Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: RV Pundit on September 24, 2019, 06:26:45 PM
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Fyko van der Molen
Fyko van der Molen, Columnist
Answered Sat
Short-termism.
Let me give an example of this in it’s simplest manifestations:
Nearly 20 years ago I drifted ashore in the neighbouring territory of Mozambique after several years afloat on the East Coast of Africa. I found an attractive piece of land on the shore of a tropical lagoon that had tourist potential and decided to try my hand at building and operating a holiday destination, the target market being neighbouring South Africa.
No sooner had I begun putting money in the ground in the form of cash as well as tons of sweat than I was beset by an endless stream of extortionists. Most of these came from the public sector: every government official, local or national, that heard about my project would come over waving a piece of paper that demanded payment, either as some quickly-contrived license that was essential to the development or, more often, a fine for not already having that same specious license.
After a year of this escalating harassment I just gave up with the development, fired all of the employees drawn from the local village and settled down to a life of comparative idleness that brought no tourist dollars to the area. and no employment to the local villagers. I’d learned enough to be able to secure perpetual tenancy of the land for no payment to the locals and no taxes to any authority. Project dead and earning nothing. Why? because they wanted to milk the cow before it was producing any milk.
In subsequent years I’d watch any and all local development projects amongst the locals fail through the parties shafting each other before the project came close to bearing any fruit. Two chaps would come together to build a bar to tap into the tourist dollars from across the border but party A would disappear with the cement money and leave party B with only foundations holes and nothing to put in them.
If, by some miracle, a structure would actually arise and start to trade, then partner A would run off with the proceeds of the first sales and leave the business bankrupt and without capital. If partner B went off after A to pursue the debt, he’d come back after weeks of chasing to find his building stripped of material that had been recycled into some other enterprise, one that would be aborted over another theft entirely.
Because of this complete inability to work towards long-term goals no development project ever comes to fruition - everybody is left to muddle through individually, and forced to devote the bulk of his energy to defending whatever he owns from theft by his brother, father, neighbour, village chief, local government mandarin, or national president.
And this holds true all the way up the line. How many presidents of dirt-poor countries where the peasants cannot even defend themselves against malaria have spent untold millions on a private jet?
In the developed West delayed gratification can be practised to a fault - there are thousands of very wealthy guys populating Western cemeteries while their undeserving offspring wreck their lives snorting unearned inheritance money. But the opposite can be equally damaging, and in Africa they tend to suck the blood out of the calf before it becomes a cow.
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Could be a true story. However it is a subjective narrow view. There are better reasons for 3rd world under-development than the simplistic man-eat-man culture the writer describes.
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Could be a true story. However it is a subjective narrow view. There are better reasons for 3rd world under-development than the simplistic man-eat-man culture the writer describes.
It'll help if you mentioned a few!!
Me thinks development may be lacking due to mindsets that are not skill based training. It takes a generation to get one to think differently. After China built Thika rd, lots of new skills were developed leading to current expansion.
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It'll help if you mentioned a few!!
Me thinks development may be lacking due to mindsets that are not skill based training. It takes a generation to get one to think differently. After China built Thika rd, lots of new skills were developed leading to current expansion.
Yes. Lack of strong skill or talent. Enterprising or industrious minds are rare in Africa - in Kenya for instance the rich are mostly in real estate and agriculture. Manufacturing is an Indian affair. Wish the Indian or Asian population was bigger inn Africa.
It is why I dismiss the borrow & build nonsense touted here as some blue pill. If you have two people - give them the equal capital - the difference in a few years will depend on their thinking much more than chance. I get disappointed and baffled - when I see the level of thinking some corporate leaders have. The worst part being - they don't even realize their own incapacity. We don't have enough big thinkers and doers in Africa - that's the unwelcome truth.
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It's less corruption or brazen "man-eat-man" - as the German tourist opines - rather it's incompetence or incapacity. I believe the coming demographic dividend is the biggest opportunity Kenya has to leapfrog. It's palpable and apparent - all the shifting models - to digital and gig economy. Tangible. An indicator of more producers than consumers. TIVET is the best thing GoK has done.
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Could be a true story. However it is a subjective narrow view. There are better reasons for 3rd world under-development than the simplistic man-eat-man culture the writer describes.
It'll help if you mentioned a few!!
Me thinks development may be lacking due to mindsets that are not skill based training. It takes a generation to get one to think differently. After China built Thika rd, lots of new skills were developed leading to current expansion.
What new skills? Last a checked locals haven't changed the way they construct roads even after seeing chineses utilize cheap readily available red soil instead of expensive hardcore stones. That's just one example. The problem with us africans is we are risk averse.
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Demographic dividend without jobs is useless.Risk aversion is a product of poverty...you cannot risk the little you have.I agree with author...our major problem is trust at all levels.Look at Somalis succeeding because their word still mean something.Look at Asian in kenya.Our lying, conning and thieving culture is one of the biggest impediment.Ask any diaspora what has been done to them by own kins.
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Demographic dividend without jobs is useless.Risk aversion is a product of poverty...you cannot risk the little you have.I agree with author...our major problem is trust at all levels.Look at Somalis succeeding because their word still mean something.Look at Asian in kenya.Our lying, conning and thieving culture is one of the biggest impediment.Ask any diaspora what has been done to them by own kins.
That's contradiction in terms a poor person has nothing to loose they're already poor. As for lack of trust, its more prevalent among our generation and younger. When our parents were starting out in business they formed groups and companies that ended up investing in real estate, restaurants, bars and hotels. A good example is the Rwathia group doing very well. The question is why the second generation hasn't gone beyond investing in real estate to other areas unlike their indians counterparts.
