https://youtu.be/9-4V3HR696k
In the video, the narrator attributes wealth and poverty to:
>culture: primarily religion, because he says that a focus on religion makes people unproductive and unfocused on the present
>institutions: corruption and nepotism are big factors
>geogragphy: tetse fly, climate, etcetcetc
He also goes on to attribute weights to them in terms of their effect on wealth:
>institutions: 50%
>culture: 20%
>geography: 10%
>other factors: 20%
Your thoughts?
>>1389261
Capitalism. Until the industrial revolution, we saw nowhere near the kind of international wealth disparity that we do now. Manorial economies in 16th century England, Lebanon, India, and Japan exhibited an almost identical class pyramid.
>>1389270
This.
Once industrialization showed up, you started to have vast sums of wealth that could only be attained with a good business environment, strong contract law, and a government that didn't steal anything that wasn't nailed down.
>>1389261
>religion makes people unproductive and unfocused on the present
You know, I'm pretty damned agnostic, and very anti-fundamentalist, and this level of bullshit still just boggles my mind.
There would be no wealth without the Church to kick off western civilization, hell they practically founded the entire western economy. Cultural unity is key to wealth and security, and the church also provided that. They founded nearly all the institutions of education to boot. Most importantly, they were one of the few (and often the only) institution thinking about the future. Some of those cathedrals and universities took over a hundred years to build - how often do you see someone investing in an institutional project that they'll never live to see finished in this day and age? (Hell, we'd be on Mars by now if today's people were so forward thinking.)
The primary differences between the have nations and the have not nations are:
- Sovereignty and unity
- Resources and Agriculture (without the sovereignty above, these don't count - they are someone else's)
- Adaptability (including tech)
- Stability
- A culture that creates institutions that focus on acquiring and maintaining all the above
- Geography (either their own or acquired - a bigger problem in the past than the present)
- Luck
...and "luck" is a big thing, as it took a hell of a lot of coincidences to bring together the perfect storm of technology and circumstances that lead to Europe having the Industrial Revolution before anyone else.
The primary difference among modern have and have not nations, is that the have nations OWN the have not nations. The advanced nations invest in the developing nations simply to squeeze more money out of them, and while, in theory, this eventually helps to develop the squeezed, they will never catch up with the wealthier nations, as they lack sovereignty. They don't have control over their own resources, and even their labor goes to the benefit of the higher powers.
http://norayr.am/collections/books/Why-Nations-Fail-Daron-Acemoglu.pdf
This book isn't perfect, but it's definitely worth a read.
>>1389261
>>culture: primarily religion, because he says that a focus on religion makes people unproductive and unfocused on the present
i would think it more because a poor country just ends up relying on religion more to be happy
>>1389432
Most religions don't exactly encourage happiness.
>>1389405
>You know, I'm pretty damned agnostic, and very anti-fundamentalist, and this level of bullshit still just boggles my mind.
Why is it bullshit?
It has been empirically proven religiosity stifles scientific innovation, which in turn hinders economic prosperity.
https://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Religion%20December%201g_snd.pdf
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21052.pdf
>>1389261
God
The more you love and worship Him, the poorer ye shall be, for he loves the lowest amongst his flock the best. They shall enjoy the true riches in the Hereafter
Amen
>>1389460
That's pretty sad coming from two institutions that owe their existence to religion (especially Princeton, yeesh.)
I'll grant that it's more a factor of the past than the present, but Europe never would have had the industrial revolution as quickly as it did, if not for the religious organizations that were key to its founding to boot.
In modern times, the only reason poorer nations are more religious is a lack of education... and of course less educated nations aren't going to do as well, being largely relegated to being labor pools for richer nations. It's not as if the poor nations would suddenly be prosperous if they all "dumped their gods" without ever increasing their education levels. Among the poorest nations, what little education infrastructure they do have tends to be the result of missionary work to begin with.
Thus there's a major causation/correlation problem in the latter half of that Princeton document, while the first half ignores where all those "oppressed scientists" got their educations as well as the foundations of their works.
