Now that we’ve had a taste of what it’s like to let the third world move into your first world country, I’m pretty sure the majority of Americans can see why it’s a really bad idea. Many of these people are incapable of living in an advanced society. They have neither the skills nor the discipline to find a place for themselves in the modern world. And thus, we see the reason for deportation. Our society would have to support on many levels people who would not be productive members of this country.
Now let’s pull back a little and look at the really big picture. The Earth as a whole. Look at the continent of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America. Not all of these areas are made up of nothing but failed states full of squalor and crime. But a lot of it is. Even look right at our neighborhood. Haiti is about 650 miles from Key West. This is a place that has always been desperately poor and politically dysfunctional. A case could be made that the most stable it’s ever been was under the dictator “Papa Doc” Duvalier. Sure, he stole everything that wasn’t nailed down but he eliminated the gang warfare that exists whenever a strongman isn’t in charge.
Currently, the Haitian government has ceased to exist and the streets are ruled by gang leaders who occasionally dabble in cannibalism to intimidate their rivals and, come to think of it, everyone else. So, what we see is the kind of stone age tribalism that existed in prehistoric times. But now instead of hundreds or thousands of cave men we’re looking at places that have millions or even billions of people adding to the chaos.
I guess the easiest answer to what should be done is to build walls at our borders and let them sort it out for themselves. That is one solution. My guess is that would slowly return these areas to the population densities that existed before the Industrial Revolution. I say this because I assume the incredible increase in the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is completely dependent on food and medicine and technology that is provided by Western countries. If these things were taken away there would be an initial dying off of the population followed by a new equilibrium population at a much lower level than currently found. And stabilized in this way life would eventually resume its pre-colonial pattern with tribal people living a subsistence existence.
But that is a temporary condition. In the long run most of the third world locations will be considered useful for their mineral or other resources. For example, the Republic of Congo has a large list of minerals that are considered critical for many important industries. So even though it is one of the poorest and least stable places on Earth, Western (and Eastern) countries are greatly interested in the right to extract this wealth. But what to do about the Congolese?
And this same question applies to many other places. What is the path forward when the people who live somewhere are hopelessly backward? The old colonial model was to come in and take over and treat the natives as essentially subjects. Think of the British in India or Africa. They organized the natives into employees in the industries that the British saw as profiting Britain. So, agriculture or mining or whatever wealth could be extracted. Well, if we remember out twentieth century history, that didn’t work out in the end. Basically, the communists taught the natives about the concept of the consent of the ruled. And thus, we see the fragments of the various colonial empires looking around and trying to figure out how to rule themselves as successfully and efficiently as the Europeans did. But for the most part, the third world is still the dysfunctional third world. Something new is needed.
What it seems to me will have to evolve is a symbiotic relationship between the first and third worlds. Currently we cut a deal with whatever strongman is running Congo or Venezuela or Libya and he takes 90% of the money that belongs to his people. And this goes on until the next leader takes over and the same pattern repeats. It seems to me that we are in a position to help ourselves but also pull some of these places into modernity. I’m not talking about trying to turn Afghans into feminists or any nonsense like that. I’m wondering if we can create a buffer state within these backward places that can act as an incubator for progress.
Let’s think about that for Part 2.