There has been an interesting discussion going on over in the More Pavilions in South Africa’s Folkfest entry about what is going wrong in Africa.
But what about what is going right in Africa?
I’d like to invite you to view these three videos before you decide.
- Here’s professor Hans Rosling explaining how, even though Africa is behind the rest of the world (although it varies greatly from country to country), Africa is steadily improving.
- Here’s Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, so-called Banker to the Poor, explaining how legitimate uncorrupted micro-financing enables the emergence of the private citizen class.
- Here’s George Ayittey explaining how government and corruption are the problem in Africa. The problem is not Africans, the problem is that the systems they are operating under are stifling them, and are currently beyond their own control.
Old timers here at SDA know that I generally agree with ET’s model of the evolution of civilizations. In theory. Nevertheless, in practice, one has get from here to there. Pace Zeno, what now?
Hmm… a half an hour since this post went up and nary a comment. I think that about sums up the conversation about the positives in Africa right now. Sadly.
Excuses are easier to formulate than analyze deviations of a theory.
Hmm, given that there are 78 minutes of video there, Brad, a 30 minute deadline might be a bit premature. Also, note that the comment frequency here has been quite low lately, no doubt due to Kate’s admonition to get out and enjoy the transition from spring to summer.
Ultimately, what kind of system a people live under is the system they will either elect, fight for or accept as is. The problem is that people in Africa, like the people of the middle east are not incline to agree on much. Their family, tribe, petty gratification considerations prevent them from joining together for the betterment of their society as a whole. Even in the West there is now a culture war that is like two tribes fighting for control of the power and wealth. This is not good for anyone.
Africa may be getting their micro businesses up and running, but until they stop hacking each other for petty reasons, the big picture will remain as is. If the West ever reaches the point where the left and the right are shooting each other we will be no better off.
It is impossible for you, John, to have watched those 78 minutes of videos in the 36 minutes since I posted this entry until the time of your comment. So you came here to preach, not to listen, study, think. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, it’s just not my shtick.
Why should we care about Africa anyway? It’s not our issue and they always complain that the western countries are responsible for all their ills anyway. According to the first video Asia has almost caught up with “the west” in terms of health & wealth, why not let them feed Africa for a while? Example China can certainly afford space programs, nuclear capabilities, the Olympics ect…. Make Africa their problem for a few decades, includes Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia…What about the oil rich Arab countries?
We get stuck with the bill, the uneducated and at times dangerous immegrents, and all the self loathing crap about how racist and evil we are. Enough is enough; the rest of these “rich” countries can add more of their share to the helpless Africans.
Full disclosure, I haven’t watched any of the videos yet.
As I said on the other thread, it ain’t the colour, its the socialism. I noticed that all these three guys are talking about essentially the same thing: empower the people with freedom and just a weeee little bit of money, and they explode with productivity.
Conversely, burden them with a crooked government and they do nothing. Perfect environment for all manner of evil to take root.
This is what is happening in India the last few years. Once they got rid of Indira Ghandi the place is improving by leaps and bounds.
Agreed, Phantom. That’s why you want
to watch the videos. They agree with you.
Well, I just finished watching the last two. I had watched the one with Hans Rosling a long time ago. All three are pretty good, if you ask me. I really like the idea of the Grameen Banks and the African guy. Phantom is right. Big, corrupt government and most big, out of touch foreign aid packages simply serve to guarantee failure.
Perhaps I came across as overly cynical. And I quite obviously didn’t watch the videos. I just thought the lack of comments was curious enough to make note of it — i.e. even as I assume the vast majority of us would all prefer to see Africa succeed, it’s a lot easier to have a discussion about what’s going wrong. Human nature, etc.
All the same, I might add that I appreciate the post.
As I wrote on the other thread on Africa’s problems, if you seek the clearest philosophical explanation of, and solution to, the social problems reported in the links posted by Kate, I refer you to the Ayn Rand essays:
1) “Global Balkanisation” (in “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”); and
2) “Racism” (in “The Virtue of Selfishness”).
I personally think that the nature of a society is determined by the underlaying philosophy of the society. How easy is it to maintain the society’s philosophy while excusing lying, cheating, stealing and killing.
The easier it is to excuse such behaviours the more likely the society is to fall into chaos and corruption the likes of which is seen in failed states all over the world.
