Factors in economic development of second and third world

[energiewende]

An atheist Pope would be a step forward; on the other hand this one also seems to be a Marxist which is not so good.

[K. A. Pital]

An atheist Pope would be a step forward; on the other hand this one also seems to be a Marxist which is not so good.

If the pope were a Marxist, he would not be a pope. But it would've been just perfect - kinda sad that it's just your fantasy.

[Irbis]

Marxist? Someone who always opposed Liberation Theology? How would that fucking work?

[loomer]

An atheist Pope would be a step forward; on the other hand this one also seems to be a Marxist which is not so good.

Do you know what marxism actually is?

[energiewende]

Private concern for the poor is a self-evident good (he could start by selling the Vatican - in fact I think he would like to but is stopped by other powerful forces, so I'm on his side there). However he also has explicitly endorsed government economic control, and not just relatively benign social democrat redistribution. This shouldn't be a surprise as he comes from Latin America where theo-fascists compete with Marxists for political power; market liberalism is defended by no one and if considered at all only in conspiratorial terms. The problem is that adopting free markets in the third world is both the cheapest and the most successful anti-poverty programme ever embarked upon by man; someone of the Pope's authority speaking against it is a serious drag on progress.

[NoXion]

Private concern for the poor is a self-evident good (he could start by selling the Vatican - in fact I think he would like to but is stopped by other powerful forces, so I'm on his side there). However he also has explicitly endorsed government economic control, and not just relatively benign social democrat redistribution.

Please point out exactly where his rhetoric goes beyond social democracy, since I see no mention of abolishing money nor any advocacy of the workers seizing the means of production.

This shouldn't be a surprise as he comes from Latin America where theo-fascists compete with Marxists for political power; market liberalism is defended by no one and if considered at all only in conspiratorial terms.

When the "defenders of the free market" consist of murderous cunts like Pinochet, is it any wonder?

The problem is that adopting free markets in the third world is both the cheapest and the most successful anti-poverty programme ever embarked upon by man; someone of the Pope's authority speaking against it is a serious drag on progress.

Bullshit. "Free market" rhetoric is the braying call of plutocrats and exploiters. More free markets doesn't mean more free people, since a market in which people are free to be bought and sold as slaves hardly means freedom for those being bought and sold.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

This shouldn't be a surprise as he comes from Latin America where theo-fascists compete with Marxists for political power; market liberalism is defended by no one and if considered at all only in conspiratorial terms.

Dust off a history book and learn exactly why laissez-faire capitalism in unpopular in Latin America. I know this is the Internet, but such stuff is pretty basic.

[energiewende]

Please point out exactly where his rhetoric goes beyond social democracy, since I see no mention of abolishing money nor any advocacy of the workers seizing the means of production.

"Money should be made to “serve” people, not to “rule” them, he said, calling for a more ethical financial system and curbs on financial speculation.

Countries should impose more control over their economies and not allow “absolute autonomy”, in order to provide “for the common good”."

This is not just shuffling money around; he is saying that the state should guide with its paternal hand. Of course he is not specific.

]

This shouldn't be a surprise as he comes from Latin America where theo-fascists compete with Marxists for political power; market liberalism is defended by no one and if considered at all only in conspiratorial terms.

When the "defenders of the free market" consist of murderous cunts like Pinochet, is it any wonder?

Pinochet was, in Western terms, more of a social democrat. Pinochet Chile still had nationalised industries for instance. He essentially did not care about the economy and so asked for and sometimes followed the best advice economic science could then give him, rather than stupid ideological prejudices (he still kept the copper mines, because he could use them to pay soldiers and bribes). Against such poor competition, this made him the best economic manager in Latin America. My point is this: if Latin Americans did not view free markets the way the average Nazi views Israel, conspiracy theories and all, there would be actual popular democratic parties advocating Singapore or at least North European policies, the choice would not be democratic Marxists or the quasi-benign neglect of military dictators, and we may not be face with the embarrassing conclusion that said murderous dictator actually has achieved the best enduring standard of living on the continent.

The problem is that adopting free markets in the third world is both the cheapest and the most successful anti-poverty programme ever embarked upon by man; someone of the Pope's authority speaking against it is a serious drag on progress.

Bullshit. "Free market" rhetoric is the braying call of plutocrats and exploiters. More free markets doesn't mean more free people, since a market in which people are free to be bought and sold as slaves hardly means freedom for those being bought and sold.

Free people is one thing; at the bottom end they are more interested in feeding themselves:



Africa and Latin America staunchy resists the Braying Call, while China and India gallop toward it. How's that working out for them?

Suppose we build a wall around the top 20 countries on the Heritage Economic Freedom Index - how much immigration do you think stops? Now, how about we build that wall around Latin America? The people vote with their feet.

[madd0ct0r]

I'm confused. are you holding up India and China as examples of states NOT interfering in the market?

[energiewende]

In absolute, or relative terms? They still interfere a lot, but then they're still very poor. They are interfering increasingly less and becoming less poor.

