The Slave Trade helped develop the Carnival musical culture that tourists enjoy around the world. When are we going to stop oppressing each other and start treating each other as equals?
Our last class concluded with a discussion on what policy prescriptions we can offer Cape Town, after three weeks of intensively studying development and urbanization issues in South Africa. The class has been actively thinking about these issues throughout the course, and so contributions were lively. There was no ambiguity in the fact that the legacy of the apartheid persists in the way the city is organized: Cape Town CBD is located in low-density area mostly inhabited by the wealthy white population, while the majority coloured and black population live in slum areas in the CBD’s outskirts, where flooding is common and diseases rampant. Due to topographical constraints, large government housing subsidies, and simultaneous lack of rent control in informal settlements, the housing market has an inelastic supply that makes the transition into proper living conditions difficult.
Although we do not know what the proper answer is, it is clear that the current status quo cannot stand. If left unchecked, the inequality between white and black populations will continue to widen, which may pressure the latter to take measures outside proper political processes to change the situation. The CBD is a prime location for densification, because of its valuable location both in terms of property value and number of businesses set up there. Ultimately, the local government should construct a long-term plan for this transition into densifying the CBD, by first identifying the most effective ways to migrate people into the city. Buffer zones offer a promising solution. These undeveloped areas originally meant to separate races in neighborhoods can and should be developed into high-rise buildings where middle-income people can migrate. The housing that they depart from, therefore, can be used by low-income households migrating into the city. Concurrent to these urban policies, government should update its bus rapid transit (BRT) to decrease transportation costs for people migrating from Khayelitsha into the CBD, which can cost up to 25% of daily income for these families.
This class has been phenomenal, I now see cities in a different light, in a way where I know what questions to ask with purpose and direction. I learned that changes do not happen overnight, and it requires thoughtful and engaged action, where every phase is evaluated and reevaluated in its given sociopolitical context. On that note, development projects like Wespark in the north of Cape Town as a solution to its housing problem are nothing but a pipe dream because it attempts to circumvent this process of evaluation when it is an imperative step in sustainable urban policies. We must always pursue what is right, even when the process seems arduous. Even though I may not have all the answers, knowing which direction to inquire is a powerful tool. I am excited to take the course Comparative Politics in Africa with Professor Peter van der Windt in the Spring semester, where I will continue this quest for understanding.
Today, our class focused on urban theories as it applies to South Africa. It is really fascinating to learn about these topics. I’ve lived in large cities all my life - Manila, Jakarta, New York, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Abu Dhabi - and while I can describe the differences between them, I did not consider its larger macroeconomic implications.
Glaeser’s Triumph of the Cities is our primary reading today, where he argues that cities are mankind’s greatest invention, as the headquarters of the industrialization revolution that brought much of the world’s prosperity today. I agree that cities have been an invaluable part in pulling the world out of subsistence conditions in the way that it conglomerates people, capital and ideas in dense locations that facilitate rapid production and consumption. I am relieved, however, that he does not overstate its benefits and makes sense out of why wide, recreational spaces like parks exist as well. These spaces exist not only to raise property values of nearby houses, but also as insurance against the opposite of the “eyes on the street” effect. If buildings are so high that people do not feel any responsibility for its maintenance, then high-rise buildings may not drive growth. Parks, however, may help people feel a sense of ownership to the location, because the value that parks add to their property is dependent on its safety.
I am interested in the role of parks in cities not only because of the subtle ways that it adds value, but also in how humans are inherently drawn to these places for rest. This interest stems from my enjoyment of parks such as Central Park in New York and Parque de Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires, and partly due to how the comedy Parks and Recreation glamorizes government work. My friend who works at the Monocle, a magazine about global affairs, business, culture, and design, created a short video documentary about how urban planners are reimagining recreational spaces and integrating it into regular city life. Although the projects the film features appear exciting, I am conscious about the breadth in which these resources are shared, because it appears to cater to only the urban elite. Parks should be the most democratic places in the city, where everyone has equal access and stake in its preservation.
