Quote:
Originally Posted by dalem
Why shouldn't it mean that? Why shouldn't there be consequences of having a bad government, i.e. one that serves the needs of its people poorly?
-dale
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So the entire third world has bad government? You just kind of casually coughed up this one-to-one relationship between your idea of "bad" government and poverty. What about China? They're a third world communist country that's experienced unprecedented sustained growth. Should they give all their wealth back because they're people are subjected to communist authoritarianism? The 90s were hell on Russia -right after it liberalized, politically and economically. How did that happen?
Of course China has more weight to throw around than a Liberia or Bolivia. And it was lucky to be able to catch on to 40 years of GATT agreements that benefited manufacturing nations, where for a long time the US and Europe had the competitive advantage.
The Uruguay Round's "grand bargain" never happened. The agricultural subsidies are still in place, still keeping out third world imports while driving down global prices, and the non-tariff barriers are still effective. Meanwhile third world nations are checked against reneging on their commitments to rigged intellectual property games and tariff reduction because any economic retaliation will hurt us so much less than ours would hurt them. Retaliation against violators by the wronged nation is only as effective as the nation is big and (already) rich. A good method in theory, in practice it hasn't been so just. At least it has nothing to do with "bad" domestic politics.