[omegaworks]

"Rich" countries should not be allowed to externalize their environmental concerns.

What makes a country "poor" but the value placed on the lives of the people in it?

The resource-rich countries of Africa and South America are considered "poor" because the US and Europe see their people and institutions as expendable and replaceable.

[ben_w]

> "Rich" countries should not be allowed to externalize their environmental concerns.

Morally sound, but how would you enforce that?

> What makes a country "poor" but the value placed on the lives of the people in it?

The value of the goods, services, business, and real estate that those people collectively control.

> The resource-rich countries of Africa and South America are considered "poor" because the US and Europe see their people and institutions as expendable and replaceable.

Assuming this is true, how did China shift from being poor to being not poor? Did they make their institutions unexpendable and irreplaceable, or did they do something else?

[omegaworks]

>The value of the goods, services, business, and real estate that those people collectively control.

You're asserting that the people collectively control the capital wealth (goods, services, businesses, real estate) of the country. This has been tried by more than a few countries but the folks that do try to do this are often labeled "communists" and toppled by US and European interests.

>how did China shift from being poor to being not poor?

China shifted from being poor to not being poor by asserting that control over its capital wealth, and thus far has been able to avoid having its institutions undermined by the west. Not that it hasn't[1] been[2] tried[3].

1. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-trade/2021/07/19...

2. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

3. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49317695

[ben_w]

I mean “collectively” in the sense that some control one part and others control a different part, not that everyone has equal control over everything. In this sense it is also a description of America or even a hypothetical anarcho-capitalist zone.

The sum of all the stuff that all the people own or otherwise control is the sum of the wealth. That sense of “collectively”.

[omegaworks]

If your definition accurately described the difference between rich and poor countries, the people of the Global South would be considered wealthy.

If that wealth is not used to secure stable living conditions (like freedom from environmental hazards) for the people of the country, that wealth is not effectively owned or controlled by the people of the country.

>In this sense it is also a description of America or even a hypothetical anarcho-capitalist zone.

This also describes the conditions that result from the massive disparities in how America's wealth is distributed. After World War II massive resources were poured into segregating people into white-only neighborhoods[1] that accrue value (and wealth) over time and non-white neighborhoods that are targeted for dis-investment. When hazardous industries want to open, they choose the non-white neighborhoods[2] and when they close they leave the neighborhood with the task of cleaning up their messes[3].

America is able to reproduce the dynamics of its foreign policy internally because of this policy of geographic segregation. These dynamics continue to this day even as it has become taboo to implement segregationist policy explicitly. This is because there has been no appetite for the structural change that is necessary to keep the disparities from growing over time.

1. https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history...

2. https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/05/18/major-explosion-and-...

3. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/environment/ct-chicago-s...

[ben_w]

> If your definition accurately described the difference between rich and poor countries, the people of the Global South would be considered wealthy.

Please give an example of one country where the sum total of all the assets the residents control (I ought to have specified “divided by the population”) is high and the country is considered poor.

> This also describes the conditions that result from the massive disparities in how America's wealth is distributed.

And?

America is a rich country no matter how unfairly subpopulations are treated.

I will agree that there appears to be malicious unfairness, and to me it appears sufficiently severe that it cannot even be explained by pure greed. That’s a separate issue to this.

[omegaworks]

>I will agree that there appears to be malicious unfairness, and to me it appears sufficiently severe that it cannot even be explained by pure greed. That’s a separate issue to this.

It's really not. The same processes that underpin the unfairness within the US are reproduced in the relationships between the US and other "poorer" countries. The freedom of capital to do whatever it wants within the boundaries of the state is asserted abroad via "free trade" agreements--and barring that, militaristic threat--that ensure capital interests are preserved above all others. They ensure things like human rights, environmental concerns and labor safety can't interfere with the profit motive and maximization of investment growth.