I have found Quentin Skinner's work on what he calls Neo Roman Republicanism helpful. The state is the people and the government is empowered by the people. The West has embraced this notion. I find it more insightful than Marxist commentary and less alienating.
Another helpful perspective I frequently return to is Joseph Henrich and The W.E.I.R.D.est people on earth. A relevant component that seems to be missing in sub-Saharan Africa is 'prosocial trust', do we trust our a stranger and importantly our government to act as they say they will and that laws and culture say they will. Think of getting a fair shake in the courts or what it took to create the extremely high liquidity of our financial markets and its foundations which most of us never need to know about.
Yep. There's a reason Brad cites Singapore as a relatively recent model, so to speak, for Cameroon. Google Kaushik Basu on why matters in Singapore likely click. You'll see elements of 'prosocial trust' despite ethnic diversity and 'strangers.' Governments in Cameroon probably did the opposite.
It is also an unfortunate historical fact that independence was granted at a time when ideas of government planning/direction of the economy was in the ascendent. I daresay that Paul in Paris did not learn "Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things."
I loved the read! Good article I think it's fascinating why African agricultural productivity is so poor. This is convinced me to read more on Robert Bates and your book "Slouching Towards Utopia".
However, Aren't you underestimating how many successful countries that “disciplined the peasantry” or “forcibly removing it from the land.” South Korea and Taiwan were deeply authoritarian countries at the start by Syngyman Rhee, Park Chung Hee, or Chiang Kai-Check. Wouldn't Singapore and China also be examples? Also, Rene of Seychelles was also an authoritarian.
I'm Ghanaian-American and also write about Africa if interested:
Here's my article on the 1980s-2000s, African debt Crisis:
There is probably something about being an authoritarian that is at risk from external forces and seeing the need for development for survival. Korea, Singapore, Taiwan could not afford to get it wrong.
Not sure if I understand or agree. Most of Africa at independence also feared external threats (Olympio of Togo thought Nkrumah of Ghana would try to annex Togo, Ethiopia & Kenya were wary of Somalia's irredentist goals to take their territory that was populated with Somali nomads. Algeria was concerned about Morocco after Morocco tried annexing Western Algeria).
Many African countries were also at risk from external forces and wanted to develop to survive, they were also authoritarian but just failed at developing.
That makes sense..... I guess Taiwan fearing Mao or South Korea fearing North Korea is a bigger threat than Ethiopia fearing Somalia or Togo fearing Ghana. If your point is that Taiwan had to grow richer as the KMT was thought of as a foreign entity invading the island initially or if KMT failed then people would overthrow the KMT I agree. Meanwhile Ethiopia's foreign threat --Somalia is not nearly as scary.
Ultimately though I think development came from the policies pursued in "How Asia Works". The land reform and pushing up agricultural yields helped Taiwan and South Korea. Meanwhile most of Africa still can't even hit 3 tones of food per hectare.
When you say something that makes sense, you have to agree!
Well in many African countries they didn't take farming seriously and now they go bankrupt every few years whenever commdoity prices fall while they import more food every year.
I live in the US too. I think America is politically insane but economically fine. I think everyone in America overhypes America's decline (I don't think it's even declining). UK and Japan are decliners.
Your Substack ate my comment. Be pragmatic. Focus on getting the job done, as Porter did. It is clear that add in that style work towards her current goal - getting elected. She is not aiming to win a debate with Brad DeLong and would be stupid if she developed an advertisement that way.
If she approached her job as Senator that way, it would be very unfortunate. It is also very very unlikely - she hasn’t made trouble for fellow Democrats in the house.
Also you do not mention Schiff. A naive reader would assume you are not even considering voting fir him. A naive reader might be influenced by that apparent dismissal and vote for the guy you named and praised
This is a touching, impressive post. Thomas Sowell, an economist whom you probably don't agree with very often, and whom I don't agree with very often, has, unsurprisingly, written quite a bit about Africa, and I think that many of the points he makes are true. We in the liberal West are encouraged to believe that democracy and/or "free markets" infallibly create stable, prosperous, “free” societies, but it seems much more likely that the flow of causality runs the other way. If you have a prosperous, educated, middle class, even if you have a tiny, autocratic, confiscatory ruling class, you will eventually “get to Denmark” because, basically, you’re already in Denmark. And the fact that Denmark itself is located well north of the equator, “commanding” the entrance to a large inland sea, enjoying a relatively mild, “west coast” climate, protected from easy political domination by outsiders because its neighbors “balance” one another (most of the time), well, that doesn’t hurt either.
