A quick talking point is that colonial Rhodesia used to be practically a first-world country. (Is now zimbabwe). Same story for most of the third world, AFAIK.
The fact that only rich imperialist powers happen to be progressive democracies isn’t much evidence; if democracy fails in 9 cases out of 10, and fails in a way that degenerates to third-world barbarism, you will see a few successful progressive democracies, and a lot of third-world hellholes. Mind you, this is not an argument for tearing down democracy, merely that it could be the case that setting up a new democracy is a bad idea (see afganistan, iraq, etc).
Further, if you accept the cynical take, realizing that you live in a brainwashing theocracy ought to affect your intuitions about what looks like “doing a pretty good job”. Have you taken this into account?
These are not my opinions. Being neither a historian, political philosopher, or government employee, I am not qualified to have opinions on this subject.
A quick talking point is that colonial Rhodesia used to be practically a first-world country. (Is now zimbabwe). Same story for most of the third world, AFAIK.
The problem with that talking point is that Zimbabwe isn’t a liberal democracy, and neither are most third world countries. If you want an example of a third world country that is plausibly a liberal democracy, India comes to mind. And in this case at least, the country’s economy has performed much better post-independence than it did under colonial occupation. It’s true that India’s growth in the first three decades after independence (the 50s through the 70s) wasn’t particularly impressive, but it was still significantly better than its pre-independence record, which was positively dismal.
As Amartya Sen has pointed out, India hasn’t experienced a famine resulting in massive loss of life since its transition to liberal democracy. Under British rule, famines occured at regular intervals, with the last major one in 1943 involving 1.5 million starvation deaths. In contrast, the closest India has come to famine conditions since independence was in 1966, and the death toll was only about 2500. According to Sen, the institutions of liberal democracy, particularly a free press, guard against the kind of government inattention that turns a drought into a massive famine.
Even in Africa, the countries that perform the worst (and are clearly worse off than they were under colonialism) are not the ones that we would describe as liberal democracies. The uncontroversial liberal democracies in Africa are countries like Botswana, Ghana, Namibia and South Africa (I’m sure there are more I’m missing), and these are countries that do relatively well compared to their neighbors. Botswana is an even better example than India of a country that performed dismally under colonialism and has done well since then. Its per capita GDP (in PPP terms) increased from around $90 in 1966 (when it became independent) to about $16,000 today. It’s also one of the few African countries that has remained a liberal democracy consistently since its independence.
Sen goes on to argue that acute famines are better than chronic malnutrition, that democracy focusing on the obvious famines might make things worse, but no one quotes those parts.
I didn’t quote it because I don’t see the relevance in this context. Sure, malnutrition is a huge (and, apparently, growing) problem in contemporary India, but is there any evidence that it was a less serious problem under British rule? I’d be very surprised if there was. Periodic famine may be better than chronic malnutrition, but periodic famine plus chronic malnutrition is surely worse. I wasn’t trying to argue that liberal democracy solves everything, just that genuine post-colonial liberal democracies are doing better than they were under colonial rule, and that the transition of countries like India from colonies to democracies has plausibly made the world a better place.
The uncontroversial liberal democracies in Africa are countries like Botswana, Ghana, Namibia and South Africa
Note what Namibia and Botswana have in common besides being nice places to live in Africa and being considered “liberal democracies”. Note where they tend to land on this list and how their economies tend to be strongly tied to resource extraction.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to glean from those links. It’s true that the current president of Botswana is the son of the first president, but Botswana is hardly alone in this kind of dynastic succession. I can name a few first-world democracies where multiple members of the same family have been elected heads of state.
And yes, Botswana is overly dependent on the diamond trade, and De Beers is a very shady company. The forced relocation of the San bushmen was an atrocity. Also, the country has a huge HIV/AIDS epidemic. But I wasn’t holding up Botswana as a shining exemplar of all that is good in this world. I was saying that it is, overall, a much better place to live in than it was before independence. Do you disagree?
Note what Namibia and Botswana have in common besides being nice places to live in Africa and being considered “liberal democracies”. Note where they tend to land on this list and how their economies tend to be strongly tied to resource extraction.
Zimbabwe also has a low population density and an economy strongly tied to resource extraction, so those two factors by themselves don’t fully account for the relative prosperity of Botswana and Namibia.
I can name a few first-world democracies where multiple members of the same family have been elected heads of state.
Of course and a monarchist would expect such things to generally work out quite well on average. My point was that first president was royalty, his family had strong enough social capital to reach for power once more decades later which suggests strong background influence during the presidencies of Quett Masire and Festus Mogae. Note how the former of those was Vice-president under Seretse Khama and how Ian Khama served as Vice-president under the latter. If that family does not consider the country as something like a family business I don’t know which one does.
Also that the De Beers company likely has quite a strong role in the governance of the country it doesn’t need to share with many other corporate interests possibly approaching the United Fruit model, if this is so this is a very well run instance of that.
Moldbug’s theory of government in action? He seems to think so.
