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Why is Africa Poor?

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liege posted on Mon, Mar 15 2010 3:35 AM | Locked

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By poor I mean the general standard of living.

I have heard before that Africa is 'the most mineral rich continent in the world'. While I find proving this seems to be exceedingly difficult (if even possible), I would at least concede that, in terms of mineral wealth, the African continent is probably no worse off than any of the others ...

So what gives? Why do I see TV personalities selling the plight of these starving people? Are Africans really unable to develop any sort of infrastructure to provide basic necessities like food, clothing, shelter, and medicine?

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nnamdi619 replied on Sun, Oct 2 2011 7:14 PM | Locked

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Suggested by nnamdi619

MMMark:
Southern:
Perhaps. And time will tell. But when you look at african populations outside of africa they are relatively poor. This is in western nations where both european, african, and asian populations are subject to the same economic and political systems. Yet the asian populations have out performed the europeans and the africans have lagged far behind the europeans. So governments everywhere can impoverish it population. Yet when the variable of government is the same you still have major disparities in economic performance.

http://afrosistahdiaspora.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/african-immigrants-among-the-most-educated/ http://www.chron.com/news/article/Data-show-Nigerians-the-most-educated-in-the-U-S-1600808.php I've seen a lot of studies as of late showing that Africans are the most educated immigrants in the U.S, surpassing their cousins from the far East.

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Southern replied on Mon, Oct 3 2011 11:54 AM | Locked

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nnamdi619:

http://afrosistahdiaspora.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/african-immigrants-among-the-most-educated/ http://www.chron.com/news/article/Data-show-Nigerians-the-most-educated-in-the-U-S-1600808.php I've seen a lot of studies as of late showing that Africans are the most educated immigrants in the U.S, surpassing their cousins from the far East.

Wow, dug this thread up.

Im not sure that those studies would neccessarialy mean anything. If we look at only small samples of a race we could show evidence of anything we want. To mean anything you would have to show that these immigrants would be typical of the african population from which the came or the african populations in the americas. But they are not typical. They are exceptional.... as in different from the populations as a whole.

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Elfdemon replied on Wed, May 30 2012 7:32 AM | Locked

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Love all those supposely "libertarian" people defending the failure of Africa on various grounds such as wars, corruption, government control, and even foreign aid, blah blah blahaaaaaaa. .... completely ignoring the ethnic factor.

Southern have very good points. Totally logical, and hardly can be refuted. Such factors, may it be wars, goverment, corruption whatever, are widespread throughout other parts of the world, yet Africa fails so miserably.

Remember, South Africa and Rhodesia was under the stricest economic sanction ever, more than that of North Korea today (NK still gets aid from China), yet, they were in better shape than today's SA and Zimbabwe.

Recognizing reality and totally discarding any PC garbage, in my opinion, is one of the most basic requirement of being a real libertarian. If you can't even face the truth, resorting to using the same lies used over and over by these average, PC people, then you are no better and you are an anti-libertarian in a deceptive libertarian coating.

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John James replied on Wed, May 30 2012 10:29 AM | Locked

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You did not just read a 17 page thread from two years ago.

The Ultimate Beginner meta-thread
Learn the economics of freedom

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Rodolphe Topffer replied on Wed, May 30 2012 3:29 PM | Locked

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"Race", John R. Baker (1974).

"Schweinfurth remarks of the countryside at the border of Dinka (Ni), Dyoor (Ni), and Bongo (Pan 3) territory, 'The extreme productiveness of the luxuriant tropics is well exemplified in these fields, which for thirteen years have undergone continual tillage without once lying fallow and with no other manuring but what is afforded by the uprooted weeds.' The land of the Mittu (Pan 3) '... is very productive. ... On account of its fertility the land requires little labour in its culture.' 'The Monbuttoo [Pan 3] land greets us as an Eden upon earth.' In some districts of the Azande '... the exuberance is unsurpassed. ... the cultivation of the soil is supremely easy. The entire land is pre-eminently rich in many spontaneous products, animal and vegetable alike, that conduce to the direct maintenance of human life.' Baker says of the country in what is now the borderland between Sudan and Uganda, '... we were in a beautiful open country, naturally drained by its undulating character, and abounding in most beautiful low pasturage'. He describes Shooa (Ladwong) in Acholi (Ni) territory, as '... "flowing with milk and honey"; fowls, butter, goats, were in abundance and ridiculously cheap'."

(p. 397-398)

“Sommerfelt, for instance, says that the differences between ‘peoples and tribes’ are due to ‘natural surroundings and history, not to innate characteristics of these peoples’. [991] This, however, is not by any means always the experience of those who have actually travelled among primitive peoples in their natural environments. Livingstone, for instance, was struck by the mental differences between members of different races living in the Kalahari Desert. The Bakalahari, a Kafrid tribe, had been forced into this environment in the remote past.

'Living ever since on the same plains with the Bushmen, subjected to the same influences of climate, enduring the same thirst, and subsisting on the same food for centuries, they seem to supply a standing proof that locality is not always sufficient of itself to account for differences in races.' [676]” (p. 527)

“It would be wrong to suppose that civilization developed wherever the environment was genial, and failed to do so where it was not. … It has been pointed out by an authority on the Maya that their culture reached its climax in that particular part of their extensive territory in which the environment was least favourable, and in reporting this fact he mentions the belief that ‘civilizations, like individuals, respond to challenge’. [1043] … The Sumerians found no Garden of Eden awaiting them in Mesopotamia and the adjoining territory at the head of the Persian Gulf, but literally made their environment out of unpromising material by constructing an elaborate system of canals for the drainage and watering of their lands. A very large number of Aztecs and members of several other Middle American tribes lived and made their gardens on artificial islands that they themselves constructed with their hands.” (p. 528)

Huerta de Soto : ABCT - Empirical Evidence : ABCT - Empirical Evidence : Free Banking

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