Definitely right but they lack political stability, a key asset in long term plans
Right, and why are they lacking political stability?
Because we destabilise them so they do not develop to powerful societies, that won't do cheap labour for us anymore.
Pretty much what France is doing with the old colonies
I think it's mostly natural resources, there is still a huge amount of natural resources in Africa exploited by western companies.
In the mind of the coloniser, cheap labour is a natural resource, and both must be exploited fully
I blame those evil hippoes. We think they just eat and chase people. They've been up to much worse for a very long time.
Asking the real questions
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The problem of industrialising was always organisational, in Europe just as much as Africa. If the rest of the world disappeared it would naturally develop over probably a couple centuries, since the process has started. The question for developing nations today is how to do it faster than that.
Some countries have demonstrated how it can be done much faster than Europe and the US did it.
Yep. I'm not sure about Meiji Japan, but both the tiger economies and the Soviets did it by building on the existing European industrial economies. In the tiger's case, they bought easy to operate industrial machinery and ran it with cheap domestic labour for profitable export back to advanced economies, in Stalin's case he hired American contractors to build and train replica American factories in the USSR. After that, they could take the new resources and institutional experience and use it to build up to a next step.
Interesting article that lays out the challenges, opportunities, and some ideas for solutions.