In the second part of class, we watched a video where Angus Deaton placed doubts on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as the panacea in the methodological constraints that development studies frequently face. Afterwards, Prof. Buckley shared with us another short video where he compares RCTs to the popular mobile application “Angry Birds” describing them as a frantic and misguided games of trial and error. On that comparison alone, I would disagree with Deaton. RCTs, as described by Ester Duflo in Poor Economics, have a specific strategy in identifying the parameters of the experiment before evaluating a project. When addressing the problem of teacher absenteeism in India, for example, Duflo did not utilize farfetched ways to try and solve the problem. Instead, she used cameras as a tool to reinforce accountability, and it was effective in improving teacher attendance. What this ultimately produces is concrete evidence of whether a particular strategy is effective or not, and making adjustments accordingly. (On another note, Angry Birds employs the same identification strategies as RCTs. Rather than blindly shooting the birds at farfetched directions, a skilled player should make an educated guess on the angle and force by which to release the birds on the pigs. But I digress.)
Of course, this is not to say that RCT is not without its problems: its three main issues would be the size of its impact, its large time horizons, and sampling errors. RCTs make small adjustments within a specific set of variables, and therefore its impact after the study will not be significant. As with the case of teacher absenteeism, although introducing cameras increases teacher participation, the quality of the education requires further testing. In addition, some treatments require years before its findings can be identified, which means the implementation of its policies may be outdated by the time of its implementation. Habits do not change overnight, and this has to be reflected in long-term trends in data. Therefore, RCTs are limited in the scope of its effectiveness. Moreover, Deaton argues that RCTs have sampling errors because it is selected out of convenience, then randomized. This part confused me, because I don’t think that it causes much of a problem. Say, for example, that an NGO wants to study the impact of a new savings program on a village in India. Therefore, from all the households in the village, the NGO will select half through a randomized program for its treatments and the rest for its baseline. Even though the village was conveniently chosen to begin with, the village itself is precisely the target of the policy intervention. In that sense, Deaton concedes that RCTs, in these and other similar instances, are precisely the type of program that delivers the exact data that policymakers need. Other methods need to be explored, however, if we want to make quicker change.
It is our first day back from Cape Town and everyone in the class is reflective about our visit. For the third part of the course, today’s class and the next two classes are focused on learning about how development perspectives have evolved and influenced the African political economy over time. Today, we learned about different development perspectives from Rodrik (second-best thinking may be best), de Soto (property rights are key!), Acemoglu (no, institutions are key!), and Duflo (RCTs adds precision to otherwise alchemic social sciences). These perspectives have challenged the orthodox principles I once held about development. Many platitudes circulate development discourse - “urbanization stimulates growth”, “ethnic conflict stems from ancient hatreds”, “more aid is needed” - and my biggest takeaway is that I have to critically examine each orthodoxy in the context it is said. For example, urbanization may be necessary to stimulate growth, but it is not sufficient; pathological urbanization demonstrates that high urbanization rates can be an indicator of poor rural conditions rather than booming prospects in cities. The best approach, therefore, lies somewhere in the middle of what these experts prescribe.
I am enjoying reading Meredith’s book, my knowledge base regarding African contemporary politics is quickly expanding, and I can contextualize contemporary events better through my daily readings. Chapter 23, The Struggle for Democracy, describes the challenges different countries have faced in order to achieve true democracy, because the departure of colonial administration, like urbanization, is a necessary but insufficient condition for Africa’s economic takeoff. The continent has been plagued with what Meredith calls “Big Man” politics, whereby dictators have exceeded their constitutionally mandated terms and in some cases, amended the constitution itself to support their autocratic reign. The freedom fighters’ intentions in the struggle against these Big Men, however, do not appear perfectly noble, because some of them have quests for power on their own. Thus the legacy of “Big Men Democracy” continues.
It pushes me to inquire about the origins of this behavior. Why do African leaders abuse their power? My intuition tells me that it is another colonial legacy that goes untold: that due to fears of a neocolonial resurgence, either from Europeans or revolutionaries at home, autocrats prefer to hold all the power to themselves. I asked Jayed Oliver, a South African student at the University of the Western Cape, about his opinions on the matter, and he agrees. “First of all, South Africa is a unique case because it is the most developed part of the continent,” he explains, “but we also have the same problems as the rest of sub-Saharan Africa in that we have the same problems of having poor leadership.” Moreover, due to the precolonial tribalism that governed African politics before Bismarck erected artificial state lines, this new generation of leaders continue to fracture internal state politics through preferential treatment based on their tribal origins. Chapter 23 enumerates several examples of these Big Men employing crony capitalism by purchasing loyalty from subordinates, usually members of the same ethnic group as the leader. Countries like Tanzania, for example, have fared better with these issues, through their strong nationalism campaign to establish a national language and distribute public goods irrespective of ethnic origins.