Since reading Hernando de Soto’s ‘The Mystery of Capital’, I frame every discussion of third world problems in the context he lays out in the book. He explains why movement toward free markets has failed almost everywhere outside the west, and offers the simple prescriptions for its success. I highly recommend it.
I agree with you, Dare, philosophically speaking; I think that Rand’s Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtue of Selfishness, and Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal are all seminal works (her fiction I can do without, though that’s probably my problem, not hers, after all, she’s dead).
Yet it remains the case that a philosophy is not a plan. And so it is with Joe’s notes. It seems to me that, assuming the general arguments made by the videos I referenced, the common key to the vast array of locks we are threatened by is enabling responsibility through freedom, but notably not freedom from responsibility. I know, now I’m sounding philosophical instead of tactical.
Still, I think that the principal measure we should use in judging the value of competing proposals, from coping with climate change to minimizing unjust poverty, is effectiveness, not theoretical philosophy. After all, we’ve already tried utopian communism, and it doesn’t work. Neither does utopian libertarian anarchy (and I say that as a founding member of the Libertarian Party of Alberta in 1972). The solution (or precipitate, depending on your perspective) is somewhere in-between.
The way I see it, the single biggest problem is fraud. Ethical fraud. Violence, I know, it comes and goes. Yet mass violence is always underwritten by ethical fraud, so it is the latter that I think our species should be concentrating on. And that’s a tricky business, since an ethical powerless person has a tough row to hoe against a powerful unethical person.
Vitruvius, first off thank you for that excellent section of music from yesterday. I have played the Cesaria Evora video multiple times already – sweet music indeed.
On Africa, I have watched all three videos you have provided, but I remain firmly a skeptic.
My father lost everything he had to Mugabe for no other reason than because he was white, and the rest of the world didn’t give a damn. I’ve seen too many lives ruined by African dictators to believe anything good can come any time soon.
And South Africa, which should be the model country in Africa, is taking two steps backward for every step forward, and not one mainstream newspaper is willing to report that truth.
I would suggest for you and others the following excellent read “When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa” by Peter Godwin. It is a remarkable story about two people trying to survive as civilization collapses around them.
As beautifully presented as they were, I don’t put too much stock in Hans Rosling’s graphs. What does it mean to have high income and long life expectancy if you are living in pollution (ex. China)?
If ever we conclude that Africa has risen up out of its sorry mess it will only be because we have lowered our own standards of what constitutes a model society. (A general strategy the left uses all the time).
Vitruvius:
With all due respect, I do not consider the words in your post indicative of a grasp of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.
Objectivism is NOT libertarianism, and does not condone it. Libertarianism is a corruption – a perversion – of Ayn Rand’s ideas. Objectivity does not lead to anarchy, but libertarianism will. (Please see Objectivist Peter Schwartz’s article here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_sanctions)
There are further problems with your post, especially your words, “value of competing proposals, from coping with climate change to minimizing unjust poverty”.
First of all, I unequivocally reject the premise that there is such a phenomenon as “climate change” which needs to be “cop[ed] with.” For a brief indication of my view of the environmentalist movement, please see http://www.environmentalism.com. For a finer treatment of the topic, please see Ayn Rand’s essay, “The Anti-Industrial Revolution” in her book “Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution.”
I also reject the premise of “minimizing unjust poverty.” Poverty is man’s original state. There is nothing remarkable about it. It is not poverty which ought to be the matter for investigation but rather, the causes of wealth. And the cause of wealth is the social system which recognizes individual rights: capitalism.
The issue is not, how can we “help the poor.” The issue is how can society guarantee that the worst individuals do not hold down the best. The issue is not granting wealth to “poor” men (altruistic welfare), but rather man’s right to live for his own sake (egoistic capitalism).
Best wishes.
Africa is just one of the many lands its certianly not the cradle of all humanity like the darwinists crack-pots claim and DONOLD JOHANSENS LUCY never ever existed LUCY IS STILL I LOVE LUCY AND STILL LINUSES BIG SISTER
I’m with you though your penultimate paragraph, TJ, you raise many of the points I would raise against my argument. Yet I can’t agree with the opening of your ultimate paragraph: if ever. Ever is a long time, and it’s not too early to start.
Vit: When you link to a video, can you give some idea of the length? I’d like to know whether I have time to finish before I start.
