ewellholmes
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Post by ewellholmes on Sept 20, 2024 2:12:34 GMT
Very unlikely I think. Your still going to have the demographic transition with a declining birth among people in the developed world which is only now starting to appear in the undeveloped world. So without massive bloodshed or other measures to prevent colonial populations breeding their numbers are going to grow rapidly as they go through this phase. At the same time its going to be politically very difficult to deny people rights.
I think that's a very deterministic outlook that ignores a lot of the hard factors at play here as well as the contingent factors. For one, there is no set speed or start points to demographic transitions and they have actually been much faster in the Third World than in the Global North. The United States for example declined from seven children on average to three from 1800 to 1920, while for Bangladesh it took only forty years, from 1960 to 2000. Sweden's crude birth was between 30 and 35 in the early 1800s and took roughly three generations to decline, while Mexico's crude birth rate was between 40 and 45 in 1950 and then halved in one generation. Latin America and Asia peaked in the 1980s or 1990s, and there's compelling evidence that Africa's demographic heft right now is a result of austerity in the 80s-90s derailing educational attainment and thus keeping fertility rates higher than they would otherwise would be. Even with that, most urban areas there are already at replacement and Kenya, for example, is where the U.S. was in 1960 at the national level. Keeping the above in mind, we also need to remember what historically allowed the boom in the Global South's population was the arrival of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, which removed the threat of famine constraining population growth. Before that, from 1760 to 1960 population growth globally had been 3x but in Europe it had been 5x; that's how much the game was changed. Given European investments in their colonies, particularly in things like education (and the ability to introduce family planning policies too), it's extremely likely much of this ATL's Global South is well into it's demographic transition by the time their version of the Green Revolution arrives: With the colonial populations addressed, what about the Europeans themselves? The low fertility rates of OTL were extremely contingent on the social ramifications of both World Wars and would likely not exist here. Case in point of how things could've been different is France, which spent the 1800s with low fertility rates that were considered a bit of a joke in Europe. In 1920, France responded by banning contraception and Anti-Natal propaganda and thereafter-sans a period during the Great Depression-was always above replacement, often by a large amount. In 1967, France would begin the process of legalizing contraception again and finished the process in 1974; France promptly dropped below replacement in 1975. This wasn't limited to France either. In response to low birth rates under the Weimar Republic and with an obvious ideological desire to achieve high birthrates, Nazi Germany would ban abortion, contraception and institution tax exemptions. The fertility rate thereafter would rise from 1.7 to 2.47 in 1939 and hit a peak of 2.5 in 1940 before declining as WWII raged on. German soldiers would also take their policies during the war elsewhere, resulting in a baby boom in Norway. Less radical regimes would, via limiting things like abortion and contraception, also achieve stabilization in the fertility rates. Both Francoist Spain, Salazarist Portugal and the military regime in Greece during the early to mid Cold War being examples of this. Given the relatively conservative nature of the European Empires prior to the First World War and the examples listed, I think it is very likely fertility rates probably stabilize somewhere between the replacement rate of 2.1 and 2.5 over the course of the 20th Century; even today the desired fertility of most European women is that exact range. Now add all the other factors we've talked about; the likelihood that the colonial populations will experience an accelerated demographic transition before the population boom of the Green Revolution and the lack of the casualties from two World Wars that has already been brought up by me and others. On the eve of WWI, Europeans (and their descendants in places like North America and Australia) composed roughly 36% of the Global population; by 1960, after two major conflicts, this had been reduced to around 28%. Even with that catastrophic drop, in 1960 there was still roughly four Europeans for every African. In short, I think there is exceeding evidence the Europeans powers can maintain their colonies for far longer and their settlers can achieve durable majorities in several of them. They have a larger total base from which to send colonists and said base has a much healthier birth rate than OTL to boot. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 20, 2024 14:44:09 GMT
ewellholmes ,
Basically your assuming that Europe stay's in very much a 19thC situation, both socially and economically.No development of equal rights for women, or of technology much beyond early 20thC levels. Your still going to get the technological changes that improves wealth and probably also the economic/political ones that encourage consumption as a result and make raising children more and more expensive, as well as issues like steadily increasing restrictions on child labour.
