Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion.

“…Much of British colonial Africa was transformed during the colonial period. In the Gold coast there were about 3000 children at school in the early 1900s, whereas in the mid-1950s there were over half a million. In the early 1890s there were in the Gold Coast no railways or roads, but only a few jungle paths.” Transporting goods was by canoe.

Before colonialism, Sub-Saharan Africa was a subsistence economy, because of colonialism it became a monetized economy. Before colonialism, the absence of public security made investment impossible. After it, investment flowed. So too was scientific agriculture introduced by colonial administrations, or by “foreign private organizations and persons under the comparative security of colonial rule, and usually in the face of formidable obstacles.”

“In British West Africa public security and health improved out of all recognition…peaceful travel became possible; slavery and slave trading and famine were practically eliminated, and the incidence of the worst diseases reduced.” Mortality fell, population increased, communications and “peaceful contact within Africa and with the outside world” increased in British colonies.

It is interesting to note the reality of this unmistakable trend documented in Apartheid South Africa, and conceded during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The African population’s longevity, education, and numbers were markedly increased under white minority rule.

Of course, all the above is predicated on the premise that development is good and fine. That’s the libertarian position, as I know it. To the extent the colonial disruption of the state of squalor, disease and death associated with lack of development is condemned—to that extent you have a Rousseauist worship of primitiveness and savagery.

Some radical lefties and libertarians might counter by saying that Africa’s poor did not elect to have these conditions, good and bad, foisted on them. Fair enough. However, once introduced to potable water, sanitation, transportation, and primary healthcare, few Africans wish to do without them. Human beings, poor especially, choose development freely; only pseudo-intellectuals sitting in plush apartments and offices depict squalor and sickness as idyllic and primordially peaceful.

When the affluent relinquish their earthly possessions to return to nature it is usually with the aid of sophisticated technology (check out Mother Earth’s Commode), and the option to be air-lifted to a hospital if the need arises.

P. T. Bauer