There is of course a lively debate between left and right in the developed world but I think this shouldn't slant out view of political debates in the developing, and non-developing worlds. Everyone in the developed world basically accept markets and the debates are about how to redistribute some limited fraction of the proceeds. Most of the extremely poor parts of the world are so poor because they still don't agree on the basics that the developed world takes for granted.

[madd0ct0r]

would you care to highlight a particular political debate in a developing country?

the Doi Moi reforms in Vietnam come to mind.

[Maraxus]

Pinochet was, in Western terms, more of a social democrat.

That's rich. Pinochet was in no sense a "social democrat." The complete extermination of any left opposition to his rule very early on in his term, specifically because any organized opposition to his autocratic rule would have threatened his political rule and neutered his economic plans before they could be implemented. I think it's somewhat profound that all of these neo-liberal reforms were so unpopular that the right-wing dictatorships in Latin America had to suspend the democratic process in order to implement them. It is even more telling that they had to entirely liquidate the leftist opposition even after they had assumed dictatorial powers.

In my view, people in South America should view neo-liberal reforms with suspicion, both because most of them correctly associate them with murderous right-wing dictatorships and because international organizations like the IMF and World Bank have used these reforms as the price for accepting international aid.

By the way, the poverty rate in Chile in 1988 was around 48%, and only started to fall once the post-Pinochet governments started raising certain taxes to fund social welfare programs. Some economic steward.

[K. A. Pital]

Maraxus beat me to it, but only an idiot would describe an utter libertarian extremist like Pinochet, whose nation was run by Chicago-trained monetarist economists, as a "social democrat".

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Energiewende has a nice spiel going on with his "intervention=lolpoor". I guess ancient Athens, which was the richest city in Greece and Asia Minor, was wrong when they required of each of the richer citizens to build and maintain a trireme as a service to the state. Their rationale was... wait for it... that only an utter moron would not support a system which benefits him so much.

[energiewende]

Being monetarist doesn't make one extreme libertarian. Sure Friedman himself was but his work is just the orthodoxy today and accepted by all the social democrat parties in the West. Even the latest generation of left wing New Keynesian economists like Stiglitz and Krugman accept the monetarist foundations and merely argue that imperfections from the idealised models cause short term, temporary effects that haven't been accounted for.

The World Bank and IMF insist on monetarist/free market reforms as a condition for receiving subsidized loans because they hope one day those loans will be repaid, and the way to do that is to implement policies that are likely to result in growth. If the IMF and World Bank were evil they would simply not offer any subsidised loans/free money.

Again these issues of libertarian vs social democrat are first world issues. The difficulty for creating growth in the third world is they don't even accept markets to the extent Western social democrats do. In China and India, matters have improved. In Latin America, backlash against markets has meant little further progress.

[K. A. Pital]

The difficulty for creating growth in the third world is they don't even accept markets to the extent Western social democrats do. In China and India, matters have improved. In Latin America, backlash against markets has meant little further progress.

Latin America has been dominated by market fundies for the last 20-40 years (Argentina, Chile, Dominican Republic et cetera). Also, Latin America has been and remains richer than India and China by GDP/capita, which is clear to anyone with half a brain. The European Second World (Russia, E. Europe) which operated complete planned economies for 40-50 years or more are in fact even richer than Latin America, which has not operated complete planned or semi-planned economies due to US interference and violent destruction of Chile's Allende, Guatemalan government and Nicaraguan Sandinistas.

So Latin America is poor because it kowtows to the US, but still richer than those who are "accepting markets", heh.

The fun fact is that Cuba, which operates a planned economy in a complete trade embargo, is richer than India.

Welcome to reality. That's ignoring the fact that GDP is a bullshit indicator, of course.

[PeZook]

You really need GDP, GINI and HDI together to have anything that starts approaching a clear picture of how prosperous a country is.

[Irbis]

My point is this: if Latin Americans did not view free markets the way the average Nazi views Israel, conspiracy theories and all, there would be actual popular democratic parties advocating Singapore or at least North European policies, the choice would not be democratic Marxists or the quasi-benign neglect of military dictators, and we may not be face with the embarrassing conclusion that said murderous dictator actually has achieved the best enduring standard of living on the continent.

Wait, Singapore has free market? North European policies (which, if you look at the map, are countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Finland) are not social democratic? How the fuck no one picked up on this stupidity yet?

Yeah, country where state controls most of the market and countries with highest taxes and wealth redistribution in Europe are free market libertarian and absolutely not "marxist"

[K. A. Pital]

You really need GDP, GINI and HDI together to have anything that starts approaching a clear picture of how prosperous a country is.

Not just that; you need to see GDP components to see whether the actual wealth is dependent on just a single good, on financially beneficial location, or on an actual, built-up diversified industry that could withstand different pressures, from natural disasters to market shifts/collapses/crisis.

But of course, this has never crossed the minds of anybody. A small petrostate might have the same GDP as Japan, but it clearly lacks diversity and viability of the economy to actually be considered an example of good, viable and successful economic policy.

