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by Byron
Self-imposed boundaries are no boundaries at all.

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Ashame it aint a management statement as it fits your description of a management statement pretty well But who's talking about self-imposed (economic) boundaries anyways? I'm pretty sure it wasn't me and even if they were self-imposed they would need to be addressed none the less to get to a soll situation (it would just make them easier to address as you can change them).

I was talking about boundaries as in: a set of variables which although maybe not set in stone are very hard to change. Any plan you develop will have to take these variables into account. One thats pretty much set in stone is gravity. Unless you take that into account any plan is bound to fail. But here are other variables which include political climate, stability in the region, availability of resources etc etc etc which aren't set in stone but your plan either has to work within the boundaries that those variables set or your plan has to address how you would want to change these variables for it to be successful. I don't think that the previous posts did any of that.

Btw you don't honestly believe that the banks will pay for the cancellation of the 3rd world debt? They will just add it to the huge tab the g8 countries already have. Also lets keep a clear devide between aid and loans. The 3rd World debt isn't made up out of the aid we give them, but out of very low interest loans @ the world bank. As most modern nations the repayments on the nation debt are paid for by taking out new loans. So debt repayments exceeding aid (two completely different concepts, money you get for free and money you loan) isn't bad economy at all, they are two completely different economic concepts that have nothing to do with each other. Providing more loans to countries who can't afford it in the first place, now thats bad economy (for us) yet we still do at really low rates.

Although eliminating 3rd world debt over the whole board overnight might sounds like a brilliant idea it's actually pretty stupid. As it actually would stop many economies of maturing and becoming self reliant. What's my motivation to have a sound economic policy when I know that if I spend more than I can afford there is always someone to bail me out? If you have a sound economic plan and policy and you are really on your way to solving your issues we can give you the additional boost you need by cancelling out your debt (or part of it depending on what you can afford) and if not we'll borrow you the money you need but you'll have to pay it back so you can continue trying.

Sanctions on dictatorships and war-zones also sound like a terrific idea. Its just ashame that most of the people that require our help the most are those that live in those countries. The dictators however will make sure that get what they need, but the people that need it the most are the ones you hurt most by such sanctions. Sounds a bit counter productive to me. Sanctions are however only effictive if everyone sticks to them and pretty useless China just continous trade (boundary variable) . And at the moment Chinese companies are investing heavily in Africa as they don't really have the same ethic limitations as we have in the West (dealing with dictators / war-zones etc)

I believe you mean the Marshall plan which was named after Secretary of State George Marshall and although the money certainly helped the real economic growth or the European economies wasn't due to this but due to new laissez faire economic policies put into place between the different countries. For some reason I doubt that this will take place between many African countries seeing their recent history. And if we were trading with strong African natinos instead of the current ones we would create a whole set of problems for ourselves which I believe I already outlined in another post. These issue will need to addressed as well if you want to ensure that both economies keep advancing.

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by Byron
(quotes)
There's many more options than military invasion open. Economic sanctions for a start.

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id be interested to see if you can provide me with one single, solitary occasion where economic sanctions have worked.
thing is, youve got the same 3 countries actively protesting against economic sanctions, and surreptitiously supplying whatever goods are requested when they cant get the sanctions dropped.

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(quotes)
Alongside economic incentives, tightly-controlled loans (so we don't get back to the Thrid World Debt fiasco), and heavy investment on the condition of returns.

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agreed - inputting financial aid to allow the people themselves to dig themselves out of their situation is probably the est way to go about it - you just need to get the money to bypass the corrupt leadership who want to use the money instead to by a new airbus.

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(quotes)
But it isn't a zero-sum game between giving fish and teaching how to fish (I do find that quote rather patronising, Africans have been farming their land since before Western civilization existed, its stability and resources they're lacking).

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my point was that, rather than just giving them food, we should be giving them the means and technology to supply their own - in many cases, the tech exists to make previously non-viable land produce viable amounts of crops to support the populace.
as for stability, while weather and climate can be a factor (theres not exactly much you can do for growing crops if there is a 3 year drought, apart from move somewhere more hospitable - at least temporarily), often the bioggest cause of instability is corrupt goverment, followed by internal warfare - remove these problems, and there would be one less problem to deal with.


(Edited by mad 12/07/2006 00:55)

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by Chambler
I was talking about boundaries as in: a set of variables which although maybe not set in stone are very hard to change … your plan has to address how you would want to change these variables for it to be successful. I don't think that the previous posts did any of that.

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Which specific variables are you referring to? There'll always be variables, but some variables are more equal than others. We'll get nowhere with an abstract argument.

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Btw you don't honestly believe that the banks will pay for the cancellation of the 3rd world debt? They will just add it to the huge tab the g8 countries already have.

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Of course the banks won't pay; they don't give a damn about morality, only their bottom line. (Fair enough, that's what banks are for.) Western governments originally held the loans directly, and sold them to the banks a few decades back. They should now pay the banks off.

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Also lets keep a clear devide between aid and loans.

