International development. --- .This section is about development economics. Topics include: ( ) Patterns of development. ( ) Poverty. --- 1/24/2006
International development. --- (1) Development does not mean only economic development. Development includes political development, technological development, health development, educational development, environmental development, etc. (2) Technological development depends on science, and science depends on education. Political development also depends on education. Health and environmental awareness also depend on education. (3) Ethical development is a form of philosophical development. Ethical development is reflected in the legal system. Outlawing slavery, child labor, wife beating, etc. --- 1/1/2006
International development. --- (1) Development is not merely an economic issue. Development is a economic, political, technological and psychological/social issue. (2) One can speak of stages of development, for example, the agricultural, industrial and electronic stages. It is possible for countries developing today to go through developmental stages more quickly than countries that developed in the past. It is possible even to skip stages. (3) The goals of development are social justice and environmental sustainability. Other goals are to avoid problems or ills in all areas, for example, the political ills of corruption, war and dictatorship; the economic ills of inflation, unemployment, monopoly and low wages; the technological ills of pollution, etc. (4) The easiest way to develop is to get the people to do it themselves. Provide a fair system. Provide information and education. Develop a DIY (do it yourself) attitude in the people. Politically, get people ruling themselves through democracy. Economically, get people working, saving and investing. Promote entrepreneurship. Psycho/socially, get people into schools. Promote self education and lifelong education. Promote public education and public libraries. (5) Examples of development. The American west. Germany and Japan after WWII. Russia, China and India. Africa. (6) Development goals in the USA. The goals of development for the first world are the same as the third world countries, namely, solve the ills of society. Help the ill, the poor, the exploited and the oppressed. (7) Development goals of the left and right. (A) The liberal democratic left has a development plan that focuses on health care, education, worker rights, minority rights, tolerance and diversity, and empowering the poor. Those are good ideas. (B) The conservative republican right has a development plan that focuses on building the military, having wars, expanding the role of religion, deregulating and privatizing business, giving corporations tax breaks, send out religious missionaries, making extortive loans that keep third world countries in debt, and running a mercantalist system to exploit third world countries. Those are bad ideas. --- 4/20/2005
International development. --- (1) Economic growth is needed only up to the point of filling the needs of a growing population (small vs. big economic systems). (2) Economic development is what is really needed, more so than economic growth. This is done through technological development. Primitive (simple) vs. modern (complex) economic systems. --- 02/24/1994
International development. --- (1) How does one figure out how to make the most out of the little they have? (2) How to explain that the rich are not necessarily happy, healthy or ethical? (3) How to identify the causes of poverty? How to identify solutions? (4) How to see that there may be present other problems besides poverty. And how these problems reinforce and magnify each other. Likewise, various solutions may reinforce and magnify each other. (5) How to get people to see a way out of their poverty? (6) There can be problems both on the individual and cultural levels. The individual often does not want to recognize the individual's problems. The culture often does not want to recognize the culture's problems. (7) Various problems include the following: You can't work or get an education if you are physically ill. You can't work if you have no birth control. You can't work if you are hungry. You can't get an education if you are working all the time. --- 5/10/2005
International development. --- A country with few natural resources, yielding widespread poverty, yielding no education, yielding no democracy, yielding injustice, corruption and dictatorship. Is the above cycle inevitable in the third world? No. The third world is the biggest challenge. --- 11/10/2001
International development. --- Change vs. tradition in personality types. Everyone makes a metaphysical decision at some point in their life, consciously or unconsciously, whether they prefer change or tradition. It may be a gene that partially influences us to decide. --- 9/12/2000
International development. --- Change vs. tradition. Anti-development attitudes and anti-change attitudes. (1) Traditionalism: love of the past. (2) Inertia: too lazy to change. (3) An individual's fear of change. (4) Entrenched political powers resist change. --- 9/12/2000
