I really don't see what you are saying here. There was nothing blocking the White power structure from educating the Black citizens during the apartheid era. Some effort was made, but its inadequacy was well known and well accepted. There have been considerable improvements under the ANC. Again, schools are not rocket science.Robert Tulip wrote:The suggested counterfactual that greater investment in black education would have delivered higher economic growth in South Africa assumes that this education could have occurred in a context of relatively weak governance systems.
Those were not statistics on which you can rely. Since exchange rates are used to compare currency values, rather than Purchasing Power Parity adjustments, the apparent value of the economy depends directly on investor confidence. That says useful things about an economy, but comparing size or productivity is not its most helpful use.Robert Tulip wrote:South Africa was the richest and best run country in Africa because of the presence of its 5 million whites, but “domestic issues” (code for government corruption and incompetence under the ANC) have seen it lose that mantle of Africa's biggest economy behind Nigeria and Egypt
The statistics are very consistent. Education has a very high rate of return, with social return being considerably higher than private return. Education is helpful with terrible governance, even though it is more helpful with good governance. And governance has little to do with the effect of education on choices about family size.Robert Tulip wrote:To say that this slide, including the steady depreciation of the rand, could have been averted by investment in public education is like saying you can move a string by pushing on it. The ideology of primary education as a first order development priority needs to be set in the context of the prior importance of good governance.
I would agree with this. African bad governance rarely even rises to the level of the manipulative "crony capitalism" of SE Asia. Where power is about violence and income is about power, the institutions are likely to be actively hostile to foreign investment.Robert Tulip wrote:The main factors having to do with race that affect economic growth in Africa are summed up in the political risk perception of investors.
Ascribing the effects of culture to race has a long history of silliness and pathology. Whenever you are tempted to blame genetic differences, remind yourself that the temptation says more about you than it does about reality. African culture is not as advanced as Asian or European. This has far more to do with geography, history and geopolitical policies than with any genetic differences which may be present.Robert Tulip wrote:This map of political risk has obvious racial correlations.
Well, that is pretty vague. Experts often get it wrong when approaching very foreign places: look at Western analysis of China in the 30s to 50s when Nationalists struggled against Communists, or at Western predictions and prescriptions for Russia after the end of the Soviet Union.Robert Tulip wrote:When you look at the naïve optimism for African development from the 1960s, it is very clear that false political assumptions overrode expert advice. There was a broad failure by decision makers to appreciate the depth of institutional weakness in terms of capacity for effective regulation. Insistence on unfactual claims which are more congenial to prevailing political culture is a recipe for failure.Harry Marks wrote: It is a little strange to expect effective African institutions to emerge suddenly in a decade or two after independence, or to cling to the notion that self-governance is simply impossible.
African institutions have struggled to deal with commodity dependence, outside arms and high population growth rates. They are hardly in the clear as of yet. But international development assistance has targeted incentives for institutional development and the results are pretty good. If policies of the rich countries do not actively inhibit them, we will see an average of good results over the next 20 years.
Always good to hear from the fringe. Note the temptation to interpret this as: "countries who expropriate the investments of my group should be taken over by my group." One big reason why we don't proceed this way is that outsiders are usually even worse. For all of its advantages over other colonial systems, the British Empire was still a source of regress more than of progress.Robert Tulip wrote:My view is that countries that demonstrate serious failure of governance should lose the right to sovereignty.
Evolve a competent and constructive system for implementing governance by outsiders and there will probably be takers, but also probably some mechanism would be added for ultimate accountability to the people served. After all, the basic idea of a bureaucracy is that it can be run on the basis of professionalism, with only occasional interventions to maintain accountability to the public.
I would agree with this as well, at least if you are willing to grant important status to related factors such as the lack of valuable mineral resources in Asia, which removed the temptation to take a zero-sum approach to governance, and ethnic unity (sometimes cited as Botswana's big advantage).Robert Tulip wrote:But when you compare Africa to Asia, looking at countries that had similar poverty levels seventy years ago, the main different factor behind Asia's success is human capital.
