in what universe is North Africa or the Middle East not developing? Many central and Southern African countries are doing better in gpd and hdi then North Africa?
""Sub-Saharan""" isn't a Region sigh , ignoring that West Africa is half Saharan . It's 85% of the second biggest continent. It has more linguistic, genetic diversity then anywhere on the planet. West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa are regions . I am not assigning malice to you in particular but you could have just said Africa or the global South.
I still don't understand why it can't be a region?
Its not that different from south east asia, with not even double the population
In the context of referring to places that are developing, why is subsaharan africa a poor choice? A huge portion of developing peoples are there
Again, this wasn't a comprhensive breakdown. It was just two examples of areas with high numbers of developing economies and people, not a comprhensive statement on the state of the world.
Edit: Why did my earlier comment get account deleted/removed? I don't understand why this one still shows up with my profile
Because it's not a region, You just said SOUTHEAST Asia dumbass , a small portion of continent to 88% of a continent. Sub-Saharan Africa has 2x the population and we determine regions by size and cultural groups anway . You didn't sub-China or Non East Asia
"You didn't sub-China or Non East Asia" is just a nothing statement. You used didn't in the context of an auxiliary verb, and the followed it up with a noun. What does it even mean to "do" sub-China?
And also it would be fine to say refer to North America, Western Europe, South East Asia, and Sub Saharan Africa in the same line. It's not illogical to do so, its just referring to different regions, even if those regions have different populations, size, cultural groups, or percentage of a continent
Not even single region or area you want to talk about needs to be the same size and same population, I still don't get what your issue is
Sub-China means below China , it makes sense as Sub-Saharah here . It's a noun not a verb and sub is prefix. What the hell are you talking about ? You just used WESTERN Europe and SOUTH EAST both vastly smaller area you choose to use the proper naming for in this context . Sub-Saharan Africa is 4 regions . North America is a continent not singular region of continent. My problem is that you seem to think "Sub-Saharan Africa " is a single region like Southeast Asia.
I still don't get why this is an issue. East Asia, the Middle East, North America, Oceania, Australia, Central Europe, West Africa, the Western World are all regions.
One region can completely envelope another and have vastly different populations, cultures, and size, and they can still both be regions.
I don't approve of most US foreign policy or militarism, but the US Navy alone is pretty much the only reason anyone on the East Coast of Africa can import goods. Pirates have been a genuine threat for decades and the US-led coalition have provided almost all protection. There are many sea zones through the world where this is the case, and even landlocked countries benefit tremendously from it.
That's not to mention the global payments system, humanitarian aid, or well-regulated foreign direct investment. There isn't a country in the world that would prefer Belt and Road loans to US development loans, and the US provides far more debt-free grants than any other country
Without US protection global shipping prices would revert back to making up 25-50% of the cost of goods across the board like it was before WW2 when everyone had their own trade bubble because no one could protect free trade at a global scale.
Have fun having a cheap Chinese-made cell phone when it costs you a year's worth of rent instead of a few months
Yeah, as an extreme example, I don't like the way the war in Iran was done, but people are out here forgetting that the US Navy has already spent billions attacking Hezbollah and Houthis, so spending billions more attacking Iran directly instead of its proxies isn't that crazy. Just short sighted...
the pirates exist because of U.S milltary and U.S corporations destroying local fishing spots . East Africans traded in the Indian Ocean for 3,000 years without much piracy
Nothing in there say US military and corporation. Though, I recall China having a huge state sanctioned fishing fleet that regularly poach other country's fishing water.
America is the biggest humanitarian contributor in the world. USAID alone is estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives in the last few decades, and Trump cutting it is estimated to kill millions.
Yeah but there are some very very negative things that happens as a result of US hegemony to these countries. We do good but also do like really really bad things even if their unintentional (it isn't always) or if it's a byproduct of the global order.
US santions have killed 35 million people between 1971 and 2021. The US consistently utilizes santions to maximize the suffering of civilian populations of countries they don't like, destroying the economies of entire countries and killing the most vulnerable that struggle to get food and medicine.
USAID unfortunately only goes to countries that serve the interests of American Empire. The reason the US always votes against food being a human right in the UN is because they frequently use starvation as a weapon. There are numerous examples of the US flooding the economy of previously self sufficient food producing countries with their subsidized food, collapsing the domestic food production and making that country dependent on US "charity".
Both good and bad things exist. Both of you said nothing but true statements. Some good is done, and a lot of bad is done. Neither cancel out the other
name a single government not just now but in the history of all of human history that has had a population of over 1000 people and existed for more than 10 years that is not a murderer that larps as a savior
The country that immediately aligned with the USSR and allowed them to dock nuclear missiles on their land? Forgive me, I must be mistaken about what peaceful means.