In the 3rd World the Green Revolution wasn't the cause of the continued rapid growth - which was more due to western technology, especially in terms of health conditions allowing more children to survive - but rather a response to the rapidly growing numbers of children surviving their 1st years, as infant mortality dropped. Yes it did take less time for the demographic transition to affect the 3rd world but that was in part because all the tools for it were in place by the time they went through it, as opposed to still being developed when the longer process started in the semi-developed west.
The issue was that children were born and died in large numbers and it took time for 1st better living standards and increased knowledge to allow more children to survive and then realisation of this + social changes which meant children increasingly became expensive to raise rather than sources of cheap labour to prompt even highly conservative cultures such as Italy or Spain in Europe or much of the ME to start cutting the number of births. Those factors are pretty much universal in the modern world and while the timing might change somewhat their very likely to still occur in any alternative world without massive differences.
Without WWI and assuming as we all seem to be doing that there isn't another massive war in Europe there will be more people in Europe, especially in eastern Europe, because both the wartime deaths won't occur and also a lot of men will be at home with their families rather than away for years at a time at the front. You might get a delay in social development without the war meaning those men away and the demands of war advanced the move towards rights for women and their being needed in the factories but that would only delay things a bit. Also in a more heavily populated world something like the Flu pandemic might simply kill more people although whether and when such a pandemic would occur and its impact would be uncertain.
Where are those additionally westerners going to go? The US is likely to close the gate sooner or later and possibly earlier here with pre-war migration continuing without the war disrupting it. Australia and Canada are limited by climatic factors and S Africa similarly but also by political and economic limitations. [I mean here the Boers will oppose more settlement from the English speaking world also with a sizeable and cheap black/Indian labour force there's going to be little scope for white workers in agriculture, mining or other unskilled work. In the rest of the world the environment is far less welcoming for Europeans and in most places that could support large populations, i.e. across India, China, SE Asia or parts of Africa there are already large native populations. There is suitable land in Namibia - although that required brutal ethnic cleansing and has limited room for a large population - and E Africa but which is already largely occupied. Even if poor Europeans want to go to unhealthy places with poor living standards what work are they going to find there. Unless you apply Nazi type polices your not going to find suitable economic occupations for them and even then it would mean devastating existing economic structures.
Note that given it bore the brunt of both world wars OTL, although with the Russian civil war and its aftermath the biggest single area of additional population in this scenario is going to be from eastern Europe and probably especially Russia. That could see some expansion with native populations being largely displaced in Central Asia, although the environment could be a big restriction here and possibly also the Balkans and Ottoman lands, although such moves are likely to be opposed by other great powers. A very successful Russian state might overrun much of northern China but its unlikely to be able to exterminate or expel the massive Han population so any such move would be a temporary position depending on Russian strength and Chinese weakness.
Do you honestly think that in TTL Britain would still rule Indian in 2020 and if so under what conditions?
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ewellholmes
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Post by ewellholmes on Sept 20, 2024 22:54:31 GMT
ewellholmes ,
Basically your assuming that Europe stay's in very much a 19thC situation, both socially and economically.No development of equal rights for women, or of technology much beyond early 20thC levels. Your still going to get the technological changes that improves wealth and probably also the economic/political ones that encourage consumption as a result and make raising children more and more expensive, as well as issues like steadily increasing restrictions on child labour. No, I'm assuming things continue to change; it wasn't wealth or technology that lead to the decline of fertility rates, nor was raising children then or now prohibitively expensive. Outside of Vichy I don't think you can credibly claim France, for example, was an extremist state between 1920 and 1974. What did change and led to the low fertility rates of the last 50 years is things like contraception (including abortion) and the decline of things like marriage:  All the medical advances in the world in reducing infant mortality mean nothing if said children go onto starve to death due to famines, which