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Yes lack of trust is new phenomena -probably linked to poverty of 80s and 90s - after population explosion of 70s & 80s. Anyway thanks to technology - most of these trust issues are being solved.
Kenya Indians were mainly forced by legislation to manufacturing.
I think housing became the go to sector with matatu - with collapse of formal transport and housing sector. When Mzungu was around - gov and counties - were building housing. Nearly the whole of old Nairobi was being built by gov, pension funds, banks, etc. The same for transport - Kenya Bus, Kenatco - were formal gov enterprises - elsewhere was covered by trains.When all that ceased - for Matatus started becoming the business for Africans in 70s/80s - till now. Housing started in 90s - as biting housing crisis and demand for it - rose.
Formal sector has to step into housing, transport and all these BASIC SERVICES - so mwafrika can start to invest in other avenues.
Jubilee if they delivered the promise 0.5M housing units for 1-3m will basically killed the informal housing sector - and we will start seeing people thinking about other avenues to make money.
That's contradiction in terms a poor person has nothing to loose they're already poor. As for lack of trust, its more prevalent among our generation and younger. When our parents were starting out in business they formed groups and companies that ended up investing in real estate, restaurants, bars and hotels. A good example is the Rwathia group doing very well. The question is why the second generation hasn't gone beyond investing in real estate to other areas unlike their indians counterparts.
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Demographic dividend without jobs is useless.Risk aversion is a product of poverty...you cannot risk the little you have.I agree with author...our major problem is trust at all levels.Look at Somalis succeeding because their word still mean something.Look at Asian in kenya.Our lying, conning and thieving culture is one of the biggest impediment.Ask any diaspora what has been done to them by own kins.
I agree 100%!!!! If I calculated how much money my mother has paid to govt extortionists in the past 7 years, I'd end up crying. Everything, from water to electricity to building to roads: I'm not even sure they were from these departments/ministries or just lying. They see one small sign of a structure or new business, and like sharks they are on you. And the worst thing is, once you deal with one, another comes up after and claims the issue is not resolved and you have to deal with him too. You can lose your mind, I swear. If it wasn't real estate, where at least you know the long-term returns in rent etc will recoup the lost dosh, you'd give up. I'm surprised that dude persevered for a year. Stimes I don't know if there will be a solution but this is killing us. If we don't find a way to remove barriers to new startups and businesses, I don't know how things are gonna improve.
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I think the worst is employee theft...gov official will take the ceasar share and you have to make sure you get all documentation/license...but companies that I have seen fail...they fail because of fraud from own employees...most successfully companies in kenya you have to put a Mzungu to run at least the finance dept...you leave Nyeuthi...business go KQ style. Other companies you never expand...you have to become like an Indian....sitting there the whole day handling cash.
Like Mzungu said our problem is instant wealth/gratification...nobody has long term view....not you own kin, employees, gov...etc...they don't believe in the future...there is just a lot of instability and unpredictability...in their lives.
I agree 100%!!!! If I calculated how much money my mother has paid to govt extortionists in the past 7 years, I'd end up crying. Everything, from water to electricity to building to roads: I'm not even sure they were from these departments/ministries or just lying. They see one small sign of a structure or new business, and like sharks they are on you. And the worst thing is, once you deal with one, another comes up after and claims the issue is not resolved and you have to deal with him too. You can lose your mind, I swear. If it wasn't real estate, where at least you know the long-term returns in rent etc will recoup the lost dosh, you'd give up. I'm surprised that dude persevered for a year. Stimes I don't know if there will be a solution but this is killing us. If we don't find a way to remove barriers to new startups and businesses, I don't know how things are gonna improve.
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The reason why Africa hasn't developed can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_freedom . Economic freedom underpins economic development in most countries.
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I think the worst is employee theft...gov official will take the ceasar share and you have to make sure you get all documentation/license...but companies that I have seen fail...they fail because of fraud from own employees...most successfully companies in kenya you have to put a Mzungu to run at least the finance dept...you leave Nyeuthi...business go KQ style. Other companies you never expand...you have to become like an Indian....sitting there the whole day handling cash.
Like Mzungu said our problem is instant wealth/gratification...nobody has long term view....not you own kin, employees, gov...etc...they don't believe in the future...there is just a lot of instability and unpredictability...in their lives.
I agree 100%!!!! If I calculated how much money my mother has paid to govt extortionists in the past 7 years, I'd end up crying. Everything, from water to electricity to building to roads: I'm not even sure they were from these departments/ministries or just lying. They see one small sign of a structure or new business, and like sharks they are on you. And the worst thing is, once you deal with one, another comes up after and claims the issue is not resolved and you have to deal with him too. You can lose your mind, I swear. If it wasn't real estate, where at least you know the long-term returns in rent etc will recoup the lost dosh, you'd give up. I'm surprised that dude persevered for a year. Stimes I don't know if there will be a solution but this is killing us. If we don't find a way to remove barriers to new startups and businesses, I don't know how things are gonna improve.
Those are the ones that manage to start (that are brought down by employees) but how many businesses do these gova othorong'ong'os thwart before they even start? The problem is with such things, you never even know how much you lose because stuff just doesn't happen.
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I don't know for sure - but I think those are fewer now - Kenya as followed Rwanda - and made it easy to start a business, register it, get connected to power, get licenses...the problem...we have like 0.5M registered companies...and only 8% pay taxes...the rest are still at infancy. Majority closes in first year. This is probably true worldwide..but I thin in Africa...ideas just never grow to become SMEs..SMES to MME...to big companies.
