Finally, we have a rational explanation for why the more things change, the more they seem to remain the same in Africa! The collusion between African governments, business interests and politics has resulted in a perversion of democracy. It therefore makes sense to seek favorable tax treatment--even if you are opposed to the politics of the government in power.
3
ah the Dark Continent. rich with natural resources beyond belief, yet still dependent on "foreign investment." aka colonialism but with shareholders. a continent that has never been able to feed itself, but has staggering birth rates. along with staggering infant mortality rates. the so called liberal explanation is they have to bear many children because so many die. if that's true, why does the population double with astonishing regularity?
countries regularly upheaved by war and violence, often civil. and now they've got the Muslims and Christians going at it. and despite the efforts of the world's richest person, still ravaged by malaria. if we're to believe the articles in the NYT, many Africans are unaware that mosquitos transmit the malaria bug. strange, since it's so prevalent. superstitious much?
Africa will continue to be a nightmare. "Foreign investors" will reap the profits, along with the corrupt officials. meanwhile they'll keep making lots more babies and leading the list of worst medical statistics.
I read a recent article on the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and how it supposedly will lead to hotter conditions in Africa. wait until their next mega-drought. the continent with more misery than all the others combined. always the exploited become the exploiters once they overthrow their cruel colonial overlords.
well at least now the kleptocracy and rape of resources is firmly in African hands, plus the foreign investors. pity the poor ivory-tusked mammals.
countries regularly upheaved by war and violence, often civil. and now they've got the Muslims and Christians going at it. and despite the efforts of the world's richest person, still ravaged by malaria. if we're to believe the articles in the NYT, many Africans are unaware that mosquitos transmit the malaria bug. strange, since it's so prevalent. superstitious much?
Africa will continue to be a nightmare. "Foreign investors" will reap the profits, along with the corrupt officials. meanwhile they'll keep making lots more babies and leading the list of worst medical statistics.
I read a recent article on the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and how it supposedly will lead to hotter conditions in Africa. wait until their next mega-drought. the continent with more misery than all the others combined. always the exploited become the exploiters once they overthrow their cruel colonial overlords.
well at least now the kleptocracy and rape of resources is firmly in African hands, plus the foreign investors. pity the poor ivory-tusked mammals.
1
How does this explain Mugabe? He is nothing but a common ordinary dictator who robs his country blind.
2
I am glad the ordinary African's vote means something: a full stomach. Please tell us more. What is new in basic health care, schools, and gender relations, among others?
2
Zuma in South Africa - a country I know well - is also angling for a life term. But as a back-up, he recently built himself a $22M 'retirement home'. On the backs of (largely) white tax-payers.
2
I'd rephrase the conclusion: "The richer a few Africans get, the less democratic Africa will become for the majority of Africans."
I live in the states. I've seen it. Africa has begun to be noticed by the global financial elite, which likes stability. And big profits. The elites will do well in Africa, not the people. As here.
I live in the states. I've seen it. Africa has begun to be noticed by the global financial elite, which likes stability. And big profits. The elites will do well in Africa, not the people. As here.
10
Pork sharing where corporations are people and plutocrat money is speech births and breeds ruling socioeconomic educational political elites in the capitals of Africa, Asia, Indo-Pacific and the Americas.
It is a human nature nurture problem that has nothing to do with geography, race, color, ethnicity or faith. Denying that we are all divinely naturally created equal with certain unalienable rights guarantees that there will be little or no civil secular plural egalitarian democracy.
The United States of America is still wrestling with the humanity as persons and equality as Americans of both Native and African Americans. While European Americans fight over the crumbs secure in their relative privileged advantage of being neither Native nor African.
It is a human nature nurture problem that has nothing to do with geography, race, color, ethnicity or faith. Denying that we are all divinely naturally created equal with certain unalienable rights guarantees that there will be little or no civil secular plural egalitarian democracy.
The United States of America is still wrestling with the humanity as persons and equality as Americans of both Native and African Americans. While European Americans fight over the crumbs secure in their relative privileged advantage of being neither Native nor African.
"Patronage" is the basis of all human society - a top-down system of organized control bolstered with gifts. The Western pretense of having risen above this system is nonsense; look anywhere, including New York City, in the year 2015.
