• Re-establishment of commercial farming using modern techniques.
• Population control. Six children per starving family is unsustainable.
• Sanitation, clean water, disease control. These three are a package and can be achieved by education first and simple infrastructure second.
• Removal of the dictators (including the elected ones) who use their countries nations as personal resources.
• A move from the primitive culture and values to a modern culture. The indigenous way of life is not bad, but it is incompatible with sustaining the existing population. A different mindset is required.

quote:

---

Some people advocate ending the involvement of the corporations which are “exploiting” the poor countries. I cannot see how further reducing their income and access to markets will help those nations.

---

quote:

---

The rather depressing answer is the low average intelligence of the population causes many of Africa's problems.

---

Aha. The little dark chappies aren't as clever as us civilised white people, so they can't be expected to know how to run their country. What''s really depressing is that racist supremicist attitudes like this are alive and well in the twenty-first century.

I think we now know exactly how much credence we can attach to your posts. What next, I wonder?
 

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Posted by MatrixUK (# 3452) on :
 
Eleighteen - sod off and troll somewhere else
 

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Posted by duchess [green] (# 2764) on :
 
Hmmm, just because somebody doesn't know about something or how to do something does not make him/her less intelligent.


 

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Posted by chukovsky (# 116) on :
 
Somebody's been reading The Bell Curve. West African children don't do as well as American children on American intelligence tests. Gee - I wonder why - could it be because they have never sat an American style test before? Because their school system is rubbish? Nah, must be because they haven't the native wit and intelligence needed to survive in their environment.

I'm willing to bet a large bar of chocolate there isn't anyone else on the ship who has ever developed cognitive tests for use in Africa (and if there is, I'll give you the chocolate as a gesture of solidarity).
 

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Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :
 
The first three commandments:

1. Don't be a jerk
2. Engage brain before posting your message
3. Attack the issue, not the person

The examples mentioned in the explanation of commandment 3 include
"comment which stereotypes or attacks people on the basis of their race, nationality, age, gender, religious belief or sexual preference".

Eleighteen, don't you want to rethink your post in view of the above?

Maybe on second thoughts Matrix put it more succinctly than me.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I tell you what: let's set down eleighteen and a bushman in the Kalahari desert, and see who's smart enough to still be alive at the end of the week.
 

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Posted by OgtheDim (# 3200) on :
 
IMHO, as individuals, our response to poverty anywhere could be to:

• Pray
• Think
• Pray Again
• Listen
• Investigate
• Think
• Pray
• Have Patience
• Repeat Ad Nauseum

Simplistic or quick answers (see above posted troll as example) never are successful, whether they are from the liberal or conservative view.

 

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Posted by chukovsky (# 116) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
I tell you what: let's set down eleighteen and a bushman in the Kalahari desert, and see who's smart enough to still be alive at the end of the week.

---

Excellent idea. Bags I to observe from an airconditioned Land Cruiser with a berth in a tented luxury desert camp.
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 
chukovsky, since you apparently have some first-hand knowledge of Africa, I'd be very interested in hearing your comments on the topic of the OP.

[scot tries to subtly steer the thread back on course]
 

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Posted by Genie (# 3282) on :
 
Og, I think 'do something' needs to fit in your list somewhere. (Perhaps the insertion of a couple more 'prays' and 'thinks' after the 'investigation' but before the 'have patience', ad then slip it in there)

I would imagine we all agree with your thoughts that prayer and comtemplation (see, I knew I chose the right avatar!) must be embedded within everything we do or say. But I think the OP is more in the realms of trying to understand what nature the 'do something' should take. This thread is, in it's own small way, part of the various 'think' processes within your recommendations.
 

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Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
[HOST MODE]
eleighteen, we take a very low view of racist comments here on the Ship. I expect your next post on this thread to be a full and unqualified retraction of your "low average intelligence of the population causes many of Africa's problems" comment.

Alan
Purgatory host
[/HOST MODE]
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
The following is an edited version of my post on the Okay that's it thread.

I want to say some more about diseases and their effect on an economy.

A hundred years ago the economy of the American South was in very bad shape. There were many reasons, but the main one was that too many people were so ill they could not work.

The specific diseases that disabled them were pellagra, which is a deficiency disease, malaria, and hookworm. These last two are caused by parasites.

Ninety years ago, the state of Virginia sent my grandfather to eradicate hookworm in two counties in the extreme western part of the state. He treated all the cases of hookworm he found and explained to people how to avoid infection. Similar eradication efforts were undertaken throughout the South.

Sometime before 1940, the federal government passed a law requiring that cornmeal, which was the Southern dietary staple, have niacin added to it. This wiped out pellagra.

The advent of DDT in the 1940s wiped out malaria.

Finally there was a population healthy enough to work. With the advent of air conditioning people could work hard on extremely hot days. The economy of the South improved greatly.

As far as Africa is concerned, there are many diseases which debilitate people or make them blind. AIDS is a recent problem, of course, but there are older diseases which must be wiped out also.

If people are in poor health, they cannot work.

Moo
 

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Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 
In addition to depending upon a generally discredited notion, eleighteen's point is logically fallacious -- he's asserting two things, the first which is mostly true, the second which is not well supported by research and the conclusion for which (if both were true) would tend to show correlation, but not causation. He says, essentially:

1) These people are poor;
2) these people are not very smart; therefore
3) being not very smart makes people poor.

One may be true, two is doubtful, and there's no way of knowing, even if two were true also, that one causes two, and not two causes one.

It's circular, as well as racist, you see.

You could just as well say (and probably more accurately):
1) These people are poor.
2) These people don't score well on current I.Q. tests.
3) Poverty causes people not to score well on current I.Q. tests.

See?

[ 19. November 2002, 19:35: Message edited by: Laura ]
 

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Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 
The question that follows from Moo's argument is why are the coastal areas of China and parts of India doing so much better than most of Sub-Saharan Africa. The answer does appear to be that the widespead looting of government treasuries over the years has removed the entire available surplus to make the advances in infrastructure that is necessary for the continent to progress. Part of what the IMF is trying to achieve is to get that under control, but in practice it is probably impossible; the recent example of Zimbabwe is merely a nore dramatic example of the outworking of dictatorships there (V.S. Naipaul's Bend in the River is a deeply depressing description of what happened after independence in one country).

It is important to understand that having lots of children is a rational response to the circumstances; each child gives a chance of being supported into old age - in a country where savings and pensions are liable to be destroyed by government action, this is the only way to have a reasonable chance of such support. A fall in the birth rate will only occur therefore in Africa either when economic circumstances are radically improved (as has been the experience of South Korea) or when the government becomes powerful enough to enforce one child families) as in China - but at least there they also accepted responsibility for you in your old age.

Attacking the EU and USA's tarrifs against food imports is a worthwhile aim - but since the French have a majority lined up in the EU to prevent this, and the American democratic system has led to their tarrifs, there seems little chance of significant progress there.
 

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Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on :
 
I suggest a different answer to the thread title...

Nothing causes poverty.

That is, poverty is the state that exists normally (i.e. without intervention) in the world. However, some parts of the world have found ways to get themselves out of it.

If you define "poverty", I would imagine that you would see societies that existed in that same state many centuries ago.

Any comments?
 

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Posted by OgtheDim (# 3200) on :
 
Genie....sorry...I was being a little simplistic vis-a-vis prayer. As a, for want of a better word, social worker, I am doing something about poverty in my city. This gives me a slightly different perspective on efforts to deal with poverty. From my experience, the best things that work to remit poverty are usually well thought out.

I have seen many a worthy initiative flame out for lack of forsesight and lasting energy and commitment.

Hate to say it...but there are no easy answers to what to do personally about poverty. So...listening (not just to answers to prayer) and prayer and thinking are unfortunate requirements.


 

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Posted by mattprov (# 1416) on :
 
I spent five months in West Africa earlier this year and heard this story:

A group of aid workers went into a remote African village to do a talk on Malaria Prevention. To overcome some of the language barriers they showed a picture of a Mosquito on an Overhead Projector which of course enlarges the image so that everyone in the room can see it.

A week later the aid workers went back to the village to see if the villagers had listened to what had been said and had changed their ways.

When they realised nothing had changed, they asked one of the villagers why not? The response they got was 'The Mosquitos you showed us were massive (having been enlarged on the projector), ours are much smaller (indicating a real mosquito's size) and so what you said doesn't matter.'

If you read eleighteen's post the way it may well have been intended (intelligence is often a word used as a subsitute for education and amount of knowledge rather than its correct term) then it is perfectly fair to say that one of the major problems the poorer parts of the world (and pleased don't just talk about Africa - Asia is in many ways worse off) face is a lack of education. You will never solve any of the problems discussed here if you don't include education somewhere along the line.

And btw how many of us here have actually been to the third or even the second world so that we actually have some backing behind our views?
 

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Posted by OgtheDim (# 3200) on :
 
Ummmm....matprov...as a social service provider I can say quite categorically, if the user doesn't "get" the message because of a decision by the service provider, then it is up to the service provider to change their tactics and content; it isNOT the fault of the persons being lectured at.

The example of the mosquito is a problem lying with the agency NOT the people. The agency did not explain but assumed something.

Never ever assume anything. The example is not an education matter but a matter of not thinking through things from the perspective of the person supposedly being helped.

I don't mean to be harsh. I realise you were trying to point towards general education as a problem in the 3rd world. Yep....education makes a difference as far as poverty is concerned. But...an agency who did not perceive the potential for this sort of misunderstanding and miscommunication is also not educated enough.


 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
I lived in West Africa for several years in the 1970s and have returned frequently on visits, mostly to Ghana and Togo. I have also traveled widely in the region, including Congo and South Africa, as well as the other West African countries.

I majored in economic development at Penn, so I have always been interested in that aspect of growth in Africa.

My own assessment of developments over the past thirty years is simply that it will take a while for Africa to integrate the systems and values that make capitalism and western-style government work well.

The key to that integration, in my opinion, is Christianity. Christianity brings with it a number of traits that, over time, will tend to remove many of the obstacles to economic development.