Bravo, Vitruvius, for attempting to provide a more balanced view of the challenging facing modern Africa. Speaking as a bone fide “leftie,” all three videos are already familiar to me, and while I do not agree entirely with their contents, they do much to locate the problem beyond xenophobic discussions of ‘race’ or ‘culture’ — that is, by distinguishing between the fraction of autocratic (and corruption) rulers with power and the great majority of those without.
I believe also that Brad in Waterloo has a point about the relative lack of comments in this, versus the previous, thread on Africa, though I think he misattributes the cause. He thinks there are few positives in Africa to discuss. I disagree — there are myriad positive developments taking place, but they are occurring within local communities, and they are no match against the tide of corruption that occurred at the highest levels of power.
I suggest Brad in Waterloo consider the more immediate context — about the types of readers that SDA attracts, and their motives for posting comments on this blog.
QE, clearly you have no clue who posts here, or why.
The answer to your implied slur is people who are clearly a lot smarter than you, who are very concerned about the direction Canada is moving in. For myself I note the same type of decay in Hamilton On-friggin-tario that was pictured on the other thread in S.Africa, and said so.
You got a problem with that, monkey boy? Going to phone up the CHRC, maybe? Go back to Rabble, idiot.
Call me a racist. I couldn’t care less. How many failing African countries do you need to see? Zimbabwe and South Africa are on the brink right now.
Look at other countries like Jamaica and Haiti. Look at cities here in the west like New Orleans and Detroit as they slowly fall behind other American cities.
What’s the common denominator? I see Toronto is experimenting with segregated schools (albeit for the most politically correct of reasons) – if all men are created equal, why would they need to do that?
There is an 800 lb. gorilla in your living room folks. 70 plus minutes of lefties with an agenda on video won’t change that.
all one has to do is read to understand the horror that africa has become under the rule of it’s own people. there is nothing racist about that. they are freakin incompetent and are following the commie totalitarian model. idiots.
A few months ago I visited Puerto Limon Costa Rica. I swear the downtown was a mirror image of Hamilton’s. Perhaps the cities should be twinned.
Luckily for us, seven months hence we are outta here!
The Phantom: “QE, clearly you have no clue who posts here, or why.”
Oh, judging by the comment from ‘jim’ that immediately follows yours, I suspect I have a clearer idea than you.
QE people like you annoy me.
Let’s take Zimbabwe, a country I know well. It was the “lefties” that ensured Mugabe got into power and were so blind they couldn’t see what an evil man he was (even though the rest of the us in Zim could see it with one eye shut). It was the “lefties” that for years and years tried to find every excuse under the sun to explain away his abuses – drought, colonialism, bad whites, more drought, the rest of the world, bad whites, bad luck, colonialism, they cycled through the poor excuses until it made those of us who suffered under his regime nearly sick to our stomach.
And of course NOT ONE left wing politician, or newspaper, or writer, has ever had to the guts, even to this day, to admit that it was a mistake to dismantle the previous government at such speed that the situation became ripe for a barbarian to take over (a barbarian the left actually encouraged along his way). It was a crusade driven the left-wing ideology, and the results speak for themselves.
So as a “leftie” please don’t lecture us on how you have suddenly seen the light and that there is now hope in Africa. How you have realized that part of the problem in Africa is bad government – gosh what a revelation, I would never had realized!
When you have witnessed first-hand families being broken apart by the actions of African dictator thugs, or had friends killed by their henchmen, then you can lecture us, and lecture the audience here, about our “motives” for posting.
The last thing on God’s earth Africa needs is more left-wing people with their useless opinions. They have done enough damage already.
It is noble of Vit to kick off a discussion on the positives in Africa, and my hat off to him. The difference is Vit is not trying to paste over any truths.
“It was the “lefties” that ensured Mugabe got into power…”
FYI: To try and cram a half-century or more of complex geo-politics into a crude left-right binary is an exercise in blind partisanship and futility. To the extent that one can even speak of a unified, monolithic ‘left,’ what was opposed was the history of British colonialism and then the white minority policies of the post-UDI Rhodesian Front. To claim that Mugabe’s subsequent rise to power is therefore somehow the ‘doing’ of the ‘left’ is as over-simplistic and ignorant as claiming that, for instance, Saddam’s Hussein’s long reign of terror in Iraq (supported militarily at times by Republican US administrations) was somehow the ‘doing’ of the ‘right.’ No doubt people on the ‘left’ make this latter rhetorical claim from time to time, and they are (rightly) lambasted for it. The same criticism, though, applies to your above post as well.
