4 Comments

Really enjoying this series. Very informative. Thank you

Expand full comment

Another interesting chapter in your series.

Expand full comment

You may have mentioned one but are there any capitalist pro business import substitution countries like Japan or Korea in Africa or where they all kind of socialist?

Expand full comment

Compared to America they are all pretty Socialist.

But Ivory Coast/Nigeria/Kenya/Botswana were more pragmatic about parastatals and private enterprise like South Korea/Taiwan/Japan were.

Ivory Coast however opened up its state owned enterprises in petrochemicals and plastics too early. But now Ivory Coast exports billions in refined petrol products (gasoline, kerosene, etc.) Nigeria's state owned enterprises in steel and ship building were ripe with corruption. But when Nigeria privatized cement in the 1980s and Dangote bought it, then Nigeria was able to produce way more steel.

Meanwhile Angola/Sao Tome/Mozambique/ Derg Ethiopia (1975-1991), and Congo-Brazzaville (1969-1992) were communist countries.

Countries like Tanzania, Ghana under Nkrumah, Guinea under Toure, Mali under Keita were "African Socialism" which is more similar to communism than private enterprise since they still relied on state owned enterprises for industry. (It was all ripe with mismanagement and corruption).

By mid 1980s, almost all African countries allowed more capitalism as they were all bankrupt and needed to implement IMF reforms to get a loan.

Expand full comment