Perfectly aligned geological sediments while on Chapman's Peak.
Marco's African Palace, where I celebrated my birthday dinner.
Today is my birthday! Ever since the course started, I could not wait for this day, I’m incredibly lucky that I get to be in Cape Town to celebrate my 22nd birthday. Our schedule was packed with more recreational activities, and I was happy that I did not have to plan anything for myself.
Standing atop Table Mountain, a 7th Wonder of the World, felt spectacular. The elevation was so high that I felt that the clouds were within reach. I walked for a bit along its hiking trail, but I was deeply content with lying down on a rock and feeling the sun on my skin. I bought an ice cream and all the melted sugars crept down my fingers as I vigorously tried to keep my eating neat. It is especially during these simple life-affirming moments when I realize that this simple joy should be shared with everyone. The randomness of life’s unfairness to certain groups of people makes it so abundantly clear that it’s our job to leverage our privilege so we can share it. While I was contemplating on these, before I knew it, I napped for what felt like an eternity and my skin became a few shades darker. My mom will not be pleased, but I like the added color.
We had dinner at Marco’s African place, which featured a live band playing marimba music. Its patrons were mostly tourists, and the band played songs recognizable to this audience. It was the third time that a band has played “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” during my one-week stay in Cape Town. Our class knew that it was our last day in the country, and everyone was quiet and pensive. The blaring music also ensured that conversations were limited to perfunctory comments about the heat or the food delay. Nonetheless, when the food came, it was delicious as always and lifted everyone’s spirits. While I was in the middle of chewing my oxtail stew, I hear the band below call my name. “Geo? Where is Geo?” My face turned pale, and I hear Travis whooping and pointing my name. I realize what he has done. I sink slowly into my seat but I realize there is no escape. Soon enough, it felt like the whole restaurant was calling my name and I had no choice but to go downstairs and meet my fate.
The male lead singer invited me on stage while he sang Happy Birthday to me. His voice was perfect, but I felt uncomfortable staring too deeply into his eyes, so I clapped my hands a lot to distract myself. He found that very amusing and asked me to dance instead. This part I enjoyed immensely, because I have been watching his group dance throughout the entire evening itching to join. One of the female dancers coached me through some of the steps, and even if I stumbled through them, I had a fantastic time. My friends on the second floor were all cheering for me, and if I weren’t so tan, my face would have blushed.
Leaving Cape Town felt too soon, like we had just arrived and now we already had to leave. In fact, the van parked in the exact same area where it picked us up a week ago. From my visit, the city has made some key impressions on me. The staggering inequality and legacies of the apartheid shocked me, and even though there are some developments that we should celebrate, there is much more work to be done. I look forward to the next week’s round of lectures, where we revisit development models and see how they can be applied to this week’s experiential journey.
A student reading in University of Cape Town, where we stayed for the week.
The inner terrace of the UCT Biology building.
Toma Berlanda, Chairman of the Architecture Department in the University of Cape Town, came to our class today to talk about Rwandan urban planning. I learned that Kigali following urban models from Singapore and Denver, while Cape Town is emulating Curitiba’s city planning style. It was difficult to find an immediate connection between Prof. Berlanda’s lecture and the theme of this week’s course, which is South African political economy in the context of the urbanism and development issues we discussed in class. His lecture talked more about the architectural challenges in Rwanda, which focuses on its hilly geography, and his data visualizations were clear and concise. Kigali can therefore be used as a foil against Cape Town urbanism issues, but the similarities are limited precisely because of its different geographies. Nevertheless, Prof. Berlanda spoke eloquently about the topic and is a clear expert on his topic.
After the lecture, Jyothi surprised us as we scrambled back into the bus.
“We’ve had a change of plans,” she begins.
“Are we going to see the penguins?” Myera asks in the back expectedly. Jyothi has a smile on her face and nods.
“We’re going to see the penguins!”
* * *
Visiting Boulder Beach was such a pleasant surprise. I was mentally prepared to continue my academically rigorous schedule (our trip itinerary indicated a 4.5 hour visit to the Khaleyitsha township in the afternoon), but I didn’t complain that we decided to go to see some penguins instead. My suspicion is that this surprise trip has been planned all along. All of the trip supervisors I have asked have denied this. We stopped by a town to buy some souvenirs and board shorts.
