Someone told me that the reason third world countries aren't advanced is because we exploit them and use all of their resources to benefit ourselves. Is that really the case and is there any possibility for the countries to gain any kind of competative economic power?

If you ask 80 people that question, you'll get 80 different answers.  And none of them will have the whole truth, whatever their protestations to the contrary.

In today's global economy....you would certainly think that the answer to this question is an emphatic YES. :|

^^Or you could answer it by saying that the path to a middle class and emergence from famine and hunger is via capitalism - first working for the first world, and then growing the economy.  Like India, a former sweatshop capital, and today with growing opportunities for individuals.  Or China.

If you ask 80 people that question, you'll get 80 different answers.  And none of them will have the whole truth, whatever their protestations to the contrary.

I've never heard anyone say that we aren't exploiting them and that our trade agreements are benefiting them. I was hoping to hear that side of it if...there even is another side of the argument.

Riverviewer, I didn't see your last post when I made my response. I see what you mean but does China and India have trading advantages over other third world countries or do you think they are just better at progressing?

They have infrastructure and stability, and they've had it for a while now.  One can't just invent a fully-formed middle class out of aid and policy - they can just provide a stable environment in which private investment can work.  And private investment isn't going to go to a country for computer programming and skilled machining when the skills aren't there.  Step 1: unskilled labor, build infrastructure and a trained workforce; Step 2: semi-skilled labor, more infrastructure, more education, more training.  In a few generations of relative stability, any country and any people can grow into a first world economy.  They'll never do it with direct aid, but only with growing an economy, starting with what they can do and growing into what they will be able to do later.

 

At least, that's a different point of view.  Is it right?  Hell if I know...and is the motivation behind the first world exploitation or growing economies?  Depends who you ask.

 

But yes, there most certainly is another side to the argument.  There are probably dozens of them.

This is pretty interesting...

 

Google Trends searches I just did:

 

"Fibre Optics"

1. Delhi India

2. Hyderabad India

3. New Delhi India

4. Chennai India

5. Mumbai India

6. Bangalore India

7. Singapore Singapore

8. Adelaide Australia

9. Perth Australia

10. Melbourne Australia

 

"Technology"

1. New Delhi India

2. Chennai India

3. Delhi India

4. Bangalore India

5. Mumbai India

6. Singapore Singapore

7. Washington, DC USA

8. Hong Kong Hong Kong

9. Boston, MA USA

10. Sydney Australia

 

 

"Grid Computing"

1. Hyderabad India

2. Bangalore India

3. Chennai India

4. New Delhi India

5. Mumbai India

6. Delhi India

7. Singapore Singapore

8. Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

9. Seoul Korea

10. Bangkok Thailand

 

 

"Engineering"

 

1. New Delhi India

2. Chennai India

3. Delhi India

4. Mumbai India

5. Bangalore India

6. Singapore Singapore

7. Calgary Canada

8. Houston, TX USA

9. Perth Australia

10. London United Kingdom

Just look at the GDP of America compared to India, and you'll see their recent sucess isn't enough to take the country out of mass poverty and hunger.

 

No doubt - but the counter-argument is to append one word to your last sentence: "yet."  And to observe how much progress has been made.

The next world war (God forbid) will be fought over water. Whoever has the freshwater resources will have incredible power.

 

You've said this before, but I'm not convinced.  Desalination is expensive, but not that expensive.  It's pretty common already and becoming more so.  You can read up on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

 

Could water resource needs be the cause of a war?  No doubt.  But a world war?  Not unless the world economy and energy supplies tanked first - in which case, it wouldn't be water that caused the war...

Sometimes I wonder if there is something out there that RiverViewer DOESNT know lol.

Sometimes I wonder if there is something out there that RiverViewer DOESNT know lol.

 

He doesn't know Photoshop.  He PMed me about that. :-D

^Indeed...

 

There's tons and tons of stuff I'm completely clueless about.  I just like to read about odd stuff for no particular reasons, and eventually some of that stuff comes up, that's all.

^Indeed...

 

There's tons and tons of stuff I'm completely clueless about.  I just like to read about odd stuff for no particular reasons, and eventually some of that stuff comes up, that's all.

