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Supposedly someone took over your town, but they established a completely new system. No longer do we decide by council or by elders or by merit, we only listen

Supposedly someone took over your town, but they established a completely new system. No longer do we decide by council or by elders or by merit, we only listen to the despot. This happened because a large company moved in and started taking over and installed the despot. They then kept their authority by force. Things deteriorated and the company caused lots of grief, tears and blood spilled. All the generations of how to manage the town has left and now the model for organization in society has become corruption. How will you teach your kids that this is not a good way forward for our town when no one remembers the old way? Why not just bribe? You cant fix the situation, everyone does it. After about 50 years the company moves back out of town leaving a horribly broken system that has erased generations of culture on how to operate. But what people do know is the despot system, after some violence they settle back to ANYTHING that works cause no system is so much worse. But hey why blame the company that moved in? its been a while now tell them to just put things back they way they were. Its not like the company did this all over the world? Right?.... They did. Its the case that every other similar company from the area practiced the same pattern, all over the world.

mc32 5y ago
There are counter examples of ex colonies like Taiwan and South Korea and Singapore. But we also have the US vs Mexico, both are ex colonies. What’s important is the leadership and their vision. This is exemplified by the divergent results in N Korea vs S Korea. They both emerged from brutal colonization but took different paths. Same history, same ethnicity, etc., but different leadership.
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
  There is a massive difference between the New World colonialism that largely ended in the 1800s and countries colonized during the Scramble for Africa. If you HAD to compare New World colonies with Scramble for Africa countries, you would probably compare the fate and status of the indigenous groups.
  - mc32 5y ago
    We can look at ex-Soviet republics. Some are utterly corrupt and barely functional and some are up and coming economies. The difference is governance and leadership. It’s fundamental and extremely important to not have self serving leadership. The condition you rise from isn’t key. It’s what you do afterwards. It’s not too different from two high school students. One decides they’re happy being a dropout because they had a broken home, the other decides because she came from a broken home is going to do her darnedest to do something with her life. One becomes a professional the other still handles the till at the 7-11.
    - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
      ex-Soviet states were also protected from Cold-War meddling by the West, unlike many other countries. Meanwhile, people like Lumumba and Allende are assassinated.
      - jhgb 5y ago
        In EX-Soviet states, there clearly was no Cold War meddling after the Cold War from anyone.
        x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
        Not sure why you're downvoted, I didn't clarify that ex-Soviet states ONLY existed during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union existed. I messed up on that point.
        jhgb 5y ago
        That makes no sense. As long as the Soviet Union existed, the "ex-soviet states" you're talking about existed as republics of the Soviet Union (which is just a colloquial abbreviation for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). They weren't states at that point. They became ("ex-Soviet") states when the Soviet Union broke up, and that coincided with the end of the Cold War. Since their existence as states and the Cold War don't overlap in time, those states couldn't have been subject to "Cold War meddling".
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  Comparing countries like this to the US and Mexico shows how clueless you are. And the hypocrisy of bringing up South Korea... like North Korea doesn't exist. I guess because it has to be us African savages who don't have leadership and vision right? North Korea doesn't fit the narrative so we'll pretend they weren't part of the Korea that was colonized... right. - I always tell people trying to act like an entire continent is just magically incapable of giving birth to a leader this example of why these countries end up like this. (The choice of Texas comes from the fact it's usually white Americans saying this stuff, so this might be lost on others, but feel free to sub in "big group A that looks down on small group B") Imagine today the Netherlands invaded North America, and then took Texas. Then they took not Mexico, but just Chihuahua state (3 mil pop), an area half the size of Texas (29 mil pop) That'd be bad enough right? Imagine Texas of all places having to deal with the humiliation of being conquered, then topping it off with becoming the same country as the Mexicans they have a history if looking down on. From there the Netherlands puts the Mexican minority in charge of the Texans knowing the history of anti-Mexican racism in the state. They intentionally treated the Mexican minority as kings, and the Texan majority as second class citizens to ensure distrust and hatred between them. So even if you weren't some anti-Mexican racist before, you sure more likely to be one now... After all, all the negative notions that were already stewing just got proven right? That ensures the Mexicans who are in higher positions of power are loyal to the Netherlands, and are highly motivated to maintain this new state, lest the Texans get their payback for the current set up. In the meantime the rest of the US undergoes the same thing. Then one day, the Netherlands just leaves. I'd like to know what leader and "vision" you think would keep the average "damn illegals" Texan from not revolting immediately and destroying every reminder those Mexicans ever existed in a position of power over them. You have a country that was intentionally engineered as a powder keg. That was supposed to be the leverage that kept things running. So is it any surprise that when you haphazardly toss the powder keg out the window because sour grapes about losing your new toy... it explodes? Oh yeah then I guess to sprinkle some spice on all that, let's remove Christianity from the Mexican side. Netherlands brought it, but only the Texans took to it. So now the Mexicans are also heathens to the bible thumpers.
