AHC: Make South America... Less South American

[Hendryk]

The US inherited a slave-driven export-dependent plantocracy, too.

And the parts of the US that did have remained noticeably less developed than the rest of the country, with what infrastructures they have mostly provided by federal investment.

...Nigerian oil? Pakistani nukes?

Oil has hardly made Nigeria prosperous, all it has done is generate huge amounts of corruption. And if nukes made anyone prosperous, one wonders why the Soviet economy went belly up the way it did. I'm aghast that someone can claim with a straight face that British colonial governance was somehow a precondition for development. Sudan, Kenya, Bangladesh and Burma certainly wish it were the case.

 

[corditeman]

Certified???

No, Hendryk, I don't believe it's a pre-condition. However, you might like to look at New Zealand, Australia and Canada...I'm starting to get rather irritated by pro- and anti-colonial attitudes. What astonished me was the 'Dominion of Honour' concept of Argentina and Chile - and that I was introduced to by Argentinos.

However, you might like to recall that it was US pressure that resulted in headlong 'independence' being given to countries formerly administered by Britain and France. Not at all funny - as far as I can see, it benefited Uncle Sam more than anybody else, destroying the British Empire whilst handing the people over to unscrupulous dictators. There's the bizarre situation where Ian Smith could walk down the streets of Harare and have his hand shaken by average Zimbabweans, whilst Mugabe could only do the same with a regiment of securitymen.

You really want something bizarre? Look at Gibraltar - forced to remain as a colony to prevent a Spanish takeover. MEPs from the South West of England have to represent them in the European Parliament. Closest that Britain's come to the French overseas Departement system.

 

[Hendryk]

However, you might like to look at New Zealand, Australia and Canada...

Settler colonies all of those, a different bird altogether from places with a native population ruled by a colonial cadre.

 

[Plumber]

However, you might like to recall that it was US pressure that resulted in headlong 'independence' being given to countries formerly administered by Britain and France. Not at all funny - as far as I can see, it benefited Uncle Sam more than anybody else, destroying the British Empire whilst handing the people over to unscrupulous dictators. There's the bizarre situation where Ian Smith could walk down the streets of Harare and have his hand shaken by average Zimbabweans, whilst Mugabe could only do the same with a regiment of securitymen.

The US-encouraged rush towards independence more than often resulted in dictatorship? True. If you had argued it destroyed the Empire before a middle class could emerge in most of the colonies, I agree that's bad. But you just seem to be worried about the destruction of the Empire itself, which was a dictatorship to the majority of its inhabitants. Really now, many locals simply had a native dictatorship replace a foreign one. The only exception was of course:

Settler colonies all of those, a different bird altogether from places with a native population ruled by a colonial cadre.

Which are a different case completely from the rest of the Empire.

And I'm sure Smith was no more popular than Mugabe among the average Zimbabwean; if Zimbabweans back then had modern equipment you'd bet your bottom dollar Smith wouldn't be shaking anyone's hand.

 

[corditeman]

The Middle Class...

...Are the point. An educated and politically stable sector of society with (in many cases) a tradition of public service. India created some highly able individuals, so why should Africa be different?

Trouble is, administrators to the African colonies were generally imports, not locally-produced - some were Hindus, like Gandhi. I write under correction, but I think that the tribal chiefs were more interested in their sons getting military training than civil service experience. Maybe that is one aspect of the de-colonisation disaster. The apartheid-ridden and Afrikaaner-dominated Republic of South Africa did not encourage the emergence of a native African middle class, but it has emerged nevertheless.

If it was 'simply a native dictatorship replacing a foreign one', you wouldn't have Zimbabwe in its current non-democratic starvation disaster. The best measure of government success is the level of development and the maintenance of the services required for community life. As it is, Smith's government had to be reasonably effective to retain any loyalty at all - or are you going to turn Mugabe apologist? If so, I'm off.

 

[archaeogeek]

Smith's government no more had to be efficient than Mugabe's except at repression and political manipulation: it's possible to not be a Mugabe apologist and still not be favourable to a fascist asswipe.