Well I guess part of it is people are also so poor many business will just fail for lack of effective demands/sales.
Those are the ones that manage to start (that are brought down by employees) but how many businesses do these gova othorong'ong'os thwart before they even start? The problem is with such things, you never even know how much you lose because stuff just doesn't happen.
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Those cultural issues - greed, rent-seeking, etc - are not unique to Africa. They all describe subsistence businesses that join the beaten path. Hotel, retail and such business - face cut-throat competition. The lack of demand is driven by competition with no differentiation. Such businesses would not significantly transform the economy even where successful. The overwhelming majority of Kenyans are employed by MSMEs. It is disingenious to claim the same MSMEs don't survive let alone thrive.
Inventive business models - startups - are businesses that solve real problems. M-KOPA Solar, BRCK, One Acre Fund, SunCulture, Uber and such. Not duka or hotel or real estate - which just slice the pie and not grow it - so they are not even considered startups. Startups rarely have serious competition - because of their uniqueness - solving the unsolved problems. They create new wealth, jobs, taxes, etc.
It is these risky capital- and talent-intensive innovative enterprise capabilities Kenya and most Africa lack.
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If it is not a new business model - or a new technology, science or method - it is not a startup. Its success or failure is not impactful nor transformational.
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There is no breakthrough with state sanctioned theft of resources from productive people/sectors to unproductive government officials. Now we have feudal state capture all across Nyeuthi lands. A mobutu rises strips the people and resources then falls comes a Kabila; Jomo-Moi-kibaki-Uhuru-??; Zuma-??; dos Santos-??;
No way out with these acroparasites. The acroparasites will bring down even the likes of Jack Ma in China!
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They rarely survive - and those that do - are basically owner-run and remain in that state forever - just making enough for the owner to keep them running - I am talking of business in transport like matatu, many in retail, hotel & accommodation --majority remain informal. Admittedly they are better than farming. They are few that graduate to SME - or less that become medium sized enterprises - and very few that go on to become large enterprise - and a tiny few like Equity tha become MNCs.
Now start ups is an interesting idea....but majority(if not all) are backed by foreign venture capital and managed by foreigners. Basically they seem to succeed in places like Israel where jews globally have their pursue opened for them or where founders knows where to get the money (say Silicon valley or New York) or through donors (most of start up you highlighted are social enterprises).
Ultimately, we need to understand why Mwafrika is not succeeding at MICRO-LEVEL. Is it really a question of lack of capital? Is it lack of trained labour? Or it's just SOFTWARE issues...lack of trust/discipline/ambition/long term thinking/delayed gratification?
From my observation at micro-level - it mostly software issues - that keep people down. Many are born to poverty but few are able to pull themselves out - instead sinking to drug addiction, laziness, thieving (therefore spoiling their credibility forever). Others just breed like rats, marry many wives and basically enjoy poverty - with zero ambition to succeed.
Those cultural issues - greed, rent-seeking, etc - are not unique to Africa. They all describe subsistence businesses that join the beaten path. Hotel, retail and such business - face cut-throat competition. The lack of demand is driven by competition with no differentiation. Such businesses would not significantly transform the economy even where successful. The overwhelming majority of Kenyans are employed by MSMEs. It is disingenious to claim the same MSMEs don't survive let alone thrive.
Inventive business models - startups - are businesses that solve real problems. M-KOPA Solar, BRCK, One Acre Fund, SunCulture, Uber and such. Not duka or hotel or real estate - which just slice the pie and not grow it - so they are not even considered startups. Startups rarely have serious competition - because of their uniqueness - solving the unsolved problems. They create new wealth, jobs, taxes, etc.
It is these risky capital- and talent-intensive innovative enterprise capabilities Kenya and most Africa lack.
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State corruption is the evil ill that won't let Mwafrika innovate or use innovations optimally to enable the enterprises thrive and thus social mobility. Let us take a few case studies:
Matatus: Governments takes the licences and does not inspect or regulate the industry leaving it to thugs and police who thin out the profit margins thus a cyclical thuglike culture which will run mad any professional manager.
Hawkers: Inhumane councils all over Kenya take profits from and destroy the merchandise; making a murderous game rather than enterprise
Wines and Spirits: NACADA; County Liquor thugs; Police; MCSK
Ultimately, we need to understand why Mwafrika is not succeeding at MICRO-LEVEL. Is it really a question of lack of capital? Is it lack of trained labour? Or it's just SOFTWARE issues...lack of trust/discipline/ambition/long term thinking/delayed gratification?
From my observation at micro-level - it mostly software issues - that keep people down. Many are born to poverty but few are able to pull themselves out - instead sinking to drug addiction, laziness, thieving (therefore spoiling their credibility forever). Others just breed like rats, marry many wives and basically enjoy poverty - with zero ambition to succeed.
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Fyko van der Molen
Fyko van der Molen, Columnist
Answered Sat
Short-termism.
Let me give an example of this in it’s simplest manifestations:
Nearly 20 years ago I drifted ashore in the neighbouring territory of Mozambique after several years afloat on the East Coast of Africa. I found an attractive piece of land on the shore of a tropical lagoon that had tourist potential and decided to try my hand at building and operating a holiday destination, the target market being neighbouring South Africa.
No sooner had I begun putting money in the ground in the form of cash as well as tons of sweat than I was beset by an endless stream of extortionists. Most of these came from the public sector: every government official, local or national, that heard about my project would come over waving a piece of paper that demanded payment, either as some quickly-contrived license that was essential to the development or, more often, a fine for not already having that same specious license.