We took plenty of photos throughout the day. Everyone was elated that they had a leisurely Friday afternoon. When we climbed back aboard the bus when the day was over, the driver almost clapped in surprise. “You guys wrote history today. Since the beginning of the year, two people have already been attacked by sharks. One man has already disappeared. I’m glad none of your students had the same fate.” Jyothi’s face went pale. “You should have told us!” she complained, but the drivers smiled and said we wouldn’t have gone in if we knew this. He was correct.
Nmonde's saxophonist, who can play any song by request.
Nmonde was the host of our dinner last night. Her yellow top and head wrap matched the bright smile on her face as she greeted us. “I could have expanded the restaurant to hold 200 guests,” she explains. “But if I did, then I wouldn’t get the chance to personally get to know all of you during this very special evening.” I had the most delicious dinner at Mzansi. I had Malva pudding again, this time with a very bright yellow sauce whose ingredients I did not dare to inquire about.
Unlike yesterday afternoon’s philosophical struggle in the Khayelitsha township, our dinner in Mzansi, thankfully, gave me a chance to engage with the local culture. Ace, Nmonde’s husband, is a hearty fellow who wore a red polo shirt with a Ferrari logo emblazoned on the left breast, a khaki-colorer cap, and a smile that wrinkled the sides of his cheeks into a dimple. At the end of the dinner, he invited all of us to play instruments. He gave me a simple percussion instrument, a bottle filled with dried beans inside, to shake in rhythm with the other dinner guests playing music. Afterwards, we walked back into the restaurant hall to learn some dance moves with him. Arms flung in all directions and hooked onto strangers as we spun in all directions. There’s something special about marimba music that is festive for the sake of festivity. The majority of music that the youth listen to these days are either laced with emotional irony or mindless thumping. The music they played that night was triumphant and unafraid, and apt to come from South Africa considering its difficult history of the apartheid.
Edgar Pieterse’s lecture on African Urban Economies today is my favorite so far. He describes how economic models of development are “terminally broken”, and how all data must be viewed with circumspection. Economists are eager to claim that Africa is soon to mimic the Asian industrial miracles, but the empirics indicate otherwise. This is because the rapid urbanization does not reflect industrializing economies but rather rural populations escaping secular droughts and dropping commodity prices. The agenda, Prof. Pieterse proposes, is access. Access to low-carbon, resource-efficient, socially-inclusive, and spatially-cohesive resources are necessary for the next wave of urbanization.
A Toyota, common in Khayelitsha, parked outside an informal settlement.
Skye Dobson came in class today to talk about her work in Slum Dwellers International (SDI). We visited Khayelitsha, a township mainly composed of low-income housing, to see what a typical day looks like for community organizers. They welcomed us to their community center, where they described the benefits of their savings groups and how it helps them negotiate with local politicians.
After the talk, we walked around the township and surrounding wetlands. Everyone in the class was eager to take photos of the slums and with the children, but something about that idea didn’t sit right with me. It felt strangely exploitative, that I was contributing to the exoticization of the poor, particularly the representations of Africans as lost people who embrace foreigners as dispensers of aid and photographs. This is what Dambisa Moyo warns us in her book Dead Aid as well, and I did not want to add to this narrative. It made me question what made taking photos of slum children attractive in the first place. Does the contrast of their poverty to my wealth humanizing to them? If that were the case, then I feel even worse, because I am in a position where I can witness both poor lifestyles and rich lifestyles, while these communities cannot. It almost felt like the implicit racism in Heart of Darkness that Achebe points out: that I feel a certain kinship with them, albeit distant. In the end, I opted not to take photos with them, unless they invited me first.
Of course, I do not think that my classmates were perpetuating this kind of visual culture, but perhaps it is exactly the kind of unawareness of photography’s wider implications that make such practice so dangerous. At the same time, I wanted nothing more but a photo with them, because they were so happy to see me, and I wanted to capture that moment. It was such a confusing mix of emotions. In some inexplicable way, I felt that I didn’t deserve to take a photo of them because I did not yet earn the dignity of being photographed with them. If I enter development work, I want preserving people their dignity to be the forefront of my motivations.
Robson doing a handstand outside The Hussar Grill.
We have arrived in South Africa! We had lunch at Moyo in Kirstenbosch, a beautiful botanical garden at the eastern foot of Table Mountain. From the very beginning, the size of Table Mountain overhead was impressive from below. Moyo is purported to serve authentic African cuisine, and it delivered all the exotic meals at whose sight a foreigner would either cringe or salivate: crocodile pies, worm appetisers, and kidneys of every kind. I hate worms so much. I failed a biology test back in the third grade because I refused to study the diagrams of the worm anatomy. Many years later, I still can’t look at worms without my stomach lurching. Thankfully, I did not puke.
