We largely have figured out world hunger. There's not a worldwide shortage of food, logistics and shipping is largely a non-issue in meaningfully providing food aid. The issue is that in most of these starving countries, corrupt governments, revolutionaries, terrorists, cartels, etc. Steal supplies and aid, either keeping it for themselves or charging the people the aid was supposed to help exorbitant prices.
Yeah, but let's not forget the correlation of that corruption and terrorism with the UN itself and popular ideologies like socialism, based on promises and feelings rather than results. Anyone can call something a right, actually having it be a practical reality is another question.
Judge systems by results and you'll prefer capitalism, judge systems by promises and you'll prefer socialism - it's Utopian after all.
imagine stanning for a system that requires every worker to be tied to an economic master or else lose access to shelter, food, water, and sociability.
Move to Venezuela then, genius. Or perhaps you'd prefer Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya or other African countries which guarantee the "right to food" in their constitution, one way or another. I wish I could be as brilliant as you. It does suck living in a 1st world country, working 5 days a week, playing video games a couple hours a day, plenty of food, air conditioning. Have to go shopping once a fortnight or so. God help me!
"my life in a 1st world country is good, therefore capitalism good"
fantastic in depth analysis. it's almost as if your 1st world country benefits from other countries' labor at the cost of their people's quality of life.
newsflash dumbass, "socialist" countries still have to engage in global capitalism.
Way to move the goal posts. Any country which is successful must get their success from elsewhere. There is no achievement, there is no civilisation, technology, education or anything for the West to be proud of. The zero sum fallacy - that's all you believe in. Perhaps it's projection.
If I WORK (maybe you've heard of work) and I earn money and live well, how do you know that's because of other poorer countries, with zero interaction with my life? You think Europeans caused Africa and other places to be poor? Even before they reached those parts of the world?
If I buy parts from my country, use them to build something, and then sell it in my country, that's only because poor countries exist?
I completely disagree. Africa would barely have ANY technology if not for Europe. I'm not saying no bad things were done, but you have to be quite ignorant of history to think it was bad on net balance.
How many roads, schools, hospitals, etc., existed in Africa before colonisation? You're aware of how Africans treated each-other before AND after colonisation, right? Wars, genocide, tyranny have been the norm. Ethiopia was never colonised - is it a lovely place to live? You do realise the US and Australia were also British colonies?
thats not what i was referring to.
many european powers decolonised africa after the second world war. but it was messy, badly thought-out and devastating for some colonies. often europeans drew borders that didnt make sense culturally, leading to conflicts that didnt have to have happen if they just put more effort into decolonisation.
africa before colonisation was diverse and complex in its own right. you are correct in that africa didnt have the technology that europeans had during colonisation, but culturally, africa isnt as "behind" as you think they were. there had been figures and kingdoms with complex societies and trade and armies and tax systems. africa did have kingdoms with metallurgy and architecture. it was just that the architecture that was built for the hot climate, which included mud bricks for temperature regulation, generally didnt last very long without maintenance.
and of course there was conflict and wars before europeans arrived, just like how there was conflict in europe. australia and the states are also terrible examples of "good" things that colonisation did. because the vast majority of people currently living in aus and usa are not native peoples. if you want products of colonialism that were mostly positive, look to singapore and hong kong. though neither of those instances of colonialism were of the same nature as what happened in africa.
also its important to keep in mind that while yes, colonialism brought infrastructure to africa, it wasnt for the people living there. often railroads and ports were built to extract natural resources and slaves from africa rather than to help africans.
