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Why? Every industrialized country on the planet now has an interest in making Afghanistan an industrialized country so that they can get a piece of that sweet
by alexgartrell 16y ago
Why? Every industrialized country on the planet now has an interest in making Afghanistan an industrialized country so that they can get a piece of that sweet lithium pie. Granted, there are chances for folks to take advantage and Afghanistan to get some generally raw deals, but it's overwhelmingly better than being poor with an economy built primarily on the drug trade.
Afghanistan went from having no chance to a moderate chance. It's no cause for celebration, but it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world either.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoWhy? Because of the Resource Curse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- tptacek 16y agoMost of the supposed reasons behind the "curse" assume that there's an already-functioning economy to wreck. Minerals in Afghanistan aren't going to wreck their nonexistent licit agriculture output. Further, Afghanistan is already in a state of chronic intense conflict, which neutralizes another arm of the "curse".
- MichaelSalib 16y agoThe presence of vast mineral wealth will encourage the continuation of chronic intense conflict. And as long as said conflict continues, foreign investment will be very limited, which means it will be very difficult to begin large scale mining operations. If you were a mining engineer, would you want to travel to Afghanistan and spend a year or two setting up a new mine there?
- tptacek 16y agoConflict in Afghanistan was going to continue until the West left. Would I want to live in Afghanistan to set up a new mine? Depends on how much you paid me. There are already many tens of thousands of private contractors in war zones.
- fgf 16y agothe arabs do well, africans don't, who knows what will happen to the afghans?
- WorkerBee 16y agothe arabs do well Do they? The Saudi Arabian ruling classes do very well indeed, but how does the average Saudi do? Hint: google "Saudi Arabia inequality" and "Saudi Arabia oppression". It's the resource curse at work.
- fgf 16y agoHow is the lack of resource curse working out in Yemen and Egypt? (nations fortunate enough to be without oil) They are doing even worse. Arab nations with oil do better than arab nations without oil. I'm only arguing against the notion that large mineral resources will always be a catastrophe. Yemen and egypt has about a tenth of Saudi Arabias gdp pr. capita. Saudi arabia, the emirates and kuwait all have welfare states for their citizens who are better off (materially) than egyptians or yemenites. Those (really) poor and oppressed people are guest workers. They were desperately poor before they went to Saudia Arabia, the Saudis merely gave them a marginally better option.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoNobody is claiming that the Resource Curse explains all possible development outcomes.
- WorkerBee 16y agoThose (really) poor and oppressed people are guest workers. That's the official line, anyway. The whole issue of who is a citizen, and who has merely been there for years is part of it. They were desperately poor before they went to Saudi Arabia, the Saudis merely gave them a marginally better option. the Saudis gave them what looked like a marginally better option.
- fgf 16y ago
- Alex3917 16y ago"It's overwhelmingly better than being poor with an economy built primarily on the drug trade." Not necessarily. The U.S. economy was built on drugs when it was starting out. Even today most of our famous colleges are named after drug families.
- buss 16y agoI have never heard this. Citation please?
- aristus 16y agoAh, yes, Notorious M.I.T. Which famous colleges do you have in mind here?
- joeyo 16y agoThe only obvious one I can think of is Duke.
- Alex3917 16y agoYale, Brown, Duke, Kennedy School, Georgetown, Stanford, etc. Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there are at least another twenty.
- starkfist 16y agoThey aren't "famous colleges" if you can't think of them off the top of your head.
- eru 16y agoDepends. By this metric -- applied to me -- there are no famous American-football players, either.
- gruseom 16y agoStanford made his money in railroads, not necessarily in the most seemly way, but hardly a drug. He did own wineries in Northern CA, but I was under the impression that those came much later. Are they what you were referring to?
- edge17 16y agoi'm pretty sure the Afghans aren't crying