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The history part of that book was really good, but when he starts talking about economics it quickly becomes clear he is confused about even the most simple con

The history part of that book was really good, but when he starts talking about economics it quickly becomes clear he is confused about even the most simple concepts. He tries to critique economics without knowing anything about economics. What one really gets from this book is an understanding of where the human 'crabs in bucket' attitude comes from and how it is deep within our natural instincts. Having spent a lot of time in 3rd world countries, I can say that his description of debt and how things work through guilt and people manipulating each other is exactly how things still work. He actually treats it like it is a good thing though, but once you see it for yourself it is clear that this is has a lot to do with why these places are still poor. Breaking free from that, and inventing objective measures of credit and laws for proper debt accounting and repayment, has a lot to do with why we are so happy and rich in the modern world, I think.

JasonCannon 5y ago
>He actually treats it like it is a good thing though, but once you see it for yourself it is clear that this is has a lot to do with why these places are still poor Really? It's that and not the imperialist systems that have oppressed and colonized them that are the reason they are poor? Fascinating.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  But they were poor and the colonists were rich before they ever came into contact.
  - JasonCannon 5y ago
    Gonna need a source on this one.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Europe built stuff like this long before colonization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Cathedral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Cathedral In Europe such constructions happened in many places, no other part of the world built similar things. No, not even Asia, Europe were ahead of them at this point.
      - JasonCannon 5y ago
        The ancient mosques? The pyramids of Egypt? The pyramids of South America? The Aztecs built their capital on a lake. The Taj Mahal, Kailasa Temple, any of the temples in ancient Babylon and Mesopotamia, and countless other monuments built all over the world (not super familiar with the far east)? This is the peak of eurocentrism and ignorance of the rest of the world. You honestly believe on Europe was building giant monuments?
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Sometimes true, and sometimes not. The Incas and the Aztec were rich.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  Weird how the people in the imperial core never want to admit its not their economics or their political model that made them rich in the first place. It was the over exploitation of the rest of the world once the imperialist countries got the overhand. They made the number 1 and number 2 economy for most of history become backwaters. Funny thing is where I'm from the Netherlands we even called it our golden century and still people can't connect the dots between our economic wealth and the plundering of the world. But I have already seen the break down of our institutions from 2008 till now, the shock of 2008 was so big that the dividend from western exploitation is not enough anymore to cover up bad leadership. As long as there is generational poverty people from the imperial core will also carry generational guilt. The wrongs need to be corrected before westerners can talk about how to run things properly. But I don't see that happening until the western imperial empire breaks up into many pieces.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Yes, strange indeed that those imperialist Swiss, Norwegians, Danish, Japanese, South Koreans, and Canadians never want to admit that it's their imperialist ventures that made them rich. I wonder why?
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Japan was an imperialist state, they abused China horribly for example. But yeah not all rich countries were imperialist. And arguably Japan didn't got rich from being imperialist, they got rich after they got bombed to hell and rebuilt without any extra territories.
      - fallingknife 5y ago
        There was a little incident where they got nuked back to the stone age since then.
        dragonelite 5y ago
        Two cities were nuked of the how many that got firebombed to ashes. It certainly helped that Japan was already a industrialized country when ww2 happened. So the institutional knowledge was already there in Japan to rebuild and do it fast.
- caporaltito 5y ago
  > Really? It's that and not the imperialist systems that have oppressed and colonized them that are the reason they are poor? Yes. It is really that and not the imperialist systems that have oppressed and colonized them.

JasonCannon 5y ago

>He actually treats it like it is a good thing though, but once you see it for yourself it is clear that this is has a lot to do with why these places are still poor Really? It's that and not the imperialist systems that have oppressed and colonized them that are the reason they are poor? Fascinating.

fallingknife 5y ago
But they were poor and the colonists were rich before they ever came into contact.
- JasonCannon 5y ago
  Gonna need a source on this one.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Europe built stuff like this long before colonization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Cathedral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Cathedral In Europe such constructions happened in many places, no other part of the world built similar things. No, not even Asia, Europe were ahead of them at this point.
    - JasonCannon 5y ago
      The ancient mosques? The pyramids of Egypt? The pyramids of South America? The Aztecs built their capital on a lake. The Taj Mahal, Kailasa Temple, any of the temples in ancient Babylon and Mesopotamia, and countless other monuments built all over the world (not super familiar with the far east)? This is the peak of eurocentrism and ignorance of the rest of the world. You honestly believe on Europe was building giant monuments?
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Sometimes true, and sometimes not. The Incas and the Aztec were rich.
dragonelite 5y ago
Weird how the people in the imperial core never want to admit its not their economics or their political model that made them rich in the first place. It was the over exploitation of the rest of the world once the imperialist countries got the overhand. They made the number 1 and number 2 economy for most of history become backwaters. Funny thing is where I'm from the Netherlands we even called it our golden century and still people can't connect the dots between our economic wealth and the plundering of the world. But I have already seen the break down of our institutions from 2008 till now, the shock of 2008 was so big that the dividend from western exploitation is not enough anymore to cover up bad leadership. As long as there is generational poverty people from the imperial core will also carry generational guilt. The wrongs need to be corrected before westerners can talk about how to run things properly. But I don't see that happening until the western imperial empire breaks up into many pieces.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Yes, strange indeed that those imperialist Swiss, Norwegians, Danish, Japanese, South Koreans, and Canadians never want to admit that it's their imperialist ventures that made them rich. I wonder why?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Japan was an imperialist state, they abused China horribly for example. But yeah not all rich countries were imperialist. And arguably Japan didn't got rich from being imperialist, they got rich after they got bombed to hell and rebuilt without any extra territories.
    - fallingknife 5y ago
      There was a little incident where they got nuked back to the stone age since then.
      - dragonelite 5y ago
        Two cities were nuked of the how many that got firebombed to ashes. It certainly helped that Japan was already a industrialized country when ww2 happened. So the institutional knowledge was already there in Japan to rebuild and do it fast.
caporaltito 5y ago
> Really? It's that and not the imperialist systems that have oppressed and colonized them that are the reason they are poor? Yes. It is really that and not the imperialist systems that have oppressed and colonized them.