Why some groups are rich and others are poor…my MOOC platform dreams (III)
While doing a MOOC (massive open online course) on political economy from an Australian university a few years back, we learners were introduced to a debate by two leading economists on “why some countries are poor and others were rich”. Between both of them, they covered factors such as geography, human institutions etc. Later on, I did another MOOC given by one of the economists in that debate and found their positions had become closer.
This was interesting to me because previously, I had done some writing, and the issue of why some countries or groups are poor and others are rich was one of the topics about which I had written a manuscript. In that period of my life, a five-year period after I dropped out of university and before I started working as Palace Secretary (to my tribal king), I described myself as an author, during which I wrote several manuscripts, poetry, songs, and letters.
One manuscript I wrote was titled, “Political Leadership.” This was a period when the political climate of my country Nigeria, was undergoing military/civilian coups. Sadly, none of my manuscripts were ever published, one manuscript though about “419” or Nigerian scammers where I used real-life examples to try and describe 419 and its effects on society, was accepted for publication, but then the newspaper went bust a week later before the publication of my manuscript.
In my manuscript about “why some nations are poor and others are rich”, some of the factors I discussed overlapped with what the economic professors were discussing in their debate. However, there was one other factor which I was considering which wasn’t mentioned by either professor. And after the MOOC I kept on thinking about this factor. And it’s counter-intuitive. This factor is self-sufficiency/interdependence.
The way I see it, the more self-sufficient the units in a group are, the poorer it is, and the more interdependent a group’s units are the richer overall that group is. All groups are self-sufficient and interdependent at certain sizes, but the way I see it — the smaller the unit within the group at which we find self-sufficiency the poorer overall that group is.
The easiest way for me to explain this is to refer to the fictional character. Robinson Crusoe in the book with the same title by R. L. Stevenson. Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked alone on an island for many years. He survived by a mix of ingenuity and luck but overall the quantity and quality of goods and services he could provide for himself by himself, remained poor even though the know-how and resources were available to him.
However, as other people joined him on the island, first a native servant called Friday, the goods and services available on the island increased. Initially, Robinson Crusoe was sufficient by himself on the island, but with Friday’s coming Robinson and Friday became a unit of sufficiency as neither of them was sufficient in his needs without the other. At which point the quantity and quality of goods and services available on the island increased.
With Friday and Robinson Crusoe there the available goods and services on the island increased and so on. Each additional resident on the island who maintains the self-sufficiency of the unit (some didn’t) makes the group as a whole richer.
By rich and poor, I mean the “quantity and quality of goods and services accessible to the group”. The more the quantity and quality the richer the group is, and vice versa. A group in this consideration might be a hunter-gatherer group, a rural community, a city-state, country, an online group, the community on the International Space Station — all the peoples of the earth or some division thereof. While units are sub-divisions within the group that are self-sufficient.
And that’s what MOOCs are about. Where the larger the number of participants in each self-sufficient unit of the group, the richer the group as a whole.
While taking MOOCs for three years, I found a company of humanity that I couldn't find anywhere else, that I didn’t realize existed. People — learners, instructors, staff, the curious — coming together to create this wonderful place where learning and self-development, where human capital could be made. I went into taking MOOCs as a university dropout, well behind in my knowledge and came out much better learning, with global connections and experiences that I could never have gotten anywhere else. And to this day I believe this experience and learning can’t be gotten any place else, not at that scope and detail. It was an experience about individuals, about groups, about cultures, about diversity, about humanity — at a fine-grained and bird’s eye view.
The possibility for riches (group/global riches) to come out of this shared knowledge and experiences is truly the most fantastic outcome of MOOCs. Which is why my dream of a MOOC platform which doesn’t merely represent one agenda, but as a place where different agendas can interface and interact and then all go away better like “iron sharpening iron”.
I dream of a MOOC platform where “relevant, up-to-date, diversity, inclusion and multiplicity” reign.
