[marginalia_nu]

To avoid, well, this.

In general I think the west tends to underestimate how frail a young democracy is.

Western-style Democracy isn't something that spontaneously happens when a despot is removed. It takes a long-ass time for the institutions to establish legitimacy, and when installed in an environment when there's large inequalities from the get-go, things may change, but they will also stay the same.

Manufacturing prosperity through something like the Marshall plan is one way to actually let things settle in the right way.

[fransje26]

Why worry about a problem that might happen 30 years down the line when you can make an outrageous amount of money today.. Heck, why worry about a problem that can happen next year if you can can make a good profit right now..

As the climate crisis shows, we are perpetually and knowingly heading for the proverbial brick wall full steam ahead in the name of a quick buck.

[marginalia_nu]

I don't know if it's true but I've seen it argued that shortsightedness of western capitalism was kept in check by the five year planning of the eastern bloc, and when the wall fell, that check was essentially removed and most of our problems today is a result of that.

As I said, I don't know if it's true, but it's certainly an interesting notion. Maybe it's true at least in the sense that during the cold war, the west couldn't really afford to rest on its laurels. Even the most dysfunctional market had to be compelled to beat the Soviet null hypothesis as a matter of survival for the way of life.