Esleman Abay

Poor countries are developing rich countries

Unlike what most people think, the rich and developed countries are actually taking money away from poor and developing countries.

Axel Adams

November 15, 2022

How much money do rich countries gain from the poor?

According to Hickel (2022), about 16.3 trillion USD has flowed out of poor countries since 1980. In this way, poor countries are actually helping to develop rich countries.

Where does this money come from?

Some of the money comes from interest repayments from loans. Developing forked over 4.2 trillion USD since 1980. Another big contributor is the income that foreigners make on their investments in developing countries and then repatriate back home.

Key Findings

Research Questions:

How much money is gained from poor countries?
Who takes the money?
How do the poor countries make money?
What gets traded between the rich and poor?
What is trade?

These questions were used to guide the reesearch presented below. Becuase this topic is very complex, a variety of relvant information on this topic was researched and used.

BBC:

According to the BBC , trade refers to the exchange of goods and services between countries. More than half the world’s trade takes place between just eight countries known as the G8. The G8 includes some of the world’s wealthiest and most industrialised countries. Usually, developed countries export valuable manufactured goods like cars and electronic parts. In developing countries, they export cheaper, smaller items like coffee and tea and other such things. Unfortunately, the developing countries don’t have enough money to get out of poverty.

FEE Stories:

According to FEE Stories and Joseph Hackett who wrote the article , the EU is actually hurting the agricultural side of poor countries by taxing trades between the poor and rich countries. They also harm the local fishing industries by having fishing quotas in Europe. The EU makes deals with various West African countries to allow its large trawlers to fish on a massive scale in those countries’ waters.

^{In 2014, Germany earned more from coffee exports than all of Africa combined.}

The Guardian:

According to Jason Hickel who wrote the article , about 16.3 trillion USD has flowed out of poor countries since 1980. This ultimately means that poor countries are effectively developing the rich ones.

^{Forget ‘developing’ poor countries, it’s time to ‘de-develop’ rich countries -Jason Hickel}

NewScientist:

According to the article written by Debora Mackenzie, a rich country’s aid agency pours millions into a new industry in a poor country, in the hope of boosting its economy, but it never really works. The poor countries can’t afford better electricity so blackouts often happen which slow down manufacturing. Another thing that slows down manufaturing is workers often being sick becuase of a lack of healthcare and the workers that don’t get sick will often immigrate to the developed countries in pursuit of a better job/life.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel I have successfully answered the reason why poor countries actually develop rich countries. They do this by recieving money from the rich countries, which they use to produce materials and components which they then sell to the rich countries. This trade however, gets taxed and the poor countries ultimately end up giving more than they recieved to the rich countries.