The key barriers to development in third world countries, as I understand them, are more complex than simply the lack of infrastructure and capital. Christianity, with its emphasis on useful activity, on service for its own sake, on leadership as service, its high concept of marriage, and its rejection of bribery, theft, patronage, animism, superstition, and revenge, goes directly to the heart of many of the unproductive cultural traditions that hinder African countries.

The beauty of this kind of cultural solution to Africa's woes is that it will be the result of an internal growth process, and not something that will be imposed from outside. Perhaps Christianity is a western import, but its true origin is closer to Africa than it is to Europe.

The down-side of this solution, of course, is that it is not a quick fix. Certainly many foreign and governmentally sponsored programs are vital to keep things going until the longer run solutions get going.

Fortunately Africa is madly Christianizing itself, as if in conscious awareness of the true solution to its situation.

But before anyone goes feeling too sorry for people in Africa, my experience is that people there are more content with their situation than richer people often are. Statistics always make things sound worse than they are. It is certainly not much fun to have your children die of terrible diseases, and I'm not diminishing the horror of that. I've seen my share of it. But the sad spiritual and social situations that people experience in the west - such as loneliness, failed relationships, lack of faith, and materialism - are not so much better.

So the answer to poverty and disease in Africa is....the Ship of Fools!
 

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Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 
Don't get me started on the problems of communicating public health abroad -- it's bad enough here. Back in the eighties I worked at a women's health center, dispensing contraceptive information by phone and in person. We demonstrated use of contraceptive foam (which is very effective birth control combination with condoms) by putting it in our hands, because you obviously can't actually show how it's actually done, though we were careful to explain that you had to use it, um, internally for it to be useful. We had at least one person later call and say that she had done as told, but that she hadn't been able to keep the foam in her hand the whole time she had sex. Other questions we got involved people who were dissolving oral contraceptives ... not orally ... and couples where they were both taking the pills she was prescribed, and were dismayed that the pack had run out after two weeks.

These were supposedly educated Americans for the most part, so I can only imagine how difficult it is when you add culture and language barriers to the mix.
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mattprov:
'The Mosquitos you showed us were massive.'

---

Great story, Matt - but it surely sounds apocryphal to me.

I lived in a tiny village in a remote area of Togo, without running water or electricity, doing development work. But even there pictures were occasionally projected on walls (using a generator) for entertainment. I can't imagine people really thinking that mosquitos were four feet across.

Is it really true that contraceptive foam works if you only apply it to your hands?
 

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Posted by Eanswyth (# 3363) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
Is it really true that contraceptive foam works if you only apply it to your hands?

---

I guess it would depend on what you do with your hands.
 

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Posted by DaveC (# 155) on :
 
Freddy, does this mean that as the West becomes less Christian, we will see an increase in the number of people living in poverty in the US and in Europe?

On second thoughts, you don't need to answer that question - I can see it happening around me.
 

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Posted by Wm Duncan (# 3021) on :
 
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1996) offers the idea that a large part of the economic differences among different societies has to do with geographical accident:

• which regions had domesticable animals, providing the possibility of a high-protein diet (sub-Saharan Africa doesn't, particularly);
• which places had folks living in close contact with domestic animals, thus developing immunities to the diseases the animals carry: smallpox is the main example. European entry into the Americas was an invasion partly by armies, and partly by disease. (Pizarro's conquest of the Incas, for example, was just after the epidemic had decimated that empire.)
• which places had grain plants lending themselves to the development of farming and a high-calorie diet (New Guinea, for example, does not);
• which land masses have east-west axes, lending themselves to the spread of agriculture along lines of longitude (Eurasia), since migrations in the more north-south continents (South America, Africa) would mean taking crops through a more radical variety of climates.
• some of these factors also lent themselves to the development of burocratic civilizations (Diamond's word: "kleptocracies") based on the control of systems of growing & distributing food.

quote:

---

Originally posted by OgtheDim:
Ummmm....matprov...as a social service provider I can say quite categorically, if the user doesn't "get" the message because of a decision by the service provider, then it is up to the service provider to change their tactics and content; it isNOT the fault of the persons being lectured at.

Never ever assume anything. The example is not an education matter but a matter of not thinking through things from the perspective of the person supposedly being helped.

I don't mean to be harsh. I realise you were trying to point towards general education as a problem in the 3rd world. Yep....education makes a difference as far as poverty is concerned. But...an agency who did not perceive the potential for this sort of misunderstanding and miscommunication is also not educated enough.

---

quote:

---

All I did was show how the level of intelligence (taken as meaning amount of knowledge known)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mattprov:
And btw how many of us here have actually been to the third or even the second world so that we actually have some backing behind our views?

---

I once lived in Kenya for 4 school terms, working as a teacher in a small village school.

Nobody I met there would have reacted the way the people in your rather dubious 3rd-hand story did. They knew about malaria, they knew what caused it, and they were not at all stupid by anyone's standards.

Our church in south London is about half African, (half the rest are black West Indians), and I meet and talk to Africans every day, in the area where I live and at work (in an adult education college with students and staff from all over the world. So I'm reasonably well informed about the situation.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
er, and I meant to say that in my opinion people in Africa are as capable as the rest of us of developing rich economies, if left alone to do it.

I'd guess that the best recipe for economic development would be peace, education, and free trade. Hardly a startling combination.

The main problems are war, war causes famine, war destroys families, war encourages disease, war lets people get to the top by killing rather than by working. Not just war between countries but war by governments against their own people. A tyranny - or a colonial government not accepted by the people - is an act of war in itself. So peace implies democracy (or at any rate some form of government by consent - as most African nation states were invented by colonial powers and have utterly artificial boundaries, the only way to build that consent is, in my opinion, democracy)

How we stop wars and build democracy is left as an excercise for the reader

It would be nice to think that Christianity would fix the problem - after all Christians are supposed to be in favour of peace and education.

But if we look at the mess made in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries by countries with a Christian tradition, it isn't very encouraging.

Actually, we scored rather well on the education front, but we didn't manage peace.
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But if we look at the mess made in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries by countries with a Christian tradition, it isn't very encouraging.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
[HOST MODE]
eleighteen, we take a very low view of racist comments here on the Ship. I expect your next post on this thread to be a full and unqualified retraction of your "low average intelligence of the population causes many of Africa's problems" comment.

Alan
Purgatory host
[/HOST MODE]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Garden Hermit:
Poverty is not a problem it is fact the solution to the world's problems.

[Snip...]

Poverty is what the materialistic West has in abundance.

---

I don't want to misunderstand you GH, but are you really arguing that poverty is a quality of life issue, while thousands in the third world are struggling not for quality of life, but just for life itself??!?
 

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Posted by OgtheDim (# 3200) on :
 
Mattprov...

Education does not make you wise. The agency in your story was certainly educated. But...it was not wise. And.. intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing.

Eleighteen...

You may be intelligent...but you are not wise. Nor are you being helpful. You are being...trollish. Go away.
Stronger comments could be made, but this is not hell.
 

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Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 

quote:

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If you read around the subject beware that "race and IQ" can lead one down all sorts of murky paths, but that should not obscure one in looking for the truth.

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quote:

---

Bearing "lower intelligence" is very important if you want to improve the lot of your average African.

---

quote:

---

Africans are prone to impulsive and superstious behaviour..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
So peace implies democracy (or at any rate some form of government by consent - as most African nation states were invented by colonial powers and have utterly artificial boundaries, the only way to build that consent is, in my opinion, democracy)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:
Is there a role for a BBC African service (and lots of cheap solar-powered radios) ?

PS: Go easy on eleighteen, chaps. Saying "intelligence" when he/she meant to say "education" was a mistake, but we all make those, and it's no reason to be unwelcoming.

---

BBC African service exists, and is great. Most people have access to a radio.

Maybe it is easy to confuse "education" with "intelligence"... but saying that Africans are naturally superstitious?

OK I can't even be bothered to answer that.

Jared Diamond - very long and repetitive book which I struggled through because I was in Tanzania with little else to read. Moo slightly oversimplifies because there are places with the same climate and propensity to disease that have managed to develop.

It may however be part of the problem - if you are above a certain level of disease you may not be able to develop enough to get below that level. Likewise if you have a drastic epidemic (like AIDS) it may hinder your development even more.

Climate - also has a slight part to play, as within any one country this effect can be seen - warmer parts of most countries that have variable climate do have lower productivity rates - especially when you are looking at traditional labour (i.e. less difference in the US or Australia because a higher proportion of labour is done inside).

Birth rate - probably is more a result than a cause.

Education - sure, need more education, this would help greatly. But a poor country can't afford to educate everyone properly.

Corruption - also a problem and can make a country less well developed than it should be - but it's easy to blame this.

How about unjust trade policies? Debt? Forcing countries to make the parents pay for education and the sick people to pay for healthcare?

It's easy to say things must change in developing countries for them to develop. Much harder to say things must change here.

Primitive values? Christianity will change everything? The version of Christianity currently preached in Africa tends to include yes, working harder for your family - and therefore looking out only for your family. If you have this attitude you will never see anything wrong with corruption if it benefits your family.

As an illustration, a friend was trying to work with church women's groups in the small town I was living in, and in surrounding villages, to get a fair price overseas for their crafts. So she was buying crafts that were supposed to be made by the women's groups and selling them in Germany. The village women's groups produced some lovely crafts themselves.

The town women's group bought at slave labour costs the same crafts from local, non-church women and passed them off as their own. They were the ones who had been in the church longer and had definitely taken on board the message of "work hard for yourselves and your family and you will prosper".

The gospel can only work to help development if it is REALLY the gospel i.e. those who are slightly better off see that the good news is for those poorer than them - and everyone sees that there is no good news for one person if there is not good news for everyone.
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by eleighteen:
African Anglican bishops know this, and this is why they prefer the gospel in a straightforward, evangelic stlye. e.g. Sexual behaviour is a matter of life and death in Africa.. ..Africans are prone to impulsive and superstious behaviour.. hence a very straightforward "sex only in marriage" teaching is neccesarry. Hence the showdowns with western bishops at Lambeth over homosexuality.

