todd@SCIRTP.UUCP (Todd Jones) (08/09/85)
> Todd Jones again (sigh) writes:> > > However, It is clear that many citizens of these third > > world countries are turning to communism to address the > > problems that were created by multinational American > > "agribusiness" corporations acting with the cooperation > > of the leaders of these countries. > > OK, great, now we the bread basket are removing over half the food crop from > already impoverished nations. What are we doing with this food? > Storing it with our already over abundant crop? We are providing Americans with foodstuffs we cannot grow as cheaply in America. E.G. bananas, sugar, coconuts. > Our farmers must appreciate that. They don't care they can't grow the aforementioned. > If you are talking about a particular crop, sugar or coconuts for example, > you might be right, but items such as these can hardly > be considered as staples. Of course they're not staples. They are being farmed from land *capable* of growing staples for the persons of that country. But as long as "agribusiness" controls land use, staples for the locals will not be grown. The locals cannot afford to buy food at prices Americans buy food for. > You're veritable verbiage is growing tiresome, if you've anything concrete > to conclude, do so with facts and figures. Ditto for you pal. Look up the overseas business practices of Dole, Del Monte, General Foods, United Fruit Company, etc... You'll see what I mean. > Above you mention the reason for poverty is modernization. Au contraire, I stated the primary reason for poverty is the resource drain from these countries to America and Europe. I'm all for modernization that focuses on the long-term interests of the country adopting it. Modernization in South America for American consumables doesn't do South America a whole lot of good, does it? > If I'm reading it properly, you conclude that: > American agribusiness is modernizing 3rd world countries which results in > reduced crop output, it then removes half this lesser crop, and cause further > poverty. Agribusiness then further modernizes and .a...and..a..zzzzz snore. Needless to say you're not reading properly. I'm not picking on modernization as a corrupting influence. Modernization is a tool. Tools _can_ be used to benefit persons. Modernization has allowed American multinational corporations to profitably exploit the resources of third world countries, while American foreign policy ignores the problems created by resource drain. These countries need modernization, but above all THEY NEED THEIR LAND BACK! They need to eat and a lot of these people see socialism, for better or worse, as a means of regaining control over their land. If we can't stop this molestation of foreign resources, we should be prepared for the (regrettable, I believe) inevitable swing toward socialist alternatives. The preceding opinions are, in all likelihood, those of Todd Jones. However, these opinions will, in all certainty, bear scant resemblance to the opinions of SCI Systems, Inc., Mr. Jones' employer. ||||| || || [ O-O ] Todd Jones (sigh) Again! \ ^ / {decvax,akgua}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp!todd | _ | |___| FLAME ME IF YOU DARE!
ray@rochester.UUCP (Ray Frank) (08/12/85)
> > > We are providing Americans with foodstuffs we cannot grow as cheaply > in America. E.G. bananas, sugar, coconuts. > > Of course they're not staples. They are being farmed from land > *capable* of growing staples for the persons of that country. > But as long as "agribusiness" controls land use, staples for > the locals will not be grown. The locals cannot afford to > buy food at prices Americans buy food for. > If we can grow food stuffs cheaper in other countries, why are we growing corn, wheat, etc. in this country? My suggestion to you is to start a campaign against banana and coconut consump- tion in this country and if is is successful, see if hunger and poverty is re- duced in other countries. Chances are the result will be to add banana and coconut farmers to the impoverished list.
tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL) (08/12/85)
> [Todd Jones] > Au contraire, I stated the primary reason for poverty is the > resource drain from these countries to America and Europe. ----------------------------------- The above statement is WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Boy, we sure have impoverished Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by draining their resources. Even if we exempt oil producing countries, the least poor third world countries tend to be those with the most per capita exports to the developed world. The very poorest countries have little to export. I suppose if Bangla Desh and Upper Volta stopped their already meager exports to the West they would blossom overnight. -- Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan
fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann) (08/13/85)
>> We are providing Americans with foodstuffs we cannot grow as cheaply >> in America. E.G. bananas, sugar, coconuts. >> >> Of course they're not staples. They are being farmed from land >> *capable* of growing staples for the persons of that country. >> But as long as "agribusiness" controls land use, staples for >> the locals will not be grown. The locals cannot afford to >> buy food at prices Americans buy food for. In article <10996@rochester.UUCP> ray@rochester.UUCP (Ray Frank) writes: >If we can grow food stuffs cheaper in other countries, why are we >growing corn, wheat, etc. in this country? My suggestion to you >is to start a campaign against banana and coconut consump- >tion in this country and if is is successful, see if hunger >and poverty is re-duced in other countries. Chances are the result >will be to add banana and coconut farmers to the impoverished list. Not necessarily so. Suppose the 3rd-world plantations grow corn and wheat. They won't be able to sell it, since the U.S. can grow it cheaper. The landowners will not be able to eat it all themselves, so there will be nothing left to do with the excess but share it with the peasants. When the 3rd-world plantations grow bananas, sugar, and coconuts, the plantation owners can sell the crop for money, which they then keep for themselves, spending it on luxuries, or depositing it in Swiss banks. The peasants get none of it and thus starve. Communist revolutions solve this problem by mass death and destuction. This opens up many jobs (rebuilding), and the surviving workers are in short supply. Not to mention the benefits of slave-labor (Oops! I mean the labor of political criminals in re-education camps). Frank Silbermann
hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) (08/14/85)
In article <295@SCIRTP.UUCP> todd@SCIRTP.UUCP (Todd Jones) writes: > >> Todd Jones again (sigh) writes:> >> > However, It is clear that many citizens of these third >> > world countries are turning to communism to address the >> > problems that were created by multinational American >> > "agribusiness" corporations acting with the cooperation >> > of the leaders of these countries. >> >> OK, great, now we the bread basket are removing over half the food crop from >> already impoverished nations. What are we doing with this food? >> Storing it with our already over abundant crop? > >We are providing Americans with foodstuffs we cannot grow as cheaply >in America. E.G. bananas, sugar, coconuts. Let us not forget Big Macs. America now consumes more than 3/4 of the world's annual output of sesame seeds; lands in the middle east, India, and Africa have been turned over from production of opium and food to production of sesame seeds for McBuns. In addition, about 5000 acres of Amazon Basin jungle PER DAY is destroyed, and will not come back, EVER. This is so McDonalds can buy cheaper meat for the McBurgerPatties. Oh, and Wendy's and Burger King also buy this cheaper meat. >> Our farmers must appreciate that. > >They don't care they can't grow the aforementioned. But they can and do grow beef, sesame seeds, wheat, and other McIngredients. >> If you are talking about a particular crop, sugar or coconuts for example, >> you might be right, but items such as these can hardly >> be considered as staples. > >Of course they're not staples. They are being farmed from land >*capable* of growing staples for the persons of that country. >But as long as "agribusiness" controls land use, staples for >the locals will not be grown. The locals cannot afford to >buy food at prices Americans buy food for. Amazon Basin lands are not suitable for growing staples for anyone. They are barely able to support the indigenous indian population who are being driven either deeper inside, or slaughtered, or dragged into Brasil's entirely alien culture, where they will never be allowed to fit. Middle eastern lands which were used to grow one kind of drug are being used to grow components of something equally insidious. Still not for foods used by locals. But let's take a closer look, here. According to Time, people of one place grow foods, yes, but cash-crops which are preferred by other people in neighboring areas, and they instead buy their food from some other place. >> Above you mention the reason for poverty is modernization. > >Au contraire, I stated the primary reason for poverty is the >resource drain from these countries to America and Europe. >I'm all for modernization that focuses on the long-term >interests of the country adopting it. Modernization in >South America for American consumables doesn't do South >America a whole lot of good, does it? You cannot ignore the effects of continual war, drought, and bad government on the Middle East and Africa. Sure, some parts of those places are quite wealthy, but they have ALWAYS depended primarily on imported food, using trade as a source of wealth. >These countries need modernization, but above all >THEY NEED THEIR LAND BACK! They need to eat and >a lot of these people see socialism, for better >or worse, as a means of regaining control over >their land. If we can't stop this molestation >of foreign resources, we should be prepared >for the (regrettable, I believe) inevitable >swing toward socialist alternatives. Modernization? How so? What they NEED is education, which is hardly a modern thing. What they need is good government. What they need is peace, not war. What they need is to stop killing each other over grudges their great**n-th grandparents started. What they need is rain. Oh, sure, maybe they would benefit from improvements in technological understanding, but low-tech improvements are necessary before we start importing tractors and baby formula. And guns and bombs. WE need to know what the hell WE are doing for a change before we start just wholesale dumping of our culture into their cultures. Sure, there are thousands who can benefit without being harmed, but there are millions who will be harmed more and more. Hutch (in a purple-grey funk)
tos@psc70.UUCP (Dr.Schlesinger) (08/14/85)
The exchange re. "resource drain" mostly indicates how foolish it is to venture generalizations about two-thirds, app. 110, of the countries in the world.