After a year of this escalating harassment I just gave up with the development, fired all of the employees drawn from the local village and settled down to a life of comparative idleness that brought no tourist dollars to the area. and no employment to the local villagers. I’d learned enough to be able to secure perpetual tenancy of the land for no payment to the locals and no taxes to any authority. Project dead and earning nothing. Why? because they wanted to milk the cow before it was producing any milk.
In subsequent years I’d watch any and all local development projects amongst the locals fail through the parties shafting each other before the project came close to bearing any fruit. Two chaps would come together to build a bar to tap into the tourist dollars from across the border but party A would disappear with the cement money and leave party B with only foundations holes and nothing to put in them.
If, by some miracle, a structure would actually arise and start to trade, then partner A would run off with the proceeds of the first sales and leave the business bankrupt and without capital. If partner B went off after A to pursue the debt, he’d come back after weeks of chasing to find his building stripped of material that had been recycled into some other enterprise, one that would be aborted over another theft entirely.
Because of this complete inability to work towards long-term goals no development project ever comes to fruition - everybody is left to muddle through individually, and forced to devote the bulk of his energy to defending whatever he owns from theft by his brother, father, neighbour, village chief, local government mandarin, or national president.
And this holds true all the way up the line. How many presidents of dirt-poor countries where the peasants cannot even defend themselves against malaria have spent untold millions on a private jet?
In the developed West delayed gratification can be practised to a fault - there are thousands of very wealthy guys populating Western cemeteries while their undeserving offspring wreck their lives snorting unearned inheritance money. But the opposite can be equally damaging, and in Africa they tend to suck the blood out of the calf before it becomes a cow.
I think it just comes down to instability. Africa is a very unstable place relatively speaking. Nation states and societies are still in their formative stages.
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If you ask a Matatu owner - Cops & cost of petrol would be up there with driver & tout stealing from him - both the tout, driver and police - will probably end up in same local bar to chew up the matatu money - entertaining local slut or bar lady if not infecting themselves with STDS - their kids and wives at home will be living miserable lives. In trucking - I think nearly every driver & tout - has like girl friend every town - and most have like 2 wives - they are mostly diseased with hiv-aids.I think what certainly help is education....those with form 4 - will be certainly more ambitious/more disciplined - than those who left primary school. The matatu will not have enough money to maintain the car or expand his business...and if he had bank loan..he would soon be in trouble.
The same is replicated in informal sector...and there is very little upward mobility. Combination of low IQ - with poor education - leading to a cascade of bad decisions, thievery and laziness. Everyone has now seen how chinese work like bees.
And we all want to blame politicians and gov for that.
State corruption is the evil ill that won't let Mwafrika innovate or use innovations optimally to enable the enterprises thrive and thus social mobility. Let us take a few case studies:
Matatus: Governments takes the licences and does not inspect or regulate the industry leaving it to thugs and police who thin out the profit margins thus a cyclical thuglike culture which will run mad any professional manager.
Hawkers: Inhumane councils all over Kenya take profits from and destroy the merchandise; making a murderous game rather than enterprise
Wines and Spirits: NACADA; County Liquor thugs; Police; MCSK
Ultimately, we need to understand why Mwafrika is not succeeding at MICRO-LEVEL. Is it really a question of lack of capital? Is it lack of trained labour? Or it's just SOFTWARE issues...lack of trust/discipline/ambition/long term thinking/delayed gratification?
From my observation at micro-level - it mostly software issues - that keep people down. Many are born to poverty but few are able to pull themselves out - instead sinking to drug addiction, laziness, thieving (therefore spoiling their credibility forever). Others just breed like rats, marry many wives and basically enjoy poverty - with zero ambition to succeed.
-
Those cultural issues - greed, rent-seeking, etc - are not unique to Africa. They all describe subsistence businesses that join the beaten path. Hotel, retail and such business - face cut-throat competition. The lack of demand is driven by competition with no differentiation. Such businesses would not significantly transform the economy even where successful. The overwhelming majority of Kenyans are employed by MSMEs. It is disingenious to claim the same MSMEs don't survive let alone thrive.
Inventive business models - startups - are businesses that solve real problems. M-KOPA Solar, BRCK, One Acre Fund, SunCulture, Uber and such. Not duka or hotel or real estate - which just slice the pie and not grow it - so they are not even considered startups. Startups rarely have serious competition - because of their uniqueness - solving the unsolved problems. They create new wealth, jobs, taxes, etc.
It is these risky capital- and talent-intensive innovative enterprise capabilities Kenya and most Africa lack.
Nah, Robina. I'm not sure I agree with your definition of a startup. Google informs me it's just a business in it's earliest stage. I also disagree that you need these super innovative stuff to improve the economy. Most people in all countries are employed by regular businesses, nothing fancy. What improves the economy is getting every young able-bodied person working, producing, and funding govt and the rest of society that cannot produce (kids and old people). Also, all businesses solve problems or they'd not be in business- plain and simple. Demand does not come by magic but from people needing/wanting things, and businesses thrive by offering what is needed, whether that is food, shelter, clothes, cars, or whatever. We don't need any fancy genius ideas; we need an environment that allows people to be productive where they are without undue burdens and obstacles.
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I agree there are glaring "software" issues. I also agree official or GoK corruption is not the principal cause of poverty but the soft issues.