---

Wow!

Africans are so slow that they actually believe the quaint simplistic sayings of those old books.

Fortunately we western sophisticates are well beyond that childish approach to theology.

O happy are we!

It is no wonder that Christianity is struggling in Europe, if this is the way we define intelligence.
 

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Posted by chukovsky (# 116) on :
 
Oh and by the way, Garden Hermit, poverty is not any of the things you mention and you should be ashamed of yourself for even saying that.

Poverty is when your child dies because you can't afford food, or medicine, or the fare to hospital.

Poverty is when you have to choose which child to send to school this year.

Poverty is when you have to sell your daughter in order for the rest of the family to eat.

So go and experience some of those things and tell us just how poor we are in the West.
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 
chukovsky, you list all of the usual suspects and then dismiss them all as being only minor problems! So what is the problem? More importantly, what will it take to fix things?
 

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Posted by Garden Hermit (# 109) on :
 
Poverty is corruption when a dictator steals your food.

Poverty is a leader who spends money on arms or cars.

Poverty is being kicked out of your Community because you have Leprosy.

Poverty is a child abandoned because they have learning difficulties or Aids.

But the worst Poverty of all is when you have no spirit.

I'm not convinced that lack of Education is Poverty.

My daughter has learnt more about Life working at the checkout in a HyperMarket than she ever learnt at school.

Obviously I'm keen to help abroad when I can.

And you can probably guess that I support the Leprosy Mission' work throughout the World and Children's Orphanages and Hospices in Russia and Romania.

Pax et Bonum
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Russ:
Neither letting the Africans lead totally traditional lives on reservations, nor totally westernizing them and giving them all our problems

---

quote:

---

But it may be that the right mixture will have to be developed in Africa, by Africans, rather than in some Western university.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
but my impression is that high efficiency, commercial-style farming is necessary just to feed the current population. It cannot be done by independent, small-scale farmers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by eleighteen:
In as much as I have posted a summary of current academic opinion, I will not retract.

---

quote:

---

Africans are prone to impulsive and superstious behaviour

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quote:

---

the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST)is the largest social movement in Latin America and one of the most successful grassroots movements in the world. Hundreds of thousands of landless peasants have taken onto themselves the task of land reform in a country where less than 3% of the population owns two-thirds of the arable land.

While 60% of the farmland lies idle, 25 million peasants struggle to survive by working in temporary agricultural jobs. In 1985, with the support of the Catholic Church, hundreds of landless rural Brazilians took over an unused plantation in the south of the country and successfully established a cooperative. They gained title to the land in 1987. Today more than 250,000 families have won land titles to 15 million acres after MST land takeovers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Garden Hermit:
But the worst Poverty of all is when you have no spirit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
But ken, I'm not talking about profit. I'm talking about feeding the existing population. The small farmers can't do it. I fear that Zimbabwe is about to provide a stunningly clear example of the difference in productivity between commercial and independent farming.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Astro:
However in much of Africa it can only be flown in at great cost, and thus the society becomes much more at the mercy of variations in food production caused by disese, climate etc.

Transport is better in much of Asia and thus in many areas it is easier to ship in food.

---

quote:

---

ken wrote:
I don't think it is a matter of "letting" Africans do anything. They will anyway. People want industrial development, new technology, jobs, and all the rest of it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by clare:
eleighteen . . . You are permanently banned.

---

 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I bought an old trainee teacher's notebook at an antique fair for historical interest - it was dated 1837. It included the information (which was accepted as fact in those days) that African brain sizes were smaller than British children and therefore they were incapable of learning as well. I understand why people thought like that in those days but I am staggered to find such opinions being expressed on an e-bulletin board in the 21st century!
 

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Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
for anyone who might fall prey to such hogswallop, i recomend "the mismeasure of man" by stephen j gould as antidote.
 

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Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 

quote:

---

We are also told that wealthy Western countries exploit local people by paying low wages that mean workers can ill-afford medicines and have no hope of educating their children.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Since then South Korea has all but joined the 1st world, and Ghana has become a mess.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot.

Bonzo, I understand what you are saying, but I am not sure that the facts support you. Can you point out some examples of US or UK society being supported on the backs of the African poor? (A stronger case can be made with regard to the Asian or Indian poor, but I am trying to focus on Africa because it seems to me to be the most intractable.) Are you saying that open immigration would improve the plight of the poor nations?

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quote:

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Originally posted by SpO-On-n-ng:
This page shows that Nestle's protestations of clean hands may not be as persuasive as they appear at first sight (click on baby food companies then on Nestle to get the details).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bonzo:
Well I did point out the example of chocolate. But if you need a few more there are bananas, coffee, tea and oil. African workers produce all of these.

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quote:

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The whole premise of capitalism is an open unrestricted market where people can sell their work to the highest bidder. Capitalism turns into exploitation where people are not allowed to do this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

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Originally posted by Bonzo:
Well I did point out the example of chocolate. But if you need a few more there are bananas, coffee, tea and oil. African workers produce all of these.

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I apologize for being unclear. I didn't mean more examples of crops which are produced in Africa and processed elsewhere. What I really wanted to know is how this constitutes exploitation. If there is a large supply of cocoa, then the price will be relatively low.

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quote:

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Originally posted by chukovsky:
But the labourer still deserves a fair wage. This is clear in the Bible. How can a wage that doesn't allow the labourer to feed their family be biblically justified?

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quote:

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On this point, if market forces mean that consumers in the West benefit where producers in the developing world cannot make a living wage, it is abundantly clear that market forces are evil. Decide between them and God's will. Of course this is *%&$@@ exploitation!

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quote:

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But if a product is of so little intrinsic value that it is not worth a "fair wage" then how can paying one be economically justified? If I want to support my family by hand-crafting butter churns, does that mean that I am owed a living wage for doing it even if there is no market for butter churns? Of course not.

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If I buy hand crafted butter churns, it's only fair that I should pay a price that compensates for the work put in to create those butter churns.

If there are hundreds of people producing butter churns and not enough people to buy them, according to market forces the price will go down to rock bottom. It will no longer be possible to earn a living from producing them. So if I lived in America I'd go and get another job. If I couldn't find one then I'd move to another town. If I couldn't get a job anywhere I'd have benefits to rely on. So the price of my work has a minimum value (ie what I could earn elsewhere).

These options are not available to most people in Africa. So they continue to produce their crops at the lowest possible price, because they have no alternative.

That's why it's important for us to pay a better than market force price for those things we do buy from Africa, one which properly compensates for the work put in. Otherwise it's exploitation.

I'm not suggesting that it's encubent on the buyer to buy all the hand crafted butter churns produced, just to pay a living wage for those we do buy.
 

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Posted by Hull Hound (# 2140) on :
 
Scot, you truly are a free market idealist (despite your Socialist outburst earlier ). I could honestly live with that state of affairs because it would be better than the pseudo free market that is weighted so heavily in favour of the rich countries since they have the influence to set the rules and spin the lies.

However as Bonzo mentioned earlier it often sticks in the craw to allow free flow of people in the same way as capital. I don’t know what you think about this Scot but are you also into free market anarchism? It is the next logical step.
 

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Posted by Hull Hound (# 2140) on :
 
Scot, after a full 2 minute reflection, I can't say that the problem with Africa is capitalism. I honestly do not know enough about the interactions to say. Capitalism may be the solution, the only solution. I just do not know.
 

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Posted by chukovsky (# 116) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
If you are saying that the laborer is being paid at a rate below the value of their work, then something other than the free market is at work.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bonzo:

quote:

---

But if a product is of so little intrinsic value that it is not worth a "fair wage" then how can paying one be economically justified? If I want to support my family by hand-crafting butter churns, does that mean that I am owed a living wage for doing it even if there is no market for butter churns? Of course not.

---

If I buy hand crafted butter churns, it's only fair that I should pay a price that compensates for the work put in to create those butter churns.

If there are hundreds of people producing butter churns and not enough people to buy them, according to market forces the price will go down to rock bottom. It will no longer be possible to earn a living from producing them. So if I lived in America I'd go and get another job. If I couldn't find one then I'd move to another town. If I couldn't get a job anywhere I'd have benefits to rely on. So the price of my work has a minimum value (ie what I could earn elsewhere).

These options are not available to most people in Africa. So they continue to produce their crops at the lowest possible price, because they have no alternative.

That's why it's important for us to pay a better than market force price for those things we do buy from Africa, one which properly compensates for the work put in. Otherwise it's exploitation.

I'm not suggesting that it's encubent on the buyer to buy all the hand crafted butter churns produced, just to pay a living wage for those we do buy.

---

quote:

---

If I buy hand crafted butter churns, it's only fair that I should pay a price that compensates for the work put in to create those butter churns.

---

quote:

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That's why it's important for us to pay a better than market force price for those things we do buy from Africa, one which properly compensates for the work put in. Otherwise it's exploitation.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by chukovsky:

quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:
If you are saying that the laborer is being paid at a rate below the value of their work, then something other than the free market is at work.

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<snip> Since when did we decide that the true value of someone (or their labour) is what people are willing to pay for them?

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quote:

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Firstly, where in any moral literature is this duty of the buyer propounded? The biblical verse, "The workman is worthy of his hire" has nothing to do with the buyer making sure the workman is paid well or not.

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quote:

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Originally posted by kenwritez:

quote:

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Originally posted by chukovsky:

quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:
If you are saying that the laborer is being paid at a rate below the value of their work, then something other than the free market is at work.

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<snip> Since when did we decide that the true value of someone (or their labour) is what people are willing to pay for them?

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Umm, actually you've just defined the free market pretty well. Your labor is worth EXACTLY, to the penny, what an employer is willing to pay you for it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by kenwritez:
I saw a Shipmate's sig, "Capitalism is a crime." If that's so, then capitalism's opposite, socialism, is stupidity. It completely ignores human nature. Frankly, I'd rather be a criminal than an idiot.)

