'developing' nations

Ever since the end of World War II, third-world countries have been euphemistically referred to as 'developing nations.' Well, some of them-- China, India, South Korea, some others-- are 'developing' or have already 'developed.' That is, to say, they have created prosperous, first-world standards of living for their people by becoming part of the modern scientific-technological global economy and culture.

But what of the others? Are these countries really 'developing'? Are they ever really going to be 'developed'? Do you really think Haiti is ever going to become a 'developed' nation? I don't. And the reason is clear: They simply don't have enough people with the intellectual capacity to understand, let alone create, this kind of modern economy and society.

Take Puerto Rico-- please.  Puerto Rico and Guam are the last spoils we've kept from the Spanish-American War of 1898 (another war we should never have fought). We gave Cuba its independence almost immediately-- 1903. We held on to the Philippines until after World War II, but they've been independent for over 70 years now. We'll probably keep Guam forever, or at least as long as we retain pretensions to being a Pacific power.

But what about Puerto Rico? Why have we kept it all this time? Does it really have some overriding military significance that requires us to keep it? And why have we given it this peculiar 'Commonwealth' status, with talk every so often of making it a state?

I think the answer is that we wanted to make Puerto Rico a shining example, not just to the nations of the Caribbean, but to Latin America as a whole, of what good old American freemarket democracy could produce. In that effort, we've thrown billions of tax dollars and tax breaks at that island, but it really hasn't worked. Why not?

To me, the answer seems clear. There simply aren't enough people on Puerto Rico who have the intellectual capacity to manage a first-world economy. In fact, I've read (although don't quote me on this) that 40% of the Puerto Rican population is on welfare! IMHO, we should not only never grant Puerto Rico statehood, we should grant it its independence-- whether it wants it or not! And I'm sure an overwhelming majority of Americans feel the same way.

Let's face it, a lot of these third-world nations are never going to 'develop.' They will just remain indigenous societies with relatively low standards of living. And that's fine, as long as they don't over-reproduce and try to export their surplus population to the developed nations. This planet is big enough to contain a number of different types of human societies, and in some ways these indigenous cultures are preferable to ours. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that ultimately everybody is going to become part of the First World.