Why are the Ten (10) Poorist Countries in Non-Arab Africa or African Lead Countries

[GHook93]

The 10 Poorest Countries in the World | Fox Business

9 out of 10 are in non-Arab Africa (meaning Black Africa)! The leader is Haiti. Haiti is a country founded by France in which they imported slaves from Africa. More slaves then slave owners equates to a bad situation. The slaves revolted and massacred every white man, women and children in the island. Hence the country is of African descendents. They were the 2nd country to gain independence in the western world, yet they remain the poorest country in the world.

But I digress, why are all of the top 10 the poorest and worst off? Why are they plagued with genocide, war, famine, AIDS, rape and misery indexes off the charts! Yet most of these countries are lush in resources and have plush farm land.

I will get the racist card tossed at me, so the question will never be answered, but is it about time this question gets answered?

Why has non-Arab Africa NEVER had a civilized, rich and successful society or country?

Primarily because they aren't really "countries" at all, their boundaries were drawn by occupation forces. And their governments are for the most part in the pockets of big western corporate interest.

It's more the other way around. It's often pay to play for Western corporate interests as corrupt leaders demand bribes to get in.

The evil corporation theory! You do know that even America has many foreign corps that actually HELP AMERICA via nice paying jobs. Toyota, Honda, Kia, Mitsubshi to name a few. I work for a British corp and we have a few thousand nice paying jobs in the the State.

The fact that foreign corps make business deals and work in a foreign country isn't a bad thing! JEEZZZUSSS!!!

 

[Aristotle]

I have to say - I think it is very difficult to get a handle on this if you have never been to black Africa.

That is a little of a red herring response. Just going to a country doesn't refute the point that these countries are dirt poor, plagued with violence, genocide and AIDS and there seems no hope of that changing!

It is not one place - it is an entire continent of vastly different cultures. There are 51 countrie in Africa -

Again red herring. Asia has many different cultures, backgrounds, religions and countries, yet MANY are thriving. Same with Europe and even Latin America is seeing some countries emerge (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia even Mexico).


Again another Red Herring. Bolivia does have much in common to other Latin American countries and some differences, just as African countries have much in common with out another and some differences.


Not as much as an excuse anymore. Much of Europe, mother Russia, China, Japan and Korea (Korean War) were destroyed in war. Yet they emerged. Believe it or not colonization, such as in South Africa, provided some infrastructure that the natives squandered when they took over. Zimbabwae and South Africa are by far the best examples of this! South Africa actually was the first industrialize country in Africa, once the Black South Africans took over, it slowly by surely resorted back to a 3rd world country, AIDS, murder, rape and baby rape capital of the world!

All of Latin America was colonized, yet many of those countries are emerging. The good old USA was a colony that fought for it's independence. Canada was a colony that received independence without a fight. Yet the 2nd country in the Western Hemisphere to receive independence - Haita- is the poorest in the world!!!

The colonization arguement is an excuse for failure not a barrier to success it's made out to be!!! Much as the slavery and Jim Crow argument that African American race hustlers use today.


That is a fallacy and you know it. Most are FLOODED in resources (such as the materials for medicine) and some have less resources. Sub0-Saharra-Africa (which black Africa is in) is flooded in natural resources.

And yet all of those factors have been crucial in the cycle of poverty.

Incorrect and apologetic. All those are obstacles for success that can be obtained. However, every country, INCLUDING Europe and the USA have major obstacles in their way to success. Overcoming those obstacles makes the country stronger not weaker! Using those obstacles as an excuse for the failed society makes them weaker not stronger.

Mexico is a great example. They are a country plagued by cartel violence and corruption. The last administration decided to combat these ruthless thugs. It's a bloody war, but one has to be blind not to see it's becoming a success. Incomes are increasing, they have a 5% Unemployment rate, less people are leaving for the States etc. Their struggle is tough, but if they keep it up, in the end they will have a stronger first world nation!

Ghana, Senegal, Botswana and Rwanda are all doing well - but why?

Not one of those countries are successful or even close to it!

- the drawing of national boundaries with no regard to nationalities

- war

- climate

- lack of rule of law

- corrupt and venal leadership

- bad policies

Maybe they're just stupid and violent? Having good policies and a stable democracy takes an intelligent population.

Do anyone of you guys have any evidence or is all what you've stated thus far are just anecdotes?

 

[ScienceRocks]

Reality and test scores are my evidence.

Link in my sig for test scores!

 

[Saigon]

Do anyone of you guys have any evidence or is all what you've stated thus far are just anecdotes?

