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rfmcdonaldMy most recent post describes the background of Going North is the absolute and relative increase in the standing of the traditional immigrant-receiving countries of the Southern Hemisphere: Argentina, South Africa, Venezuela, Brazil, Australia, Chile. This is almost the inverse of what happened in the half-century after the Second World War, as Nationmaster statistics from 1950 and 1975 suggest. In 1950, New Zealand was as rich as Switzerland, while Venezuela's per capita GDP compare to Australia and Argentina appeared as developed as France. Much has changed, even for Australia, which has barely managed to hold its own against an economically dynamic southern Europe that once sent immigrants to the Commonwealth by the hundreds of thousands.
Of late, I've begun to think there might be a common pattern of relative decline uniting the immigrant-receiving countries of the Southern Hemisphere. Certainly much has been written about the problems of Argentina and New Zealand in maintaining their relative positions. Less talked about is the way that Australian per-capita GDP slipped from being on par with California's in the mid-19th century to being something comparable to that of western Europe now, much like the trends which ensured that which southern Brazil lost its advantage relative to formerly immigrant-sending areas in southern Europe. Venezuela, for its part, has gained attention mainly for its more recent relative decline over the 1980s and 1990s. South Africa's internal divisions have made it difficult to come to particular conclusions, but living standards once comparable to the highest in the world for whites seem to have fallen significantly to the level of New Zealand, perhaps spurring many of South Africa's emigrants over the 1990s as much as the political situation.
Certainly, internal issues have played a major role in the decline of the Southern Hemisphere immigrant-receiving economies, most notably in South America. Even so, the consistency of the trend appears suggestive to me. Might there be causative factors common to the whole of the Southern Hemisphere? Perhaps this past-century of economic history demonstrates the way in which North Atlantic economic integration disadvantaged areas outside of the North Atlantic, or how the development of cheaper sources of natural resources disadvantaged resource-rich economies in the South.
Thoughts?
Of late, I've begun to think there might be a common pattern of relative decline uniting the immigrant-receiving countries of the Southern Hemisphere. Certainly much has been written about the problems of Argentina and New Zealand in maintaining their relative positions. Less talked about is the way that Australian per-capita GDP slipped from being on par with California's in the mid-19th century to being something comparable to that of western Europe now, much like the trends which ensured that which southern Brazil lost its advantage relative to formerly immigrant-sending areas in southern Europe. Venezuela, for its part, has gained attention mainly for its more recent relative decline over the 1980s and 1990s. South Africa's internal divisions have made it difficult to come to particular conclusions, but living standards once comparable to the highest in the world for whites seem to have fallen significantly to the level of New Zealand, perhaps spurring many of South Africa's emigrants over the 1990s as much as the political situation.
Certainly, internal issues have played a major role in the decline of the Southern Hemisphere immigrant-receiving economies, most notably in South America. Even so, the consistency of the trend appears suggestive to me. Might there be causative factors common to the whole of the Southern Hemisphere? Perhaps this past-century of economic history demonstrates the way in which North Atlantic economic integration disadvantaged areas outside of the North Atlantic, or how the development of cheaper sources of natural resources disadvantaged resource-rich economies in the South.
Thoughts?
