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"Marshall Plan" for Africa
- Thread starter Czar
- Start date
StageLeft
No Lifer
Forgiving their debt would be no smarter than a chronic shopper having their credit card debt forgiven. They will just rack up more. The problem with Africa is that it's in the stone ages. You can't apply something like the marshall plan with the same success. Europe, post war, was ultimately full of educated people who were skilled in labour, with an infrastructure around, etc. Africa is mainly a sh*thole from coast to coast. It would require either tons of money or lots of nuclear bombs to straighten it out.
You have to recognise the west's responsibility in Africa.
In the past powers like Britain and France carved up Africa through imperial conquest. By throwing peoples of different tribe and religion together into the west's concept of a 'state' has been disasterous for the continant. After the colonial powers left, there was no preventing racial hatred and civil war erupting.
If America think's it can be rightous in this debate it is equally wrong. The actions of the IMF in African countries has been an absolute joke. The US has consistantly tried to open up countries to the free market, when they don't have the basic building blocks of a national economy.
It's the west's duty to clear this mess up.
In the past powers like Britain and France carved up Africa through imperial conquest. By throwing peoples of different tribe and religion together into the west's concept of a 'state' has been disasterous for the continant. After the colonial powers left, there was no preventing racial hatred and civil war erupting.
If America think's it can be rightous in this debate it is equally wrong. The actions of the IMF in African countries has been an absolute joke. The US has consistantly tried to open up countries to the free market, when they don't have the basic building blocks of a national economy.
It's the west's duty to clear this mess up.
ReiAyanami
Diamond Member
didn't we all just forgive all of iraq's $122 billion debt? to top it off, they sit on up to $6 trillion worth of oil.
what we need to do it forgive debt and increase aid to fully democratic African nations, while denying to those controlled by fascist dictators. for the price of a Saddam we could have toppled two dozen african warlords and half of africa would be "democratic" to the same degree iraq is
Edit: Skoorb's post, not forpey's
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
I would probably not support it only because I don't think it would make a difference.
The Marshall Plan 'succeeded' in large part because the nations funded were already industrialized, law-abiding and had a solid, universally-accepted government structure in place. Unfortunately none of that exists in most of Africa today. The money would be wasted.
I just realized I've repeated what Skoorb wrote. Oh well. 😛 And to those who are going to blab on about Iraq, the widely-held belief is that Iraq was once a relatively modern country in the Middle East with a well-educated middle class that may need adjustment time to the rule of law but it otherwise well-situated for regime change. But that's not the topic at hand.
The Marshall Plan 'succeeded' in large part because the nations funded were already industrialized, law-abiding and had a solid, universally-accepted government structure in place. Unfortunately none of that exists in most of Africa today. The money would be wasted.
I just realized I've repeated what Skoorb wrote. Oh well. 😛 And to those who are going to blab on about Iraq, the widely-held belief is that Iraq was once a relatively modern country in the Middle East with a well-educated middle class that may need adjustment time to the rule of law but it otherwise well-situated for regime change. But that's not the topic at hand.
'The money would be wasted' - hmmm....
I agree, the term 'Marshall Plan' is used wrongly. There is very little in common with the situation in Africa and post war Europe.
But that does not mean the effort would be a waste. Lets not forget who got those countries in debt. All those loans from the west came with political requirements which the third wold just could not afford to refuse.
If you tell a developing country that in order to revice a billion dollar loan it will have to open up its national bank to the world market, then the economy is bound to collapse.
Lets see aid without the strings attached.
I agree, the term 'Marshall Plan' is used wrongly. There is very little in common with the situation in Africa and post war Europe.
But that does not mean the effort would be a waste. Lets not forget who got those countries in debt. All those loans from the west came with political requirements which the third wold just could not afford to refuse.
If you tell a developing country that in order to revice a billion dollar loan it will have to open up its national bank to the world market, then the economy is bound to collapse.
Lets see aid without the strings attached.
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
"Let's not forget who got those countries in debt." How does that make sense, exactly? Who in the rest of the world forced the money into African hands and screamed at them, "MISUSE IT SO YOU GO INTO ETERNAL DEBT!!" They absolutely could afford to refuse if they thought it was in their best interests. How easy is it exactly to misallocate a billion dollar loan? I can't believe you actually think that the rest of the world is responsible for a few countries managing their finances with their heads up their @$$es.
Aid without strings attached will make absolutely no difference. You think the people who've misused money that's gotten them in this position are going to turn around and make great use of money that won't really hurt them to misspend? Sheesh.
You obviously don't know very much about international loans.
The IMF is in charge of loans to third world countries and is headed by members of the largest industrial nations, but largley the US, the same is true of the WTO. The IMF approaches countires and offers them the loan with certian basic requirements. For example, when the IMF offered a loan to Rwanda it asked that in turn the Rwanadan government would open its economy to the free market.
Obviously without a developed eceonmy, asking a third world state to open its economy to the market would spell an economic crash as it would allow cheap us goods in and it would not be able to export any of its products at a competative rate. This is exactly what happened.
So, yes, we are responsible.
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
And you obviously don't deal very often in the realms of reality.
What cheap U.S. goods would flood these Third World nations' markets? The West is not exactly known for its beat-all cheap domestic trinkets. It'd also be interesting to hear where these poor Third Worlders are suddenly getting the money to purchase these new imported goods. You can fault the IMF for requiring countries to privatize utilities when that's often not in the nation's best interests, but your "crash the economy" argument is unfounded. Not to mention again that nobody's forcing people to take loans.
Not necessarily durable goods, but food. And lots of it. The larger food co-ops in the world enter markets in third-world countries, essentially dumping their excess product into these markets. Their highly-mechanized production methods and gov't subsidization mean there is no way local farmers can compete with the low prices. While the long-term shift away from farming and into specialized work would ultimately be good, the changes are happening so quickly that jobs can't be created fast enough for the farmers who are being forced out of their work.
As for the debt crisis, much of the problem is indeed at least partly the fault of the western nations. In the 1970s, as the value of the dollar fell, oil-exporting countries raised their prices and placed the extra profits into Western organizations. So far, we hadn't done anything to cause much of a problem. But the extra money in our banks caused a drop in interest rates, so in order to solve the problem we lent out the money as quickly as possible, much of it going to third world countries. Most of this money, intended to develop these countries, went to dictators or their cronies, few of whom cared about spending to help their people. In the 1980s, interest rates rose again and third-world nations, trying to export raw goods, found they couldn't get nearly enough to pay their debts. This led to debt restructuring programs proposed by the IMF which usually forced the countries to devote a larger percentage of their budgets on debt repayment than on their own people, and the cycle continues. In essence, while the west isn't completely at fault, we have just as much to do with creating this situation as these countries. It's easy to sit back and say "well they shouldn't have taken the loans if theyr couldn't pay them back", but many of these loans were incredibly shortsighted, made by bad governments who didn't understand or care how it would affect the people, and not discouraged by the west. Just imagine if ordinary people didn't have the ability to declare bankruptcy, admit they made a mistake, and start over again, albeit with a much lower credit rating. Imagine if you had to keep borrowing on new loans just to pay off your already existing debt. Only then will you get some idea of the economic problems these nations face.
if this was 1890 I would agree. But this is 2004 and most of these nations have been around long enough to at least be civalized.
So what you are saying is they need a white europe to keep them from killing themselves? Sounds kind of bigoted and apologetic.
It helps when people dont commit genocide. I think the UN would have been a perfect fit here but failed on many occasions.
So you favor invading Africa? What did Africa ever do the the United States?
Of course they do, that explains the many warlords left over from when Europe left Africa per you own admission :disgust:
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