Our first lecture during our regional seminar was with Ivan Turok, Deputy Director of the Economic Performance and Development Performance of the Human Sciences Research Council in Cape Town. Although he is South African, he lived in the UK most of his life, only returning to Cape Town seven years ago to apply his foreign education back home. He presented us with an overview of urbanisation policy in Cape Town. According to him, the de jure period of apartheid may be over, but de facto segregation continues to persist due to systemic forces that prevents people from economic mobility.
The contrast between affluent suburban areas versus overcrowded townships represents this segregation the most: because housing prices in the former category are so high, black people cannot move into these areas of opportunity. Instead, they commute from slum areas far from the Cape Town CBD. Although some reforms have been proposed, such as creating a new neighborhood altogether to circumvent the bureaucratic hoops that rezoning Cape Town would require, none have been proven to be effective. I think the question of persistent segregation should be addressed before people rally and resort to extreme measures to be heard.
We had dinner at the Hussar Grill, and the food was absolutely fantastic. Even without the pairings of world-famous South African red wine, the sirloin steak I tasted was succulent, soft, and saucy. I finished dinner off with Malva pudding, a traditional South African dessert served with vanilla pod ice cream. It goes without saying that I couldn’t move after dinner, which is why I sat and enjoyed a steaming cup of tea to let the flavours sit in my belly before we headed home. I have a lot of optimism for what’s to come next, my first impression so far has been overwhelmingly positive. I’m so excited to be here.
“How has South Africa bucked the resource curse?” Robson’s question in class today sparked a good discussion about how some African economies fared better than others in terms of managing its natural resources. The continent is replete with all kinds of natural resources, from gold to cocoa to ivory, that especially due to the recent rise in commodity prices, we would expect African economies to boom. The effect in reality, however, could not be further from this expectation. In Nigeria, for example, despite its rich oil reserves, the country has been embroiled in internal conflict and in abusive deals with foreign investors like Shell for many years now. The question then became, how can we reduce unemployment aside from lowering minimum wages or relying on the informal sector? Unfortunately, it seems that the macroeconomic models we have to answer this question is limited as well; as Prof. Buckley said, we are still in equivalent era where our prescription to failing economies is “to bleed the patient more”.
We turned to contemporary theories of development to help elucidate some answers. One answer is that African countries used to be seen as a high-risk but high-return investment opportunity. However, given the recent economic stagnation due to persistent conflict and poor political guarantees, African countries have become places of even higher risk but lower returns. This is consistent with standard models of the real interest rate: if the risk adjustment is too high for a low return, then it would not make sense to invest. As a result, capital has fled and economic free fall continues.
There is one day left before our trip to South Africa and I cannot wait. Tina, Carol, and other staffers in the Office of Global Education dropped by after class today to share with us the itinerary. It’s packed with lectures, site visits, and dinners that I cannot wait to experience. I’m really thankful for this opportunity.
There was a heated discussion during class today about the Mamdani’s article, The Importance of Research in a University. He argues that the problem with African higher education today is that it applies Western curricula, whether it is in the humanities or in the social sciences, on every academic sphere of African life. It produces, therefore, a “consultancy culture” that does not look deeply into problems but rather focus on the toolkit with which to answer questions that are accepted without prejudice. “The moral of the story” Mamdani writes, “is that diagnosis is more important than prescription. Research is diagnosis.” That is why the Gates Foundation spent millions of dollars to eradicate malaria without first considering what role malaria plays in the broader ecosystem. The article moved me especially because I am considering management consulting as a career after graduation. In my defense, I think Mamdani has a skewed perception of what consultants do. The ones who do their jobs well do not only accept the client’s proposal at face value, but investigates the firm as a whole to identify the key areas for improvement. There is in fact a rigorous research process in place for consultants to ask the right questions before offering any recommendations.