QE, I’ll tell what motivates the regulars that post on SDA, it’s a forum for people disgusted with the lefty venue that permeates the MSM where both sides of an issue are seldom examined and anything that deviates for the set lefty metanarratives is met with accusations of racism and intolerance. Surely that hasn’t gone unnoticed by you. You’ve invoked it yourself.
Africa by any metric is and has been a disaster. It’s long past the Age of Colonialism, the left’s mantra that whites are the root cause of this failure gets it’s well deserved slap down here.
And, by the way, jim’s observation about failed governments in so many places where blacks are in the political majority including Detroit and New Orleans is dead on, a fact that is easily verified. Of course, that fact leaves you with your eyes nailed shut and your thumbs in your ears smearing anyone that utters this as a racist. Has it ever occured to you that with your bigotry of low expectations that YOU are the bigot? Conservatives expect more of people which I think is a of more respect.
Africans and inner city blacks can do better. They deserve criticism for their failures, that’s far more than the victim pandering excuses of lefties that robs them of being treated like equal adults.
penny, when jim asks, “What’s the common denominator?” what would your answer be?
“I agree with you, Dare, philosophically speaking; I think that Rand’s Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtue of Selfishness, and Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal are all seminal works (her fiction I can do without, though that’s probably my problem, not hers, after all, she’s dead).” – Vitruvius
Yes, her work is the kind that comes along only millennially. I don’t understand your point about her being dead though. What’s that got to do with it?
“Yet it remains the case that a philosophy is not a plan. And so it is with Joe’s notes. It seems to me that, assuming the general arguments made by the videos I referenced, the common key to the vast array of locks we are threatened by is enabling responsibility through freedom, but notably not freedom from responsibility. I know, now I’m sounding philosophical instead of tactical.” – Vitruvius.
I don’t understand at all what you mean by “the common key to the vast array of locks we are threatened by is enabling responsibility through freedom, but notably not freedom from responsibility.” Could you please clarify?
“Still, I think that the principal measure we should use in judging the value of competing proposals, from coping with climate change to minimizing unjust poverty, is effectiveness, not theoretical philosophy. After all, we’ve already tried utopian communism, and it doesn’t work. Neither does utopian libertarian anarchy (and I say that as a founding member of the Libertarian Party of Alberta in 1972). The solution (or precipitate, depending on your perspective) is somewhere in-between.”- Vitruvius.
I reject the premise of “climate change” altogether and the idea that we should be “coping with” it. I also reject the premise of “minimizing unjust poverty.” The issue is not poverty, which is man’s original state; but rather, the question: What is the cause of wealth? Without great minds provided freedom to produce ideas and things under a proper social system (capitalism), there is no wealth. Man’s rights must be respected not contravened, and any society which heeds this prospers. The issue is not “minimizing unjust poverty” (which suggests that a man owes his earnings to others) but rather the recognition of man’s rights.
Objectivism is *not* libertarianism, which is a corruption – a perversion – of Ayn Rand’s ideas. She wrote against libertarianism, which *would* lead to anarchy. Please see Peter Schwartz’s essays on libertarianism — most notably “Libertarianism: A Perversion of Liberty.”
I must stress this point so that other readers are not misled by your (perhaps inadvertent) misrepresentation of Ayn Rand’s ideas.
“The way I see it, the single biggest problem is fraud. Ethical fraud. Violence, I know, it comes and goes. Yet mass violence is always underwritten by ethical fraud, so it is the latter that I think our species should be concentrating on. And that’s a tricky business, since an ethical powerless person has a tough row to hoe against a powerful unethical person.” – Vitruvius.
Do you mean morality (ethics) is the problem with Africa? If so, I agree. But, that’s all there in Objectivism, which is a complete philosophy with a realistic, fact-based ethics. A Christian morality would not “save” Africa though – as we have seen. (The masses have learnt to “turn the other cheek” to evil rulers.) Only an *objective morality*, like one bequeathed to Western societies by the Greeks and Romans, will do.