todd@SCIRTP.UUCP (Todd Jones) (08/14/85)
> > We are providing Americans with foodstuffs we cannot grow as cheaply > > in America. E.G. bananas, sugar, coconuts. > > > > Of course they're not staples. They are being farmed from land > > *capable* of growing staples for the persons of that country. > > But as long as "agribusiness" controls land use, staples for > > the locals will not be grown. The locals cannot afford to > > buy food at prices Americans buy food for. > If we can grow food stuffs cheaper in other countries, > why are we growing corn, wheat, etc. in this country? Because (as my first posting indicates) it is bananas, sugar and coconuts that are cheaper (and possible) to grow in tropical climates. Corn and wheat may be more expensive to grow *and ship* to America than corn and wheat grown in America. > My suggestion to you is to start a campaign against banana and > coconut consumption in this country and if is is successful, > see if hunger and poverty is reduced in other countries. Sounds easy enough! I'll devote my Saturday mornings to it. > Chances are the result will be to add banana and coconut farmers > to the impoverished list. It will not add banana and coconut farmers to the impoverished list because it is Dole Inc., Del Monte Inc., and all the other multinational agribusinesses that are the banana and coconut farmers. The people who work the fields in Central American countries very very rarely are the owners of the land (bourgeoise.) It's not as simple as boycotting these products, since your average Jose fieldworker will hurt long before Landrape Inc. hurts. If the citizens of these countries owned and farmed the land, they would be able to counter the hunger problems of their nation and still have some crops left over for export. This way Jose gets the profit that Landrape Inc. used to get. The only problem with this solution is that Landrape Inc. has a wee bit more influence on Senator Phillip Buster than poor old Jose, so I'm not holding my breath. But you'd better believe that if we don't do something drastic and keep Landrape Inc. out of third world countries, the Marxists will walk right in, woo the citizens and voila, another communist satelite! ||||||| || || [ O-O ] Todd Jones \ ^ / {decvax,akgua}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp!todd | ~ | |___| SCI Systems Inc. doesn't necessarily agree with Todd.
lkk@teddy.UUCP (08/15/85)
In article <1068@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL) writes: >> [Todd Jones] >> Au contraire, I stated the primary reason for poverty is the >> resource drain from these countries to America and Europe. >----------------------------------- >The above statement is WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! >Boy, we sure have impoverished Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by draining their >resources. Even if we exempt oil producing countries, the least poor >third world countries tend to be those with the most per capita exports >to the developed world. The very poorest countries have little to export. >I suppose if Bangla Desh and Upper Volta stopped their already meager >exports to the West they would blossom overnight. >-- >Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan If I remember my history correctly, this was not always the case. The change happened around 1970, when Quadaffi overthrew the pro-western king of libya, and renegotiated the concession with Occidental Petroleum. Others followed suit. The case of the arab oil kingdoms is quite anomalous. They are nations with few people and tremendous resources. Upper Volta and Bangladesh have problems that resulted from natural disasters, and the lingering results of prior western imperialism. Current U.S. imperialism is mainly evident in in the Western Hemisphere and the Far East. Africa and the Middle East were exploited by EUROPEAN imperialists for hundreds of years in the past. Even if no exploitation is currently taking place, the scars left by past actions have created very sick societies as a result. -- Sport Death, Larry Kolodney (USENET) ...decvax!genrad!teddy!lkk (INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa
tos@psc70.UUCP (Dr.Schlesinger) (08/15/85)
Of course hunger & poverty couldn't be reduced in the direct sense
by stopping the use of tropical lands to grow crops for ourselves. The
people who were once growing their own food on those lands and were
driven off it by the huge agribusinesses or their own larger
landowners are now in the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City,
Guadelajara, Monterrey, etc. and will obviously not return to the land
that easily. That doesn't change the fact that they were once
"subsistence-level" peasants, i.e. people who didn't really take part
in the cash economy, but basically fed and clothed themselves. But
because we like bananas, and e.g. we like to eat tomatoes year-round
(something that was unheard of when I was a youngster in the 20's)
such people were either driven up into the hills trying to cultivate
rockpiles (and hence more amenable to recruitment by guerrilla bands)
or went to the nearest big city and squatted and built a shanty.