We also talked about Africa’s contemporary political economy, particularly its peripheral role in the global economy. In Chapter 23 of The Struggle for Africa, Meredith makes it clear that the Big Man curse in African politics has caused the continent to lag behind other industrializing economies in the East, where “one-party democracies” such as Singapore and China yielded positive results. Meritocracy appears to be the answer: by rewarding public servants for their civic contributions, corruption is discouraged and people are motivated to perform better. That is also the motivation behind the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which compensates African heads of state who are elected through fair procedures, serve their constitutionally mandated term, and demonstrate strong leadership. The results, however, were unexpected. Due to high receipts from foreign aid every year, African dictators had better incentives to maintain their power for longer terms than the $2 million payout that the award offered. In Singapore and China, for example, no such foreign aid receipts flow in which can pull away otherwise honest politicians from performing their duties.
Collier, Paul and Jan Willem Gunning, 1999. Why has Africa Grown Slowly? Journal of Economic Perspectives 13:3, 3-22.
Mandani. M. Citizen and Subject, Princeton University Press, 1996.
Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou, National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa, Quarterly Journal of Economics.
These articles offer multiple explanations to Africa’s current underdeveloped status: ethnic fractionalization, detrimental postcolonial institutions, autocratic regimes, etc. The list appears endless. Collier argues that some of these explanations are even outside of the continents’ control (i.e. external destiny or domestic destiny factors). All these explanations offer satisfying intuition, but I think more quantifiable explanations are needed. Only through technocratic analyses do we find actionable solutions to specific questions about Africa’s development. My intuition tells me that the site of transformative change are the country’s cities. Cities are where power, capital, and labor are centralized, and where we can therefore anticipate the most change. This is why urban studies is critical in finding the most significant answers.
We also watched a short film from TED Talks, George Ayittey's Cheetahs vs. Hippos for Africa's Future. Ayittey distinguishes Africa between two types of people: cheetahs, who are the proactive agents of change in Africa's postcolonial future; and the hippos, who simultaneously complain about colonialism but also benefit from its persistence. He calls upon the African cheetahs to focus their dynamism into the informal and traditional sectors, where most of Africa's population continue to operate. Ayittey cites an example of a local Ghanian fisherman who, with no assistance from the government, built a bigger boat by investing capital he has accumulated over time to increase his fishing capacity and employ more fisherman.
While this example is noble at first view, it does raise questions that are not addressed by his talk. Competitive fishing activity does not only represent local Ghanian ingenuity, but also a glimpse into the tragedy of the commons that Ghana will inevitably face. If more fishermen continue to improve their fishing boats and thus their capacity, then overfishing poses an increasing threat to the marine ecosystem. In this view, government intervention is necessary; only the government can regulate fishing quotas by enforcing property rights for all.
Today in class, we had a brief but intense discussion about Chinua Achebe’s review of Heart of Darkness. Achebe’s main argument is that Conrad is “a thoroughgoing racist”, whose novel about Marlow traveling at the heart of the Congo — indeed, the heart of darkness — is the epitome of his racist views. This argument is tempered by Conrad’s upbringing during the height of the colonial project, and while hindsight is 20/20, Conrad’s racist views were normalised at the time. The question of banning this book in Western canon is nonetheless important to discuss. In my opinion, I do not advocate banning forms of expression, except when its content is purely hateful. People need to face uncomfortable ideas head on because it is only through dialogue that understanding can be achieved between two people, in this case between the coloniser and the colonised. At the same time, however, racism is a sickness inherent within our institutions, and we should focus not on censoring content that is offensive, but creating new content that complicates dominant African narratives from the West.
We also watched Jonathan Haidt’s talk about The Three Stories of Capitalism. In the talk, he combines the contrasting stories behind capitalist systems and synthesises them into what he sees as the current state of the world. It goes as follows: Capitalism is liberation, which creates innovative forms of production including exploitation, but that it is ultimately the tool against cyclical poverty. We talked in class about the different ways wealth can be created that benefits a larger group of people, but that. The rising trend of the “sharing economy”, represented by players such as Uber for transportation, AirBnb for vacation rentals. The sharing economy suggests that a way to generate wealth is to simply create markets for the surplus of goods already produced. The path to create these markets, most popularly through web applications, are becoming less expensive and more meritocratic. The lack of individual property rights on these goods demonstrates that lessons can be learned from communist modes of transactions as well. It remains to be seen if this trend will last onto the future, or if will die at the hands of resurgent fears about communism.