Now - why I talk about startups - they are transformational. All the debates we have had here about development - value adds or light manufacturing, manufacturing proper, services. The developed countries basically have these in high gear. Without research - patents, scientific papers and such metrics - we have no hope of catching up. Any leapfrogs like say China has these innovation metrics on the up. China now is the top science powerhouse or almost there. If you examine a productive economy you will find science, research and innovation are top. Startups are execution of research output.
So besides the software issues - which is talent gap - we further lack not just capital but proper science and research.
They rarely survive - and those that do - are basically owner-run and remain in that state forever - just making enough for the owner to keep them running - I am talking of business in transport like matatu, many in retail, hotel & accommodation --majority remain informal. Admittedly they are better than farming. They are few that graduate to SME - or less that become medium sized enterprises - and very few that go on to become large enterprise - and a tiny few like Equity tha become MNCs.
Now start ups is an interesting idea....but majority(if not all) are backed by foreign venture capital and managed by foreigners. Basically they seem to succeed in places like Israel where jews globally have their pursue opened for them or where founders knows where to get the money (say Silicon valley or New York) or through donors (most of start up you highlighted are social enterprises).
Ultimately, we need to understand why Mwafrika is not succeeding at MICRO-LEVEL. Is it really a question of lack of capital? Is it lack of trained labour? Or it's just SOFTWARE issues...lack of trust/discipline/ambition/long term thinking/delayed gratification?
From my observation at micro-level - it mostly software issues - that keep people down. Many are born to poverty but few are able to pull themselves out - instead sinking to drug addiction, laziness, thieving (therefore spoiling their credibility forever). Others just breed like rats, marry many wives and basically enjoy poverty - with zero ambition to succeed.
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Nah, Robina. I'm not sure I agree with your definition of a startup. Google informs me it's just a business in it's earliest stage. I also disagree that you need these super innovative stuff to improve the economy. Most people in all countries are employed by regular businesses, nothing fancy. What improves the economy is getting every young able-bodied person working, producing, and funding govt and the rest of society that cannot produce (kids and old people). Also, all businesses solve problems or they'd not be in business- plain and simple. Demand does not come by magic but from people needing/wanting things, and businesses thrive by offering what is needed, whether that is food, shelter, clothes, cars, or whatever. We don't need any fancy genius ideas; we need an environment that allows people to be productive where they are without undue burdens and obstacles.
Yes there is BIG room for business as usual activities. These are stymied by Pundit's 'software" of laziness, thieving employees, etc. We should fix that.
But oh yes we do need startups. Which is the execution of big ideas. We have debated the revolutionary M-PESA here for long - it is a fintech innovation that transformed many lives. M-KOPA sorts out gridless power. These two (M-PESA and M-KOPA) are barely patentable inventions yet have a vast impact. I agree every business provides a good or service - but there is little or no leapfrog from that.
I don't want to digress but i don't believe in conventional competition - the one supposed to foster innovation and cut the cost for consumers. Because it is outdated economics that kills innovation. New models - what you call genius ideas - are by definition innovations. They are mostly monopolies and have the muscle to research and innovate. This space - of big ideas - is where we fall flat.
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What keep the negro in US of a down.Its not the hardware.Its the software issues..none bigger than lack of integrity.The economy like many things is a confidence game.Software issues like reputational risk scare away desperately needed investment.African Hz e to realize how important these soft issues are ..
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I agree on integrity and trust issues. But surely integrity is nurture more than nature? Blacks trail despite clean environment and working legal systems to deter fraud or theft in say US. The problem is more insidious than integrity - you may not agree but the iQ or intelligence of black people is objectively lower than whites' as well. Iko chida kubwa sana. It is just politically incorrect to point it out. I have read raw analysis by Brits and Americans - in cables to the Crown or DC - that the African does not have the "energy and efficiency" of the white man or the Chinese.
These items are collectively lack of enterprise. Talent gap.
What keep the negro in US of a down.Its not the hardware.Its the software issues..none bigger than lack of integrity.The economy like many things is a confidence game.Software issues like reputational risk scare away desperately needed investment.African Hz e to realize how important these soft issues are ..
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Education and health are government functions:
Chinese are controlled by the government - funded and watched like an eagle. The guys at the top have discipline and moral authority not our land grabbers, drunk sailors and pickpockets.
If you ask a Matatu owner - Cops & cost of petrol would be up there with driver & tout stealing from him - both the tout, driver and police - will probably end up in same local bar to chew up the matatu money - entertaining local slut or bar lady if not infecting themselves with STDS - their kids and wives at home will be living miserable lives. In trucking - I think nearly every driver & tout - has like girl friend every town - and most have like 2 wives - they are mostly diseased with hiv-aids.I think what certainly help is education....those with form 4 - will be certainly more ambitious/more disciplined - than those who left primary school. The matatu will not have enough money to maintain the car or expand his business...and if he had bank loan..he would soon be in trouble.
The same is replicated in informal sector...and there is very little upward mobility. Combination of low IQ - with poor education - leading to a cascade of bad decisions, thievery and laziness. Everyone has now seen how chinese work like bees.
And we all want to blame politicians and gov for that.
State corruption is the evil ill that won't let Mwafrika innovate or use innovations optimally to enable the enterprises thrive and thus social mobility. Let us take a few case studies:
Matatus: Governments takes the licences and does not inspect or regulate the industry leaving it to thugs and police who thin out the profit margins thus a cyclical thuglike culture which will run mad any professional manager.