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quote:

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Most people who argue against free-market systems know intellectually that in earlier eras nearly everyone was desperately poor, but respond as if that were not so. I think it stems (oddly), from being well-read. What we know of the past is given to us from the pens of the fortunate few, who seemed to live decent lives with sufficient food and warmth. Unwittingly, we picture past eras populated with similar folk.

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quote:

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You will note that I said the true value. Not the monetary value. Do you really believe that the true value of a person is what someone is willing to pay for their labour? If so, I strongly suggest you reread your gospels.

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quote:

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Originally posted by logician:
I don't think capitalism is based on greed or selfishness at all.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:
quote from chukovsky

quote:

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You will note that I said the true value. Not the monetary value. Do you really believe that the true value of a person is what someone is willing to pay for their labour? If so, I strongly suggest you reread your gospels.

---

I think you are the only person posting on this thread who has equated the value of a person and the value of that person's labor.

You are right that this idea is completely contrary to the gospels.

My question is, who besides you has said it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:
My best guess, based on this thread and the information on the Christian Aid website is that solid first steps toward feeding people might include shifting a large percentage of African agriculture from cash crops to food crops, ending US and EU agricultural subsidies and relaxing US and EU tariffs. However, none of this will do anything about the corrupt African governments or the lack of knowledge with regard to basic sanitation and health issues. Thus, violence, crime, AIDS, and other communicable diseases are likely to continue unabated, and so will poverty.

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Glad you're reading Christian Aid. I think you'll find that they don't think unfettered markets are the best for people. It's all very well if the market for what you are producing goes up and down very slowly but if you have a family farm you cannot change your business at the whim of the market every five minutes. You can only have justice and a free market if the market pays the actual cost of what it is buying.

If people have more money they will be able to educate their children more. Also, better educated and richer women have much more confidence and are more likely to make their own decisions in sexual matters and less likely to rely on any man they can get for money, and to let him be violent towards her. Powerful women also tend not to tolerate crime and violence towards others.

When people can make a living wage on their family farm men will not go away for months at a time to work in the cities, leaving poorly-fed children* and female family members in the village, and will also be less likely to think "gosh, I can't survive without a woman and I'm here in the city with cash in my pocket, what shall I do?"

When people have more money, they will be able to afford to take their children to the doctor. Their children will not die of easily preventable diseases, and when they are more educated they will know what to do themselves too. Then they won't plan to have lots of children to make sure some can look after them in their old age.

Also, when countries have more money they won't have to charge people for education and health and the education and health will get better for that reason too.

Likewise, an educated electorate will not stand for corrupt government (well, OK, not so much ), and will not be fooled by things like "everyone who is for the ruling party, register to vote today... everyone else, we'll let you know"; they will have more knowledge about how to get things done in officaldom and will not have the wool pulled over their eyes by clerks hungry for a bribe; and if the country is richer they will pay more taxes and the clerks will get paid properly anyway.

*One of our research projects found the most poorly nourished children were those who were living with only a female relative, it was worse if the relative was a grandmother, aunt, or stepmother than if it was their real mother. Usually this happens because the father has gone to the city to seek work.
 

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Posted by kenwritez (# 3238) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by linzc:

quote:

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Originally posted by kenwritez:
I saw a Shipmate's sig, "Capitalism is a crime." If that's so, then capitalism's opposite, socialism, is stupidity. It completely ignores human nature. Frankly, I'd rather be a criminal than an idiot.)

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I presume that you mean that socialism is stupidity because it ignores the fact that human nature is selfish, greedy, self-serving etc. So you propose that the solution worthy of Christians is to build a system based on selfishness, greed and self-serving? Great theology! (Not.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by chukovsky:

quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:
quote from chukovsky

quote:

---

You will note that I said the true value. Not the monetary value. Do you really believe that the true value of a person is what someone is willing to pay for their labour? If so, I strongly suggest you reread your gospels.

---

I think you are the only person posting on this thread who has equated the value of a person and the value of that person's labor.

You are right that this idea is completely contrary to the gospels.

My question is, who besides you has said it?

---

This is what the current systems says every time it fails to pay someone what their labour is really worth, but only what another - fallible, and greedy - human being thinks it is worth.

All those who say "but a person's labour IS REALLY worth what the market is prepared to pay them" (e.g. Scot, kenwritez) are saying precisely the above.

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quote:

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This is what the current systems says every time it fails to pay someone what their labour is really worth, but only what another - fallible, and greedy - human being thinks it is worth.

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is passionate, and I respect that, but it is also wrong-headed. However, I wonder if you've really thought this through? You're equating a person's worth as human being to God and to other humans as the worth of their labor, and this is absolutely incorrect. By your logic, even though you did not intend this outcome, if we apply it absolutely, the worth of handicapped people is the same as what they might be paid for their labor. Since employers will not pay them to do jobs they cannot do, therefore they have no worth.

My worth as computer support technician is that which my employer decides. My worth as human being is what God decides.

A different employer may value me more; if so, I can change employers. But who determines TRUE worth? You? Me? We can't -- according to you, we're "fallible, and greedy," remember? If we get together in committee, we're still fallible and greedy, there's just more of us.

By your own logic, then, no one, absolutely no one, can be paid what they're "truly" worth because only God make can make that judgment, and He's not down here handing out paychecks. (He's certainly absent from Nanny Ogg's payroll system in the TICTH Hell thread! )

Intrinsic worth is not the same or even related to the worth of one's labor. Making those two connect is like saying our identity as a son or daughter of God is related to what name we were given at birth.
 

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Posted by kenwritez (# 3238) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by linzc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by logician:
I don't think capitalism is based on greed or selfishness at all.

---

Perhaps you are correct. I will think about and respond to your post at length later. For the moment, suffice it to say that I was not arguing this in isolation. Rather I was responding to kenwritez' suggestion that socialism was flawed inasmuch as it ignored human nature, and by implication that capitalism did not.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot

To continue the butter churn analogy, imagine that you are buying my churns at a price which provides me a living wage. Over time, more and more people decide that they don’t really need a butter churn until, finally, you are the only one buying them. You are now providing my entire living wage. Eventually you say “The hell with this!” and get your butter at the market, instead. Now I have no income. I would have been better off if, instead of paying me an inflated wage, you had helped me expand my market, or switch to building refrigerators, or start a market. Charity is good, but charity in the disguise of sound economics is an unsustainable solution.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Bonzo:
Scot, I'm sure we would find plenty to disagree on politically speaking! But I believe you when you say you have an honest desire for the best outcome for the poor, and on that we agree wholeheartedly.

---

quote:

---

I agree entirely that we should help to broaden African markets, but we can do this in addition to paying a fair price for goods. It's no good encouraging africans to switch to producing something else if they can't sell that for a fair price either.

---

quote:

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The poorer a person is, the more vulnerable they become to exploitation, by the rich or by their own corrupt governments.

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quote:

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Democracy can only really work where a population has the time and resources to become educated or even to take an interest in the issues. If you have to work for 16 hours a day you have little time left for political activism.

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quote:

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Capitalism can only really work where there is an open market and where there is the safety net of benefit to allow people to switch jobs or re-train without the fear of starvation. Also essential to the success of capitalism is a good education system and good uncorrupt government.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by chukovsky
Glad you're reading Christian Aid. I think you'll find that they don't think unfettered markets are the best for people.

---

quote:

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So are you saying that if we just reform trade so that the African farmers have a free but somewhat protected market, the rest will sort itself out? I am skeptical, but I would like to think you are right.
scot

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quote:

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On the other hand, if the culture is such that the people refuse to take an interest (in their government), I'm not sure how the matter can be improved.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
However, none of this will do anything about the corrupt African governments or the lack of knowledge with regard to basic sanitation and health issues. Thus, violence, crime, AIDS, and other communicable diseases are likely to continue unabated, and so will poverty.

---

Not quite unabated.

It does seem as though progress is slow in many third world countries, and that they appear to be trapped in vicious cycles. But if you have visited Africa regularly over the past twenty-five years, as I have, you would see amazing changes taking place.

While good and bad governments come and go, there is a steady increase in access to means of communication, transportation, education, and materials. There is a remarkable awareness of world events, and large numbers, for example, of Ghanaians, watch CNN, and other sources of information, daily.

Yesterday, I met with a group of six American college students who had returned on Thursday from a semester project in Ghana. They were amazed that most of the things that they normally bought here in the USA were available in Accra. Among other projects, they purchased and installed a solar-powered pump for a school on the remote Kwahu Plateau, using materials that were all available in Ghana. This would have been impossible only a few years ago.

My point is simply that things change in remarkable ways over time. There are often setbacks and reverses due to events such as wars and revolutions - but the overall direction is towards progress.

The irreversible world-wide trend is towards a shrinking of the globe, the rapid communication of technology, and the gradual communication of culture. Barring some kind of world holocaust, it seems inevitable that whatever is possible in one part of the world will soon be possible in others.

The real question, to my mind, is not whether poverty and disease will be reduced, but whether the price of that reduction will be the negative social characteristics that are common in western countries - isolation, familial instability, materialism, substance abuse, and other conditions that make life hard here, and in many ways more pleasant in Africa.
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gracia:
[QUOTE]What makes you skeptical, Scot? Is it related to this other statement of yours?

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quote:

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I don't know any cultures like that - do you? Which cultures are they? [/QB]

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quote:

---

You are correct that an open market and reasonably honest government are essential to the success of capitalism. However, the safety net and educational system are extras. As evidence I offer the United States, the world's current leader in (sort of) free market capitalism. This nation experienced its formative years and initial growth with little in the way of standardized education or broad social programs. I'm not arguing against those things, only saying that they are not fundamental to a successful economy.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

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Originally posted by Bonzo:
Scot, I'm sure we would find plenty to disagree on politically speaking! But I believe you when you say you have an honest desire for the best outcome for the poor, and on that we agree wholeheartedly.

---

Thank you for that, Bonzo. The recognition of mutual goodwill is something is it too often missing from these discussions.

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Here here! Scot have you been praying again? There’s a kind of mellow insistence about your posts, very effective.
 

