Replies

Americans help by doing what they do naturally, without apology, as the British once did before they lost their confidence.

Americans and their companies operate all over the world, and wherever they go they upend the status quo by their presence. You can't invest without legal protection for your people and your money, so they work with the local government to establish the legal norms they require; the result is that the laws that protect them also permit the growth of local, national, business using the same protections. American workers are used to exercising personal authority well-beyond their position in the chain of command, and they are used to making decisions; they have a way of forcing their local colleagues to behave and think in the same way, and people who have worked with Americans and their companies over time are changed by it.

American treatment of its local workers always exceeds the norm. They are treated better, paid better, entrusted with more authority, and more respect, than any local firm. And the result is a new, higher standard of treatment in the country.

The best thing that happens in most countries is for American firms to move in and go to work. The results are revolutionary; those whose fortunes depend on the status quo hate it, of course, those whose wealth and prestige comes from their position in the old order will try to undermine the new order anyway they can. Sons of civil servants will hate it that local welders suddenly make more than they do, and no longer look at their feet in the presence of their social betters; Americans hate it when people do that, and their local colleagues and workers soon learn to quit doing it.

Western countries have a lot of well deserved guilt where Africa is concerned, as a quick read of German and Belgian and Arab history in Africa will show you. But the British and Americans have got to get over their guilt for a colonial history that is not theirs, and for a human disaster that is not of their making. The sooner, and the deeper, they get back to work doing what they do in Africa as well as in the rest of the world, the better it will be for everyone. It may look like colonialism, but it isn't. You build, you create, you establish legal norms that protect others while protecting you, and you create an economy that puts people to productive work, and trains them in productive, advanced, skills. Not out of charity, not out of some misplaced paternalism, we are all men here, we are all joined in important work, and we are all worthy.

That is how you change countries. You will be going against the flow, and the old elites will not like it once they see their old authority eroding, and their rage will be vented using the most unlikely tools; student riots, leftish newspaper editorials, Euro NGO's will be invited to organize grass-roots opposition, and Arabs will fund guerrillas to drive you out. But you can't lose confidence in who and what you are. You just keep doing what you do, and you will change the world without really intending to.

I like your thinking, friend. It seems like you've put a lot of thought into this, and I agree with your comments.

I think you're saying that free-market capitalism is the best and only way to bring any real, lasting prosperity to Africa. And American companies are probably the only ones who have the size and the moral confidence to do this.

It seems to me this will be a very daunting task. It seems like there is nowhere in Africa where the rule of law is strong enough to permit this kind of investment right now. (I'm sorry if I'm being too harsh with this comment -- I don't mean to be too harsh, and since I'm no expert it's entirely possible that I'm quite wrong. If I'm wrong I'll be very happy to be corrected.)