is why the consensus opinion is that the Green Revolution is what enabled the boom in global population from the 1960s onward. This is extremely obvious when you look at the growth in population compared to agricultural output; it's a 1:1 match. No, nor did I ever claim that. What I did say in my previous reply and in earlier replies is that Colonialism will last for longer, perhaps two generations more, and then gradually decline with most nations practicing something like France did with her ex-colonies in Africa and probably elsewhere. I also suspect that several countries of OTL will become majority European here; likely Namibia, Eritrea, Libya and possibly Algeria. South Africa might become plurality European, while other places will see extensive settlement and thus have higher populations. OTL, Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonies had high standards of living and were starting to attract serious settlement but by then everything had changed and Imperialism was on the way out. Kenya's highlands are another area in Africa I can think of. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 20, 2024 23:48:59 GMT
ewellholmes ,
Basically your assuming that Europe stay's in very much a 19thC situation, both socially and economically.No development of equal rights for women, or of technology much beyond early 20thC levels. Your still going to get the technological changes that improves wealth and probably also the economic/political ones that encourage consumption as a result and make raising children more and more expensive, as well as issues like steadily increasing restrictions on child labour. No, I'm assuming things continue to change; it wasn't wealth or technology that lead to the decline of fertility rates, nor was raising children then or now prohibitively expensive. Outside of Vichy I don't think you can credibly claim France, for example, was an extremist state between 1920 and 1974. What did change and led to the low fertility rates of the last 50 years is things like contraception (including abortion) and the decline of things like marriage: All the medical advances in the world in reducing infant mortality mean nothing if said children go onto starve to death due to famines, which is why the consensus opinion is that the Green Revolution is what enabled the boom in global population from the 1960s onward. This is extremely obvious when you look at the growth in population compared to agricultural output; it's a 1:1 match. No, nor did I ever claim that. What I did say in my previous reply and in earlier replies is that Colonialism will last for longer, perhaps two generations more, and then gradually decline with most nations practicing something like France did with her ex-colonies in Africa and probably elsewhere. I also suspect that several countries of OTL will become majority European here; likely Namibia, Eritrea, Libya and possibly Algeria. South Africa might become plurality European, while other places will see extensive settlement and thus have higher populations. OTL, Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonies had high standards of living and were starting to attract serious settlement but by then everything had changed and Imperialism was on the way out. Kenya's highlands are another area in Africa I can think of.
Would have to disagree there. Wealth, technology which enabled that wealth gain and the shift in the cost of raising children compared to earlier ages definitely had big impacts.
With that graph which populations are being measured? Is it related to a particular period or some rough approximation for the entire planet?
Yes a lot of children would have died without technology enabling larger populations to be supported. However those children would still have been born in many cases and the high death rates which would have occurred without some technological or political changes would have had significant social and political results. If the bulk of the population is seeing widespread famine and suffering while a relatively small elite is living comfortably your got a recipe for serious unrest if not open rebellion which is unlikely to end well for anyone.
I notice your not saying where those proposed tens of millions of migrants from Europe are going to go for them to have secure living standards even if that means forcing starvation on the local population. Its unlikely that Algeria could stay in a permanent state of apartheid that would see radically different levels of living standards for the two populations. In Rhodesia there was considerable wealth - for the tiny white minority - but this relied on the bulk of the population living at markedly lower levels of wealth and services whether those were the native population or white migrants who somehow replaced the black population. I know less about the Portuguese colonies but given they were often described as badly run and chaotic I'm not sure how practical large scale white migration would be. Smaller areas such as Libya, Namibia and Eritrea might have become isolated predominantly white populated enclaves for a while at least but if they are successful their going to be the 1st stopping points for people migrating from neighbouring countries to escape poverty. Which raises questions about how long that white majority would stay such.
