Comment on Why are so many countries in the world “developing” and poor, while essentially only Western countries have a high standard of living?

NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

There's a lot but it mainly comes down to how Europeans were more developed than the rest of the world due to their frequent wars, so when they went to colonize the world nobody stood a chance. And since colonialism and the subsequent horrible decolonization messed up those countries, we get the state of the world today.

To be more specific, colonialism basically turned affected countries into oversized plantations run by foreigners. Any political development that was already there went out the window, and of course no more could be made. Then you got decolonization, where you had countries either being fought off (like France) or packing their bags and leaving (like the British). This created massive power vacuums, and when you have power vacuums you get power struggles and dictatorships and from there we see the world's current state. On the other hand you have Botswana, where they actually had a native ruler class who could rule when the British left. They were an occupied country, not an oversized plantation, so they're virtually one of the best places to be in Africa.

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