International development. --- Change vs. tradition. Forces for and against change. I define change, or rather progress, as an increase in truth and justice. (1) Pro-change forces: The poor. The marginalized. The disenfanchised. The working class. (2) Tactics of change agents: Empower people. Educate people. (3) Anti-change forces: Military. Police. Traditionalists. Power holders. Money holders. Elders. Anti-democracy types (authoritarian personalities). (4) Tactics of anti-change agents: They try to keep people poor, fearful, helpless, hopeless, and disempowered. --- 9/18/2000
International development. --- Culture. Cultural attitudes can either promote or impede development. PART ONE. Cultural attitudes that promote development are attitudes that value social justice and ecological sustainability. PART TWO. Cultural attitudes sometimes impede development. Some people are mired in counter-productive ways of thinking. (1) Despair. Hopelessness. (2) People who think God is telling them to abuse human rights. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Development does not occur only in the third world. If the third world is developing into the first world, then the first world is developing into what? --- 3/29/2002
International development. --- Development is an important issue. From an ethical standpoint, it is imperative that the rich help the poor. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Development of a nation. Economic, technological, political, education, and ethics are all interconnected and must be raised together simultaneously. How to do it? Can democracy work in a country in which the people have no work ethic? Or have no minority rights or women's rights? Or who respect only force and violence? Or who have no natural resource, capital, or trade to build a sub-structure? Or have no rule of law? Or have an uneducated population? How to improve such a situation? --- 09/01/1994
International development. --- Development of a society or culture is like psychotherapy of an individual person. In psychotherapy a person cannot change unless they want to change, and likewise a society or culture cannot change unless they want to change. --- 9/4/2000
International development. --- Do you want to develop your economy? Well, then educate your people, reduce crime and corruption, and change the values of your people to make them more creative, entrepreneurial, industrious and fair. The goal is not to produce a bunch of unneeded products and waste all leisure time. The goal is improving the quality of life of your citizens. Health (psychological and physical) of population. Health of the environment (ecology). Solving problems. --- 12/29/1998
International development. --- Economic development. (1) People need a way to make a living, and yet we should not teach people to pursue money for money's sake. (2) Today, one of the main economic perils to international development is increasing corporatism that results in sweatshops and generally exploits workers. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Education, literacy, media, information. Access to information is a human right. Access to education is a human right. Access to knowledge is a human right. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Environmental development. The goal is sustainable development in ALL countries of the world. The goal is not to get the third world to live like the first world because the first world countries are resource depleting, polluting pigs. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Growth, development and planning. Growth means size. Development mean sophistication. Causes of growth and development, stagnation, and decay. Technology. Living standards: income, environment, crime/safety, pollution, stress, values. Stuff vs. leisure time, freedom. --- 12/30/1992
International development. --- Having many natural resources does not guarantee development and freedom, as evidenced by Russia, India and China. --- 9/19/2001
International development. --- Health. Physical health. Mental health. It does no good to trade the diseases of the third world for the diseases of the first world. The goal is to reduce infant mortality, increase average life expectancy, and reduce the incidence of mental illness. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Helping the poor people in the poor countries. Sustainability and social justice is the goal for development. Development can be divided into smaller topics like political development, economic development, and technological development, but these smaller topics are closely inter-twined. Education is key. Independent media is key. Avoiding economic exploitation by rich countries is key. Avoiding political oppression is key. Empowering people is key. --- 5/2/2007
International development. --- How is intellectual development (science, philosophy, attitudes) related to economic development? Development does not mean having a lot of stuff. Development does not mean bigger houses and more clothes. Development means having your head screwed on straight. Development means an increase in social justice and ecological sustainability. --- 4/15/2002
International development. --- How to define poverty and wealth? Poverty and wealth can each be defined several ways. --- 1/27/2007
