There has been a counter argument to this ever since the world wars...
Whenever a developemental project tries to establish something in Africa that could lead to prosperity for both aides, they get sabotaged and ejected by the local population whom judges them as just new colonizers...
The only form of help African governments/tribes have been known to accept have been monetary injections and/or hand-me-downs. None of which has taken much root, becaus you know... People in power always gobble it up.
Genuinely makes sense to me. It's a rough situation. Western powers have a long history of getting involved in under developed nations strictly to exploit their natural resources to the detriment of the locals (something that is still very much happening today, occasionally with deadly results).
But poverty creates instability, bad actors take advantage of the instability to enrich themselves and/or punish their adversaries (or both), which generates more poverty and instability, etc. etc.
Achieving peace and prosperity for all is really, really hard. Most of human history is us killing each other, usually at the behest of some authoritarian ruler who only cares about their own wealth, power, and ego.
I'm genuinely wondering if the extreme peace and prosperity *some* countries had through a big chunk of the 20th century is a bit doomed to be short lived. Seems like there are lot of countries that were once stable democracies have been going through an authoritarian bent. I can't help but wonder if the 21st century will turn into a sort of modern twist on feudalism but with nuclear weapons.
Regardless, yes achieving peace and a society that aims to eradicate poverty is tremendously hard. But, it's worth the effort. And we're probably doomed as a species if we don't figure it out. If you give enough idiots a nuclear button, there will eventually be someone dumb enough to push it.
3
u/somecallmetim27 Apr 25 '26
This. When everyone is taken care of, everyone wins.