List,
Sanderson made the claim that "'Socialism' has not been successful at
developing a single Third World country to any decent level at all."
This is incorrect. Let's take the development of the socialist world
system from out of WWII to the late 1970s. Let's use comparative data from
the World Bank, the Overseas Development Council (OCD), the World
Development Report (1978).
Prior to WWII, those countries that would become socialist were
distributed in the full range of the underdeveloped world (this is the
entire world except for 14 developed countries). Three of the Asian
countries that would become socialist were the poorest in the world.
By the 1970s no socialist country was in the bottom category of all
countries. Every single one of them was in the middle-income range for all
nations. In fact, 41 capitalist countries, covering 34% of the world's
population, had per capita incomes *below* the poorest socialist nation.
By the 1980s, the goals specified in *Reshaping the International Order: A
Report to the Club of Rome*, by the Tinbergen Group in 1976 had been
surpassed by *all* the socialist countries, whereas only the high income
groups among capitalist nations have met the Tinbergen goals.
> I know, I know, to some this will sound like cheerleading for capitalism.
> But it seems to me it is just facing facts, whethr we like them or not.
It looks to me that you are not facing the facts you don't like, Professor
Sanderson.
Andy