FWIW as you claim west "has become selfish" can you name a period, say, in the last two centuries when 'the west' would have been less selfish - I mean it looks to me like west has always been 'selfish'. I think as 'we in the west' are generally brought up to believe unselfishnes is a virtue we as children believe our societies express this value in all of our endeavours. As we grow up we realize our rich societies don't really work in a way that would facilitate egalitarianism across whole mankind.
That said, geopolitics are hard and problems should not be assigned to some basic, unredeamable sin of avarice but preferably to actionable things that can be changed.
If you could have sold it instead?
Maybe not noble but also probably kind to some degree whatever your motivations are for being kind.
Giving someone something you have no obligation to give them for free is literally the definition of generous. It is the opposite of selfish.
This doesn't change if you take care of yourself first.
A: Because western countries hold patents on the vaccines and we prioritize profit over lives.
The AZ/British vaccine is being provided at cost
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/28/astrazeneca...
> AstraZeneca is one of the shining stars of the pandemic. Not only did it produce a vaccine where other big players failed, the UK-Swedish company has pledged to sell it at cost until it is able to declare the pandemic over.
If countries still can't afford it they are being given away
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-begins-donating-millio...
> the UK has pledged to donate 100 million vaccines overseas by June 2022, 80 million of which will go to COVAX
Many countries could produce these vaccines, but are not legally allowed to because we're protecting the patents, so that companies can make profit on them. Without patent protection, they wouldn't be the only companies manufacturing them.
It's also strange to say it's entirely false, while giving one example in which the vaccines are being given at cost. Many of the vaccines are not. In some cases the companies are not profiting, in other cases they are.
And as an aside, modern capitalism as it stands right now almost necessitates some group be exploited in order to produce cheap labor/goods for consumption for another wealthier group, and the exploited group is most often a poorer country and the goods/labor are then imported. You're not gonna get very far paying your workforce a living wage to produce things that people making that same living wage need to buy, not with the percentage of profit modern owners/shareholders take right off the top.
https://www.firstpost.com/world/in-south-korea-asian-migrant...
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1001194446/as-workforce-ages-...
edit: And that's just more modern examples exploitation, Western society didn't suddenly spring forth into existence in it's current state of being. If you wanna talk about how exactly Western society reached its current level of wealth and privilege I'm more than happy to talk about that as well.
> And as an aside, modern capitalism as it stands right now almost necessitates some group be exploited in order to produce cheap labor/goods for consumption for another wealthier group, and the exploited group is most often a poorer country and the goods/labor are then imported.
Which certainly does not follow from the articles you linked.
Moreover if we are talking about South korea, they have benefited from US backing.
"International relations between South Korea and the United States commenced in 1950, when the United States helped establish the modern state of South Korea, also known as the Republic of Korea, and fought on its UN-sponsored side in the Korean war" [0]
Of course they are fully developed now and may not depend on US backing. Even Japan after WW2 was helped by the US in reconstruction [1]
So in essence unless one of the "developed" countries helps you get a head start, you either develop slowly or not at all. Since all the tech and trade agreements are controlled by the established dominant players
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea%E2%80%93United_Sta... [1] - https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconst...
Seriously, people are in colonialism denial now?
All of the colonizer countries were much wealthier and technologically advanced before they started colonizing. The disparities were already enormous in 1500, before much of colonization happened. English, Dutch and Spanish became colonizers because they were more developed, not the other way around.
The “plunderers” had way more resources than the “plundered”: look at the trade volumes between England and its Indian colonies, and compare them with the volumes of domestic production in England: the latter has always been orders magnitude bigger than the former. It’s even more lopsided with African colonies.
Next, the little that the colonizers got out of the colonies were not “treasures” that were “plundered”, hindering development by victims of colonization. Spanish got a lot of silver from Argentina, but the silver was basically worthless to the natives, and had they kept all of it, they could’ve made more plates and jewelry, which in no way could have made them richer and more developed. In fact, metal oriented policy of Spain probably was detrimental to them too. But, if not the Spanish, the indigenous would not have worked Potosi mines anyway, so it’s moot. Most of physical resources that colonizers removed from colonies were like that: of what value are minerals in the ground, if the natives cannot extract them or make use of them?
