The uncontroversial liberal democracies in Africa are countries like Botswana, Ghana, Namibia and South Africa
Note what Namibia and Botswana have in common besides being nice places to live in Africa and being considered “liberal democracies”. Note where they tend to land on this list and how their economies tend to be strongly tied to resource extraction.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to glean from those links. It’s true that the current president of Botswana is the son of the first president, but Botswana is hardly alone in this kind of dynastic succession. I can name a few first-world democracies where multiple members of the same family have been elected heads of state.
And yes, Botswana is overly dependent on the diamond trade, and De Beers is a very shady company. The forced relocation of the San bushmen was an atrocity. Also, the country has a huge HIV/AIDS epidemic. But I wasn’t holding up Botswana as a shining exemplar of all that is good in this world. I was saying that it is, overall, a much better place to live in than it was before independence. Do you disagree?
Note what Namibia and Botswana have in common besides being nice places to live in Africa and being considered “liberal democracies”. Note where they tend to land on this list and how their economies tend to be strongly tied to resource extraction.
Zimbabwe also has a low population density and an economy strongly tied to resource extraction, so those two factors by themselves don’t fully account for the relative prosperity of Botswana and Namibia.
I can name a few first-world democracies where multiple members of the same family have been elected heads of state.
Of course and a monarchist would expect such things to generally work out quite well on average. My point was that first president was royalty, his family had strong enough social capital to reach for power once more decades later which suggests strong background influence during the presidencies of Quett Masire and Festus Mogae. Note how the former of those was Vice-president under Seretse Khama and how Ian Khama served as Vice-president under the latter. If that family does not consider the country as something like a family business I don’t know which one does.
Also that the De Beers company likely has quite a strong role in the governance of the country it doesn’t need to share with many other corporate interests possibly approaching the United Fruit model, if this is so this is a very well run instance of that.
Moldbug’s theory of government in action? He seems to think so.
Zimbabwe also has a low population density and an economy strongly tied to resource extraction, so those two factors by themselves don’t fully account for the relative prosperity of Botswana and Namibia.
Of course not, but I’m saying they help. Note how low density countries tend to be either horrible (West Africa) or wonderful (Iceland) places to live.
Three links on that country
First President
Current president
De Beers
Responsible government at its finest.
Note what Namibia and Botswana have in common besides being nice places to live in Africa and being considered “liberal democracies”. Note where they tend to land on this list and how their economies tend to be strongly tied to resource extraction.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to glean from those links. It’s true that the current president of Botswana is the son of the first president, but Botswana is hardly alone in this kind of dynastic succession. I can name a few first-world democracies where multiple members of the same family have been elected heads of state.
And yes, Botswana is overly dependent on the diamond trade, and De Beers is a very shady company. The forced relocation of the San bushmen was an atrocity. Also, the country has a huge HIV/AIDS epidemic. But I wasn’t holding up Botswana as a shining exemplar of all that is good in this world. I was saying that it is, overall, a much better place to live in than it was before independence. Do you disagree?
Zimbabwe also has a low population density and an economy strongly tied to resource extraction, so those two factors by themselves don’t fully account for the relative prosperity of Botswana and Namibia.
Of course and a monarchist would expect such things to generally work out quite well on average. My point was that first president was royalty, his family had strong enough social capital to reach for power once more decades later which suggests strong background influence during the presidencies of Quett Masire and Festus Mogae. Note how the former of those was Vice-president under Seretse Khama and how Ian Khama served as Vice-president under the latter. If that family does not consider the country as something like a family business I don’t know which one does.
Also that the De Beers company likely has quite a strong role in the governance of the country it doesn’t need to share with many other corporate interests possibly approaching the United Fruit model, if this is so this is a very well run instance of that.
Moldbug’s theory of government in action? He seems to think so.
Ah, I see. Sorry, I misunderstood the point you were trying to make.
No its ok I should have given more context but was in a hurry.
Of course not, but I’m saying they help. Note how low density countries tend to be either horrible (West Africa) or wonderful (Iceland) places to live.