Many african countries have a developing middle class, even without the apartheid regimes.

Also, I know GDP is not the absolute measure some think it is, but it can give a few hints, and the Nigerian GDP places the country below regions colonized by pretty much everyone who wasn't Britain, while South Africa is behind french and spanish colonies, even excepting North Africa. The countries that fall above are also often more stable.

Colonialism is not needed to develop a middle class, not killing the country in the egg is, which is what France and Spain did with parts of Latin America and Haiti, otherwise, yes, it will take longer to get things off the ground.

 

[corditeman]

Tutwardly tut...

...I hope you don't think I support apartheid? As for fascism, my father fought that creed - and to identify Ian Smith with fascism is rather to over-use the term. There seems to be a tendency for the word 'fascist' to be applied to anything right of centre in politics. My measurement of fascism has in it such things as Gestapo, gas-chambers and anti-semitism.

I have had the experience of a Communist calling me a fascist and a Hitler apologist calling me a communist. I must be getting something right.

Colonial regimes did establish an infrastructure of sorts; the Indian railway and bridge system is a case in point. Where that infrastructure is maintained in good order, the country generally succeeds. I suppose a British example of failure is the Roman road system that decayed and had to be re-invented (as roads and railways) before mass industrial transport could occur.

To get back to the point of the thread, Spanish occupation of South America seems to have suffered from elitism from the start, so when it was overthrown, it required military action by dis-satisfied members of the colonial elite. This probably accounts for the number of Juntas that pepper South American history and make it look like England's War of the Roses. You need a merchant class in power before stability starts to appear - wars on your own doorstep can be ruinous to profits. So we're back to the middle classes. Peasants will fight for freedom, but they have to return to the fields, so it's up to townies to keep that freedom alive.

 

[danwild6]

The only thing I can think of to make South America more prosperous is better governence post independence. As has been stated before Simon Bolivar not declaring himself dictator and stepping aside could lead to a surviving Gran Colombia. Paraguay needs to avoid the War of Triple Alliance this would be a good thing for Brazil as well.

As far as America destroying the British Empire goes, and this is really hard to say as we would really like to take credit for it, we have to hand honors to the British themselves. I mean spending a million men in flanders and treating your colonies as equals all in the same war, the British of all people should have known better.

 

[Midas]

It's hard in areas where slave-labor and cash-crops were predominant. This usually privileges some minority group that simultaneously has a monopoly on political power. These groups will obviously be strong veto players resisting change (most likely), which just increases the chances for conflict. I'm not saying these regions are predetermined to be backwaters filled with strife, but it will be harder for them to break out of the mold.

Regions where slavery is not predominant that could also industrialize and create a working class and middle class would be a big boon for many of these countries. Argentina and Chile fit this mold, and Brazil to an extent- but they all got hijacked by totalitarian political movements.

 

[archaeogeek]

...I hope you don't think I support apartheid? As for fascism, my father fought that creed - and to identify Ian Smith with fascism is rather to over-use the term. There seems to be a tendency for the word 'fascist' to be applied to anything right of centre in politics. My measurement of fascism has in it such things as Gestapo, gas-chambers and anti-semitism.

That would be not knowing fascism, then: gas chambers and anti-semitism were mostly lacking in Spain and Italy.
Wrapping yourself in the banner of racial/ethnic/cultural supremacy, though, is part of it.

 

[corditeman]

Spain and Italy...

...Had their own mechanisms for repression and fewer Jews to demonise.

Is the Lebanese Falange/Phalange fascist, or not?

Another feature of fascism/extremism/communism is the tendency to manipulate elections to give unrealistic majorities, or to only allow voting for the ruling party.

Would Mugabe qualify as a fascist?

Roosevelt certainly wanted to get rid of the British Empire and was rather taken with both Josef Stalin and Chiang Kai-Shek, with ultimately disastrous results. Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt certainly oversaw a transfer of capital from embattled Britain in both World Wars - Britain's still paying interest to the USA on WW1 debts, did you know? The loss of young men in Flanders was appalling, but the loss of economic flexibility and investment capital is still hampering the UK.