  - zaphirplane 5y ago
    I don’t know if it’s that personal fwiw colonisation is horrible And there are countries that have come out of colonisation to succeed, South Korea Singapore Malaysia India in Asia Australia newzeland Canada US. Germany and Japan were bombed and occupied Inspiring hopefully other countries
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  Oh woe. Taiwan, SK and Singapore are western protectorates. Particularly US and ENG heavy investment in these states post WW2 [Germany included]. The US is built on the dead indigenous populations - and is an extension of the British isles as is Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. All seem to be mysteriously well for themselves. My point is just to shift your perspective just ever so slightly and you might come to an altogether different conclusion. > What’s important is the leadership and their vision. Blanket statements like these are and always have been the common European view of Africa for centuries. To suggest that africans are incapable of thought. It gives them a right - I suppose a righteous cause - to pillage and do as they please since they were dealing with barely human animals...cattle. Just after WW2, Hitler had reduced Europe to rubble and independence was granted...but was it really? African leaders with an african agenda - back in the 50's and 60s- just after independence suddenly found themselves dead, suddenly farmers and their sons had AK47s and righteous cause to overthrow a government they had previously never dared to speak of. Suddenly, American companies were getting absurdly favourable terms to extract minerals by the military leaders of whatever coup was successful, EU rose from the ashes and the music started playing again. Africans know that familiar tune. It's been playing for centuries.
  - zaphirplane 5y ago
    This is an interesting thread with thought provoking arguments to a moderately sensitive topic. I would have preferred that continue than to rule out the outliers to a theory attack hundreds of years old behaviour to leave the countries that support a narrative
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > African leaders with an african agenda - back in the 50's and 60s- just after independence suddenly found themselves dead, suddenly farmers and their sons had AK47s and righteous cause to overthrow a government they had previously never dared to speak of. Suddenly, American companies were getting absurdly favourable terms to extract minerals by the military leaders of whatever coup was successful And yet, somehow I don't believe that the Brits are to be blamed for those AK47s or for whatever deals American companies are getting.
  - 5y ago
wahern 5y ago
> All the generations of how to manage the town has left and now the model for organization in society has become corruption. Arguably in many cases the social behavior remains the same, but is defined as "corruption" within the context of the introduced political system. The "corruption" is undesirable in large part because the outcomes are being compared to alien systems that produce economic benefits previously unfathomable. And that perspective shock would have been inevitable, whether conquered or not, once they began interacting with the outside world. Look at some of the Amazonian and similar tribes elsewhere that were introduced to the outside world in the latter half of the 20th century. Quid quo pro and careful cultivation of personal relationships existed everywhere. That's the default state of small societies and, in many cases, even very large ones. Heck, it's still the case in many wealthy, ostensibly modern societies today, like China. Such behavior is corruption from the perspective of the modern authoritative structure, yet the same cultural norms the Chinese had been beneficially practicing for millennia.
inglor_cz 5y ago
Speaking from behind the former Iron Curtain, corruption is a lot more widespread than people think. Not too long ago bribing a doctor for a better hospital bed was normal here. Corruption itself isn't a prohibitive barrier to development. Countries as different as Italy, Poland, India and China managed to develop pretty fast even with endemic corruption. Heck, the U.S. themselves is pretty corrupt, at least on the political level. Didn't stop you from becoming a world power. The interesting question is why some countries sink into such a deep corruption that they lose even the basic ability to function. Lebanon comes to mind.
- foobarian 5y ago
  > Countries as different as Italy I found it fascinating that we had the patron system during Roman times where people made daily visits to a rich local and got paid basically for showing up and chatting. This created a useful network of connections all around. Meanwhile today in some instances we call this bribery, or organized crime.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  For me there's an easy marker: if the local corruption is for the sake of an wealthy external power's resource extraction, it won't result in local development, other than luxury development to support elites and foreign employees. If the local corruption is really local (not an inundation of foreign currency), you'll see some development. Saying that India has managed to develop is an exaggeration, though. India supports a large (and maybe growing?) middle class (because India is large) but it has an enormous number of people who precariously, and no better than their great-grandparents.