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A clear divide exists in theory, not reality. Direct aid is squandered dealing with the knock-on effects of the Structural Adjustment banks demand as a precondition for additional loans. For example, a bank demands public spending is cut, which strips back healthcare, which in turn leads to the spread of disease, which in turn requires aid.

And it isn't always that convoluted. Financial aid is sometimes channeled directly into acquiring new loans or paying off debt.

It's all linked.

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Although eliminating 3rd world debt over the whole board overnight might sounds like a brilliant idea it's actually pretty stupid. As it actually would stop many economies of maturing and becoming self reliant.

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Actually Third World Debt retards African economies. It forces them to compete in a world-market that's heavily weighted against them long before they're able, and imposes neo-liberal economic policies that force them to cut investment in their infrastructure, education and healthcare, devastating the future economic base.

It's like taking Tudor England, tossing it straight onto the modern global market, and complaining when it fails.

Two centuries of imperialism have completely devastated Africa's economy. At the very least, it's the responsibility of the countries that plundered its resources in the first place to help get it back on its feet.

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Sanctions on dictatorships and war-zones also sound like a terrific idea. Its just ashame that most of the people that require our help the most are those that live in those countries. The dictators however will make sure that get what they need, but the people that need it the most are the ones you hurt most by such sanctions.

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They're hurt most by living in a war-zone or dictatorship perpetuated by the diamond and mineral trade. When meaningful government and economy breaks down, the population receives nothing from their rulers besides oppression and ethnic warfare, and would therefore be best served by those rulers' removal.

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I believe you mean the Marshall plan which was named after Secretary of State George Marshall and although the money certainly helped the real economic growth or the European economies wasn't due to this but due to new laissez faire economic policies put into place between the different countries. For some reason I doubt that this will take place between many African countries seeing their recent history.

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Exactly, the Marshall Plan gave America good returns by opening up free markets. I'm a liberal, I love laissez faire! (Think they do that on a T-shirt? ) It's impossible to use recent history to argue that its success can't be repeated in Africa because the continent has never enjoyed the circumstances that would allow such a transformation. The G8 countries make a concerted effort to prevent Africa getting access to genuine free markets.

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And if we were trading with strong African natinos instead of the current ones we would create a whole set of problems for ourselves which I believe I already outlined in another post. These issue will need to addressed as well if you want to ensure that both economies keep advancing.

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Which ones in particular?

(Edited by Byron 12/07/2006 02:29)

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by mad
id be interested to see if you can provide me with one single, solitary occasion where economic sanctions have worked.
thing is, youve got the same 3 countries actively protesting against economic sanctions, and surreptitiously supplying whatever goods are requested when they cant get the sanctions dropped.

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South Africa is the obvious one, although since it's also the most contentious I'll avoid pressing this point. Except to say the sanctions' greatest flaw was the Thatcher/Regan governments' flouting of them.

But on a smaller scale, sanctions have been enormously successful. Asset-seizure has devastated the Mafia State-side, and Interpol clamp-downs on stolen artwork has severely restricted thieves' potential market. Perhaps the best way to look at this, seeing as government has often collapsed, is sanctions against criminals, not countries. "Smart sanctions" against specific minerals from specific sellers, instead of entire countries, have been suggested, and it's certainly an idea worth exploring further.

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agreed - inputting financial aid to allow the people themselves to dig themselves out of their situation is probably the est way to go about it - you just need to get the money to bypass the corrupt leadership who want to use the money instead to by a new airbus.

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The corrupt leadership would be gone sooner if we stopped flogging them weapons.

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my point was that, rather than just giving them food, we should be giving them the means and technology to supply their own - in many cases, the tech exists to make previously non-viable land produce viable amounts of crops to support the populace.
as for stability, while weather and climate can be a factor (theres not exactly much you can do for growing crops if there is a 3 year drought, apart from move somewhere more hospitable - at least temporarily), often the bioggest cause of instability is corrupt goverment, followed by internal warfare - remove these problems, and there would be one less problem to deal with.

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I don't think the problem is so much lack of access to technology as lacking the resources to employ it. Western governments could certainly provide expertise, but most important is fostering an economic and political climate that can take advantage of it. So you're quite right, those corrupt governments need to go, but so do the policies that help perpetuate them.

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by Byron
(quotes)
South Africa is the obvious one, although since it's also the most contentious I'll avoid pressing this point. Except to say the sanctions' greatest flaw was the Thatcher/Regan governments' flouting of them.

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im tempted to give you half-credit on that one - there were also all sorts of political imperatives (both internal and external) that led to the removal of the people behind apartheid.
something ive always found interesting - south africa is the ohnly country on that continent which has gone from minority white rule to majority black rule without descending into a dictatorship or military banana republic - in fact, i think thats the only place in sub-saharan africa where non-blacks are allowed to take part in the political process.
interesting that you pick on the 2 most likely suspects, even though those were the ones who were LEAST guilty of breaking sanctions.
lets see - nuclear technology from france.
nuclear scientests from the USSR.
jet fighters from france.
helicopters from france and the USSR.
personal weapons (hand guns, rifles, machine guns) from china (copies of soviet weapons).
jet trainers from yugoslavia.
an entire jet fighter program from israel.
boeing 747s for the national airline from the US.
allowing flights into their airspace when everyone else banned them by the US and UK.
trying to get sanctions lifted at the UN by france, russia, china, israel, US, UK.
so just remind me again - WHO was breaking sanctions?

