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Coloow

Why is Africa (majority of sub-saharan) countries poor?

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Coloow   

Asssalamu calaykum,

 

This question has been haunting me for nearly a decade;

 

Is it institutional defficiencies to ci´te Gunnar Myrdal?

Corruption and mismanagement? ala Obama

Colonial reasons? To cite Raul Prebisch, Alfonso, Furtado, Frank and the rest of the Marxist school?

The lack of industrial linkages to Use Albert O. Hirschman's concept?

 

 

Or is it;

 

Because we are lazy? This line of thinking is common in final dinners at conferences.

 

 

P.s I know Paragon will invoke the resource curse and dutch disease paradigms. That is fine but a favourite black swan of mine is Botswana smile.gif

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Haatu   

I know many would argue it is the result of unfair economics that only benefit the coloniser or some other rubbish, but the facts are the colonisers left in most cases over 40-50 years ago. At the time of Burkina Faso's independence, it's economy was the same size as South Korea's. The question is how come Burkina Faso is still dirt poor? The reason is simple.

Africa is filthy rich in resources and lush fertile land.

 

Africa is not poor, but it is poorly managed

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Coloow   

Jaanka, waan gartay. That has been the point made by a recent BBC documentary (Radio). But that is a very simplified picture.

 

Kenya's GDP was far larger than that of South Africa in the 60s. Today it is less than 10% of the south Korean one.

 

Some might argue that it is a combination of all the factors that I wrote. But, how can a continent combine all the above?

 

At dinner conferences there is an unpleasant - hoos u hadal- perspective; that is Africans are inherently lazy and that the economic system we have in the world does not fit in the african context. A few years back, in Durban I almost came to fist fight with a German economic sociologist when after a few drinks he uttered that sentiment. But, I am begining to have second thoughts.

 

There are some good examples of good governance; Bostwana is one of them.

 

But the majority of Sub-saharan African countries are poor despite having all the pre-requisites for development.

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Cara.   

Could you expand a little on each of the theories? What are the supporting arguments, examples, counterpoints?

 

Too lazy to look them up myself, hehe.

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SeeKer   

^^^ :D @ too lazy to look them up myself.

 

Ws Wr Wb

 

I don't think the laziness is an issue in Africa. It is mind boggling that we are even nursing the notion. Africans, generally speaking, seem to entrepreneurs/go getters when they move to the West. They put in, socially and economically, in any nation they migrate to. Just look at the small businesses that flourish in the West. If its something that we lack, it certainly not DRIVE.

 

As for Myrdal, anyone who worked close to Hayek in my book is a CHICAGO BOY. These are the people who used the Latin Americas as labs for their economic policies. I would take anything they say with a grain of salt.

 

My personal opinion in a nut shell as to why we are poor is that we are corrupt. Anytime we get power we usurp it and work to advance ourselves personally. We don't think in terms of community any more. Our governments and institutions are manned by people who are in it to line their pockets (generally speaking). Any idealist who emerges is crushed on sight. :D

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Coloow   

Seeker,

 

Thanks for the little feedback. But to be fair to the Chicago school (Friedman) who as you rightly stated drew inspiration from F Hayek, have at least succeeded in their economic policy towards Chile. Human rights abuses aside, their economic model worked. This is easy to understand because it thrives under dictatorship. From a conceptual viewpoint, it was monentarism that succeed instead of the keynesian multiplier model.

 

Africans (now I am generalising) are what you may term as "survival entrepreneurs" but they seem to lack vision. Sxb, if you go beneath the so called entrepreneural activities of somalis in the west and even nairobi, you may find that there is less economic thinking

 

Colonialisation is a factor, so are almost all the other factors, but why is sub-haran african countries not catching up when Asia and Latin America are doing that.

 

Waa suaal culus sxb. I think we cannot leave aside the issue of population growth without economic development; the vicious cycle.

 

I am inclined to much of Gunnar Myrdal's explainations... but we can't just put aside the lazy notion

 

Arac, this is maybe the wrong venue for you walaal.

 

Resistance, are you sure about that? That Africans are happier. Speaking of happiness, Bhutan is a funny country. I was there a while back and they have a minister of happiness; and a measurement called gross domestic happiness. When their king introduced democracy they said they don't want; when elections were held the former minister of happiness became the prime minister.

 

I don't think African are happy ; Africans are exposed to corruption, disease and wars... and you can't be happy in those situations.