Hawkers: Inhumane councils all over Kenya take profits from and destroy the merchandise; making a murderous game rather than enterprise
Wines and Spirits: NACADA; County Liquor thugs; Police; MCSK
Ultimately, we need to understand why Mwafrika is not succeeding at MICRO-LEVEL. Is it really a question of lack of capital? Is it lack of trained labour? Or it's just SOFTWARE issues...lack of trust/discipline/ambition/long term thinking/delayed gratification?
From my observation at micro-level - it mostly software issues - that keep people down. Many are born to poverty but few are able to pull themselves out - instead sinking to drug addiction, laziness, thieving (therefore spoiling their credibility forever). Others just breed like rats, marry many wives and basically enjoy poverty - with zero ambition to succeed.
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Actually the more I think about this...the more I am convinced it's upbringing. You really don't need high IQ to do many things in life. How we bring up our kids as Africans or African American is the start of the rot. There is no integrity (say what you mean and do what you say) or discipline or hard-work - that you see Bazungu instill on their kids.
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Actually the more I think about this...the more I am convinced it's upbringing. You really don't need high IQ to do many things in life. How we bring up our kids as Africans or African American is the start of the rot. There is no integrity (say what you mean and do what you say) or discipline or hard-work - that you see Bazungu instill on their kids.
Close. Africans just don’t do their jobs. There may be reasons, some even understandable. But I am convinced that is the difference between what we generally consider developed and third world.
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Politicians and governments are designed to remove these software and hardware obstacles for all. The white previlege and state capture across Africa explains the no/under development among majority mwafrika and nyeuthi in America. Kenyattas, Mois, Odingas, Ruto and their bootlickers are way above development not because of integrity or hard work but because the systems and structures serve them at the disadvantage of the hawkers and makangas.
Government will rush to jail Kavonokia memebers for resisting census but will allow street children to roam all over!!
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You really don't need high IQ to do many things in life. How we bring up our kids as Africans or African American is the start of the rot.
It's not IQ. I think it's amazing how the IDW has spread the IQ myth counting on the fact that most people won't bother actually researching the stuff they claim from actual experts.
First of all, Black Americans are disproportionately affected by poisoned water and lead in their houses that has been shown to damage IQ performance; and it affects them right from pregnancy, in disgustingly large numbers.
Secondly, Black American schools are grossly underfunded because of how Americans organize their public school funding using tax from real estate which ensures that only families that were already rich (White!) can/could send their children to good schools whereas a huge number of black people go to places where they are guaranteed not to proceed beyond a certain stage.
Third, the crackdown on the crack epidemic also grossly targeted black people. It is a statistically proven fact that black people, especially boys and men, were arrested and jailed for the same minor drug offences (use) that Whites did in the same degree and proportion but were not targeted. It's incredible the numbers of black boys/men who were thrown in jail as a result, leading to many unnecessary fatherless homes. This continues to happen to the present day.
Fourth, the IQ of Black Americans has been steadily rising each decade since the end of the civil rights movement. So I don't know why people are so quick to follow racists like Murphy in his lazy explanations for complex phenomena when actual IQ experts dismiss those lazy explanations for precisely the above and many other reasons I haven't mentioned.
Outside the developed world, IQ is not seen as capable of comparison because of the wide cultural disparities that it cannot cater for. Just think, giving an IQ test to a Turkana boy, a boy in Kisii who has never left the village, and my Nairobi kids and expecting it to tell you something meaningful about the innate intelligence of Turkanas vs Kisiis vs people in Nairobi. IQ outside the first world will not tell you anything about how innate intelligence of populations compares to each other, and has been shown to follow development (i.e to increase as development increases, over decades) across all populations--not the other way around.
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But isn't work ethic an upbringing thing or cultural thing?
Close. Africans just don’t do their jobs. There may be reasons, some even understandable. But I am convinced that is the difference between what we generally consider developed and third world.
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Dear Mami, Pundit and bitmask - on work ethic, since we agree it is so crucial to development, what stops Africans from improving it? Doesn't that show lack of intelligence? I mean, the obvious failure to adapt shows what am saying.
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But isn't work ethic an upbringing thing or cultural thing?
Close. Africans just don’t do their jobs. There may be reasons, some even understandable. But I am convinced that is the difference between what we generally consider developed and third world.
You are right. It's culture and upbringing. I was highlighting the environment too. There are those who don't(and can't) do their jobs because they depend on others doing theirs. It becomes a feedback loop.
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Dear Mami, Pundit and bitmask - on work ethic, since we agree it is so crucial to development, what stops Africans from improving it? Doesn't that show lack of intelligence? I mean, the obvious failure to adapt shows what am saying.
Is the African too stupid? I really don't think so. That is even more tragic. I will concede he is not unlocking the potential of his brightest, due to many forces, some(not all) outside his control.
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Dear Mami, Pundit and bitmask - on work ethic, since we agree it is so crucial to development, what stops Africans from improving it? Doesn't that show lack of intelligence? I mean, the obvious failure to adapt shows what am saying.
I don't see any failure to adapt, at all. I see very fast adaptation to wholly foreign systems imposed just a short while ago. If I ask you to show me 'fast' mzungu adaptation, you will not find it. Because mzungu was a stone age people who took many centuries, not decades, to 'adapt' to the Roman civilization, which was itself a Mediterranean civilization, thousands of years in the making. This lack of adaptation just doesn't exist when seen from a wide historical lens. The only thing here is the fact that it is happening alongside civilizations that passed this stage long ago, (which in itself creates problems for those playing catch up because of how international trade is organized) so it looks like failure to adapt if you throw away history. But go see the pictures of Baafrika taken in the 1910s all over Kenya at our museum, and show me an example of any other people who just skipped from THAT to the modern first world in a century.
