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The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
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The World Bank reclassified the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and Poland, from upper middle income to high income between 2005 and 2009. Latvia was also classified as high income in 2009, but fell back to upper middle income in 2010.
Freedom House has rated all these countries free, in fact all but Croatia and Latvia have the highest possible rating, a one. If you wish to check the stats here are the links, Freedom House and the World Bank. Significance of Developed Democracy StatusDeveloped democracy status tends to be permanent. Of course a country that has just achieved developed status could suffer a recession and slip in the upper middle income category, but generally developed democracies with broad based economies like the Czech Republic do not suffer serious economic declines.Furthermore, the richest countries ever to lose their freedom to a dictatorial take over were far poorer than the threshold for High Income countries, which was 12,196 in 2009. I believe that this threshold is about twice as rich as Germany was when Hitler took over, and several thousand dollars richer than Argentina the last time the generals took over. Finally, developed democracies do not fight wars with other developed democracies. So if you were planning on launching a sneak attack on the United States, France, or one of the other developed democracies, forget it. I have provided a list of developed democracies so you will know who not to attack. I am hoping everyone will join the club so that we can have permanent world peace, which seems like a good idea in a world of nuclear weapons. Exceptions can and should be made for Vatican City and other special districts. New ResponsibilitiesFor developing countries one of the prime responsibilities is economic growth. Even if they are democratic and free we can not be sure that they always will be and there is some danger that a mad man, I believe you remember a guy named Hitler, may take over and be a threat to world peace and therefore the world's ecology in this era of nuclear weapons.However, you are now beyond that. Further economic growth is good. It will allow you to import more goods from developing nations which will help their development, and to fulfill various responsibilities. But as you grow you might also want to help with the common goods of the First World: scientific research, artistic achievements, common defense, foreign aid, etc. I might also mention that the First World needs to reinvent the technology of high income nations so everyone is able to live in a high income nation without wrecking the ecology. To make the point more clearly, we want the people of every nation to be comfortable enough that a dictator can not take over, presently that involves a lot of energy, natural resources, and ecological damage. We need to invent a more ecologically friendly dictator proof society. Nuclear PowerOn the controversial subject of generating electricity with nuclear power, you are in my unofficial opinion now rich enough to be trusted with this technology. I believe it would be better if many developing nations did not use it, but we have every reason to believe that you will always be ruled by a reasonable government.Olympics?Finally, there is the matter of the coming out party. Perhaps you will want to host an Olympics or a World Cup together, or individually for that matter.Making decisions on this is a little above the level of a personal web site webmaster. After all this is simply the communication of one American citizen to those who choose to read it. I am not starting my own foreign policy, I will leave that to the city council. City councils in America often have their own foreign policy. Americans agree with you a city council with a foreign policy is silly. At any rate, welcome to the developed world. Related PagesI have a few other pages where I use all that economics education. As I mentioned above I have a BA, an MA, and a Ph.C. which means I passed the courses and the orals on a Ph.D. The dissertation did not work out because I was lazy, or motivationally challenged as we say these days. It was also a problem of those pesky Nobel Prize winners that kept publishing my ideas before I did. That happened about three times. I also came up with a lot of other things that had already been published by distinguished researchers who had not won the Nobel in Economics. Back in the 80's I taught economics full time for seven semesters at a four year college.This page has a list of countries that are high income and free, as determined by the World Bank and Freedom House. I have a web page which argues that all of the countries of the Third World will make it to First World status and perhaps sooner than we think. Check out my reasoning. Make a comment in my guest book. Geocities limits your comment to the area of the box and a few words, after that they cut you off. I am likely to get back to you if you leave an email address . Last updated December 2, 2011 |