NationStates Jolt Archive

And Bunch of U-Hauls and a guy to stand there and say, "hey, this is sand! You live in a desert! Nothing grows out here! Nothings gonna grow out here!"
(Sam - I miss you!)


OK, back to the subject at hand. Here's a link to the article;
http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb85.pdf

Moeletsi Mbeki is deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs. In short, he is saying that the predatory political elites are the problem. They are abusing the money being given them by charity and loaned to them by business. They are hamstringing any entrepreneurs who try to make things better in their home to finance their own consumption and to strengthen the repressive apparatus of the state.

His belief is that these nations need a democratic reform that bestows rights onto the individuals instead of the political elites, including property rights, financial rights and access to international markets.


Here's some of his choice quotes;


At the root of Africa’s problems is economic mismanagement by the political elites that took over African countries in the 1960s. The elites saw government as a source of personal enrichment. One of the great pioneers of this scramble for power on the eve of Africa's independence, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah urged the emerging political elites, "Seek ye first the political kingdom and all else shall be given."

the political elites use marketing boards, taxes, and regulations to divert private sector savings to finance their own consumption and strengthen the repressive instruments of the state.

Development in Africa requires a new type of democracy — one that empowers not just the political elite but Africa's private sector producers as well. It is therefore necessary that peasants who constitute the core of the private sector in Africa become the real owners of their primary asset: land.

Producers must be able to auction their own cash crops, including coffee, tea, cotton, sugar, cocoa, and rubber, rather than being forced to sell them, at heavily discounted prices, to state-controlled marketing boards.

These changes, rather than continued financial transfers to African governments, could for the first time bring into being a market economy that answers to the needs of African producers and consumers.

When you look countires such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, which experienced impressive economic growth, you will see that the goverment allowed private enterprise to function. Of course, there was interferance, but not a fatal amount. China and India have improved greatly by allowing their private sections to function.

Allowing the private sector to function is the best way I can think of for developing countries to grow richer.

Of course, there was massive corruption, and often still is corruption in the countries I mentioned. I think Hernado DeSoto has written about the difficulties people often face in starting businesses and getting credit in developing nations.

When you look countires such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, which experienced impressive economic growth, you will see that the goverment allowed private enterprise to function. Of course, there was interferance, but not a fatal amount. China and India have improved greatly by allowing their private sections to function.

Not to mention the U.S. :D We have always had a strong tradition of free enterprise and look what it has done for us.

Anyhow, Africa shot itself in the foot when it broke away from Europe. All the experts left because they couldn't make a living in the dictatorships that sprung up, the infrastructure being maintained and planned by colonists fell apart and the wealthy Europeans pulled out all their investments because of land redistribution and other policies that were unfair to non-indigenes people. Now, I'm not saying that Africa should be under the foot of Europe. It is just unfortunate that they could not have done the whole independance thing more gradually. Whatever hind-sight is 20-20 as they say.

I've been thinking about corruption in developing countries. Corruption occurs when leaders and officials only think of improving their own lives. Maybe what developing countries need is more corruption. Private enterprise allows everybody to try to improve their own lives. Maybe that's what makes first world countries rich! Equal opportunity corruption!

It sure beats Imperialism. So long as the average Africans are the ones who benefit most, rather than foreign investors with fly by night aspirations.

I'd rather both benefitted

It sure beats Imperialism. So long as the average Africans are the ones who benefit most, rather than foreign investors with fly by night aspirations.
If the foreign investors don't benefit, neither will the average Africans. It doesn't matter who benefits the most as long as both sides do benefit.

Just a couple of decades ago, "made in South Korea" was something to laugh at. South Korea was a sweatshop country, a manufacturing line of cheap tape recorders for the "imperialists". Now they do their own R&D, they are among the leading high-tech manufacturers in the world, and their companies are consuming their former Western investors. They played the Capitalist game by the rules- and won big time.

Africa is losing in the game because instead of playing, they demand that the rules be changed. It might earn them some pity and sympathy, but it won't help them win the prize.