I'm not sure Hook's posts here really qualify as anecdotes....

There have been a dozen very, very good books written on this topic by people who have spent their lives studying it - and who do also come to some of the conclusions I listed earlier.

Bunt understanding those books, and understanding Africa, can only come from being open-minded enough to ask quetions and understand how unique the basic forces shaping the continent (from the climate, the tribalism, the colonialism, the resources) are. When I see people rejecting those concepts out of hand, I know they aren't particularly interested.

 

[Aristotle]

Reality and test scores are my evidence.

Link in my sig for test scores!

Nah give me peer-reviewed research. Not clicking on anything that is biased

 

[Aristotle]

Do anyone of you guys have any evidence or is all what you've stated thus far are just anecdotes?

I'm not sure Hook's posts here really qualify as anecdotes....

There have been a dozen very, very good books written on this topic by people who have spent their lives studying it - and who do also come to some of the conclusions I listed earlier.

Bunt understanding those books, and understanding Africa, can only come from being open-minded enough to ask quetions and understand how unique the basic forces shaping the continent (from the climate, the tribalism, the colonialism, the resources) are. When I see people rejecting those concepts out of hand, I know they aren't particularly interested.

True but this subject is debatable. Simply saying "on average blacks are inferior" is nothing more than a strawman. I need an actual research study (peer-reviewed) that validates these claims.

 

[Saigon]

Aristotle -

I doubt you'll find peer reviewed material on this, because there are 51 countries in Africa, with 51 different histories, cultures and languages.

The history of Ethiopia is not the history of Somalia, nor do the two neighbouring states have terribly much on common. Different geography, different languages, different tribe, different religions.

The two best books covering this are probably Richard Dowden's 'Africa: Altered States', which contrasts the countries with each other and finds some surprising patterns; and John Reader's essential 'Africa: Biography of a Continent' which outlines the history from before the birth of mankind up until the present day.

 

[IanC]

there are many reasons for the lack of success in African countries, especially sub-saharan. the main factor is the low intellectual quality of their human capital.

there are simply not enough intellectually capable people to fill the jobs that are necessary to run a functioning society.

 

[Saigon]

Ian -

So you think black people are stupid, or what?

 

[IanC]

Ian -

So you think black people are stupid, or what?

interesting question, I guess I'll have to choose 'what'.

the peoples that migrated out of Africa evolved a different set of skills because of the harsher climate. a different family structure and future time orientation were necessary to survive cold winters. etc

culture evolves to make the best use of the skill set of its people. caucasian culture has been dominant for quite a while and has defined success by its standards.

it should be no surprise to anyone that the skill set of SSAfricans is different than caucasians and does not mesh as well into the dominant culture.

what is your definition of stupid? here is a simple question- a bag contains 10 white socks and 10 black socks; how many socks do you have to pull from the bag to be certain that you have a pair of white socks? the answer is obvious to you and me but not to a significant portion of the earth's population.

all jobs require a certain amount of intelligence, more intelligence usually means better performance (other things being equal). the average intelligence has a major impact on the competance of the workforce. there are major differences in the level of intelligence in the major racial groups. there is usually a fuzzy boundary or threshhold for difficult jobs. an IQ85 individual makes a poor accountant and an even worse electrical engineer. in many african countries even IQ85 individuals are in short supply. where can they find competent people for all the mundane, non prestigious jobs that are typically filled with IQ100-125 individuals in first world countries?

saigon- your post was meant to slur me as a racist but if anyone is a racist it is Mother Nature. will blacks always be behind? perhaps, perhaps not. but if they pulled ahead it would mean that either they as a group significantly change, or the definition of success changes.

 

[Saigon]

IanC -

I can't agree with you at all on this.

To me education is the key factor here - not some kind of genetic intelligence.

European colonising countries largely avoided educating the population of Africa because they feared th consequences of doing so. When the Portuguese left Mozambique, literacy was 10%.
How then can Mozambique educate its people to a degree which allows them to start businesses, invent new products or undertand marketing. It will take 50 years, and 20 years of war did not help that.

At the end of the Congolese civil war, DRC had 3 trained university lecturers. The rest were either dead, had fled, or were in prison. It takes 50 years to recover from that - one generation to learn to read, and then another to learn to teach others to read.

Many of the finest minds of the past centiry have been African. What they have in common is that they have benefitted from first class education systems which Africa has generally lacked. Joseph Nkrumah, Dambisa Moyo, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, Joeph Nyere, Nelson Mandela, Chimmande Adichie are all examples of very, very intelligent African people. They are also all university graduates.

