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27chaos comments on Taking Effective Altruism Seriously - Less Wrong
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I think that it's worth being more explicit in your critique here.
The OP suggests that colonization is in fact a proven way to turn poor countries into productive ones. But in fact, it does the opposite. Several parts of Africa were at or above average productivity before colonization¹, and well below after; and this pattern has happened at varied enough places and times to be considered a general rule. The examples of successful transitions from poor countries to rich ones—such as South Korea—do not involve colonization.
¹Note that I'm considering the triangular trade as a form of colonization; even if it didn't involve proconsuls, it involved an external actor explicitly fomenting a hierarchical and extractive social order.
If you redefine colonization, you can get the results you wish.
Also, South Korea (and Taiwan) were colonized by Japan and while their main success happened after the end of colonization, if you're going to blame Africa's after-colonization state on colonization, you need to credit these countries' after-colonization state to colonization as well.
I'm not interested in proving colonialism was always economically inefficient, just in pointing out that OP's aside was troubling. That said, your appeal to consistency isn't correct, it overlooks all nuance. Colonialism has clear and unambiguous ties to the problems that exist in Africa today, but it has no such ties to the successes in South Korea or Taiwan.
Yes it does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule#Economy_and_modernization
Thanks! I wasn't aware of that; I'd always believed the myth cite 71 refers to, that Korea's economy didn't improve significantly until after the Cold War.
In that case, I am willing to give credit to colonialism for Korea's good economy. However, I still stand by my claim that the appeal to consistency is not compelling by itself. It's the details of each situation that matter, as different implementations of colonialism can vary wildly. As can the aftermath of colonialism; if Africa became stable and productive tomorrow, that wouldn't change the fact colonialism had once hurt it; if Korea's economy were to crash later this week, it would still be true that Japanese imposed policies had once improved their productivity.