Tom Schlesinger
Plymouth State College
Plymouth, NH 03256riddle@im4u.UUCP (08/15/85)
>> When the 3rd-world plantations grow bananas, sugar, and coconuts, >> the plantation owners can sell the crop for money, which they then >> keep for themselves, spending it on luxuries, or depositing it in >> Swiss banks. The peasants get none of it and thus starve. It can get even more blatant than that. Many of the plantation crops (coffee, for instance) require only seasonal labor. In order to guarantee a sufficient supply of willing labor at harvest time, plantation owners in many places (notably in Central America) have been known to use force, legal trickery and any other means at their disposal to make sure that peasants remain landless. Otherwise, the peasants might prefer to attend their own subsistence crops at harvest time rather than work at starvation wages for the big boys. Large plantation economies based on cash crops for export not only encourage mass poverty, they often *depend* on it. Not that you have to go Central America to find examples of this principle; the migrant farmworkers who do so much of the harvesting in this country often suffer from the same principle. --- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech}!ut-sally!riddle riddle@ut-sally.UUCP --- riddle@ut-sally.ARPA, riddle%zotz@ut-sally, riddle%im4u@ut-sally
cam@aluxe.UUCP (MASCAVAGE) (08/16/85)
> > [Todd Jones] > > Au contraire, I stated the primary reason for poverty is the > > resource drain from these countries to America and Europe. > ----------------------------------- > The above statement is WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! > Boy, we sure have impoverished Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by draining their > resources. Even if we exempt oil producing countries, the least poor > third world countries tend to be those with the most per capita exports > to the developed world. The very poorest countries have little to export. > I suppose if Bangla Desh and Upper Volta stopped their already meager > exports to the West they would blossom overnight. > -- > Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan I believe the situation Todd talked about is a little different than the one you are discussing. Exports of bananas, or pineapples do bring in some cash to these countries, but they are luxury items, not necessities such as oil which is a megabucks business. The monies made on these luxury crops most likely go to some upper class type who owns the plantation, or farm, and then some small part filters down to the "peasant" laborer. Because many staple items are not grown in said country in order to make room for the export crops, they must be imported or suffer ahigher price tag since they are probably scarce in said country. The landowner can then probably afford to buy these staples at the higher price, since he/she has made mucho dollars exporting the luxury crops, but the poor folk cannot afford to buy the now inflated price staple items - they are making some income on the exports, but not enough to buy what they need. The problem is quite complex indeed. ....but we helped to make it, and we can help to break it. cam
dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) (08/16/85)
From: todd@SCIRTP.UUCP (Todd Jones) >> >> OK, great, now we the bread basket are removing over half the food crop from >> already impoverished nations. What are we doing with this food? >> Storing it with our already over abundant crop? >We are providing Americans with foodstuffs we cannot grow as cheaply >in America. E.G. bananas, sugar, coconuts. >> Our farmers must appreciate that. >They don't care they can't grow the aforementioned. Do I detect a contradiction here? There is a big difference between "cannot grow as cheaply as" and "can't grow". Besides, the US does grow sugar; Hawaii and Louisana grow sugar cane and Colorado grows sugar beets. >> If you are talking about a particular crop, sugar or coconuts for example, >> you might be right, but items such as these can hardly >> be considered as staples. >Of course they're not staples. They are being farmed from land >*capable* of growing staples for the persons of that country. >But as long as "agribusiness" controls land use, staples for >the locals will not be grown. The locals cannot afford to >buy food at prices Americans buy food for. This is not completly true. S. E. Asia grows its own rice. The vast majority of the crops grown in Mexico are staples (corn, beans, wheat, soybeans, livestock, seafood). About 10% of its cotton 7% of its sugar, and less than 5% of anything else it produces is exported. Argentina grows huge amounts of corn and wheat. About 36% of its fruits and vegetables, 15% meats, 13% wine, beer, and tobacco, and less than 10% of anything else it produces is exported. Brazil grows wheat, corn, rice in about the same amounts as tropical fruits. About 29% of its coffee, 11% of its minerals, and less than 10% of anything else it produces is exported. Nicaragua produces about as much corn as it does bananas. About 36% of its coffee, 12% of its cotton, 6% meats, and less than 5% of anything else it produces is exported. For El Salvador, 44% of its coffee, 10% of its cotton, and less than 4% of