Dave wrote:
On 22 Nov 2006 15:26:50 -0800, "Peter" said:

I disagree. They didn't set out to do it, but in fact they did. OK you
can argue that in fact they didn't because history shows the result. I
look at it in terms of infrastructure and economics. Taking Zimbabwe as
a classic example of a failed state. At independence they were nett
food exporters, raw materials exporters, had a good balance of trade,
fed the population, had a competent civil service, a good military, a
functional education system, medical system, legal system, roads and
rail services. They had all the material things needed to succeed as an
independent country. All they had to do was keep running things as they
had been, with a bias over time to better education funded by
affordable tax increases. Wouldn't have been a real problem as the then
Rhodesia had sky high taxes and suffered heavily from sanctions on both
imports and exports. Their economy should have *surged* and the std of
living gone up.

The situation in South Africa was similar. I had a client with operations
there, and I was there in 1976, about 2 weeks after the Soweto riots. The
country was much as you described Rhodesia, and was also becoming
energy-independent through the use of advanced coal gasification and nuclear
power.

Of course Doug and others will jump up and say "Ah, but it wasn't
sustainable, because you had privileged classes of English and Afrikaans
whites sitting on top of a pyramid of black have-nots."

And while that may be true, the institutions and government structure were
certainly in place, wanting only to be run honestly and well.

It's certainly true that the economic structure was very, very heavily
weighted to the colonial aristocracy - generally the whites. It's also
true that South Africa's apartheid system was offensive, stupid and
untimately self-defeating. They ALL would have been a lot better off
trying to grow the middle class as fast as possible by whoever could do
it rather than having a pyramid with the 'whites' at the top and the
natives at the bottom as labourers. The British attitude towards
breeding/marrying the locals was also offensive & stupid. The French in
the Pacific were a lot better colonial masters as a whole than the
British - and lets not even mention the Germans & later the Japanese.

However. The moral of the goose that laid the golden eggs applies.
Destroying productive enterprises in the name of justice seems to have
resulted in none of justice, efficiency or productive enterprises. Yes,
people are a lot more equal. In poverty. Reminds me of a time I defined
communism as the philosophy that stated that all would starve equally.
When challenged, I modified it to all starving equally, except the
nomenklatura. Upon which I was labelled a cynic, but the observation
was indisputably correct.

Marie Rhydwyn's book 'Slow Travel' is an interesting read, esp the way
a left wing Aussie academic had to confront some of her cherished
beliefs when living/working in Tanzania. Sailing content - she & her
husband sailed there from Perth WA via Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka,
Maldives, Chagos * the Seychelles.

I've seen the results of ex-colonies' economic management first hand in
places where I've worked. Australia has troops in the Solomon Islands
at the moment and we're likely to have them in a number of other places
as well. These are colonies that can't cut it on their own. Back to the
original thread - sort of - they're also places with malaria.

PDW