Transcript Why is Africa poor?

Week 2 – Why is Africa poor?
Economic and Development Problems in Africa
Lectures
• All Tuesday 1-2pm lectures cancelled
New timetable:
• Tuesday 8-9AM
• Tuesday 10-11AM
• Wednesday 12-1pm
Week 2 & 3 outline
• Why is Africa poor?
– Complex question involving many disciplines
• Economics, history, geography, sociology, anthropology…
• Two prong approach:
1. Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond (Week 2)
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Example of reviews
2. Institutions (Week 3)
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Botswana case study + Robinson article (First review due)
Guns, Germs and Steel
• Why did history unfold differently for different
countries?
• Why are some countries poor while others are rich?
– Yali’s question
• How far can we push back the “chain of causation”?
• Why were Eurasian societies disproportionately
powerful and innovative?
Guns, Germs and Steel
• How to understand history? Read the history books
of great civilisations?
• Writing emerged around 3000 BC
• Already by 3000 BC Eurasian/North African societies had
– Centralized governments, widespread use of metal tools + weapons,
domesticated animals for transport, traction and mechanical power,
reliance on agriculture and domestic animals for food.
• Need to go further back in history – preliterate past
• Diamond posthulates four main causes
1. East-West Axis
2. Differences in domesticable plant/animal endowments
Area
1. Food production
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Domesticable plants were
distributed unequally across
the earth.
Food production  division
of labour and specialisation
Dense sedentery foodproducing populations 
chiefs, kings, bureaucrats,
armies, wars, conquest
Writing has evolved de novo
only a few times in human
history  earliest sites of
food production…the rest
became literate by diffusion.
Important for ideas and
technological innovation
Crop Type
Cereals, Other Grasses
Pulses
Fertile Crescent
emmer wheat, einkorn wheat,
barley
pea, lentil, chickpea
China
foxtail millet, broom-corn millet,
rice
soybean, adzuki bean,
mung bean
Mesoamerica
corn
common bean, tepary
bean, scarlet runner
bean
Andes, Amazonia
quinoa, [corn]
lima bean, common
bean, peanut
West Africa and Sahel
sorghum, pearl millet, African rice cowpea, groundnut
India
[wheat, barley, rice, sorghum,
millets]
Ethiopia
teff, finger millet, [wheat, barley] [pea, lentil]
Eastern United States
maygrass, little barley, knotweed,
goosefoot
New Guinea
sugar cane
hyacinth bean, black
gram, green gram
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Area
1. Food production
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Domesticable plants were
distributed unequally across
the earth.
Food production  division
of labour and specialisation
Dense sedentery foodproducing populations 
chiefs, kings, bureaucrats,
armies, wars, conquest
Writing has evolved de novo
only a few times in human
history  earliest sites of
food production…the rest
became literate by diffusion.
Important for ideas and
technological innovation
Crop Type
Cereals, Other Grasses
Pulses
Fertile Crescent
emmer wheat, einkorn wheat,
barley
pea, lentil, chickpea
China
foxtail millet, broom-corn millet,
rice
soybean, adzuki bean,
mung bean
Mesoamerica
corn
common bean, tepary
bean, scarlet runner
bean
Andes, Amazonia
quinoa, [corn]
lima bean, common
bean, peanut
West Africa and Sahel
sorghum, pearl millet, African rice cowpea, groundnut
India
[wheat, barley, rice, sorghum,
millets]
Ethiopia
teff, finger millet, [wheat, barley] [pea, lentil]
Eastern United States
maygrass, little barley, knotweed,
goosefoot
New Guinea
sugar cane
hyacinth bean, black
gram, green gram
—
“Peoples who, by accident of their geographic
location, inherited or developed food
production thereby became able to engulf
geographically less endowed people”
{Both internationally and inter-Africa}
2. Animal domestication
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Domesticable= sufficiently
docile, submissive to humans,
cheap to feed, immune to
diseases, breed well in captivity.
{Genetically modified to become
useful to humans}
Needed for draft animals,
protein and military animals
Buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino,
hippo never been domesticated
(even now)
Earasia’s native cows, sheep,
goats, horses, pigs
Why not carnivores?
Interaction with plants?