Saying that Africa’s “problem” is “culture” doesn’t mean that if only Africans read Shakespeare and listened to Mozart everything would be okay. It means that what happened in Europe was not the result of a few great ideas but a long, by no means “necessary” historical process whose “lessons” cannot be easily taught to cultures that were, until quite recently, pre-literate and shaped by events entirely unlike what was happening in Europe and located in a continent entirely unlike Europe as well.
Although I am a quite conventional liberal Democrat, I continue to find it “funny” that conventional liberal Democrats like you and Paul Krugman continuously express frustration that the U.S. isn’t “more like Europe” when the U.S. is so obviously not like Europe. The UK and France are scarcely more than city states compared to the U.S. Both were ruled for centuries by tiny, aristocratic elites, and literally the way you speak still determines, to a very great extent, who you are, and whether people will listen to you. Consider the widely differing experiences of American population subgroups: the American Indians, their entire way of life destroyed by an all powerful, “superior” culture; American blacks, enslaved for centuries; the white American south, enduring a defeat comparable to that of France after World War I, if indeed not worse; northern WASPS, enjoying the “best” of everything; European immigrants, rejoicing in political freedom and economic opportunity. And, above all, once we got past the era of the wigs (without the “h”), NO ONE TO TELL YOU WHAT TO THINK AND WHAT TO DO. Practically any immigrant will tell you this, but somehow it never sinks in.
A fine article (with your usual brave, and IMHO, genuinely honest touch of auto-critique about your recent book). I think in this post you dont give enough demerit to the French who help keep Biya in power both for his oil and so that the anglophone part of Cameroon doesnt become independent (la grande peur de nos amis francais) or join Nigeria (LOL) or claim what is supposedly their constitutional right of a bilingual Republic. And the European and US banks who help Biya and his clan hide their fortune; they are not innocent. Biya does some balancing that is not entirely by brute force … one story (told by a high Cam official) is that when Biya needs a new Minister or decides to create a new Ministry, that he summons the “carte ethnographique” of his country. He points at the map where the local tribe is under-represented in the Government and he names the new Minister from that tribe. And Biya creates a sort of Mobutu-like mystique (“I alone can keep the country together”). We were once (2005 ?) in one of the many waiting rooms of his palace hanging around (it was some sort of holiday) to see one of the Ministres d’Etat whose office was in the palace. I ask the handler (and we were whispering, which I thought bizarre at first, until remembering the microphones) … “Il est present aujourdhui, le president de la République ?” “Ah no, monsieur, je ne sais pas”. It turned out he was in Europe somewhere but the point of the mystery (into which a fairly senior member of his administration had not been admitted) was that PB was a godlike figure ….
I'd be more inclined to agree with your last few paragraphs if it weren't for the recent experience here in the US. If here, of all places, we have a near majority of citizens who actively *want* authoritarian rule, who do not accept the right of "those people" and women to be full participants in an administrative state run for the benefit of everyone. And in much of the US *that was what prevailed for most of our history*. Then there's Britain and Brexit... So I don't see why or how we can expect that elsewhere.
Modernization is brutal; Hall is right. Okay, it doesn't require forcing peasants off the land (although the enclosure movement did just that), but it does require at least temporarily increasing inequality in an economy where the poor have barely enough. Think of the breaking of the iron rice bowl in post-Mao China. It does require the suppression of tribalism, which often entails a lot of violence. ("Tribalism" kinda means "nationalism;" think of the ethnic cleansings that made for a peaceful postwar Europe.) Creation of a lingua franca strands a few generations of people from the wrong language group. Etc.
I'm not one much for Jonathan Edwards' theology, but his political theory was spot-on. "We hang by a slender thread."
Cameroon has more than 240 tribes, and borders that were drawn by colonial powers. So why do white liberals think that sub Saharan Africa should have democratic and prosperous nation states? Peace and prosperity in Europe since WWII is largely due to having culturally homogenous nation states. Nation states that were not homogenous, such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, did not last long once free from communist dictators. It is hypocritical for first world nations to expect African nations to achieve some type of multi-ethnic success and harmony that Europeans themselves failed to achieve.
I have found Quentin Skinner's work on what he calls Neo Roman Republicanism helpful. The state is the people and the government is empowered by the people. The West has embraced this notion. I find it more insightful than Marxist commentary and less alienating.
