Why some countries are poor and some rich – a non-Eurocentric view
from Deniz Kellecioglu
The latest issue of Real-World Economics Review includes my paper “Why some countries are poor and some rich – a non-Eurocentric view”. You may access it here (http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue52/Kellecioglu52.pdf). Below is an abstract not previously included. I hope many of you will read the article, recommend it to others, and perhaps use it in your research and/or lectures. Also, this blog post provides a forum to discuss the article (comments section below).
ABSTRACT
Racism and prejudice exist in every society. This paper hypothesises a relation between ethnic groups and economic levels at the global level, identifies for individual countries a representative morphological nuance and then shows that there exists a significant correlation between morphological traits and GDP per capita: the lighter, the richer; the darker, the poorer. Statistical analysis examines the magnitude of this economic inequality, and a brief histography looks at certain cultural imprints that produced it. The paper argues that although any ethnic group may go imperial, the European conquest of the Americas was characterized by distinct characteristics and consequences. These included Western Europe’s need to go imperial, its luck in the expansionary process, its practicing colour-coded racism and the augmenting of the resulting economic inequality by the advent of industrialism and capitalism.
Keywords: colonialism, ethnicity, inequality, international, morphology, and racism.
Yes I have just noticed this. I found it disturbing. There are rich people in “poor” countries and poor people in “rich” ones.
You only need to ask two questions.
Who owns the land?
What are the conditions of land tenure?
Sweden had a land distribution in the 1680s. Denmark had a similar land reform in the nineteeth century. Both countries have a tax on land values, not enough but it helps.
In Britain, land ownership is in the hands of a few families, plus the banks. There is no effective land value tax. Which means that the gap is getting ever wider.
If you look at “third world” countries you will find that the more concentrated the land ownership, the bigger the gap between rich and poor. Ethnicity and skin colour are a distraction.
Dear Henry, have you read my article in full? Your first concern is already explicitly addressed. The second one is implicitly addressed. If you look at the land ownership and the conditions of land tenure in any country, I am sure you will discover that, unfortunately, colour is involved.
I wish ethnicity and skin colour was “a distraction”, but there is plenty of scholarly and anecdotal evidence for the contrary.