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Brain Drain good for developing countries??? Really??

The war on Iraq, and now probably Iran, was driven more by ulterior motives such as access to nations natural resources (Oil) than by anything else. If we believe everything that comes out of the US government then that would be a huge mistake. We all, now, know that Iraq had no nuclear weapons. Probably, Iran is doing nothing related to manufacturing nuclear weapons. It is probably just interested in Nuclear fuel. The US government spreads such controversies/speculations to hurt the credibility of the other nation, in order to overcome any threat posed to it by the other country. The world has to simply follow and do what the US wants, because UN/IMF/ World Bank etc are all controlled by the US.
 
Please send me an email when Iraqi oil output surpasses pre war production. Still hasn't. Oh and last time I checked, the USA is paying market price for the oil Iraq pumps.

Oh wait, only the USA uses gasoline. The rest of the world doesn't benefit when additional supply is brought online or anything. Naa
 
I was unclear. My mistake. By that I meant to have a better control of the oil wells in Iraq. The Mid-east/North Africa as we know it is highly unpredictable (1970's oil embargo), and now Libya, Bahrain, so having a steady supply of oil was desirable, and the 2001 bombing probably scared the US that it was facing another oil embargo.

Also, I don't think the matter was as simple was as US consumer paying market price for gasoline. The US government of course didn't intend that to happen, so in hindsight that decision was a bad one, but it still wouldn't change the reason for it. It was probably an investment by the US that did not pay-off. However, there were still many hidden benefits : tax revenues earned from the oil companies that drilled there, better control over the mid-east (having a military base very close to problematic countries in the Mid-east). These are of course speculations.
 
If you compare any third world country to China, most of them, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, will look failed states.

Compared to any country in the world , India never looks like a failed state to me :)
 
Jobs such as R&D, product design, etc are rare to come by in such countries, because there is just not enough concentration of people who are willing to do research in such countries as compared to the West.

It's very hard to generalize, as we're practically talking all the world except US, Canada and Western Europe here. My message was sort of reply to @Alexei Smirnov comments, as he was particularly vocal about how the perspective is pessimistic in Russia, and I'm also living in an Eastern European country, with an overall economic/political situation probably worse than in Russia but still I wouldn't think about it in such dark terms as mentioned throughout this thread. Considerable number of young people from my country is indeed proceeding to post-graduate or even under-graduate education to US or Western Europe, and most of them stay there. However, as I mentioned above, there is also number of people working either remotely from here for foreign employers (myself included here), or working in local branches of foreign companies, some of which are doing R&D work (we're rather small country, but for example we have sort of R&D centers of Microsoft and Cisco - moreover, in both cases these centers are opened by local guys, that worked for these respective companies in US for number of years, and then returned back home). I can't comment on other countries, especially on such remote places for me like China, India or Pakistan, as I have no clue about the situation there. Still, in this discussion I'd align my opinion with comments stating that this movement of the workforce is something natural, that always happened, and that there isn't much that could/should be done about it.
 
Hmm. Talking about entrepreneurship is another thing. Using skills learned in Western countries in home countries. Here there is no restriction on pay, but the dividends in terms of returns (as opposed to risks involved) are extremely high. Some people may ofcourse go down this route, but I think such people are a small fraction of the people who emigrated. Again Eastern Europe can still afford, at-least 1/4th or 1/3rd the pay of that in US or Europe. Such pay is unforeseeable in India,Pakistan, China, Bangladesh.

In fact, I would even refrain from calling Russia or its former states as third world countries. Their per-capita incomes are 10 times, in some cases 20 times, of that in third world countries such as India, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Africa.

Fractured as it might be, the social security system is still way better in the countries that you talk about than in these third world countries. There is no such thing as unemployment benefits, insurance, medical claim, cheap education (free). These countries are still much cleaner than these third world countries. People do not fight for basic amenities ( food, toilets). I read a UN report that 74% of people in Sub Saharan Africa and India earn less than $1.25 (nominal)/day and close to 90% of people live less than $2/day. The situation is slightly better in China.
 
Those dictators don't hold power in an international vacuum. They are propped up militarily by Western powers -- USA, and to a lesser extent Britain and France. The interventions are there to consolidate the hold of local stooges and maintain the status quo. When supporting them becomes untenable, then the West suddenly discovers how bad they really were, sheds some crocodile tears, and attempts to subvert popular feeling by sneaking in other stooges.

This brings to mind John Perkin's book http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-E...7081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307095532&sr=8-1
 
You are also making a mistake by saying that most of these third world countries are dictatorships.

