Go to any library anywhere in the United States and you’ll almost invariably be able to find picture books, along with framed pictures on the walls of how things used to be in the area where the library is located. Old cars, horse-drawn carriages too, dirt roads largely bereft of cars, people and businesses that are now dense with all three. Call it progress simply because it is.
Contrast this with two visits Alan Greenspan made to the former Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century, albeit roughly thirty years apart. What struck him was that the tractors in usage were the same both times despite the massive time lapse. Describe the latter as decline, simply because it was. Stasis is the embodiment of economic decline.
Fast forward to the present, and contemplate the politicians (Trump, Biden, myriad others) who promise to “bring back” the jobs of old. Think factory work, mining work, and other “smokestack” forms of production that “China” and others supposedly took from us. The joke is on the politicians, of course. If they could ever bring back the jobs of old, they would only do so at the expense of prosperity. Sorry, but wealth is a function of leaving the past behind.
All these notions (and many more) came to mind while reading Tim Butcher’s brilliant, but desperately sad account of his 2004 trip across the Congo, Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart. The poverty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC from now on) truly defies description, and surely exceeded even Butcher’s ability to describe it.
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