Developed vs. undeveloped world

[Guest guest]

>What might not work in the almighty developed world as people are further

>from reality faced in developing countries, might actually work well in

>developing (or culturally different) countries.

 

 

I keep hearing this from various people, and it is

demonstrably fallacious. If you turn back the clock to where the

" developed world " was just a generation or two ago, most of the U.S.

was at very much the same level of economic and technological

development, education, etc., as most of the " underdeveloped "

world is today, and the paths from there to here were very similar.

 

When my grandparents were born, U.S. literacy was below 50%,

and not even 1% of the population had motorized vehicles or indoor

plumbing.

 

When I was born, 30% of the dogs in the U.S. were still

free-roaming strays or street dogs, according to a landmark 1950

study by John F. Marbanks.

 

There are a hell of a lot of mistakes that the past several

generations of Americans made, including mine, in getting from

where we were to where we are, but they will not be avoided by

pretending that what finally has worked here will not work somewhere

else.

 

If folks wear blue jeans, drive cars, drink carbonated

drinks, and use flush toilets wherever you are, then the mechanisms

of advertising, price, and convenience that worked here are already

working there.

 

The trick is just to identify the mechanisms that work in the

humane cause and put them to work--as the bright folks in for-profit

commerce have already been doing in their fields for decades, with

huge success.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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