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

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richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

And the reductive stupid answer is just yelling colonialism.

Most of those reasons, that are very real, are explicitly derived of colonialism.

For instance:

2 (resources) is the cause that the US promotes puppet right-wing governments or directly destroys countries to pillage them.
3 (education) is systematically destroyed in many countries because they want to make public education disappear so it’s for profit. Again, following the US model and most likely benefiting US companies (for instance “educational” campaigns to teach proprietary products created by US companies, e.g. Microsoft)
4 (stability) is directly threatened by the US foreign policy of destroying every country that is ideologically or economically inconvenient for the unimpeded proliferation of unbridled, savage capitalism.
6: in many developing countries public health has been destroyed to follow for-profit schemes based in the US model, to benefit either US companies or US-backed right-wing politicians.
11: Crime is worst in countries reduces to poverty, in many cases by US-backed lending policies sending countries into misery.

All this, of course, is supported by years of colonial teachings after which the people in the “developing” countries despise themselves and look up to the powerful countries as inherently superior, even morally.

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XiELEd@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Not just the US. Cambridge Analytica is trying to manipulate our politics through scummy means such as misinformation. And our country is being fucked by the effects of Climate Change while western countries are celebrating because “it’s more sunny and warm now! :D”.

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rivermonster@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Many of the issues CAN and are linked to colonialism, reread what I wrote.

Yes, your points are pertinent and support problems that colonialism is relevant to, I did not claim otherwise.

However, you’re clearly angry over crimes (in many cases rightfully so) and problems the US has caused. But the question wasn’t exclusive to the US and is not exclusive to the US.

For the OPs question, trying to exclusively link everything to or overstate the colonial influence is an example of what I was saying as well.

It’s comforting to pretend that we just say one word “colonialism” and think that now we’re experts on the subject. But there’s so much more than colonialism, which again is a big factor (the first I listed), and overemphasis of it while disregarding the other real issues and nuances is counterproductive to learning.

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- richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Many of these issues can be also be related to the fact that the citizens of powerful countries are entitled assholes who vote their countries to continue the exfoliation of other countries.
  
  Your membership in one of those citizen groups is, of course, completely conjectural, but I have a strong opinion about it.
  
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  - rivermonster@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s fine that you want to vent. Go ahead and raise that fist and the sky and give it hell, kiddo!
    
    If misdirecting that at me makes you feel better, do it. Rock on, and I’m glad I could help. I hope you feel better!
    
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