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ewellholmes
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Post by ewellholmes on Sept 21, 2024 1:55:06 GMT
Would have to disagree there. Wealth, technology which enabled that wealth gain and the shift in the cost of raising children compared to earlier ages definitely had big impacts. Demographers have extensively looked at it and there's just no evidence for wealth and technology. What does make the difference in fertility is culture, with extensive evidence to back it up. Specifically, it looks at the United States but you can find similar data for specifically Europe. The decline of marriage is a reoccurring theme there too, as well as Japan. Probably not, because population take off didn't happen until the Green Revolution either; it's interconnected. You'll have to forgive me for missing your question on that. The migrants will go to the colonies of course, and I named several in my previous reply. Kenya's Highlands, for example, were starting to see serious White settlement for example. Nor would it stay that way, the French would probably extend citizenship. Does it? What is this based on? They actually had extremely high living standards and experienced mass migration after WWII historically. Why exactly would they let them come? Given the lower populations to send migrants from other places anyway and higher fertility rates, I don't see why this would change either. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 21, 2024 10:59:54 GMT
Would have to disagree there. Wealth, technology which enabled that wealth gain and the shift in the cost of raising children compared to earlier ages definitely had big impacts. Demographers have extensively looked at it and there's just no evidence for wealth and technology. What does make the difference in fertility is culture, with extensive evidence to back it up. (a)Specifically, it looks at the United States but you can find similar data for specifically Europe. The decline of marriage is a reoccurring theme there too, as well as Japan. (b)Probably not, because population take off didn't happen until the Green Revolution either; it's interconnected. (c)You'll have to forgive me for missing your question on that. The migrants will go to the colonies of course, and I named several in my previous reply. Kenya's Highlands, for example, were starting to see serious White settlement for example. (d)Nor would it stay that way, the French would probably extend citizenship. (e)Does it? What is this based on? (f)They actually had extremely high living standards and experienced mass migration after WWII historically. (g)Why exactly would they let them come? Given the lower populations to send migrants from other places anyway and higher fertility rates, I don't see why this would change either. (h)
a) That disagrees with everything I've read over the decades. Your also ignoring the social aspects that I mentioned. As children cease being a source of cheap labour and become a substantial economic burden to bring up.
b) Thanks for the clarification. Marriage rates have been declining in the west for generations, as have birth rates within marriage. I see no evidence that wouldn't occur in TTL. Even in countries with strong religious pressure for high birth rates the values have dropped substantially.
c) Please read again what I said. Your assuming that no technological or other benefits will occur for the local populations while migrants live under much better conditions and that no great unrest will result. With their people in deep poverty and many children dying while others have much better conditions that will cause much bitterness. Please don't say that this will be solved by such benefits being passed to the natives as well because it won't be for a period at least, probably a couple of generations and the decline in birth rates will then take a further time to begin.
d) The White highlands were a relatively limited area with plantation like conditions where the best land was reserved for a small number of white landowners who relied heavily on local black cheap labour. You can't support large numbers of migrants, in absolute terms, in such conditions. Are you going to have a lot of poorer white replacing the black labourers in which case where will they live and who will build their housing and other facilities and where will the displaced blacks go?
The vast bulk of Africa were deemed unsuitable for Europeans for climatic and disease reasons and also sustained substantial local populations that as you pointed out basically filled the carrying capacity of the land. Your going to need to persuade white settlers to go to those areas and have to build facilities for them, as well as either boost the technology to support larger populations - in which case the local population will also benefit with higher survival rates - or have to remove the local population and have more expensive white workers.
e) That would mean equal political and hence economic rights for the local population which their going to seek to enforce. No ability to drive them off the best land, equal access to schooling, medical access and the like and hence enable them to share in the demographic boom. Your going to have a significantly larger local population that's going to out-compete migrants because they will be cheaper.
f) If your referring to the historical situation, historical data. If your referring to the idea that land and other activities can be found for migrants without removing locals the common sense.
g) Do those high living standards compare to the Portuguese homeland, the developed world in general or to the standards of the local population? Also would Portugal, a relatively small country be able to breed enough to fill any empty land faster than the locals or are you assuming that the bulk of those settlers would come from elsewhere in the west?
h) For the same reason that such migration occurs nowadays. Because they provide a cheap source of labour, which can compete with local native populations let alone white migrants. Also because as in many other areas desperate people are difficult to stop. Especially here were there are common land borders with neighbouring states from which those people would come and because at least some of the locals might feel sympathy with the migrants.
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Post by Max Sinister on Sept 21, 2024 15:41:50 GMT
ewellholmes, just two things. - Which kind of culture encourages childbearing?
- Portuguese settled in their African colonies because the Salazar government encouraged them. It wouldn't have been the first colony which really was a drain for the country's resources.
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ewellholmes
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Post by ewellholmes on Sept 22, 2024 19:00:36 GMT
ewellholmes , just two things. - Which kind of culture encourages childbearing?
