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world. This is a map of the world, these are its
countries, this is their GDP per capita, and that’s the equator. With a mere glance, a pattern emerges. This half of the world—the southern hemisphere—is
poorer than this half—the northern hemisphere. Of course, GDP is an imperfect indicator,
but even when you swap to another—like the United Nations’ Human Development Index—the
pattern holds. The southern hemisphere is, on average, less
developed than the north. In fact, of the fifty-eight countries the
World Bank classifies as “high income,” a mere five—Chile, Uruguay, the Seychelles,
Australia, and New Zealand—are located south of the equator. If you look at the entire global distribution
of wealth and average it to find the center—the world’s economic center of gravity—that
point is located here—northeast of Moscow, at roughly the same latitude as Stockholm. That center of wealth is pulled to this point
by the world’s three main economic centers: southeast Asia, western Europe, and North
America. The southern hemisphere, representing just
11% of the world’s population, has little economic sway, meager political influence,
and has never, in modern history, enjoyed a similar level of development to its northern
counterpart. So… why? The quick answer is we don’t know. As any phenomenon grows in size, an accurate
explanation grows increasingly difficult. This phenomenon spans the entirety of the
world’s geography, the entirety of modern history, and the entirety of the global economy. Therefore, any explanation is mere theory. Theories are not fact, but rather represent
a strong consensus in academic thinking. That being said, through time, theories can
be proved flawed, limited, or flat-out false. In fact, in the past hundred years, the way
in which we think about how geography correlates to wealth has changed fundamentally. Take, for example, this—the opening lines
of the 1915 book Civilization and Climate, by Ellsworth Huntington. “The races of the earth are like trees. Each according to its kind brings forth the
fruit known as civilization. As russet apples and pippins may grow from
the same trunk, and as peaches may even be grafted on a plum tree, so the culture of
applied races may be transferred from one to another. Yet no one expects pears on cherry branches,
and it is useless to look for Slavic civilization among the Chinese.” He goes on to liken the actions of humans
to a grower cultivating their vineyard—this can enhance a crop, but what matters more
is the geography of where the grapes grows. No matter how well cultivated, you’d never
expect good grapes from Greenland. Huntington posits that the two key factors
influencing the success of an vineyard are its environment—which it inherited—and
its health—which is dependent on human action. Huntington then asks, “Does the fruit known
as civilization depend upon these same conditions? It seems to me that it does. Few would question that a race with a superb
mental and physical inheritance and endowed with perfect health is capable of adding indefinitely
to the cultural inheritance received from its ancestors, and thus may attain the highest
civilization. But if that same cultural inheritance were
given to a sickly race with a weak inheritance of both mind and body, there would almost
surely be degeneration.” In short, Huntington argues that if one were
to give good land to, in his words, a “sickly race,” they would be incapable of properly
developing it. Rhetoric like this is what was used to justify
colonialism. Further core arguments of the book include
theories positing that mental abilities correlate to average temperatures—the colder the climate,
the smarter its people are. Therefore, in his logic, if you took people
with higher mental abilities, from the cooler areas, and brought them to manage the hotter
areas, they would be more successful, both literally and figuratively, in cultivating
the land. This is false. This is also, unequivocally, racist. It’s no surprise that later in his career,
Huntington’s research devolved into flat-out eugenics. We now know the belief that a hotter environment
makes people, quote, unquote, “uncivilized,” as was once a prevailing view, is absurd. The temperature or physical environment of
a place does not change a person in any meaningful way. The reason this south-west corner of Egypt,
for example, is almost completely undeveloped is not because the sun is degrading its people’s
mental abilities. However, simultaneously, it would be absurd
to believe that geography does not play a role in development. We know, with some certainty, that the reason
this corner of Egypt is almost completely undeveloped is because its in the Sahara Desert—with
inhumane heat, little to no water, and few desirable natural resources. The thin line between racism and legitimate
theory is what makes examining any correlation between geography and wealth so difficult. However, a simple rule can delineate the two. Geography does not influence a person’s
ability to develop a place. However, geography can influence a place’s
ability to be developed by people. A place’s development potential is absolutely
influenced by geography. Therefore, that poses a question: what does
the northern hemisphere have that the southern does not? In short: latitude. Not only does the southern hemisphere have
about half as much land as the northern, but that land does not stretch as far from the
equator. For example, Cape Town, at the southern tip
of Africa, sits about 34 degrees south of the equator. In the northern hemisphere, cities at an equivalent
distance to the equator include Los Angeles or Baghdad—hardly what anyone would consider
“northern cities.” So, what effect does this have? This is a graph composed of the world’s
countries. The higher a given country is, the wealthier
it is on a per capita basis, while the further to the right it is, the further it sits from
the equator. The pattern that emerges is decisive. The further a country is from the equator,
the wealthier it is. Therefore, a plausible reason for why the