 

 

P.s Seeker, Myrdal and Hayek are two different economists at the opposite end of the spectrum. Myrdal was driven by a desire to understand development, with emphasises on those in the periphery; Hayek on the other hand was a right winger (in economic terms). Romour has it that when they were both awarded the nobel prize in 1974(?) they never shook hands.

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SeeKer   

Sxb, icon_razz.gif The premise for the business minded Africans was thrown out there to refute the allegations that we are inherently lazy. Lazy people don't sit and think up ideas then see them through. Whether the ideas/business have any economic thinking is a reflection of said individual as opposed to an entire race/creed.

 

As for Chile, I will have to sit down and formulate a response. Forgive me, but I have had an emotional day and I can't think straight let alone lay down an opposition to Chicago Boys and their economic plans in Chile. The rest of the factors you mentioned certainly play a role in our problem (lagging behind the rest of the world) and require analysis. Will be back when my dementia lifts. :D

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Coloow   

Seeker, While Chile might provide a best practice case for the "chicago boys" I don't think analysing it will answer the question at hand. But, still I look forward to reading your input on Chile.

 

I think the population growth factor (without due economic growth) institutional aspects, and lack of FDI (who wants to invest where greed, corruption etc prevail?), the fascination of africans with getting enriched quickly, the love for dhaldhaal etc are the main reasons.

 

But, sincerely, I don't want to throw out the lazy premises since all these factors pacify people.

 

I hope you also add your two cents to the entrepreneurship aspect (by the way, I mean the schumpeterian entrepreneuship).

 

 

Maskin Macruf ak´hyaar; Yeah, why is it that Haiti -once an epitomy of how "africans" can fight slavery and year for freedom- is the poorest nation in the Americas?

 

Some may argue that there is a laziness factor smile.gif

 

 

Layziness in a learned phenomenon it is not inherited through genes.

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uranium and oil are the problems! u get it now. this part of the world has the largest source of uranium and oil not yet tabbed in the world.

 

so figure out why there is so much blood shed in there.

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Chimera   

Originally posted by Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiy aar:

Why is Haiti, a country that is said to be independent more than 200 years, as poorly managed as your typical Afrikan dal?

 

Hopefully this question itself will answer your question.

After it defeated France, the latter country would only stop invading if Haiti paid a large sum of money i.e reparations, which if i remember correctly would today amount to billions.

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Raamsade   

Africa is not poor, it is actually spectacularly rich. It's just not industrialized. I think what you were getting at was pervasive and chronic underdevelopment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whole volumes can be (and have been) written on the subject, so nothing we write here will do it true justice. Some of the reasons for Africa's underdevelopment have already been mentioned. I'll mention a couple of more.

 

Africa is geographically disadvantaged. Compared to Europe and Asia, Africa has fewer navigable rivers although it's home to some of the largest rivers in the world (Nile, Zambezi, Niger, Congo etc). Even Adam Smith recognized the importance of rivers for transportation. Without easily accessible mode of transportation, commerce is dead. Looking back in history, most important cities and civilizations were built along the banks of rivers or by the sea/ocean. Whether the Yangtze in China, Indus in India, Euphrates in Iraq, Nile in Egypt or Mediterranean sea for the Greek city states. Water is still important to today's economies as more than 80% of the world's trade is done via shipping over the oceans. A related disadvantage most modern African states face is lack of access to the sea. Africa has more landlocked countries than any other continent in the world hampering trade.

 

Adding to the woes of African countries is the prevalence of weak states. Most African states are too weak to formulate and implement necessary reforms and policies even if governments were entirely benevolent and competent. States in Africa can barely collect taxes, provide basic social services or have absolute monopoly on violence and coercion. Virtually all late industrializing countries (East Asians, Soviet Union, Germany etc) relied on strong state to direct and guide development. Strong state is all the more instrumental today than at any time in the past.

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Coloow   

Ramsade,

mmm, you make some good points worth exploring. I don't agree with the geographical disadvantage reasoning.

 

You are right; under(un)developed is perhaps the right term. As to the industrialisation perspective, volumes have been written about this subject (as you mentioned)in the 50-60s with specific emphasises on Latin America (the commission for Latin America)- ECLA school. Raul Prebisch (who became the finance minister of Argentina wrote broadly on this subject and singer. ( I will be happy to e-mail you a conceptual paper that I am working on non-equilibirium paths to development which takes a historical approach)

 

Saaxib, Sub-saharan african countries are un(under)developed; there are some exogenous factors but there are also some endogenous ones which we cannot neglect.

 

Why is it that KENYA is lagging when compared to South Korea? Why is Nigeria behind Saudi Arabia?

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