Yeah, Africa has things they want to buy. Cameroon was, at one point in the early 2000’s, the world’s fifth largest importer of champagne.
The money from these resources flowing out goes directly into the leader’s pockets. His excellency Paul Biya of Cameroon recently caused a bit of news by running up 43,000 Euro a night hotel bills in France. I’m as much for trade as anyone else, but this in this case it is not trade between countries. It is trade between western governments and African leaders as individuals, looting their states to pad their own bank accounts.
In Cameroon, the electricity was run by an American country and the roads were run by a French company. They’d pull the same shenanigans as everyone else. People who relied on electricity to make a living lived in fear, because now and then the electric company would show up demanding enormous bribes. I even had to shell out a number of times.
As for the roads, my road (a major one linking two large parts of the country) was maintained exactly once a year, when the trucks came to get the cotton harvest (which was grown under sharecropper debt-slave conditions for a French company, but that is another story.) When the road was good, the ride to the nearest city took an hour and half. When it was bad, it’d take 3 hours. When the cotton company finally decided to pave the road, it took them more than 3 years to pave a 99k stretch of the straightest flattest terrain you’ve ever seen. They were skimming. I knew the French guys from the road company and they were making out like bandits. Don’t think for a moment western interests would lift a single finger to make life better for the average people living in these countries.
As for installed leaders, look at Paul Biya. He’s been president for 30 years- longer than most people in his country have been alive. Living standards have dropped signifigantly under his rule- Cameroon has half the roads it once had. Unsurprisingly, people have tried to oust him a number of times- notably in 1987 and 1992. Both of these times, he received large arms donations from the United States, with which he secured his power and proceeded to slaughter hundreds of political opponents.
Or maybe a more extreme example, Bokassa of CAR. When he got the insane idea to crown himself emperor, France footed the bill for the entire 20 million dollar ceremony. That’s right- they paid for it. France continued to support that psychopath- who was known for personally beating his political opponents in stadiums- until he pissed them off by slaughtering a bunch of school children because he didn’t like their uniforms.
However, he obviously didn’t piss them off that much. When he got overthrown, he spent his time in comfortable exile in France.
Yes, of course ordinary people contribute to the badness. In Cameroon, a job as a policeman would cost around US $10,000 in bribes. Getting someone a job was a family effort, considering most people made around $1,000 a year and half the country makes less than a dollar a day. Once one family member had a job, they were expected to make enough to support the whole family. Since the government rarely paid their employees, the only way to recoup your investment was bribes.
And yeah, people from all cultures act like animals in times of war.
But don’t think for one second the west is out of the picture.
Oh come on, one typically calls processed products… products, no need to be bloody precious and pedantic. As short hand resource is pretty clear in context. I’d never call processed goods “resources” in a trade conversation.
True, and as Governance gets better one can expect more growth ex-extraction. Already happening, albeit slowly. But to do things other than extraction, one needs stability, reasonable infrastructure, etc.
Bollocks.
Sven hasn’t a bloody clue about what she was writing about.
To develop in-country industrialisation that is sustainable, you need a modicum of stability, not too terrible corruption (a wee bit is okay, workable at least), and investment in decent baseline infrastructure. Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana have begun on a path of getting that right. South Africa of course inherited world class infrastructure (ex education due to the damned curse of Apartheid), and that makes a world of difference.
But infrastructure has to begin somewhere, and contra the fantasies of fuzzy headed Leftists, that’s not with little villages, it’s around core areas of economic interest. Then if you’ve got a smart and reasonable, government, you take your revenues and you build out from that. Nothing wrong with starting with resource extraction and reinvesting in wider infrastructure. South Africa did that, Botswana is doing it. It’s not evil multinationals that prevent such reinvestment, it’s purely local bloody corruption and short-sightedness.
As a company, I can’t look long term if the Government is not. I don’t have the bloody resources, and dealing with the short term problems of petty corruption, under-investment in basic infrastructure is bloody damned hard enough.