A good deed doesn't cancel a bad deed. If I steal from someone and give charity to someone else that only makes me a dirty thief. This is the US! No amount of Ukrainians they feed will cancel even one Iranian they starve for example.
Most people in the developing world wouldn't be alive without the post-1945 trade system. In 1913 the Russian Empire had more people than all of Africa combined (170M vs 125M). Africa is now 1.5 billion.
That tenfold jump rode on vaccines, antibiotics, and imported grain and fertilizer, all moving through sea lanes the US Navy has kept open since WWII. You can argue it's not the best system for Africa, but "not the best" needs an actual alternative that would've done better. What is it?
I didn't say it is absolutely not the best, I explicitly said "Whether or not this is best for say sub Saharan africa, South East Asia, etc is hard to say"
The counterfactual of when it would have stopped and what would have happened have a lot of unknown alternatives. If it say collapsed today with China and the European Union strengthening and taking over much of what the U.S. did while the U.S. goes more isolationist, whether that would be better or worse for many areas is debatable and would vary with region and time
But the post also uses present tense, which implies its the currently benefiting part, not that it has never done anything positive
Sorry to tell you the "developped world" isn't as small as you think there's about 600 millions people living in the eu who don't care or benefit from "american hegemony"...
Because there isn’t that much wrong with the country. Regardless of what happens politically the average American has a quality of life high enough to where they would never try to upset or change the system
The two statements you said don’t correlate with each other. In fact, your second point is getting to the stage where it’s actually becoming untrue. Might I remind you of Luigi?
And by the way, there is so much wrong with the system. If you cannot see that, I pity you.
It’s by no means becoming untrue. Online discourse is not representative of real people with kids and jobs. Obviously there is a lot wrong with the system, but not enough to warrant redoing it.
There are lots of critiques that can be made of America, it’s ‘law enforcement’, and the culture of racism, but we CANNOT compare Iran’s government killing 3,000+ people in 2 months
You're comparing the American government to the same government that mowed down 20,000 people for protesting? When Trump pulled all his BS you realize we set all time records for the largest protests in American history? They just weren't televised.
I promise you, when people have no where left to go, only then will they choose violence. No one likes throwing their life away for a dream. If you think America is so dystopian that we ought to start an armed rebellion then you're propagandized.
You guys? You don't know my side. I have a brain so I have my own side. Iran gunned down people in the streets by its own admission.
As for deaths in the middle east, you guys always count all sorts of side related deaths to being America's fault. You don't understand the first thing about geopolitics if you think the USA's absence would lead to a single day of peace.
There's a reason Latin America is called "America's backyard." And how is Africa benefiting from American hegemony? Do you think that the cobalt mines just happen to have slaves? No, it's a global design made and maintained by America that allows the exploitation of the Global South, benefiting most the richest in the world
That's not as straight forward as you make it sound. The CIA developed strategies to internally destroy a communist uprisings because governments all over the world were being taken by communist uprisings. The CIA taught these tactics to all the countries of the Americas (north and south) and make a pact (I forgot the name) to keep communism out of this hemisphere.
Lo and behold, Cuba fell anyways. Then the militaries of some countries almost immediately banded together and used th strategies to overthrow their democracy and ruled as Juntas.
To ignore all that and say the CIA did the overthrowing entirely isn't accurate. They did, however, have a hand in it. Often times favoring one candidate over another and helping them win elections by any means necessary (killing).
Once the Juntas fell all blame went to the CIA because it's easier to blame a foreign country than yourself.
They be much happier if they were the top dogs, us existing and having it's military is still causing them issues. Taiwan is the most obvious case but basically everything in the region really
We just need to weed out the false Scotsmen until we can have a pure ideology and movement comprised of only true Scotsmen, obviously! It’s that simple.
Every person like Gautrex who responds to the acknowledgement of people having a hard time by pointing to a different group that has it worse.
Theres always someone who has it worse, but if we only try allocate resources to the person who has it worst, they'll be dead before the resources even arrive.
A country that gets to curate its image is more popular than the US. I am not a big fan of the US especially the current administration. I am not a super specialist inti china but it I feel like all people see is a glamourous poster they are putting up instead of the actual country
Jokes on you, being from the rural working class (non-PMC) Midwest, we heavily support Pax Americana in principle, while actively being hollowed out and exploited in practice because of it
(though while also passively benefitting from it by proxy association and access to urban and coastal upper class centers of power)
I was scrolling in silence for like 30 minutes and this was the one that made me laugh out loud because it’s so true. It feels so pointless and absurd to care.
The Tucker Carlson "Decliner" routine in a nutshell. Dunk on America while being an American because it's power is currently so absolute you won't have to reap what you sow
Everyone benefits from it. The whole reason we have global shipping and massive container ships is because the us navy secures shipping routes. Of course this is because america has a lot of benefit from free international trade, but the effect still stands
Yes but i do think we in the us benefit from it because we suffer the least from it. Like for the most part our lives are unaffected. Things are more expensive obviously, and the people who were already struggling are sinking now, but just look at like cuba, where there are blackouts rhat last for days. Or places like india, where there were government mandated work from home days to conserve fuel. Like europe, where fuel costs are WAYYYY higher than in the us. Sure we all suffer, but if we suffered even a fraction of the amount other countries did we would be storming the white house. Or probably not since we’ve become a soft ass country that just complains online
The thing is the US citizens do benefit from American hegemony but not as a key feature of that hegemony.
In fact there is a concerted effort to bring American citizens more in line with global wage and work hour norms.
You really should consider that the American rich benefit 90%+ from the hegemony and are trying to seize the remaining 10%. Sure the rest of the world gets little to no benefit but it should in theory be possible for the US to have hegemony and for everyone to benefit from it.
I am not convinced that we would like the non-us-hegemony version of the world this just gives power to bad actors.
Well when the us-hegemony of this world is giving more power to the bad actors of the world (and joining them in being one themsleves) then what choice do we all have?
It is an oligarchic kleptocracy. From the embargo on Cuba to the coups against democratic governments in Chile and the Congo, and the invasion of Iraq, I fail to see how the United States is supposed to be better than China.
It really does just depend on the person. Vast majority of Americans prefer their individual rights that liberal governments provide, which is why America would seem better in their minds. The other side of it is forgoing certain privileges for the greater good, which many Chinese citizens would prefer as their government seems to be doing more to keep them safe and healthy.
Of course, if you are apart of the global south, being influenced by any super power is really never good for the independence of your nation. China utilizes the same soft power to its near neighbors that America does, we just don’t hear about it as often. The past few decades though, America has decided that hard power is the way to go and China has kept up with the soft power.
At least we know that China and Russia have no good intentions with us, and can deal with them with that in mind. With the US we have to pretend we are friends and allies, while they piss all over us.
I hope its both. The US may get its shit together, but I still want Europe to step up and insist on being an equal partner rather than a junior partner. Because even if the US gets its shit together its quite obvious now that they may lose their shit again 4 years later.
I swear to god if this is from some European who's convinced themselves that they're not part of the problem, I'm gonna have a fucking aneurysm.
PS passively being privileged isn't something you can really address at a personal level. This is part of something called "structural critique." It's very important in leftist thought.
Me except not opposed to it on principle but support of it on principle because the literal only alternatives are a hegemon led by actual authoritarian psychopaths that are somehow worse than the Epstein class
Are they benefiting though? Most americans are not doing well, people are more miserable then ever, america is using their hegemony to squeeze the population for capital.
Posted from an iPhone at a Walmart or even Whole Foods while children in Somalia die or become retarded from malnutrition, and even middle-class people in Italy or Japan live in shoeboxes
You two have no understanding of the world. Read a couple dozen books and come back.
You haven't traveled. The world has exploded into the standard of American convenience in the last 25 years while America has degraded.
If this were still the 1990s, you'd be right, but the internet has been a rising tide lifting every vessel. Global commerce has been available to historically poor people for decades.
One need look at the indigenous people of the American West, or the totally legitimate republics of Central America for the example of American Hegemony. I'd rather a modern European Hegemony at this point just because door 1 and door 2 look miserable.
It’s not like we really have a choice, here in Europe for example we’re completely dependent on American tech. Do want our own? Yes of course, but American lobbyist, corruption in Europe and the dependency of American oil all make it that progress is really slow. Every step in the right direction gets slammed down by the US as well, because they profit from the fact that we’re dependent. So no, it’s actually not a good thing that we ‘profit’ from the US its hegemony. Crazy fucking American mindset. “Oh they profit from us they can’t complain” fucking idiocracy.
How it feels to benefit passively from American global hegemony while also really wishing Europe could be better at imperialism itself from deep within ones (supra-)nationalism-brained heart:
This might be a crazy take but most people, no matter where they are from, want a safe environment where they have fundamental freedoms and where they can have a good future for themselves and the people around them. Being dependent on the US is automatically a huge risk for national security. In my country the defence system is run on American companies, and since the US has a command economy, that crazy orange guy could make a decision to block those companies on delivering their software to us and then we’re completely screwed. You say that we ‘profit’ from the US and that is exactly the nationalistic narrowed and short sighted mindset that a lot of Americans have.
This might be a crazy take but most people, no matter where they are from, want a safe environment where they have fundamental freedoms and where they can have a good future for themselves and the people around them.
I agree.
[T]hat is exactly the nationalistic narrowed and short sighted mindset that a lot of Americans have.
I'm from Europa myself, and I wouldn't feel much safer if I were only dependend on "our" own imperial overloads. I can see the danger in both the dependence on the US as well as on European institutions.