I thought they are teaching these things in school, especially in schools with economics courses. Apparently not.

absolutely not "marxist"

I think that Northern Europe gets attacked for being "marxist" or "socialist" like ten times a day. It is really strange our market fan hasn't joined the choir.

[PeZook]

Not just that; you need to see GDP components to see whether the actual wealth is dependent on just a single good, on financially beneficial location, or on an actual, built-up diversified industry that could withstand different pressures, from natural disasters to market shifts/collapses/crisis.

But of course, this has never crossed the minds of anybody. A small petrostate might have the same GDP as Japan, but it clearly lacks diversity and viability of the economy to actually be considered an example of good, viable and successful economic policy.

I thought they are teaching these things in school, especially in schools with economics courses. Apparently not.

They don't always teach that during economics courses in UNIVERSITY, much less high school

A lot of time during my degree was spent on listening to various lecturers demonizing intervention and glorifying the Austrian school.

"So you see, farm subsidies distort the market and mean agricultural production becomes inefficient..."

"But what if without intervention your state's agricultural sector loses in competition to your neighbor's, and you then become dependent on his food supply? In case of war you'd starve."

"War? Why should you be concerned about war?"

That's an actual quote

Bottom line being, the quality of economics education is abysmal and hopelessly ideological in many places. The US has some excellent economics faculties, yes, but a lot of propagandistic diploma mills as well

[Dr. Trainwreck]

"So you see, farm subsidies distort the market and mean agricultural production becomes inefficient..."

"But what if without intervention your state's agricultural sector loses in competition to your neighbor's, and you then become dependent on his food supply? In case of war you'd starve."

"War? Why should you be concerned about war?"

Austrian school. Nuff said. Their approach to the market is taken straight from Kafka's bureaucrats.

[K. A. Pital]

Samuelson spent a good deal of his life arguing for the application of the scientific method to economics. In the end we just get Austrian pseudoscience again. I think that's kind of like battling creationism. The more publicity you give to them, the stronger they get. But ignoring them is not an option either. Hammer and anvil.

[Simon_Jester]

They don't always teach that during economics courses in UNIVERSITY, much less high school

A lot of time during my degree was spent on listening to various lecturers demonizing intervention and glorifying the Austrian school.

"So you see, farm subsidies distort the market and mean agricultural production becomes inefficient..."

"But what if without intervention your state's agricultural sector loses in competition to your neighbor's, and you then become dependent on his food supply? In case of war you'd starve."

"War? Why should you be concerned about war?"

That's an actual quote

Bottom line being, the quality of economics education is abysmal and hopelessly ideological in many places. The US has some excellent economics faculties, yes, but a lot of propagandistic diploma mills as well

It doesn't help when your country is just reeling from having the Warsaw Pact sitting on its head for fifty years and will listen to anyone who tells you "COMMUNISTS WERE WRONG" in a loud enough voice.

Seriously, that must make the US's version of the post-Cold War hangover look mild by comparison.

[energiewende]

Latin America has been dominated by market fundies for the last 20-40 years (Argentina, Chile, Dominican Republic et cetera).

You're taking their propaganda on face value. Latin American "market fundamentalist" just means someone to the right of left wing extremists like Allende who wanted the economy to be run by a computer. Latin America ranks midling for economic freedom and midling for GDP.

Also, Latin America has been and remains richer than India and China by GDP/capita, which is clear to anyone with half a brain.

Though is reading comprehension as clear to people with brains? Here is what I said:

"In absolute, or relative terms? They still interfere a lot, but then they're still very poor. They are interfering increasingly less and becoming less poor."

India and China have low GDP per capita due to historically bad policies and high current growth rates due to current improvements in policy. The wealthiest Latin American countries (ie. the ones you describe as "market fundamentalist") have midling GDP per capita and low growth. They have grown to about the maximum extent their structural limitations permit.

[energiewende]

My point is this: if Latin Americans did not view free markets the way the average Nazi views Israel, conspiracy theories and all, there would be actual popular democratic parties advocating Singapore or at least North European policies, the choice would not be democratic Marxists or the quasi-benign neglect of military dictators, and we may not be face with the embarrassing conclusion that said murderous dictator actually has achieved the best enduring standard of living on the continent.

Wait, Singapore has free market? North European policies (which, if you look at the map, are countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Finland) are not social democratic? How the fuck no one picked up on this stupidity yet?

Yeah, country where state controls most of the market and countries with highest taxes and wealth redistribution in Europe are free market libertarian and absolutely not "marxist"

My whole point is that North European Social Democrats are far to the right of the world median. First world arguments about social democracy vs libertarianism (or conservatism) are by world standards just different libertarian factions squbbling amongst themselves. Electing US Democrats or German SDP for 10 terms in a row wouldn't turn the US or Germany into an economy like Cuba or Ethiopia (where it is illegal to own land) for instance.

I am not sure if you are serious asking Singapore has a free market, or just not heard of it before? Here is some information on its economy if not.