[rwyinuse]

Perhaps there are cultural reasons that explain this, such as attitudes towards work, entrepreneurship, private ownership etc?

I have no idea if Rwanda and Malawi have difference there, but globally one can see clearly see the impact of culture. Just look at how well Japan did despite losing WW2 and having little natural resources, or how badly Russia has done despite its huge landmass and resources, because the political culture always seems to lead to really bad autocratic governance.

In my country (Finland) areas where Swedish speaking people are the majority do consistently better than neighbouring areas with Finnish speaking majority - lower unemployment, less health and social issues and so on. Some of that may be due to historical accumulation of wealth, but I'm convinced that mostly it's because of differences in cultural values and attitudes. Some studies indicate that the Swedish speakers tend to have better social life, which improves life outcomes in many ways.

[peterfirefly]

More like: Rwanda has a competent dictator (and has had the same one for 26 years, more if you consider the years where he was the strongman behind the President). A competent dictator is better than an incompetent dictator -- or even, in many ways, an incompetent democracy.

[ViktorRay]

Is Malawi an incompetent democracy? Based on the article it seems to have a functioning stable democracy.

Are you implying that a dictator would lead to Malawi becoming wealthy? Seems like a disturbing argument. If that’s not what you are implying then what are you implying?

[therein]

Are you implying that a "functioning" democracy automatically leads to good decisions being made and crowd always has good wisdom regardless of the attributes of the crowd?

To lead a country to prosperity is as simple as letting a nation vote and counting their votes and then giving power to the guy they voted for?

[jurgenburgen]

Rule of law is the best enabler for economic growth.

[ViktorRay]

After Malawi achieved independence in 1964, it was ruled by a dictator until 1994. During that time the country was poor. After 1994, the country transitioned into a democracy.

Now maybe somebody could come in here and say that perhaps that dictator just wasn’t good enough or something….

But I still think arguments like this are disturbing. Throughout the 20th century so many horrors have happened because someone stood up and demanded absolute power be given to them. That democracy wouldn’t take the nation to the greatness it deserved. And again and again we have seen the dark road this takes a nation toward.

I mean come on now. We have all learned about the horrors of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Even then we see comments like yours being negative towards democracy?

[sofixa]

> Is Malawi an incompetent democracy? Based on the article it seems to have a functioning stable democracy.

If a large portion of the state budget is spent on a fundamentally unproductive thing - subsidies to enable subsistence farming to be sustainable - yes.

[ZhadruOmjar]

I'll mention it here because it's tangentially related to your comment. The book "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families" about the Rwandan genocide and aftermath helped me understand the country and it's current state much better. The book has the added benefit of being from 1999 so has far fewer of the culture war components one would expect from a similar book released today.

[giacomoforte]

This viewpoint never made sense to me, because you have variation within any culture, and because advantageous strategies win out over time, any culture will evolve. Therefore, it never made sense to me to consider culture a static immutable group of homogeneous people. To me it is pretty obvious that some systematic challenges must exist that keep what we consider to be successful strategies from succeeding in those environments.

Your examples of Russia and Japan are easily explained by geopolitics. Indeed, Japanese individuals don't tend to excel out of Japan while many Russians do.

[carlosjobim]

> win out over time

And people define victory in different ways. Having many children is how some people define victory. Having no children and a diploma on the wall is how some people define victory.

[amoorthy]

Immigrants to any country are a unique slice of the population because they chose to migrate for a better life. Hence immigrants in most countries tend to do well economically (sometimes after a generation). Uncertain that cultural differences are the reason for different economic outcomes you observe.

[seszett]

Swedish speakers in Finland are not immigrants anymore than Dutch speakers in Belgium are, though (the Dutch speaking area also generally does better than the French speaking areas, for a variety of reasons).

[em-bee]

it is interesting to note that since the industrial revolution it was the french speaking part of belgium that flourished due to its steel industry, and the dutch speaking part was the poor one. only when the steel industry stopped being competitive the economy switched away from industry to service where the french part stagnated and the dutch part started to flourish,

so clearly who does better has nothing to do with the language but with the economy and who has the better resources and is more adaptable to serve the current needs.

[boelboel]

There was significant repression on the Dutch language in Belgium not long ago. There was no Dutch university prior to 1930s and courts were solely in french for a long time.To this date there's still some Bruxellois who'll call you Sale Flamand (dirty Fleming) if you speak Dutch in the capital city. It is however way better now than 50+ years ago, my grandfather got beat up for speaking Dutch.

Saying language had no influence on who did better is inaccurate.

[em-bee]

but it's not the language that's the cause here. it's politics. it's who is in power to decide and direct investments. the language's only function here is to divide the people. so yeah, it had an influence in that sense.

but what i meant to say is that language does not have an influence in an absolute sense in that say dutch speakers would always do better than french speakers or something like that because of the language somehow giving them an advantage. the advantage comes from being part of the group that is in power.

[amoorthy]

Ah ok; sorry, didn't realize that.

[nradov]

Which immigrants? A significant fraction of native Finnish citizens speak Swedish as their primary language. It used to be the same country.

[NooneAtAll3]

why did you decide to mention Finland?

[snypher]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48151476

[inemesitaffia]

They are usually richer too.

[RobotToaster]

Malawians have a reputation of being extremely kind people, maybe that makes them bad at capitalism?

[SoftTalker]

I mean, is it beyond belief that many of them are OK with living a simple agrarian life? Or have very little opportunity to learn that there is any other way to live?

[tmnvix]

Makes you wonder if less public debt and less focus on growing cash crops to service that debt might actually make for a more comfortable 'simple agrarian life' overall. Even if this meant lower GDP.

I've often thought there's something wrong with the way we put a simple dollar figure on poverty. Less than $3 dollars a day with or without easy access to land, shelter, and fresh water?

[dash2]

I doubt if they are ok with low life expectancy and high child mortality, no.

[RobotToaster]

Both of those would make you "bad at capitalism"

[Henchman21]

In this community it is well beyond belief. It’s up there with UFOs and lizard people. Not extracting every. Last. Penny. From EVERYTHING no matter the impact. Anathema to a hardcore capitalist forum like this.

[Geee]

It would be the opposite. Kindness = respect for other's property = capitalism.