The Developing Country Double Standard

[Fuchs]

http://www.offiziere.ch/?p=7747

[carl]

Fuch:

That is pretty clever. It illustrates the political outlook of the authors as much as anything else.

The homeless in the US are almost never people driven from their homes. The people you see pushing the shopping carts or wandering down the roads wearing everything they own are either substance abusers, crazy people or really lousy criminals or a combination of all 3.

[Firn]

Info about the source and comment from the Swiss website:

(Found on Carol Gallo, David Week and Tom Murphy, “The Developing Country Double Standard“, A View From The Cave, 14.04.2012, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License).

This double standard prevails not only in Washington but also in highly industrialized states toward developing countries all over the world.

All in all I like it, it just shows that we are much more developed...

On a more serious note, it is in general a lot about the degree and the margins so the differentiations have often their merit - and sometimes not.

[Fuchs]

Originally Posted by carl

The homeless in the US are almost never people driven from their homes. The people you see pushing the shopping carts or wandering down the roads wearing everything they own are either substance abusers, crazy people or really lousy criminals or a combination of all 3.

It's an individual / collective difference in that line, a rather weak example.
The overall comparison reveals how much the point of view warps our perception, though. "We" aren't nearly that much better as we think.


I had a similar experience when I looked at West and East German economic growth of the Cold War era: Supposedly, the East German planning economy had ruined East Germany.
Fact was, it did not ruin, but rebuild - with a growing lag of several years in comparison to West Germany and an altogether different set of problems.
The growth rates were actually quite decent, given the extra burdens carried (more %GDP for military, emigration of many working-age inhabitants, reparations to USSR, unfair trade in COMECON), the inferior 'allied' regions' economies and tech base and the smaller export market for its goods.
A planning economy sucks in many ways, but not that badly as Western propaganda made me believe.


I love such thought provoking stuff that challenges entrenched perceptions. It's good for learning about the real world.

[Firn]

Originally Posted by Fuchs

I had a similar experience when I looked at West and East German economic growth of the Cold War era: Supposedly, the East German planning economy had ruined East Germany.
.

While I don't know much about the East german economy one must add that it contained the German regions hit hardest by plans to deindustrialize Germany. The Soviets were certainly eager to shift as much East as possible for a long timeframe and they were very efficient in taking down whole industries, considerably less so in rebuilding them in the Union. (AFAIK the tonnage counted, not the quality of the work executed by the mostly unlearned and forced labor which resulted in many completely ruined machines)

This compared of course surprisingly badly to the own giant, incredible and successfull Soviet efforts to shift the own war industry east during Barbarossa, maybe one of the big Soviet war tales told too seldomly in the West.

[davidbfpo]

I'm looking forward to the reaction of our African members and those who have served on the ground there.

One wonders how the vast majority of SWC members will react in the future when the balance of political and economic power shifts south and to the Pacific Rim, say when a Brazilian think tank publishes such a list.

In the UK we've already had a few instances of this, like Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore) and on our elections Robert Mugabe.

[Fuchs]

Originally Posted by Firn

While I don't know much about the East german economy one must add that it contained the German regions hit hardest by plans to deindustrialize Germany. The Soviets were certainly eager to shift as much East as possible for a long timeframe and they were very efficient in taking down whole industries, considerably less so in rebuilding them in the Union.

That's what I meant with "reparations to USSR".

A factory is really not a set of machines and tools, but of people who know how to use them.
The East Germans retained (most of) the people, the Soviets took the hardware. Hardware can be replaced much more easily (and new hardware is usually better than old one).

German WW2 efforts to build new factories from scratch tended to be inefficient and plagued by long delays if the factory was 100% new, but they were successful if the new factory was leaning on an established on at the same site. The hardware was the same in both methods.

[Stan]

Originally Posted by davidbfpo

I'm looking forward to the reaction of our African members and those who have served on the ground there.

David, no surprises - in fact, almost entertaining to read (but then you know my sense of humor to be a tad distorted at times ) It's not about defining the broad differences, it's about understanding them and putting things into perspective and then dealing with them the way the locals do.

Back in the day I had two airlines that I used to send African students to the USA for training: Swissair and Sabena. The students complained bitterly about the Belgian's hospitality (they were left in the customs area of the airport in spite of a 17 hour layover). I switched to Swissair and most if not all of the hotel room amenities were stolen. The naive Swiss (remember I'm half Swiss) felt travelers should be put up at the expense of the airline when layovers exceed 12 hours - regardless of point of origin and race - how ignorant !

Originally Posted by Firn

All in all I like it, it just shows that we are much more developed...

Agreed ! It also shows just how ignorant we are. We should either play by the local rules or just keep our two cents out of the picture.

Originally Posted by Fuchs

A factory is really not a set of machines and tools, but of people who know how to use them.

Exactly !