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Every day most of the crimes committed are against women from the Port Moresby slum areas. Ah, systemic poverty rears its ugly head again. This is, no doubt, r
by Mz 10y ago
Every day most of the crimes committed are against women from the Port Moresby slum areas.
Ah, systemic poverty rears its ugly head again. This is, no doubt, related in part to the fact that 97% of the land is owned as tribal land, which seriously hampers modern economic development:
The PNG legislature has enacted laws in which a type of tenure called "customary land title" is recognised, meaning that the traditional lands of the indigenous peoples have some legal basis to inalienable tenure. This customary land notionally covers most of the usable land in the country (some 97% of total land area);[56] alienated land is either held privately under state lease or is government land. Freehold title (also known as fee simple) can only be held by Papua New Guinean citizens.[57]
Only some 3% of the land of Papua New Guinea is in private hands
American indigenous peoples also face this problem: You cannot get a mortgage to build a house if the land it sits on cannot be taken by the bank if you default on your payments. This is part of why indigenous peoples are so very poor.
I don't know what the answer is. Perhaps there is some answer that preserves the tribal lands system and also alleviates the stranglehold that has on development. But I have pondered this on and off over the years and come up with no ideas on how to fix it and have not yet seen anything written up that sounds plausible.
In the US, tribes that have improved their economic status seem to mostly do so by taking advantage of the legal loophole that they are sovereign states, not subjected to state laws, and they create casinos on their lands. This provides employment as well as becomes a cash cow for paying for schools and the like.
Most people do not think casinos represent serious economic development per se. It is a way to filch some wealth from the pockets of the white men that stole their lands, but real wealth is generally rooted in industry and commerce. Casinos are largely a means to redistribute money, not create new value. Merely redistributing money is very much decried as a bad thing when we do it in the form of welfare.
- Mz 10y agoWell, I seem to have failed to cite my source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea#Land_tenure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea#Land_tenure
- thaumasiotes 10y ago> Casinos are largely a means to redistribute money, not create new value. Merely redistributing money is very much decried as a bad thing when we do it in the form of welfare. This would apply just as much to the music industry as it does to the gambling industry. Casinos do create value; they create entertainment value. It doesn't become less valuable when a company you don't like produces it.
- Mz 10y agoAs someone who writes fiction, I respectfully disagree. Art, music and other forms of so called entertainment often elevate the mind and spirit, help people cope with emotional issues and accomplish a great deal more than pissing the night away. Video games and other forms of entertainment are generally going to have more value for developing people than your typical game of gambling. It has nothing to do with me personally disliking it. It has to do with me being concerned that this solution doesn't add real value to the system to help people eat nutritious food, breathe clean air and so on. I think entertainment has real value for the human species. But not all entertainment is equally valuable.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago> I think entertainment has real value for the human species. But not all entertainment is equally valuable. > It has nothing to do with me personally disliking it.
- Mz 10y agoMy father was a gambler. I deal left-handed because you couldn't have a relationship to him if you didn't play cards, so I learned to deal at age 4 when I was too young to understand that mirroring what he did caused it to be the opposite hand. I caught him cheating when I was 12 because I was skinning him alive and his ego couldn't take it. We were betting with Christmas cookies and I was winning about 2/3s of the hands and he balked at that. I have zero problem with gambling and I no way dislike it. I still believe that, generally speaking, music (your example of entertainment) as well as art, fiction and many other forms of entertainment generally provide greater value to the human race than gambling does. So, please, kindly, stop with the ad hominems -- "YOU just don't like it" -- which are against the rules here, and give me your argument as to why gambling has as much or more value as other forms of entertainment or kindly leave me alone. Thanks.
- IndianAstronaut 10y agoHernando De Soto addresses this issue in specific in his book "Mystery of Capital". Very good book to read about the issue of property rights and economic growth.
- Mz 10y agoIt is apparently available online for free download as a pdf here: http://ebookdig.biz/ebook/q/pdf/the-mystery-of-capital-.html http://ebookdig.biz/ebook/q/pdf/the-mystery-of-capital-.html If I can get it successfully downloaded, I am likely to read it. Thanks for mentioning it.