Why is Africa Poor?

[MMMark]

Tues. 10/03/23 11:05 EDT
.post #22

@Southern

You are pretty insistant on using Botswana as some sort of golden arrow that can be used to demonstrate that it is institutions and policies that cause all of african poverty. (If this is not what you are saying, I appologize)

I’m only using Botswana because I’m not aware of any other examples…but one should suffice, and Botswana is a good one.

@Southern

But we need to keep in mind that Botswana’s situation is not typical of most other african nations.
Possessing valuable natural resources bolster its numbers quite a bit.

I disagree with you here on three points.

1. The assumption that Botswana is atypically resource rich is both unfounded and unlikely. The resources buried beneath the ground of Africa don’t know or care about the man-made “borders,” arbitrarily drawn on the surface above! More likely is that the entire continent is a vast treasure-trove, as yet mostly undiscovered. This situation will change as Africa becomes increasingly infected with the ideas of liberty.

2. If Botswana is now rich in natural resources, it always has been, obviously. Why, then, the sudden surge in wealth? What changed? Not the geologic makeup. The change was economic and political. More fundamentally, the change was ideological. What has changed is Botswana’s position on the Nolan Chart.

3. It is not “possession” of natural resources that creates wealth, but the EXPLOITATION and LIBERATION of those resources, and in a way that generates a profit. Businessmen, no matter how high their “IQ,” will not risk their capital if the political environment is excessively predatory. Adding liberty to the economic soil, on the other hand, improves the health of the money trees.

@Southern

So if you can find in the data linked where a statistical anomaly is leading me astray, I would honestly ask you to point it out.

It’s not “statistical anomalies” that I have a problem with; it’s the idea of using U.S.A. “poverty” statistics, by race, to address the question “Why is Africa poor?” The “poor” in America, irrespective of IQ or race, enjoy a higher standard of living than many Africans, because America enjoys a higher degree of liberty than many African countries. The example of Botswana only corroborates this.