I love listening to Dr. Sowell's wonderful explanations for everything.
Metal Jacket
Informative and insightful as always!
Good Vibes
As always, excellently explained to be easily understood.
spidey1z
Amazing how so many refuse to acknowledge how climate and geography go hand and hand with a country’s economic development. When it’s easier to travel and grow food, it’s easier to sell the food at a greater. You also have more free time to learn other skills and trades. Then you have more capital to invest, which allows for growth of the country’s industry.
vasalem
and I thought it was because they just freed themselves from communism a few decades ago.
goes to show that, just because an idea makes sense, does not mean it is correct.
Jay Turner
Excellent analysis 👏 🇬🇧 uk
Tom
Thanks!
A. Scott Munson Jr.
Great work Dr. Sowell. Scooby snacks for you!
Jim Jackson
Of course being in the soviet bloc wouldn’t help either.I’ve seen pictures of Prague and warsaw before the war and they seemed pretty prosperous.
Walter Bates
Feeding the YouTube algorithm. Love Sowell. Great video.
Uzumix
You havent even mentioned socialism and central managed economies, the truth is that a lot of these countries were pretty 'rich' before ww2
filycheezofficial
What this Westerner refused to mention was all the wars and foreign occupations we went through all of our history (for Russia, a lot but not the entirety). The Mongols ravaged and destroyed the entirety of the Rus' land for centuries while making the Rus' their slaves. This set Russia back quite a bit in a number of ways. Then all the wars with the Turks and having to pretty much defeat the Nazis on their own. Very hard for a country to be doing well after all those struggles.
and then us South Slavs were controlled by the Ottomans for 500 years which set us back a lot in our development. Not to mention the 100-200 years of war we went through defending Europe from extremist Islam while Westerners could comfortably engage in the Renaissance. Then you have communism which hurt us a lot.
Greg Moore
I mean, as a Brit, I can see how our island had the best of it regarding no land border and access to the sea! I am glad that a more vigorous race wasn't here as they would have truly dominated the world!
Sterets Jaaj
He describes it so well
Pollog
I'm from Balkan, we have to translate Thomas Sowell in albanian, serbo-croatian, bullgarian, rumunian, greec ..
Bruce Scanlan
I don't discount Mr Sowell's argument, I would add a major game changer was between the eastern and the western doctrine of the Trinity. Even the Catholic Church held a different view from the eastern church. The reformation gave way to more literacy, the Protestant work ethic, which resulted in rapid advances in the sciences and technology.
cela 2020
So now I wonder why India, which is by the ocean, has a warm climate, natural wealth, and at the same time is much poorer than those poor Eastern European countries?
Jotaro97
Most of Eastern Europe was not touched by any Ancient advanced civilisation, either - they had to develop their own, except for the South Slavs. However, the South Slavs themselves didn't have it easy, being subjugated by Franks, Bulgars and Byzantines, and later Magyars, Ottomans, Romanians, Austrians, Soviets, etc.
Had at least one Slavic state managed to conquer the whole or most of the region in the Early Middle Ages - it would have resisted invasions more successfully and the Balkans would have been richer now, due to them being a part of one country that had a continuous cultural and economic development. Not interrupted by other peoples who have occupied or annexed it.
Dwayne Hicks
I love that I get smarter everytime I listen to or read anything from Thomas Sowell
Lucha Lerae
Basically geographical advantage
Mihai Bolboceanu
As an eastern european I want to say that while what Sowell explained might be true, the reasons he gave are minor in comparison to the economic damage that Russia and Communism caused in eastern Europe. Just take any economic, social map and overlay it with the iron curtain map and you will understand what it's actually about.
G M
Excellent series
Barry On
I think I underappreciate how important trade is.
Dzku 222
Thomas Sowell is my favourite historian! Cheers from the Eastern Europe!
Implied Facepalm
I was thinking, that maybe exploiting the colonies by the western european nations has something to do with their wealth. But apparently it's just the climate and access to the sea.