Finally, we read The Great Enrichment Came and Comes from Ethics and Rhetoric by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. McCloskey argues that despite the staggering statistics about the current state of the world, we are leagues ahead of the subsistence conditions in which we lived before the Industrial Revolution. In absolute terms, McCloskey is correct in that statement, but I think that her views are too optimistic considering the state of the world. Wealth is being created, but it mostly serves those who own capital, and those who are born outside the luck of being in a good location or family have little to no chances of changing their destiny. Wealth is being created, but we cannot proceed in the manner we have been conducting. It is costing people their happiness, their dignity, and sometimes their lives. The central question, therefore, remains: how do we achieve inclusive growth? Sadly, these papers nor I can fashion a satisfying response. Yet.
I will focus today’s journal entries on four chapters in Meredith’s The State of Africa: the introduction, and chapters, 5, 6, and 7. These chapters provide an brief historical overview of contemporary African history, driven largely by leaders dissatisfied by the colonial status quo: Kenyatta in Kenya, Nelson Mandela in Africa, and Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although I have only read four chapters so far, it has already challenged some of the monolithic images of Africa I have in the mind. The internal conflicts caused by arbitrary borders drawn up by European colonizers are, in my opinion, the most disappointing result of their occupation. By allocating power to favored ethnic groups divided among state borders, it appears that there have been two Scrambles of Africa: one between the European colonizers, and another once they have left and the rivaling ethnic groups competing to fill the power vacuum. The leaders above have attempted to establish strict leadership in the face of this vacuum, but with mixed results at best.
Over the break, I read Poor Economics by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, co-founders of the MIT Poverty Action Lab, and so I am currently interested in impact evaluation research. The quantifiable measures of random control trials (RCT) is appealing to me because it puts every speculation about development issues into rigorous tests and letting the numbers rather than the rhetoric speaking for themselves. On Christmas day, my sister gave me a copy of The Poverty of Nations by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus, a book that combines economic analysis and theological doctrine to offer policy prescriptions for development issues that different countries in the world face. Nominally speaking, I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, but I admit I was initially skeptical about reading a book that quotes Bible passages thousands of years ago and taking it seriously. However, it is precisely the fact that I am skeptical that I decided to read it. After all, education is about challenging contrasting ideas head on rather than dismissing them with prejudice. Perhaps it is too early for platitudes, considering that I am a nascent economist, and even that sounds like a generous description.
However, the most important book that I have read about Africa is Nelson Mandela’s A Long Walk to Freedom, a 700-page bestselling memoir about his life from Thembu royalty to sworn revolutionary for the freedom from the apartheid. It is truly remarkable to hear the amount of sacrifices Mandela had to make in order to help win freedom for the country. He spent a life away from his wife and children, both in hiding from the police or in prison. It is truly remarkable to consider the efforts needed to change an entire nation, but at the same time, it is encouraging to witness the impact that one influential person can have. There may be no silver bullet to end all poverty, but proper leadership is a necessary ingredient in any transformative undertaking.
“It’s my first day of class and I’m very excited” sounds like a canned response at the beginning of every semester that its meaning has been somewhat diluted, but I don’t think it is the case this time. My name is Geo Kamus. I’m a senior studying Economics and Political Science, informally concentrating on development studies. Development encompasses a plethora of topics — foreign aid, public health, education, government, finance, trade, econometric models thereof — that it therefore demands focus from its students. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t found that focus, which shifts according to the book at the time.
I am in this class to absorb as much as I can in this intensive, three-week course. Prof. Buckley has worked in several international organisations such as the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the IMF, and so he embodies in many ways the type of career trajectory I want to have as well. I don’t know much about the African continent, it is chiefly due to ignorance (and deliberate erasure by Western-centric narratives, as I later discovered) that I have passed through three tiers of education without any significant knowledge about the continent. Since I came into NYUAD, I have taken a few postcolonial courses throughout the way, but my image of Africa is still homogenous and dangerous. In fact, the idea that an “Image of Africa” can be created may be itself a homogenous and dangerous thought. Chinua Achebe has an article of the same title listed in our third class, and I am curious to hear what he has to say.
I hope that this course fulfils most if not all of my expectations as they are listed in the syllabus. I suspect that our trip to Cape Town will exceed these expectations further. We have a full schedule of site visits and guest lectures that are the envy of anyone interested in studying the region, and I have the immense privilege of going at such a young age. Hopefully I will get the chance to connect with these lecturers Plus, I heard that Table Mountain has a gorgeous view that defies description. I can’t wait. In the meantime, I want to keep my knowledge of African culture as deep and varied as well. I’ll share some African music that I have discovered online and shared between friends.