3
Do you view society as a pecking-order or a gravy-train?
1
Tony Longo,
How do you think US government tax loopholes, tax exemptions, tax exempt foundations, environmental damage liability limits, free trade agreements, most favored nation designations, pharmaceutical liability limits, product liability limits, tax exemption loopholes, agricultural subsidies, PAY TO PLAY Solyndra government money giveaways, PAY TO PLAY CGI Federal government ACA no-bid contracts paying many times as much as other firms would charge for the same product, Hughes Aircraft Missile Guidance Technology export to Communist China (Chinagate), presidential pardons for federally convicted felons, other “Pay to Play” contracts and other laws benefiting only a few people (or a few foreign nations) were created by our elected US Congress and US Senate, and then enforced by our elected presidents and their appointed bureaucrat administrators?
How do you think US government tax loopholes, tax exemptions, tax exempt foundations, environmental damage liability limits, free trade agreements, most favored nation designations, pharmaceutical liability limits, product liability limits, tax exemption loopholes, agricultural subsidies, PAY TO PLAY Solyndra government money giveaways, PAY TO PLAY CGI Federal government ACA no-bid contracts paying many times as much as other firms would charge for the same product, Hughes Aircraft Missile Guidance Technology export to Communist China (Chinagate), presidential pardons for federally convicted felons, other “Pay to Play” contracts and other laws benefiting only a few people (or a few foreign nations) were created by our elected US Congress and US Senate, and then enforced by our elected presidents and their appointed bureaucrat administrators?
3
Rather than generalize, I would prefer a specific case or two, so that particular political-economic dynamics could be understood in the country or countries chosen.
6
Nancy,
If you want to eliminate waste & corruption in the USA and/or in African Nations, what about eliminating the PAY TO PLAY no-bid contracts handed out to campaign contributors such as the gigantic Lockheed-Martin type military contract(s), pork barrel infrastructure improvements, Solyndra type PAY TO PLAY business loan then bankruptcy deals, CGI Federal political power influenced PAY TO PLAY contract awards, wars, welfare, unemployment benefits, repay existing of future bond obligations (borrowed money), and other government expenses that pay citizens by expending national wealth for these non-wealth-creating activities that actually consumes and destroys the nation's wealth and national government economic capabilities.
The no-bid CGI Federal contract could have been performed for a tiny percentage of the $650,000,000.00 that was awarded to CGI Federal.
Who at CGI Federal knew some influential people in the US government?
How much of that $650,000,000.00 went to political campaigns?
Professional lobbyists and other individuals are being paid to influence (bribe or buy) the votes of individual members of the US Congress and the US presidents to create laws and also paying the US federal government administrative branch to award their clients no-bid government contracts in accordance with the Chicago type “PAY TO PLAY” type of no-bid contract selection and award process is really INSTITUTIONALIZED bribery.
If you want to eliminate waste & corruption in the USA and/or in African Nations, what about eliminating the PAY TO PLAY no-bid contracts handed out to campaign contributors such as the gigantic Lockheed-Martin type military contract(s), pork barrel infrastructure improvements, Solyndra type PAY TO PLAY business loan then bankruptcy deals, CGI Federal political power influenced PAY TO PLAY contract awards, wars, welfare, unemployment benefits, repay existing of future bond obligations (borrowed money), and other government expenses that pay citizens by expending national wealth for these non-wealth-creating activities that actually consumes and destroys the nation's wealth and national government economic capabilities.
The no-bid CGI Federal contract could have been performed for a tiny percentage of the $650,000,000.00 that was awarded to CGI Federal.
Who at CGI Federal knew some influential people in the US government?
How much of that $650,000,000.00 went to political campaigns?
Professional lobbyists and other individuals are being paid to influence (bribe or buy) the votes of individual members of the US Congress and the US presidents to create laws and also paying the US federal government administrative branch to award their clients no-bid government contracts in accordance with the Chicago type “PAY TO PLAY” type of no-bid contract selection and award process is really INSTITUTIONALIZED bribery.
4
Zimbabwe's Mugabe has been in power since 1987.