Most of the actual use of colonies was cultivation of land and exploitation of human labor, often forced. These were overwhelmingly seriously underutilized by the natives. It should not need to be said, but knowing how obstinate some people are here, I’ll say it anyway: this underutilization in no way justifies colonization. Rather, the point is that the colonizers did not “plunder” land from colonies (because you can’t carry it away), and the amount of labor exploited was in almost all cases very small relative to the total workforce of the natives.
Finally, there are many countries that successfully developed without serious colonization effort. Consider Germany: it had some colonies, but only got them in late 1800s, and only keep them for three decades. It would be ridiculous to argue that Germany is now rich and developed thanks to these three crucial decades 1890-1920, when they held some colonies in Africa. In fact, they not only did not get wealthy by exploiting these, but most likely it was a net loss to them, considering the expense required to set them up.
All of this is not meant to excuse or justify colonization. Clearly, conquering and subjugating other nations by military force is wrong, according to our today’s moral standards. The point here is that the idea that it was the colonies that allowed some nations to become wealthy and developed, is simply wrong, and betrays lack of familiarity with economic history of the world.
It exploited the "we have nice capitalism"-wall build against socialism. Basically all along the border, there was a gradient to be exploited for starting up. I assume alot of players near china are waiting for the same sort of ladder to climb up on, once the 2nd cold war starts.
Even if they build vaccines, it is not held to the same standard, for ex: India's covaxin was not being accepted for travel to western countries. The dominant players set all the rules.
Unless we understand why/how we are in this situation, we will keep on making the same mistakes again and again
My understanding is that Israel paid well above market to go to the front of the line, Japan is definitely paying for doses... do you have links to authoritative primary sources on this (e.g., not a news organization or activist group)?
(I don't know, so I'm actually curious here)
> do you have links to authoritative original sources on this (e.g., not a news organization
...What. The. What.
https://www.state.gov/covid-19-recovery/vaccine-deliveries/
E.g. (first alphabetically (Africa > Angola)):
https://www.state.gov/countries-areas/angola/
>The United States continues to make great strides in its efforts to distribute safe and effective vaccines globally. We are happy to announce our donation of 1,182,870 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to Angola on August 24 with our partners GAVI and the African Union.
The countries that would need vaccine donations can be generally found at the end of the said list with least GDP:s.
Some would say it's a way for the west to buy influence rather cheaply.
[1]https://www.ft.com/content/82fa8fb4-a867-4005-b6c2-a79969139...
Plenty of journalists have been covering shifting spending patterns since the early days of the pandemic, and its effects on economic sectors and local, regional, and national economies.
> not redistributing vaccines
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/biden-doubles-us-donation-...
Over a billion doses pledged.
> vs vaccinating kids
...we're...not....vaccinating...kids...yet...
> and getting third shots in
What..."third....shots"....? Boosters for the single-shot vaccines that have turned out to greatly diminish in effectiveness.
Looking through your comment history shows this comment isn't the first time you've been remarkably poorly informed, to put it politely:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28791742
"more kids die from traffic crashes", you say, and whine about how people think you're anti-vax. Nah, you're objectively, provably wrong, as demonstrated by someone in that thread, and yet here you are a day or two later still whining about how we're wasting resources "vaccinating kids."
Nevermind that you seem to think that we shouldn't vaccinate people until more of them die from COVID than traffic collisions (which for many age groups is the top cause of death)?
You are stunningly poorly informed every time you write a comment here.
You are often wrong, have poor logic/reasoning skills, and maybe you are not qualified to be forming strong opinions about the things you are talking about, at least until you make some effort to educate yourself from objective, fact-based sources, instead of just believing conservative memes you see on Facebook because they fit your worldview.