Another helpful perspective I frequently return to is Joseph Henrich and The W.E.I.R.D.est people on earth. A relevant component that seems to be missing in sub-Saharan Africa is 'prosocial trust', do we trust our a stranger and importantly our government to act as they say they will and that laws and culture say they will. Think of getting a fair shake in the courts or what it took to create the extremely high liquidity of our financial markets and its foundations which most of us never need to know about.
Yep. There's a reason Brad cites Singapore as a relatively recent model, so to speak, for Cameroon. Google Kaushik Basu on why matters in Singapore likely click. You'll see elements of 'prosocial trust' despite ethnic diversity and 'strangers.' Governments in Cameroon probably did the opposite.
It is also an unfortunate historical fact that independence was granted at a time when ideas of government planning/direction of the economy was in the ascendent. I daresay that Paul in Paris did not learn "Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things."
I loved the read! Good article I think it's fascinating why African agricultural productivity is so poor. This is convinced me to read more on Robert Bates and your book "Slouching Towards Utopia".
However, Aren't you underestimating how many successful countries that “disciplined the peasantry” or “forcibly removing it from the land.” South Korea and Taiwan were deeply authoritarian countries at the start by Syngyman Rhee, Park Chung Hee, or Chiang Kai-Check. Wouldn't Singapore and China also be examples? Also, Rene of Seychelles was also an authoritarian.
I'm Ghanaian-American and also write about Africa if interested:
Here's my article on the 1980s-2000s, African debt Crisis:
https://yawboadu.substack.com/p/the-1980s-and-1990s-african-debt
I also write on individual countries: Seychelles, Ivory Coast, Angola, and etc.
https://yawboadu.substack.com/p/the-economic-and-geopolitical-history-6a9
There is probably something about being an authoritarian that is at risk from external forces and seeing the need for development for survival. Korea, Singapore, Taiwan could not afford to get it wrong.
Good point! Brad
Not sure if I understand or agree. Most of Africa at independence also feared external threats (Olympio of Togo thought Nkrumah of Ghana would try to annex Togo, Ethiopia & Kenya were wary of Somalia's irredentist goals to take their territory that was populated with Somali nomads. Algeria was concerned about Morocco after Morocco tried annexing Western Algeria).
Many African countries were also at risk from external forces and wanted to develop to survive, they were also authoritarian but just failed at developing.
Perhaps so, but these do not sound like existential threats that rulers understood only development could fend off.
That makes sense..... I guess Taiwan fearing Mao or South Korea fearing North Korea is a bigger threat than Ethiopia fearing Somalia or Togo fearing Ghana. If your point is that Taiwan had to grow richer as the KMT was thought of as a foreign entity invading the island initially or if KMT failed then people would overthrow the KMT I agree. Meanwhile Ethiopia's foreign threat --Somalia is not nearly as scary.
Ultimately though I think development came from the policies pursued in "How Asia Works". The land reform and pushing up agricultural yields helped Taiwan and South Korea. Meanwhile most of Africa still can't even hit 3 tones of food per hectare.
Since I am more of an outsider guessing, thanks for the agreement.
The issue is why some countries manage to "do the right things" and others do not.
Why is policy in mine (the US) deteriorating?
When you say something that makes sense, you have to agree!
Well in many African countries they didn't take farming seriously and now they go bankrupt every few years whenever commdoity prices fall while they import more food every year.
I live in the US too. I think America is politically insane but economically fine. I think everyone in America overhypes America's decline (I don't think it's even declining). UK and Japan are decliners.
I understand much better
Your Substack ate my comment. Be pragmatic. Focus on getting the job done, as Porter did. It is clear that add in that style work towards her current goal - getting elected. She is not aiming to win a debate with Brad DeLong and would be stupid if she developed an advertisement that way.
If she approached her job as Senator that way, it would be very unfortunate. It is also very very unlikely - she hasn’t made trouble for fellow Democrats in the house.
Also you do not mention Schiff. A naive reader would assume you are not even considering voting fir him. A naive reader might be influenced by that apparent dismissal and vote for the guy you named and praised
This is a touching, impressive post. Thomas Sowell, an economist whom you probably don't agree with very often, and whom I don't agree with very often, has, unsurprisingly, written quite a bit about Africa, and I think that many of the points he makes are true. We in the liberal West are encouraged to believe that democracy and/or "free markets" infallibly create stable, prosperous, “free” societies, but it seems much more likely that the flow of causality runs the other way. If you have a prosperous, educated, middle class, even if you have a tiny, autocratic, confiscatory ruling class, you will eventually “get to Denmark” because, basically, you’re already in Denmark. And the fact that Denmark itself is located well north of the equator, “commanding” the entrance to a large inland sea, enjoying a relatively mild, “west coast” climate, protected from easy political domination by outsiders because its neighbors “balance” one another (most of the time), well, that doesn’t hurt either.
