with the French or the Russians? Do some more reading of your own history, this time avoiding the rabid nationalists.
And no, I'm not British. I have, however, seen enough of the Third World and spoken to enough of its denizens to know that most of them would have been much better off had European colonialism extended into the 21st Century. At least under European rule there was someone at the end of the day who could and would be embarrassed by bad government conducted under their aegis, embarrassed enough usually to change for the better. Can that be said of the Saddams, Nassers, Mobutus, Bongos, Toures, Bokassas, Mugabes, Sukarnos, Pol Pots, Amins, etc., etc., etc.? I think not, and the people who have suffered most since the Euros bailed have ALWAYS been the poor and unconnected. They've always suffered the most, but at least in the last 50 years of European colonialism they had someone looking out for their interests at least some of the time. If you want to argue that it's better for the poor now in most ex-colonial countries since independence, go ahead. You've got a lot of convincing to do.
Neocon Historian -
We don't need much of a compromise, since I already agree with you for the most part. I just wanted to point out that Japan was somewhat unique, in a way that deserves attention. If only Osama Bin Laden would take the Japanese approach and say "if the barbarians/infidels are ahead of us, we'd better figure out how to catch up", rather than "if the infidels are ahead, we'd better kill them".
The multi-cultural assertion that all cultures are equally valid in their beliefs and traditions is incorrect.
As one of the posters points out, Japan was an authoritarian, feudal society when it was exposed to the West. Its adaptation of Western technology was very much for military purposes, but its unreformed, militaristic culture led it to the disastrous decision to initiate a war, first against China in the 1930's, and then the US and its allies in the 1940's.
But when the cultural model was forcibly changed from authoritarian/repressive/militaristic to a system based on representative government and a more open economic