QE I can’t teach you history. Mugabe’s rise to power was indeed the result of left-wing thinking, and it took the left 30 years to finally accept, begrudgingly, only after the country had been laid to complete ruin, that he was corrupt.
And it is now the left that seems to have suddenly stumbled across this new revelation that corrupt governments are part of Africa’s problem. You are a bit late to the discovery I’m afraid.
The real truth is that the left waited 30 years to “realize” this fact in Zimbabwe because they wanted people to forget that it was their feeble ideologies that created the problem in the first place.
So when I hear people like you, a “leftie” to use your words, now proclaim that Africa has hope and that corrupt governments are part of the the problem, it makes me sick to my stomach.
Africa has two problems:
Afro-Marxism.
Tribal politics.
The first is the more important. Where ever the leftards rein without restraint, death follows.
(1) When I said, she’s dead, Dare, I was making a little joke, as in: whether or not my not being enamored by her fiction is my problem, it certainly isn’t hers, because dead men have no problems.
(2) Freedom through responsibility is classic libertarianism. One is free to make one’s choices, reap one’s successes, and suffer one’s failures. It is related to negative rights. Freedom from responsibility is socialism, one is not free to reap one’s successes, indeed, they are commandeered by the state to offset other’s failures. It is related to positive rights.
(3)(a) Climate changes. I don’t think man-made CO2 is significant. It would be better if there was a lot more CO2, and if it was a little warmer, but we would still have to adapt to that at the margins. It’s also possible that it’s about to get a bit cooler, and we’ll have to adapt to that at the margins too.
(3)(b) Unjust poverty is that which results from the denial of freedom through responsibility, as is often the case currently foisted on Africans. This was, I think, the principal point made by Yunnas. Just poverty, on the other hand is that which results from using one’s freedoms irresponsibly and then failing because of that.
(4) I know the difference between objectivism and libertarianism, in fact, it was listening to Branden’s two dozen talks on libertarianism (on a dozen LPs, in ’73) that I started to realize the limits of radical objectivism. It’s a great utopian philosophy, but I’m an engineer, not a philosopher, and engineers don’t do utopia. Anyway, the topic here is Africa, not objectivist theory, so let’s try not to stray too far.
You might, though, be interested in this Charlie Rose interview, in which starting at about 04:00 Mr. Greenspan explains his relationship with Ms. Rand and with libertarianism (he still considered himself a libertarian, as I consider myself). Further, at about 48:45, Mr. Greenspan makes the single most effective argument against ideological libertarianism, and for that matter, any other utopianist ideology, namely that if the successful do not sufficiently account for the unsuccessful, eventually the resulting abundance of unsuccessful will find a way to smite the successful, which tends to obviate their success:
video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-8342614253746711839
(5) In my opinion, immoral ethical behaviour, things like lying, cheating, stealing, fraud, corruption, extortion, lazyness, greed, &c is the biggest problem facing our species. I agree that the objective morality derived by the Greeks is very important to meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics, but then so does Pope Benedict as he elucidated in his Regensburg Lecture: tinyurl.com/pxb9a (and for the record, I’m an adeist).
Dare, ‘turning the other cheek’ is not what christianity is all about. Cowardice in the face of tyranny is a leftie trait as we can see with the way they supported and facilitated Saddam Hussein and the way they are doing the same with president Imadinnerjacket in Iran.
Christianity (in my opinion, your mileage may vary) is that the faith is about helping your fellow man. I am not religous and have no theological axe to grind. But even I can tell a christian philosophy would be much better for the africans than an objectivist one.
Everyone who has posted here: Expand your mind by reading the following book-
“The State of Africa – A History of Fifty Years of Independence”, by Martin Meridith.
As a former resident of Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, I strongly recommend you read it before offering uninformed opinions by posting again…
Why?
V: Assuming your >Why? is addressed to me:
Because it is pertinent, as well as relevatory. It is written by someone who documents the period between the colonial powers giving up areas (while willing or not) and thereby relinquishing their ownership, through the time of publication. The consequences of these actions impacted the respective currently recognized African countries paths to self improvement, and the conditions of government they operate under in the nearly present day.
Each African country is unique because of their history (colonial, as well as pre-colonial). In order to consider interactions between these countires, the entire continent can only be modeled by a an interplay of these very complex historical situations.