southern hemisphere is poorer is simply that its landmass sits closer to the equator. But that’s not a full explanation, because
it then presents a new question: why are equatorial countries poorer? Bounded by the perspective of our lifetimes,
its easy to forget how close we are in history to an era dominated by agriculture. Just 100 years ago, when the world was the
domain of many of our grandparents, 70% of earth’s working population was employed
in agriculture. Today, that number is just 27%. As industry innovation and mechanization ramped
up, so too did per person productivity. However, 27% is an average of a highly variable
dataset. Today, 1.66% of the US’ labor force is employed
in agriculture. 86% of the Central African Republic’s is. This indicator represents one of the starkest
differences between rich and poor countries. Places like the UK, France, Japan, and Australia
sit at low single-digits, while those like Mauritania, Madagascar, and Laos sit at high
double-digits. Unsurprisingly, comparing this map to that
of GDP per capita, it tracks quite closely. Countries with low GDP have high agricultural
employment percentages, and vice versa. So, does that mean poverty creates high agricultural
employment rates, or that high agricultural employment rates create poverty? Or, rather: is this correlation or causation? Well, according to the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations, 60% of the calories humans consume are derived from
just three crops: maize,—or corn, as it’s known in the US—rice, and wheat. Now, in agriculture, as any farmer will tell
you, climate is everything. In the case of the wheat, the highest yield
temperature—as in, the temperature that leads to the largest harvest of crop per unit
of land—is about 74 degrees Fahrenheit, or 23 Celsius. Every degree Celsius above that, average wheat
yields decrease by 10%. What this means is that more equatorial countries,
which tend to be hotter, have less productive wheat crops. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations created this map to show the average possible wheat yield around the world,
and unsurprisingly, it roughly correlates with the map of country’s agricultural labor
force proportion. This makes sense: the less productive farmland
is, the more people you need to produce a person’s worth of food. The more people working to create food, the
less there are to innovate and grow an economy. Therefore, this also correlates to the map
of country’s GDP per capita or human development index. While every crop is different, in terms of
its ideal temperature, as a generalization, warm, but not hot, places are those best suited
for agriculture. Those warm but not hot places are overwhelmingly
located in the temperate zone of latitudes, which encompasses very little of the southern
hemisphere’s landmass. It’s a similar story with disease. The burden of disease, while heavily skewed
by equatorial Africa, is, on average, higher the closer to the equator a country is. Malaria, for example, is one of the most deadly
infectious diseases in the world. Its prevalent predominantly in areas that
are hot year-round, have high humidity, and lots of rainfall which, overwhelmingly, represents
equatorial regions. Beyond Malaria, the lack of a cold season
in equatorial regions means that insect populations run rampant, and mosquitos, ticks, fleas,
and others are some of the most reliable disease vectors out there. Now, of course, in addition to insect-born
diseases, more common in equatorial areas, there are those that clearly are more common
in poverty-stricken places. Diarrhea, for example, is a leading cause
of death worldwide, and its root cause is often contaminated drinking water, which is
more common in places with inadequate or nonexistent water infrastructure. Therefore, it’s clear that poverty can spur
disease, but less clear whether disease can spur poverty. This is a topic that has been debated in the
world of international development for decades, but a lose consensus has formed that suggests
the answer is yes: a higher burden of disease can negatively impact a national economy. Of course, this makes sense. Disease often means a person is unable to
work, which means they are no longer able to expand an economy. So, its clear that around the equator, poverty
is increasing disease, and disease is increasing poverty, even if its unclear the extent to
which it’s one versus the other. So, correlative factors such as agricultural
yield, disease burden, and more certainly can cause a degree of poverty. However, it would be obtuse to think that
the incredible level of inequality in the world—with the average Norwegian earning
an average annual Somalian income in just three days—can be entirely explained by
some heat, wheat, and bugs. More likely, these factors opened a gap that
has been widened through time. In the US’ National Hockey League, 31 teams
competed in the 2020 - 2021 season, and their performance varied dramatically. At the upper end of that spectrum, the Washington
Capitals did quite well, having won some 36 games, while the Columbus Blue Jackets did…
less well, having won just 18. The Washington Capitals was established, as
a team, in 1974, while the Blue Jackets was formed in 1997. So here’s the question: is the reason the
Capitals are better than the Blue Jackets because they’ve had more time to develop? That is, are the Blue Jackets fundamentally
as good as the Capitals, but just 23 years behind in their development? Or rather, are the Blue Jackets performing
poorly because, in a sports league, by nature, some teams have to perform worse, and are
pushed into that position by certain teams acquiring the best players, hiring the best
coaches, and building the best facilities? Applying the same logic to countries, the
former theory would suggest that the reason why Russia is less developed than the UK is
because the UK experienced its industrial revolution from 1760 to 1820, while Russia
waited until 1850 to 1920 to have its in earnest. Therefore, with an 100 year head start, the