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Posted by Paulo (# 165) on :
 
I'm sorry if this seems rushed, or if I touch on past arguments- I'm tired and could only quickly read through the arguments already posted. But that wont stop me...

How to make it better, well heres a start:

1. I'm incredibly supprized at the small mention of debt. For every £1 flowing into developing countries as aid £1 flows back in debt service. (Globally not talking of Britain.)

2. Trade not aid should work, but as mentioned trade rules are unfair. For example, europe subsidies its farmers (CAP) but other places are not allowed to through capitalist free market policies. Then when we have excess food we go and sell to Africa cheap (highly simplified) and we all go away with a warm feeling. However, we've just put farmers out of business who can't plant next year.

3. The WTO, world bank etc. are not fair organisations. Bullying is a way of life (as each country gets one vote people use the threat of withdrawal of aid to push through policies that will benefit them). Also who do you think funds them? Independant? no way. Also most poor countries cant afford the required number of delegates to activly take part in meetings, ie multiple meetings happen at once, lots of reading and only 1 delegate.

So how did it get like this? I've written 2000 words on this and I still dont know. Basically lots of reasons including animals, size of land, alphabet structure etc etc

So why as christains should we care? Because God does. Look at any part of the bible and you wont be far away from injustice verses about poor, homeless, opressed etc. However some 'good' ones

James 5v1-5

"Warning to Rich Oppressors

1Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. 2Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter"

Isaiah 58 v6-11
"6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness [1] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail. "

Link to christain social justice page:
SPEAK
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paulo:
So why as christains should we care? Because God does.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by logician:
Freddy, where does the "nations" part come in? I think that is not a ridiculous idea, but it is a leap that people make without having thought it through. It is not obvious to me, at least.

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quote:

---

For example, europe subsidies its farmers (CAP) but other places are not allowed to through capitalist free market policies.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

Is there a system which you think would serve the African poor better than free market capitalism? What is it, and why?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chukovsky:
As I have tried to say, but probably not clearly enough, if the genuine cost of an article were borne by the consumer, including both environmental* and social* costs, then this would be a lot fairer.

---

No, I heard you. I just can't figure out how to translate the idea into a workable concept. How could the "genuine" cost of an article be determined? I am not being difficult for sport (this time ). In my understanding of economics, this concept is not definable - sort of like a square circle.
 

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Posted by Karin 3 (# 3474) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

Karin 3, you make a lot of good points and some I disagree with. Since I am short on time, let me just throw out a few comments. According to their website, Nestle (the company you referred to) stopped promoting their infant formula 20 years ago. // Regarding health care, prevention is far better (and cheaper) than cure. The first steps are education, sanitation, and nutrition. // I am not sure which dictators you are thinking of when you say that some of them care about our opinions. We are consistently unsuccessful in pressuring small dictatorships into just about anything. // Perhaps there is a role for labor unions in some of these areas. I am firmly opposed to them in the US, but I readily admit that they played a valuable role during the industrial revolution.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chukovsky:
As I have tried to say, but probably not clearly enough, if the genuine cost of an article were borne by the consumer, including both environmental* and social* costs, then this would be a lot fairer.

---

No, I heard you. I just can't figure out how to translate the idea into a workable concept. How could the "genuine" cost of an article be determined? I am not being difficult for sport (this time ). In my understanding of economics, this concept is not definable - sort of like a square circle.

---

quote:

---

However, you anthropomorphize capitalism a bit more I believe than is warranted. Morality is the domain of people, not economic philosophies.

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quote:

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That’s why I do find offensive, when persons in a privileged position - rather than focusing on thanking God for their privilege - seem to be thanking themselves , & truly believing that everyone could be so blessed, if they would just…fill in the blanks (work harder, not believe in free rides, etc.).

---

Hmmm,

How about the "privileged" thanking God for their privilege and hard work AND you believing that everyone could be more blessed if they worked harder and didn't believe in free rides.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
quote from chukovsky

quote:

---

kenwritez gave us a long and - he thinks - ridiculous example of a chocolate bar. Maybe he can't be bothered to think about all the people he is employing when he buys a chocolate bar, but anyone that is serious about ending poverty is going to have to do it. There are no short cuts. However, fortunately there are professionals on the case, and we only need to be informed consumers.

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quote:

---

Maybe I am too cynical, but the idea of 'professionals on the case' worries me. They would have tremendous power, which reminds me of the saying, 'power corrupts'. I'm not saying they would all take bribes, but I believe some would because human nature is what it is.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Bonzo:
There are 'professionals on the case' of everything you buy trying to hoodwink you into parting with your cash through marketing and advertising, all of them part of the capitalist system which you uphold. Maybe you are not cynical enough.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gracia:
I would be very happy to contrast my willingness to work hard, as professional nurse & highly successful single mother, against any geologist (a good friend of mine is married to a geologist, so I do know just how “hard” that work is).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bonzo:
The point is that while people keep saying 'it's capitalism, you can't interfere with it' then nothing will be done.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
The highest horses in this debate are the "I deserve my massive wealth because I worked hard" horses.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
quote from chukovsky

quote:

---

kenwritez gave us a long and - he thinks - ridiculous example of a chocolate bar. Maybe he can't be bothered to think about all the people he is employing when he buys a chocolate bar, but anyone that is serious about ending poverty is going to have to do it. There are no short cuts. However, fortunately there are professionals on the case, and we only need to be informed consumers.

---

Maybe I am too cynical, but the idea of 'professionals on the case' worries me. They would have tremendous power, which reminds me of the saying, 'power corrupts'. I'm not saying they would all take bribes, but I believe some would because human nature is what it is.

The bribes would not only be offered by businesses who want their unfair practices ignored. They would also be offered by businesses who want their competitors put out of business, not to mention individuals who have grudges against someone.

I am extremely suspicious of power without accountability, and that's what we're talking about here.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
hatless, much of what you say is true to a point. However, you anthropomorphize capitalism a bit more I believe than is warranted. Morality is the domain of people, not economic philosophies.

Is there a system which you think would serve the African poor better than free market capitalism? What is it, and why?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
It's a statement I've heard often enough. That no-one's said it here is beside the point.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
By the way, when I read the Fair Trade website this morning, my first reaction was that it is a fine example of free markets in action. People are given a clear choice. They will spend their money where their minds and consciences dictate. There is nothing wrong, and nothing anti-free market about that.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
Reinforcing the fact that there is no simple correlation between hard work and wealth is extremely relevant to the discussion. I do not see that it muddies any waters. If we are clear on it, we can move on.

---

quote:

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to MadGeo:
I would be very happy to contrast my willingness to work hard, as professional nurse & highly successful single mother, against any geologist (a good friend of mine is married to a geologist, so I do know just how “hard” that work is).

Also, I would be willing to wager that, were you to go out into the vineyards around here, & match your ability to “work hard” against the Mexican laborers who harvest our food, that you would be fired in about 4 hours (max). Those laborers are so poor they cannot afford the expense of a car, so they bicycle, & team up 6 or more to a vehicle, to get to work.

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quote:

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The highest horses in this debate are the "I deserve my massive wealth because I worked hard" horses. You don't get massive wealth through hard work - you get through yours and a lot of other people's.

---

Not directed at Karl:

Frankly, the highest horses in this discussion seem to be the people defending the poor against some ethereal privileged class. Gracia didn't even notice how offensive she was to me and the other geologist in the room in her zeal to prove....nothing.

Is it possible, that there is a complex correlation (as opposed to the term simple correlation being used here) between hard work and wealth. Or in other words:

People that are wealthy usually worked hard to get there, but not everyone that works hard is wealthy.

The statement was made: you don't get massive wealth through hard work - you get it through yours and a lot of other people's.

In short, so what?

It's a reciprocal relationship, wealthy people get there by creating jobs. They benefit, other's benefit. Win-win. Those that would fight the rich as some class warfare, fight themselves.

It is not right for rich people (or anyone) to gloat, it is also not right for other people to assume rich people are evil, or even bad.
 

---

Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
Height of horses is clearly subjective.

If it's accepted that the wealthy get that way on both their's and other people's hard work, is it not equitable that the other people get a share in that prosperity?
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Yes but the real question is:

Who gets to decide what's an "equitable share"?

Me, you, Heaven Help us no the Government?????

How would you feel if you came up with an idea, quit your job, scrimped and scraped until you built it into a small business, hired your first employee at great risk, hired more, branched into a second business, survived a recession and had to lay people off at great discomfort to your feelings, lost the second business, started a third, incorporated, hired hundreds of people, and THEN

The government or someone decided you needed to allocate an "equitable share" of your profits, because of course you are a bad guy for being rich......
 

---

Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
What I mean is a bit of protection against rip-off wages and casual firing. I'm not suggesting the government come in and say "right - flog the second home in the Algarve and divide the proceeds between your employees". What I am suggesting is that the successful have a duty of responsibility to those whose hard work has got them where they are.

Actually, I'm quite into the idea of employee shareholders as well. What is seriously inequitable is that I work my arse off so that shareholders (who don't work at all for the company) can make money.
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Karl,

What you seem to be suggesting is that someone in government (I presume) can actually determine what the term "casual firing" means.

Is an employee that is slow, yet can't be demonstrated to be on government paper a "casual fire".

Is an employee that is creating gossip and dissent in an otherwise happy workplace a "casual fire".

How and who gets to decide?

And just out of curiosity how do you define a "rip-off wage"? Many people in low-paying jobs thank God every day that their boss gave them the job so they can eat.

Going back to my example of how a business is built. Let's say that this creative person that has built this small business determines that he/she can make a Widget and build the business into a corporation if the Widget costs $4.00. And let's say he/she determines if a minimum wage employee makes US$5 an hour he/she will make one cent profit per Widget. He/she hires 100 employees to increase the Widget profit and build the business into a corporation so he/she can hire more employees. Then someone decides that the wage of $5 an hour is a "rip-off wage" and bumps it to $5.50 an hour.

The owner of Small Widget Company now has a decision to make. Does he/she raise prices and see if he can still sell Widgets and risk the company, AND/OR doe he/she lay off Widget makers till he can return the company to profitability.

