Make south America as industral as North America

[Ward]

So how could we make south America as industral giants as north America ,

 

[Max Sinister]

ASBs give them lots of coal and iron deposits. A bit more oil (outside Venezuela) wouldn't hurt either.

 

[Boom22]

First does S.A have to be same industrial capacity as our N.A or more industrilzed?

 

[Bill Cameron]

Aside from the geographical and resources bits, having the region colonized by different European powers would help too.


Bill

 

[Hobelhouse]

Argentina + Chile could probably manage it, they were fairly rich OTL but were cursed with bad leadership later on. Brazil is another possibility. Other nations are fairly unlikely due to terrain, climate, and other factors.

 

[Faeelin]

Aside from the geographical and resources bits, having the region colonized by different European powers would help too.

Perhaps Brazil could be as rich as Jamaica, South Africa, or Indonesia?

 

[Gonzaga]

ASBs give them lots of coal and iron deposits. A bit more oil (outside Venezuela) wouldn't hurt either.

Indeed. The biggest problem is the lack of coal, that is almost unexistent, except in few regions. About iron, South America actually has one-fifth of the world's ore reserves, but they are concentrated on Brazil.

Perhaps Brazil could be as rich as Jamaica, South Africa, or Indonesia?

Yes, many people think that one of the causes os subdevelopment was the Iberian colonization (probably that's the reason for Guyana being the South American superpower). But probably more European immigrants would help. The regions where the industries were more developed were also the places that received more immigrants. That's one of the reasons of the economical North-South divide in Brazil, that only nowadays is changing.

 

[Bill Cameron]

Perhaps Brazil could be as rich as Jamaica, South Africa, or Indonesia?

Faeelin,

According to both the UN and IMF, South Africa has a higher per capita income than Brazil.

Jamaica was a 'mono-crop' economy. Colonized by one European power for the production of a single resource, it was later seized by another European power for the same reason. When slavery was abolished, that resource could no longer be produced cheaply enough to compete with other sources and Jamiaca's economy never recovered.

Indonesia is similar to Jamaica. Colonized/grabbed by several European powers with one eventually predominating, it was allowed by that power to produce only a limited number of resources. After independence, the country followed the usual Third World pattern of governance by kleptocratic elites which stymied any economic growth.

It may not be polite to say so, but culture counts. After all, cultural differences are at the heart of the argument Diamond makes in Guns, Germs, and Steel. A different colonial power with a different culture and a different colonial pattern and/or purpose would have made for a different South America.


Bill

 

[Faeelin]

Faeelin,

According to both the UN and IMF, South Africa has a higher per capita income than Brazil.

And still isn't industrialized, has a host of problems, and has been very lucky. Compare to Zimbabwe or Kenya for proof that a pink coat of paint doesn't help you, necessarily.

Brazil is similar to Jamaica and Indonesia; Peru was run as a Spanish silver mine, and nobody cared about Argentina for centuries.

To imagine that the British settling in the same regions would magically make everything better when it's clear that they did just as poorly in their own equivalent colonies is... kinda odd.

 

[Tocomocho]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Paraguay an emerging industrial power before the War of the Triple Alliance burnt it to the ground? I remember to have read sometimes that its rate of industrialization mirrored Germany at some point.

 

[83gemini]

Kill ISI. Perhaps no great Depression?

 

[Oddball]

So how could we make south America as industral giants as north America ,

Like N.America would be impossible I think.

But have S.America at the same level (or better ) as Italy is IMHO quite possible:

Two of the prerequisits are in place:

1. Mineral deposits are abundant

2. The lack of coal is made up by an abundance of Hydro Power, but you will have to wait until late 19th century for the technology to be awailable

The missing part and what needs to be changed is:

A different colonizer than the Iberian ones, cause of cultural issues

 

[Tyr]

And still isn't industrialized, has a host of problems, and has been very lucky. Compare to Zimbabwe or Kenya for proof that a pink coat of paint doesn't help you, necessarily.

Brazil is similar to Jamaica and Indonesia; Peru was run as a Spanish silver mine, and nobody cared about Argentina for centuries.

To imagine that the British settling in the same regions would magically make everything better when it's clear that they did just as poorly in their own equivalent colonies is... kinda odd.

Zimbabwe was one of the richest nations in Afirca until Mugabe and his thugs started to mess things up.
Kenya compared to a lot of other African nations isn't doing too bad.


I'd think more British interest would be the way...
Maybe: Britain keeps the mosquito coast and there's no agreement with America not to go empire building in central America so the US does begin to move south. With the US carving out a latin American empire the British get a little bit worried so start sending aid to the free nations of South America so they can stand against the US better. Likewise the US is also trying to develop the regions its conquered.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Paraguay an emerging industrial power before the War of the Triple Alliance burnt it to the ground? I remember to have read sometimes that its rate of industrialization mirrored Germany at some point.

The reason for the Triple Alliance war was its trying to gain sea access which it needed to help its economy further develop. It was as good as it was going to get without a port.

 

[Faeelin]

Zimbabwe was one of the richest nations in Afirca until Mugabe and his thugs started to mess things up.