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But on a smaller scale, sanctions have been enormously successful. Asset-seizure has devastated the Mafia State-side, and Interpol clamp-downs on stolen artwork has severely restricted thieves' potential market. Perhaps the best way to look at this, seeing as government has often collapsed, is sanctions against criminals, not countries. "Smart sanctions" against specific minerals from specific sellers, instead of entire countries, have been suggested, and it's certainly an idea worth exploring further.

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but that all depends on getting everyone to agree on a definition of "criminal" - lets not forget that even though the UN hnted down those responsible for the war-crimes in serbia, in certain countries (notably russia and bosnia) those people are seen as heroes.
in many cases, the corrupt 3rd world leaders are seen as legitimate clients by certain countries.

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(quotes)
The corrupt leadership would be gone sooner if we stopped flogging them weapons.

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**points at earlier comments about france, russia, and china**

(quotes)
So you're quite right, those corrupt governments need to go, but so do the policies that help perpetuate them.[/quote]

so would you be willing to support a full-scale military invasion to remove these people?
i repeat - thats what it would take.

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by mad
so just remind me again - WHO was breaking sanctions?

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Just about everyone it seems.

I'll happily lay into France & the USSR's dodgy dealings (how many nuclear reactors did France flog to Iraq again), but the Thatcher & Regan flouting had the most impact due to America's self-appointed role as leader of the free world, and Britain's historical ties to South Africa.

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but that all depends on getting everyone to agree on a definition of "criminal" - lets not forget that even though the UN hnted down those responsible for the war-crimes in serbia, in certain countries (notably russia and bosnia) those people are seen as heroes.
in many cases, the corrupt 3rd world leaders are seen as legitimate clients by certain countries.

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Well let's start like we did with the slave trade: take the first step and vigourously campaign for other countries to follow. I'm under no illusion that the British government pushed abolition for purely moral reasons (a non-slaveholding economy didn't want to compete with slaveholding ones) but it makes it a damn sight easier to get change if we're leading by example. If we could get other former colonial powers like France and Holland on-side it'd make the moral (and economic) case that much stronger.

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so would you be willing to support a full-scale military invasion to remove these people?
i repeat - thats what it would take.

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You do repeat. Unless central government has already disintegrated I don't support invasion for anything less than out-and-out genocide: until we get something better than the UN, soverignty is sacrosanct. So no, I don't support full-scale military invasion, but I haven't seen any proof that its the only option. Sovietism crumbled in eastern Europe due to a mixture of economic circumstance and internal opposition. As did the string of dictatorships in South America. Until economic policies that prop-up dictators are removed, we cannot say the same won't happing in Africa.

(Edited by Byron 12/07/2006 18:42)

Sorry for the late reply but I figured I'd do some additional research before replying

Byron you wanted examples of variables so here goes:
First of all can we agree that (long term) excessive public spending can never be the bases of a long term healthy economy within a global market? I believe that we also established that arms bans (as currently executed) are anything but effective as countries will always find "idiots" to sell them weapons. Thirdly I believe that we have also established that intervening in a sovereign country is a tricky business.

There are countless more variables (depending on your point of view) but throughout the discussion I believe that we can at least agree upon these. If we accept these as "truths" the solution will either have to work within the boundaries or has to do something to change them. If a solution doesn't take these "truths" into account they are bound to fail (we can't go invading half Africa for example).

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by Byron
For example, a bank demands public spending is cut, which strips back health-care, which in turn leads to the spread of disease, which in turn requires aid.

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Why do we demand a cut in public spending? As excessive public spending can never be the bases of a healthy economy and because most of these public spendings go to building armies!!

The World bank only has a limited legal ways on which it can judge a country. As it's a loan and the money isn't earmarked (and checking if it is actually spend appropriately is undoable) they can't say Oi! you can't spend it on buying arms (sovereign country and all). However a healthy public budget is one of things they can legally "credit score" a country on.

That these countries now cut health-care / investments in infrastructure etc from their public budget so they can keep buying arms is their mismanagement not ours. We put embargo's on weapons sales in place (not very effective but still), ban the sale of blood diamonds etc. We cannot tell a sovereign country what to do but we try to stimulate them to make the right choices yet they insist on making the wrong ones no matter how hard we make it for them. So your solution would be to erase all their debt so they don't have to pay their debt back which means they would have enough money to buy arms & do a bit of health-care etc? Sorry but I believe that is solving a symptom not the source of the problem and if you don't solve the source of the problem we'll be back in the same position in a couple of years and a good few billions pounds lighter.