If the owner is lucky, he inherited the house in the Algarve (Have to look that up ) and can sell it to keep his/her employees through the minimum wage hike.

I love the idea of employee ownership, that IMHO is the best reward to those that helped the owner, that money can probably buy. It also motivates the heck outta the employees I would think.

On the other hand, the next best thing is for the employees to make money from the owners of other companies wealth (shareholders)! Sorry Karl
 

---

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Geo:
People that are wealthy usually worked hard to get there,

---

I see now! We are in a discussion about Cloud-Cuckoo Land.

When you get back from somwehere over the rainbow maybe you can take a look at the world as it is.
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Ken,

Care to elaborate?

I assume you think that everyone inherits their money? The statistics disagree (at least in the U.S.). Most rich people here worked hard to get it, and a LOT of them are immigrants.
 

---

Posted by Bonzo (# 2481) on :
 
I know a number of people who are quite rich. I would not say that any of them didn't work hard to get where they are, I would say, however, that they worked no harder than some people I know who are quite poor.

It isn't any use to argue that governments can't make the sort of decisions which intervene to control the excesses of capitalism. Governments already do this. In the UK and the US there are reams of employment law which do just that.

The problem is really not whether they should intervene, but why they don't intervene when the worker is in a foreign country.

If our governments tried to give the same protections to workers in Africa as they do to workers in the UK, a huge amount of poverty would be avoided. The problem is that they don't try.

The governments of countries in Africa are powerless to give such protection to their workforces, because they don't have the resources to do it.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
Taking the world as a whole, and history as a whole, I expect that most rich people got rich by stealing it.

That aside, even in America, people who get rich by working don't get rich by working harder than than other people but by being lucky in working at stuff that just happens to come out right at whatever time & place they find themselves.

And - even in America - people who start off half-way up the greasy pole are more likely to get towards the top than those who start off at the bottom.

And - everywhere, not just in America - it is simply not true that the poor work less hard than others. Mostly they work harder, but get less for it.

(Probably only middle-aged Brits will remember Pete & Dud and "I'd rather be a judge than a miner" )
 

---

Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
well according to the forbes 400 list, of the 10 richest americans, 5 inherited their money. (the children of sam walton) unfortunatly i can't find any way to sort the list by the categories of "self made" as opposed to "inherieted", so i don't know how the rest breaks down, however it is my understanding that a great number are not self made.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 


Actually I wasn't thinking so much of the very richest (who by definition are going to be weird - though of course Bill Gates parents were pretty well off!) as the "rich" or the "wealthy" - a vague term by which I suppose I mean those with enough capital to live more than comfortably for the rest of their lives without working.

Not long ago "millionaire" would have been an acceptable term, but in a time of inflation & low interest rates a dollar millionaire probably isn;t quite rich enough these days.

There are many parts of London where an ordinary house would cost you half a million US dollars - and I mean an ordinary house, the sort of place you would expect a working-class person to live. So just being a millionaire probably doesn't count as rich any more.

I suspect that most large fortunes take more than a generation to accumulate anyway.

NB - statistics of the sort that "3/4 of all millionaires were not born wealthy" (which I just made up) don't really cut it because, of course, more than 3/4 of all people were not born wealthy...

But now we have turned from "what causes poverty?" to "what causes wealth?".
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Geez Ken,
So let me get this straight:

Most wealthy people are lucky thieves.

Right.

Are you originally from East Germany by chance?
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
Darn it:

The I meant to attach to that didn't go.....
 

---

Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
Karl,

Our childhood backgrounds have a big similarity.

quote:

---

When I was a lad, I won a scholarship to an independent school. Therefore I was rubbing noses with mostly wealthy people's offspring. I, however, was the son of a postman.

The attitude there was very much "your father should just work harder, then he'd have as much money as ours."

---

Their attitude should have been, “Wow. You must be incredibly smart and hard-working to get here. I admire you for that; no question you earned it on your own, unlike me. Too bad your father didn’t have the same opportunity.”

That was closer to what I got when I won a scholarship to Cornell University coming from a background where my father was the night janitor at my high school and preacher at the local Holy Roller Pentecostal church. It saddens me that uppity people should question your father’s work ethic based solely on his income.

At the same time, I have become quite comfortable financially via a single-person consulting practice. I did not take on any employees and so did not profit from them. I paid as much in taxes as I saved (about a half million dollars) and for over 10 years tithed very close to 10% of my income (something like a hundred thousand dollars). I gave to other charities as well and served for three years as legal guardian of two troubled teenagers. I went stark raving mad when I put my mother in a mental hospital for the fourth time in her life, finding out that she is perpetually anxious and at time depressive with psychotic features because she is gay and believes herself to be demon possessed. When I was a small child, I thought myself demon possessed because I could not make myself believe in God or speak in tongues.

“Hard work” is not the right word for how I came across what wealth I have. But often I sum it up that way because that’s what it feels like. Beginning at age 12, I worked hard physically on farms for far less than miniumum wage. Later, I worked minimum wage in landscape construction. As a white-collar worker, I thought hard and I tirelessly self-educated. As a businessman I took on risk and lived way below my means, sometimes at the poverty level, in order to save and increase my ability to take on risk. At the same time I often say, “anybody can do it” meaning that I am not some outrageously gifted person who was fortunate to run into nothing but great luck and smooth sailing.

I hope you can see why I think that I deserve every penny of whatever wealth that I have because I earned it through “hard” work. I hope when you are talking about “massive wealth” always coming partly on the backs of employees you are talking about multi-billion dollar conglomerates with thousands of employees and no excuse to mercilessly axe someone to save a few bucks.

Ken,

My 65-year-old landlady in Dubuque Iowa asked me what to do with her $200,000 retirement nest egg in 1981 and I told her to put it in a 5 year US Treasury note at 18% interest. She doubled her money to $400,000. Interest rates started dropping and I told her to buy US Treasury zero coupon bonds until the interest rates fell to 8%. Eight years later, her money doubled twice, to $800,000 and then to $1,600,000. No Chinese slave labor, no screwing employees, no theft, no fraud. All in one generation.
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
JimT,

What do you charge for financial and business counseling anyway?
 

---

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 

quote:

---

If our governments tried to give the same protections to workers in Africa as they do to workers in the UK, a huge amount of poverty would be avoided. The problem is that they don't try.

---

No - the consequence of the imposition of 1st world working standards would be a lot less people employed in African countries. The market value of their labour is not enough to pay for the UK minimum wage, so they would be totally destitute rather than marginally employed. If the GDP per capita of a country is less than the UK minimum wage, this is 100% inevitable. It's cute fantasy economics to believe otherwise.
 

---

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
It's cute fantasy economics to believe otherwise.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

If our governments tried to give the same protections to workers in Africa as they do to workers in the UK, a huge amount of poverty would be avoided. The problem is that they don't try.

---

No - the consequence of the imposition of 1st world working standards would be a lot less people employed in African countries. The market value of their labour is not enough to pay for the UK minimum wage, so they would be totally destitute rather than marginally employed. If the GDP per capita of a country is less than the UK minimum wage, this is 100% inevitable. It's cute fantasy economics to believe otherwise.

---

quote:

---

No - the consequence of the imposition of 1st world working standards would be a lot less people employed in African countries. The market value of their labour is not enough to pay for the UK minimum wage, so they would be totally destitute rather than marginally employed. If the GDP per capita of a country is less than the UK minimum wage, this is 100% inevitable. It's cute fantasy economics to believe otherwise.

---

quote:

---

At the same time I often say, “anybody can do it” meaning that I am not some outrageously gifted person who was fortunate to run into nothing but great luck and smooth sailing.

---

quote:

---

It's only fantasy economics if the West continues to pay the pittance that it does for their produce. Their GDP per capita would rise if the West paid more.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Geez Ken,
So let me get this straight:
Most wealthy people are lucky thieves.
Right.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
Ken,

My 65-year-old landlady in Dubuque Iowa asked me what to do with her $200,000 retirement nest egg in 1981 and I told her to put it in a 5 year US Treasury note at 18% interest. She doubled her money to $400,000. Interest rates started dropping and I told her to buy US Treasury zero coupon bonds until the interest rates fell to 8%. Eight years later, her money doubled twice, to $800,000 and then to $1,600,000. No Chinese slave labor, no screwing employees, no theft, no fraud. All in one generation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
And who is 'the West'?
This can be done voluntarily - by fair trade - which is nice, and won't change things much, and certainly won't pay the equivalent of 1st world minimum wages. It may help a bit, and may be the least disruptive approach apart from direct project aid.

[snip]
The only way people can earn more is when the value of their labour to the employer is greater. This is achieved by their being educated, and the employer being able to invest to be more productive.

---

The West is US. You and me. That includes you.

Fair trade - as I said above - is the only part of the market that is actually growing at the moment. Not a "nice idea", but a reality. And not "more disruptive" than direct aid - direct aid is not sustainable, and does not help people to be self-sufficient in the long run. Most people want to be self-sufficient.

How the do you think people are supposed to pay for education if they don't earn enough to pay for their children to go to school, and if the IMF insists that countries charge them for their children's education?

If you are not prepared to sanction child labour, you have to build in some way for parents to afford to keep their children without sending them out to work - you have to pay them enough both to feed and to educate their children.

Preferably you have to arrange that the latter can be done on a country-wide basis rather than making individual parents pay - after all it's hardly a child's fault if their parent doesn't earn enough to pay school fees - and on a wider scale, if a region of a country has a blip in their economy, you are going to get a very large set of uneducated people in the future from that region.

Otherwise, choose child labour, and return to the 19th century. Your choice.
 

---

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

At the same time I often say, "anybody can do it" meaning that I am not some outrageously gifted person who was fortunate to run into nothing but great luck and smooth sailing.

---

Don't you see that the fact you ran into "great luck and smooth sailing" is the reason that not everyone can do it? Some people run into appalling luck and a series of disasters. And that's why I say that hard work doesn't guarantee success.