Asia has achieved middle and even high income status due to cultural values which promote human capital formation.
Considering the general inability of Trump supporters to recognize his contempt for rule of law and his Third World approach to public accountability, as well as their proud embrace of ignorance, I would say it is likely something else is going on, along the lines of tribalism.Robert Tulip wrote:This core role of cultural values, for example in entrepreneurial risk, investment in skills and support for rule of law, illustrates themes which cause Trump supporters to react to political correctness with repugnance.
Time for a check on those meds, if you ask me. Among the many problems with this is the notion that democracy can only function in the absence of patronage. You might want to look up rotten boroughs, Andrew Jackson, and Boss Tweed for examples. Then there is the problem of who enforces the "mandate to use the resources for national development." Would that be Trump? In which case one asks, for which nation?Robert Tulip wrote:Realist, not racist. The best way to improve African values and wealth would be to appoint international military governments in failed states, with a mandate to use the resources of the country for national development, remove kleptocrats and cancel democracy for several decades in order to smash the patronage system.Harry Marks wrote:But to simply give up before development has a real chance to be tried is quite foolish and, yes, racist.
And finally there is the problem that democracy takes root when people take ownership of it. I have had the privilege of watching the institutions of democracy flexing their muscles here in West Africa, and frankly it is impressive. Outside intervention has been part of that, and I find myself wondering for how much longer the U.S. will be considered committed to the rule of law and to institutions of accountability and human rights.
Sounds to me like any ideas you disagree with get lumped into "anti-racism".Robert Tulip wrote:Anti-racism has been tried extensively, and has become a sort of dogma within green elites, expressed by anti-racists as a loathing of western civilization.
Well, Trump is certainly the first president in a long time to respect the KKK part of America's heritage. Preferring myths to facts is also part of that heritage, but it takes monumental ignorance to assert that such preferences made America great. Of course there are some who think of Joseph McCarthy, Father Coughlin, and D. W. Griffith as representatives of American greatness, but most of us recognize that it is the passing of such hate-mongers that have allowed America to stand honestly for freedom.Robert Tulip wrote:The key factor behind much of the sentiment driving voter choice in the Presidential election turned on attitudes of respect for America’s heritage.
You label "disrespect" the effort to achieve a culture whose morality and justice matches its affluence and technical skill. I would guess that is a common interpretation, but it does not make sense to me. I don't understand how more rule of law undermines rule of law. I don't understand how further protecting free speech subverts constitutional protections. The whole accusation rings false to me. Maybe I just don't know the right anti-racists.Robert Tulip wrote:Anti-racism seeks to overcome the guilt of white power and status and wealth by expressing disrespect for America’s heritage, to subvert and undermine the traditional culture which Trump argues made America great.
But who is to say there is an issue of cultural superiority? Multiculturalism accepts that people can choose their own culture just because it is their own, and we do not use some abstract test of virility to decide who gets to lord it over whom. The soft power of persuasiveness is already part of American culture, and much of its persuasiveness comes from the history of choosing whatever is persuasive, resulting in cultural blending. I think it was George Will who observed in the 80s that Russia had Gary Kasparov and America had the Pointer Sisters, and both have some soft power appeal. Americans have always been able to pick and choose, and have not generally cared whose ways they were adopting.Robert Tulip wrote:It is not “simple justice” to defend a failed experiment. The relevance of Africa to American politics is that Trump voters, as I read it, see liberal politics in monolithic terms. Part of the monolith that they reject is the cultural relativist idea that cultures with a worse track record are just as good as America. An attitude of cultural superiority is not the same as racism, since people in other cultures are always at liberty to adopt superior values, without demeaning their race or disrespecting their own identity and cultural heritage.Harry Marks wrote: Second, Black majority rule in Africa, which is simple justice, is not part of the picture in the U.S. where less than 20 percent of the population is African-American.