Pretty much every culture concerned with the future of itself and typically with higher ideals among the population. Whether it was a net drain or not is kinda outside the point, although living standards being high in Angola and other is what drove the settlement there. For much of his reign Salazar was actually limited migration there too. |
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ewellholmes
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Post by ewellholmes on Sept 22, 2024 19:26:55 GMT
a) That disagrees with everything I've read over the decades. Your also ignoring the social aspects that I mentioned. As children cease being a source of cheap labour and become a substantial economic burden to bring up. As I said, there's very little evidence for the former and almost none for the latter; increasingly the consensus among demographers is that cultural reasons explain most of the fertility decline. If you think economic reasons are the explanation, you'd have to explain why generous child benefits fail to produce durable increases in TFR but specifically cultural and religious polices do. In the example of the United States, since I know the most about that one, you can look at married fertility rates and see the all inclusive (Instead of individual sub-categories as in the chart) rate has actually went up slightly over the last decade, from 2.15 to 2.17 TFR. Again, if it was economic issues, how do you explain that? If you want to get even more granular, look at religious fertility rates. They're under the same economic pressure, but have above replacement fertility rates. Again, it all comes down to culture, not economics. Which ignores the causality of those trends, which is the entire point I've been making? It also ignores that, even IOTL, those trends were repeatedly bucked, most famously in the Mid-20th Century with the baby and marriage boom. Even with everything today, most women in Europe want to have between 2.1 and 2.5 kids, with the main reason they don't being the decline of marriage among other social causes. Because I have yet to see you present any evidence of this being the likely case? As I said before, I'm actually expecting European investments in infrastructure and education to increase. You seem convinced this is a zero sum game, where any prosperity for one group has to come at the expense of the other, rather than the influx of (likely skilled) European labor increasing the overall economy as that influx did for the United States in the 19th and 20th Century. A German businessman could, for example, move to Togoland and open up a plantation that commercially farms cash crops, hiring on a lot of locals for example, or French industrialists could create factories in Algeria, etc. Based on what? Can you provide evidence of this being the case? You talk much of technology but fail to understand that said advancements also eliminated the handicaps on European settlement into Africa. Disease was pretty substantially combated, especially the sleeping sickness and malaria, while things like A/C make it much more doable. As I said, I'm already expecting pretty serious European investment to develop the continent, in order to get at the resources there. The chance for opportunity, as well as having a larger overall population from which to send immigrants, will lead to more settlement. Eventually, yes, Colonialism will come to an end and I've never denied that? I just don't think it will be the sudden and total end it was IOTL. Large swathes of Africa will likely become integral territory of European countries, and others will host large European-descended populations with the new countries probably more often than not stilled tied to their former colonizers via likes the la Françafrique. To what specifically are you referring to? The developed world in general, as the colonies were able to poach Portuguese about as effectively as Western Europe was able to attract them IOTL. I think we need to remember little Portugal historically, after relaxing controls on immigration to the colonies, saw Angola's White population go from 44,083 in 1940 to 172,529 in 1960. Now imagine what a Germany or a France without millions of losses in two World Wars could do in their own colonies. Which, again, doesn't mean they can't stop them particularly if there is a powerful constituency for such or other factors and ignores that Africa, for example, is much better off and likely has lower populations from which to send migrants. As I said, I think you're looking at this very deterministically and ignoring it's not a zero sum game either. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 22, 2024 21:06:59 GMT
a) That disagrees with everything I've read over the decades. Your also ignoring the social aspects that I mentioned. As children cease being a source of cheap labour and become a substantial economic burden to bring up. As I said, there's very little evidence for the former and almost none for the latter; increasingly the consensus among demographers is that cultural reasons explain most of the fertility decline. If you think economic reasons are the explanation, you'd have to explain why generous child benefits fail to produce durable increases in TFR but specifically cultural and religious polices do. In the example of the United States, since I know the most about that one, you can look at married fertility rates and see the all inclusive (Instead of individual sub-categories as in the chart) rate has actually went up slightly over the last decade, from 2.15 to 2.17 TFR. Again, if it was economic issues, how do you explain that? If you want to get even more granular, look at religious fertility rates. They're under the same economic pressure, but have above replacement fertility rates. Again, it all comes down to culture, not economics. Which ignores the causality of those trends, which is the entire point I've been making? It also ignores that, even IOTL, those trends were repeatedly bucked, most famously in the Mid-20th Century with the baby and marriage boom. Even with everything today, most women in Europe