International development. --- Humans have the ability to construct their own systems. Humans have the ability to create rules for their systems. The system we create should be fair. The rules we create for the system should be fair. No one should be left with nothing. Life is not a "winner takes all" trivial game. Some people mistakenly think it is. If humans decide to build their system so that the winners get everything and the losers get nothing then that is injustice. --- 5/17/2005
International development. --- If an individual by their own actions contributes toward their own poverty then that is an isolated, individual problem. If a society contributes toward the poverty of the individual then that is a systemic, societal problem. Systemic problems are worse than isolated problems. --- 5/12/2005
International development. --- If you think globally (and we should all be thinking globally) then the most important area of economics is development economics. That is, the most important issue is getting the 80% of humanity that live in poverty to a sustainable prosperity that 20% of humanity is close to achieving. --- 3/4/2001
International development. --- Methods of development. Everything is packaged, either packaged well or packaged poorly. Things that are packaged well are more likely to be accepted by people. Not just bought but accepted. If you want to develop a culture you should package your ideas well so that they are accepted quickly and easily by the culture. To have your ideas accepted you should package them so that they are irresistible to human nature. For example, package them in the form of a beautiful young woman, or in the form of a bouncing baby, or in the form of a story full of universal archetypes with a happy ending (like a Spielberg movie). Then you have to market it, pitch it, show it to everyone. --- 9/4/2000
International development. --- Most important idea about international development. International development is not merely an economic topic. International development is a combination of economics, politics, technology, and cultural attitudes. --- 4/26/2007
International development. --- Patterns of development. A locality may develop in some ways like the American West developed. At first various functions may be held by a single person. For example, in a small town, one person may be the sheriff, judge and mayor. As a town grows, various functions will held by individual people in individual buildings. For example, a doctor in a hospital, a librarian in a library, etc. As development proceeds, the town may become a stop on a train line or a bus route. --- 10/22/2000
International development. --- Patterns of development. It may not be desirable for a nation to achieve a state of self-sufficiency in isolation from other nations, just as an individual person in a developed nation may not find it desirable to grown their own food and build their own house. However, a nation does want to achieve a condition of self-sufficiency amongst all other nations, just as an individual person wants to be able to make a living in a community by doing what they do best or enjoy doing. --- 9/4/2000
International development. --- Patterns of development. We should not expect to see every locality in the world turn into Manhattan. In the United States the largest areas of land are pure uninhabited wilderness. The next largest lands are rural areas. Then suburbs. And the cities take up the least space. So it will be in the developing world. Most of the land will be wild. Next largest will be rural areas, followed by small areas of suburbs and cities. (2) What is rural life like in advanced societies like the USA? What can we expect rural life to be like in nations that develop? Transportation will be by horse and bicycle because cars are expensive. Communication will be the least expensive form, which may be newspaper, radio, wire phone or wireless phone. However, the change will be more in the minds of the people than in the possessions they own. The people will be educated, ethical, empowered, politically savvy, peaceful and just, rather than ignorant conflict-ridden and unethical. --- 9/4/2000
International development. --- Political development. Of course a goal is democracy, but democracy requires an educated populace, and democracy requires a free press. It does no good to replace military dictatorship with corporatism. It does no good to replace dictatorship with theocracy. It does no good to replace dictatorship with corruption or kleptocracy. It does no good to replace one bad form of government with another bad form of government. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Poverty does not necessarily cause things like loss of self esteem, loss of social feelings, loss of hope, loss of feelings of adequacy, loss of feelings of power and control, and greed. Absence of poverty does not necessarily cause the opposites of the above. You do not have to be rich in order to be well educated, happy, or simply to live. There are many low income people who live good lives. --- 1/22/1999
