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From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: The role of America in world hunger & red spread
Message-ID: <1136@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Aug-85 15:22:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1136
Posted: Mon Aug 26 15:22:14 1985
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> In article <1068@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL) writes:
> >> [Todd Jones]
> >> Au contraire, I stated the primary reason for poverty is the
> >> resource drain from these countries to America and Europe.
> >-----------------------------------
> >[Me]
> >The above statement is WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
> >Boy, we sure have impoverished Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by draining their
> >resources.  Even if we exempt oil producing countries, the least poor
> >third world countries tend to be those with the most per capita exports
> >to the developed world.  The very poorest countries have little to export.
> >I suppose if Bangla Desh and Upper Volta stopped their already meager
> >exports to the West they would blossom overnight.
> >-----------------------------------
> [Larry Kolodney]
> If I remember my history correctly, this was not always the case.
> The change happened around 1970, when Quadaffi overthrew the 
> pro-western king of libya, and renegotiated the concession with
> Occidental Petroleum.  Others followed suit.
> 
> The case of the arab oil kingdoms is quite anomalous.  They are
> nations with few people and tremendous resources.
> 
> Upper Volta and Bangladesh have problems that resulted from
> natural disasters, and the lingering results of prior western imperialism.
> 
> Current U.S. imperialism is mainly evident in in the Western Hemisphere and
> the Far East.  Africa and the Middle East were exploited by
> EUROPEAN imperialists for hundreds of years in the past.  Even if
> no exploitation is currently taking place, the scars left by past
> actions have created very sick societies as a result.
------------------------------------
You are quite right that the oil kingdoms are anomalous cases.  However,
I wonder about the supposed lingering effects of prior western imperialism.
If we look at Africa, Ethiopia, which escaped colonialism except for a six
year Italian occupation, is in worse economic shape than many countries
with a colonial past, some of whom are doing reasonably well by African
standards (e. g. Ivory Coast, Kenya). In the Far East, many former British
or Japanese colonies are doing quite well economically, i. e. Singapore,
Hong Kong (still a colony!), Taiwan, South Korea, and Malaysia.  In South
Asia, Afghanistan (prior to the Soviet invasion), which had escaped
colonialism, was one of the poorest countries of the world.  My only point
is that to blame the economic troubles of the third world on the developed
world is at best a gross overgeneralization and at worst backwards.  Where
would Taiwan and Singapore be today without Western and Japanese customers?
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan