Re: Human Development Index 2004
--- Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any common cause with any of today's 3rd world economic\political elite (Malaysians? Brazilians? Koreans? Russians? Vietnamese?)? --- Russia is not a 3rd world country. __ Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign! http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/yahoo/votelifeengine/
Re: Human Development Index 2004
nor is Malaysia -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Doss Sent: 23 July 2004 14:40 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Human Development Index 2004 --- Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any common cause with any of today's 3rd world economic\political elite (Malaysians? Brazilians? Koreans? Russians? Vietnamese?)? --- Russia is not a 3rd world country. __ Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign! http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/yahoo/votelifeengine/
Re: Human Development Index 2004
Daniel Davies wrote: nor is Malaysia Behalf Of Chris Doss Russia is not a 3rd world country. Third World is not a useful category. Ulhas Yahoo! India Careers: Over 65,000 jobs online Go to: http://yahoo.naukri.com/
Re: Human Development Index 2004
Cuba needs to be compared with other nations that have a similar history and resource endowment, like Jamaica or the Dominican Republic. Cuba ranks 52, while Jamaica is at 79 and The Dominican Republic ranks 98th. Imagine if Jamaica and The Dominican Republic were subjected to unremitting economic warfare and had lost their major economic benefactor, then you can see how impressive Cuba's gains are. I am quite sure that if the USSR had wound up with a leadership more in line with the Cuban CP, world history would have taken an entirely different path. Daniel Davies wrote: nor is Malaysia -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Doss Sent: 23 July 2004 14:40 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Human Development Index 2004 --- Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any common cause with any of today's 3rd world economic\political elite (Malaysians? Brazilians? Koreans? Russians? Vietnamese?)? --- Russia is not a 3rd world country. __ Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign! http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/yahoo/votelifeengine/ . -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Human Development Index 2004
Third World is not a useful category. Ulhas --- Thank you! That is so true. It seems to be a synonym for poorer than the West. (Except that Saudi Arabia is usually called a third-world country, even though the average Saudi private residence is five times the size of one in Western Europe). If Russia is a third-world country, then it is one that exports high-tech weapons, has builds cruise missiles, sends people regularly into space (the only country to be doing so at present), and in which half of the population owns a mobile telephone. And about half own their own apartments. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Human Development Index 2004
Also worth noting (although to be honest I'm not anything like informed enough to be a booster or otherwise of the Cuban economy) that unlike Jamaica and Dom. Rep., Cuba's economy is not a material exporter of cannabis or cocaine, although it is perfectly well set up to be. This has to be considered something of an undeserved present from the Cuban economy to the USA. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: 23 July 2004 15:12 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Human Development Index 2004 Cuba needs to be compared with other nations that have a similar history and resource endowment, like Jamaica or the Dominican Republic. Cuba ranks 52, while Jamaica is at 79 and The Dominican Republic ranks 98th. Imagine if Jamaica and The Dominican Republic were subjected to unremitting economic warfare and had lost their major economic benefactor, then you can see how impressive Cuba's gains are. I am quite sure that if the USSR had wound up with a leadership more in line with the Cuban CP, world history would have taken an entirely different path.
Human Development Index 2004
Thanks to Louis and to Ulhas for pointing out the recently released Human Development Index 2004 and Doug for his comments. I want to make a somewhat different point about indexes themselves - caution about their use. Social, economic and political indexes have become a popular tool among think tanks, NGOs and in official governmental organizations - for some of the most important uses (such as allocating aid funds or assessing policies) they now often replace the use of the underlying data itself. Constructing mathematical indexes to present disparate data in a consolidated manner parallels the long-standing trend in Economics of presenting extensive mathematical or econometric models - and it falls into several similar traps. These newly emerging socio-economic indexes often use extraordinary arithmetical measures whose methods are not available to 99% percent of those who read the reports. I find three problems often appear: 1) Indexes (which inherently combine 'apples and oranges') often do so in arbitrary and misleading ways that are not accessible to 99% of the users. While at first glance there are enough similarities to the original data to make the index seem plausible, the flaws show up as the data gets put to use in important judgements (such as whether there is relative progress over time, or the value of particular controversial policies). Frequently these flaws show up with a bias. For example at http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/pdf/hdr04_backmatter_2.pdf you will see how the Human Development Index (HDI) is constructed. It merges data from 3 fields (health, education and GDP), so first it creates an index (normalizing) of each one. The health proxy is the least problematic: life expectancy of 85 years is = 100; 25 years = 0. But now we are not measuring years of life but numbers on the index and this can (and does) affect the final conclusions in unforeseeable ways. I will come back to the indexes on Education and GDP. The three indexes numbers are then merged into one index number: decided as 1/3 for each factor. (I am not making this up!) So one assumes that an index number of say 10 points in education equals an index number of 10 points in health or GDP and that they can be merged even though these index numbers themselves are arbitrarily chosen, correspond to nothing in the real world and can not be logically added together. 