I understand the fact that the slave trade and colonisation highly affected the continent, but fact is African countries weren’t the only ones affected by that so it still puzzles me as to why African nations have failed to spring up like the Super power nations we have today
In: Economics
Basically the same reason why it’s harder for a poor person to get rich, than it is for a rich person to get richer: You need starting capital and/or other foundations. And in this case not even on the scale of one company, but entire nations.
You need expensive machines. You need infrastructure to distribute your product and to supply and power your factory. You need suppliers to begin with. You need customers. You need skilled workers.
And you need to be able to compete on the world stage unless you can make this section of the market conpletely independent from the rest of the world. Some African countries have banned the import of clothing for this reason, because they are trying to get their own clothes industry going.
But how would you do that with something more sophisticated, like an automotive industry?
These countries have no hope of developing anywhere near the level of already rich nations without some serious investments from the outside.
This doesn’t touch on the rampant corruption in these countries, but one could argue that the corruption is a result of the sheer hopelessness of their situation. So some people decide to only raise their only standard of living instead of investing in the impossible task of improving the situation of their whole country.
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