mc32 5y ago

There are counter examples of ex colonies like Taiwan and South Korea and Singapore. But we also have the US vs Mexico, both are ex colonies. What’s important is the leadership and their vision. This is exemplified by the divergent results in N Korea vs S Korea. They both emerged from brutal colonization but took different paths. Same history, same ethnicity, etc., but different leadership.

x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
There is a massive difference between the New World colonialism that largely ended in the 1800s and countries colonized during the Scramble for Africa. If you HAD to compare New World colonies with Scramble for Africa countries, you would probably compare the fate and status of the indigenous groups.
- mc32 5y ago
  We can look at ex-Soviet republics. Some are utterly corrupt and barely functional and some are up and coming economies. The difference is governance and leadership. It’s fundamental and extremely important to not have self serving leadership. The condition you rise from isn’t key. It’s what you do afterwards. It’s not too different from two high school students. One decides they’re happy being a dropout because they had a broken home, the other decides because she came from a broken home is going to do her darnedest to do something with her life. One becomes a professional the other still handles the till at the 7-11.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
    ex-Soviet states were also protected from Cold-War meddling by the West, unlike many other countries. Meanwhile, people like Lumumba and Allende are assassinated.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      In EX-Soviet states, there clearly was no Cold War meddling after the Cold War from anyone.
      - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
        Not sure why you're downvoted, I didn't clarify that ex-Soviet states ONLY existed during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union existed. I messed up on that point.
        jhgb 5y ago
        That makes no sense. As long as the Soviet Union existed, the "ex-soviet states" you're talking about existed as republics of the Soviet Union (which is just a colloquial abbreviation for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). They weren't states at that point. They became ("ex-Soviet") states when the Soviet Union broke up, and that coincided with the end of the Cold War. Since their existence as states and the Cold War don't overlap in time, those states couldn't have been subject to "Cold War meddling".
BoorishBears 5y ago
Comparing countries like this to the US and Mexico shows how clueless you are. And the hypocrisy of bringing up South Korea... like North Korea doesn't exist. I guess because it has to be us African savages who don't have leadership and vision right? North Korea doesn't fit the narrative so we'll pretend they weren't part of the Korea that was colonized... right. - I always tell people trying to act like an entire continent is just magically incapable of giving birth to a leader this example of why these countries end up like this. (The choice of Texas comes from the fact it's usually white Americans saying this stuff, so this might be lost on others, but feel free to sub in "big group A that looks down on small group B") Imagine today the Netherlands invaded North America, and then took Texas. Then they took not Mexico, but just Chihuahua state (3 mil pop), an area half the size of Texas (29 mil pop) That'd be bad enough right? Imagine Texas of all places having to deal with the humiliation of being conquered, then topping it off with becoming the same country as the Mexicans they have a history if looking down on. From there the Netherlands puts the Mexican minority in charge of the Texans knowing the history of anti-Mexican racism in the state. They intentionally treated the Mexican minority as kings, and the Texan majority as second class citizens to ensure distrust and hatred between them. So even if you weren't some anti-Mexican racist before, you sure more likely to be one now... After all, all the negative notions that were already stewing just got proven right? That ensures the Mexicans who are in higher positions of power are loyal to the Netherlands, and are highly motivated to maintain this new state, lest the Texans get their payback for the current set up. In the meantime the rest of the US undergoes the same thing. Then one day, the Netherlands just leaves. I'd like to know what leader and "vision" you think would keep the average "damn illegals" Texan from not revolting immediately and destroying every reminder those Mexicans ever existed in a position of power over them. You have a country that was intentionally engineered as a powder keg. That was supposed to be the leverage that kept things running. So is it any surprise that when you haphazardly toss the powder keg out the window because sour grapes about losing your new toy... it explodes? Oh yeah then I guess to sprinkle some spice on all that, let's remove Christianity from the Mexican side. Netherlands brought it, but only the Texans took to it. So now the Mexicans are also heathens to the bible thumpers.
- zaphirplane 5y ago
  I don’t know if it’s that personal fwiw colonisation is horrible And there are countries that have come out of colonisation to succeed, South Korea Singapore Malaysia India in Asia Australia newzeland Canada US. Germany and Japan were bombed and occupied Inspiring hopefully other countries
vagrantJin 5y ago
Oh woe. Taiwan, SK and Singapore are western protectorates. Particularly US and ENG heavy investment in these states post WW2 [Germany included]. The US is built on the dead indigenous populations - and is an extension of the British isles as is Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. All seem to be mysteriously well for themselves. My point is just to shift your perspective just ever so slightly and you might come to an altogether different conclusion. > What’s important is the leadership and their vision. Blanket statements like these are and always have been the common European view of Africa for centuries. To suggest that africans are incapable of thought. It gives them a right - I suppose a righteous cause - to pillage and do as they please since they were dealing with barely human animals...cattle. Just after WW2, Hitler had reduced Europe to rubble and independence was granted...but was it really? African leaders with an african agenda - back in the 50's and 60s- just after independence suddenly found themselves dead, suddenly farmers and their sons had AK47s and righteous cause to overthrow a government they had previously never dared to speak of. Suddenly, American companies were getting absurdly favourable terms to extract minerals by the military leaders of whatever coup was successful, EU rose from the ashes and the music started playing again. Africans know that familiar tune. It's been playing for centuries.
- zaphirplane 5y ago
  This is an interesting thread with thought provoking arguments to a moderately sensitive topic. I would have preferred that continue than to rule out the outliers to a theory attack hundreds of years old behaviour to leave the countries that support a narrative
- jhgb 5y ago
  > African leaders with an african agenda - back in the 50's and 60s- just after independence suddenly found themselves dead, suddenly farmers and their sons had AK47s and righteous cause to overthrow a government they had previously never dared to speak of. Suddenly, American companies were getting absurdly favourable terms to extract minerals by the military leaders of whatever coup was successful And yet, somehow I don't believe that the Brits are to be blamed for those AK47s or for whatever deals American companies are getting.
- 5y ago