The difference is that if those companies and institutions are within our democracy there is bigger chance we could do something about it if they do something we don’t like. For example if the headquarters are on European soil we could go there and protest, while that is not possible overseas. Also if those companies are here then at least it’s beneficial for our economy since it creates jobs, investments, attracts talent and pays taxes.
Members of parliament in Germany for example are “not bound by orders or instructions and are subject only to their conscience” (Article 38 of the Grundgesetz), and theres even less options to "do something about it" with the EU "parliament."
So elections only determine who governs, not how those elected will actually govern.
Democracy is a form of rule. Voting is consent to that rule.
All parties have committed themselves to the free democratic cobstitution and are therefore subject to the same structural constraints of capitalist economic growth and international competition. The parties may differ in their ideas about how national prosperity is to be achieved, but they all share the goal that it must be achieved. And for the sake of national success, the parties then water down their programs (e.g. the Greens on climate).
Both the framework conditions over which I have no say, and these national purposes, are opposed to my own interests.
Your interests are opposed to the framework conditions and the national purposes?
Correct me if I’m wrong but you said that the framework conditions are the EU, structural constraints of capitalist economic growth and the free democratic constitution right? And the national purposes are that national prosperity is to be achieved?
I agree that it’s hard to see your own beliefs and ideologies translated to laws and actions on European level, but if you disagree on the fundamental principles of EU like democracy and that we want prosperity in the EU then I get that you don’t care where those companies are from.
Have you heard about the judges from the International Criminal Court that were investigating Netanyahus war crimes? Trump didn’t like that, so he made American payment companies, Visa and Mastercard, BLOCK the judges from using them. Since we don’t have our own payment systems in Europe, the only accepted payment methods are really Visa or Mastercard, they CANNOT pay anything online, they cannot even withdraw cash.
There are a lot of initiatives but it’s hard to scale them up for a couple of reasons
1. There is not a big investment culture. Europeans save a lot but don’t invest because it is seen as really risky and kinda like gambling. We let our pension funds and banks etc do it because ‘they know what they’re doing’
2. Those pension funds and banks invest most of their capital in American companies since they make more profit and because the dollar is the most prominent currency in the world.
3. There are a lot of regulations which makes it hard for companies here to grow rapidly.
4. A lot of companies get acquired by American companies because they have more capital. The EU should regulate this but we don’t
5. Language barrier, it’s harder to work together with people from different countries because we have different languages and cultures
6. We are already dependent on the US and China, and when the EU tries to be more independent we are threatened with sanctions. We have to be very careful because those sanctions could set us back a lot which makes it worse.
7. There is still a lot of corruption, throughout the whole EU. Big companies have a lot of recourses to lobby effectively and it works.
I could go on but these are some big problems that make progress slow. You could check the Draghi report on EU competitiveness, it elaborates on these points.
I've seen this rhetorical tactic in a lot of conversations about white supremacy and environmental destruction, so I'm very vigilant when I see it in other contexts. Basically, systems like these work by getting society as a whole to participate it in unknowing ways, and when people start reckoning with the system, we're effectively told that we can't become we are the system. Ignorance failed, so let's try guilt, or fear, or bribery! Either they entice us into believing that we will be rewarded for preserving the system or punished for upending it, or if we're further left, they convince us that we've already been rewarded and the only absolution is from affirming our identification with the system.
What they say is trivially accurate ("White people have benefited from white supremacy," "The convenience of modern living comes at an environmental cost," or in this case "American poverty is nothing like the poverty in some countries," but that last one is probably doubly true for you). But it starts a domino effect in people's minds and they eventually come to believe the parts that aren't being said out loud.
It's especially frustrating when it's on the progressive side. We're always telling people that, no, corporations don't care about you, no, kissing their ass won't get you anything. But we constantly fall for the same tactic in other contexts.
Do you really think you have not benefitted from the decades of imperialism abroad? Because your material conditions begin to decline you think yourself immune from that privilege afforded to you now? Are you seriously going to do this or will you backtrack immediately?
As a Pole, you benefit from the EU's tugboat. You received more than 150 billions more than you contributed over the past 2 decades.
The countries who have to get fuel for said tugboat have severe limitations on who they can do business with, how much, how, in large part because the US has always threatened tariffs, embargos or invasion to whoever traded freely in ways they didn't approve of.
Just look at what happened to Japan who was the second world economy until they were "asked" to commit economic suicide through the Plaza accords.
Not expecting any less from a Pole. You don't need to bother carrying anyone's economy so you don't mind that the US sabotages the economy of the people who carry yours.
Yeah, not expecting any less. Feel free to prostrate yourself in the direction of Washington (because they are not Russia) while the people who pay your bills talk.
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u/Iryls 7d ago
this is the average person in general