Even though this may be drifting a bit off topic...
Actually productivity per worker per hour is lower in communist countries then in capitalist countries. Closest data I could find real fast was GDP per capita per annum.http://anguilla.noggle.com/fields/2004.aspx
As for the Soviet Issue, I edited out some comments about that before I posted. Marx style communism hasn't really been tried, that is a confederacy of small agrarian republics. However it doesn't take into account that in effect it is really just a capitalist confederacy made up of individual control economies acting in their own best interest. Soviet style communism really only worked well in Yugoslavia. There are advantages to being able to control the rudder of the state so definitively, however when your productivity per worker is declining (given the average of the world) in the long term it spells doom.
I think that the Soviets ended up with a bad rap, it's not they could have administered better with the information provided, or that they were especially doomed from the basic economic conditions at the start of the communist revolution. Tsarist Russia was a powerhouse, even if it was run de-facto from Prussia for much of late 1800's. It's simply that running a government based on world-wide revolution is hard to finance with ever decreasing surpluses relative to the rest of the world.
What I'm suggesting is more of compensation from the top down, a voluntary re-distribution of income, from those that make the (RECORD HIGH) windfall profits on their natural resources to the communities that are exploited.
Let me add a bit of perspective. Take Kodak. Go to Rochester, NY and ask people about how they would feel if Kodak left the city. Now ask them if they know about Cancer Alley. http://www.healthandenergy.com/new_cancer_alley.ht m (Kodak is #2 on that list). Ask them about the increase cancer risks for living close to Kodak. The reason they want them to stay isn't just the jobs, though that is the first response. They want Kodak to stay because it's institutional to the community. It donates large sums to education and the arts.
In developing and poor areas, that institution would have to be different. However it breeds good will.
Interesting that you haven't been modded at all yet, I guess you posted a bit late.
1. The root causes you describe are IMHO correct. I could ramble on about the GINI coefficient (a measure of the distribution of income) and it's correlation to violent crime and war. Trust me, I wrote 65 pages on it.
2. However I don't' believe that the solution you propose is the only, the best or even a workable solution. We know that communism doesn't really work to well, even though there isn't a single real communist country in the world (ala Marx).
3. Ivory tower notions of equality of peoples across the world in representation, ability and wealth are at best ludicrous and at worst dangerous. Instead of looking at the issue purely as humanitarian; i.e. they starve and beg, let's look at it from a cost vs. benefit direction. If I may repeat your argument as I see it from another angle...
If the people who are so exploited have nil chance of being elevated from their situation, then they have little to loose and much to gain by grabbing at power/money/wealth by any means necessary. The only way to gain back that wealth and power is to force those who exploit them to surrender it. Exploited persons can't afford to strike, may don't have the ability to vote, and the foreign interests in their country certainly aren't going to just give them up. Lacking the ability to have a voice at the bargaining table or to make policy they have to do something to shift the paradigm. Guerilla warfare, revolution and terrorism are the only methods they have to make the vastly more potent exploiters reconsider their involvement and allocation in the area. This is how the States won Independence, don't let the revisionist histories fool you, we were really squirrelly, but not quite as mobile.
4. The solution that I believe would work is one that has been used fairly successfully for a long time. Those with the power to do such things change the method of compensation. Instead of simply paying for the oil rights in an area, build a park, a school, a (gasp) mosque. Don't just rape the underclass. Make involvement in their lives not strictly negative, while you get fat. Everyone can profit.
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Even though this may be drifting a bit off topic...
t m (Kodak is #2 on that list). Ask them about the increase cancer risks for living close to Kodak. The reason they want them to stay isn't just the jobs, though that is the first response. They want Kodak to stay because it's institutional to the community. It donates large sums to education and the arts.
Actually productivity per worker per hour is lower in communist countries then in capitalist countries. Closest data I could find real fast was GDP per capita per annum.http://anguilla.noggle.com/fields/2004.aspx
As for the Soviet Issue, I edited out some comments about that before I posted. Marx style communism hasn't really been tried, that is a confederacy of small agrarian republics. However it doesn't take into account that in effect it is really just a capitalist confederacy made up of individual control economies acting in their own best interest. Soviet style communism really only worked well in Yugoslavia. There are advantages to being able to control the rudder of the state so definitively, however when your productivity per worker is declining (given the average of the world) in the long term it spells doom.
I think that the Soviets ended up with a bad rap, it's not they could have administered better with the information provided, or that they were especially doomed from the basic economic conditions at the start of the communist revolution. Tsarist Russia was a powerhouse, even if it was run de-facto from Prussia for much of late 1800's. It's simply that running a government based on world-wide revolution is hard to finance with ever decreasing surpluses relative to the rest of the world.
What I'm suggesting is more of compensation from the top down, a voluntary re-distribution of income, from those that make the (RECORD HIGH) windfall profits on their natural resources to the communities that are exploited.
Let me add a bit of perspective. Take Kodak. Go to Rochester, NY and ask people about how they would feel if Kodak left the city. Now ask them if they know about Cancer Alley. http://www.healthandenergy.com/new_cancer_alley.h
In developing and poor areas, that institution would have to be different. However it breeds good will.
Interesting that you haven't been modded at all yet, I guess you posted a bit late.
1. The root causes you describe are IMHO correct. I could ramble on about the GINI coefficient (a measure of the distribution of income) and it's correlation to violent crime and war. Trust me, I wrote 65 pages on it.
2. However I don't' believe that the solution you propose is the only, the best or even a workable solution. We know that communism doesn't really work to well, even though there isn't a single real communist country in the world (ala Marx).
3. Ivory tower notions of equality of peoples across the world in representation, ability and wealth are at best ludicrous and at worst dangerous. Instead of looking at the issue purely as humanitarian; i.e. they starve and beg, let's look at it from a cost vs. benefit direction. If I may repeat your argument as I see it from another angle...
If the people who are so exploited have nil chance of being elevated from their situation, then they have little to loose and much to gain by grabbing at power/money/wealth by any means necessary. The only way to gain back that wealth and power is to force those who exploit them to surrender it. Exploited persons can't afford to strike, may don't have the ability to vote, and the foreign interests in their country certainly aren't going to just give them up. Lacking the ability to have a voice at the bargaining table or to make policy they have to do something to shift the paradigm. Guerilla warfare, revolution and terrorism are the only methods they have to make the vastly more potent exploiters reconsider their involvement and allocation in the area. This is how the States won Independence, don't let the revisionist histories fool you, we were really squirrelly, but not quite as mobile.
4. The solution that I believe would work is one that has been used fairly successfully for a long time. Those with the power to do such things change the method of compensation. Instead of simply paying for the oil rights in an area, build a park, a school, a (gasp) mosque. Don't just rape the underclass. Make involvement in their lives not strictly negative, while you get fat. Everyone can profit.
As for the ethnic conflicts...
um... buy them a Coke?!
Just my humble opinion.