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by Byron
Actually Third World Debt retards African economies ... It's like taking Tudor England, tossing it straight onto the modern global market, and complaining when it fails.

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First of all many African leaders do a swell job at retarding their own economies all by themselves. There are only 1 or 2 countries on this planet without a HUGE debt and most of them at way less favourable conditions than the 3rd World has. Economies can run fine with a huge debt as long as it's dealt with responsibly.

If you toss Tudor England into a modern global market (that's something different than a free market) I have no doubt that when rightly managed it could survive relatively easily. If you utilize your strengths: relatively little people, low skilled but cheap and highly motivated labor with little regulations and vast natural resources. And don't forget you'll get a shitload of money from the World Bank of which you won't have to pay back anything for at least a good few years (as that's how the 3rd world debt started) First of all your natural resources and favourable workforce conditions will attract a lot of foreign investors and you have a beautiful country which can support a great tourism industry. I honestly don't see why over a period of 30 - 50 years such a country couldn't go through enormous growth and make large steps to being a more developed country if it's managed correctly.

I honestly believe that any country can make something of itself over a period of 30 - 50 years as long as they are committed and are managed correctly.

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by Byron
Two centuries of imperialism have completely devastated Africa's economy. At the very least, it's the responsibility of the countries that plundered its resources in the first place to help get it back on its feet.

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Ooh please get off it, as if we "nasty imperials" invented things like slavery or plundering resources and brought the African economy down to it's knees. Many countries who used to be occupied by other nations do a heck of a lot better than 99% of the African countries so there is a heck of a lot more to it. The problem in Africa is that for the most part it doesn't actually consists of countries but of combinations of "roaming tribes" who are at constant war with each other on large and small scale. Wars and their inability to work together is what is causing most of their issues.

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by Byron
the Marshall Plan gave America good returns by opening up free markets. It's impossible to use recent history to argue that its success can't be repeated in Africa because the continent has never enjoyed the circumstances that would allow such a transformation. The G8 countries make a concerted effort to prevent Africa getting access to genuine free markets.

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The Marshall Plan never intended to create a free market. It intended to create exactly the same as American contractors are trying to do in Iraq right now (minus oil). That America effectively paid for it was an enabling condition but that a European free mar was created had everything to do with WOII and the leadership of the EU countries at the time and their ability to see the opportunities and together cease it. No amount of money can re-create these conditions in Africa and even if they could be recreated seeing the quality of leadership in most of the African countries I seriously doubt their ability to in a combined effort cease this opportunity.

And what the G8 is doing is very understandable as what Africa is doing at the moment has nothing to with entering a "free market". There is a huge difference between the World Market and the free markets that exist around the globe. The EU free market for example has lots of rules and regulations which each party within that free market has to obeyed by. On the world market however these rules don't apply. This means that for example shoes can be made with child labor at 15p and hour an EU shoe can never compete with that price wise. So we say if you want to import world market shoes that don't obey the rules and regulations we have to obey we tax them to hell so they don't kill our own market as we have such high ethic standards.

So the G8 isn't blocking Africa from doing anything on the World Market but if you want to participate within the different free markets you'll have to play by the rules as they are set within that free market. You cannot have your cake and want to eat it too. You cannot expect to get aid / cheap loans, use child labor, be allowed to give government support to companies, don't follow any environmental regulation known to man and be allowed to freely dump your products on free markets which have to actually obey these rules. What's so unfair about that?

(Edited by Chambler 16/07/2006 19:00)

To address your main points ...

"You can't stop the arms trade, so if you can't beat 'em, let's join 'em"

Individuals defying international sanction are a hell of a lot less effective than governments acting unimpeded. Just witness the decline of the international slave trade after governments stopped running it and started suppressing it. And morally this is no argument at all. Another person's wrong in no way excuses your own.

"Cutting public spending stops the Africans blowing it all on arms"

You've fundamentally misunderstood Structural Adjustment. It isn't a simple cut in public expenditure; it's a demand that a country's economy is restructured to serve the interests of a bank instead of its own citizens. Example: a bank demands education and healthcare are fully-privatised so outside investors can harness them for profit to an extent that would be inconceivable in Western economies. Result: an increase in sick, ignorant people. Structural Adjustment does nothing to impede arms sales and everything to impede a country's development.

"Debt isn't the problem, bad management is"

The two are symbiotic. You say "Economies can run fine with a huge debt as long as it's dealt with responsibly", but it's fairer to say advanced economies can handle the right type of debt. It's the difference between a company taking out a £250,000 capital loan on the guarantee of stable returns and a corner shop going begging to a loan shark for the same amount. Good management is formed through experience, and the experience will never be found in an economy being raped by outside interests.

"We shouldn't feel guilty about imperialism. Shit happens"

I don't want hand-wringing; I want countries to take responsibility for their actions. The right is big on personal responsibility yet goes strangely silent when we get higher up the food chain. Laws are like spider's webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away -- Solon. If the situations were reversed I've no doubt Africa would have done the same to us. That's irrelevant. They weren't reversed and we did it. Therefore it's our duty to set it right.