Foreign countries is non-sense. EU and Commonwealth development aide to Africa has tried to be long-sighted, spent what, fifty fucking years pissing away money, eh? Development investment has been wasted by short-sighted kleptocrats. And yes, back in the Cold War days, a lot of that was propped up by outsiders of one sort or another, Sovs or the West. But the “fuck it and go it alone” crowd didn’t do any better, Guinea is a perfect bloody example, as well as Tanzania. The West deserves a good dose of blame for setting the baseline fucked up situation at decolonisation (although a wee bit of credit eh for the late investment - post-WWII we got collectively shamed into investing as one should have all along, so there was a bit of a semi-legit payback in the 1950s - but I’ll go right out and say it hardly made up for the racism and pure out exploitation); but after the 1970s, as many an honest African intellectual will tell you, Africa owns its own problems, and it’s bad African habits that have generated much of the idiocy (as well as absurd Leftist advice from well-meaning whites).
Personal consumption by kleptocrats ain’t trade by anyone’s standard.
But the solution is to reform the African side.
And this is the American’s fault how? Corrupt local employees are not something foreign concessionary managers create. Quite the contrary, bribe extraction hurts bottom line revenues.
So, I call bollocks on your story. Not that, given Cameroun, I am not certain there was bribe taking, but that the Concession is at fault, versus the culture of bribery the Biya administration has installed.
So, want to make your claim, show the concession does a worse job than the government service.
And?
You claimed this is something due to a concession. Sounds pretty bloody typical of an experience in an underfunded infrastructure program in West Africa, not run by concessions.
I’ll leave the debt slave claim alone, rather suspect it has about as much foundation as the other claims (that is grossly spun).
Oh the evil evil Western Interests.
Perhaps your Froggies were skimming (individually or as a corporation), or perhaps not. I shan’t guess as to how you arrived at your “conclusion.” Or perhaps the Government was skimming. Or both, on a corruptly let contracts. That’s not Western Interest (I am one, thank you very much for your ignorant broad brush insult), it’s local corruption.
Well, some vague semi-facts; and a call back to the old cold war days of support; when US and Sovs played “Support the Bastard against the other Bastard” game. Given the cycle of ousting in neighbouring Congo, I’d question the naive characterisation about the people trying to oust him over governance, rather than having a run at the honey pot.
That was well nigh 20 years ago, even taking as fact your assertion of “large arms donations” from the US, which I find questionable.
Biya is a Camerounian product. It’s bad Camerounian habits not evil Westerners that render his government a disaster.
CAR btw for the casual reader is Central African Republic, which it must be confessed is a land-locked shithole of a country, that actually pretty much meets every Western stereotype about Africa, unlike most African countries actually.
And this was when?
Oh let me answer, 19 fucking 76.
Yeah, the 1970s.
I won’t excuse the French in the 1970s, Froggies were bloody idiots, following Foccart, although on the positive end they also supported Houphouet Boigny, who may have been a bastard, but was compentent.
And in contrast to that, we have Guinea Conakry which kicked out Evil Whities in 62 as memory serves, and promptly spent - on its own bloody fucking choice of leaders - the next 50 years destroying the country. I grant De Gaulle was an asshole on leaving, in tearing out telephones, etc, but Guineau shows rather clearly that one did not need French or English or American interference to have the typical post-colonial descent into mad dictatorial hell.
From start to finish, this is a story of bad local governance and bad local habits; not evil Westerners, not multiniationals. Maladapted African habits.
Once upon a time many of these habits made sense. No longer.
Don’t think for a second I buy your Evil West picture, as in the countries where the West was out of the picture, the evolution is no more enlightening, and in fact worse in many instances.
This whole narrative of The Evil West Fucking Things Up for the Africans, while it came from a real point of departure has long gone false. Bad African habits, not the West, are the cause of most of the miserable governments in Africa.