That wasn't what I was trying to imply

Do you intervene (which in many cases would involve war as these nations are governed by dictators)

I was implying that in some instances war would be necessary where the nation was ruled by a dictator, sorry if that wasn't clear in above.

You talk about India, but see how much progress China has made in every field in last 30 years. China being a communist state invests more in infrastructure, education, etc than probably any country on the planet. If you compare any third world country to China, most of them, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, will look failed states.

I think we will have to agree to disagree. Investment into infrastructure/education shouldn't be the only metric we measure a nations progress by.
Creative industries which are part of the engine of growth, require liberal (and I don't mean this in the context of US political parties) societies to flourish.
India may be behind China in some regards, but I have no doubt that it will catch up with China in the areas where it lags, and will overtake China in a great number of other areas. Indians with the ability to comment on their political structure and pursue professions that can only really thrive in a liberal democracy are going to have, in my opinion a distinct advantage over China in the future.
 
I would agree that investments into infrastructure/education might not be a single metric to measure a nation's progress. But as the topic was related to brain drain and its benefits, so investment into infrastructure such as universities is probably more relevant than any other factor.

Sure a democracy can thrive, and it has been proven to be so, but it does not imply that every democracy will thrive. There are a lot many other factors that determine the course a nation takes in its economic development. Therefore, to generalize that communist state will always lag behind a democratic state is flawed. For a democratic state to work, you have to draw a line somewhere. You just can't allow people to jump on the streets and tear apart public infrastructure, just because it is a democracy and people feel to do so. People need to be educated to make educated decisions, otherwise they will keep making those uninformed decisions again and again. As they say, with great power comes great responsibility, and until people are responsible democracy will not work effectively. There will be deadlocks at each and every instance. Each and every group would try to prevent something to happen, because it hurts its economic self interest, and end result will be no progress. I think for these new democratic states to work even close to as efficiently as US/European democracies, such things as working for the greater good should be more important and individual self-interest.

For the above reasons, as Alexei said, if a communist state has a ruler with a right mind, to work for the greater good, it will be much much more efficient at implementing anything than a democratic state. Consider for instance, the development of high speed rail/ expressway construction in US. It took US something like 40 years to construct these many miles of expressways, but China took barely 15-20 years. US being a much more efficient democratic state, implemented the construction of these expressways much faster than India, which has barely 1000 km of expressway like roads (people driving two wheelers and three wheelers jump unchecked on these so called expressways, so they aren't really expressways in true sense) in some 15-20 years. Pakistan and Bangladesh are much worse at implementing.
 
Sure a democracy can thrive, and it has been proven to be so, but it does not imply that every democracy will thrive.

No and I don't think anyone has suggested democracies are immune from collapse. But generally democracies which are more than notionally democratic have the better quality of lives amongst all of the countries on the planet.
Not all of these nations either require foreign policies that involve warfare in order to maintain their wealth ( look at say Norway or New Zealand).

There are a lot many other factors that determine the course a nation takes in its economic development. Therefore, to generalize that communist state will always lag behind a democratic state is flawed.

I also wasn't aware anybody had suggested that a communist state will always lag behind a democracy? As Alexi pointed out, the USSR took a great leap forward under Stalin.
However I would argue that a communist nation may well take a lead (in some areas) but it can not maintain that lead. Every example at an attempt to implement communism has shown us this. This is why China has transitioned away from the vision that Mao had. It is unworkable, and I don't think the current Chinese model can sustain its growth without liberalizing whole sections of its society.
Just my opinion there of course, but if you take the US as an example the fact that it is a liberal democracy has allowed many new industries to form and thrive.

You just can't allow people to jump on the streets and tear apart public infrastructure, just because it is a democracy and they feel to do so

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here, I see no reason why people would feel the need to do this in a democracy, anymore then they would in a dictatorship or theocracy?
Democracy of course have laws which are designed to prevent this from happening.

With regards to your last point on infrastructure. I think we will have to agree to disagree here once again. A dictatorship might be great at putting boots on the ground to build infrastructure projects but this comes at a huge cost in other areas of society. I don't think dictatorship and "greater good" are compatible or sustainable.

Pakistan and Bangladesh are also in my opinion only notional democracies anyway. Sections of their societies are essentially controlled by tribal and religious law.

Whilst India certainly has elements of that as well, it has transitioned away in many areas of life and those benefits of course can be seen.
 
When I said those statements, I said them because that was what the tone I got from your comments.

India may be behind China in some regards, but I have no doubt that it will catch up with China in the areas where it lags, and will overtake China in a great number of other areas.

