Hey guys I got into arguing about how economies that are freer have a better standard of living with a guy. He stated that no economic freedom has nothing to do with wealth but natural resources. Then I pointed out Israel and Hong Kong’s economy don’t have alot of natuaral resources but decent amount of economic freedom and enjoy a high standard of living. Then I went on to say countries in Africa are rich in natural resources but don’t have alot of economic freedom and have a poor standard of living. Well to futher prove my point I reserached African economies… here are some things that botherd me. Somalia is considered a free market according to wiki… (yeah I know wiki not reliable) Also I ran across a thing called the washington consensus… apparently its was plan to privatize central planned economies in africa… and apparently it failed. Can somone explain some of this for a dumb guy like myself?
I don’t know specifically, but usually when something is called “privatization”, it involves the state giving monopoly rights to a company to perform a service. This is more an example of fascism or mercantilism than lasseiz-faire. As far as Somalia goes, the main problem is the groups trying to establish “democracy” (that is, statism), which causes almost all of the conflict.
I’d second what Wombatron said regarding the Washington Consenses. Interestingly, Somalia fared better without a government than it did with. Many studies have demonstrated this. By contrast, constant interference in the region by third parties are hindering further progress.
-Jon
That’s right. Instead of looking at it as “privatization” of the service, it’s useful to think of it as “governmentization” of the company that now gets to provide the service.
As to Somalia, they appear to be doing better than almost all of Northern Africa in their infrastructure and entreprenership, and the warlords are now renting themselves out as private security. While it’s still a violent and poverty-ridden place, it’s improving. Unlike a lot of other African economies. Freedom doesn’t turn a festering hell-hole into a shining city on the hill overnight, it’s over the long run that it produces a better economy and better quallity of life.
The Washington concensus was an IMF program that would bail out failed socialist governments if they agreed to financial reforms and balanced budgets. Unsurprisingly these failed socialist governments continued to fail, as they were the same people as before.
The soviet union was a great example of a geography that was easily one of the richest in natural resources totally failing at everything.
Somalia has just recently become a tribal/traditional anarchistic society (you could call them free market as they have no regulations or taxes). And they are doing much better now. Who knows what will happen in the future.
Somalia is a violent, impoverished place because most Somalians have IQ’s running south of 85. This means low mentation and poor impulse control. But what would be even worse is to take one group of violent, pre-literate people and install them as the ruling gang. Then you end up with places like Rwanda. Having power at least decentralized among the clan leaders is about the best you can hope for with such a place.
Is this an assumption, or do you have evidence?
The main problem is, any firm that is paid from tax dollars is unaccountable to the demands of the market, but is instead beholden to the political system for its daily bread. When government hires a private enterprise, it creates the appearance of a “free market,” when it actually is not. Then the socialists point to that as an example and say, “The free market failed–again”; the fact that the private enterprise is working for a corrupt system is apparently lost on them.
The Lynn/Vanhanen studies, and work by Rindermann as well.
Don’t mind him. He buys into biological determinist fooey of the like that white nationialists like to sight so much.
When they can’t call you a liar, they call you a racist.
Well I don’t have any more respect for those who try to legitimize themselves with faulty correlation = causation logic and a bunch of inconsequential if not biased or irrelevant allegedly empirical statistics about race and IQ. It’s a nice way to try to make your racism appear scientific, isn’t it? A bastardization of science. It also falls into the classic flaw of rationalism - starting with a false conclusion and then retroactively seeking out correlating bits of data to prove your false conclusion.
boinks the judeo-bolsheviks [:P]
What BP said, although I was not yelling “RACISM!!?#!”; it just seemed like a petty, elitist assumption to me.
I’m concerned with whether or not such statements can be backed up, rather than a tangetal argument about racism, because such an argument would eventually invite too much ad-hom & just hijack the overall topic.
I will look into what you pointed to as evidence, despite my distrust of social scientists & said statistcs regardless.
Do you have any evidence that Somalia median intelligence is as high as, say, Ashkenazi Jews?
Is this an honest question, or an attempt at baiting? I don’t view IQ as a reliable measure of intelligence at all, if that helps answer anything.
***Edit: Since your post appeared shortly before mine, I’m going to guess maybe this wasn’t a question for me. I apologize if your post was meant for someone else.
Nope. It’s pretty well documented. We could probably gain an average of 10 IQ points thru nutrition like the Kiwanis International’s iodide supplement program but that’s about it. Of course, this is why most Africans on the right side of the Bell curve use their intelligence to get the hell out of Africa.
The median intelligence statistics are irrelevant, as it has no bearing on the individual. They are only collective generalizations inferred from incomplete data, make the fallacy of thinking that correlation equals causation and are exploited as to prove people’s personal biases that the data alone does not sufficiently prove. I believe Mises made plenty of good critisizisms with respect to the bastardization and flaws of allegedly empirical statistical models and pie-charts in the social sciences, and I believe that he fairly thoroughly debunked racial polylogism.
The bell curve has long since been debunked as a bastardization of a soft science.
I find the notion that it’s unintelligent to improve one’s living situation in a given geographical area, compared to those that move out, dubious.