The only solution is generating the will to reform and change, like a Ghana has. Selling the Exploitative West line is the worst form of pandering excuse making.
An added thought on the bankruptcy of Blame The West (starting from the point of acknowledging that the Empire(s) set a bad bloody fucking baseline so there is a real responsibility for the old colonial powers if not The West), one need only look at World Bank’s Doing Business Rankings, and one can see where the real reasons are for the crappy state of affairs in much, although not all, of Africa. The Dead Hand of the State is the prime reason: see http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings
I’m no lunatic American libertarian with their bizarre anti-government fetish as such, but you can pretty clearly see by looking at those rankings, and rather the specific reaons for the rankings, why industry and domestic economies have not flourished. The Dead Hand, and all its little nasty bureaucrats repaying their “investment” in getting their position.
So what role would you say the West plays in modern African politics and economics?
I think you are misstating my position a little bit. Of course I don’t believe that Africa would be all sunshines and roses if only the West weren’t involved. Many parts of Africa are a bad scene for hundreds of reasons, only some of which involves the West.
My point is that:
A: The West is still involved in African politics and economics.
B: These interests often (though not always) do not serve the interests of African people beyond the leaders.
C: But they do serve the interests of some Western governments and companies
D:Handing more power to the West would probably not lead to improvement, and would quite likely not lead to much change, since from a purely economic Western perspective, things really aren’t going to bad, give or take a Nigerian oil rebel or two.
We are just one player in a big screwed-up game. But we are a player and we can’t really claim we’ve been taking the high road.
And can you tell me again, who is shipping those arms to Sudan? Who is paying for them and with what money/commodities? Why do you think they might be doing that?
It most certainly does. Every bloody category is about excessive state intervention in the form of excessive permits, regulations etc. that pose barriers to firm creation and expansion.
And Sub Saharan Africa clearly ranks at the bottom in all categories, with a strong coincidence between poor ranking there and wealth levels.
Not very much at all, in the overall analysis. Africa even for the French now has become an afterthought.
Of course subventions in the form of well-meant aide help prop up kleptocrats, but one never wants to criticise foreign aide, eh?
The World is.
Unless Africa is hermetically sealed off, that is not a terribly meaningful observation.
Meaningless statement. What are the “interests” of the “African people”?
Jobs, growth, ability to feed family. Fuzzy Wuzzy Traditional Values?
I take it as axiomatic that people serve their own interests. So, of course firms operating serve own interests. That’s the bloody point of a firm.
For the first part, imposing Colonial Rule again, I have not a problem in saying it would do no good, and much harm.
For the Second: Utter and complete tripe. The worst form of Leftist tripe.
From a purely economic perspective, SSA is a fucking disaster for firms that want to do business. Contra your fuzzy Lefty stereotype, the business world actually actively prefers to do business in stable, non-corrupt environments.
As such, the enviro in SSA is not where one would like it to be, and we would very much prefer a better enviro, so we could invest, expand and make more money (and create jobs) without paying bribes, etc. Indeed, lots of companies stay the bloody hell away from SSA BECAUSE it is so poorly perceived.
Indeed, read some fucking investor perception surveys, rather than getting your impressions from biased lying Leftist activist circles. SSA is rated terribly as a placed where people want to go to do business, meaning, in fact real actual capitalists DON’T find the current state of affairs attractive. In fact, contrary to the fuzzy headed hard Left thinks, we in business do not sit around thinking up ways to exploit Africans.
The Russians. And? What point is Russian and other gun running supposed to prove?
On that page you can see categories in a simplified form, and comparison w Rest of SSA, and OECD. For those who like charting and data, it is free to download.
The majority of evaluated categories are about Government Regulation & Procedures.
Take an easy to understand category, starting a formal business (I think in SA form, but in any case standardised comparator):
Due to Gov fees, forms and the like, it costs 121% of the per capita income to start a business, jumping through all the hoops. And one has to pony up 183% of per capita income as “minimum starting capital” (due to be deposited in a blocked account). That is government regulation imposed barrier, and serves no purpose. The OECD comps are 5 and 16%. Pure Government dead weight there.
Registering property costs about 18% of property value (versus OECD avg of 5%) and takes an incredible 93 days. 93 days to extract bribes for obtaining whatever idiotic stamp or whatever the corrupt malinger in the property office wants on your docs.
That is illustrative of the problem. In Africa, it is the dead and incompetent hand of the Government that kills off opportunity. Regulation is a sad joke. I am all for regulation where it serves a purpose and can be effectively implemented.
Even Britain wasn’t like Britian till four hundred and something years ago when the English, Scots and Welsh stopped fighting each other and settled down into an eventual democracy*. Afghanistan has actually managed periods of peace and relative prosperity but has a bunch of powerful neighbours playing out their proxy wars there so it’s always got somebody interfering in it, making long-term stability very tricky indeed. It’s like Lebanon or Iraq in that respect. If Britain wasn’t an island and had powerful neighbours doing the same thing it’d still be like Afghanistan is now, except sheepier and foggier obviously.
*And then they turned their energies to the rest of the world. So it actually might be a good idea to let the Afghans just keep fighting amongst themselves.
To be fair to governments there are relatively uncorrupt governments that do an excellent job of governing their people. I think if you take extreme cases of good government versus no government, something like Norway versus Somalia, it’s a fair bet which country most people would choose to live in. The problem in Africa isn’t that they have governments, it’s that their governments are breathtakingly corrupt.
My comments are about African governments, not against all government, although I do believe in having as little government interference as possible, I am not some strange American Anarcho-Libertarian.
As long as we are at this, let me take another crack at the offensive Left stereotype of private enterprise in Africa. Few things, in my opinion have done more damage to African than the kind of weak and superficial analysis shown earlier.
Let’s take concessionary construction projects in Africa. I have had the displeasure of working on exactly that.
So, our Sven claims the Evil French were exploiting the Camerounians. Maybe.
But here is how such a project really works.
First, the tender. God knows if it’s a clean bid or if your local partner – one ALWAYS has a local partner, preferably close to the Head Kleptocrat, otherwise no matter how good your firm quals are, you’ve got no chance – gave a bit of “dash” to get your dossier read.
Okay you win. Well, there’s no doubt that the pricing is going to be played with by the minor kleptocrats in the Ministry of Fucking People Over (sorry Construction).
So, having won, let’s ignore if a bit of “dash” was involved – assume the minimum.
Then you have to bring in your equipment, as generally good quality stuff is not to be had at a reasonable price locally (sometimes it is, but rarely in quantity, and most often shit maintained). There you run into all kinds of interesting problems.
Customs officials at the Port find 1000 reasons why this and that paper is not right, oh and your customs exemption from the Chief Kleptocrat’s office is not really covering this or that… in the end it’s all a scam to get you to pay them off or they just block and block until you have to pay or go up over the heads (and likely pay a bigger “facilitation fee”) to get what was supposed to be on contract spec for non-duty or reduced duty import into the godforsaken country.
Or even if you’re full duty, them finding an excuse to double charge (such as claiming spare parts are for resale and thus dutied up twice, thus you have to send your chief engineer down to port and have him sit down with the fat beer sucking scumbag who thought up this little game and count the spare parts to ensure they meet guidelines, wasting a week or three).
And the same assholes who are shaking you down on every damn thing that fucking moves go and write letters in the shit-for-brains press about how Whitey is ripping the Country off, the hypocritical scum that they are.
More fun occurs when you have to import materials, cement or whatnot, and you run into all kinds of imaginary permits and other excuses to shake you down, from shipside all the way to the trucks. Let’s ignore the outright theft of some of your cement or construction steel.