UK sits further along in the timeline of development. For the longest time, this was the explanation
for inequality, and interventions involved attempting to speed up a country’s progression
in the supposed development timeline. Certain countries started their industrial
development first so now, in an era where industrialization is everything in an economy,
certain countries have a leg up. That explanation eventually fell out of favor. It was once thought that after Africa decolonized,
once any gains from industry would go to a country itself, rather than its colonizer,
that these places would start their process of development. But then they didn’t. Many African countries are still in as desperate
a state as fifty years ago, and simply aren’t developing at all. Therefore, updated explanations have emerged—explanations
that would suggest that the reason certain countries are poor is not because of their
place in time, but rather their place in the world economy. Imagine there are just two countries. One has a GDP per capita of $10,000, the other
$20,000. The poorer country sells what we’ll call
primary goods—products that don’t require manufacturing, like agriculture and raw materials. The second country, however, sells manufactured
goods. They’ll take a tree and turn it into a stool,
for example. But now the richer country has invented ice
cream. Of course, people don’t need ice cream. People want ice cream, but they don’t need
it. Therefore, people only buy ice cream when
they have the money to do so—as in, when they’re wealthier. Because the wealthier country has now invented
a way to turn cheaper raw materials into a more expensive product, they’re now getting
richer. They’ll sell some of this within their own
country, some to the other country, and also buy some raw materials to make the ice cream
from the poorer country. Because the rich country is getting richer,
more people are able to buy that ice cream, so demand goes up. And as is economics 101, when demand for a
product goes up, but supply stays stable, so does the price. This cycle repeats itself—the rich country
might invent bikes, then lightbulbs, then eventually smartphones, and all the while,
its buying the materials to make these products from the poorer country—the one that sells
primary goods. Meanwhile, demand for primary goods has stayed
relatively stable. People buying manufactured goods aren’t
necessarily buying many more things, but just more expensive things, so the raw materials
industry is about stable, and with products like food, one person still buys about one
person’s worth of food, regardless of income. So, in summary, we know that demand for primary
goods, like food and raw materials, stays relatively stable regardless of a person’s
income. Demand for manufactured goods, however, increases
dramatically as one’s income does. Therefore, through time, the primary goods
country’s economy stays relatively stable, while the manufactured goods country’s economy
grows. All the while, the prices for manufactured
goods rise, as demand does, because the manufactured goods country’s people are becoming wealthier. Therefore, people in the poorer country are
increasingly less able to buy these manufactured goods, as their incomes have stayed relatively
stable. This is what’s theorized to be happening
in the real world, right now. We know that Papua New Guinea, for example,
cannot make iPhones. Their industrial sector just is not equipped
for the most advanced manufacturing. Therefore, their economy is more centered
around primary goods—its an extractive economy. Places like Japan, however, have developed
so much, and their wages have grown so much, that it rarely makes financial sense for them
to produce primary goods, rather than manufactured goods. Therefore, we can say that, in general, poorer
countries produce primary goods, richer countries produce manufactured goods. The total cost of the raw materials in an
iPhone, for example—as in, the materials before any manufacturing process—is just
a few dollars. Through advanced manufacturing, that is transformed
into something that sells for more than $1,000. Therefore, with this theory, it’s believed
that poorer, primary goods producing countries are serving a crucial role in the world economy,
but not one that creates significant profit. As a result, they have no money to invest
in advancing their economy and are stuck producing primary goods. While this theory has lost some relevance
as outsourcing has become more common, its still the case that the companies profiting
from advanced manufacturing are overwhelmingly located in rich countries, even if the manufacturing
itself has moved somewhat to poorer countries. This is only a part of a complex and still
controversial theory, but at the crux of it is a simple belief: poorer countries are dependent. They create resources, and these resources
flow to richer countries, who reap the majority of their gains. While this was very much the case during the
era of colonialism, countries exited this era with largely the same economic system. Therefore, they were stuck making primary
goods, where they’re unable to accumulate significant capital and advance their economy. At the crux of it, according to this theory,
poor countries get poorer, and rich countries get richer. The countries closer to the equator, and those
that disproportionally make up the southern hemisphere, do have natural factors that legitimately
negatively impact their ability to develop economically. These factors very possibly were the origin
of the development gap between, for example, Europe and Africa. However, there is an increasing, albeit controversial,
consensus around the thought that our modern, global economic system might be working to
widen the gap between rich and poor. Nobody’s becoming a billionaire by running
a farm. They’re becoming a billionaire selling iPhones. Therefore, as some countries are stuck selling
food, minerals, and other raw materials to those that transform them into profit, their
cycle of poverty is bound to continue. This video, like many of mine, strives to
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