From: Damien R. Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 13 1998 - 15:20:51 MST
On Mar 13, 3:15pm, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote:
An alleged comparison of Spanish and English colonies:
> Spanish colonies: [GDP sorted]
> Country Lifespan Literacy GDP/capita
>
> Venezuela 72.09 91.1 9300
> Argentina 71.66 96.2% 8100
> Chile 74.49 95.2 8000
> Mexico 73.67 89.6 7700
> Uruguay 74.94 97.3 7600
> Panama 73.92 90.8 5100
> Costa Rica 75.72 94.8 5400
> Colombia 72.81 91.3 5300
> Ecuador 71.09 90.1 4100
> Peru 69.13 88.7 3600
> Dominican Rep 69.06 82.1 3400
> Guatemala 65.24 55.6 3300
> Paraguay 73.84 92.1 3200
> Bolivia 59.81 83.1 2530
> El Salvador 68.88 71.5 1950
> Honduras 68.42 72.7 1980
> Nicaragua 65.72 65.7 1700
> Cuba 75.05 95.7 1300
Let's quote ethnicity from the CIA Factbook:
% White mestizo Indians black
Venezuela 21 67 2 10
Argentina 85 15
Chile 95 3
Mexico 9 60 30
Uruguay 88 8 4
Panama 10 70 6
14% "West Indian"
Costa Rica 96 includes mestizo 1 2
Colombia 20 58 4
Ecuador 10 55 25 10
Peru 15 37 45
Bolivia 5-15 25-30 55
El Salvador 1 94 5
Honduras 1 90 7 2
Nicaragua 17 69 5 9
Cuba 37 11
51% mulatto
Belize 44 18
30% Creole; 8% 'other'; no white or European entry.
So: of the top 5 countries 3 are mostly white, one is rich in oil, and one has
a fair bit of oil and is right next to the US. Of the next three one has the
Panama Canal, one is mostly white, and one has oil.
Cuba's weird, with the 2nd highest life expectancy and 3rd highest literary,
but bottom GDP. It used to be close to the US economy but has been Communist
for 3 decades, without Nicaragua's civil war.
> English colonies: (Michael Lorrey's list)
>
> Bangladesh 55.86 38.1 1130
> Belize 68.53 70.3 2750
> Burma 56.14 83.1 1000
> Egypt 61.43 51.4 2760
> India 59.71 52.0 1500
> Kenya 55.6 78.1 1300
> Pakistan 58.46 37.8 2100
> South Africa 59.47 81.8 4800
> Sri Lanka 72.35 90.2 3600
> (Ceylon)
> Zimbabwe 41.85 85 1620
> (Rhodesia)
The richest country is South Africa, which also has the most Europeans (13%).
It's GDP compares favorably to similar Spanish colonies. It was also an old
Dutch colony before Britain took it over, and thus arguably doesn't belong on
the English table at all. That would leave them looking pretty poor (although
Ceylon's interesting.) But with the possible exception of Belize the others
have no European population to speak of. They were also all colonized in the
18th-19th century, I belive, as opposed to the 16th-17th.
> would have to be revised: not only do those english colonies not do better
> than the spanish colonies (haven't seen the french stats yet), they do
> much, much worse. And if india is the light of anything, then the world
Much worse than the colonies where the natives were nearly totally replaced by
Europeans, yes. One could say the English sin was to exploit their subjects
instead of killing or displacing them.
India also has the distinction of being very large, possibly larger than all
the other mentioned ex-colonies put together. (I'm not doing that math.)
The English brought low infant mortality; the Spanish brought smallpox.
> spanish colonies, and i included all the countries you mentioned. And in
> any case your separation between early and late colonisation
> is bogus since Australia, New Zealand, India, Ceylon and South Africa were
Wasn't S. Africa colonized by the Dutch earlier?
> into countries that did well and countries that didn't. In any case, my
> main point was in showing that your statement, and i quote, "If you looked
> at a list of countries today that were once British colonies, and compared
> them to the former colonies of other former great powers, you would find
> that the former British colonies are today much more stable, and developed
> economically, politically, and culturally, by and large." Especially,
A better comparison would use Asian or African colonies, particulary those
from the 19th century. Michael's in my killfile and I can't find his last
post, but he may have been thinking of English vs. French, German, and Belgian
colonies of the 19th century. India does compare favorably in this case.
Of course, almost anything out of Africa compares well. Of African countries
South Africa and Egypt are at the top -- both British. There's at least one
other country which quietly does fairly well; it'll be interesting to try to
dig that one up.
It shouldn't be too hard to figure out who's responsible for most African
colonies: check the official language.
-xx- GSV Cynical Optimist X-)
Pray, v: To ask that the laws of the universe be anulled in behalf of
one confessedly unworthy.
-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
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