Drat it...back to South America...

Peronism and Allende socialism put up unreasonable expectations and destroyed the economy, allowing in Juntas that mucked matters up further. Still, we can hope that common sense is starting to prevail. I've certainly been impressed by my Argentino contacts, although not by Kirchner. Brazil I've not researched as deeply, but it's a robust country with great potential. Bye for now.

 

[juanml82]

Peronism and Allende socialism put up unreasonable expectations and destroyed the economy, allowing in Juntas that mucked matters up further.

Mmm... not quite. Peronism, at least with Peron, didn't destroy the economy at all, although it left it structurally weaker due the poor choice of investment in one hand and with a fair good internal market in the other hand. The 1976 Argentinean junta destroyed it and the next three elected presidents continued the job, one of them being peronist.
Regarding Allende, he didn't govern for long and plenty of the economic problems can really be tracked down to the opposition/CIA trying to break havoc in the country. Pinochet, while a ruthless bastard, didn't damage the Chilenean economy. However, I wonder how robust Chile's economy really is, given their enormous dependency in one single natural resource.

 

[archaeogeek]

...Had their own mechanisms for repression and fewer Jews to demonise.

As did Rhodesia: it had a whole population of blacks and an unwarranted sense of self-importance.

Is the Lebanese Falange/Phalange fascist, or not?

Yes, or at the very least proto-fascist in many ways: it's pretty close in ideology to Spanish falangism.

Would Mugabe qualify as a fascist?

You're confusing fascism and totalitarianism, but Mugabe does work on the basis of making Zimbabwe into "Greater Shonaland" so he might be, not that I care much about Zimbabwe right now, it seems mostly like some sort of weird racist red herring you put together as an argument for how Africans were better off under British rule, focusing on a single tiny relatively insignificant country. And then pointing out how Nigeria is such an economic powerhouse when it isn't even on an African scale.

Roosevelt certainly wanted to get rid of the British Empire and was rather taken with both Josef Stalin and Chiang Kai-Shek, with ultimately disastrous results. Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt certainly oversaw a transfer of capital from embattled Britain in both World Wars - Britain's still paying interest to the USA on WW1 debts, did you know? The loss of young men in Flanders was appalling, but the loss of economic flexibility and investment capital is still hampering the UK.

Not our problem if you can't work out an economy without an empire and its captive market.

Peronism and Allende socialism put up unreasonable expectations and destroyed the economy, allowing in Juntas that mucked matters up further. Still, we can hope that common sense is starting to prevail. I've certainly been impressed by my Argentino contacts, although not by Kirchner. Brazil I've not researched as deeply, but it's a robust country with great potential. Bye for now.

That's the mid 20th century, as for Allende, he was in office all of three years, he didn't have the time to destroy the economy. CIA cronies, however, had plenty of time to destroy civil liberties.

 

[minifidel]

Mmm... not quite. Peronism, at least with Peron, didn't destroy the economy at all, although it left it structurally weaker due the poor choice of investment in one hand and with a fair good internal market in the other hand. The 1976 Argentinean junta destroyed it and the next three elected presidents continued the job, one of them being peronist.
Regarding Allende, he didn't govern for long and plenty of the economic problems can really be tracked down to the opposition/CIA trying to break havoc in the country. Pinochet, while a ruthless bastard, didn't damage the Chilenean economy. However, I wonder how robust Chile's economy really is, given their enormous dependency in one single natural resource.

Perón did destroy Argentina's economy: as you said, he made the Argentine economy structurally weaker, and essentially left behind a stack of cards that could do nothing but fall in the end (as it did already under Perón, once he could no longer redirect funds from agricultural exports to the industrial sector).

The Proceso did a tremendous amount of damage, destroying not only the weaker Peronist industries, but leaving the traditional, profitable ones weakened and ultimately moribund as well, which finally blew up in Alfonsín's face, and it wouldn't really be fair to hold him responsible when he had to deal with an uncooperative opposition the whole time, as well as several small-scale coup attempts (carapintadas) and 14 general strikes from the CGT. The same thing happened to De La Rua to a certain extent, seeing as he got a ticking time bomb from Menem, but he really has no excuse; De La Rua was just a bumbling moron.