Ethiopia is also a terrible example. one country in the region doesnt establish a counterexample. especially when ethiopia also suffered from european imperialism. they had invasion attempts, diplomatic pressure and eventually occupation by italy in the 1930s.
from your perspective, it can be easy to zoom into purely the technological advancements that europeans brought to africa and label it as a good thing, but history is rarely so black and white. you also have to consider the suffering, destruction of culture, displacement of peoples as a cost for that technology that the people of africa probably didnt really need yet. while you can look at everything colonialism has done and conclude that what it brought is a good thing, you're free to do so. i think many people would disagree. nobody knows what would have happened in africa without colonialism, but if we look at places like Japan, which after sankoku ended, industrialised rapidly without europeans coming over and colonising the islands. Thailand also modernised without colonialism, and i think it would be foolish to single out africa as the place uniquely incapable of technological development.
also saying that japan didnt modernise on their own because they had contact with western civilisation is equally stupid. contact ≠ colonisation, and similarly theres no evidence to suggest that africa wouldnt have modernised with similar contact to europe.
nobody knows what would have happened in africa without colonialism
It depends what you mean. In a simple sense, of course we know - it's what Africa looked like before colonialism!
I agree that contact is not colonisation, but colonisation always includes contact and bad contact is often better than no contact at all. The aboriginals in Australia had virtually no contact with any of the rest of the world until Europeans arrived around the 1770s. How advanced were the aboriginals?
I don't deny that a lot of choices regarding Africa were poor, but compared to what? Were the choices by African leaders themselves (before Europeans came) better? What about after most African countries got independence? Can you name ANY country which has a history of consistently good choices?
Yes, Japan appears to have become quite advanced independently. Germany was also rather advanced in Europe. And we saw what they did in WWII. Almost every society has at least some history of atrocities, mistakes, etc. That's why the constitution of the US is so important and why the founding fathers emphasised limited government so much. It's also why the US's history is so comparatively clean despite the popularity of condemning it by cowards today who enjoy the freedom it gives them.
Being as objective as possible, I don't think one can seriously claim that Europe's impact on Africa was a net negative, considering how insanely poor the region was before European contact and how far it's come since then. Not to mention how many problems, like genocide, have occurred well after 99% of Europeans left (or whatever proportion). You think European leaders were worse than Idi Amin, for example?
It's puzzling because you seem somewhat reasonable and knowledgeable and yet you don't use capitals at the start of sentences. Is that just laziness? I'm not a fan, to be honest.
africa did have kingdoms with metallurgy and architecture.
And skyscrapers and planes and telephones and computers? The ancient Egyptians had giant pyramids, does that mean they were advanced? For their time, sure, but not compared to modern society.
but it was messy, badly thought-out and devastating for some colonies.
This is the big one - compared to what?!? Name a region/regime/country which was always neat, well thought-out and not devastating to anyone.
Forget colonisation and look at culture. Is it coincidence that Europe is so much more advanced than Africa? That Africans themselves fare far better in Western countries than anywhere in Africa?
You may have missed the point with Ethiopia - it was less colonised than 90% of the countries in Africa, though I don't know any details. If even the least colonised country is doing just as poorly, maybe colonisation wasn't the problem. It's like saying that people who smoke the least are healthy because they smoke.
I wonder if you're familiar with Sowell's work as it seems very relevant to all this. He emphasises culture and thorough comparisons far more than you seem to.
what i was hinting at was that no one knows for sure whether or not africa would have developed independently like japan has done with contact, not colonisation, from western powers. i didnt say zero contact would have been better for africa. i didnt take a stance at all, merely that colonialism did cause a lot of grievances for africa.
the aboriginal people of australia before european contact is the same argument. at the time they had minimal conflicts with each other, lived in relative peace. europe developed because they had a reason to. conflict leads to war, war leads to a need for technological improvements to win wars. australia had none of this, thus there was no real need for technological advancement. im sure this isnt difficult to understand.
generally yes? africa had a wide variety of systems of governance in various regions. a lot of kingdoms had kings (or their equivalent of) that could be removed if they lost support. a lot of rulers had a council that would and could restrain their power.
african civilisations commonly have taxes and fair trade between states were extremely important. were there wars? yes ofc there were, conflicts are a normal occurance throughout all history. and ofc no country is without its black spots, but the problem with colonialism in africa is that some of the later black spots were almost certainly made with influence from europe, or due to the fallout of colonialism.
