I personally doubt that. First, you need to assume that Africans are less intelligent then other people (a pretty big premise that we really can’t prove, but I am wiling to accept it to make this work). Then, you need to assume that despite natural selection and the fact that over time people from other places would arrive, people would stay (relatively) dumb.
Now, it still doesn’t work because even if the AVERAGE IQ is lower, there will be at least some smart and clever people left over. You don’t need a nation full of geniuses, rocket scientists, and software programmers to keep things stable, you just need a decent base with good potential left over. On that note, a nation full of natural resources would fail if it was run by incompetent half-wits (But the thing is, there are usually enough smart people to counteract the half-wits unless there is an underlying issue), and a well run nation (using Capitalist theory or what not) would fail if it was built on unhospitable rock.
There are plenty of reasons why Africa is poor. First, the Europeans generally didn’t bother to educate most of the Africans, leaving them with a largely poor base with which to start a country. Second, the border divisions were based on old Colonial borders rather then ethnic borders. Some (very lucky) African countries ended up with one or two predominant ethnic groups around (Nigeria only has around 5-10 big ones, which is better then a lot of other places). A lot, however, ended up with hundreds of little tribes in their areas, some composed of millions of individuals, others being made up of some guy, his sister, and his cat. That led to the eventual cycle of “Corrupt government-revolution-Socialism-looting-repeat” that lots of African countries have today. Though it certainly can be broken (To some degree, free market reforms improved Botswana), it is pretty hard to do.
But why is this? This is the whole question. Whether it is technology or capital. Some peoples took the next step some did not. Is it language, resources, politics, or what? If people are equal then its one of those things but its very hard to point to one of those factors or even combination of factors that was not present in other parts of the world.
If we are boiling this down to African people, then we need to look at african population outside of africa. There are large population in the US, Caribbean, and South America. It seems that the African populations suffer from some sort of problem that does not allow them to rise to the top of the economic ladder. The traditional answer is racism. They cant get ahead because those who control the capital wont let them. But that is a very socialist answer. Is it right or no?
“Russia and the soviet block is emering from 70 year of socialism with decades of malinvestment”. there is no doubt that war makes a difference, but all peoples have experienced war. Hell Europe had almost its entire infastructure bombed out in two of the largest wars the world has ever seen. Yet they are not poor today.
agreed. But being from the american south, this is what I have been taught my whole life. I do believe that the system here has been a major problem for the blacks, but the blacks in the US are the most successful population of Blacks in th world. They are wealthier and more influential than their cousins in africa. Yet they have been, argueably, the most oppressed.
The problems that we are talking about are not unique to the continient of Africa. They exist in almost every population of Africans. Whether they be European, American, Caribbean, or African.
Disregard the last post. These are the areas of the highest concentration of European population. They were never under communist rule. Let us be honest here.
If Europeans can destroy their countries with communism, why could Africans not do the same thing? Or did the Europeans simply lose their IQ points all of a sudden and decided to adopt communism as a result?
So did africans destroy thier nations with communism? Was there something to destroy? If anything the only thing destroyed was what little was build during colonialism. The mercantilsit system which is capitalisms wayward cousin.