 

[Nugax]

They needed large internal market to develop a serious industry, as well as easy access to iron, coal and, later on, oil and bauxite. They didn't have any of them. The USA's North East, OTOH, had them.
And without those risky, boring and extremely repetitive jobs in factories, during the 19th century, a country would just be a primary goods exporter.

Actually there is one country in Latin America with perfectly adequate coal and iron reserves - Colombia.

Unfortunately Colombia is also one of the most politically troubled and undercaptialised, and had a small population until the twentith century.

A Gran Colombia that kept Colombia and Venezuela together (ecuador is pretty irrelevent and probably a resource sink) and maintained long term political stability would IMO have no problem with at least a Spain-level of wealth and industrialisation per captia. The mountains do make transport difficult but the distances that need to be covered aren't that big, if Bogota stably domiantes a large area it can build up an industrial zone (on 1890s technology) that could pull the rest of the country up as well as have positive feedbacks with attracting captial and immigrants.

 

[minifidel]

Actually there is one country in Latin America with perfectly adequate coal and iron reserves - Colombia.

Unfortunately Colombia is also one of the most politically troubled and undercaptialised, and had a small population until the twentith century.

A Gran Colombia that kept Colombia and Venezuela together (ecuador is pretty irrelevent and probably a resource sink) and maintained long term political stability would IMO have no problem with at least a Spain-level of wealth and industrialisation per captia. The mountains do make transport difficult but the distances that need to be covered aren't that big, if Bogota stably domiantes a large area it can build up an industrial zone (on 1890s technology) that could pull the rest of the country up as well as have positive feedbacks with attracting captial and immigrants.

Well, Ecuador is only a resource sink until oil replaces coal

 

[juanml82]

Interesting.

Someone should now make a Colombian wank. Or was it done already?

 

[Imperator Frank]

Interesting.

Someone should now make a Colombian wank. Or was it done already?

Or an Argentinawank.

 

[corditeman]

...Just visiting...

... Archaeogeek, we'll never agree, and I'm no racist. It's just that I see a starving mess in a Zimbabwe that used to be a productive Rhodesia. Mind you, there were some things that the USSR got right that Putin gets wrong. A louse like Mugabe's inexcusable in any culture.

Minifidel, see if you have time to look at the BTdF thread, will you? I've been writing it with a lot of input from Petete123123 and others. Bearing in mind that its most recent part sees the fall of a Junta and the rise of at least one Argentino statesman, it's the closest I've been so far to an Argentowank. The Fuegans have a very tough time, win a war, but almost lose the peace through being exploited in a very odd way...But I'm afraid Chile has a tough time... And Cantref Mawr was a right headache.

Latin America has been slowly (and often painfully) making its way towards stability. I'll toss another consideration into the forum - would the use of birth control help, by reducing the level of under-age poor liable to political and military exploitation?

I know that birth control brings in the Vatican, etc., but would it help?

 

[minifidel]

... Archaeogeek, we'll never agree, and I'm no racist. It's just that I see a starving mess in a Zimbabwe that used to be a productive Rhodesia. Mind you, there were some things that the USSR got right that Putin gets wrong. A louse like Mugabe's inexcusable in any culture.

Minifidel, see if you have time to look at the BTdF thread, will you? I've been writing it with a lot of input from Petete123123 and others. Bearing in mind that its most recent part sees the fall of a Junta and the rise of at least one Argentino statesman, it's the closest I've been so far to an Argentowank. The Fuegans have a very tough time, win a war, but almost lose the peace through being exploited in a very odd way...But I'm afraid Chile has a tough time... And Cantref Mawr was a right headache.

Latin America has been slowly (and often painfully) making its way towards stability. I'll toss another consideration into the forum - would the use of birth control help, by reducing the level of under-age poor liable to political and military exploitation?

I know that birth control brings in the Vatican, etc., but would it help?

Argentina has had several statesmen

And overpopulation isn't a problem for most Latin American countries.