Why is it that the southern hemisphere clusters the 3rd world or less powerful countries?

Question

I've always wondered why most of the 3rd countries are common to the southern hemisphere, except Australia.Even South America is poorer! I'm also a religious person, and i''m thinking did God choose it this way?

Answer 1

Good answers from modulo, monique and dpanic. Most of the resources that led to modern civ happened to occur in the northern hemisphere, specifially Eurasia -cattle, horses, sheep, wheat, barley etc. There are no animals that can be domesticated native to Australia and even less so in New Zealand.

In Australia aborigines did not develop the bow and arrow, though some of them probably saw it used by people from Java who visited the northern shores pretty frequently. The bow was used by the first cousins of the aboriginals who lived in New Guinea. This was because there is little or no wood suitable for bows in the region where the Javanese visited so even if the aborigines tried it, it didn't work.

There are no native plants that reward farming in Australia or New Zealand. There is evidence of large aboriginal towns around fish farms, but the recurrent droughts of Australia kiboshed those.

Another factor that is often overlooked is that the relatively cooler and drier climates of even Australia works against insect pests that spread disease in humans and animals. Central Africa is rotten with diseases carried by insect pests. Malaria is only the start. A country can't get prosperous if half the population is sick half the time and most of the married women are pregnant all the time in hopes of producing a few children that will survive their parents.

Australia, New Zealand Canada and in fact the USA owe their prosperity entirely to imported animals, imported crops and mineral resources that were untouched until 150 years ago or less.

They also owe it to advanced technology imported from Europe, mostly Britain, France and Germany and locally improved or adapted to local conditions in the 19th century, eg railways, the telegraph, soap making, gas lights in some towns and good oil lamps elsewhere, municipal clean water and sewers. Also to systems of government which are representative, a respect for the rule of law and a bureaucracy which is organised in such a way that corruption is minimised. This was largely imported from Britain.

The problems with South America, eg Argentina, Brazil, some of the other counties there are historically bad government, domination by a backward-looking Catholic Church and rapacious exploitation by European companies in earlier times and USA companies more recently. As late as the 1820s church authorities in Paraguay wanted the new government of the country to arrest two visiting Protestant English merchants for heresy. The government refused. But both Argentina and Brazil can get a lot better if they sort out corruption. Some countries like Paraguay may be too small to be viable.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

This is an evolutionary question. It is mere happenstance that the peoples populating Europe and Asia (because technically the U.S. is a colony of those original populations), created the technologies most useful for conquering and trade. Also, by spreading their diseases to the countries they first came into contact with in their explorations, they managed to wipe out the VERY advanced civilizations that existed there, to the extent that even if they were battling with the same technologies, the natives would have lost due to their sheer loss in numbers.

There is also a more obvious reason. In terms of why the southern hemisphere is poor, this is sort of a misnomer since about 2/3 of the earth's land mass is north of the equator. So, even though the southern hemisphere experiences a poorer condition of life, most of the poverty in the world actually exists in the northern hemisphere. Very little land is actually below the equator.

In short, there is no way to answer your question about god's role in this. It is this way because it is this way. Because the people who developed technology probably had to develop it to survive. (Colder climes tend to be harsher, more severe and need more overcoming for humans to survive; whereas peoples in the tropics do not have these issues, food is not scarce and people have an easier time of surviving---this tends to be the evolutionary biologists' explanation to your question, and frankly the one that makes most sense!).

Answer 4

I think your definition of 3rd world is skewed. Generally for a country to be considered 3rd world they are not industrialized nations. In the southern Hemisphere nearly every country is industrialized. The problem has to do with the way most of the southern hemisphere was settled. Europeans moved in and exploited the natives and created a class system with a wide gap. This lead to eventual rebellions, insurgencies and wars which gave power to the oppressed who quickly became the oppressors. I don't think God chose it this way most of the conquering and settling of the southern hemisphere was done in the name of God and the natives were converted, quite harshly most of the time. The truth is most if not all the nations in the southern hemisphere are industrialized nations that have not drown outside investing to capitilize on their resources because of oppressive governments. By the way Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Namibia, Indonesia, New Zealand are all quite industrialized and no where near third world.

Answer 5

Historically, and sadly the southern hemisphere has had many problems. South America was made poor and done so by the spanish first then the europeans in general. Disease and the ravages of a conquering caused South America to drop and it has been unable to recooperate. Africa has also suffered by this. Colonizing caused disease and war terrorizing the natives.

Answer 6

Pure probability . also the fact that the northern hemisphere is geographically larger seems to make sense .

also the larger land masses are located in the N. hemisphere and there is a tendency for humans to spread out and develop the land as opposed to the islands and archipelagos in the south which would curtail the developmental process.

Answer 7

My theory is that the location of the north star made the difference. Early people noticed the sky rotating around that star and got them thinking. That early edge carried on.

The book; "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is worth reading. He track the difference to the location of animals and crops that could be domesticated. Geography is important because the same crops can be grown at the same latitude. North/south develpment is much more difficult than east/west.

I recommend that you read that book.

Answer 8

The Mayans were the greatest civilization on Earth in their time. I believe part of the Egyptian empire was south of the equator also. I doubt that the location north or south of the equator really matters. Most of the land on Earth is north of the equator, so it's just more likely that a great civilization would form there.

Answer 9

technically Brazil is the 6th richest country in the world

Answer 10

Never mind these lengthy answers... Man cant think proper when he's upside down... duh!