---

quote:

---

You figure out the cost of the foods you like, and then confine your menu to the cheapest of these except for special occasions. You find recreational activities you enjoy which are cheap or free.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chukovsky:
kenwritez gave us a long and - he thinks - ridiculous example of a chocolate bar. Maybe he can't be bothered to think about all the people he is employing when he buys a chocolate bar, but anyone that is serious about ending poverty is going to have to do it. There are no short cuts. However, fortunately there are professionals on the case, and we only need to be informed consumers.
<snip>
Can I also say that if you ask a question about what causes poverty, and how to alleviate it, you do need to be prepared for the answer to a) involve some work for you and b) possibly involve a shift of mindset.[/QB]

---

Ah, I love the smell of condescension in the morning....
 

---

Posted by kenwritez (# 3238) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
It reminds me of the dilemma of Peace Corps Volunteers as to whether they should employ household servants to do their cooking, washing, cleaning, etc. The volunteers have a monthly allowance of $200 a month, and live in housing provided by the local village.

Well, there was no way I was going to employ "servants." I did my own cooking, cleaning, washing, water carrying, etc. At least until everyone I met started asking why I didn't like the people in the village, and why I refused to employ them.

So I hired a student - but paid him substantially more than the ridiculously low normal wage. At least I did until everyone I met started asking me why I was making everyone unhappy by ruining the price structure for labor in the village.

Basically, you can't win.

---

quote:

---

This can be done voluntarily - by fair trade - which is nice, and won't change things much, and certainly won't pay the equivalent of 1st world minimum wages. It may help a bit, and may be the least disruptive approach apart from direct project aid.

Or we can attempt to impose it. Either the price of third world imports rise substantially. Guess what - demand would plummet. So - lots of unemployed farmers etc.

---

quote:

---

I haven't researched the matter, but I wonder if the debt provides some degree of leverage against the corrupt governments? It could be a mistake to give away the only lever we've got in the name of "doing something".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jim T

I won't continue any more of the subtext about personal poverty and personal wealth here; I'll keep them to the thread I started. It has comments for Karl and Moo but Ken's refrain that "seriously rich people who have employees by definition all steal labor from their hard-working impoverished employees" is going to be serenely ignored beyond this sentence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
I won't continue any more of the subtext about personal poverty and personal wealth here; I'll keep them to the thread I started. It has comments for Karl and Moo but Ken's refrain that "seriously rich people who have employees by definition all steal labor from their hard-working impoverished employees" is going to be serenely ignored beyond this sentence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
You are right about the availability of domesticatable animals and good crop plants being a major factor in European development. I once read an article (can't remember where) about the fact that the agricultural revolution never happened in Africa. Through the wonders of colonialism, the native people stepped directly from a hunter-gatherer culture into an industrial era one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paulo:
1. Europe had animals. Not just animals but animals we could train and use to farm. Others did not, europeans took animals to USA and thus we could farm much more efficiently and let some people invent while some farmed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paulo:
1. Europe had animals. Not just animals but animals we could train and use to farm. Others did not, europeans took animals to USA and thus we could farm much more efficiently and let some people invent while some farmed.

---

Having just read Chukovskys' comment reminded me that I'd intended to make a rather pedantic reply to this point. Sorry for the delay.

Native Americans had domesticated plants (eg: maize and potatoes) and animals (eg: llamas) prior to the arrival of Europeans, and were more than able to feed the populations of cities that in terms of size rivalled many European cities of the time. And although European diseases (eg: smallpox) decimated the native population who had little resistance to the new disease, the effect of local diseases (eg: yellow fever) on the European settlers was equally devastating.

Alan

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chukovsky:
When Europeans arrived, a very large majority of West Africans, and at least a substantial minority of Eastern and Southern/Central Africans were agriculturalists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by James M:
Is there a case for better organised taxation in poor countries?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paulo:
<<snip>>if developing countries have no money then they can't be selfish with it? i.e. leaders can't take loads? Well I don't mind as much what they do with the money from debt cancelation, it's just not a just way to behave. This debt is unfair. Fact. Stop it.
<<snip>>
"The answer isn't to just throw money at them. I believe the answer is to teach them to build the social and economic infrastructure they need to not only generate income but to responsibly reinvest and capitalize on it."

It all sounds very patronising and a bit prejudice, a bit colonal then I suppose. It assumes that 'they' are poor because they are stupid, or at least uneducatated. This is wrong. The factors making people poor are generally no fault of their own. What we should do is stop the unfair practises of the rich: a new form of slavery. Sounds hash?.....

1. Because of debt dev. countries must export to earn foriegn cuurency.

2. Aid hs strings attached. It is used to get the best possible deal for the west.

---

quote:

---

1. Europe had animals. Not just animals but animals we could train and use to farm. Others did not, europeans took animals to USA and thus we could farm much more efficiently and let some people invent while some farmed.

2. We had crops, only some plants can be made into crops, and europeans had them.

3. When europeans invaded the incas they killed 95% through diseases that came through animals (like most diseases). The diseases meant we could invade many places.

4. Europeans were violent people who had to be good at fighting to survive. They slaughtered more peaceful people.

5. Even though China discovered printing first it didn't exploit it as they had a multi character alphabet and thus could do mass printing so government wasn't as easy. Look at they keyboard in front of you and imagine having 2000 keys. It wouldn't work.

Along with many other reasons these are some of the points as to why people are poor. It is not healthy to demonise the poor (e.g. poor because they're lazy) or demonise the rich (they stole it). The same would (propally) happen if you were in the same situation.

---

• Give them money - that is a handout - bad.
• Lend them money - make them repay some of it - bad.
• Teach them how to run their country - that is imposing our ideals on another society - bad.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Astro:
I think it would be an interesting exercise if some bank that was owed a lot by a developing country decided to take that country under its control like if someone cannot pay a mortgage on a house they take over the house.

How many weeks would it be before the bank said to the leaders they had just desposed her you are take back the country you can obviously run it better than we can?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
Cancelling debt is not a handout; it is letting them keep their own money.

---

• Lending at zero or near-zero interest.
• Working with the government on establishing good governing practices and a sensible tax regime.
• Providing incentives to corporations (and wealthy individuals) to help with the above points.

I certainly do not endorse sitting on the sidelines. However, I feel being a coach is better than being a sponsor.
 

---

Posted by Paulo (# 165) on :
 
sharkshooter: thank-you for being honest in your opinions. Many people agree but don't admit it. However I completley disagree with you.

Firstly I was quoting about throwing money at the situation: improvments cost.

Second, how have I not picked one side? Tell me the two sides I approve of.

Do you know the history of debt? Do you know the facts? Live aid rasied $200 million, Africa pays that in a week.

Debt came about because banks had spare cash because of a steep increase in oil prices. They lent oney to bad projects. They lent money to corrupt governments. They had money they wanted to get rid of and didn't care.

Taken from an australian site:

"If anyone takes a loan shouldn't they repay it? Why should any debts be cancelled?

Many of these debts have already been paid many times over in local currencies. Between 1981 and 1997 the less developed countries paid over US$2.9 trillion in interest and principal payments. This is double what they received in new loans. For each $1 that industrialised countries provide in grants, developing countries pay back $13 in debt servicing. We don't expect people in Australia who go bankrupt to sacrifice the health and education of their children to keep paying their debts. And yet, we continue to allow millions of children in poor countries to die each year of preventable causes while their governments are forced to repay loans to rich creditors. Women are also forced to bear an unfair burden of the debt crisis, making up for the loss of government services in health and education through unpaid work.

Consider too, the dramatic changes since the original loans were made. Borrowers had no control over skyrocketing rates of interest and plummeting commodity prices. Responsibility for loans has rested with borrowers, allowing lenders to carelessly provide large loans to corrupt political leaders. In the case of the poorest countries, lenders have reaped all of the benefits, all the while adding to their markets. Ordinary people have mainly borne the cost of repaying loans, with no say in the borrowing or spending of the money."

If the west lent to corrupt governments whose fault is it? Who knew but didn't really mind?

And sharkshooter:
"Giving money is bad" No. Giving money is good, dropping unfair, repayed debt is even better.

"lend them money is bad". No. But why noot check out how good these projects are if you really want to pretend that they are for others good. Where does this 'little or no intrest' idea come from? These debts were up to 25% in some years. These are simple facts, go and look them up before you try justify starving millions.

"Teach them how to run their country is bad" What is bad is the collonial teaching of how not to run a country. We showed dictatorship and then were supprised that their illitarate population didn't florish into a wonderful democracy.

Please go and look up the facts for yourself rather than take my word for it. But with such an extreme view I would have thought you would know the situation. At least you care... unlike most:

Paulo
 

---

Posted by Nosmo (# 3330) on :
 
From a biography I am reading at the moment. The poet, prophet and general wiseman GK Chesterton said that if a true humanitarian won two million pounds, he would give it to the deserving poor. In contrast, the true christian if he won the same would give it to the undeserving poor.

I hope I'm not doing him a disservice but I can't actually find the exact quote at the moment. How annoying, soz
 

---

Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paulo:
[QB]sharkshooter: thank-you for being honest in your opinions. Many people agree but don't admit it. However I completley disagree with you.

---

quote:

---

They do my friend. Haven't you ever heard of structural adjustment? The International Monetary Fund, which has taken over much of the bad debt from the banks has implemented strict rules which countries must comply with during renogotiation of their debts. Unfortunately structural adjustment is widely seen to have caused more problems than it solves.

---

No they are still getting others to do the dirty work
I meant really taking over with say
Alan Greespan as president
Eddie George as Prime Minister
Captain Mainwaring as Defence Minister
Howard from the Halifax bank as Minister for Culture

 

---

Posted by Bonzo (# 2481) on :
 
Astro,

I agree with you, our so-called economic experts would find it very difficult to run a third world country successfully. It would be a really good education for them to try.
 

---

Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paulo:
Advocates of a completely free market system: Do you think the WTO should be changed? e.g. to stop bullying of third world countries: Surley this follows free market principles of everybody looking after number 1 makes everybody better.

