4 ms·
Correlation may not imply causality here. Many of the most successful free market economies embody the concept of "was born on third base and thinks he hit a t
by hakfoo 4y ago
Correlation may not imply causality here.
Many of the most successful free market economies embody the concept of "was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple."
The United States and Canada had relatively easy access to territorial expansion, which offered them huge amounts of fertile, temperate land and almost any natural resource needed. They also started with a high-immigrant and relatively educated population.
South Korea got to build their economy late enough to be relatively unburdened by legacy costs. They also had a Western world more than willing to ignore a series of presidents-for-life, domestic crackdowns, and incestuous government-industry relationships as long as they kept Kim Il-Sung up in the attic.
Even Singapore had the advantage of being ideally located for trade purposes.
With those benefits, was the free market necessary to unlock their success?
Conversely, if you dropped (say) the American Founders in 1917 Moscow or 1948 Peking, would they do any better?
- WalterBright 4y agoRussia has even more natural resources. Doesn't seem to help. > if you dropped (say) the American Founders in 1917 Moscow or 1948 Peking, would they do any better? Absolutely. See Hong Kong, Japan & Germany after WW2, Chile does better when they go free market, does worse when they veer back left, etc. South American countries have vast resources, but little prosperity. US immigration consisted of people in abject poverty, who arrived illiterate with nothing but a suitcase.
- spiralx 4y agoBut Russia has very limited access to viable shipping lanes and huge geographic barriers to shipping things overland. Why do you think Crimea is of such importance to Russia?
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoPinochet's economic policy is highly overrated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765771 > Mining a bunch of copper, helping your cronies get rich, and pumping up land prices is not a "miracle". And that's from an ideologically aligned source. > This record is less bad than Allende’s, but it’s far from what I’d call good, and it’s certainly nothing that anyone should call an economic “miracle”.
- andrepd 4y agoRe South America: Guatemala had incredible, almost miraculous success when Jacobo Árbenz did his landmark land reforms. The idea was simple: (1) unused land over X ha was expropriated (and the owners compensated), and distributed to previously landless peasants, and (2) credit lines were made available for those peasants to buy farm equipment, do renovations, etc. The success was astounding. We're talking child mortality being halved and poverty rates dropping off a cliff, in only a few years. Of course, US businesses did not like it very much and US imperialism shut it down in violent fashion, and Guatemala has been an unstable and violent place ever since, with a long string of brutal dictators. What is "funny" in a deeply grim and sad sense is that this was at once socialism (i.e. means of production to the people who work, rather than a separation between those who work and those who own), but also very much the American Dream: a plot of land which was your own, for you to work, and where you own the fruits of your labour. You, not a king, not a robber baron, you. That's why the violent stampdown by the US is especially disgusting and hypocritical. As for Chile, it had a democratically elected left-wing government. Even if Pinochet's economic policy turned out better (which it by most measures did not), NOTHING can justify a violent operation to overthrow that government, to the tune of tens of thousands of tortures and deaths, to implant one that pursues your favoured brand of economics.