Nornagest comments on Stranger Than History - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 September 2007 06:57PM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 April 2014 06:45:57AM 1 point [-]

They face, of course, the problem that most of the white people in the workforce are well-educated and fairly well-off; while most of the black people are not doing so well on either front. (Oh, sure, there's plenty of educated black people - generally ones who could afford to be educated overseas - but they're a tiny proportion in a vast sea of people). By and large, the white minority is in a position to continue to hold an economic superiority over the black majority for generations, unless something is done to redress the balance.

Ignoring for the moment the question of genetic differences in intelligence, the fundamental problem here is that the blacks are less educated (and less a lot of other things related to education) than whites. These problems are not getting resolved quickly and until they are it makes sense for the white minority to be in an economically superior position. Otherwise, you'll wind up with an advanced economic system manged by people who aren't qualified to manage it. Look at what happened to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to see where that leads.

Note, however, if your only goal is to redress the power balance between whites and blacks, Zimbabwe did in fact solve that problem, i.e., blacks are now being oppressed by fellow blacks rather than whites. Also the economy has been destroyed, so the conditions for everyone involved are much worse.

Comment author: Nornagest 10 April 2014 08:41:08PM *  2 points [-]

Otherwise, you'll wind up with an advanced economic system manged by people who aren't qualified to manage it. Look at what happened to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to see where that leads.

I'm not an expert on Zimbabwean history by any means, but this doesn't quite seem to add up. According to World Bank data, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe has lagged sub-Saharan Africa (never mind the rest of the world) in per-capita GDP (measured in constant 2000 dollars) since at least 1960. As you can see from the graph, there's no dramatic discontinuity coinciding with the end of the Bush War; there is a decline over the war years themselves, but I'd attribute that more to the damage done by a markedly nasty civil conflict. It later stops tracking Africa's broader economic performance around 2001, but that timeframe seems to coincide with Robert Mugabe's land redistribution programs and involvement in the Congo War: a specific case of mismanagement by a notorious dictator, twenty years after the changes you're alluding to.

I'd consider this more conclusive if I'd been able to find data going back further. Still, if Rhodesia had qualified as an advanced economy, I'd have expected better than $500 GDP/capita in 1960 -- and if it was the removal of Zimbabwe's white minority's political influence that had screwed everything up, I'd have expected a decline starting around 1978, not the minor increase and quick plateau that we observe.

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