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I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to r

I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to reap rewards that can only come from most simple needs being met easily. In general, the developing countries are mostly "behind the curve", meaning their economic growth mostly wasn't that much lower for most of history, but rather they started somewhat later, often because they needed the technology developed in the west (modern agriculture mostly) to start increasing their population density. As far as I understand it, Africa is suitable for both very primitive and very advanced agriculture, but not much "in between" and so they got stuck with hunting/gathering and subsistence farming. They also didn't have access to proper domestic animals before Europe industrialized, though they had better animals than the South Americans, apparently. Neither a LLama nor a zebra can pull a plow. Many countries in Africa were jumpstarted by colonization, and the colonists didn't have any interest in making that growth sustainable or giving the natives the tools to sustain that growth on their own. That's why white African farmers can say the black Africans can't manage huge farms for sh. Well, the white farmers didn't teach it to them and prevented them from learning it on their own... Ethiopia is probably slightly different.

neuronic 7y ago
> I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to reap rewards that can only come from most simple needs being met easily. Europe's industrialization as well as other Western countries heavily depended on the exploitation of third world countries in Asia and Africa, especially after WW2. Sweatshops and slavery and cheap mass transportation of goods make our lifestyle possible. For a very recent example, smartphones produced in the US/Europe would simply not be affordable for most users and the technology would be nowhere near where it is nowadays since initial smartphones would have never been popular. It took suicide-level conditions in places like Foxconn to get us our gadget at <$1000. So who are African nations going to exploit? Each other?
- nottorp 7y ago
  <quote>It took suicide-level conditions in places like Foxconn to get us our gadget at <$1000.</quote> Not that I disagree with the rest of the post, but it's time the suicides at Foxconn story dies a fiery death. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/10/apples-chinese-suicides-and-the-amazing-economics-of-ha-joon-chang/#327ffeca36a6 https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/10/apples-c... The juicy quote: At the time of that spate of suicides Foxconn had nearly 1 million workers in its plants. There were up to 14 suicides (it depends whose count you want to use) among that 1 million. The average rate of suicide in China is 22 per 100,000 people per year. That is, the suicide rate at Foxconn was under 5% of the general suicide rate of the Chinese population.
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    To be fair, you should compare to a demographic group similar to Foxconn workers. Comparison to the whole population may not be very informative due to confounders.
  - newsgremlin 7y ago
    The difference is those suicides at Foxconn are for one reason only, working conditions. Meanwhile the general suicide rate in China is for any number of reasons. Playing a pure numbers game with peoples lives is distasteful.
    - blackoil 7y ago
      Is there any reason to believe, Foxconn employees don't have any other personal/environmental problem causing them to suicide. While I am all for improving conditions of employees, it should be in context to the environment. If the whole country is working on 1$/day, expecting few companies to got 5$ just because they have global visibility is not feasible. It is not good for the company, economy and social dynamics of that region.
      - gingabriska 7y ago
        >Is there any reason to believe, Foxconn employees don't have any other personal/environmental problem causing them to suicide. It seems #1 reason for sucide is mental illness or chronic pain/disease severely impacting their quality of life. You need to ask can mentally ill people get employed at foxconn? They would be having interviews like for every other job, and probably the workers are selected based on their efficiency which can exclude a lot of mentally ill people. If not, then we've to remove the number of people who commit suicide due to chronic health issue or mental illness then compare the data again.
riffraff 7y ago
> They also didn't have access to proper domestic animals before Europe industrialized I think you're confusing lack of domesticated animals in primitive times. Cows and such have been farmed in africa for a long time. For example, Nguni cattle[0], seems to have brought to southern africa as early as the sixth century. And, well, there were a host of empires on the coast of northern africa before the industrial revolution. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguni_cattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguni_cattle

neuronic 7y ago

> I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to reap rewards that can only come from most simple needs being met easily. Europe's industrialization as well as other Western countries heavily depended on the exploitation of third world countries in Asia and Africa, especially after WW2. Sweatshops and slavery and cheap mass transportation of goods make our lifestyle possible. For a very recent example, smartphones produced in the US/Europe would simply not be affordable for most users and the technology would be nowhere near where it is nowadays since initial smartphones would have never been popular. It took suicide-level conditions in places like Foxconn to get us our gadget at <$1000. So who are African nations going to exploit? Each other?

nottorp 7y ago
<quote>It took suicide-level conditions in places like Foxconn to get us our gadget at <$1000.</quote> Not that I disagree with the rest of the post, but it's time the suicides at Foxconn story dies a fiery death. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/10/apples-chinese-suicides-and-the-amazing-economics-of-ha-joon-chang/#327ffeca36a6 https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/10/apples-c... The juicy quote: At the time of that spate of suicides Foxconn had nearly 1 million workers in its plants. There were up to 14 suicides (it depends whose count you want to use) among that 1 million. The average rate of suicide in China is 22 per 100,000 people per year. That is, the suicide rate at Foxconn was under 5% of the general suicide rate of the Chinese population.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  To be fair, you should compare to a demographic group similar to Foxconn workers. Comparison to the whole population may not be very informative due to confounders.
- newsgremlin 7y ago
  The difference is those suicides at Foxconn are for one reason only, working conditions. Meanwhile the general suicide rate in China is for any number of reasons. Playing a pure numbers game with peoples lives is distasteful.
  - blackoil 7y ago
    Is there any reason to believe, Foxconn employees don't have any other personal/environmental problem causing them to suicide. While I am all for improving conditions of employees, it should be in context to the environment. If the whole country is working on 1$/day, expecting few companies to got 5$ just because they have global visibility is not feasible. It is not good for the company, economy and social dynamics of that region.
    - gingabriska 7y ago
      >Is there any reason to believe, Foxconn employees don't have any other personal/environmental problem causing them to suicide. It seems #1 reason for sucide is mental illness or chronic pain/disease severely impacting their quality of life. You need to ask can mentally ill people get employed at foxconn? They would be having interviews like for every other job, and probably the workers are selected based on their efficiency which can exclude a lot of mentally ill people. If not, then we've to remove the number of people who commit suicide due to chronic health issue or mental illness then compare the data again.

riffraff 7y ago

> They also didn't have access to proper domestic animals before Europe industrialized I think you're confusing lack of domesticated animals in primitive times. Cows and such have been farmed in africa for a long time. For example, Nguni cattle[0], seems to have brought to southern africa as early as the sixth century. And, well, there were a host of empires on the coast of northern africa before the industrial revolution. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguni_cattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguni_cattle