want to have between 2.1 and 2.5 kids, with the main reason they don't being the decline of marriage among other social causes. Because I have yet to see you present any evidence of this being the likely case? As I said before, I'm actually expecting European investments in infrastructure and education to increase. You seem convinced this is a zero sum game, where any prosperity for one group has to come at the expense of the other, rather than the influx of (likely skilled) European labor increasing the overall economy as that influx did for the United States in the 19th and 20th Century. A German businessman could, for example, move to Togoland and open up a plantation that commercially farms cash crops, hiring on a lot of locals for example, or French industrialists could create factories in Algeria, etc. Based on what? Can you provide evidence of this being the case? You talk much of technology but fail to understand that said advancements also eliminated the handicaps on European settlement into Africa. Disease was pretty substantially combated, especially the sleeping sickness and malaria, while things like A/C make it much more doable. As I said, I'm already expecting pretty serious European investment to develop the continent, in order to get at the resources there. The chance for opportunity, as well as having a larger overall population from which to send immigrants, will lead to more settlement. Eventually, yes, Colonialism will come to an end and I've never denied that? I just don't think it will be the sudden and total end it was IOTL. Large swathes of Africa will likely become integral territory of European countries, and others will host large European-descended populations with the new countries probably more often than not stilled tied to their former colonizers via likes the la Françafrique. To what specifically are you referring to? The developed world in general, as the colonies were able to poach Portuguese about as effectively as Western Europe was able to attract them IOTL. I think we need to remember little Portugal historically, after relaxing controls on immigration to the colonies, saw Angola's White population go from 44,083 in 1940 to 172,529 in 1960. Now imagine what a Germany or a France without millions of losses in two World Wars could do in their own colonies. Which, again, doesn't mean they can't stop them particularly if there is a powerful constituency for such or other factors and ignores that Africa, for example, is much better off and likely has lower populations from which to send migrants. As I said, I think you're looking at this very deterministically and ignoring it's not a zero sum game either.
I think we will have to agree to differ. I'm not assuming a zero sum game as your suggesting. Just that importing large numbers of white setters which will be demanding much better conditions than the natives have been used to will cause an absolute as well as relative decline in their conditions, at least in the short term. To uplift them towards European levels would mean massive investment that is unlikely to be contributed by the metropolis, which is who would be providing the funding for this.
On point g) I notice your finally saying that the Portuguese who migrated to their colonies had living standards that coupled with the superior social/economic status they would have compared to the local population meant some were lured to the colonies, but says nothing about the living conditions of the vast majority of the population.
Those millions of Europeans not dying in WWI would have struggled to find suitable places to live across the vast majority of the colonial world. Assorted medical improvements would help over time but not that early and your still got very unpleasant conditions across most of Africa.
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ewellholmes
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Post by ewellholmes on Sept 22, 2024 22:03:51 GMT
I think we will have to agree to differ. I'm not assuming a zero sum game as your suggesting. Then as I said, why are you assuming there won't be a general uplifting in the economic prospects as a result of skilled European labor immigration? Again, what is the evidence for that? But I didn't say that, actually. I said the living standards in the colonies were sufficient they they attracted Portuguese immigration. Based off objective measures of well being, there's not proof this led to a decline in living standards for the native population. Again, what is the proof for this? Most issues associated with settlement in Africa had been resolved by the time of World War I and is why there was an increasing stream of European migration there. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 23, 2024 9:59:36 GMT
I think we will have to agree to differ. I'm not assuming a zero sum game as your suggesting. Then as I said, why are you assuming there won't be a general uplifting in the economic prospects as a result of skilled European labor immigration? Again, what is the evidence for that? But I didn't say that, actually. I said the living standards in the colonies were sufficient they they attracted Portuguese immigration. Based off objective measures of well being, there's not proof this led to a decline in living standards for the native population. [c]Again, what is the proof for this? Most issues associated with settlement in Africa had been resolved by the time of World War I and is why there was an increasing stream of European migration there. [d]
a) & b) Read what I said. I'm pointing out that a significant level of white migration into a colony, consuming considerable resources will obviously draw down resources that won't be available for the natives. In the longer term that might lead to an improvement in the total wealth of the colony - although likely most of any such increase will still most likely largely go to the white minority - but that will take time and investment from the metropolis. Your assuming massive resources will appear out of thin air immediately the colonists arrive, with is obviously impossible.
