# Is The Chinese Model (Of Dealing With 3rd World Developemnt) The Best? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2011, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622 "2011-08-13T23:09:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/41 "2011-08-15T20:21:17Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Unless African nations reach the point where they are able to maintain a stable government as well as a modern infrastructure without a great deal of foreign involvement, nothing will have changed for the better. Well, it’s difficult to do either of things without a growing economy. Building, or even maintaining infrastructure costs money. And while you’re exporting nothing, maintaining infrastructure looks like an indulgence. Less obviously, poor countries are much more likely to break out in civil war, rebellion or have appalling levels of corruption. This relationship is true everywhere, but outside africa many countries have grown their way out of the trap through trade. OTOH africa is one huge poverty trap where it’s tough for one or two to escape poverty while the continent stays in it. Some countries are governed pretty well but still struggle (e.g. Malawi), while others are beginning to reap the benefits of stability (e.g. Mozambique). But all recoveries are fragile until GDP gets over, say, 6k. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/42 "2011-08-15T21:25:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > “China” may be a wealthy country. “China’s” GDP may have tripled or whatever. Millions upon Millions of Chinese are still dirt-poor peasants. China is not a model I would want Africa to follow. Many millions are much better off than they used to be. It’s just the nature of capitalism that as the poor get a tiny bit better off the rich get _much_ richer. Governments try to share the wealth but there’s always inequality – especially in the early stages of growth. If africa could get wealthier from the bottom up then great. But given that this hasn’t really happened anywhere, we shouldn’t count on it. Plan A should be for africa to develop the same way the current developed world did: through manufacturing (utilizing cheap labour) and selling natural resources (as long as the money is re-invested). Once growth is underway, and capital is beginng to flow in, there are opportunities in industries that the west has neglected like price-competitive medical devices. A country doesn’t have to be rich to get into areas like this. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/43 "2011-08-15T22:00:24Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > It’s just the nature of capitalism that as the poor get a tiny bit better off the rich get _much_ richer. “Why I am not a capitalist” part #345… > [@](#): > > Governments try to share the wealth but there’s always inequality – especially in the early stages of growth. …and “Why I am an anarchist” part 100000. > [@](#): > > If africa could get wealthier from the bottom up then great. But given that this hasn’t really happened anywhere, we shouldn’t count on it. > Plan A should be for africa to develop the same way the current developed world did: through manufacturing (utilizing cheap labour) and selling natural resources (as long as the money is re-invested). That’s a distorted picture of how the developed world got where it is today. You left out a \*whole \*lot of looting & pillaging & enslaving & colonizing from the process. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/44 "2011-08-15T22:27:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > “Why I am not a capitalist” part #345…and “Why I am an anarchist” part 100000. Well I don’t consider myself a “capitalist” either. But I don’t consider capitalism as some kind of artificial system imposed on civilization: it’s the natural way of things. If there’s a world war and we go all mad max…we’d trade stuff. By the time we’re setting up forts / settlements we’d already be talking about exchanging tokens of common value and borrowing to afford to get people to build a house for you. Unfortunately, like many things in this life, there is nothing inherently fair about capitalism. The more wealth one acquires, the more investment opportunities become available and, generally, the wealthier one becomes. > [@](#): > > That’s a distorted picture of how the developed world got where it is today. You left out a \*whole \*lot of looting & pillaging & enslaving & colonizing from the process. I think it’s a distorted picture to emphasize the looting and pillaging. An economic history of Europe could be summarized like this: we kept warring each other back to the stone age until the industrial revolution when GDP went up by _ten times_. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/45 "2011-08-16T04:31:13Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well I don’t consider myself a “capitalist” either. > But I don’t consider capitalism as some kind of artificial system imposed on civilization: it’s the natural way of things. I disagree. > [@](#): > > If there’s a world war and we go all mad max…we’d trade stuff. Trade =/= capitalism > [@](#): > > By the time we’re setting up forts / settlements we’d already be talking about exchanging tokens of common value and borrowing to afford to get people to build a house for you. …or the community builds the house based on mutual exchange - like the Amish, or various communes. Or the way people live in various developing nations now. Capital (in the “capital is that amount of wealth which is used in making _profits_” sense ) doesn’t \*have \*to enter into it. > [@](#): > > Unfortunately, like many things in this life, there is nothing inherently fair about capitalism. There’s nothing fair about it, either, and never has been. > [@](#): > > I think it’s a distorted picture to emphasize the looting and pillaging. > An economic history of Europe could be summarized like this: we kept warring each other back to the stone age until the industrial revolution when GDP went up by _ten times_. The Industrial Revolution is founded on a bedrock of stolen capital from the colonization efforts of the preceding 2-3 centuries, British superiority at sea as a result of war, and the [theft of land](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolution#Effects_on_history) from the common weal back home. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/46 "2011-08-16T10:22:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > or the community builds the house based on mutual exchange - like the Amish, or various communes. Or the way people live in various developing nations now. Capital (in the “capital is that amount of wealth which is used in making _profits_” sense ) doesn’t \*have \*to enter into it. No, it doesn’t have to. If you have a small community, with strong family ties, which individuals rarely leave, you can have simple trust-based arrangements. Larger communities can’t work like this. And large projects can’t work like this. > [@](#): > > The Industrial Revolution is founded on a bedrock of stolen capital from the colonization efforts of the preceding 2-3 centuries, British superiority at sea as a result of war, and the [theft of land](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolution#Effects_on_history) from the common weal back home. The point is this: like most civilizations up to that point, we’d been ass-raping the world since day one. And we weren’t significantly richer for it. Look at the spanish too, and all the territory they (brutally) took. They weren’t much better off either. It was new technology and know-how, coupled with the harnessing of new energy sources that really led to wealth in the West. Similarly for your link. I’m not about to defend the way land-ownership happened in countries like Britain (basically the Normans appropriated all of it when they tore us a new one in 1066, which later got doled out to the aristocracy). But it was centuries before the agricultural revolution happened, and could hardly be called the cause of it. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/47 "2011-08-16T13:38:41Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Building a single road that can carry heavy freight to the coast is a huge deal for many african countries where the cost of just doing that can be several times the cost of manufacturing / mining. And the benefits spread to other countries: it can be a lifeline for a landlocked country, of which africa has many. > > And being able to set up a factory knowing their won’t be frequent blackouts is a big deal, even if only the wealthy few can take advantage of this. > > Basically it’s nice to imagine we can help africa by helping small farms and communities. But economies don’t grow that way. China itself is a good example of that. > Africa needs to grow to survive. It’s too unstable while it’s this poor. Read that quote from “The Economist” again and meditate on the meaning of this single word: “kleptocracy” Until we can get rid of the kleptocrats, any funds flowing into a kleptocracy will inevitably be convered to funds flowing into private bank accounts of the country’s “leaders” or “thieves in chief” as they should also be known. We need to solve the kleptocracy problem BEFORE we invest. It is as simple as that. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/48 "2011-08-16T14:39:17Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Read that quote from “The Economist” again Thanks for the insinuation, but I wasn’t quoting the Economist or any other source. And I’d prefer if we weighed arguments on their merits rather than poisoning the well. > [@](#): > > Until we can get rid of the kleptocrats, any funds flowing into a kleptocracy will inevitably be convered to funds flowing into private bank accounts of the country’s “leaders” or “thieves in chief” as they should also be known. We need to solve the kleptocracy problem BEFORE we invest. It is as simple as that. I agree that corruption is a huge problem and much aid (probably the vast majority) has ended up in the pockets of the corrupt. But what should we do about it? How do we get rid of the awful leaders and ensure they are replaced by better ones? All we’ve tried so far are agreements of “If you do ABC, we’ll give you XYZ”. It doesn’t work – governments either do nothing, or lie, and then do nothing. And what else can we do? That’s why I think the Chinese way of doing things is working out quite well. A terrible leader could put lots of tolls on a new road and cripple its usefulness. But it’s harder to do that than just discretely siphoning off money. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/49 "2011-08-16T15:00:11Z")
It is futile to talk about modern Africa without adressing its role in Cold War politics. We are only recently beginning to see leadership that is not deeply tied to the Cold War legacy. I am writing this from beautiful Cape Town. This country has only been free since 1994. Africa is young. The first round of deconization was only 50 years ago. The second round- the end of Cold War era regimes- is happening as we speak. The story here is not yet written. Don’t think of “Africa” as some kind of timeless homogenous mass. African countries are just places, like any other places on earth- and like any other collection of a billion humans, hundreds of ethnicities and 60+ nations- there is A LOT going on here. Way too much to talk in generalities. That said. Africa is not Europe and not Asia. You cannot just transplant European and Asian development strategies here wholesale. History, ethnic and religious factors, the specifics of any given labor market, even family structure and local ideas of governance need to not just taken into account, but actually leveraged, for development. African countries will develop their own path- like Asian countries did- and it may be a path that we have not seen or even thought of before. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/50 "2011-08-16T15:26:44Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > like the Amish, or various communes. Or the way people live in various developing nations now. But that’s the good thing about free markets and a free society, you can decide to artifically handicap your life to live in th 17th century (Amish) o just a couple of week after the neolithic revolution (developing nations). Living in a developing country a seeing how those communities live I can tell you that most run away from them as quickly as they can. Tiny, self-sustaining communities only look good in NAtional Geographic pictures. A world of closed Amish-like communites is not only impossible but incredibly undesirable. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/51 "2011-08-16T16:19:29Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > No, it doesn’t have to. If you have a small community, with strong family ties, which individuals rarely leave, you can have simple trust-based arrangements. > Larger communities can’t work like this. And large projects can’t work like this. You’ve clearly never worked with a large non-profit. > [@](#): > > The point is this: like most civilizations up to that point, we’d been ass-raping the world since day one. “Everyone is doing it” was never a valid reason for anything. > [@](#): > > And we weren’t significantly richer for it. I disagree. > [@](#): > > Look at the spanish too, and all the territory they (brutally) took. They weren’t much better off either. They were for quite a while, until the bottom fell out of silver. > [@](#): > > It was new technology and know-how, coupled with the harnessing of new energy sources that really led to wealth in the West. You’re arguing by assertion. I’m asserting that the necessary groundwork had to be laid first - by violence and theft. > [@](#): > > But it was centuries before the agricultural revolution happened, and could hardly be called the cause of it. No, the agricultural revolution was strongly linked to Enclosures. Enclosures were still happening as the AR began. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/52 "2011-08-16T21:25:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > You’re arguing by assertion. I’m asserting that the necessary groundwork had to be laid first :dubious: Anyway, to drag this back on topic, it is clearly the case that countries can become wealthy via normal market forces without directly exploiting anyone because plenty of countries have done so. So let’s put the colonialism thing to one side. The same market forces can work for africa. You’ve talked about exploiting a country for its natural resources, but if you look at examples like botswana, they’ve reinvested the money, and have one of the world’s fastest growing economies. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/53 "2011-08-16T23:18:21Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > :dubious: That should have been “_I’m_ asserting”, to show you two can play that game. > [@](#): > > Anyway, to drag this back on topic, it is clearly the case that countries can become wealthy via normal market forces without directly exploiting anyone because plenty of countries have done so. Name “plenty” of countries who’ve done it. I dunno the history of Liechtenstein, maybe them. But other countries I can think of did at least one of three things - get wealthy off oil, get wealthy off colonialism or get wealthy off theft. Even the Swiss, as neutral and uncolonial as they were, have a history of being the bankers to the scum of the earth. > [@](#): > > So let’s put the colonialism thing to one side. In a thread about SinoColonialism? > [@](#): > > The same market forces can work for africa. You’ve talked about exploiting a country for its natural resources, but if you look at examples like botswana, they’ve reinvested the money, and have one of the world’s fastest growing economies. There’s no “like Botswana”, there’s just Botswana. And they aren’t such a great country if you happen to be K!ung… ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/54 "2011-08-17T03:03:47Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s kind of my point - China or whoever needs to implement long-term education and training programmes (i.e. universities & technikons) \*before \*coming in and looting the riches. Why would China do that? You’re making an emotional, not a logical, argument. Philanthropy is one thing, and aid is another thing. There is plenty of both available to African countries, but still not enough to fix all of Africas problems. If you live in a world in which you essentially expect _all_ dollars flowing into places like third world African countries to be philanthropic/aid dollars and no direct investment until the country magically becomes reasonably prosperous, it just won’t happen, ever, period. All the money coming in through direct investment isn’t available as general aid or philanthropic dollars. > [@](#): > > Again, that’s not really my experience. Shitty manual jobs don’t pay well enough to raise your kids out of poverty. All they do is create slums where the poverty becomes intergenerational. I’d actually argue the story of America from 1840-1950 was essentially most people working shitty, terrible manual labor jobs in horrible conditions but eventually over time we have a large middle class and a high quality of life with universal education and a good life expectancy rate. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/55 "2011-08-17T03:12:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That should have been “_I’m_ asserting”, to show you two can play that game.Name “plenty” of countries who’ve done it. I dunno the history of Liechtenstein, maybe them. But other countries I can think of did at least one of three things - get wealthy off oil, get wealthy off colonialism or get wealthy off theft. But your definition of theft is essentially “all productive economic activity that isn’t based in utopian socialist ideals” so I don’t really know that anyone working in the real world can have a discussion along those lines. By and large the United States did not go from being a poor agrarian country in 1790 to being a wealthy industrial country in 1915 through theft, but through industrial and agricultural innovation. There was no one to really steal from because America’s wealth was the result of a lot of innovation and good geography that gave us a lot of natural resources (Standard Oil was big news in the 19th and early 20th century but coal was vastly more important than oil from 1790-1915.) America certainly didn’t become rich through colonialism, we were a colony that had won independence. We pushed some natives around who got in the way, but in reality they didn’t have any proper right to any of their land. If they did they would have been able to defend it and they would have been using it efficiently, evidence has suggested they did neither of those things. The Mongols conquered more land than Americans ever did, how much wealth did they create? Virtually none. Because just taking land doesn’t make you wealthier, developing it does. Even the Spanish just taking silver didn’t make them wealthier, because inherently silver and gold aren’t what create wealth, they are popular _stores of wealth_. The Spanish learned the hard way that massive influxes of precious metals from the New World didn’t make Spain wealthier, it made gold and silver less valuable than before and left Spain with a massive overseas Empire to run that probably overextended Spain more than any benefits it brought to the Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/56 "2011-08-17T06:19:56Z")
Uhhhh, I think you are missing kind of a key thing in US history around that period. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/57 "2011-08-17T07:56:32Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > But your definition of theft is essentially “all productive economic activity that isn’t based in utopian socialist ideals” so I don’t really know that anyone working in the real world can have a discussion along those lines. That’s not the kind of theft I’m talking about. I’m talking about everything from Cherokee lands to Jewish gold to the Swiss-held golden parachutes of 3rd world dictators who stole from their people. Pure outright theft by any reasonable measure all around. > [@](#): > > We pushed some natives around who got in the way, but in reality **they didn’t have any proper right to any of their land**. If they did they would have been able to defend it and they would have been using it efficiently, evidence has suggested they did neither of those things. :eek: Are you serious? Manifest Destiny is kind of dated, dude. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/58 "2011-08-17T11:00:35Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But other countries I can think of did at least one of three things - get wealthy off oil, get wealthy off colonialism or get wealthy off theft. For this to be anywhere near on-topic you’d have to be claiming that the only way for african countries to become wealthy is by doing one of these things. Is that what you’re actually saying? And just where does wealth come from if everyone must steal it? > [@](#): > > In a thread about SinoColonialism? No, this thread is not about SinoColonialism. :rolleyes: And I think this sums up your worldview very well. Giving africa hand-outs is fine. But _trading_ with african states is Colonialism! > [@](#): > > There’s no “like Botswana”, there’s just Botswana. So what’s your point? That it’s impossible for other african countries to be well-governed? That trading can only work if you’re botswana? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/59 "2011-08-17T11:33:24Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Uhhhh, I think you are missing kind of a key thing in US history around that period. Slavery? Virtually irrelevant to our becoming an economically prosperous country with a large middle class. I know that violates various well accepted liberal narratives, but it doesn’t violate history. Slavery produced a very, very small concentration of property and wealth in an entrenched upper class. Because that upper class practiced feudal-style inheritance and everything was based on who your daddy was, a lot of times even the ultra-wealthy plantations would eventually be ran into bankruptcy based on the fiscal irresponsibility of the varying generations. If you want to see where America’s wealth came from you need to look at the northern factories, the coal mines, lumber yards, and oil wells, or even the large scale agriculture in the plains. Further, the vast majority of the South’s wealth was destroyed during the ACW, and the South was _vastly_ behind the rest of the country in various economic measures until the 1970s. More people and businesses have been moving there for about 40 years, but the South still lags in many indicators. The idea that a practice only widely utilized in the poorest, most economically backwards and least productive region can be attributed as a reason for America’s explosive growth in wealth and standard of living is just ludicrous. Not least of all because most of the big changes came _after_ the ACW and had already started in the North. If anything ending slavery at least set the South up to have a chance at being economically prosperous, although it would take many generations to be realized. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622/60 "2011-08-17T11:44:04Z")
I don’t think anyone would disagree any major industrial country (essentially any G8 country) probably did some horrible shit getting where they are. Stuff we shouldn’t do again. Where I think the disagreement comes in is some people think that horrible shit is what made these countries rich and powerful. I understand where this comes from, it fits in with a worldview that views capitalism as evil, the collection of personal wealth to be morally reprehensible and et cetera. When you can associate the wealthy with things you find morally objectionable, when you can in fact say they are wealthy _because_ of those things it definitely makes your argument more powerful. Unfortunately though, that’s just not what happened in the real history of the world. The difference from 1790-1915 was not that horrible shit was being done, that stuff had been done for the 125 years before that, and the 125 years before that, and the 125 years before that all the way back to tribal massacres over hunting grounds 14,000 years ago. No one is going to say that our blatant exploitation of immigrants, paying them near slave wages, our taking of half of Mexico and various other things were totally benign. However that stuff had been going on for thousands of years. The British Empire was unique in its dispersion, but that’s about it, the Brits weren’t doing anything other great Empires hadn’t already done. In fact the British Empire was a lot more benign than any great Empire that had come before it. However the reason the United Kingdom, United States, and the other great countries became wealthy has almost nothing to do with that exploitative behavior. It has to do with innovations in industry and agriculture that cause exponential growth unlike anything seen before. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-chinese-model-of-dealing-with-3rd-world-developemnt-the-best/592622.md?page=4)