The African Addiction

If there is any continent that better demonstrates the murderous futility of Marxism, it's Africa. Maybe someone reading this Blog can tell me otherwise, but I believe every African country has experimented with it (Marxism - the experimental, untested, unknown side effects social drug of all time). I can only imagine one African nation has not used the ideology in its governance and that is Morocco, which, it is conceded, is hardly a model of Anglo-American capitalism and constitutionalism.

And what have been the results of this addiction? All but two of the African nations, Botswana and Cote D'Ivoire, are in the mostly unfree to repressed section of the "Economic Freedom Index" of the Heritage Foundation. (two, Libya and Somalia are "unranked" due to their failed state status) while 15 are in the Repressed section alone. Not surprisingly, their rankings for GDP mirror closely the bottom 95 nations ranging from the all African bottom 16 from $712 per year (Central African Republic) to Burkina Faso at just under 2000. You must go through another 21 African countries before you find more than $5000 per capita income (about $6000 for oil giant, Nigeria).

The result of this addiction has been an unmitigated disaster. It seems to know no distinction based on racial, tribal, cultural, linguistic, imperial or colonial legacy nor is it linked to religious or geographical or even strategic connection one way or the other. All Africans at some point were and many today continue to be miserated by their leadership's obsession with this ideological way of organizing society. Although tribal and religious distinctions are at the root of much of the mayhem that has occurred from time to time there, all factions seem to agree on one fatal conclusion - whoever is in  power, Karl should provide them with the manual for their economies. And it has exacerbated natural disasters like famine.

Of course, there is another thing the African "elites" have had in common - their addiction to money. What better way to make that money accessible than by confiscating it in the Marxist way and then convincing likeminded and naive foreign aid workers and UN bureaucrats to help them help themselves to more bucks? This addiction (assisted by inept, wrongminded and counterproductive aid policies, and downright hypocritical protectionist trade policies by the West) is the key reason why Africa is the only landmass never to catch the wave of prosperity in the rest of the World and is now so vulnerable ironically to the "No Strings Attached" Belt and Road programs of the insidious, poisonous, corrupting China.