anything else it produces is exported. In fact, staples of many kinds (mostly grains) are grown throughout Latin America; most of which stays inside that particular country. >...I stated the primary reason for poverty is the >resource drain from these countries to America and Europe. >I'm all for modernization that focuses on the long-term >interests of the country adopting it. Modernization in >South America for American consumables doesn't do South >America a whole lot of good, does it? >Modernization has allowed American multinational corporations >to profitably exploit the resources of third world countries, In Brazil, the average farm size is 160 acres (hardly corporate size); only 10% of the farms are greater than 250 acres. >while American foreign policy ignores the problems created >by resource drain. For fruits and nuts in $million: Year US Imports US Exports 1980 859 2930 1981 995 3314 1982 1094 2716 Total imports/exports in $million from/to "20 Latin American Republics": Year US Imports US Exports 1980 29851 36030 1981 32023 38950 1982 32513 30806 Hardly what I would call a "resource drain" into the US. If you don't like the information, send your flames to the people at the _Encyclopedia_Britanica_, the _Encyclopedia_Americana_, and the _1984_World_Almanac_ --- the sources of this information. David Olson ..!ihnp4!drutx!dlo "To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools". -- Jean de la Bruyere
scott@SCIRTP.UUCP (Scott Crenshaw) (08/19/85)
Let's not forget the populations of many Latin/South American
countries who are being starved by America's appetite for non-synthetic
controlled substances. More profitable (for the land owners) crops of
drugs are being grown in place of food which would have been consumed
locally, not exported.
I hope all those who are boycotting pinapple will also cut down
on coke, just to be consistent .
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE OR LEAVE IT IN TO ANNOY OTHERS ***
--
(Scott Crenshaw @ SCI Systems , Inc.) {akgua,decvax}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp!scott
The views expressed are my own, not necessarily those of SCI Systems,
Inc., or Monty Python.omo@mcnc.UUCP (Julie Omohundro) (08/20/85)
OK, OK, I can't take it any more. (One of these days I'm going to get off this stupid net altogether. One of these days.) Steve Hutchinson has injected some sanity and knowledge into this discussion, but let me add some. I do know a little about that of which I speak. Enough to know that many postings on this subject know zilcho. 1) Americans grossly overestimate the impact that the US can have on the underdeveloped countries of the world. Their problems are so complex, the activities of the US (powerful as we perceive ourselves to be) can only marginally affect the condition of the local population. (Nuking them aside, of course.) 2) Many postings illustrate a lack of awareness about what and who the Third World is. You probably never even HEARD of the really poor countries. Brazil and Mexico are developed and economically affluent by world standards. (Don't tell me about the starving masses--we got some starving masses of our own, ya know. It's all relative.) Argentina appears to be on the verge of breaking out into the new Japan (from an agricultural base, no less), if they could just get their government together. 3) The REALLY poor countries ARE really poor. This poverty is basic, and has nothing to do with income or staples. They can't possibly want their land back--nobody's got it, because it ain't worth sh*t. They will be lucky if they can identify one lousy cash crop that their rocks or desert or mountainsides can support, because there's NO WAY they will ever be able to grow ENOUGH staples to feed themselves. (This seems to escape lots of people. Sure, the land might grow a staple or two, but not enough to FEED them.) Only a few countries (like the US and Argentina) have enough good land to feed the people of the world (or a reasonably populated world) and the only way out for people living on solid rock is to figure out a way to get our CASH to buy food from us. I'm going to stop soon or I'll get on a roll, but I sure wish you'd stop bandying the farmer about like motherhood and apple pie. Any US farmer would take one look at any of these countries and give the local population his blessing to grow anything they want, they ain't gonna compete with him. Also learn some respect for the people of the Third World. They're not stray puppies who need you to open a humane society for them, so you can feel good about yourself. Read up on Lesotho (ever hear of it?) and its political/geographical situation and determination to survive (talk about Against All Odds). Also read up on the history and failure of the much-touted Green Revolution, an excellent example of the `cavalry-to-the-rescue' mentality in action. If you can understand WHY it failed, you might be onto something. And then, once you really know something about what's going on, pause for a minute in admiration for that handful of people who DO know that there are NO sweeping solutions to all of this, that anything that any one of us do, or that the US might do as a whole, will have at best limited impact, and who still (quietly) try.