Zimbabwe also has a low population density and an economy strongly tied to resource extraction, so those two factors by themselves don’t fully account for the relative prosperity of Botswana and Namibia.
Of course not, but I’m saying they help. Note how low density countries tend to be either horrible (West Africa) or wonderful (Iceland) places to live.
Yeah, South Africa was led by an HIV denialist for a decade. Despite Jacob Zuma’s many other flaws, he has been a huge improvement in this regard . He massively expanded the distribution of ARVs, and the country’s life expectancy is now back up to 60.
The number in the article comes from a rapid mortality surveillance system created by the South African Medical Research Council to monitor trends in mortality without a substantial time lag. You can see their report here. I don’t know enough to comment on the reliabiity of the number.
Anyway, my point is that mortality rates in South Africa are improving rapidly with increased availability of antiretrovirals. That trend is corroborated by other sources (see page 6 of this Stats SA report, for instance).
A quick talking point is that colonial Rhodesia used to be practically a first-world country.
Cite?
(Is now zimbabwe).
Which is definitely not a democracy.
The fact that only rich imperialist powers happen to be progressive democracies isn’t much evidence;
It isn’t true that “only rich imperialist powers are liberal democracies”. What is a “progressive democracy”?
if democracy fails in 9 cases out of 10,
Does democracy fail in 9 cases out of 10?
Mind you, this is not an argument for tearing down democracy
Sure. Though I am rather interested in hearing from the people who think we should tear down democracies.
merely that it could be the case that setting up a new democracy is a bad idea (see afganistan, iraq, etc).
Those examples certainly apply to invading a country and then telling it to become a democracy. It’s less obvious that, say, a Saudi or Iranian citizen should oppose domestic democratizing efforts. And there are older examples that suggest a conqueror willing commit sufficient resources can start a stable democracy (at least given certain populations).
Further, if you accept the cynical take, realizing that you live in a brainwashing theocracy ought to affect your intuitions about what looks like “doing a pretty good job”. Have you taken this into account?
Quite. But I still need some evidence that we haven’t always been at war with Eastasia and that Eurasia isn’t our eternally loyal ally. Romanticism about colonial Africa isn’t doing the trick.
A quick talking point is that colonial Rhodesia used to be practically a first-world country.
Cite?
I know very little about the history of that part of the world, but the GDP graph for Zimbabwe has quite an unusual shape. (Graph shows per-capita GDP in 2000 dollars, with aggregate data for all of sub-Saharan Africa displayed for comparison.) On the other hand, “practically a first-world country” sounds like an exaggeration at best: as the graph shows, GDP per capita was actually below that of sub-Saharan Africa in general until the first of those spikes, and fell back again after.
For a very different story, see Botswana, which Wikipedia informs me gained its independence from Britain in 1966.
A quick talking point is that colonial Rhodesia used to be practically a first-world country. (Is now zimbabwe). Same story for most of the third world, AFAIK.
The fact that only rich imperialist powers happen to be progressive democracies isn’t much evidence; if democracy fails in 9 cases out of 10, and fails in a way that degenerates to third-world barbarism, you will see a few successful progressive democracies, and a lot of third-world hellholes. Mind you, this is not an argument for tearing down democracy, merely that it could be the case that setting up a new democracy is a bad idea (see afganistan, iraq, etc).
Further, if you accept the cynical take, realizing that you live in a brainwashing theocracy ought to affect your intuitions about what looks like “doing a pretty good job”. Have you taken this into account?
These are not my opinions. Being neither a historian, political philosopher, or government employee, I am not qualified to have opinions on this subject.
The problem with that talking point is that Zimbabwe isn’t a liberal democracy, and neither are most third world countries. If you want an example of a third world country that is plausibly a liberal democracy, India comes to mind. And in this case at least, the country’s economy has performed much better post-independence than it did under colonial occupation. It’s true that India’s growth in the first three decades after independence (the 50s through the 70s) wasn’t particularly impressive, but it was still significantly better than its pre-independence record, which was positively dismal.
As Amartya Sen has pointed out, India hasn’t experienced a famine resulting in massive loss of life since its transition to liberal democracy. Under British rule, famines occured at regular intervals, with the last major one in 1943 involving 1.5 million starvation deaths. In contrast, the closest India has come to famine conditions since independence was in 1966, and the death toll was only about 2500. According to Sen, the institutions of liberal democracy, particularly a free press, guard against the kind of government inattention that turns a drought into a massive famine.
Even in Africa, the countries that perform the worst (and are clearly worse off than they were under colonialism) are not the ones that we would describe as liberal democracies. The uncontroversial liberal democracies in Africa are countries like Botswana, Ghana, Namibia and South Africa (I’m sure there are more I’m missing), and these are countries that do relatively well compared to their neighbors. Botswana is an even better example than India of a country that performed dismally under colonialism and has done well since then. Its per capita GDP (in PPP terms) increased from around $90 in 1966 (when it became independent) to about $16,000 today. It’s also one of the few African countries that has remained a liberal democracy consistently since its independence.