"Africa can't compete on the global free market because it doesn't meet global standards "

Unlike the EU the global free market has no entry-standard for environmental protection and workers' rights. Far from Africa "dumping" its goods on the West it's the West that dumps its policies on woefully unprepared economies. The G8 claims "targeted debt relief" rewards "good" governments, but their definition of "good" has nothing to do with raising standards and everything to do with creating economies they can better exploit. They don't want cheap labour to end as it serves them well. It's ridiculous to expect African nations to raise their standards under policies that create pirate economies.

The Marshall Plan was designed to facilitate laissez faire because America needed Europe as an export market. It worked. Europe used American loans to purchase American goods. European governments took the lead only because America laid the economic foundations for them to do so. It bears little comparison to Iraq, where the likes of Halliburton are handed no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure and the development of a strong, sovereign economy seems a distant second to lining the pockets of Bush's cronies.

Give democratic, under-developed nations the chance of a Marshall Plan, and then, only then, criticise them for not taking advantage of it.

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by Byron
"You can't stop the arms trade, so if you can't beat 'em, let's join 'em"

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No that definitely not what I'm saying. Of course we shouldn't make arms sales easier by joining it. What I'm saying is if you know that what you are doing is certainly not 100% (or even 75%) effective you shouldn't be naive and ignore the fact that for a big chunk it ain't working and undermining the whole process. In an unstable region it is very hard for a country to ignore arms buildup in neighbouring countries creating a negative spiral only at higher costs. So I'm not saying we should do less but that we should do more to break this negative spiral, as hardly anyone is helped by arms build up in Africa (and least the African people). However more of the same probably ain't really gonna cut it.

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by Byron
"Cutting public spending stops the Africans blowing it all on arms"
You've fundamentally misunderstood Structural Adjustment. It isn't a simple cut in public expenditure; it's a demand that a country's economy is restructured to serve the interests of a bank instead of its own citizens.

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I'll be the first to admit that SAPs are anything but 100% positive for each an every citizen especially on the short run, especially when the short and long term "needs" aren't balance correctly (management?). But do keep in mind that these loans aren't meant as a short term solution and there is a darned good reason why we put conditions on these loans. With these loans we hope that these countries work towards longer term solutions to a wider problem. Although SAPs are currently replaced with Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) they aim to do mainly the same thing. So lets look more closely at SAPs (and what I apparently don't seem to understand) and what they are aim towards:

• Implementing user fees in basic services such as education and health -- Research has shown that when people contribute to something (even if it's only a few pence) they make it their own and become more involved. If you give something to someone for free they will never understand the value of something properly. Take for example micro credits that people actually have to pay back at a few cents a month. They are hugely successful were money they got for free didn't give hardly the same results. However you shouldn't implement high user fees as that would stop people from participating. You need to find the right balance (management?).


• Focusing economic output on direct export and resource extraction -- Sure that ain't 100% positive especially when the balance is lost between export needs and internal needs. But it is playing on your strengths to generate a high cash flow into your economy very quickly.


• Devaluation of overvalued currencies -- Basically a good thing (sure it has drawbacks as well especially when foreign currency loans are used to compensate for the increased price of imports (bad management?))


• Trade liberalization, or lifting import and export restrictions -- Sounds sensible especially if you want to attract foreign business.


• Increasing the stability of investment (by supplementing foreign direct investment with the opening of domestic stock markets) -- Never a bad thing...... stability of investments attracts more investments.


• Balancing budgets and not overspending -- Sensible in the long run, but yes painful in the short run, however you avoid a bigger problem later on.


• Removing price controls and state subsidies -- This can be very painful especially when done without taking the needs of the weakest into account but still very sensible in the long run.


• Privatization, or divestiture of all or part of state-owned enterprises -- You need money. You things private investors want. You should use this money to do long run economic investments (infrastructure etc) and not use it to cover short term holes in your budget. Otherwise you are cannibalising your country (bad management). Also in many African countries the economy is structured slightly different. Where privatization in Europe is very often seen by many as a bad thing in these countries everything is owned by the state with the exception of many 1 or 2 large industrial complexes owned by Shell / BP or a huge mining corporation.


• Enhancing the rights of foreign investors vis-a-vis national laws -- We want to avoid situations as we have seen in Zimbabwe. Laws can be a good tool to ensure stability, however you do not want to over do it otherwise you'll create instability.


• Improving governance and fighting corruption. -- Whats wrong with that?

The real pain however of the SAPs is set in this:

• Cutting social expenditures, also known as austerity -- Or in other words use part of your budget to pay back debt. This is very painful in the short-run and if done too dramatically or in the wrong places it can do a lot of damage. But paying off your "bad debt" and replacing it with "good / less bad" debt is a very important step to becoming a healthy economy in the long run.

