The only people that have a right to make poverty history in Africa, are the Africans themselves. Anything else and you'd have Europeans running round thinking they own the place or Bob Gandalfs talking shit and telling the wrong people that they are '****ing wankers'. Also who says Capitalism can't work for the Africans? Sure it's flawed, but so are alot of things.

Some would argue that capitalism with strong rule of law, human rightsand transparency Is the Cure for Africa's Problems that pre-industrial Europe was vastly poorer than contemporary Africa.

A relatively well-off country, like France, experienced several famines between the 15th and 18th centuries as well as plagues and diseases that sometimes killed hundreds of thousands. In France, life expectancy was 20 years, in Ireland it was 19 years, and in early 18th-century London, more than 74 percent of the children died before reaching age 5.


Beginning in the late 18th century, there was a dramatic economic turnabout in Europe. How in the world did these once poor and backward countries break the "vicious cycle of poverty" and become wealthy, without what today's development experts say is absolutely necessary for economic growth -- foreign aid handouts, World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans, and billions of dollars of debt forgiveness?

The answer is simple: Capitalism started taking root in Europe. Capitalism is an economic system where there's peaceable, voluntary exchange. Government protects private property rights held in goods and services. There's rule of law and minimal government regulation and control of the economy.

countries with the freest economic systems are: Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Estonia, Ireland and New Zealand. Bringing up the rear as the countries with little or no economic liberty are: North Korea, Zimbabwe, Angola, Burundi and the Congo. It's not rocket science to conclude that economic liberty and the wealth of a nation and its peoples go together, not to mention greater human rights guarantees.

Some economic development "experts" attribute Africa's troubles to its history of colonialism. That's nonsense, because some of the world's richest countries are former colonies, such as the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. In fact, many of Africa's sub-Saharan countries are poorer now than when they were colonies, and their people suffer greater human rights degradations, such as the mass genocide the continent has witnessed.


One unappreciated tragedy that attests to the wasted talents of its peoples is that Africans tend to do well all around the world except in Africa. This is seen by the large number of prosperous, professional and skilled African families throughout Europe and the United States. Back home, these same people would be hamstrung by their corrupt governments.


I am merely presentingthearguement.

An excellent anlysis.No need to add anything further.

I am open to better ideas. But I want to see these ideas work umbrarchist.

I don’t like the waste in capitalistic societies.

Sweden, it can be argued, with its combination of socialism, capitalism and strong rule of law works relatively well.

The soviet union and china’s flirtation with communism was a terrible economic failure and a repressive nightmare for the people. Stalin alone killed 20 million of his people in the name of the revolution - and for nothing.

I disagree with Western success being down to capitalism only...

There are two key benefits under which the West flourished, which are now banned by international trade law

a) infant industry protection

b) theft of intellectual property

'Free labour' always helps, but nothing advances you more than stealing other peoples technology...

arc9311

“You are right if 47 years ago the SR-71 was flying at the speed of sound, why the hell are we still using fossil fuels to power our automobiles and pollute our cities.�

Arc - but why hasn’t Cuba, or Angola, or the Soviet Union, developed alternatives to fossil fuels then ?


Free

What theft oftechnology are you taking about?

And also, there are countries that are poor who participated in the slave trade. Spain despite its colonial empire was poor for most of the 20th century.

America fought one of the bloodiest wars in history over the question of slavery. An issue, I might add, which should have been decided instantly by men’s consciences. More American Soldiersdied in that war than all of America’s 20th century conflicts combined. By the end of the civil war the south was economically devastated and the north was bankrupt. So I am not sure what the benefits of slavery were (economic or otherwise) except for a lot of misery and death.