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This analysis overlooks the significant impact of appropriation of assets from colonists. A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plen

by cgio 5y ago

This analysis overlooks the significant impact of appropriation of assets from colonists. A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plenty of resources, available as communal, then that would change the view and sense of prosperity within these communities.

adolph 5y ago
An example of this might be Saudi Arabia.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Saudi Arabia has a very high GDP and an even higher GNI. Government-owned assets are counted toward GDP/GNI.
  - adolph 5y ago
    > A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plenty of resources, available as communal, then that would change the view and sense of prosperity within these communities. SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Similarly Canada has a significant amount of resources. Colonial expropriation meant that these resources have not been controlled by the previous regimes. [A] major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000.[2] This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused Ibn Saud to get serious about the search for oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in...
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      >>SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Yes that is correct, and I see your point now.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
A society with a small GDP is poor. And that was reflected in statistics like extremely high infant mortality rates within indigenuous populations pre-integration. There was some decline in quality of life in the transition from hunter-gatherer life to early agricultural life, but there is still a huge gap between the quality of life in hunter-gatherer societies, or medieval agricultural societies, and modern societies.

by cgio 5y ago

adolph 5y ago

An example of this might be Saudi Arabia.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
Saudi Arabia has a very high GDP and an even higher GNI. Government-owned assets are counted toward GDP/GNI.
- adolph 5y ago
  > A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plenty of resources, available as communal, then that would change the view and sense of prosperity within these communities. SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Similarly Canada has a significant amount of resources. Colonial expropriation meant that these resources have not been controlled by the previous regimes. [A] major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000.[2] This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused Ibn Saud to get serious about the search for oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in...
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    >>SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Yes that is correct, and I see your point now.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

A society with a small GDP is poor. And that was reflected in statistics like extremely high infant mortality rates within indigenuous populations pre-integration. There was some decline in quality of life in the transition from hunter-gatherer life to early agricultural life, but there is still a huge gap between the quality of life in hunter-gatherer societies, or medieval agricultural societies, and modern societies.