The idea behind the conditions attached to the SAPs and the PRSPs is to ensure that they are used effectively and to ensure that these loans eventually get paid back by stimulating long term changes. These conditions are there for a reason as even if countries would have used the money "responsibly" (read not buy weapons) without many of the structural reforms "giving" people more resources to for example start a business would be pretty useless when the internal market is highly restrictive.

The SAPs / PRSPs address these issues, however their focus might be too much on the long term and not address the short term problems which also need to be addressed if a long term solution wants to have any chance of success. However it's a fact of life that whats good for a country and it's people in the short run will be it's biggest downfall 10 - 20 years later. We have and are currently suffering from these mistakes as first World countries, wouldn't it be irresponsibly of us to not ensure that Africa doesn't make the same mistakes? We have had 10 - 150 years to look back on our mistakes (depending on the mistake) and we know what they lead too.

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by Byron
"Debt isn't the problem, bad management is"
The two are symbiotic. You say "Economies can run fine with a huge debt as long as it's dealt with responsibly", but it's fairer to say advanced economies can handle the right type of debt. ... Good management is formed through experience, and the experience will never be found in an economy being raped by outside interests.

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Yes they are symbiotic, bad management will most likely gets you into bad debt. However it doesn't by default work the other way around. Bad debt doesn't give you bad management. Sure good management will have to take some harsh steps to correct these lingering problems which won't make you popular but it doesn't make you bad. A responsible amount of debt can be handled by any economy no matter if it's advanced or not. You have to ask yourself is that 250.000 responsible for a corner shop? If you do not have a good plan what to do with the cash you ain't getting it. But you do have to keep in mind that a corner shop can completely turn it's business around with 250.000 where a company like Shell can't even pay a top executive with it. In other words a relatively small amount of money in an African country can go a very long way. And in a sense that makes it even sadder if they can't get it. But without a foundation and a long term plan just throwing money at these countries isn't going to solve any issues.

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by Byron
"We shouldn't feel guilty about imperialism. Shit happens"
I want countries to take responsibility for their actions. The right is big on personal responsibility yet goes strangely silent when we get higher up the food chain. Laws are like spider's webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away -- Solon.

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You seem to have a knack for stripping out all nuances. I believe what I said was that our imperialism isn't at the heart of the problem but merely a contributing factor. We can debate about how big a contributing factor it is, but no matter how big it is that doesn't make it the underlying problem.

A spiders' web lets through the really small and the really big. It only catches that which the spider can effectively handle and lets through whatever is too small to eat or so big it would kill the spider in an instant. Although maybe very politically correct and noble I think it would be considered extremely bad management if the spider starts to catch both the bacteria and the rhino's.

If you feel that the spider also needs to catch the "bigger fish" you can start kicking against the web say to the spider oi! you better learn how to make stronger than steal threads to weave your web with right now or you can find solutions with the existing framework and slowly build towards to stronger than steal webbing. And guess what? We now have spiders that have stronger than steal webbing.

That you do not agree with the system is fine. But however you turn it you will have to start change within the system you don't like as you cannot just pretend it ain't there. Otherwise it's nothing else than kicking against the spiders web saying Oi! you make crappy webbing as you can't catch a rhino!

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by Byron
"Africa can't compete on the global free market because it doesn't meet global standards "

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No..... Africa can compete fine on the World Market. The problem is that they aren't allowed to enter the "free markets". Funny thing of a free market is that it isn't actually free, it's only free for the ones in that particular market. Goods from the World market cannot freely enter these free markets unless they follow certain guidelines.

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by Byron
Far from Africa "dumping" its goods on the West it's the West that dumps its policies on woefully unprepared economies.

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I'll give you sugar / grain and all those idiot farm products our governments support with large sums of money. If these products are created without child labor (which we are also trying to ban all around the globe), harmful pesticides and burning down major parts of rain forest so you can farm there for a year or 2, fine dump them on the West. Nothing wrong with cheap sugar.

But should we however also allow products from highly polluting industries etc on our market that after years we finally managed to ban to reduce pollution? I think that's slight trickier.

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by Byron
The G8 claims "targeted debt relief" rewards "good" governments, but their definition of "good" has nothing to do with raising standards and everything to do with creating economies they can better exploit.

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See SAPs.

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by Byron
The Marshall Plan was designed to facilitate laissez faire because America needed Europe as an export market. It worked. Europe used American loans to purchase American goods. European governments took the lead only because America laid the economic foundations for them to do so.

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What the USA tried to do was create a big export market for their products. Possibly create a free market between them and some big export markets within the EU but they never intended to create an internal EU "free market" which could rival its own. Although they might not have intended it, it happened anyways and it ended up to be really really good for us in Europe. But you shouldn't mix intent with result.

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by Byron
Give democratic, under-developed nations the chance of a Marshall Plan, and then, only then, criticise them for not taking advantage of it.

