The
term "underdeveloped" is defined as "having a low level of economic
productivity and technological sophistication". These terms are in turn
very subjective. "Economic productivity" is generally measured by GDP,
which is actually a measure of the total price charged for all economic
activity plus a measure of the aggregate number of hours worked for
paid wages, and which has been completely discredited
as a meaningful measure of economic well-being. "Technological
sophistication" is a measure of how complex (and costly) technologies
are, not a measure of their efficacy or value.
Despite this
dubious definition and distinction between "developed" and
"undeveloped", we in the "developed" West almost blindly accept these
arrogant propositions:
- The "underdeveloped" nations have
always been full of misery, suffering, deprivation and abject poverty.
This has been entirely their own fault.
- Their salvation lies in
learning the lessons (political, economic, educational, cultural,
technological and social) of the West and changing to be just like
them. There is no other route to improvement.
It is almost
ironic that this arrogance prevails at the same time the West is
realizing that we are in fact "overdeveloped" -- too much waste and
pollution, and overuse of soil, water, land, and oil, among other
things.
It is impossible to wade into the discussions of how and
why "underdeveloped" countries became full of misery, suffering,
deprivation and abject poverty without getting into the political
quagmire of the 'clash of civilizations'. It is clear that there are at
least three routes to this state, each of which has its share of examples from the current world map of poverty:
- Exploitation:
Theft of land and resources, political and military repression of
native peoples by outside forces. It is pretty hard to get your country
out of poverty when all the land and resources of any value are owned
by foreigners, and their fruits all sold for rock-bottom prices and
exported to "developed" nations.
- Overpopulation: When imported
health care solutions cause death rates to plummet, there is at least
temporarily a huge surge in population, to the point it completely
outstrips the ability of the land to support this population. The
result is ecological catastrophe (Rwanda being one of the worst
examples), and a vicious cycle of famine, foreign food aid, land
exhaustion and human deprivation ensues.
- Tyranny: The ruthless
suppression of the majority by a rich and powerful minority can create
a similar vicious cycle by which the majority is starved of the land
and resources needed to support themselves, by theft or expropriation
by the minority.
Some countries are burdened with more than
one of these misfortunes. Indeed, it is not uncommon for local tyrants
to work in cahoots with foreign exploiters. Saddam Hussein had it down
to a fine art.
Some of the "developed" world (notably North
America -- I don't know enough about early European history to comment
on their situation) actually began as exploited "underdeveloped"
countries. The vast majority of the First Nations of the Americas were
killed by genocidal European campaigns. After awhile the European
settlers who stole their land got tired of their colonial status and
used their isolation, familiarity with the new land and European
technology to liberate themselves from their European exploiters, and
become exploiters of other countries in their own right.
But the
answer to the plight of the "underdeveloped" nations is not more
development. It is an end to exploitation, tyranny and overpopulation.
These countries need to reclaim ownership of their own land and
resources, and work in partnership with democratic nations to put in
place the institutions of constitutional liberalism that foster
democracy and prevent tyranny from taking hold. That ownership must,
absolutely, be spread equitably among all the inhabitants of the
country. That equity not only makes tyranny harder to take hold (less
concentration of wealth means less concentration of power, and less
motive for protecting inequitable wealth by unpopular means), it also
allows communities to once again self-manage, instead of relying on
foreign handouts (the same argument could also be applied in the poorer
parts of "developed" nations), and such self-management and
self-sufficiency encourages democracy and family planning (women who
have large families in poor nations generally do so because children
are the only asset they can afford).
The point of this essay is
that we need some new terminology: The terms "underdeveloped" and
"developed" no longer make sense (if they ever did). The term "Third
World" begs the question of why it is still called that when there is
no longer a "Second World". The term "West" is also inappropriate:
"North" would be a more accurate geographical term for the more
prosperous nations of the planet. Using the term "market economies" as
synonymous with prosperous nations is no longer appropriate (some
countries with such economies are horrifically poor). Nor is the use of
the term "democratic" or "free" nation unambiguous -- many apparent
"democracies" are a sham and are decidedly "unfree", and even "free" is
a term fraught with judgement.
I'm tempted to be mischievous and
suggest we call the affluent nations the "overconsuming" world and the
rest the "overexploited" world (exploited by those both inside and
outside, and by exploding population). But somehow I don't think I
could get conservatives to use these terms. We could settle on "rich"
and "poor", except that many countries have an abundance of riches that
none or few of its residents share in. We could use the Gini index
to identify "rich, fairly distributed" nations from "poor or unfairly
distributed" nations, but then we would have to include the US in the
latter category. The UN uses the unfortunate term Human Development for
the composite
of three measures -- income, education and life expectancy -- and they
are in fact the "overconsuming" nations. But this measure uses that
term "development" again, and it ignores some very important quality of
life measures (inequity, poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy -- take
a look at some of this shocking data).
But
perhaps quality of life isn't what we're really looking for here. What
the UN calls "high HDI" countries are the ones we are usually referring
to when we want to contrast them with the economically struggling
nations. So I
propose we replace "developed" and "underdeveloped" with "affluent" and
"struggling", and use the 55 "high HDI" countries, pictured in the map
above in dark blue, to define which countries are "affluent". An even better list would cut the "affluent" off at #37. That would eliminate all
Latin American countries from the list. No African countries, and only
Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and S.Korea among Asian countries, make
the list. Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel are the
only other non-European entrants. |
MADE IN CANADA
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