From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Feb 19 2003 - 21:34:46 MST
Mez writes
> From: Lee Corbin [mailto:lcorbin@tsoft.com]
> > I agree, but you are proposing to *change* the culture of an
> > entire nation. This sounds distantly familiar: a century ago
> > it was believed that war and poverty could be abolished by
> > educating people properly.
>
> There are in fact strong correlations between wealth, education, and
> democracy. Countries that have a high median standard of living are
> almost all democracies.
But which is cause, and which is effect? The best answers we have,
in my opinion, can be found in the works of savants who have studied
this problem for decades (see below). I think that they're finally
onto something!
> In any case, Afghanistan has a democratically elected government
> today. That government has very little real power because it doesn't
> have an adequate standing army or police force. The military power is
> the hands of the regional warlords. Hamid Karzai asked the US to help
> correct this and the US refused. Why would we do that?
Good question. I don't know. I have several ideas, but only
speculation. In historical parallels, surely any resisting Nazis
in the mountains of southern Germany would have been dealt with!
> I just don't agree with this. You can hire local workers to build
> roads, a power grid, schools, and hospitals. That sort of
> infrastructure has a huge effect on a nation. The process of building
> it also pumps money into the economy in a more distributed and organic
> manner than the IMF or World Bank can.
Are you sure that any exterior *power* really has the ability
to do such farsighted surgery on a nation, and change its
culture in the process? It would be instructive to consider
cases in world history where this has been done. Do you know
of any?
> > If you help a country too much, even in fighting its
> > rebels or its wars, it becomes dependent. It does not
> > develop the ability on its own, which is absolutely crucial.
>
> Goodness. What we're talking about here are the basics. We
> destroyed a country and toppled its government.
Isn't that an exaggeration? While the government was replaced,
do you think much else really changed there? (And did not change
for the better?) Third world countries are incredibly poor by
our standards, and what little economic activity is there cannot
be easily disrupted, at least not longer than for a few days.
> > I think that the crucial difference is that Japan and Germany
> > were already extremely developed nations, and had the talent
> > to assimilate the habits of democracy. Surely you don't
> > suppose that Afghanistan is as capable as they were.
>
> Japan and Germany were both fairly rich, educated countries, and that
> certainly helped in their reconstruction. At the same time, Japan had
> no democratic tradition at all. In both places it took decades of
> heavy US involvement to get the country back on its feet.
No, the Japanese were placed back "on their feet" almost immediately.
And that's because of them, not because of the occupiers. All of
their vital economic infrastructure---highly developed internal
markets, factory know-how, an educated and hard-working population---
was already in place. It simply took those people five or ten years
to rebuild. Yes, the Marshall plan did help; but I'm convinced that
they would have soon made it anyway.
> Iraq also has a fairly well educated population. It has natural
> resources that can produce tremendous revenue. What it will lack
> after the US invasion is a democratic tradition, a force to guarantee
> the country's stability while a new government is put in place, and a
> huge amount of infrastructure that will have been destroyed in our
> attack.
If that's so, then again it will be a year or so before *they*
rebuild. But prosperity requires far more than having a well-
educated populace.
What really accounts for the differences between rich and poor
countries. The following authors tell a very similar story:
William Easterly "The Elusive Quest for Growth"
Hernando DeSoto "The Mystery of Capital"
Mancur Olson "Power and Prosperity"
Tom Bethell "The Noblest Triumph"
Francis Fukuyama "Trust"
I would summarize the lessons they teach as saying that the
following are absolutely necessary for prosperity:
1. The legal rights of individuals must be sacrosanct,
and all individuals must be equal before the law.
2. Government corruption must be minimal.
3. Private property must be totally respected under
the law.
4. Private property must be an integral part of the
legal system, and publicly registered. This includes
all businesses and real estate. (This is DeSoto's
conclusion after 20 years' study.)
5. A high level of trust for others outside one's own
family must be achievable, otherwise it is not possible
to create firms of any size.
Everyone---conservatives, liberals, do-gooders, isolationists,
World Bank economists, leaders of advanced nations plotting
strategy---everyone, has been naive about the true sources
of wealth creation in nations. And so difficult has this
analysis been, and so long in coming, we may not be assured
that even now the savants above have found the answers.
For it can well-inhere in the cultural foundations of a
society or civilization. While Turkey, or perhaps soon
Iran or Iraq, may aspire to Western level prosperity, it
could be deep-seated relationships between the culture that
animates the lives of their millions of citizens, their
religions, and their histories that simply cannot be changed
except over the course of many, many decades, if at all.
Lee
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