3 ms·

> the high income countries of the world are only "great" because they exploit everyone else Man, I hate this trope. Let me fix it for you: high income countri

> the high income countries of the world are only "great" because they exploit everyone else Man, I hate this trope. Let me fix it for you: high income countries are only "great" because they have achieved a great deal of institutional, economic and scientific sophistication. This puts yes them in a position to do shitty things, and they do shitty things, no question. But the actual source of wealth isn't exploitation of other countries. There are plenty of high income countries that don't exploit, and low income countries that do exploit. Also look at history: exploitation or not made little difference except for the most successful colonial powers, so more or less Portugal, Spain, maybe Netherlands, and the UK. Those things are all over. Progress is not a zero-sum game. Wealth can be created, if it exists it does not have to be because it's stolen. I mean - how did the amount of wealth in the world increase, anyway? Stealing is kind of lossy, it can't have been by mutual stealing. Also, natural resources are not that important anymore. And high income countries were/are doing just fine mining them on their own soil.

Arn_Thor 9y ago
> high income countries are only "great" because they have achieved a great deal of institutional, economic and scientific sophistication Wrong. High-income countries are "great" because they have been granted by history (and luck) healthy-ish institutions, beneficial economic conditions and have had the resources and foresight to conduct scientific exploration. What the US has done with those factors (some individuals willingly and deliberately and some entities due to economic push/pull factors such as being beholden to shareholders and quarterly profit figures) is to exploit cheap labor, first in the US and later on abroad. This has been done with utter disregard for the health, safety and well-being of workers and consumer. It has always taken at least one tragedy, or general public outrage, for either the government or corporations to change course. In simple but not simplistic terms: A significant share of wealth in the United States is the direct result of exploitation of non-American labor. Now, the US isn't alone in doing things this way. All countries and market participants do this to some extent, because the economic incentive and opportunity structure in the world encourages it. But to hell with anyone pretending our (industrialized, western) wealth isn't built on the broken bones of others!

Arn_Thor 9y ago

> high income countries are only "great" because they have achieved a great deal of institutional, economic and scientific sophistication Wrong. High-income countries are "great" because they have been granted by history (and luck) healthy-ish institutions, beneficial economic conditions and have had the resources and foresight to conduct scientific exploration. What the US has done with those factors (some individuals willingly and deliberately and some entities due to economic push/pull factors such as being beholden to shareholders and quarterly profit figures) is to exploit cheap labor, first in the US and later on abroad. This has been done with utter disregard for the health, safety and well-being of workers and consumer. It has always taken at least one tragedy, or general public outrage, for either the government or corporations to change course. In simple but not simplistic terms: A significant share of wealth in the United States is the direct result of exploitation of non-American labor. Now, the US isn't alone in doing things this way. All countries and market participants do this to some extent, because the economic incentive and opportunity structure in the world encourages it. But to hell with anyone pretending our (industrialized, western) wealth isn't built on the broken bones of others!