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As I pointed out in my previous post there is no use in giving anyone a Marshall Plan if the underlying conditions aren't there for it to be successful. With a Marshall'ish plan you might be able to ensure that a democratic country in Africa could enter one of the existing free markets. Chances are however that this could destabilize the continent even more, it ain't as easy as it seem. What you would like but what you can however not expect is a new free market to be created in the Africa region, which would be the best thing for everyone, but the conditions for such close cooperation just aren't there. (yes a bit of a chicken / egg discussion, I know).

Africa needs it's own internal market in which they trade freely and don't have to worry about the "stupid" pollution rules etc other free markets have. That's the only way Africa can become strong. But for that to happen you first need peace & quiet and a reasonably full belly and some sensible government. At that point I say cancel the large amounts of debt, but just giving more money ain't gonna solve the issue.

(Edited by Chambler 18/07/2006 11:27)

As these posts are beginning to exceed the word-count of Ronaldo's hate mail I'll cut it down to aid and trade.

Free Trade and Single Markets aren't the same thing: laissez faire is the removal of tariffs; Single Markets are about economic integration. African membership of a Single Market or Customs Union is a different issue to African participation in free trade. The global market, regulated by the World Trade Organisation, is supposedly run on laissez faire principles. Most of Africa is already a member of the WTO (see map) and WTO policies punish poor economies. Africa is expected to open its markets to outside competition that's safe behind tariffs the Africans themselves aren't allowed to impose. It's naked discrimination.

Western countries treat free access to education and healthcare as a universal right. Suggesting people value it more if they pay is Thatcherism of the first order, and misses the point that many don't value it at all because they can't afford to pay. For "resource extraction" read "legalised plunder" -- Western governments can strip Africa of its economic base. Privatisation goes far beyond creating a competitive market to destroying a country's infrastructure. I'm not going to bother attacking "austerity", it's harder to know what's worse, its inhumanity or its economic incompetence.

This is not a simplistic trade-off between short-term hardship and long-term gain. These polices don't create a country's future; they destroy it by starving its population and stealing its resources. Demanding "austerity" to pay off debts that should never have been imposed is perverse in the extreme.

My solution? Replace the World Trade Organisation, and alter its charter so a poor country can join but delay entry into the free market until its ready. Until then allow it to set tariffs while it builds-up its economy and provide zero-interest loans so it can do so. In addition, provide sufficient aid to supply all its population's healthcare, educational and food needs. You say the underlying conditions aren't there for a Marshall Plan but you forget the state of European devastation at the close of the war. Governments were unstable, infrastructures flattened. There's no reason one cannot be tailored for Africa. No reason besides the West's continuing refusal to serve its captives' need.

That still doesn't explain how you plan to stop those governments from buying more weapons and private jets instead of providing healthcare.

As long as you don't solve that problem, sending money or removing debts is not going to help one bit.

I'll try to keep my response as short as possible. Many of the ideas behind the conditions set by SAPs are well founded. The big mistake we seem to be making is that for some strange reason we try to apply these conditions on each country in the same way were each and every country is clearly different. Main reason for that is we could never come to a consensus for what to do for each and every country individually (too many parties involved and too many variables). Its far from ideal but it's this now or maybe "something" very far down the line, and we all agreed something needed to be done "now".

As lets be realistic with 40% of the population of some of these countries having hiv / aids and there being a drought every 2 - 3 years many of the "population problems" these countries face won't exist anymore in 10 - 20 years.

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by Byron
Africa is expected to open its markets to outside competition that's safe behind tariffs the Africans themselves aren't allowed to impose. It's naked discrimination.

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The Africans are allowed to impose tariffs just not on an individual bases. This is why an African free market would be ideal. Although individual countries aren't allowed to set tariffs etc the WTO does acknowledge the fact that (some of) these tariffs serve a purpose between the large economic blocks on this planet. the WTO won't allow GB to set trade restrictions yet it will allow some on the EU level.

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by Byron
Western countries treat free access to education and healthcare as a universal right.

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To quote the open source community "Free as in speech not as in beer". Completely different meaning of free. I believe that I pay monthly for my access to educations and healthcare but I have free access to them none the less.

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by Byron
Privatisation goes far beyond creating a competitive market to destroying a country's infrastructure. I'm not going to bother attacking "austerity", it's harder to know what's worse, its inhumanity or its economic incompetence.

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An effective market in which people have the chance to develop and create their own business can never be completely state owned. It creates entry barriers to internal markets which make real economic growth almost impossible. You are probably familiar with the story of the Russian farmers who eventually got a little plot of land for their own. Many of these plots ended up growing more crops than their large plots. This is why selective privatisation is very important. But there are of course things you cannot privatise in these situation and certainly shouldn't.

Austerity is economic reality. (sadly enough it even has a nice ring to it - and I coin that phrase as according to Google nobody used it yet!) From the person owed the money (banks) it would be economic incompetence to not demand it. Thats why debt releave is so important as nobody will deny that the debt they face is a burden and doesn't make things easier for them. Trick is finding someone to pay the tab. However universaly just wiping the debt would be enormously unfair. A country that struggled hard to build up it's economy and run into little debt is effectively punished for it's good behaviour (they only get a small amount of debt cancelled were others get huge amounts of money for behaving irresponsibly). Combine that with nobody wanting to pick up that enormous tab.