wahern 5y ago

> All the generations of how to manage the town has left and now the model for organization in society has become corruption. Arguably in many cases the social behavior remains the same, but is defined as "corruption" within the context of the introduced political system. The "corruption" is undesirable in large part because the outcomes are being compared to alien systems that produce economic benefits previously unfathomable. And that perspective shock would have been inevitable, whether conquered or not, once they began interacting with the outside world. Look at some of the Amazonian and similar tribes elsewhere that were introduced to the outside world in the latter half of the 20th century. Quid quo pro and careful cultivation of personal relationships existed everywhere. That's the default state of small societies and, in many cases, even very large ones. Heck, it's still the case in many wealthy, ostensibly modern societies today, like China. Such behavior is corruption from the perspective of the modern authoritative structure, yet the same cultural norms the Chinese had been beneficially practicing for millennia.

inglor_cz 5y ago

Speaking from behind the former Iron Curtain, corruption is a lot more widespread than people think. Not too long ago bribing a doctor for a better hospital bed was normal here. Corruption itself isn't a prohibitive barrier to development. Countries as different as Italy, Poland, India and China managed to develop pretty fast even with endemic corruption. Heck, the U.S. themselves is pretty corrupt, at least on the political level. Didn't stop you from becoming a world power. The interesting question is why some countries sink into such a deep corruption that they lose even the basic ability to function. Lebanon comes to mind.

foobarian 5y ago
> Countries as different as Italy I found it fascinating that we had the patron system during Roman times where people made daily visits to a rich local and got paid basically for showing up and chatting. This created a useful network of connections all around. Meanwhile today in some instances we call this bribery, or organized crime.
pessimizer 5y ago
For me there's an easy marker: if the local corruption is for the sake of an wealthy external power's resource extraction, it won't result in local development, other than luxury development to support elites and foreign employees. If the local corruption is really local (not an inundation of foreign currency), you'll see some development. Saying that India has managed to develop is an exaggeration, though. India supports a large (and maybe growing?) middle class (because India is large) but it has an enormous number of people who precariously, and no better than their great-grandparents.