It could very well be the inverse of what you said.

Not all of these nations either require foreign policies that involve warfare in order to maintain their wealth ( look at say Norway or New Zealand).

I never talked about foreign policy of warfare in order to maintain wealth was the only way to achieve a sustainable society. I infact, would say such societies run a great risk stagnation due the high costs incurred in those wars (UK -WWII, USSR - heavy expenditure on weapons, US - close to $600B/year on weapons), unless the results of those wars compensate them heavily for the task undertaken. However, with that being said, a nation can't be too complacent on such serious matters, for when the time comes it must be capable of defending its borders - consider South Korea/Japan and North Korea, especially when it lies in a geopolitical sensitive zone. Norway and New- Zealand have been very lucky because they are present in historically (past 50-60 years of course) very stable geopolitical sensitive areas. They wouldn't have been able to maintain that position if they had been present in say Mid-East, close to North Korea or Pakistan.

Let us say there is a situation like this : Government hikes fuel prices, people jump on the roads, create havoc, and destroy public property to force the government to lower prices. But economically, this decision is not justified. Hence I referred to the greater good.

As for the reason why people might take to streets :

Consider another case : A huge project is planned, in order to better utilize land, because of huge scarcity of land.There is huge slum, say in mumbai, and people just don't wanna move, and they are living illegally on government land. What will you do? Will you pay them market price for the land that anyway belonged to government. If the government did that, it would send a wrong signal to others in India, and would even give people a license to encroach on public property. If the government tries forced eviction, people in those slums will take it to the streets. The project will go into standstill.

Consider another case : There is a huge highway development project, and a road is to constructed. The government does not want to pay a penny more than the price at which land was registered. People registered land at extremely low prices (way lower than market prices) to save taxes. People don't want to sell this land at this price, because they would get nothing at this price, elsewhere. The project goes into a standstill. If the government tries forced eviction there would a riot. What will you do?

Of course, the whole problem would have been avoided if the people had been honest in the first place.

Consider another case: People see that people belonging from various castes get reservation. Now they want reservations too. Soon, the brightest people would crowded out because almost all opportunities are given to the people with reservations. Those who don't get reservations go to the streets.

Consider another case: There is a huge problem related to things such as people going to streets for religious festivities and blocking national highways and expressways . What will the government do? If the government tries any forceful method, it will take the form of a riot.

All these problems can be solved if we draw a line somewhere that enough is enough. You can't break it, and laws have to tough. The fines have to outrageously high. Even more importantly, it is one thing to have laws, but it is another thing to implement them. Agreed you can't be 100%, but an effort at reducing it will go a long way.

So the whole problem boils down to : Can the government implement those laws without being driven by ulterior motives (votes).

Further, the topic of notional and liberal democracy is another kettles of fish and is highly subjective matter. One can easily twist and turn statements in such things to support one's argument.
 
At the end of the day, I would say money talks. The decision of changing a job/career/country for most people is not Democracy vs Communism, etc is nothing but money. Consider millions of Indians, mostly blue collar workers, who left India for better salaries in UAE (during the 2000's). Such has been this great wave of migration that close to 70% of UAE's population is either Indian or Pakistani (Indian's being 50% of total UAE population). When there is situation about basic survival, and person doesn't enough to even feed himself, he thinks with his stomach and not on the basis of democracy or communism. Western countries, having stricter rules for getting a job, do not allow these, in most cases, people belonging to below poverty line ( the so called unskilled personnel) to work their countries.
 
<offtopic> I think you guys have too much free time on your hands. </offtopic>

At the moment unfortunately I do! If only the sales folks would bring in some more business ;).
 
Not all of these nations either require foreign policies that involve warfare in order to maintain their wealth ( look at say Norway or New Zealand).

Both these countries are under the US security umbrella. Norway is a member of US-controlled NATO, and has sent troops to Afghanistan. In addition, on a per capita basis, Norway is the largest arms exporter in the world, and #11 in total sales (source).

