What makes them the only decent African country?
What makes them the only decent African country?
Camden Lopez
Anthony Edwards
Ethnical homogeneity, non killing of white people doing business there.
And diamonds, lots and lots of diamonds.
Brayden Parker
I assume you mean Namibia?
Chase Kelly
>the only decent African country
>Botswana
Fucking what?
Aaron Cook
we'll it definitely ain't Suid-Afrika
Cooper Wright
Washington/Jefferson tier early leaders who were willing to do transfers of power based on elections.
I think they're still largely single party though, so whatever.
Gavin Nelson
landlocked places are always shit
Jace Thomas
They still use British-influenced law from what i know.
Isaiah Watson
So is Singapore. Dis could be gud.
Justin Hill
Actually it was Libya until recently but basically this
Lincoln Hernandez
No Zuma
Charles Gutierrez
Namibia is a lot better.
Jack Sanchez
SA is where whites get beaten to death because they forgot their rifle before leaving their compound.
Liam Wood
That is not a comparison I would have come up with myself but that is indeed similar.
Blake Jackson
They speak english. They have a comparatively high level of respect for property rights and law that other African nations don't have. They arn't opposed to white people existing so there wasn't capital flight and expropriation.
reason.com
They are all also relatively resource poor except for diamonds. The diamonds help bring in cash but they arn't reliant upon that for their entire economy like other states are upon the price of oil or copper. So they developed an actual economy instead of being just a resource exporter, kinda like Taiwan. That same resource emptiness also meant it didn't get fucked over by colonialism as much. It's hard to build a functional economy when the entirety of your infrastructure incentives resource extraction and nothing else.
I think they are also relatively ethnically homogeneous for an African country. And they have metal cowboys and are even given a 2 stability rating in Twilight Struggle.
Jace Garcia
Ethnically homogenous apart from bumfuck desert ooga boogas
They weren't actually colonised properly, they invited the British to make them a protectorate to defend them from their enemies. So they get all the benefit of British infrastructure with none of the drawbacks of being colonised. Also ensures that they admire British culture and the contributions of whites to their country instead of being weird and resentful
Diamonds
Pre-colonial democratic tradition
They do have some problems, like a lack of economic diversity and an AIDS epidemic
Jacob Fisher
Another useful read if you want to have a sense for why Botswana became decent.
siteresources.worldbank.org
Take your time and actually enjoy reading it. Especially make sure to understand what it's talking about when it discusses the "Dutch Disease." Resources can often be a curse not a boon. Sometimes they can be managed, like Norway with oil. But more often it causes poor incentives and bad macroeconomic trends.
William Jenkins
So is Equatorial Guinea, the richest country in Africa. Huh, I think I see a pattern here.
Colton Long
Richest country is kinda misleading. It's true in an absolute sense becaucse yeah, being extremely tiny and next to a shitton of oil will make you rich. But that wealth is captured by an elite few and a corrupt government. Take that elite away though and it's per capita wealth and well being is pathetic.
Ayden Ortiz
>But that wealth is captured by an elite few and a corrupt government
As opposed to democratic governments, where there is very little corruption and very high equality right?
They actually seem to invest in infrastructure and try to diversify the economy, so it's not that bad.
youtube.com
Colton Ortiz
Mason Russell
Yeah absolutely. Compare Equatorial Guinea situation to any comparably sized country that's more democratic and less dependent upon a single resource. For africa we can use Seychelles, Ghana, Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia. All more democratic. All less corrupt. Granted a lot of those have a much higher population. But for quick comparison purposes they are situated in Africa, are more democratic, are more diversified and less corrupt than Equatorial Guinea. And the results show.
That said it doesn't really matter if there are democratic countries that are more corrupt than Equatorial Guinea. No one denies that a democratic country can be corrupt. But it's definitely true that democratic countries are less inclined to extreme corruption than non-democratic countries. And besides, the question is whether or not Equatorial Guinea has a history of, and currently is, used that wealth to create a prosperous & economically diversified society. And it largely hasn't and a few show projects arn't going to change that.