Comments by "Barry On" (@barryon8706) on "Why is Africa Still So Poor?" video.

  1. I don't know if I'd call it extremely important, but it can help. Look at the United States. It made a lot of progress toward not judging people by the color of their skin, but then the political lefts has started to say that people should be judged by ethnicity, at least in large part. It's not that ethnicity always divides people, but it is a place where division frequently does happen.
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  2. Africa is a big place, and I think the wisdom of an investment depends on the country or region. Nigeria seems pretty stable and on the way up, but South Africa seems to be getting worse, and if you invested in South Africa they might just nationalize your investment in the name of flavor of the day justice, leaving you with nothing.
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  3. I think you're probably oversimplifying. Typically those resources are sold, not stolen. But what if, tomorrow, Africa stopped selling anything to anyone outside of Africa. That pretty much means they have to stop buying anything from outside of Africa too, eventually, because trade can't be one-sided. As a bonus, then they can default on debts and not care about not being able to borrow again because they wouldn't be using foreign currency anyway. But.... Africa is the only continent that imports more food than it produces. So now people would have minerals and textiles but not enough to eat. Well, Africa can stop digging minerals and making textiles and grow crops instead. But... Whenever South Africa or Zimbabwe tried to give farms to people, the farms usually started doing very poorly. Zimbabwe has even asked White farmers to come back. And farming isn't as easy as a lot of people think. Take the typical skilled miner and give him land and seed and you don't automatically get a skilled farmer. Let's just say that everything works fine because it would be really nice for it to work fine, and it's less fun imagining unparalleled starvation sweeping across a continent. Now Africa has a largely agrarian population but is food self-sufficient again. But... Typically a largely agrarian population isn't a wealthy one. In the U.S., the antebellum south was poorer than the industrial north. The American midwest and south isn't as wealthy as the coasts. And, worse, last I checked, Africans tend to have lots of kids, way more than the west. So you get a lot more pressure on that food supply in a few generations. Of course, farmers get better in that time as farmers gain experience, so it might work out. But with less industry, I think you don't get the agricultural machinery and such that makes farms in the west so productive. And they can't buy combines or tractors or trucks from the west or Asia because to do that, you need to sell them something they want. It could still work. If Africans had fewer children, as farms got better more people could go into industry, get better educations, etc. On the other hand, right now, Africa exports goods. That's not wealth taken out, it's trade; some wealth goes out, and some wealth comes back in. A problem is, the wealth that goes back in usually goes to just a few people. Often that comes from corruption, and corruption is a terrible economic drag. If exports depend on who bribes officials the most instead of who can be the most productive, the sweat of a man's brow is uncoupled from what he earns for his family, whether he's the one winning the bribery game or not. There's less motive for him to be productive. less wealth is created.
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  4.  @ronnieuk2  Like I said, those resources are not taken. Africa gets wealth back, it just gets concentrated too often in the hands of a corrupt few. And Africa relies on food imports for Africans to eat. The world exploits Africa, but Africa exploits the world, too. The world exploits Europe, and Europe exploits the world. it's called trade.
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  5.  @ronnieuk2  True, and colonization will have lasting effects.
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