Comment by jasmer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasmer | Hacker News Reader

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"would make Brazil a lot more stable economically (and even socially and politically) "

It's the other way around.

Brazil and Argentina especially should be rich, what's lacking is coherent social organization from top to bottom. Obviously it matters more at the top, but it has to be borne by regular people as well.

Same could be said of other Central/South American nations, but geographic factors and natural resources do give a material advantage that can be leveraged into a lot.

Consider that Canada, unlike most other so called 'advanced nations' - does not actually have lot of advanced industry. Research, yes, but 'applied' - no. And yet, because it has a 'free export card' with natural resources, it can import the equipment and materials necessary to support the rest of the regular domestic economy, which benefits from ultra boring politics, 'functional' bureaucracy, low levels of corruption.

Innovations can only be leveraged by organizations that have the coherent ability to make use if them.

The 'low hanging fruit' in Brazil is governance, though I hope this Wheat helps.

Why don't the states there organize into a southern United States? It feels silly to talk about self-sufficiency and all when the analog at country level is the USA states. Nobody would expect e.g. Rhode Island to feed itself, but thankfully there is the Midwest. Maybe Bolivar's dream could come true one day.

The United States grew (colonized, captured, appropriated - feel free to chose the verb that most agrees with your view - it doesn't matter too much) into relatively uninhabited land from a starting point with a relatively uniform culture and ideals. As areas got to a large enough population that they could become a state, they were added to the union.

South American is already mature. The countries there have different political situations and relationships. Trying to bring them into one federal republic is a non-starter -- it ain't gonna happen.

A better model would be the EU where you have mature countries removing trade barriers between them, allowing free immigration, and a single currency. This was anchored by a few large countries that had relatively low corruption, peaceful relations and strong economies.

South America... doesn't quite have a strong set of low corruption and strong economies. There are regular coups and a number of ongoing civil wars that would make trying even for a loose coalition of countries in South America difficult.

The Latin American countries are probably too different to unify. Some are led by right-wing populists (El Salvador) and some by left-wing ones (Colombia, Brazil). Some are rich (Uruguay) and some are very poor (Nicaragua, Venezuela). Some are huge and powerful (Brazil and Mexico) and would be able to completely dominate the rest. Some are liberal democracies and some are one-party states.

On the cultural level, they have some similarity but not to the extent that they view each other as part of the same “nation” or “people”. One shouldn’t exaggerate the effect of speaking the same language: consider the fact that the US, Singapore, and Zimbabwe are all English-speaking officially (or de facto officially in the case of the US). Also Brazil does not even speak the same language as the rest.

Some differences do of course exist between the various US states but to a much, much lesser extent.

I think your first paragraph describes the EU/EEA too, or at least it did when Poland et al joined in 2004.

Germany and France (and the UK at the time) dominate. Poor nations like Poland and Greece with rich ones like Norway. Conservative countries like Hungary alongside progressive social democracies like France and Sweden.

Well, the EU is not one country and probably never will be. One of the most important countries has already left, euroskepticism is a major political force in many of the remaining ones, the idea of “ever closer union” seems to be dead, some natural future members (Turkey, Serbia) are indefinitely stalled, and even mildly authoritarian members like Hungary and Poland (which, btw, are infinitely more liberal and democratic than Cuba or Venezuela) are constantly in conflict with the central institutions.

I doubt there will ever be even an EU-like structure encompassing Latin America, but even if there is, that would be a far cry from becoming a united sovereign state.

People have got to stop calling Poland a poor country. It’s on track to overtake the UK in terms of quality of life in the middle of the decade.

Read the comment again please. I am talking about 2004, you are talking about 2025.

my bad

Well, on Spanish speaking countries, Fraga (Spanish Tourism Minister at Franco's dictatorship, right wing) and Fidel Castro were friends.

The geography really makes it hard to create a cohesive whole. The rainforest is almost impossible to traverse by road. It doesn’t help that the two largest countries, Brazil and Argentina, speak different languages.

It’s hard to bring people together when they speak different languages and have to take a plane or cross difficult terrain to meet each other.

From a Portuguese speaker learning Spanish it's a breeze.

Well, Bolivar tried but, luckilly, failed. Good for us he was no big military genius, and a coward in battle. We don't need a Napoleon wannabe in South America, thank you very much.

Would you mind expanding a bit on the whole “no big military genius” and “coward in battle” or share some links on it? I’ve heard and read many critics of Bolivar but never any of the sort you mention (not trying to call you out or anything, just genuinely curious about it)

I've read it a couple years ago and it made a big impression on me, had to track it down now.

I misremembered it as San Martin's opinion while old and dying in France, but it appears to be the description given by Karl Marx to Engels (apparently on a letter sent on 1858-02-14, though I can't find that letter right now). This article [0] on the Metapedia explains a bit of the history on why Marz was talking about Bolivar, but also says that modern marxists don't share this view.

[0] https://es.metapedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx_contra_Sim%C3%B3n_Bo...

" Nobody would expect e.g. Rhode Island to feed itself, b"

Again - internal self sufficiency is not the basis of development.

S. America has relatively free trade for things they need, and there are no hugely relevant issues there.

The wheat innovation is going to be nice for Brazil, but more as a function of expansion of industry, not really on the basis of 'self sufficiency'.

Brazil's path to wealth lies through the reform of civic and social institutions, not through some kind of magic grain.

The same could be said of most places.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

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