This one book is a very good work addressing the complexities involved. I earnestly recommend you (and othes who care) read it.
That’s why.
Thanks Traveller, that’s what I was asking.
It sounds like something I might agree with.
V: You’re the only one who apparently understood my prior posts (as Tau Beta Pi, a year or two ago).
I appreciate your taking time to correspond in this format.
My first-hand knowledge was scimpy, and has little to do with the researched facts written in the book.
My latest experiences have something to do, in a limited fashion, with the subject matter as mentioned. My current potential interests in this subject can be encapsulated by items of recent news w/r/t AFRICOM.
If you have time and opportunity to evaluate it fully, I think you’ll get an interesting and informed background viewpoint from this book.
Understood, Tau Beta Pi. Yet that is a point Rosling also makes well in his video, namely that when people talk about helping in Africa, what may work in one area or case may be diametrically opposed to what may work in another area or case. And for various reasons, historical, environmental, civilizational, &c, yet the broader point remains unchanged: one can’t help Africa, one can only help the parts of Africa, each by each. Fraud and corruption, while common, are not universal, or at least not any more universal than they are here, for there is always some fraud and corruption everywhere. Delta Upsilon over.
> one can only help the parts of Africa, each by each.
Precisely. This will apparently be the entire beginning and ending point of anyone who tries.
I recommend this line of work for fellow adrenaline junkies…
What Africa needs is the Rule of Law as we in the West know it. The continent is full of petty and gross corruption. There is no system of laws and enforcement of laws.
Politicians take multimillion dollar bribes to do their job and execute the function for personal benefit to the disadvantage of the country. “Pay me and I’ll make sure that you get the contract even if it doesn’t meet the country needs.” Politicians take country assets for their own use. “I’ll take that mining company for 1/10 of its value.” Police take bribes to not do their jobs. “Pay up or I’ll enforce.” Police take bribes to do their jobs. “I’m busy, pay up or I’ll continue contemplating my navel.” Judiciary take bribes to hear a case. “Pay up and we’ll put you on the list to be heard.” Judiciary take bribes to decide in a certain manner. “If I make this big award I’ll expect a share of what you collect.”
There is often legislation, but as seen above, no apparent will to follow it. Is this cultural? Is it a leadership issue?
My wife and our live-in housekeeper are both from the southern Philippines. I have visited many times, and the disparity between the cloistered communities of the “rich” (who would barely classify as middle class in Canada), and the poor (who live in crushing poverty that TV infomercials can’t begin to portray) is enormous.
One day, while discussing the situation with our housekeeper, I ventured that the millions of dollars of official aid that the West gives to the Philippines (aid which, for the most part, ended up in the bank accounts of Marcos and other corrupt politicians) would be better distributed in small chunks of $5,000 per family, to allow them to buy a computer or a “tricycle” (a motorbike with a rear cab attached – the poor man’s taxi) so they could earn a living.
The nanny looked at me with contempt and scorn. “If the poor people got that money, they would just take it”, she said. “Who? The Moros? (Islamic terrorists in the southern islands)” I asked. She gave me another of those looks. “No, the military” she replied, and then went on to explain that whenever a poor person came into a little money – a present from a rich relative, a lottery win, whatever – they were soon visited by members of the local police and/or armed forces, who, for a “donation” would ensure that their children would not be kidnapped, their homes burned, etc.
My brothers-in-law, who run a chain of department stores, confirmed this. They make monthly “donations” to the Chinese Benevolent Fund, which disperses them to the police and army commanders in the region.
On the other hand, when it comes to paying taxes, they negotiate terms with the local tax-collector, which includes a nice “gift” for him. Since one of their businesses is supplying text books to local schools, I have been tasked with being a tourist guide for local officials who visit Toronto, wining and dining them, and on one memorable occasion, paying for two pair of Gucci shoes at the Eaton Centre for the local school board president.
So I totally agree – no society can advance without some kind of stable rule of law and order. China may be totalitarian, and suppress freedom of speech and thought, but they have cracked down on official corruption (including the execution of some officials, not a few years at “Club Fed”), and allowed people to feel they can keep the money they earned without fear of official extortion. I hope the “gradualist” theory is correct: an increase in general economic wellbeing will lead to further demands for political freedom. But I know for certain that as long as African countries and the Philippines are dominated by kleptocrats, they have no hope.