]

Okay, there's a double standard here. When African nations do relatively well, it's because of British institutions. When they due poorly, it's because of the locals.

 

[Bill Cameron]

To imagine that the British settling in the same regions would magically make everything better when it's clear that they did just as poorly in their own equivalent colonies is... kinda odd.

Faeelin,

And ignoring the real differences in culture is... kinda politically correct.

I'm not suggesting that being colonized by the British leads to automatic industrialization, happier days, and a pocket full of rainbows. I am honest enough to recognise that, while only a few British colonies industrialized, none of the Iberian colonies have done so.

It's a case of a few percent being a better bet than nothing at all.

The Iberian colonies were run more like resource extraction projects. Many British colonies were run in the same manner, but a few were not. Jamiaca can be equated to Chile, but there is no Iberian equivalent to the US or Canada.


Bill

 

[Tyr]

]

Okay, there's a double standard here. When African nations do relatively well, it's because of British institutions. When they due poorly, it's because of the locals.

Where did I say that?

 

[President Ledyard]

Not to be too un-PC here, but wouldn't any potential colonizer of Latin America result in a class of haves and have nots, given that (unlike then underpopulated Anglo America) there are simply too many natives to asssimilate / exterminate/ shuffle off to tiny reservations / etc..., which would not be especially conducive to industrialization?

 

[Faeelin]

Where did I say that?

"Zimbabwe was doing well until Mugabe" certainly implies that his fault the country's turned out poorly, and not Britain's.

 

[Faeelin]

Faeelin,

And ignoring the real differences in culture is... kinda politically correct.

I'm not suggesting that being colonized by the British leads to automatic industrialization, happier days, and a pocket full of rainbows. I am honest enough to recognise that, while only a few British colonies industrialized, none of the Iberian colonies have done so.

Brazil, Argentina, and Chile have industry; not as much as you'd hope, but I think that their fate could be better without resorting to a British South america.

[/quote]Jamiaca can be equated to Chile, but there is no Iberian equivalent to the US or Canada.[/QUOTE]

Jamaica to Chile? Wha? I get what you're trying to say, but Argentina, Chile, and Southern Brazil are all far more similar to Canada than to, say, Venezuela.

 

[Bulldawg85]

Food

"Zimbabwe was doing well until Mugabe" certainly implies that his fault the country's turned out poorly, and not Britain's.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/africa/news/article_1290785.php/Zimbabwe_to_import_food_from_&quotanywhere_we_can"_Minister

Harare - Cash-strapped Zimbabwe will need to find scarce foreign currency to import food from 'anywhere we can,' following poor harvests in all of the country's agricultural provinces, a cabinet minister was quoted as saying Friday.

The deficit is quite large but we are going to import maize to supplement what we have, Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.

'We will get maize from anywhere we can and this means that we will have to look for foreign currency to meet the food requirements,' he added.

President Robert Mugabe's government has declared 2007 a drought year. Initial projections are that the southern African country will struggle to harvest 600,000 tonnes of maize, or a third of its annual requirement.

Zambia, usually a reliable maize supplier to Zimbabwe, indicated last month it may not be able to continue exporting because part of its crop was a write-off after floods. Reports this week said Malawi may step in to fill the breach.

Mugabe's government blames the country's crop failures squarely on drought, but critics also blame a controversial policy of government land seizures from white land owners seven years ago that slashed agricultural output.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/THOU-77F3XZ?OpenDocument

Harare to import 120 000 tonnes of wheat from SA
HARARE – A Zimbabwean government minister on Wednesday said Harare had ordered 120 000 tonnes of wheat from South Africa to ease food shortages in the country.

"We have ordered 120 000 tonnes of wheat from South Africa," said Didymus Mutasa in an address to Parliament.

"We are ordering more wheat through appropriate producers so that we have sufficient wheat to take us to October next year, when we hope to have harvested a sufficient and bigger harvest," he said.

Mutasa, who is in charge of Zimbabwe's chaotic land reform programme, said the country expected to harvest a paltry 145 000 tonnes against national needs of 400 000 tonnes of wheat.

Zimbabwe has battled severe food shortages since 2000 when the government began seizing white farms for redistribution to landless blacks.

The food crisis took a turn for the worst last June after President Robert Mugabe ordered shops to reduce prices by 50 percent and roll back prices to mid-June levels.

The government directive triggered widespread food shortages as retailers failed to restock leaving empty shelves in most shops in Harare and other major cities.

United Nations agencies have warned that more than four million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the country's 12 million population, would need food aid this year or they would starve.

Meanwhile, South Africa's central bank chief Tito Mboweni said the erosion of property rights in Zimbabwe was to blame for the country's unprecedented economic crisis that has seen inflation rocket to 6 500 percent, the highest in the world.

"The challenges that we have in South Africa is how to uphold property rights . . . the removal of property rights in Zimbabwe has been a source of the country's problems," said Mboweni during a lecture at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

About 4 000 white farmers lost their properties after Mugabe sanctioned the violent seizure of their land in what he said was a campaign to correct historical imbalances in land allocation.

I guess that the British are to blame for Zimbabwe having to import so much food and an inflation rate which makes the economy of Weimar Germany seem robust and thriving by comparison.