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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

> those lessons can be applied to help developing nations follow the same trajectory to development

Not necessarily: firstly, some of those factors were "have the right geology" (coal/iron/later oil), which you can't replicate even if you want to, and secondly we're already in a developed world. That changes the environment and cost/benefit analysis greatly.

The first person to develop a steam engine and the 1,000th person to do so are working in a very different way.

To develop the third world, it might be more informative to look at the postwar trajectories of Japan, Singapore, Korea, and of course China.

> faulting the west for past injustices

Many of which are linked directly to present, ongoing injustices, but you'll never read that because you have no interest in engaging with the research itself, only a caricature. Besides, isn't it better history to find out what actually happened rather than just regurgitate the propaganda of the past?

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I would argue that "applying lessons" ignores not just local geology, but - more importantly - local / regional culture, politics, socio-economics, etc. as well. It assumes that, throughout history, the rest of the world subconsciously has had - and still has - a need for Western-European frameworks of thinking about their place in the world. Which is very eurocentrist perception of the world.

A hallmark of post-modern historiography is exactly discarding this history can only be perceived through a western-european lens, and acknowledging that there are as many valid ways of looking at the past as there are cultures and people around the world.

> Japan, Singapore, Korea, and of course China

Neither Japan, Korea nor China were "third world" countries before WWII. Or even ever.

On the contrary. Japan was very much an industrialized nation in the 1930s. Before then, it has a long history as a advanced, albeit, regional power. The same is true about Korea. Chinese history itself is rife with empires and kingdoms - having trade networks, technological advances and so on - some of which being as large and influential - if not more - then the Roman Empire during its heyday.

Singapore already was a bustling trade port long before WWII, and has a history of being part of powerful local sultanates before the arrival of the British.

If anything, the examples you gave are quite ambivalent about the historical dynamics that led to their integration in today's modern global economic, geo-political, cultural structures and global power balances which were borne out of post-WWII victors creating a new order for peace and development.

> Japan was very much an industrialized nation in the 1930s.

Before that, Japan went from feudal agrarianism to aircraft carriers in, what, 50 years?

> Neither Japan, Korea nor China were "third world" countries before WWII. Or even ever.

I think you're missing the point - the idea is to learn from the industrialisation of those countries

> To develop the third world, it might be more informative to look at the postwar trajectories of Japan, Singapore, Korea, and of course China.

That's the exact sentence, and it doesn't sit right with me for three distinct reasons.

First, it can be read as an an implication: "these 4 countries where part of the "third world" and now aren't given their post-war trajectory." which ignores the history of those 4 nations long before WWII or Western involvement.

Second, makes the same a-historical mistake by assuming that the particular path followed by those nations can readily be transposed towards other regions in the world.

Third, it's a take that ignores the agency other cultures and peoples have to carve out their own place in the world. Moreover, many of the problems in the so-called global south are a direct result of this exact thinking. Countless cultures and ways of living have disappeared over the past 2 centuries because it.

I think you're reading far too much into it.

I don't think so.

The good old HN incredibly adversarial reading of a single sentence.

It was in reply to "those lessons can be applied to help developing nations follow the same trajectory to development", which does indeed embed the assumption of both a trajectory and that help is being imposed from outside.

> makes the same a-historical mistake by assuming that the particular path followed by those nations can readily be transposed towards other regions in the world

I put "might" in there for a reason. It also might not. It seems like something that might be worth investigating rather than dismissing? If that kind of development is your goal, of course. And it comes with its own assumptions and disadvantages.

> Moreover, many of the problems in the so-called global south are a direct result of this exact thinking. Countless cultures and ways of living have disappeared over the past 2 centuries because it.

Unable to parse antecedant of "this"; colonialism? Western involvement? Copying other countries?

But I'm not sure it's worth replying in this kind of environment.

They certainly were third world countries. In 1950, South Korea and Taiwan had a GDP per capita comparable to Kenya, Ghana, or Cote D’Ivoire. China’s was lower than the Congo’s. China was barely richer than Bangladesh. https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-.... Japan was more industrialized: comparable to Greece and Mexico. But the US was still five times richer per capita.

Put another way, France had six times higher per capita GDP than South Korea in 1950. Today the two are comparable.

> Many of which are linked directly to present, ongoing injustices, but you'll never read that because you have no interest in engaging with the research itself, only a caricature. Besides, isn't it better history to find out what actually happened rather than just regurgitate the propaganda of the past?

Whether its true or not makes no difference. Studying history with an eye to past injustices puts people into a mindset of dependency, waiting for their former overlords to help them. But Europeans are never going to pay meaningful reparations for colonialism. Ever. The only thing worth learning from history is how Europe got to the point where it could take over Asia and Africa in the first place.

Britain and France even TODAY extract significant amounts of wealth from their past colonies. This is due to a variety of structures that go back hundreds of years, embedded deeply into the society of both the coloniser and the formally colonized. Ending this extraction of wealth requires understanding how and why those structures formed.

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