[rayiner]

> This isn't untrue but I think it's a naive approach. If that money was divided between the governments to spend for their citizen's welfare then they could also invest it to benefit their citizens.

Especially in the developing world, governments are more likely to piss away money given to them than to invest that money to the benefit of citizens.

If governments were good at investing money communism would have worked. There would be no point having companies like Apple develop cell phones if the government could do it just as well without enriching shareholders in the process. We’d just have a government agency in charge of building cell phones and giving them away or selling them to citizens at cost. We don’t have a private sector for funsies. We have it because we recognize that governments aren’t good at investing money and producing results.

[munk-a]

I am of a split mind on that topic - on the one hand I agree with you that massive corruption is pretty commonplace within some governments... on the other hand you've been talking about India which (while not a great example of a lack of corruption) has managed to invest heavily into toilets to fight against an epidemic of rape aaaand, I'm concerned about falling into the colonialism trap of "We in the west know better" - that road doesn't lead to good things in the long run.

I don't know which approach is better but I know that both roads contain pretty significant dangers and both contain benefits.

Additionally, I'm not particularly interested in going down a path towards communism - the leninist soviet system was an utter failure but germany and scandinavia seem to be doing pretty alright - in fact, on the topic of cell phones, Nokia started out in Finland which is a pretty heavily socialist country. I think there are a lot of options on the spectrum between 1637s Dutch Capitalism and Leninist Soviets - both extremes result in failure and, IMO, all centrist solutions are constantly being pulled toward the nearer of the extremes and need to actively work to stay from slipping into those dark places.

[rayiner]

> fight against an epidemic of rape aaaand, I'm concerned about falling into the colonialism trap of "We in the west know better" - that road doesn't lead to good things in the long run.

The west does know better. Not because they’re better, but because as a matter of historical accident they stumbled upon a set of winning ideas. Colonialism was bad. But that’s in the past. The choice people in former colonies are faced with is what to do now. And as someone from one of those countries, I think we’re fucking stupid if we reject the west’s winning ideas just because we’re bitter about colonialism. That’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.

People who talk about decolonization make me livid. I’d like to be able to take my kids to see Bangladesh some day without worrying about them getting sick from the water. Decolonization won’t do that. Capitalism, the rule of law, and liberal democracy will do that. I don’t care who came up with it first.

[bhupy]

> the leninist soviet system was an utter failure but germany and scandinavia seem to be doing pretty alright

Yes, and Germany and Scandinavian countries are liberal capitalist economies where the means of production are predominately owned by the private sector. In fact, Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US.