Sorry bro Ramaphosa is the original tenderpreneur rent seeker, the guy knows nothing about businesses he is just a front for whites. His hands were all over Marikana massacre. He is just as corrupt as Zuma is the only difference is he made his money before the explosion of social media and news so a lot of people don't realize how dirty he is. Fun fact Ramaphosa, Patrice Motsepe and Jeff Radebe an influential minister are related through marriage, they shared tenders amongst themselves back in the nineties. There is no really manufacturing business elite in SA that's why I want import substitution.Ramaphosa might, despite his scandals he knows business. These other cats
If we had real Pan-Africanism, the African continent would erect trade barriers against cheap Asian imports and lower them for internal trade so that countries like SA or Nigeria could build strong manufacturing bases exporting to the continent. Africa's huge problem is its intra-African trade is tiny compared to trade with the West or China.
Then once the industries were mature, there would be FDI to other parts of the continent with cheaper labor etc. in a development cycle. Africa will not get out of poverty exporting to US/Europe like Asia. Their demographics are bad and they will not grow like in the past. Asia has a deep pool of cheap labor and advanced infrastructure so exporting to them probably will not work either.
Let's Talk Afro-Geopolitics III: ANC, Labour, Unemployment and the future of South Africa
- Thread starter The Odum of Ala Igbo
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- africa anc geopolitics south africa zuma
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
You have a point regarding protectionism and development from a historical standpoint. However when African countries tried it last century, elites catered to SOE which created unproductive industries and fellow elites which created monopolies which really harmed poor folks.
South Africa doesn't presently possess an elite which is capable of doing IS right. In addition, even if IS is successful in the short-term you create problems in the long term of your goods aren't tailored for export orientation from the get-go.
Regarding land to the tiller...farming has changed drastically from the early 20th century. Unfortunately you can't just give poor people land and expect them to be good farmers.
Red Shield
Global Domination
Can't believer how many nations fell for that free trade shyt. When it was so obvious that protectionism is what built these developed countries
No they didn't, we've established that African countries were barely out of colonialism before Washington consensus free trade dogma took hold. In fact African countries had higher growth under it done under free trade. Does import substitution deserve its unsavory reputation? You've fallen for the propaganda against it.
Like I said Export Oriented Development is the 2nd part of IS, companies have to build up economies of scale and capability to even think about exporting High Value manufactured goods. Only now are China beginning to export Xiaomi and Huawei phones to the global market after solving the kinks through import substitution in the local market. Arguing about elites is just semantics honestly. Land to the tiller program wasn't just about giving poor people land, they also got significant funding and help from the government to increase output and develop.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
Uh, no we haven't established your premises as being factual.
Moreover, African countries by and large had 20 years before the "Washington Consensus" or neoliberalism took over in which many countries tried an unforuntate mixture of ISI/socialism and poorly run SOEs. ALSO, it was ISI policies which pushed countries like Tanzania over the edge and forced them to take bitter medicine from the IMF/World Bank in the form of neoliberal restructuring.
It's fairly insulting to say I've fallen for "propaganda". Rather, you've fallen for pro-ISI propaganda despite evidence pointing to ISI failures on the African continent. There's no excuse for proposing the same failures which have set Africa back.
Read the paper I posted earlier before you spout nonsense about "propaganda".
Arguing about elites isn't "semantics". African elites all over the continent have doomed their countries by basing their economic programs on short-term political gains. That's why in many countries, elites benefit the most from land/corporate grabs. Whether it be in Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Mobutu's Zaire.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
@Thabo - All i'm asking for is caution before jumping to using ISI as a strategy of development given the past issues of ISI. Also, the blog you linked hilariously omitted the fact that ISI development in the majority of the Global South was accompanied by SOEs which caused debt crises. Theoretically, it is possible to have ISI without SOE involvement but it's never done that way in Africa. And you know that the EFF would never link hands with "global white capital" to have that sort of development. They want to nationalize parts of the SA economy after all.
ISI was tried in many parts of the developing world in countries like India and Brazil. I remember when Zimbabwe had extensive import licenses and foreign exchange certificates etc. The reason it failed to work was that unlike the East Asian version the ISI you see promoted as an alternative to free trade is far more inward looking. South Korea identified specific industries to compete and had Japanese help, Hyundai started assembling Mitsibushi stuff and Japanese steel companies also gave them technology. Many African countries don't have a Hyundai, LG, POSCO Steel etc. The end result is that some cronies who run some of the privatized firms end up getting a captive local market and have no propensity to expand into giant MNEs. South Africa's largest companies include media companies like Naspers, banks and MTN. The economic structure looks a lot like the US/UK model with an emphasis on services. The country is not alone on this either many African countries are already skipping manufacturing and are big on services.