2) Some index numbers have other indexes or artificial constructs nested inside them, making them an arbitrary index of arbitrary indexes. For example in the HDI (per the website above), the education index contains an (arbitrary) literacy index and an (arbitrary) enrollment index mixed in (arbitrary) 2/3rds to 1/3 proportion. The most problematic is the GDP per capita element which is not, in itself, a human development indicator at all. In fact this index uses the PPP version of GDP - a vast recalculation of the GDP that has an enormous amount of arbitrary (and biased!) assumptions that create an as if world rooted in neo-classical trade theory [too much to elaborate in this post]. The PPP numbers produce numbers that narrow the gap between most developing and developed countries AND continue to show that gap narrowing over time (mostly because PPP assumes a world AS IF 3rd world labor could freely trade in the developed world market). PPP also shows the US significantly richer than Europe (mostly because it assumes a US based market basket AS IF Europeans strived to live an American style life). For no intrinsic reason (these are apples and oranges) the disparities in income numbers are larger than the numbers produced for health and education, so it is the natural logarithm of the PPP version of GDP/p.c. that is used (?!). 3) All of these index calculations create proxies of proxies. However inaccurate or biased they are (or are not), one is no longer debating the real problems of real people. Rather, one debates the meaning or the construction of indexes. The focus shifts from mass movements to policy analysts and negotiators. There are clear allies (and de facto opponents) of an effort to end unnecessary child deaths in the 3rd world or to provide functional literacy for every adult. But debates among NGOs, academics, and development officials about raising the human development index is not process that necessarily leads to mobilization of those allies in a common movement. In short, the indexes can sometimes take one away from a focus on the practical reality or actual people and lead away from the social processes that produce change. It is not that I am against all indexes for all uses (and the HDI is among the most benign). But as analytical and as mobilizing tools they have to be treated at arms length - above all one has to look 'under the hood'. Paul
Re: Human Development Index 2004
Paul wrote: It is not that I am against all indexes for all uses (and the HDI is among the most benign). I should have added that part of the impulse behind the development of the HDI was to reduce pressure for redistribution - to shift the focus from economic to social indicators. Of course, there are virtues to foregrounding social over economic indicators, and lots of people use the HDI complex for those purposes, but at the higher levels, the more sinister spin applied. My source on this is a former long-time UN press officer, and it was subsequently confirmed by someone very close to Mahbub ul-Haq, the Pakistani economist who guided the development of the index. Doug
Re: Human Development Index 2004
Paul wrote: Thanks to Louis and to Ulhas for pointing out the recently released Human Development Index 2004 and Doug for his comments. I want to make a somewhat different point about indexes themselves - caution about their use. Social, economic and political indexes have become a popular tool among think tanks, NGOs and in official governmental organizations - for some of the most important uses (such as allocating aid funds or assessing policies) they now often replace the use of the underlying data itself. I completely agree. Although I don't have the training to back this up, I suspect that these statistics paint too rosy a picture of 3rd world melioration. No surprise, since the World Bank is a major supplier of raw statistical data. That being said, it is remarkable that Cuba has climbed up into the first tier of nations. Could you imagine if the USA had a hostile neighbor to the North that was nearly 30 times the size in population and had about 500 times greater GDP and was bent on destroying our economy? The USA would fall apart within months, I'm sure. Cuba has not only not fallen apart, it has made steady improvement--even according to economic thinktanks hostile to its existence. That's a good argument for socialism. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Human Development Index 2004
Doug writes: I should have added that part of the impulse behind the development of the HDI was to reduce pressure for redistribution - to shift the focus from economic to social indicators. Of course, there are virtues to foregrounding social over economic indicators, and lots of people use the HDI complex for those purposes, but at the higher levels, the more sinister spin applied. My source on this is a former long-time UN press officer, and it was subsequently confirmed by someone very close to Mahbub ul-Haq, the Pakistani economist who guided the development of the index. Doug Very relevatory (pays to have good sources?). In this specific case the sources (and the individual they cite) may not accurately reflect what drove events (the HDI and the HD Reports began in 1990 when the pressure for global redistribution from the North to the South was long gone) but no doubt this accurately reflects what your sources felt and/or Mahbub said to them. Above all, the comments DO highlight an important aspect of global economic politics for decades before 1990 and that history is relevant today. In the '60s and '70s, the third world elite was pressing for the New International Economic Order (North/South redistribution) and SOME people in this camp (maybe including your sources?) saw the movement for the poor/basic needs (and the later human rights, gender and environmental movements) as attempts by Northern 'liberals to avoid allowing the third world governments to construct autonomous states with their own elites. Hence the suspicions and possible confirmations. Conversely, SOME involved in the human needs movements viewed the 3rd world elite and their economic crowd as unlikely to be willing to redistribute the wealth (and the rest) within their country, and likely to 'take the money and run' if given the chance. These splits were very real and central at the time. In retrospect, I think it is fair to say that there WAS some of the worst in each group and that once the neo-liberal era began this group quickly left their old ideals and objectives behind. And this is not news to readers of this list - ironically, today the worst are mostly close allies. But new opportunities for 3rd world/progressive 1st world links will emerge (as they are already). What lessons should be learned? But what happened to the best in each group? What prevented the best from forging stronger links as neo-liberalism emerged as a threat? How does one learn to better distinguish the worst from the best? Is there any common cause with any of today's 3rd world economic\political elite (Malaysians? Brazilians? Koreans? Russians? Vietnamese?)? I wonder...where is Doug's source today? Paul
Re: Human Development Index 2004
This is one of the best threads on the list for a long time. Valuable information. No acrimony. Am I dreaming? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