(fertilization)
People that developed over time
with domesticated animals were
largely immune to the diseases
they carried (evolved with them)
GERMS {S-America! + Khoi San}
E-W axis – horses Tetsi fly,
Species
Date (B.C.) Place – first evidence of domestication
Dog
Sheep
10,000
8,000
Southwest Asia, China, North America
Southwest Asia
Goat
Pig
Cow
Horse
Donkey
8,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
4,000
Southwest Asia
China, Southwest Asia
Southwest Asia, India, (?)North Africa
Ukraine
Egypt
Water buffalo
Llama / alpaca
Bactrian camel
Arabian camel
4,000
3,500
2,500
2,500
China?
Andes
Central Asia
Arabia
3. East-West Axis
• Africa = only continent
with E-W axis
• Why should this matter?
– Climate, Habitat, Rainfall,
Day length, Diseases of
crops and livestock
• Difficult to move crops
and animals
• Eg Egypt’s wheat and
barley require winter
rains and seasonal
variation in day length for
germination
• Human technology thus
also slow to move
• Examples:
– Bantu cows (from tsetsi free Sahel) didn’t
make it through tsetsi fly forests
– Horses (Eqypt 1800 BC  S of Sahara AD+
– Pottery (Sudan 8000BC  Cape AD 1
– Writing (Egypt 3000 BC writing had to be
brought by Arabs/Europeans
Fertile Crescent
• Fertile Crescent (E + W)  Egypt  Europe
Factors underlying broadest
pattern of history
• Ultimate (real cause)
• Proximate (closest to)
Implications?
• Food production and domestication  development,
yes, but also inequality.
• Opportunity to accumulate wealth in material
objects
• Opportunity to accumulate new techniques, tools
and knowledge
Questions…
• Do you agree with Diamond’s analysis of history?
1. Are current differences in economic development simply
due to “differences in real estate” (i.e. geography)?
2. Are there alternative explanations?
3. How useful is this theory for modern times?
Be able to answer this question from a 13 year old
Mozambican boy:
“Why are white people rich and black people poor?”
“How come you guys have so much cargo?”
Group presentations
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5% of FINAL mark (group-work mark)
20 minutes
Things to discuss
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
Brief history/background
Political environment
Economy
Social + cultural context
3 main problems (+Solutions?)
Countries
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6.
7.
Botswana (Week 3)
Kenya (Week 4)
DRC (Week 6)
Sudan (N+S) (Week 7)
Ivory Coast (Week 8)
Ghana (Week 10)
Zambia (Week 11)
 Marking criteria: Presentation (20%), Content (50%), Interesting (30%)
14
5%
Criticism of Guns, Germs and Steel
• “The World According to Jared Diamond”
- J.R. McNeill
• 3 or 4 groups of five
– Summarise your page.
• Do you think this is a legitimate criticism? Why? Why not?
– Provide a few (max 3/4) labels for the sections of your
page. Each label MUST be less than 8 words
– Come together and put all the arguments in context
• Pick max seven labels
– Provide feedback to class
My labels
• Page 1
– Broad agreement but specific disagreement (Ch 20)
– Summary of Diamond’s thesis
• Page 2
– Long term and large scale framework
– Statistically Eurasia should’ve succeeded anyway
• Page 3
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Of Eurasia, why Europe?
Explaining temporary dominance using permanent factors
Fragmentation is not always a good thing (Africa)
Intra-country fortunes varied dramatically (Egypt)
My labels
• Page 4
– East-West axis argument flawed (inter-Europe + inter-Africa)
• Dispersion of plants/animals/ideas dependent on more than
geography
– Cattle, Coffee
• Page 5
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Inappropriate to compare continents
Societies aim to maximise wealth + power (false assumption)
Things are more complex than simply geography
Useful in that it forces us to acknowledge prehistory
More specifically...
Summary of McNeill’s criticisms
For next week’s assignment
“Botswana: A Diamond in the Rough”
• 650 words
• Due Tuesday 21 Feb 8-9AM lecture
• Arial, 11 font, 1.5 line spacing
• Answer the following three questions:
1. Is Botswana a success? (provide reasons why and why not)
2. What do you believe were the 3 main factors that made
Botswana successful?
3. Do you think Botswana’s success is replicable elsewhere in
Africa? Why? Why not?