Thats why we say to countries that are on the road to economic and political stability - we releave (part of) your debt and reward you for your good behaviour. This makes the tab a heck of a lot smaller to amounts the EU economies can also handle as don't be mistaken our own economies suffer the burden of heavy (and increasing) debt as well.

The population of the Africa continent is larger than the population on the European continent yet you suggest that the G8 or the EU would pay for all this. Let just kicks look at the G8:

• USA - currently on the verge of full economic bankrupcy (have you seen the recent debt and trade balance?)


• France - Has trouble keeping it's own government spending in check to meet the Euro standard and has huge unemployment issues, not to mention use internal termoil within it's population


• Russian Federation - They are only in there for show they have a bit of oil but no economy to speak of


• UK - well you probably know this better than me


• German - Huge unemployment, economy is still struggling with combining the east and west and they can't keep their budget within range of the Euro standards and thats with making some serious cuts already in the social system


• Japan - They are currently just climbing out a 15 year economic resession (no thats not low growth thats negative growth of the economy)


• Italy - Corruption, bad government, huge part of the population live on or under the poverty line, classified as one of the poor regions of the EU (with exception of the north)


• Canada - They are the only ones that seem to be doing okayish as far as I'm aware, oil reserves (in sand) seem to become an key factor in their future economic growth

For some reason if I look at that list I don't feel very confident that the G8 has buckets of money to spend on anything. And to provide food / medicine / education for the whole continent (over 700 million people) is gonna cost a serious amount of money. If providing food / medicine and education for free (as in beer) only half that amount of people would cost less than 1000 dollars per person a year for lets say 10 years for them to build up their economy it would cost more than half the current USA debt.

Neither the G8 or the EU can bare an additional 3.5 Trillion dollars than we haven't even talked about picking up the tab for the debt Africa already accumulated. And I seriously doubt if you can feed, educate and provide medicine without the infrastructure in place for less than 1000 dollars a year a person.

Although your solution sounds so simple you on the one hand expect existing economies to "hand in" some of their wealth by allowing African countries to enter freely while this doesn't work the other way around as well, cough up in excess of 3.5 Trillion dollars and take on the existing debt all at the same time. Sure we need to work on the first part and give them a fairer chance but the other bits are completely unrealistic.

Wow! And to think this all began with an announcement that North Korea had just fired a ballistic missile!

I had been staying away from this thread. But you know, it's like a car accident. You promise yourself you're not going to look. Then, of course, you have to just stop and gawk, and then ask youself, "How the hell did this happen?"

Anyway, I read EVERYTHING in this thread since I last posted--which meant I had to stop for a snack and take a couple of bathroom breaks before I could finish. But I'm thoroughly enjoying your discussion--as I always do.

As I mentioned above, I posted in this thread originally just to state a general principle about allocation (or misallocation) of resources related to the original question. I never intended to get drawn into a detailed discussion about Africa's economic and political problems, and so on. I still don't want to get drawn into it, so I'm going to resist the temptation to weigh in on one side or the other. But some interesting things are definitely being said.

That's it from the North American peanut gallery. Please continue. I'm enjoying the passionate discussion.

Sandia this thread is indeed a fine example of the law of unintended consequences

Luckily we all seem to agree that the current military spending is to some extend somewhat excessive and that this money could and should be used differently. We just disagree on to which extend it is excessive and how it should be used differently. To be completely fair I would be very shocked if we all did agree on that And where would be the fun in that?

As Byron actually came up with a solution to the issues I kinda figured it would only be fair to do the same. As it's easy to find faults in other peoples solutions but a lot harder to come up with one of your own.

What I think we should do is relocate some of our budget into different parts of our economies as EU & G8 countries and use the excess this generates in the coming years to re-shape our own economies. Many industries have done investments based on the fact that their products are subsidised or are protected within their own free markets and our governments gave them the indication this would be the case for at least another xx years.

By using the money to buy out some of these businesses for which no alternative use can be found and helping other companies to shift to other products (for example shift to biological foods / free-range products | biodegradeable plastics / innovative building solutions) which can compete fairly with "cheap & mass produced" products and of course generating jobs in other industries we can speed up the process of dropping (some) tariffs and make it more palatable to our own population that is in effect paying for it. Hereby giving third world countries a fairer chance to develop their own economy.

By at the same time stimulating 3rd world governments to make the needed economic, social and political reforms over some time a handful of "African economic powerhouses" can be created. These countries can than function as an example to their neighbours and its population which than would "stimulate change from the inside out".

Although I'm aware this is a slower process I believe it to be a more realistic approach which will still require huge investments however as long as these investments are in our own economies they might just be palatable. Everyone wants to help fight the problems in the 3rd world but picking up the huge tab is a completely different matter.

(Edited by Chambler 21/07/2006 13:56)