 

Ok, so you and KJP were seperated at birth. :-)

I think India and China's biggest problem is over-population.  No matter how many tech support centers you build in Mumbai, it will never be enough to bring a decent standard of living to the 1 billion people in India.  Just trying to build the infrastructure to keep up with the population growth has to be tough.

 

If you're wondering if we're taking advantage of developing nations just ask yourself how you can buy clothes or appliances for dirt-cheap prices at Wal-Mart when you consider how much it cost to make, ship, distribute, advertise, and stock said products. 

 

Some would argue that we are losing our middle class right here in the United States  :speech:

After fifty years of the war on poverty in this country, we can see that Utopian notions of a world without pain and suffering just isn't possible. Since the 60s there have been complaints levied against sweatshops in the third world, but what they don't tell you if that those jobs are actually extremely desirable because the only alternative for many people is sustenance farming. I wouldn't be surprised if the middle class that emerges out of China is larger then America's, strictly based on population alone. There will continue to be poverty, but there is always a way out for the deft and the cunning.

^Unfortunately you're right.  I guess the only thing you can do is to fight for a "fair" system that gives people an equal opportunity to pull themselves out of poverty through talent, cunning, and/or formal education.

 

Whatever happened to our War on Poverty?  I wish the next Democratic presidential candidate would bring it up as a "moral" issue that we can't ignore anymore.

I saw a PBS special specfically delt with why nations like the united states has hellicopters, and other nations have hardly anything at all. To sum it up it had to with the specific locational advantages each people had back in pre-historic times. Thoes areas that were were able to grow cereal grains (north america/messopotanian/europe/china) in excess supply were able to spend less of their time just trying to get food to stay alive, and dedicate themselves to doing other things.

 

That led to alot of counties with less developed technologies that put them in the position to be "exploited" the way they are now

That's Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel theory.  Basically, the idea is that because Eurasia (including Northern Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East and on to India and China) is aligned along a horizontal axis, that plants and animals and eventually farming techniques that developed in one area could be exported all along that axis.  That meant things like, nine of the ten major domesticable animals were indiginous to Eurasia, and farming ideas that developed in the fertile crescent or in Africa could spread relatively easily.

 

But meanwhile, over here in the Americas, the contiguous land mass is aligned along a vertical axis.  That means we have climates ranging from polar, to equatorial, then back to polar.  You find yourself a grain, such as corn, that works in the temperate regions of North America, and try to spread that south, and you'll have to contend with vastly different lengths of day, different lengths of growing seasons, different climates, and, in addition, one tiny little funnel in Panama to transfer everything through.  All of this meant that the successful species of plants and animals, and later successful farming techniques, would all be largely localized - it was like having a series of islands over here, vs. having one long, contiguous land mass in Eurasia.

 

And the better your farming and animal keeping, the more folks you can feed from one person's work - if one person's work can feed two families, then half the people can do things other than farm.  Farming and keeping livestock allows much more human density than hunting and gathering, and you can support churches, governments, builders, soldiers, etc.  And eventually develop trade with other groups, develop technology (which can spread effectively to other groups), etc.

 

And by living in greater density, viruses can spread much more effectively.  The more folks who die from viruses, the more opportunity there is for those who have immunities from those viruses to reproduce.  Over time, just to have been born meant your ancestors were better able to handle viruses over the long haul.

 

And thus, when the Conquistadors landed in Aztec Mexico, his civilization had spent more than 10,000 years farming, growing livestock, living in cities, developing technology, living with (and carrying) viruses, etc.  They were connected with a human population that numbered in the hundreds of millions.  They had guns, germs and steel.  The Aztecs, who had an incredible civilization themselves, had only been at it for what, 500, 1000 years or so? And they were connected with a human population that numbered probably in the hundreds of thousands (I'm guessing - that sound about right?)

 

It's a very interesting theory.  I don't believe that everything worked out as neatly and smoothly as he depicts in his book, and I've read a few critiques of it, but I'm sure to a large extent it's accurate.  I've never done more than just scratch the surface of the debate, though, so I can't do justice to the counter-arguments.  But I'll poke around and see if something pops up.