The discovery of agriculture in Saudi Arabia 10,000 years ago, and the routes it took in spreading and the differences in when it reached where/whom can alone explain a ton of the disparities many people see as 'differences in capacities to adapt'. Evidence shows humans everywhere have responded to the same challenges the same way. Those differences don't exist.
I also think the tiny group of educated/exposed Africans like the kind that frequents nipate stimes gets it twisted and we assume we are 'Kenya' or 'Africa'. Go read some World Bank reports on education alone and it will really sober you up about just what/where decolonized countries were starting with/from in the 50s/60s/70s. Wholly uneducated populations inheriting western systems from educated/trained colonial officers, all over the place. Not to mention these were totally different polities that had been smashed together in the mzungu experiments of the overpowered colonial state, which lead to strife for decades in many places that are just starting to be settled. And we still not there even now.
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Is the African too stupid? I really don't think so. That is even more tragic. I will concede he is not unlocking the potential of his brightest, due to many forces, some(not all) outside his control.
Why is the world perpetually out of the African's control? We have seen fast adaptation from the Chinese for instance. Beating colonial oppression, then civil war, the failed communist experiment and many odds. While they are not all naturally hardworking - work ethic is strictly enforced. The wayward bits of the system are brutally knocked into line. What you call nurture, upbringing or environment - is built by the society - so I call it nature. Nurture stems from nature. You can say it is in the Chinese nature to adapt, improve and work their way out of misery into prosperity. The African not so much.
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Dear Mami, Pundit and bitmask - on work ethic, since we agree it is so crucial to development, what stops Africans from improving it? Doesn't that show lack of intelligence? I mean, the obvious failure to adapt shows what am saying.
I don't see any failure to adapt, at all. I see very fast adaptation to wholly foreign systems imposed just a short while ago. If I ask you to show me 'fast' mzungu adaptation, you will not find it. Because mzungu was a stone age people who took many centuries, not decades, to 'adapt' to the Roman civilization, which was itself a Mediterranean civilization, thousands of years in the making. This lack of adaptation just doesn't exist when seen from a wide historical lens. The only thing here is the fact that it is happening alongside civilizations that passed this stage long ago, (which in itself creates problems for those playing catch up because of how international trade is organized) so it looks like failure to adapt if you throw away history. But go see the pictures of Baafrika taken in the 1910s all over Kenya at our museum, and show me an example of any other people who just skipped from THAT to the modern first world in a century.
The discovery of agriculture in Saudi Arabia 10,000 years ago, and the routes it took in spreading and the differences in when it reached where/whom can alone explain a ton of the disparities many people see as 'differences in capacities to adapt'. Evidence shows humans everywhere have responded to the same challenges the same way. Those differences don't exist.
I also think the tiny group of educated/exposed Africans like the kind that frequents nipate stimes gets it twisted and we assume we are 'Kenya' or 'Africa'. Go read some World Bank reports on education alone and it will really sober you up about just what/where decolonized countries were starting with/from in the 50s/60s/70s. Wholly uneducated populations inheriting western systems from educated/trained colonial officers, all over the place. Not to mention these were totally different polities that had been smashed together in the mzungu experiments of the overpowered colonial state, which lead to strife for decades in many places that are just starting to be settled. And we still not there even now.
So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers. In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc). In today's world there is no time for organic growth. So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.
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Is the African too stupid? I really don't think so. That is even more tragic. I will concede he is not unlocking the potential of his brightest, due to many forces, some(not all) outside his control.
Why is the world perpetually out of the African's control? We have seen fast adaptation from the Chinese for instance. Beating colonial oppression, then civil war, the failed communist experiment and many odds. They are not all naturally hardworking - work ethic is strictly enforced. The wayward bits of the system are brutally knocked into line. What you call nurture, upbringing or environment - is built by the society - so I call it nature. Nurture stems from nature. It is in the Chinese nature to adapt, improve and work their way out of misery into prosperity. The African not so much.
This is the lack of historical perspective I mentioned: the fact you think China was where Baafrika was in 1910 says it all, Robina. China is the only other place where agriculture was discovered independently long ago. From it, a civilization grew that is very old. You are comparing potatoes and maize.
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Is the African too stupid? I really don't think so. That is even more tragic. I will concede he is not unlocking the potential of his brightest, due to many forces, some(not all) outside his control.
Why is the world perpetually out of the African's control? We have seen fast adaptation from the Chinese for instance. Beating colonial oppression, then civil war, the failed communist experiment and many odds. They are not all naturally hardworking - work ethic is strictly enforced. The wayward bits of the system are brutally knocked into line. What you call nurture, upbringing or environment - is built by the society - so I call it nature. Nurture stems from nature. It is in the Chinese nature to adapt, improve and work their way out of misery into prosperity. The African not so much.
I mentioned earlier on the thread that Africa is still struggling with very fundamental stuff, like who the hell are we? It's unstable at a deeper level than the Chinese were say 100 years ago. So many tribes. Forced together in less than a century. That makes Africa unstable in a more inherent way than Chinese who have been Chinese for God knows how long.
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So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers. In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc). In today's world there is no time for organic growth. So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.
Yep! Exactly.
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So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers. In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc). In today's world there is no time for organic growth. So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.
I see the postmodern world as largely a positive for the African and the 3rd world. Am unconvinced left to her own devices Africa would be close to civilization. The argument of the pros and cons of colonization comes to mind.
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So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers. In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc). In today's world there is no time for organic growth. So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.