Saying that Africa’s “problem” is “culture” doesn’t mean that if only Africans read Shakespeare and listened to Mozart everything would be okay. It means that what happened in Europe was not the result of a few great ideas but a long, by no means “necessary” historical process whose “lessons” cannot be easily taught to cultures that were, until quite recently, pre-literate and shaped by events entirely unlike what was happening in Europe and located in a continent entirely unlike Europe as well.
Although I am a quite conventional liberal Democrat, I continue to find it “funny” that conventional liberal Democrats like you and Paul Krugman continuously express frustration that the U.S. isn’t “more like Europe” when the U.S. is so obviously not like Europe. The UK and France are scarcely more than city states compared to the U.S. Both were ruled for centuries by tiny, aristocratic elites, and literally the way you speak still determines, to a very great extent, who you are, and whether people will listen to you. Consider the widely differing experiences of American population subgroups: the American Indians, their entire way of life destroyed by an all powerful, “superior” culture; American blacks, enslaved for centuries; the white American south, enduring a defeat comparable to that of France after World War I, if indeed not worse; northern WASPS, enjoying the “best” of everything; European immigrants, rejoicing in political freedom and economic opportunity. And, above all, once we got past the era of the wigs (without the “h”), NO ONE TO TELL YOU WHAT TO THINK AND WHAT TO DO. Practically any immigrant will tell you this, but somehow it never sinks in.
Umm, that alone is worth the annual subscription to Grasping. (Not that I'm sayin' you're under-priced, lol).
A fine article (with your usual brave, and IMHO, genuinely honest touch of auto-critique about your recent book). I think in this post you dont give enough demerit to the French who help keep Biya in power both for his oil and so that the anglophone part of Cameroon doesnt become independent (la grande peur de nos amis francais) or join Nigeria (LOL) or claim what is supposedly their constitutional right of a bilingual Republic. And the European and US banks who help Biya and his clan hide their fortune; they are not innocent. Biya does some balancing that is not entirely by brute force … one story (told by a high Cam official) is that when Biya needs a new Minister or decides to create a new Ministry, that he summons the “carte ethnographique” of his country. He points at the map where the local tribe is under-represented in the Government and he names the new Minister from that tribe. And Biya creates a sort of Mobutu-like mystique (“I alone can keep the country together”). We were once (2005 ?) in one of the many waiting rooms of his palace hanging around (it was some sort of holiday) to see one of the Ministres d’Etat whose office was in the palace. I ask the handler (and we were whispering, which I thought bizarre at first, until remembering the microphones) … “Il est present aujourdhui, le president de la République ?” “Ah no, monsieur, je ne sais pas”. It turned out he was in Europe somewhere but the point of the mystery (into which a fairly senior member of his administration had not been admitted) was that PB was a godlike figure ….
I'd be more inclined to agree with your last few paragraphs if it weren't for the recent experience here in the US. If here, of all places, we have a near majority of citizens who actively *want* authoritarian rule, who do not accept the right of "those people" and women to be full participants in an administrative state run for the benefit of everyone. And in much of the US *that was what prevailed for most of our history*. Then there's Britain and Brexit... So I don't see why or how we can expect that elsewhere.
That alone should tell us how we've let our institutions erode and create monopolies or near-monopolies systemwide.
Sure should.
Modernization is brutal; Hall is right. Okay, it doesn't require forcing peasants off the land (although the enclosure movement did just that), but it does require at least temporarily increasing inequality in an economy where the poor have barely enough. Think of the breaking of the iron rice bowl in post-Mao China. It does require the suppression of tribalism, which often entails a lot of violence. ("Tribalism" kinda means "nationalism;" think of the ethnic cleansings that made for a peaceful postwar Europe.) Creation of a lingua franca strands a few generations of people from the wrong language group. Etc.
I'm not one much for Jonathan Edwards' theology, but his political theory was spot-on. "We hang by a slender thread."
Cameroon has more than 240 tribes, and borders that were drawn by colonial powers. So why do white liberals think that sub Saharan Africa should have democratic and prosperous nation states? Peace and prosperity in Europe since WWII is largely due to having culturally homogenous nation states. Nation states that were not homogenous, such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, did not last long once free from communist dictators. It is hypocritical for first world nations to expect African nations to achieve some type of multi-ethnic success and harmony that Europeans themselves failed to achieve.