Sen goes on to argue that acute famines are better than chronic malnutrition, that democracy focusing on the obvious famines might make things worse, but no one quotes those parts.
I didn’t quote it because I don’t see the relevance in this context. Sure, malnutrition is a huge (and, apparently, growing) problem in contemporary India, but is there any evidence that it was a less serious problem under British rule? I’d be very surprised if there was. Periodic famine may be better than chronic malnutrition, but periodic famine plus chronic malnutrition is surely worse. I wasn’t trying to argue that liberal democracy solves everything, just that genuine post-colonial liberal democracies are doing better than they were under colonial rule, and that the transition of countries like India from colonies to democracies has plausibly made the world a better place.
Three links on that country
First President
Current president
De Beers
Responsible government at its finest.
Note what Namibia and Botswana have in common besides being nice places to live in Africa and being considered “liberal democracies”. Note where they tend to land on this list and how their economies tend to be strongly tied to resource extraction.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to glean from those links. It’s true that the current president of Botswana is the son of the first president, but Botswana is hardly alone in this kind of dynastic succession. I can name a few first-world democracies where multiple members of the same family have been elected heads of state.
And yes, Botswana is overly dependent on the diamond trade, and De Beers is a very shady company. The forced relocation of the San bushmen was an atrocity. Also, the country has a huge HIV/AIDS epidemic. But I wasn’t holding up Botswana as a shining exemplar of all that is good in this world. I was saying that it is, overall, a much better place to live in than it was before independence. Do you disagree?
Zimbabwe also has a low population density and an economy strongly tied to resource extraction, so those two factors by themselves don’t fully account for the relative prosperity of Botswana and Namibia.
Of course and a monarchist would expect such things to generally work out quite well on average. My point was that first president was royalty, his family had strong enough social capital to reach for power once more decades later which suggests strong background influence during the presidencies of Quett Masire and Festus Mogae. Note how the former of those was Vice-president under Seretse Khama and how Ian Khama served as Vice-president under the latter. If that family does not consider the country as something like a family business I don’t know which one does.
Also that the De Beers company likely has quite a strong role in the governance of the country it doesn’t need to share with many other corporate interests possibly approaching the United Fruit model, if this is so this is a very well run instance of that.
Moldbug’s theory of government in action? He seems to think so.
Ah, I see. Sorry, I misunderstood the point you were trying to make.
No its ok I should have given more context but was in a hurry.
Of course not, but I’m saying they help. Note how low density countries tend to be either horrible (West Africa) or wonderful (Iceland) places to live.
In the 10 years after South Africa became a democracy in 1994 they managed to reduce their average life expectance from 61 to 51.
I don’t think that a country can do much worse than South Africa as it became a democracy.
Yeah, South Africa was led by an HIV denialist for a decade. Despite Jacob Zuma’s many other flaws, he has been a huge improvement in this regard . He massively expanded the distribution of ARVs, and the country’s life expectancy is now back up to 60.
That’s a very strange article it quotes 54 for the life expectancy in 2009 and 60 for the life expectancy in 2012?
Google Public Data has a life expectancy of 52 for 2011 while Gapminder has one of 52 for 2010 and 53 for 2011.
The number in the article comes from a rapid mortality surveillance system created by the South African Medical Research Council to monitor trends in mortality without a substantial time lag. You can see their report here. I don’t know enough to comment on the reliabiity of the number.
Anyway, my point is that mortality rates in South Africa are improving rapidly with increased availability of antiretrovirals. That trend is corroborated by other sources (see page 6 of this Stats SA report, for instance).
I have heard that the country described differently.
Well that’s just anti-democratic of you!
Cite?
Which is definitely not a democracy.
It isn’t true that “only rich imperialist powers are liberal democracies”. What is a “progressive democracy”?
Does democracy fail in 9 cases out of 10?
Sure. Though I am rather interested in hearing from the people who think we should tear down democracies.
Those examples certainly apply to invading a country and then telling it to become a democracy. It’s less obvious that, say, a Saudi or Iranian citizen should oppose domestic democratizing efforts. And there are older examples that suggest a conqueror willing commit sufficient resources can start a stable democracy (at least given certain populations).
Quite. But I still need some evidence that we haven’t always been at war with Eastasia and that Eurasia isn’t our eternally loyal ally. Romanticism about colonial Africa isn’t doing the trick.
I know very little about the history of that part of the world, but the GDP graph for Zimbabwe has quite an unusual shape. (Graph shows per-capita GDP in 2000 dollars, with aggregate data for all of sub-Saharan Africa displayed for comparison.) On the other hand, “practically a first-world country” sounds like an exaggeration at best: as the graph shows, GDP per capita was actually below that of sub-Saharan Africa in general until the first of those spikes, and fell back again after.
For a very different story, see Botswana, which Wikipedia informs me gained its independence from Britain in 1966.