What we are seeing now is a better university system functioning in some African countries (Ghana, Rwanda, perhaps Senegal & Ethiopia) and the consequential effects - more entrepreneurialism, a growing middle class, and a stronger emphasis on education for the next generation.

 

[IanC]

you are certainly entitled to your opinion saigon.

my opinion is that the world is dominated by

genetics
environment
genetically influenced environment=culture
environmentally influenced genetics=evolution

 

[Saigon]

IanC -

Well, we may have to agree to disagree on this one, then.

Environment I definitely agree with, and especially the environment a child grows up in.

But how do genetics explain someone like Dambisa Moyo?

Dambisa Moyo | Dr. Dambisa Moyo is an international economist who writes on the macroeconomy and global affairs. She is the author of the New York Times Bestsellers

 

[IanC]

IanC -

Well, we may have to agree to disagree on this one, then.

Environment I definitely agree with, and especially the environment a child grows up in.

But how do genetics explain someone like Dambisa Moyo?

Dambisa Moyo | Dr. Dambisa Moyo is an international economist who writes on the macroeconomy and global affairs. She is the author of the New York Times Bestsellers

why do you think genetics would preclude talented blacks? you do understand how normal curves work, dont you? blacks have individuals at all points in the range but the average is different. when the average is lower then the number of outliers at the top is less, when the average is higher the number of outliers at the top is higher. (standard deviations being relative equal). that is why jews are highly over-represented in nobel prizes (especially in the hard sciences) and blacks are under-represented. but that certainly doesnt mean that there are no accomplished blacks, just fewer proportionally

 

[Saigon]

IanC -

Yes, that's a good point, of course. In which case it comes down to a nature vs nurture debate.

My own feeling (and it is more of a feeling than an intellectual argument) is that the reason for Jewish, Korean and Armenian success is a strong emphasis on education by parents and the community - something seen much less in many African households where success in tertiary education is unlikely to back more than 1 or 2 generations.

I would like to see an objective piece of research on this, but sort of locking 1000 children in a lab from the time they are born, I guess it is unlikely to happen!

 

[IanC]

IanC -

Yes, that's a good point, of course. In which case it comes down to a nature vs nurture debate.

My own feeling (and it is more of a feeling than an intellectual argument) is that the reason for Jewish, Korean and Armenian success is a strong emphasis on education by parents and the community - something seen much less in many African households where success in tertiary education is unlikely to back more than 1 or 2 generations.

I would like to see an objective piece of research on this, but sort of locking 1000 children in a lab from the time they are born, I guess it is unlikely to happen!

white children from households where the parents earn less than 20000$ and no high school diplomas have a higher avg score on the SAT than black children from households with 100000$ and university degrees. (2005 college boards)

children from stable, affluent households show a marked disparity of achievement if they are separated by IQ. opportunity is not the only factor

I am not saying that the factors that you bring up are inconsequential. I am saying intelligence matters. big time.

 

[IanC]

oh... transracial adoption studies show that adopted children resemble their birth parents rather than their adoptive parents.

twin studies show that monozygotic twins are very similar to each other, even down to odd behavioural quirks like giggling. if most of us had a twin to make us recognize just how much our character and personality was under genetic control we wouldnt be having this discussion.

 

[peach174]

Many Arab countries would still be poor if it wasn't for their oil.
Many African Nations have corrupt governments, way too many regulations that strangle production.
The nations who have done well are the ones who use capitalism and less government intervention in production.

 

[Friends]

You aren't really a student of history..are ya?

There have been pretty advanced Arab and African civilizations a plenty. Egypt and Mesopotamia are just two quick examples.

What happened was they weren't as keen on war as those in Europe were..and many of those civilization fell under Greco/Roman rule. The modern age didn't get much better for them as they were parsed into "countries" by the west and subject to colonialism and slavery.

Guess that's what really happens when you go for high culture while ignoring your military.

The ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia were created by Caucasians. The Nubians were a black nation directly south of Egypt. They adopted Egyptian civilization, but they were never able to equal it.

 

[Friends]

True but this subject is debatable. Simply saying "on average blacks are inferior" is nothing more than a strawman. I need an actual research study (peer-reviewed) that validates these claims.

This is not a peer reviewed study, but it is a chart of SAT scores from the year 1990-91 to 2009-10.

Fast Facts

The SAT is not an IQ test, but it correlates with IQ. What this shows is that despite No Child Left Behind the race gap in SAT scores between blacks and whites has been growing.

The trouble with getting a peer reviewed study is that arguing that racial differences in intelligence are largely genetic can be damaging to one's career.