I see the postmodern world as largely a positive for the African and the 3rd world. Am unconvinced left to her own devices Africa would be close to civilization. The argument of the pros and cons of colonization comes to mind.
African social evolution was following agriculture same as it has everywhere. Why do you think centralization, large kingdoms, and even proto-parliaments were already happening in the West, the great lakes, and the South but not everywhere on the continent by the time colonialism came by? It's called agriculture, baby. What happens once it starts to take over hunter-gatherer societies is the same everywhere. And I say this as a critique of agriculture. It comes with women-oppression/slavery etc too. It only crossed the Sahara 3,000 years ago and took the rest of those years to spread to Central Africa, the East and the South.; that's 3,000 years after Bazungu, who got it 4,000 years after the Mediterraneans.
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Dear Mami i don't think history absolves Africa. Why didn't Africa discover agriculture first for instance? Or any meaningful evolutional breakthroughs? History is a paradox - at least to me - as in the susceptibility to slavery and other exploitations is an indictment more than an absolution.
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So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers. In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc). In today's world there is no time for organic growth. So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.
I see the postmodern world as largely a positive for the African and the 3rd world. Am unconvinced left to her own devices Africa would be close to civilization. The argument of the pros and cons of colonization comes to mind.
It's possible. But that would not be because of intelligence. Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.
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Dear Mami i don't think history absolves Africa. Why didn't Africa discover agriculture first for instance? Or any meaningful evolutional breakthroughs? History is a paradox - at least to me - as in the susceptibility to slavery and other exploitations is an indictment more than an absolution.
Agriculture was discovered only once in Saudi Arabia, then China some years later, most probably by accident. From Saudi Arabia it spread to everyone, slowly, with migration. The Sahara was prohibitive. So I don't see how you ask Africans why they didn't stumble onto agriculture like the other 99% of human beings who were all apparently 'waiting' for it to be brought to them.
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It's possible. But that would not be because of intelligence. Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.
This is almost my whole point... why significant modernity sprung up elsewhere but Africa.
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It's possible. But that would not be because of intelligence. Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.
This is almost my whole point... why significant modernity sprung up elsewhere but Africa.
What you call 'modernity' sprung up with agriculture, everywhere.
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It's possible. But that would not be because of intelligence. Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.
This is almost my whole point... why significant modernity sprung up elsewhere but Africa.
To be fair, the "modern world" sprung in tiny England and spread from there. It did not arise anywhere else, in spite of exposure to the same ideas in Germany(Prussia), France, Russia etc.
An argument can be made that modernity is not a guaranteed outcome of evolution. It's a rare accident.
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Agriculture was discovered only once in Saudi Arabia, then China some years later, most probably by accident. From Saudi Arabia it spread to everyone, slowly, with migration. The Sahara was prohibitive. So I don't see how you ask Africans why they didn't stumble onto agriculture like the other 99% of human beings who were all apparently 'waiting' for it to be brought to them.
I see your point and am quite happy to be schooled. Agriculture, domestication of animals, writing, printing, the enlightenment age in Europe, etc - Africa seemed to miss out on most evolutional windfalls.
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To be fair, the "modern world" sprung in tiny England and spread from there. It did not arise anywhere else, in spite of exposure to the same ideas in Germany(Prussia), France, Russia etc.
An argument can be made that modernity is not a guaranteed outcome of evolution. It's a rare accident.
The glaring imperfection called modernity will be laughed off as a babaric age in future. It's both accidental and a stalling of evolution.
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To be fair, the "modern world" sprung in tiny England and spread from there. It did not arise anywhere else, in spite of exposure to the same ideas in Germany(Prussia), France, Russia etc.
An argument can be made that modernity is not a guaranteed outcome of evolution. It's a rare accident.
The glaring imperfection called modernity will be laughed off as a babaric age in future. It's both accidental and a stalling of evolution.
Possible. Or the golden age. You never know. The collapse of Roman empire led Europe straight into the dark ages of serfdom.
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Agriculture was discovered only once in Saudi Arabia, then China some years later, most probably by accident. From Saudi Arabia it spread to everyone, slowly, with migration. The Sahara was prohibitive. So I don't see how you ask Africans why they didn't stumble onto agriculture like the other 99% of human beings who were all apparently 'waiting' for it to be brought to them.
I see your point and am quite happy to be schooled. Agriculture, domestication of animals, writing, printing, the enlightenment age in Europe, etc - Africa seemed to miss out on most evolutional windfalls.
Nah, Robina. I think you still don't see what I'm trying to say, because all those 'evolution windfalls' you mention came well after agriculture and as a result of it. Unless you are arguing Africans should've been different from all other humans and had all those things from pre-agricultural society. But no one had those things pre-agriculture and the African is among the last to find agriculture, merely because of ancient migration patterns. Every other society that did not come into contact with agriculture is a hunter-gatherer to this day. Again, I just don't see how adding to that list, that depends on agriculture in the first place, strengthens the idea that the African is uniquely innately incapacitated. Just doesn't add up.
It seems clear to me that the African, like absolutely everyone else on the planet, was a happy hunter-gatherer until he found this strange thing some people were doing with the land, called agriculture, 3,000 years ago, and it began revolutionalizing his society like it had every other human society it had crawled its way into in pretty much the same ways: making it more and more complex and centralized: They began looking more and more like what we would recognize as proto-states. This stuff is not because of intelligence but because agriculture creates a permanent attachment to land, the need for controlled labour, and enables a population boom, all of which leads to more and more complexity/the need for central organization over time.