International development. --- Poverty in the Philippines. America is the cause of the poverty in the Philippines. America is not the cure for the poverty in the Philippines. America exploited the Philippines for over a hundred years. And now there is a brain drain from the Philippines to America. --- 5/29/2007
International development. --- Poverty is not simply an economic issue. --- 4/20/2001
International development. --- Poverty. (1) Poverty is a problem that spans disciplines. (2) One way to help the poor is to change their attitudes. Make them believe the following: You can be poor and happy. You can be poor and smart. You can be poor and healthy. You can be poor and loved. You can be poor and advance out of poverty. You do not have to turn to crime, drugs, and wasting time. (3) The poor feel they cannot compete. The poor feel they are being kept down. The poor feel they are getting their asses kicked, and they are being screwed. --- 4/15/1998
International development. --- Poverty. (1)(A) To what degree is it their own fault? (B) To what degree is it someone else's fault or society's fault? (2)(A) How can they best help themselves get out of poverty? (B) How can someone else or society help the poor get out of poverty? --- 4/29/2005
International development. --- Poverty. By far the biggest cause of poverty, worldwide and throughout time, is when people work hard but get paid little, due to exploitation and oppression by employers. --- 3/3/2007
International development. --- Poverty. Getting people out of poverty. (1) Instill the work ethic. Work is good. Lazing around, wasting time, and having useless fun all time is bad. (2) Instill the entrepreneurial attitude. The artist, inventor, scientist, philosopher, and entrepreneur are all creators, explorers, and discovers. Instill the attitude to keep trying after failing. Instill the attitude of fair play. Get rid of hopeless and helpless attitudes. People are unsure that they as individuals can make it, because they feel too stupid, or feel they have poor job history, etc. (3) Decrease crime and corruption attitudes: cheating the system; getting by the man; crime pays. (4) Promote education. --- 02/28/1998
International development. --- Poverty. How does one define poverty? (1) Malnourished. Hungry. No money for food. (2) No money for health care. (3) No money for education. (4) No savings. Living paycheck to paycheck. --- 4/28/2005
International development. --- Poverty. If you define poor as "not rich" then you can say to the poor that being rich is not a big deal. If you define poor as "lacking basic necessities" then you cannot say to someone who is starving to death or dying of illness that they should work harder and not be envious of the rich. --- 4/28/2005
International development. --- Poverty. Let's say you are poor and struggling to get out of poverty, and then a war reaches you, or a corrupt politician, or organized crime, what then? War, crime and corruption undo the hard work of people struggling to get out of poverty. --- 4/29/2005
International development. --- Poverty. Poverty continues to be a big problem worldwide. How many people live in extreme poverty? About 1 billion according to Jeffrey Sachs, author of "The End of Poverty". Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than a dollar a day. Extreme poverty is when you could die of starvation, or of lack of clean water, or of lack of health care, or lack of shelter. Approximately 20,000 people die each day due to extreme poverty. Needlessly, because extreme poverty could be wiped out in our lifetime. Some conservative pundits would have you believe that its either not a problem or that nothing can be done about it, but those conservative pundits are wrong. --- 6/26/2005
International development. --- Poverty. Some potential causes of poverty. (1) Social structural injustice and oppression, which destroys self-esteem. (2) Inability to delay gratification. (3) Hopelessness. (4)(A) Lack of brain power. (B) Lack of knowledge (unlearned). (C) Lack of a school degree. (These are three totally different things). (5) Raised in a bad social environment. No role models. (6) Economic causes. High unemployment. (7) Cultural causes. Lack of a cultural work ethic. Lack of a savings ethic. Lack of an ethic to invest in self (stingy). (8) Risky gambling. Losing money. Spending money. --- 4/20/1999
International development. --- Poverty. The poor: the homeless, the hungry, those lacking medical care. (2) The global poor. How many? What percentage of the world population? (3) The United States poor. How many? What percentage of the population? PART TWO. Why poor? Lazy? Crazy? Stupid? No. A history of human rights denied. A history of opportunity denied. Corruption in the system. Corruption in government. Exploitation by employers. Corruption and crime. Land and water taken by corporations. Drafted into armies, or coerced into volunteering because of lack of alternatives. Countries torn apart by war. Denied an education by being coerced into working all day. Labor unions weakened by corporate, anti-labor tactics. Few good paying jobs. Profits going to corporations. Ruthless competition. --- 12/4/2005
International development. --- Poverty. Types of poverty. (1) Unavoidable poverty. (2) Avoidable poverty. (A) Caused by self. (B) Caused by others. --- 4/25/1999