c) That's what I said. Your assuming more migrants, hogging more and more of the colonies resources. That must have an absolute impact on the locals in the short term. Even if things improve for the locals in later years/decades, for which your provided zero evidence as your just admitted there's still going to be a gulf in relative terms as well as the Europeans maintaining political control. [If they don't their privileges won't last even apart from any racism or other factors]. Your arguing that living standards for the white migrants were automatically transferred over to the locals for which again you provide zero evidence.
d) There were improvements in knowledge but the continent, especially south of the Sahara were still blighted by disease and unfavourable climate. It was only in WWII and afterwards that the 1st antibiotics and cheap and reliable treatment for diseases such as malaria started to become available. Note that even nowadays the latter is still one of the biggest killers on the continent.
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ewellholmes
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Post by ewellholmes on Sept 23, 2024 22:43:21 GMT
a) & b) Read what I said. I'm pointing out that a significant level of white migration into a colony, consuming considerable resources will obviously draw down resources that won't be available for the natives. In the longer term that might lead to an improvement in the total wealth of the colony - although likely most of any such increase will still most likely largely go to the white minority - but that will take time and investment from the metropolis. Your assuming massive resources will appear out of thin air immediately the colonists arrive, with is obviously impossible. You noticeably avoided answering the questions I asked directly in this regard: Why won't skilled immigration to Africa produce the same economic benefits we saw it cause everywhere else it went? In Latin America, for example, European immigration was economically beneficial, just as it was in the United States. As I've asked before, can you provide any evidence for this? I also don't recall admitting to any of that, so you could also extend me the curtsy of quoting where I said that? That actually started in the lead up to World War I as said, particularly on things like malaria. Not sure what anti-biotics have to do with anything in this case because you don't use those to treat malaria or sleeping sickness, etc. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 24, 2024 10:53:24 GMT
a) & b) Read what I said. I'm pointing out that a significant level of white migration into a colony, consuming considerable resources will obviously draw down resources that won't be available for the natives. In the longer term that might lead to an improvement in the total wealth of the colony - although likely most of any such increase will still most likely largely go to the white minority - but that will take time and investment from the metropolis. Your assuming massive resources will appear out of thin air immediately the colonists arrive, with is obviously impossible. You noticeably avoided answering the questions I asked directly in this regard: Why won't skilled immigration to Africa produce the same economic benefits we saw it cause everywhere else it went? In Latin America, for example, European immigration was economically beneficial, just as it was in the United States. As I've asked before, can you provide any evidence for this? I also don't recall admitting to any of that, so you could also extend me the curtsy of quoting where I said that? That actually started in the lead up to World War I as said, particularly on things like malaria. Not sure what anti-biotics have to do with anything in this case because you don't use those to treat malaria or sleeping sickness, etc. [c]
a) Now your well into the inaccurate to the point of stupidity. I have answered your question but you don't like the answer so your ignoring it. There might well be improvements over time, despite the much more difficult issues of developing regions in those conditions and the probability that the majority of such gains will go to the European migrants but that will take years if not decades and require a lot of investment, not coming for free immediately as your suggesting.
Furthermore given the cultural/racial division any such economic system is likely to be closer to the US south than anywhere else in the world with pressed labour meaning that the blacks are forced to do a lot of the work, often in harsh conditions to make facilities for the white migrants.
b) Your admitting that the European settlers would be having a living standard compared to their compatriots in Portugal, which means markedly higher than the native population. Again I ask you to actually provide any data to say otherwise that the native population had as high a living standard as the European migrants.
c) Some steps were made, especially with mosquito borne diseases but it was still a major killer in WWII and up to the present day. Antibiotics are very important for treating infections and in the sort of conditions you get in much of Africa that is a very big factor given you have multiple vectors for infections and also a hot and humid climate in most areas which speeds up infections.
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Post by Max Sinister on Sept 25, 2024 1:36:11 GMT
ewellholmes , just two things. - Which kind of culture encourages childbearing?
Pretty much every culture concerned with the future of itself and typically with higher ideals among the population. I'd have expected rather pointing out specific cultures/religions as an answer.
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