- 14 Oct 2023 02:43
#15290837
Has any Third World country ever ceased to be a Third World country by any duplicable method?
I'll provide my thoughts and musings on history, touching on this question.
There's a couple of countries in (Eastern) Asia that were focused on exports to developed (= white English-speaking) countries, and thereby managed to pull themselves up to higher standards of living.
In the late 80s they were referred to as the "Asian Tigers". First Japan, then Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (all really tiny countries), then South Korea, and finally the massively huge country of China.
(Japan began industrialising much earlier on than the others, beginning around 1890, was then devastated by World War II, but then began to recover and embarked on a mostly new period of industrialisation beginning around 1950. I'll get back to Japan a little later)
Thailand has tried to use the same model but has had mixed success. There's simply too much poverty in Thailand. Their standard of living is slightly below that of Malaysia, their muslim neighbor to the South, which has a smaller population and is blessed with oil and natural gas reserves, although Thailand has more political and social freedom than Malaysia.
Also, the economy in Thailand is based more on tourism and agricultural/food exports, rather than manufacturing. Much of their economy was also based on real estate, which caused some real estate bubbles in the past, and might not really have benefitted them so much in the long-term.
It's interesting how all these Asian countries improved their standards of living through manufacturing exports.
Here's something Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore all have in common: They were all Chinese ethnicity.
So so far, we only have examples of Northeast Asian culture societies climbing up out of Third World status.
Japan in the 1890s and Communist Russia by the 1960s were able to greatly pull up their standard of living through industrialisation. Though I do not think the standards of living ever went up as high as a First World country, during that time.
Japan made a concerted effort to try to copy everything it believed made Europe successful (mainly the great European powers at the time of Germany, Britain, and also France and the United States to a smaller degree).
The average typical Japanese person before World War II was still noticeably poorer than the average American, and there was a larger percentage of poverty in Japan than in America. In the 1920s and early 30s there were many Japanese emigrating to seek better opportunities elsewhere, such as in the U.S., Chile and Brazil. But I think Japan was getting close to "First World" status at this time. Remember there was a worldwide "Great Recession" at this time, and Japan recovered from it sooner than the U.S. did, only a year after their invasion of Manchuria. (The U.S. took about 3 or 4 years longer to recover)
It would not be until the 1960s that the living standards in Japan started getting close to the U.S., and may have even slightly exceeded the U.S. in the 80s.
In France, the middle class developed between the years of about 1830 to 1890. This resulted in a transformation of French society and is considered the beginning of modernism. Part of the reason for the development of the middle class was that the country at this time was expanding overseas trade, which generated wealth and opportunities, while at the same time the country was beginning to industrialise. One of the important manufactured goods of the time was wool and silk textiles.
France had been one of the wealthier countries in Europe since the 1600s. Even back around the year 1000 France was still wealthier and much more developed than England. (It wouldn't be until the 1756 "Seven Years War" that France began to fall behind England, due to large amounts of debt, which would be one of the key factors leading to the French Revolution 33 years later; though some might argue England had previously secured its position as the dominant world colonial power after its defeat of Spain in the "Eighty Years War" in 1588. )
I'll provide my thoughts and musings on history, touching on this question.
There's a couple of countries in (Eastern) Asia that were focused on exports to developed (= white English-speaking) countries, and thereby managed to pull themselves up to higher standards of living.
In the late 80s they were referred to as the "Asian Tigers". First Japan, then Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (all really tiny countries), then South Korea, and finally the massively huge country of China.
(Japan began industrialising much earlier on than the others, beginning around 1890, was then devastated by World War II, but then began to recover and embarked on a mostly new period of industrialisation beginning around 1950. I'll get back to Japan a little later)
Thailand has tried to use the same model but has had mixed success. There's simply too much poverty in Thailand. Their standard of living is slightly below that of Malaysia, their muslim neighbor to the South, which has a smaller population and is blessed with oil and natural gas reserves, although Thailand has more political and social freedom than Malaysia.
Also, the economy in Thailand is based more on tourism and agricultural/food exports, rather than manufacturing. Much of their economy was also based on real estate, which caused some real estate bubbles in the past, and might not really have benefitted them so much in the long-term.
It's interesting how all these Asian countries improved their standards of living through manufacturing exports.
Here's something Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore all have in common: They were all Chinese ethnicity.
So so far, we only have examples of Northeast Asian culture societies climbing up out of Third World status.
Japan in the 1890s and Communist Russia by the 1960s were able to greatly pull up their standard of living through industrialisation. Though I do not think the standards of living ever went up as high as a First World country, during that time.
Japan made a concerted effort to try to copy everything it believed made Europe successful (mainly the great European powers at the time of Germany, Britain, and also France and the United States to a smaller degree).
The average typical Japanese person before World War II was still noticeably poorer than the average American, and there was a larger percentage of poverty in Japan than in America. In the 1920s and early 30s there were many Japanese emigrating to seek better opportunities elsewhere, such as in the U.S., Chile and Brazil. But I think Japan was getting close to "First World" status at this time. Remember there was a worldwide "Great Recession" at this time, and Japan recovered from it sooner than the U.S. did, only a year after their invasion of Manchuria. (The U.S. took about 3 or 4 years longer to recover)
It would not be until the 1960s that the living standards in Japan started getting close to the U.S., and may have even slightly exceeded the U.S. in the 80s.
In France, the middle class developed between the years of about 1830 to 1890. This resulted in a transformation of French society and is considered the beginning of modernism. Part of the reason for the development of the middle class was that the country at this time was expanding overseas trade, which generated wealth and opportunities, while at the same time the country was beginning to industrialise. One of the important manufactured goods of the time was wool and silk textiles.
France had been one of the wealthier countries in Europe since the 1600s. Even back around the year 1000 France was still wealthier and much more developed than England. (It wouldn't be until the 1756 "Seven Years War" that France began to fall behind England, due to large amounts of debt, which would be one of the key factors leading to the French Revolution 33 years later; though some might argue England had previously secured its position as the dominant world colonial power after its defeat of Spain in the "Eighty Years War" in 1588. )
Last edited by Puffer Fish on 14 Oct 2023 03:08, edited 1 time in total.