[Civsoc-mw] [NYASANET] The Persisting Relevance of Walter Rodney’s “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”

[Tony Tontholani]

 richard w. burcik • 12 hours ago
Economic historians cite three direct "experiments" in which capitalism and socialism can be directly compared and these are West Germany vs. East Germany after 1945; China vs. Taiwan after 1949 and North Korea vs. South Korea after 1952. Suffice it to say that socialism has never compared very well anywhere.
Recently, capitalism has lifted over one billion people out of abject poverty in just 15 years and according to economics professor at the University of Chicago, Rughuram Rajan capitalism has moved billions across the developing world "... from stressful poverty to a comfortable middle-class existence in the span of a generation."
This might lead you to ask -- what took capitalism so long to work its magic on much of the developing world? And economic history is also quite clear on this point. In 1947 India after its independence from Great Britain opted for socialism. (Indeed, socialism is mandated by the Indian Constitution and for more than 40 years India was the world's largest social democracy.) In 1949 China followed suit. Then during the 1960s much of sub-Saharan Africa chose socialism and all of these nations continued to wallowed in abject poverty. Then in 1978 after Mao's death China installed market based reforms and I need not recount the economic explosion that followed. India saw the resulting skyrocketing increase in overall human well being and instituted market reforms starting in 1991. Since then these two nations have lifted over one billion of their citizens out of abject poverty. Sadly, so far most of sub-Saharan Africa has not figured out that socialism only makes everyone equally poor!

   
  
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