The author pretty much just recounted the stories. I was hoping for more analysis or explanation, and maybe even a little reason to hope that things might be getting better. But no. I guess it's useful to absorb some of the factual background as a starting point.
The author reports that most African countries have a lower per capita income than in 1980 and, in some cases in 1960.
Aid workers, government workers, government cronies are the only folks that generate steady income or wealth.
This made me think about a few things:
1. My sense is that the "bourgeois virtues" - as discussed so interestingly in this book - are almost entirely absent in Africa. I don't know much about Africa but would guess that there wasn't a reason to develop them. Absent the bourgeois virtues - how is wealth going to be generated there?
2. Governments ran things in Africa - private sector basically absent. For the most part, funds and resources have been allocated for personal and political purposes much moreso than for sound business or economic purposes.
3. The United States and plenty of other countries are currently debating how many (more) $$ to turn over to governments - do we continue the trajectory? Resources run through governments inevitably are allocated through politics and access. We can talk all day about how different our situation is from Africa's, and capitalism's imperfect allocations. But still.
There are so many awful African occurrences noted in this book. To list a few: Ethiopia/Mengistu/Biafra/famine. Rwanda/Burundi. Somalia. AIDs. Mobutu. Mugabe. Sudanese civil war. Islamist parties. South Africa. Rhodesia. One-party states. Big Men rule. Corruption, diversion of aid. Angola. I had forgotten how Cold War politics led to Cuba, USSR and US, among others, intervening in pointless episodes. Ugh.
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