Thank you for this breakdown. This is excellent!!!
I know adding the baseline of black African social and economic indicators under colonialism to now would make this article way too long but it would show how much progress has truly been made. I do agree that showing how African countries were wealthier than some Asian countries must be included and is eye opening, I think it can be misleading. Its easy for an economy to be profitable when the labor is under terror, gun, and whip. For instance, Mississippi, the epitome of racism, poverty (consistently the poorest state in the US), and exclusion, was the richest US state in 1860 due to the number of enslaved Africans (considered property which could serve as collateral for loans) and production of cotton. But richest for who? Even now, Mississippi has the highest percentage of African Americans due to this horrific legacy. So using 1860 as a baseline to compare Mississippi to another state would be misleading. Mississippi was never industrial, just the most brutal.
scroll down to question 5 about Ghana and South Korea.
While, true that Ghana was richer than South Korea in the 1950s (especially because the Koreans had a war) and early 1960s, South Korea quickly leapfrogged. Even though Ghana was slightly richer after independence, South Korea had universal literacy and under Japanese colonialism, Japan forced Koreans to operate factories for their puppet state in Manchuria (North East China). South Korea had a level of organizational capacity that Ghana never had. Ghanaians were just service workers, miners, and farmers. There were industrialists in Korea when it was colonized by Japan, but there were no industrialists when Ghana (Gold Coast at the time) was colonized by the UK.
I just read it and yes you already covered what I wrote. Your blogs are truly next level!!!...you include the whys and the So Whats as you narrate the journey from the past to current times..Asante Sana for this!!
I think Uganda's performance in the 80s and 90s can be explained by stability brought about by Museveni's regime after ousting the failed regime of Amin and Obote.
Uganda's 90s performance wasn't that great if you saw the graph above (at least gdp wise was subpar, health and education wise were fine for uganda in the 90s). The post 80s recovery was definitely museveni's stability.
The 90s werent that grrat gdp wise because museveni had many wars in the north with the lord's resistance army, West Bank Nile rebels, and uganda's influence in the two Congo wars. Also, coffee was still basically the only thing uganda sold which had a international price crash until the 2000s.
Thank you for this breakdown. This is excellent!!!
I know adding the baseline of black African social and economic indicators under colonialism to now would make this article way too long but it would show how much progress has truly been made. I do agree that showing how African countries were wealthier than some Asian countries must be included and is eye opening, I think it can be misleading. Its easy for an economy to be profitable when the labor is under terror, gun, and whip. For instance, Mississippi, the epitome of racism, poverty (consistently the poorest state in the US), and exclusion, was the richest US state in 1860 due to the number of enslaved Africans (considered property which could serve as collateral for loans) and production of cotton. But richest for who? Even now, Mississippi has the highest percentage of African Americans due to this horrific legacy. So using 1860 as a baseline to compare Mississippi to another state would be misleading. Mississippi was never industrial, just the most brutal.
Hi Khary:
Yea I didn't have enough time to show economic indicators under colonialism:
But for your point about Asian vs. African growth, I have addressed that in a different article here when I was addressing Q&A questions:
https://yawboadu.substack.com/p/guns-germs-and-cobalts-6th-q-and
scroll down to question 5 about Ghana and South Korea.
While, true that Ghana was richer than South Korea in the 1950s (especially because the Koreans had a war) and early 1960s, South Korea quickly leapfrogged. Even though Ghana was slightly richer after independence, South Korea had universal literacy and under Japanese colonialism, Japan forced Koreans to operate factories for their puppet state in Manchuria (North East China). South Korea had a level of organizational capacity that Ghana never had. Ghanaians were just service workers, miners, and farmers. There were industrialists in Korea when it was colonized by Japan, but there were no industrialists when Ghana (Gold Coast at the time) was colonized by the UK.
I just read it and yes you already covered what I wrote. Your blogs are truly next level!!!...you include the whys and the So Whats as you narrate the journey from the past to current times..Asante Sana for this!!
I think Uganda's performance in the 80s and 90s can be explained by stability brought about by Museveni's regime after ousting the failed regime of Amin and Obote.
Uganda's 90s performance wasn't that great if you saw the graph above (at least gdp wise was subpar, health and education wise were fine for uganda in the 90s). The post 80s recovery was definitely museveni's stability.
The 90s werent that grrat gdp wise because museveni had many wars in the north with the lord's resistance army, West Bank Nile rebels, and uganda's influence in the two Congo wars. Also, coffee was still basically the only thing uganda sold which had a international price crash until the 2000s.
My uganda series is here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/yawboadu/p/economic-and-geopolitical-history-b57?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=garki