That is not my reading of Trump at all. From his proposals to carpet-bomb Syria as a strategy against ISIS to his promises to renegotiate the major trade deals of the 90s, his theme has been that we are the strongest and richest so we don't have to accept anything we don't feel good about.Robert Tulip wrote:The problem of racism is that it asserts that it is impossible for the allegedly inferior race to change. That false racist assertion is what in logic is called a genetic fallacy. But the reason Trump is not racist is that he is calling for the deadbeat cultures to junk their failed values and become like America as a beacon of hope and prosperity to the world.
The leadership America has exerted in the world since the late 70s has been by example and by international agreement. Conservatives have sometimes led that effort and other times undermined it, but until Trump they at least understood how leadership works. His approach is that of a real estate deal-maker. It may look impressive because there is a building with your name on it, but it takes no responsibility for the community in which it sits. That kind of fragmented, dog-eat-dog approach to international affairs has never reflected well on its leading powers.
Well, actually, there is some basis for it. Exploiting tribal rivalry to cover failure? Check. Blaming others for economic failures caused by own bad policy? Check. Inability to compare rhetorical claims to realized outcomes? Check. Appeal to antagonistic fear-mongering as a substitute for responsible policy-making? Check. Political over-reach based on temporary ascendancy (often a pre-cursor to tyrannical usurpation of rights)? Check.Robert Tulip wrote:Comparing white conservatives with Robert Mugabe is the sort of exaggeration that brings liberal demonisers into disrepute.
Republicans dropped government intervention in agriculture when they came to majority in 1994, only to have to re-instate subsidies on a more costly and less successful basis within two years. They have opposed action on climate change, including the policies now supported (at least on paper) by Exxon-Mobil. They promised term limits, but dropped that promise like a hot potato after it was their term they would be limiting. They pushed privatization of Social Security until the stock market crashes of the '00s made it obvious that the idea was foolish gambling with people's retirement. They seriously reduced regulation of banks, generating the largest recession since the 30s, opposed rescuing the U.S. auto industry, opposed providing stimulus to end the recession more quickly, including money to allow states to keep teachers and police officers, opposed providing health care coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, and predicted runaway inflation when the Fed used the pitiful stimulus of Quantitative Easing. If there is any significant issue they have gotten right, I am unaware of it.
After correcting for the relative advancement of the society in which they operate, I would say they are remarkably similar in wrong-headedness.
There has been no support offered. The end of the embargo is no more than was done thirty years ago with other "tyrant states" including China and the USSR. Somehow trying to squeeze this into a mould of "anti-racism" is beyond ridiculous.Robert Tulip wrote: I think the USA should have waited until after Cuba held a democratic election before offering support, but Obama’s decision was a testament to his anti-racist credentials and ideology.
I was not arguing for "the simple life." It is frequently observed that the former Communist countries have a high standard of living compared to their GDP per capita. This is due to two factors: communism holds down production, due to lack of incentives, but communism makes better use of the resources available for alleviating human suffering. Needs get met and life is therefore relieved of much anguish and strife. People can focus on the family and friends which are the reliable and effective sources of human happiness.Robert Tulip wrote:There is no question that the conformity and momentum of industrial civilization causes massive problems and stress which can be avoided in a small island. But I don’t think that siren song of 'stop the world I want to get off' makes sense when you consider it seriously, since the lack of political freedom should be recognised as a fundamental problem preventing a whole range of other freedoms.
Well, I am willing to grant that they have a better grasp on what makes small-town America tick. But the idea that America's future or its basic values can best be understood from that framework is a non-starter. It is like the passengers rejecting the arrogant attitude of the pilot that pilots know more about flying an airplane (perhaps you have seen that cartoon going around the internet) and voting to put one of their own in charge.Robert Tulip wrote:Linking all this back to the thread topic, Rural White America has a much better connection, compared to the urban elites, to these basic intuitions about politics and society that Trump is responding to. So it is far from a "cop out" to say that we need to understand Rural White America, it is an important corrective to the group think of urban society with its ideological sympathies to failed policies.