From: George Ayittey <ayittey@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 6:11 AM
Subject: [Mwananchi] Why Africa is Poor
To: Mwananchi@yahoogroups.com
Why Africa is Poor
Sure, there are success stories in Africa but they FEW – 10 out of 54 countries. They should be celebrated.
But we keep celebrating the few ad nauseam instead of taking pro-active steps to turn others into more success stories.
We should be strong advocates for PEACE, INFRASTRUCTURE and ECONOMIC FREEDOM. Those are the secret keys to economic prosperity.
Add a democratic component to make that prosperity sustainable. No dictator has brought lasting prosperity to ANY African country, period.
To engineer economic prosperity, all an African gov't has to do is establish peace, lay down and maintain infrastructure and clear the hell out of the way. But this seldom happened in post colonial Africa. Peace eluded vast swaths of the African continent; more than 40 civil wars and conflict have been waged. Infrastructure crumbled due to neglect and destruction. And governments insisted on sticking their corrupt fingers into every pot.
For the concept of economic freedom, the key ingredients are:
• personal choice,
• voluntary exchange coordinated by markets,
• freedom to enter and compete in markets, and
• protection of persons and their property from aggression by others.
These four cornerstones imply that economic freedom is present when individuals are permitted to choose for themselves and engage in voluntary transactions as long as they do not harm the person or property of others. Individuals have a right to decide how they will use their time, talents, and resources, but they do not have a right to the time, talents, and resources of others. Put another way, individuals do not have a right to take things from others or demand that others provide things for them. Use of violence, theft, fraud, and physical invasions are not permissible but, otherwise, individuals are free to choose, trade, and cooperate with others, and compete as they see fit. In an economically free society, the primary role of government is to protect individuals and their property from aggression by others. The EFW index is designed to measure the extent to which the institutions and policies of a nation are consistent with this protective function. In order to achieve a high EFW rating, a country must provide secure protection of privately owned property, evenhanded enforcement of contracts, and a stable monetary environment. It also must keep taxes low, refrain from creating barriers to both domestic and international trade, and rely more fully on markets rather than the political process to allocate goods and resources.( http://bit.ly/Kc1Szo)
Read about how economic freedom existed in Africa's own traditional system; how, given peace and skeletal infrastructural development, African peasants prospered even during that hated colonial period; how their economic freedom was snatched from them in South Africa under apartheid and by the first generation of African leaders, using alien ideologies such as socialism and Marxism they blindly copied from abroad at this link: http://bit.ly/HYaVU2
According to the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom (2012) only 8 African countries can be classified as "Mostly Free" in 2011: Botswana, Cape Verde Islands, Ghana, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda. No African country received a "Free" rating. Most of Africa is not economically free.
It is not enough to celebrate the few success stories. Be STRONG advocate for peace, infrastructure development and economic freedom to generate MORE success stories. Africa is poor because she is not free.
Mwananchi is now on facebook join us at
http://www.facebook.com/groups.php#/group.php?gid=61997445929
This online initiative is part of an ongoing dialogue among Africans about how to address the challenges facing the continent.
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