So your local partner, bless his heart – how the fuck he manages to stay above water given the parasites around him escapes me – finds a way to bring in the materials via the black market. Still payoffs, but you save 50% on cost. Of course you still get the shakedowns for your equipment and material every 10km or so with those idiotic police and gendarmie checkpoints on the roads, each time a bit of cash and lost hours, doubling or tripling your transport time and costs, idling works and expensive engineers.
Yeah, but it’s the concession’s fault that things are getting done, exploiting the Africans…
Corruption all around, but doing things straight up sends you into a Kafkian hell as fat bellied, calabashes of beer swilling parasites suck you dry, and then go sell empty headed Leftist activists stories about the foreigners exploiting the country.
As this is actual live experience, forgive me if I read when I read utter nonsense about foreign concessions holding Africa down, AND that the Western business community LIKE and WANTS such conditions, I want to spit.
All the more so as the same kind of behaviour also imposes a death grip on domestic private enterprise (unless properly connected with the Chief Kleptocrat, then you get a free pass on the body of absurd regulations copied from EU, UK or France and applied with catastrophic cretinism and cupidity), killing off jobs and growth. So of course there’s not much local production.
That kind of rubbish thinking that pretends it is the West that is exploiting Africa and keeping it down is what keeps Africa down, via empty and mealy mouthed excuse making.
Dude, we all know that it’s hard to do business in (much of) Africa. I don’t disagree with you. If you’d stop foaming about “lefty this” and “lefty that” we could have some rational discussion.
It is a pain in the ass to run a company in (much of) Africa, especially a foreign one, for all the reasons stated. So that leaves the question- why are they doing it? Not for the skim. It’s there but almost certainly not enough to make it worth it. So why?
They are doing it because this basic infrastructure supports the resource-extraction companies. The power plant runs the cotton gin. The road leads the logging trucks out. It’s about cotton, fruit, chocolate, coffee, minerals and oil.
Who profits from the resource-extraction industries?
The leaders and the foreign companies that provide the heavy equipment to make it possible. And pretty much only them. There is no “trickle down”. The leaders spend that money on foreign champagne and vacations to France. There is no reinvestment in the country (beyond what it’d take to remove resources more efficiently.)
Who loses? The people who actually live there. They have to put up with the environmental problems, health problems, poor working conditions, local economic disturbances, etc. that resource-extraction brings.
Lucky for us, we don’t have to worry about those things at all! Just a little cash here and there, and those problems no longer concern us!
You are absolutely right that the reason that less harmful industries don’t operate is corruption and instability. The question is, from a business view point, it it better to stick with the booming resource-extraction model we have now, or gamble on change which may or may not lead to better industries in the future?
In my opinion, many Western governments (and some Eastern- Lebanese are huge players, and China is creeping in.) have decided to stick with what we’ve got and keep this resource extraction system going until we’ve mined the place out. And yeah, this means occassionally toying in elections (the last Cameroonian election was “watched over” by a group of bribed US ex-senators) and the whatnot. Not always, not every country, but enough to make us players
For an example of the benevolence of Western countries in Africa, take a look at the Abidjan toxic waste incident. A Dutch company with a boatful of super-toxic waste paid local subcontractors to “dump” it in Cote D’Ivoire after their waste was rejected in Europe. This waste was then casually dumped at sites across Cote D’Ivoire’s biggest city, proceeding to make thousands sick. Or maybe you believe the company when they say it was just a boatload of sunshine and roses that they paid to spread all over Abidjan?
Also, it’s not Russia in Sudan. It’s China, for oil, in the Sudan with an AK. And we still tell ourselves it’s a war about those silly black people and their tribal prejudices who just can’t stop killing each other for no reason.
Yes, I think the US has learned it’s lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. I think instead of colonialism the best thing would be to make new territories commonwealths of the USA like Porto Rico and let the citizens join the US military and serve our nation.
