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Another reason is that rich countries usually benefit from poor countries staying poor, so the try to keep them that way

ugh 17y ago
What's the mechanism there? How do they benefit? Exploitation is rather impossible these days, rich countries cannot anymore just waltz into any country they want and dictate the terms. If they are doing business with some poor country that usually leads to progress, not exploitation. It might very well be that rich countries want to use poor countries for cheap labor and - by keeping them poor - preserve that source of cheap labor. But it might also very well be that those two wishes are one too many. Maybe you can have only one at a time.
JulianMorrison 17y ago
That's obvious nonsense. Look what Japan, China and India have done for the world. First cheap fast-growing investments producing low cost goods (aka sweatshops), then a rich economy that can do its own investing. Even countries that get a smaller slice of the pie now still have cause to be glad that the whole pie is larger.
- ytinas 17y ago
  I don't follow. You don't think the US has interest in China labor being so cheap? What do you think would happen if standard of living for the average Chinese reached that of the average American and they had to be paid the same amount it would cost us to produce materials?
  - JulianMorrison 17y ago
    We've seen the answer to that - it already happened in Japan. The search for cheap labor moves on to another poor country, and the newly rich country is an economic benefit to all as a trading partner.
    - ytinas 17y ago
      And when we run out of poor countries? You could say that that can't happen because when the Chinas/Indias of the world get to our current standards we will be at a higher standard and they will still be poor relative to us, but this doesn't appear to be happening. The American middle class had a lot more money e.g. pre-Reagan than they do now.
weavejester 17y ago
How so? I'm not convinced the leaders of rich countries think much beyond their next re-election, and whilst there may be some benefit to having cheap labour, you need a reasonable infrastructure in place to take advantage of that. You can't run a factory if you don't have a reliable power supply, for example.

ugh 17y ago

What's the mechanism there? How do they benefit? Exploitation is rather impossible these days, rich countries cannot anymore just waltz into any country they want and dictate the terms. If they are doing business with some poor country that usually leads to progress, not exploitation. It might very well be that rich countries want to use poor countries for cheap labor and - by keeping them poor - preserve that source of cheap labor. But it might also very well be that those two wishes are one too many. Maybe you can have only one at a time.

JulianMorrison 17y ago

That's obvious nonsense. Look what Japan, China and India have done for the world. First cheap fast-growing investments producing low cost goods (aka sweatshops), then a rich economy that can do its own investing. Even countries that get a smaller slice of the pie now still have cause to be glad that the whole pie is larger.

ytinas 17y ago
I don't follow. You don't think the US has interest in China labor being so cheap? What do you think would happen if standard of living for the average Chinese reached that of the average American and they had to be paid the same amount it would cost us to produce materials?
- JulianMorrison 17y ago
  We've seen the answer to that - it already happened in Japan. The search for cheap labor moves on to another poor country, and the newly rich country is an economic benefit to all as a trading partner.
  - ytinas 17y ago
    And when we run out of poor countries? You could say that that can't happen because when the Chinas/Indias of the world get to our current standards we will be at a higher standard and they will still be poor relative to us, but this doesn't appear to be happening. The American middle class had a lot more money e.g. pre-Reagan than they do now.

weavejester 17y ago

How so? I'm not convinced the leaders of rich countries think much beyond their next re-election, and whilst there may be some benefit to having cheap labour, you need a reasonable infrastructure in place to take advantage of that. You can't run a factory if you don't have a reliable power supply, for example.