The point is that the global political and economic status quo is kept in place by armed force, as this special forces vet points out. source

And is also pointed out, in a different way, by Perkins in his "Confessions of an Economic Hitman." For example, take a poor country subsisting on agricultural production. It is encouraged to take loans (which end up in numbered accounts or useless white elephant projects). The purpose of lending it money is to bring it under imperial and MNC control. When it cannot pay back the accruing interest, it is forced to privatise to foreign capital, forced to become an agricultural exporter, and encouraged to get rid of small self-sufficient farmers in favor of either MNCs or large monocrop exporters. The outcome is large migration to slum cities (Lagos, Sao Paulo, Karachi) and a big incentive for all kinds of labor -- unskilled as well as skilled -- to seek employment in the rich West. The global status quo is all about keeping these countries underdeveloped so that they can be plundered for their raw materials and perhaps coolie workforces. If local satraps become too uppity, send in the troops to "restore democracy." To be fair, not all of this underdevelopment is the fault of the West -- there's blame enough to go around for everyone. Corrupt and incompetent governments, population explosion, poor land management -- all these are indigenous problems. But to reiterate, the consequence is pressure to migrate, to emigrate.

Something similar happened in Russia during the Yeltsin days -- foreign financial vultures in tandem with Russian crooks and mafia together plundered the country. The dissolution of civil society and the extreme difficulty on making a living created (perhaps still creates) an intense incentive to emigrate.
 
Sorry BBW didn't address some of your earlier points when you responded to me.

NewHavenCT said:
This leaves us with one of the great dilemma's faced by the West. Do you intervene (which in many cases would involve war as these nations are governed by dictators) or do you stand back and hope the people can solve it themselves - or maybe it is a shade of the two?​
So-called humanitarian interventions are always undertaken with ulterior motives. In the past it was called "white man's burden" and "bringing religion to the heathen." Now it's called bringing "freedom" and "democracy."

I would argue there are competing motives, which include humanitarian but also a host of others e.g. securing access to natural resources etc. For example the British Unions sent reps out to Iraq after the invasion to help with the Union movement in said country.
This could be seen at odds with others groups operating at the time (Neocons are hardly known for being pro-Union). There is an interesting interview with a Labour party chap who was also a Union guy and spent time out in Iraq. I believe the interview is on the Little Atoms Podcast if you happen to listen to it.
As I said it is a dilemma faced by the West, that does not imply it is solely a government issue or a business issue.

If you can, get hold of a copy of Wallerstein's slim book, "European Universalism." For example in Afghanistan, Karzai has called for NATO to stop bombing (which is killing civilians); a NATO spokesman afterwards announced that the bombing would continue. So here you have a case of a stooge ruler put in place by the US -- ostensibly to show that "democracy" was being restored -- and they don't even bother listening to him. The interventions are to plant stooge rulers and to make sure Western economic interests are served.

Sounds interesting and I'll see if I can grab a copy. As for Afghanistan. I think we have to remember that the war there was a reaction to 9/11. It has been an utter quagmire and in my opinion a mistake in hindsight
Once the ball got rolling though we saw different interest groups come into play. Ultimately I believe what was keeping US troops there was hunting Bin Laden, now he is dead I think Nato will cut its loses and get out.

The problem of failed and failing states is partly a problem of a global structure where the West still dominates most of the world -- economically and militarily. The "Arab Spring" -- which the USD is trying to subvert -- is not only about booting out local rulers, but trying to change the the status quo where corrupt rulers do the bidding of the West (as has been the case in Egypt and Tunisia and remains the case elsewhere). This Western domination is changing slowly, with the advent of BRIC. In this global structure, the educational opportunities, the career possibilities, and the high wages are still in the West.

I think we could argue until the cows come home on why the West supported some dictatorships, I think the motives have changed as the decades passed though. In many cases I guess the cynic in me says people believed they were the least worst option from the Wests perspective during the Cold War.

To go back after being trained in the West is still having to reconcile oneself to low wages. The best one can do is find employment with a multinational -- but the multinational will of course not pay by Western standards. The local companies pay even less. The prospects aren't that great -- local capital tends to be what we call "comprador capital" -- commission agents and junior partners to Western firms. And the career ladder in the multinationals is almost always confined to that country.

I don't disagree with you here.

Those dictators don't hold power in an international vacuum. They are propped up militarily by Western powers -- USA, and to a lesser extent Britain and France. The interventions are there to consolidate the hold of local stooges and maintain the status quo. When supporting them becomes untenable, then the West suddenly discovers how bad they really were, sheds some crocodile tears, and attempts to subvert popular feeling by sneaking in other stooges.

Yes and of course that is true. However the Left in Europe is thus left in a situation where it does nothing, which was what I was trying to point out.
The SWP for example have achieved absolutely nothing for as long as I have been alive.

Anyway I'm sure this thread could go on and on and on... so I'm going to call it quits here.

BBW, rishab have great weekends :).
 
@ NewHavenCT

I sure will have great weekend. I hope you too have.

I would agree that discussions on topics such as this can never end, as every human being on planet, and by extension on quantnet, will have his own opinion.
 
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