I think the ANC can survive if they realize that Zuma and his minions have thoroughly damaged their brand. They have residual trust because the other options are a middle class driven DA and an EFF that is flanking them on the left. I think they would retain some support if the Zuma faction that drives the party since Mbeki is tamed a bit. Unemployment will persist as long as the economic structure rewards college education and is driven by big service firms. Many South Africans don't get to the college level and the ones that do face financial pressures. The country has a large enough budget to do something for manufacturing given the weakness in their currency relative to the USD recently. African countries have missed the boat on manufacturing and resources are only as good as the price guarantees windfall profits and also depletion of the resources makes it far more capital intensive than in the past. SA companies have looked outward though, MTN,Naspers,Shoprite,Standard Bank have done well investing on the continent.
I think the ANC can survive if they realize that Zuma and his minions have thoroughly damaged their brand. They have residual trust because the other options are a middle class driven DA and an EFF that is flanking them on the left. I think they would retain some support if the Zuma faction that drives the party since Mbeki is tamed a bit. Unemployment will persist as long as the economic structure rewards college education and is driven by big service firms. Many South Africans don't get to the college level and the ones that do face financial pressures. The country has a large enough budget to do something for manufacturing given the weakness in their currency relative to the USD recently. African countries have missed the boat on manufacturing and resources are only as good as the price guarantees windfall profits and also depletion of the resources makes it far more capital intensive than in the past. SA companies have looked outward though, MTN,Naspers,Shoprite,Standard Bank have done well investing on the continent.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
StThe highlighted sections should be a big concern for policy-makers. If there will be an eventual transition to services, how can this peacefully occur when your people need labour-intensive industries?
Many countries dropped the ball in failing to link primary sectors such as agriculture to value added industries. In the United States, corn is used in industrial and food uses in probably more than 30 or 40 industries and likewise oil in plastics and other industries. The fact that the forward linkages have not been made means that a country with a surplus in corn like Zambia wind up selling to the World Food Program or export to other countries but the return per tonne is not that good. The second failure is the linkage of education to industry. There is less emphasis on experiential learning done through firm to firm learning or technology adoption which countries like South Korea, Japan and China did and more on classroom learning which is more of a UK/US model. There is a reason people always complain about graduates with so called book learning which really is the fault of industry and government. Expanding access to education is not necessarily a bad thing but there is far more emphasis on collegiate learning in the absence of industries to absorb them.
Good discussion. This is what the Root is about!
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
The easy answer would be to reduce inequality. It is more complex to achieve this though, Brazil's Bolsa program has been suggested and South Africa has a large welfare program for a country of its nature. Most African countries by comparison do not spend as much on social welfare programs. The solution IMO is probably political, the ANC have managed to keep any conflict at bay and have created a black middle class buffer which it is now competing for votes with the DA. The biggest complication is how race and class intertwine, if the racial gap is taken care of it will reduce those pressures. The high rate of urbanization means that some of the proposed solutions e.g. land reform will not have the same impact as people think.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
I think the trend has been to try and develop rural areas and give them infrastructure because Apartheid bantustans were not economically viable. Those are the people who would benefit from land reform and access to fertile land.
The countries were just coming out of colonialism, so you can't just outright say it didn't work when they didn't even have enough time to properly implement it. and not to mention they inherited colonial debts which tied their hands. And finally your article proved my point ISI didn't fail, the governments failed, this shows that good governance is needed not that ISI doesn't work.Uh, no we haven't established your premises as being factual.
Moreover, African countries by and large had 20 years before the "Washington Consensus" or neoliberalism took over in which many countries tried an unforuntate mixture of ISI/socialism and poorly run SOEs. ALSO, it was ISI policies which pushed countries like Tanzania over the edge and forced them to take bitter medicine from the IMF/World Bank in the form of neoliberal restructuring.
It's fairly insulting to say I've fallen for "propaganda". Rather, you've fallen for pro-ISI propaganda despite evidence pointing to ISI failures on the African continent. There's no excuse for proposing the same failures which have set Africa back.
Read the paper I posted earlier before you spout nonsense about "propaganda".
Arguing about elites isn't "semantics". African elites all over the continent have doomed their countries by basing their economic programs on short-term political gains. That's why in many countries, elites benefit the most from land/corporate grabs. Whether it be in Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Mobutu's Zaire.
ISI is the only way to industrialize How the World Works its not propaganda but factual economic history.
First of all Zimbabwe's problems are due to sanctions imposed by the west. How is a country supposed to function when their banks are sanctioned from buying capital goods needed US lifts sanctions on two Zim banks. Why does Obama consider Zimbabwe an extraordinary threat US extends sanctions: Mugabe still ‘a threat’? Mobutu was put in place by whites after Lumumba was assassinated so it was a case of neo-colonialism.
