A couple of days ago, I got a phone call from Telecom Lesotho. They reminded me that I had come in and asked for a telephone line and broadband internet line to my house. It was good that they reminded me because I came to ask them first over one year ago! Over the following months, I repeatedly went to them to ask about the situation and always got told that it would happen soon. I abandoned and now use only a mobile and 3G internet from their rivals, Vodacom.
The link to poverty? Essentially you are poor if you don't consume very much. You don't consume very much if you don't produce much for yourself or you don't produce much to swap with other people. There might be lots of (good and bad) reasons (mostly due to incentives, if you are an economist) why you might not produce much, but the basic fact remains, you are poor because you are unproductive.
Why is so much of the world's wealth in northern America and Europe? Because that is where the wealth is produced.
Telecom Lesotho have made the country poorer by producing less than they should have - there is less to consume for everyone.
I continually have bad service in Lesotho. By that I mean people who don't produce very good service for other people. That bad service means they do less for other people. In return, they receive less from other people (in the form of lower wages) than they would have otherwise. You see the cycle. No one produces much for anyone else and receives less from everyone else in exchange. The country is poorer as a result (everyone consumes less because they produce less).
How to break this cycle is a key role of development economics. Some of it is cultural and some of it is due to incentives. In any case, it is hard to get people to be more productive.
The link to poverty? Essentially you are poor if you don't consume very much. You don't consume very much if you don't produce much for yourself or you don't produce much to swap with other people. There might be lots of (good and bad) reasons (mostly due to incentives, if you are an economist) why you might not produce much, but the basic fact remains, you are poor because you are unproductive.
Why is so much of the world's wealth in northern America and Europe? Because that is where the wealth is produced.
Telecom Lesotho have made the country poorer by producing less than they should have - there is less to consume for everyone.
I continually have bad service in Lesotho. By that I mean people who don't produce very good service for other people. That bad service means they do less for other people. In return, they receive less from other people (in the form of lower wages) than they would have otherwise. You see the cycle. No one produces much for anyone else and receives less from everyone else in exchange. The country is poorer as a result (everyone consumes less because they produce less).
How to break this cycle is a key role of development economics. Some of it is cultural and some of it is due to incentives. In any case, it is hard to get people to be more productive.
2 comments:
How to break the cycle of low telecom productivity - quite easy - introduce competition of which there is non in Lesotho. In GB and Germany you would need to wait ages for a conection before deregulation of the secotor. BTW cool post :)
Thank you! Glad you like the post. More competition would be a good start. Let's see the impact of the new Pick and Pay on service quality in Shoprite to see the effect of increased competition.....
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