From: Waldemar Ingdahl (wingdahl@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jan 25 2000 - 09:57:06 MST
Africa is dying, but it isn't AIDS, it isn't dying of famine or wars. It is
dying of politics. When the colonial powers left Africa, they had installed
huge bureaucratic systems, while commerce was either in the form of huge
corporations (like the plantations) and small scale tradesmen. The only ways
open to success in African societies were either to become a politician or a
military. A politician could control peoples lives and rule over the only
existing institution: the state. Tribalism started to flourish since control
of the state was the only option for survival, and then it quickly bogged
down into coup d'etats. The generalissmo became the only viable option for
people that wanted to make a career, to control the shrinking state.
Have you noticed that most First World businesses in Africa are mines, oil
fields and such natural resource gatherers? Why aren't there any computer
business in Libreville or toy manifacturers in Kampala? They should be
lining up according to the "social dumping" preachers (no wages, no social
benefits)? Well then you would have to deal with African society, and that
is chaos, snatchocracy and corruption in the extreme. All your prospective
African business partners WILL try to trick you (apologies to all honest
African businesses, but you are very few indeed), and worst of all you'll
have to get into contact with the local government on a regular basis, a
government that thinks that a private industry only exists to be bled by
them so they can gather resources for their civil wars.
Read the Frazier report on the economic freedom of 119 of the world's
nations and territories. Africa made quite dismal reading.
Waldemar Ingdahl
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