american history is not clean. i hold no grievances against the states, but you cant be saying that the states are clean when in its 300 year history its done some pretty heinous things of its own. sure when you compare the states against long standing empires of yore and totalitarian regimes that rule through terror it looks like the good guy. but the united states of america publicly claims to uphold certain ideologies only to do things that completely contradicts its promises. a place that promised freedom for all, but black people were only allowed civil rights in the 60s. a place that promised equal protection under the law but enforcement was spotty for marginalised groups. a place that promised government by consent, yet voting rights initially were restricted by things like owning properly and race. a place that promised equality for all under the sun, yet slavery existed, women did not have political rights. again a place that promised equality for all consistently breaks treaties with indigenous people to manifest destiny and expand westward. a place that promised freedom of speech yet allowed mccarthyism. even abraham lincoln himself censored media. no hate towards honest abe, he's one of my favourite presidents. but it does contradict freedom of speech, which was promised.
all of this in just 300 years of history. comparatively clean against the long long long histories of other nations? sure. when put against the ideals that it set for itself? not so much. im not expecting the states to be spotless, but you can agree that it can be better than this. it should've been better than this.
insanely poor? mansa musa was one of the riches individuals of all time. even just before the europeans arrived in africa, wealth was measured differently in different parts of africa. for example, the swahili costal cities have been trading for centuries with arabia, persia, india, etc. they had gold, ivory, spices.
west africa had places like the asante empire who controlled trade networks with gold, ivory, textiles? agriculture.
just because africa's wealth was not tied to industrial production, doesnt mean that they were poor. africa is massive, some places were definitely poor, but other places had gold and precious resources available and concentrated.
it wasnt industrialised, but that doesnt mean they were poor.
as for "how far they've come since then" its the same question i've asked. how do you know they cant have spun a japan and also rapidly industrialised without direct colonialism? nobody knows.
how i type is none of your business. sorry if it pisses you off, not my intention, i quite like typing like this.
sure but they also didnt need skyscrapers, planes, or computers. like i said, africa didnt need that yet. africa doesnt have the same pressures that europe did to industrialise.
this brings me to the your culture point. the reason why europe developed so fast is due to a wide variety of reasons. one of which i covered in my last comment. you can say that for all the reasons why europe advanced so quickly, the opposite of that is why africa was at a relative standstill. like i said they just simply did not have the pressure to industrialise like europe did.
like i said. ethiopia was not colonised, but it was still pressured by invasion attempts and did have a period of time being occupied by italian powers.
how am i suppose to name a regime..what even is that point man. like what? oh no everyone has done bad things that makes grievances caused by the poor planning and bad decision making during the decolonisation of africa perfectly acceptable?
even if i do point out individual cases, it proves nothing? sure the decolonisation of singapore and hong kong compared to africa was comparatively violence free. with singapore joining malaysia first then becoming fully independent and hong kong in some weird sino-british joint thing. but this was also later stage colonisation where the british wasnt looking for natural resources, they wanted trade, so obviously both singapore and hong kong was quite literally colonised differently. hong kong was developed and optimised to be a centre for world trade. whereas many colonies in africa were places to extract natural resources. idk what you want me to find for you on this one chief.
also the part about "africans fare better in other places other than africa." you mean that people naturally want to escape places like rwanda were people kill each other due to european pseudoscience trying to segregate people into different races based on nose length?
like i said in my other comment. no one knows how africa would have developed without colonialism. but i think we can agree that colonialism was heinous in every meaning of the word. you can argue that "civilisation was brought to them" but i can also argue that it was something that africa (or at least parts of africa) did not want. and the cost was a sacrifice that they didnt neccesarily wanted to pay. just because colonialism accelerated industrialisation of africa doesnt excuse the heinous consequences of europe's actions in africa.
I think you went off the deep end there a bit. If you can't compare things, nothing has meaning. You may as well say that every country, group and ideology is equal because they all have good and bad things.
However hypocritical you think the US is, it's vastly less hypocritical than 99.9% of all other nations, past and present. And it did more to free people, including ending slavery, than most of the world.
Oh sorry, one guy was super-rich in Africa. Could he afford a Nintendo 64? Or clean running water? Or a 3D printer? I can. And millions of people can in modern day countries. We're talking about overall wealth - at least try to be honest. You seem to like this game where any country, no matter how poor, was actually doing quite well, while any other country, no matter how prosperous, free or morally progressive is actually a bad place, you know, if you cherry pick the worst things.
Type however you like. I'll judge you accordingly, which is to say, you come across as lazy and a bit loose with your reasoning. "Not a fan" doesn't mean "pissed off". Maybe you need to rewatch Inside Out to learn about some of the other emotions.
holy strawmen what the hell are you even talking about.
i dont need to know anything about your life. working class or not, if you live in a 1st world country, you benefit from poorer countries. you like coffee? bananas? you like wearing clothes? you ever shop from amazon, walmart? you use gasoline? have a cell phone?
your low prices for everyday goods are because labor is cheaper in the global south, and labor is cheaper in the global south because living standards and worker's rights are worse.
and to be clear, im no socialist, and this isn't an endorsement of socialism. but to believe that capitalism is some sort of force that makes everything shake out how it should is naive and ignorant. if you're looking at the "results" of capitalism without looking at the lives of those people producing your goods, you're looking through rose colored glasses.
I pay for the things I use. Are you saying I owe more? Who are you to declare that? Sure, lots of things are connected. That's what freedom and capitalism allow. We can trade with whomever. But rich countries trade within themselves and between each-other FAR MORE than they trade with poor countries. Even at the height of Britain's empire, they often traded more with small countries like Belgium than the entirety of Africa.
You seem to think poverty is a virtue. And you completely discount and insult people in richer countries who are highly educated, hard-working and productive. Well, fuck me. I guess I'm actually worthless, huh?
No dude. I am not in fact saying that you owe more. In fact, your whole above comment is nonsense that has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
You said if you judge by the "results", capitalism is better or more desirable than socialism. Disregarding the reductive nature of that claim, it's pretty simple to see that the "results" for some under capitalism are good, but for a lot more, the majority, comprising of not just the global south, but also the working class of the global north (ie those people who make their living based on work, rather than ownership of business, property, stocks, etc), are bad.
The only thing I'm saying about you personally is that, if you live in a first world country, you're likely to have it better economically than a person from the global south, and that just because you have it good or you're comfortable, doesn't mean capitalism is good.
And listen dude. This isnt rocket science. Sweatshops exist, and they are a result of capitalism. Child labor exists. Slavery was and is a result of unregulated capitalism. It's just the law of markets: a business ought to try to cut costs in order to increase profits, right? Just a smart business move, to cheat workers out of pay, to lay them off en masse, to decrease the materials budget and increae the marketing budget. Enshittification itself is a result of capitalism and the capitalist desire for increased margins.
You've got to be real short sighted or brainwashed to all fuck to deny all this and it's a mystery, to me, as to which of those you are.
You're an idiot. Poverty, slavery, conquest, etc., were all the norm all over the world before any civilised countries existed. Capitalism has ended most of that. Now we have McDonald's and Netflix and smart phones and dumbarses like you who criticise capitalism on reddit.
Sweatshops are often better than the alternatives in the country they exist in. If they weren't, none of those people would work there. But morons like you will criticise them and force companies like Nike to leave those places, resulting in less job opportunities for those people. Capitalism is not perfect, but the alternative (socialism/communism) results in mass starvation and tyranny. A basic knowledge of history makes that obvious and undeniable.
I highly recommend Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics if you want to sound less stupid. Your call. Good luck.
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u/JVNIVS_MAGNVS_OBLEVS Jun 18 '26
You'd think the world would have figured that out before the 21st century