ray@rochester.UUCP (Ray Frank) (08/21/85)
> > Let's not forget the populations of many Latin/South American > countries who are being starved by America's appetite for non-synthetic > controlled substances. More profitable (for the land owners) crops of > drugs are being grown in place of food which would have been consumed > locally, not exported. > I hope all those who are boycotting pinapple will also cut down > on coke, just to be consistent . > > *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE OR LEAVE IT IN TO ANNOY OTHERS *** > > -- > (Scott Crenshaw @ SCI Systems , Inc.) {akgua,decvax}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp!scott What a sweeping generalizaion. By saying 'America's appetite for drugs' you seem to implicate the American government. It is the criminal element that imports drugs. And in no way do they represent the government or the U.S. population. Let us also not forget that some Latin/South American governments are heavily involved in the growing and production of illegal crops and drugs. Are you suggesting for a moment that because some acid head wants/needs drugs that I am somehow responsible for the improper use of land in some other country, especially if that countrie's government looks the other way?
tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) (08/26/85)
> In article <1068@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL) writes: > >> [Todd Jones] > >> Au contraire, I stated the primary reason for poverty is the > >> resource drain from these countries to America and Europe. > >----------------------------------- > >[Me] > >The above statement is WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! > >Boy, we sure have impoverished Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by draining their > >resources. Even if we exempt oil producing countries, the least poor > >third world countries tend to be those with the most per capita exports > >to the developed world. The very poorest countries have little to export. > >I suppose if Bangla Desh and Upper Volta stopped their already meager > >exports to the West they would blossom overnight. > >----------------------------------- > [Larry Kolodney] > If I remember my history correctly, this was not always the case. > The change happened around 1970, when Quadaffi overthrew the > pro-western king of libya, and renegotiated the concession with > Occidental Petroleum. Others followed suit. > > The case of the arab oil kingdoms is quite anomalous. They are > nations with few people and tremendous resources. > > Upper Volta and Bangladesh have problems that resulted from > natural disasters, and the lingering results of prior western imperialism. > > Current U.S. imperialism is mainly evident in in the Western Hemisphere and > the Far East. Africa and the Middle East were exploited by > EUROPEAN imperialists for hundreds of years in the past. Even if > no exploitation is currently taking place, the scars left by past > actions have created very sick societies as a result. ------------------------------------ You are quite right that the oil kingdoms are anomalous cases. However, I wonder about the supposed lingering effects of prior western imperialism. If we look at Africa, Ethiopia, which escaped colonialism except for a six year Italian occupation, is in worse economic shape than many countries with a colonial past, some of whom are doing reasonably well by African standards (e. g. Ivory Coast, Kenya). In the Far East, many former British or Japanese colonies are doing quite well economically, i. e. Singapore, Hong Kong (still a colony!), Taiwan, South Korea, and Malaysia. In South Asia, Afghanistan (prior to the Soviet invasion), which had escaped colonialism, was one of the poorest countries of the world. My only point is that to blame the economic troubles of the third world on the developed world is at best a gross overgeneralization and at worst backwards. Where would Taiwan and Singapore be today without Western and Japanese customers? -- Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan