There are two elements of modern Geography: Physical Geography and Human Geography.
The best way to simplify the two is like this: Physical Geography tells you where you’re at. Human Geography tells you who is there and what they do.
OR, Physical Geography is a topographical map. Human Geography are those maps of blue counties and red counties that come out after each election.
Essentially, one is a Physical Science and the other is a Social Science. One gives you a Science degree and the other an Arts degree. I am not willing to put up with turning statistics into color by numbers pictures as a career, which is why I will be going after a science degree. But since this was an “Introductory” course, I had to put up with the latter of the two for the next couple Labs.
This week’s topic: Nation Building around the world and how it should be done so that the rest of the world can have the standard of living of Americans.
FYI, don’t bother answering that the American Building Model is best, because you’re wrong. They won’t come out and tell you why you’re wrong, just know that you are. So focus on something else.
The Assignment: Demographic Transition
Some demographers believe that the demographic transition will happen to countries everywhere. With urbanization and modernization, they claim rates of natural increase will necessarily fall. This is needed most, of course, in much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America where there is great poverty and rapid population growth. Most of the developed world has gone through the transition, and population in the wealthier countries is nearly stable. Detractors of this argument point out that poorer countries today are very different from the wealthy ones during their early stages of economic growth. They also say the international environment today also works to the disadvantage of the poor countries.
What is different about the developed world’s past experience and the present situation for less developed countries? Are there any reasons to expect the transition to occur more slowly in the less developed countries? Are there reasons to believe it may occur faster? What policies might best encourage or accelerate the demographic transition?
Do you think the third world will follow the example of the wealthy countries and move through the demographic transition before world population reaches crisis levels? What would the world be like if all countries enjoyed the United State’s standard of living?
Lab #5
The standard of living of “the wealthy countriesâ€, expressly that of Americans, is a measurement used in the questions that are to be answered in this week’s lab essay. I’m not so sure that this is a reasonable comparison point.
To wit, the average American household is a married couple who own their home, two cars and have 1.2 children. They have graduated high school or attended one or two years of college or trade school and have an income of just over $63,000 US dollars. They can do this because of the relative freedom and security provided by their relationship with their government.
If the entire world were to attain and maintain this standard of living, it would be a very different place than it is now. In my opinion, it would be a rather nice place to live, with little of the pestilence, famine and war that we see in the world today to hold humankind back. Science would very likely advance in leaps and bounds and technology available for day to day use would skyrocket.
While it is a worthy goal, this is highly unrealistic. History has shown that it is rare to not have those who thirst for power over others to rise to the top of a young nation’s power structure. Once in power they steal the wealth that is necessary for the nation to grow, implement damaging social and economic policies, and begin horrific conflicts that decimate the population and other natural resources.
The meddling from other nations doesn’t help either.
Throughout the ages, one of the main goals of empires was to install their puppet and run the country through him. Prior to the 20th Century, nations sought out colonies for labor and raw materials. However, throughout the 20th Century, because of the conflict between Democracies and Communist nations, the larger goal was to establish ties for using a young nation as a military strong point. And with time, we can now see that the majority of them were failures because of the lack of focus on the rights of the people.
Building up a nation to first world status is very precarious and can take multiple tries over generations. Though some formulas work better than others, nation building is not a video game which can be won if you did everything correctly according to the game’s code.
Recently, Peru and Chile have vaulted towards top tier status with their grand experiments in representative democracy and Austrian-pattern capitalism. In comparison, Venezuela and Bolivia, also on the South American Continent, are currently in regression because of their meddling with overly oppressive forms of centrally planned socialism and Keynesian economics.
Another key to success is the freedom of the people themselves. If the people feel free to conduct the business of their day to day lives without much interference from the government’s hand, the people tend to take care of themselves and the government. Conversely, if the people live in constant fear of the government, they tend only take care of themselves whilst seeking to replace the government.
And it is for these reasons which I find the “entire world†standard as unrealistic. For while one nation rises politically or economically, another will fall socially or militarily.
As an added punishment to the developing world, we have added the “Social Engineers” in the international community’s non-governmental organizations who are always wanting to meddle in the affairs of those less fortunate nations. Believing that if they tweak just this one little thing everything will be wonderful. This always ends in the deaths of thousands, if not millions, whilst the engineer sits in an office halfway around the world and wonders what went wrong and where he will try his next theory.
Grade: 100%
I ignored my inner voice long enough to keyboard-whip this one out. Though I couldn’t do it without a couple of links that show how much better it is to set up a nation based on individual freedom.
Here’s a good example from experience.
My wife and her family are originally from Laos. Her dad fought the commies for a good long while and got the family out after the “cease-fire.”
Before the commies people lived quite well. Yes, most of the people were subsistence farmers. But they were free to do anything – trade, build or create, mine, hunt, settle different areas, etc.
After the commies – run by the Vietnamese, who executed the invasion and takeover, naturally – the bureaucracy became gigantic, and every act had to be authorized by the central government.
In 1994 the commies admitted that they had run the country into the ground, so opened up for investment and tourism. They began to allow free market activities, although graft and corruption remained significant, and political control of the country was maintained by party members.
In came the NGOs! Foreign aid, always an important part of the financial engagement of Laos due to the delightful corruption it allowed, exploded.
The NGOs work with the government to realize their visions of a better world, regardless of the impact to the people being affected. For example – protein deficiency is a big issue in a country where people have small holdings and large families. Traditionally, the gap is addressed via fishing and trapping or hunting.
Guess what? “Conservation” NGOs have gotten involved to prevent hunting and trapping for a huge percentage of the population. Hunting is essentially banned in Laos now to protect “endangered species.” The communist government controlled guns but allowed most people to keep, for example, black powder guns through M-1s, depending on where they lived and what they were up to. Basically, if you were in a rural area and didn’t cause trouble, the government didn’t care if you owned a gun or shot animals.
Now even the black powder guns have been tucked away. Note that almost nobody shot exotic animals there. Most of the game was pedestrian – wild chickens and the like. But because animals are more important than third-world children, and rules have to cover everybody… you get NGOs that cause more problems than a communist government.