International development. --- Poverty. What do you do with someone in poverty? Teach them how to live best with little money. Teach them what to buy. Teach them how to get access information. Teach them how to improve their lot. Teach them how to avoid despair. --- 7/21/1998
International development. --- Poverty. When a person gets sick, it is usually not their fault they got sick. When a child is poor, it is not the child's fault that it is poor. --- 4/29/2005
International development. --- Problems list. (1) Environment. (2) Economy (ex. unemployment, inflation). (3) Education. (4) Health, physical and psychological. (5) Political issues like justice, equality and freedom. (6) Technological development. (7) Social attitudes. (8) Which countries are worst off in each area? --- 11/15/2001
International development. --- Social justice. There are many issues that need to be addressed in international development. Women's rights abuses. Children's rights abuses. Minority rights abuses. Workers rights abuses. --- 5/9/2007
International development. --- Systemic, societal causes of poverty. It is not always the case that the individual is responsible for their own poverty. There are many examples of cases where the individual is not responsible for their own poverty. These are cases in which the system, society, causes individuals to be poor. These problems can occur not only in various subject areas (ex. political, economic, etc.) but also various levels (ex. local, national, global). (1) Racial discrimination and poverty. Slavery. Slaves prohibited from reading and writing. (2) Sexual discrimination and poverty. Women denied equal pay. (3) Political causes of poverty. People excluded from the political process can end up poor. Women denied the vote. (4) Economic causes of poverty. Workers oppressed and exploited under pure capitalism. Globally, when rich countries set up a system of international trade for their own self interests, oppressing and exploiting poorer nations. --- 5/27/2005
International development. --- Technology development. The goal is sustainable technology. Sustainable materials, sustainable power, and sustainable tools. Internet access for all, because technology is based on knowledge and information. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- The big problem areas. Health, both physical and psychological. Politics: justice, equality, freedom. Economics: employment, inflation, savings and leisure time. Environment. Technology. Education: knowledge, learning, attitudes, science, philosophy and art, on an individual level and a societal level. --- 4/26/2002
International development. --- The direction that the first world needs to head in is towards environmental sustainability and social justice. The first world has a long way to go. Don't rest on your laurels, first world. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- The goal is not to simply make more (GDP) and consume more (CPI). The goals are sustainability, low unemployment, adequate wages, justice and fairness. No corruption. Provide education, medical care, and psychotherapy for all. Lovers and friends. --- 6/15/1998
International development. --- There are a billion people in extreme poverty, living on $1 a day. 20,000 of these people die needlessly everyday. Millions of people die needlessly every year, as Jeff Sachs reminds us in "The End of Poverty". That means if I donate $365 a year to CARE or UNICEF I can keep one person alive. If I donate $700 a year I can save two lives. If I get my elected officials to give .7 percent of GDP to foreign aid I can save many more lives. --- 5/27/2005
International development. --- There are many parts to international development, including political development, economic development, technological development, etc. The parts of development are inter-related or inter-twined. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- To often, people subvert the goals of international development in order to make themselves rich. To often, countries subvert the goals of international development in order to make themselves rich. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Today, many average people live better than the kings of yore. --- 9/4/2000
International development. --- Types of development. (1) Economic development: Entrepreneurial attitudes. Corporate organization attitudes. Hardworking attitudes. (2) Political development: Rule of law. Reduce crime and corruption. Increase justice. (3) Social development: Literacy and life-long learning. Cooperation. Peace. Health (physical and psychological). Empower the disempowered. Equal rights for all. (4) Technological development: Ecologically sustainable technologies, both low-tech and high-tech. --- 9/4/2000
International development. --- Types of development. Development is not just about economics. Development addresses many areas. (1) Development and economics. (2) Development and the environment. (3) Development and technological infrastructure (water, food, shelter, power, transportation, communication, schools, libraries, hospitals). (4) Development and politics. Government, corruption, beauracratic inefficiency, taxes, justice, peace, etc. (5) Development and psychology and sociology. The attitudes and philosophy of the people. --- 9/12/2000
International development. --- Various thoughts. (1) If we are all living sustainably then we are all living simply and minimally. (2) Everyone is rich in some things and poor in other things. (3) Human rights means that everyone deserves basic levels of various values. (4) How do we define the terms "development, underdeveloped and developed"? (5) One can talk about living without excess. That is different from living without basic needs. Tangibles like clean water and food. Intangibles like peace and justice. (6) Poverty trap, cyclical poverty, intergenerational poverty. No one should be condemned to poverty. Everyone should have access to the means to exit poverty. --- 5/10/2005
International development. --- Violence. War, terrorism, violent crimes, threats of violence, bullying. Violence is a big problem. Violence starts with bullying and proceeds toward crime, terrorism, and war. Humans need to develop and promote non-violent means of conflict resolution. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- Visions of the future. How does one define progress? What are the ends and means of progress? Because change can be for better or worse. Different people view different changes as being good or bad. Different people view any given change as progress or anti-progress. --- 9/12/2000
International development. --- What percent of the world is uneducated? What percent lives in poverty? What are the definitions of "uneducated" and "poverty". --- 10/2/1998
International development. --- What separates the developed countries from the under-developed countries? Some people might say that it is only knowledge and attitudes that separate the developed countries from the underdeveloped countries. Not money. Not natural resources. Not technology. (2) A hypothetical test. If you took a group of Americans, Swedes or Japanese and you put them on a desert island with no money, no technology and no natural resources, what would they develop into in a thousand years? Would they evolve or devolve? Would they be able to transmit their knowledge and attitudes to future generations without significant loss of information? (3) So how do we change the knowledge and attitudes of several billion deprived world citizens? Via Radio? Newspapers? Television? Movies? Books? Web sites? Person to person? PART TWO. A society or culture based on attitudes and knowledge is much more robust than one based on money, technology, material possessions or natural resources because in times of scarcity the citizens of a knowledge and attitude based society are better able to cope and survive. Better attitudes result in less mental illness, less crime and injustice. We need to educate people not just in facts but also in attitudes. --- 2/13/2002
International development. --- When I say "international development" I mean "Progressive international development", because Progressivism is the way to go. The neo-cons have a bad plan for international relations and it involves exploiting the poor in order for the neo-cons to become even richer. The neo-con plan sucks. --- 5/5/2007
International development. --- When one speaks of economic development of a third world country, the issues at stake are not just economic in nature. One must ask, (1) What is the situation the country is in? (2) What is the goal condition to reach? (3) What is the best path to take (capitalism, socialism, communism, low tech or high tech)? (4) How can the U.S. best help (monetary aid, loans, trade)? (5) How can I best help? (6) What resources does the country have? (7) How can they support themselves? (8) What changes to make in the areas of technology, social, economic, political? (9) The goal condition is education, health, freedom, justice, equality, peace (no war), no crime, sustainable agriculture. The people may be poor but they must at least be healthy and happy and smart. --- 1/25/1998
International development. --- When the system is intrinsically unjust then no matter how hard one works one remains in poverty. It is very easy for the system to become intrinsically unjust or lopsided because power holders are rule makers who create rules in their own favor, for their own self interests. One can say that social systems have a tendency toward injustice. Its a constant battle against injustice. People living in systems that are economically exploitive and politically oppressed often work to no avail. And all social systems contain people who make the mistake of economically exploiting and politically oppressing. Examples, feudalism, slavery, segregation, sweatshops. --- 4/28/2005
International development. --- Why has Africa progressed so slowly? Because it is being plundered from the inside and from the outside. See John Perkin's books, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and the book "A Story as Old as Empire". --- 5/9/2007
International development. --- World demographics. What percentage of the world population: Lives under political oppression. Lives under crime. Has poor health. Lives in poverty. Has no education. Etc. How are these percentages changing over the last 500 years? --- 6/6/2004