---

Yes. I am already on record here and elsewhere with my belief that the current system needs reform in the direction of free-er, but not completely unregulated, markets. Protectionism ultimately harms the "protected" economy, which is why I am opposed to long-term protectionistic policies for poor countries. US and EU tariffs represent special interest-driven pork barrel politics at their "finest".

Bonzo, while I'm not claiming that economists should take over, I'd bet on Greenspan over Mugabe, for instance.
 

---

Posted by OgtheDim (# 3200) on :
 
Hmmmm.....

As many people have pointed out:

Lots of people are for free trade, unless it's in their own field.

When people want to keep competitors out of their market, its amazing how often regulation is asked for.
 

---

Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
Raising a dead thread:

Article in today's Independent

Just for interest's sake.
 

---

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
Raising a dead thread:
Article in today's Independent
Just for interest's sake.

---

Thanks, Karl. Very illustrative of what several people on this thread have been saying.

I still think that in the long run development depends on spiritual values. I admit, however, that this is a little like saying that market forces correct themselves in the long run. In the long run we are all dead.

I do, however, think that this is the right approach for the Church to take. "Seek first the kingdom of God..."
 

---

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 


Not perhaps so much an issue of free trade as one of concentration of power. Big business sets pricss and small business, or workers, are forced to live with them. The greater the concentration of power in a few hands, the more everyone else gets to lose. As these guys have nothing thta the rest of the world wants to buy off them except coffee, when big business cuts the price of coffee, they can die.

It is the same economic problem that afflicts British farmers, who get paid less and less as their productivity rises, and the supermarkets rake in profits - except that the Brits just lose their farms and get kicked onto the dole, but the Ethiopians might starve

The original producers get squeezed out until they are in effect no more than agents or servants of large corporations. Despite the business as a whole being profitable, the profits of many participants falls and falls. Of course if it happened to everybody at once then no-one could afford to buy anything and there would be a real crash.

More or less what we used to call a "crisis of capitalism" (back before the Tories told us all that no-one believed in all that Socialist stuff any more )
 

---

Posted by fatprophet (# 3636) on :
 
Debt forgiveness would be a one off solution, it cannot become a general principle. Debt could be forgiven where a country makes a decisive break with the past e.g. becomes a democracy. However a country will need further credit and borrowing thereafter to economically develop. If through mismanagement new debt was incurred, it would not be possible to go on forgiving debts. Then what?

Because continual access to credit is important, it is important that countries pay their debts if they can - and why most do continue to pay rather than go into default (there is after all no court or international police making them pay back their foreign debts, rather they see it as in their interest to do so)

As for trade, there are serious imbalances, but trade and prices are ultimately based on supply and demand, not some global western conspiracy. If the producers were allowed to co-operate with each other - through unions ,co-operatives and cartels (c.f. OPEC) they could get far better prices for their goods. They could also ensure that goods were manufactured in their own countries adding value. Unfortunately the colonial economic system skewed productivity in favour of raw material exports - relatively low value and subject to huge price fluctuations.

Don't forget though that fair trade will mean higher prices for goods in western shops. It will also mean that more western workers are made unemployed in the short term. We created a tariff wall not just to protect the western rich (indeed business men are all in favour of global fair trade) but to protect western workers. Our workers cannot compete with western multinationals in India or Africa while they pay dirt poor wages and can ignore health & safety rules, environmental regulation and workers rights. If there is to be fair trade then we must ensure that everyone is on a level playing field.Happily this is in the interest of poor countries too. Free trade can follow only if there is democratisation of poor countries and proper controls on the business that develops there. In any event those countries should be seeking to develop internal and regional markets rather than relying on selling their products to us.

Poor countries would develop more quickly if they had long term peace, and democratically elected and better leaders rather than the western puppets and the corrupt western educated elites that exist at present. Even if we caused the mess most of the solutions must come from the countries themselves.
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 
If anyone is interested in a more in-depth treatment of the collapse of coffe prices, there was an excellent one in the Dec. 19 issue of Fortune (link here).

Regular coffee is being blended with more Vietnamese or Brazilian robusta beans and fewer Central American or African arabica beans. This is the result of both technological advances and a world glut of robusta. The outcome is that coffee tastes worse, fewer people drink coffee now, the growers are hurting, and the overall coffee market is shrinking.

Fortune is critical of the "Big Four" coffee makers (including Nestle, who you love to hate) for taking advantage of the drop in bean prices to increase short-term profits instead of increasing quality. Had they held profits steady and improved the product, demand would be increasing today and long-term profits would be up. By making poor business decisions, they have hurt themselvesand the growers.

I believe that there will be a correction and it will be market-based. To attempt to prop up the current situation with humanitarian programs will only perpetuate the problem. There is no gentle way out at this point.
 

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Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 

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I believe that there will be a correction and it will be market-based. To attempt to prop up the current situation with humanitarian programs will only perpetuate the problem. There is no gentle way out at this point.

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Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
And meanwhile, the producers suffer.

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What you call "humanitarian programmes" are exactly what the big companies should have done in the first place - traded fairly and ensured that the producers are not ripped off. Instead they went for the quick buck and look who really lost out. So much for the wonderful free market. Sorry if this sounds like communism to you; it sounds like the only humane solution to me.

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And meanwhile, the producers suffer. And we don't "love to hate" Nestlé. It totally saddens me that a company behaves the way they do. What I'd "love" is for reports from the third world to report that Nestlé has changed its ways. Presenting it as if we're into some kind of Jihad is insulting to our humanitarian motivation.

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Some have replaced their coffee plants with corn or pineapples.

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Others have simply abandoned their farms.

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More or less what we used to call a "crisis of capitalism" (back before the Tories told us all that no-one believed in all that Socialist stuff any more)

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Our workers cannot compete with western multinationals in India or Africa while they pay dirt poor wages and can ignore health & safety rules, environmental regulation and workers rights.

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

Certainly the claims of the socialists:

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More or less what we used to call a "crisis of capitalism" (back before the Tories told us all that no-one believed in all that Socialist stuff any more)

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need to be treated with total disdain - the achievement of China of raising millions from poverty as a result of the adoption of capitalism is never given the credit it deserves, and the belief that

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Our workers cannot compete with western multinationals in India or Africa while they pay dirt poor wages and can ignore health & safety rules, environmental regulation and workers rights.

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is merely a restatement less elegantly of the threat alleged by Ross Perot in opposing NAFTA - the giant sucking sound that would deprive American workers of jobs; instead the rate of unemployment there is lower than before NAFTA.

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I would say that free markets don't work when someone doesn't have access to enforcement of justice, which is similar, but not quite the same as imbalance of power.

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That all depends on what you mean by the enforcement of justice.

In a free market situation, if a buyer can exploit the weak situation of a seller in order to get a lower price, then the buyer will do that, unless he is prevented from so doing.

I could live in a country, with the fairest courts in the world, and still be exploited because my country as a whole is being exploited. My courts, and government are powerless to demand that I get paid a fair amount for what I produce, because the buyer will simply go to the country next door where no such laws exist.

So although there are corrupt governments in poorer countries, which hold those countries back, it's the powerlessness of poverty which is the major factor in keeping the poor poor.

At the lowest level, where there is an imbalance of power, free markets can cause poverty.

At the moment markets are not free, but the measures that have been put in place to protect against the ravages of the market are things like trade barriers which are designed to protect the rich at the expense of the poor. Why can't we have measures to protect the poor rather than the rich?

Incidentally, trade barriers are instituted to protect the richest of capitalists. If my objective is to sell my produce at the highest price I can, I will use every means to ensure that this happens. If I see a market advantage in banding together in a pressure group to get my government to institute a trade barrier, it is my capitalist duty to do just that.

In Britain, much farming land is owned by an extremely wealthy set of people who have had this land passed down from generation to generation. These people have large amounts of influence and power. They have an interest in getting high prices for the crops that are produced, because they take rent from the land. This is why the farming lobby is so powerful in government and why, during the foot and mouth crisis, farmers were given compensation where the tourist industry was not.

It's hardly surprising that the Common Agricultural Policy, which has been so damaging to the prospects of the third world, has been so difficult to reform. After all, you don't want to go upsetting Lord and Lady Muck, they are very rich and influential people!
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 
Bonzo, I'm completely with you in saying that tariffs and other sorts of trade barriers are A Very Bad Thing.

What do you mean by "capitalist duty"? I don't remember signing a pledge card or taking an oath or anything like that. Perhaps this is the root of many disagreements. Capitalism is not a way of life, a philosphy or a moral system. It is a way of getting things done, not the thing itself. It is a means not an end.
 

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Posted by Bonzo (# 2481) on :
 
Scot,

We agree on some things at least.

No, thank God, you don't have to sign up to anything. Duty perhaps is the wrong word.

The capitalist system is an economic system based on private ownership of capital. While this system relies on free trade many 'capitalists' see government intervention as wrong, only when such intervention is designed to protect the poor. for example many resist the idea of a minimum wage. Extreme capitalists would also do away with benefit.

However, the very same people, are seen to protect their own capital, in a variety of ways. The richer they become, the more they spend on finding ways to increase and retain their privileged position. This will always include tampering with the free market if they see a benefit to be had.

I believe the current western system (what many people would call capitalism) to be unstable. It's a system where fairness takes second place to making money, and the rich get richer and the poor stay poor (or even get poorer). It's a system where the excessive consumption of the worlds resources by a few will eventually lead to the downfall of all. Taken to it's conclusion it will eventually become the enemy of democracy, because the rich who get ever richer will find ways of manipulating governments in order to maintain their position at the top of the pile.

Free trade is not the problem here. Human nature is. True capitalism, like true communism, is not in itself wrong, but when combined with human nature it can be just as corrupt.
 

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Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
Just a naive thought:

English law has provision for bankruptcy - for someone who is unable to pay their debts to give up and start again. Any such law requires a balancing of interests - make it too easy, and swindlers escape justice and are back in business tomorrow under a new brand name. Make it too difficult, and victims of misfortune find it impossible to escape the burden of debt.

We may not have the balance totally right in domestic business law. But similar provisions and a similar balance should perhaps be sought between countries ?

Russ
 

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Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
Yes.
 

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