4
Change term limits? Not on your life. Look at the totally incompetent "leader" of Nigeria--Goodluck Jonathan. He alone should give anyone pause regarding any term-limit change on the African continent.
11
"...the richer Africa gets, the less democratic it will become".
This is modernity indeed. The same thing is happening in North America and to a lesser extent in Western Europe. Wealth breeds contempt for politics and for people, especially when there are Supreme Courts to formalize the process by equating money with political free speech.
The author "...suspect(s) most African voters, though, are happy to go to bed with a full stomach — rather than with an empty one but a head full of high ideals". Surely it is possible to have both, and in any case this smacks of blackmail of the poor and middle class (such as it is) by the elites. I don't see South Africa mentioned here; hopefully it is an exception.
This is modernity indeed. The same thing is happening in North America and to a lesser extent in Western Europe. Wealth breeds contempt for politics and for people, especially when there are Supreme Courts to formalize the process by equating money with political free speech.
The author "...suspect(s) most African voters, though, are happy to go to bed with a full stomach — rather than with an empty one but a head full of high ideals". Surely it is possible to have both, and in any case this smacks of blackmail of the poor and middle class (such as it is) by the elites. I don't see South Africa mentioned here; hopefully it is an exception.
13
South Africa is not an exception and since Mandela died I am told by many who live there that it is getting worse than it already was. As I write this from Zambia I am listening to the Nigerian race and it is "too close to call" which tells me Goodluck Jonathan will likely win by tinkering with the "collation" process.
But what the heck, my own American election in 2000 that swept Bush II into office by a partisan Supreme Court decision was no better.
Democracy is a fragile thing and the abuse of it by the rich and powerful is not limited to Africa. American elections are also suppressed, fenced, poll taxed, and generally tinkered with. The only difference is the way it is hidden and or justified to the masses. In America the masses are willingly ignorant and ill informed whereas in Africa they are truly ill informed. The abuse is the same.
But what the heck, my own American election in 2000 that swept Bush II into office by a partisan Supreme Court decision was no better.
Democracy is a fragile thing and the abuse of it by the rich and powerful is not limited to Africa. American elections are also suppressed, fenced, poll taxed, and generally tinkered with. The only difference is the way it is hidden and or justified to the masses. In America the masses are willingly ignorant and ill informed whereas in Africa they are truly ill informed. The abuse is the same.
3
How people spend their money is up to them, be it on speech, yachts, or anything else. Please get it out of your head that a society's money is some sort of community property.
2
The article notes that, in Africa, governments that are running huge deficits are still able to 'raise large sums from private-sector allies'. This sounds like business as usual in Washington, D.C. Apparently, the need for public financing of political campaigns is a global problem.
3
Encouraging. But still a long way to go.
Interestingly, you forgot Rwanda's Paul Kagame...
4
This is a highly misleading piece. Business financing of the opposition in Ghana -- which is a fully fledged democracy -- does not offer an explanation for the success of extending term limits in authoritarian Republic of Congo, Sudan, or Togo. The opposition in RoC is not living rich, willingly let Sassou Nguesso do what he pleases. The opposition in RoC is harassed, oppressed, in jail, in exile, or worse. The struggle for power in RoC still is very much life or death. Nana Addo may have it good in Ghana, where opposition parties have access to opportunities outside the state, but Ghana is an profoundly more democratic and liberalized state and can't explain the success of term limit extension in more authoritarian countries like RoC or Togo. In fact, the research shows that the success of African incumbents at extending term limits is steadily declining, the exact opposite of what the author suggests (https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/jou.... The author is using developments from the more democratic countries to explain developments in the less democratic countries, mixing evidence across cases to fit his argument.
13
I appreciate your contribution. I tried to click the link but it's truncated and it seems as though a username/password combination is required. Could you post the name of the paper you wanted to share? Thanks.
It is so frustrating to see some leaders of African nations solicit donor help from international NGOs for their people, but at the same time they raid their national treasuries to buy luxury vehicles, million dollar estates and expense accounts for themselves. King Mswati of Swaziland is one such example of this scenario. Proper governance and rule of law is the first step in the development of a nation.
17
Not even a mention of Zimbabwe and "Dr" Mugabe ???
8