
Why Is Zambia So Poor? - timw6n
http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/zambia-poor-poverty-globalization-mining-corruption-66080/
======
pessimizer
>I don’t even have a clear narrative for how my own country went from Deadwood
to Real Housewives,

Because Zambia is poor.

To become a strong country, find a number of smaller countries and start
killing their populations until they let you extract their resources and ship
them back to your country. Eventually, leave the responsibility for killing
people to local representatives that you give a bunch of guns and a tiny cut
of the resource profits to. If the locals rebel, and look like they will be
successful, find the strongest rebel and offer him the same deal. If he
refuses, kill him, and go to the next strongest rebel.

Leave $1 in the country for every $100 you take out of it, and since you're
leaving it with the elites that you created, they're just going to spend it on
imports anyway.

Isn't that what the global south is for?

~~~
EliRivers
Which countries did, for example, Singapore invade and start slaughtering?

~~~
testrun
Or South Korea. I know South Korea was invaded, but cannot remember they
started slaughtering people before becoming rich.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
My favorite example would be Taiwan.

Kicked out of their home country, yet they thrive.

~~~
sliverstorm
It's the other way around, I believe. Some of the citizens are exiles from
China, but as for Taiwan they declared independence. China wants them back,
they don't want to go back into the fold.

At least, that's what I've been told.

~~~
brazzy
It's a lot more complex:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_taiwan#Political_st...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_taiwan#Political_status_and_the_major_camps)

Taiwan has very emphatically _not_ declared independance.

------
nkurz
Perhaps it's just my ignorance of Africa, but I was recently amazed to learn
Zambia had a thriving 1970's rock music scene known as Zamrock. I was even
more amazed that it sounded incredible. I can't say it will help you
understand Zambia, but "Strange Dream" by Witch is one of the most haunting
songs I've ever heard:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6jOTvDU9Ts](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6jOTvDU9Ts)

Here's an interview with Emmanuel Jagari Chanda, the leader of Witch, which
includes an overview of what else was happening musically in Zambia at the
time, as well as some perspective on what's changed since:

[http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/emmanuel-
jagari-...](http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/emmanuel-jagari-chanda
--we-intend-to-cause-havoc?template=RBMA_Lecture%2Ftranscript)

------
mailarchis
I guess this is the core reason

"It’s easy to paint all of the problems in Zambia with this brush, to talk
about kleptocrats wringing their privilege for as much income, as many perks,
as they can squeeze. But even if Zambia was run by a coalition of charitable
technocrats and Mormon philanthropists, that wouldn’t solve the most
fundamental problem of all: There simply isn’t that much money to go around.
In 2011, Zambia spent a total of $4.3 billion running itself. Stretch that to
cover every man, woman, and child, and it amounts to just $325 per person per
year. That amount—less than a dollar per person per day—has to cover
education, health care, infrastructure, law enforcement, foreign debt …
everything."

~~~
milkshakes
so.... the reason they are poor is that they don't have a lot of money?

~~~
mailarchis
I'm not an expert in economics, so maybe someone with a better understanding
can weigh in.

But what I think the writer is trying to say here the economy (value of the
total goods produced which is reflected in money circulated) is too small to
support the population of zambia.

~~~
jamesaguilar
I would say that is not a very interesting answer. When asking why people are
poor, the answer, "because the economy is small," makes about as much sense
as, "because they are poor." It doesn't add any information.

Why is the economy small? Answers like, "because they are poor," are
forbidden.

~~~
DrJokepu
Perhaps the problem is with the question, not the answer. The Zambian economy
has been growing fairly nicely recently, according to Google the GDP growth in
2012 was 7.3%.

A more useful question would be: was the growth of Zambian economy slow
historically? If yes, why?

~~~
hgh
Zambia was a relatively wealthy place in Africa around independence, but the
economy relied almost exclusively on copper, which is one of the most volatile
commodities around. The pseudo-socialist government led by Kaunda helped unify
the country but also drove the economy into the ground by providing massive
subsidies all around and failing to create institutions to support long-term
growth. The economy declined massively through 70s and 80s. Impending
bankruptcy and structural adjustment programmes forced the government to pull
back support, and then people protested and rioted to bring down the
government and introduce multi-party democracy. The rebuilding process has
been continuing (the first democratic handover of power happened a few years
ago) and copper prices have been great, led by incredible demand from China.

The politics isn't perfect and economic diversification from mining is still
only in it's infancy, but the trends are pointing in the right direction.

------
nickthemagicman
Why are people in America so eager to help out other countries?

We have so many people in need here.

Is it just more glamourous to be Leonardo di Caprio in Africa on an zany
adventure than help some poor homeless family on the streets of Tagg Flatts
Oklahome?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_poorest_places_in_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_poorest_places_in_the_United_States)

~~~
winter_blue
Ah, you know what's interesting about that list? Most of those places have
_very high_ proportions of Native American populations.

So we're looking at a different problem here: helping out the Native
Americans. If the Europeans hadn't come over and colonized this continent,
America would've been yet another "Africa" \- so to speak.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Damn, just noticed that now that you mention it.

America just kinda wants that whole 'Native American holocaust' thing to kinda
quietly slip under the rug.

------
bayesianhorse
Wealth can't be created by transfer payments, it can only be grown.

Many countries, like Zambia, are really bad at economic growth. The reasons
can be kleptocracy, bad legal systems, but also lack of investments in
infrastructure.

~~~
LarrySDonald
This is really the major issue. "Growth" in the sense of "increase in actual
production" is going terrific (granted, mostly by virtue of "Copper is
practically the new oil - reserves, especially easy to access them" matters).
What isn't going so great is the second part of "We should be careful with
that and funnel it back into the national economy. Pay to play - the copper
and other metals are only there once and we know what they are worth".

You can't really grow forever, but you can still grow and they do. But this is
sort of like the early oil rush in the midwest. Oh wow, holy crap, people will
give us 25 cents a barrel for crude! And we don't even have to dig it up,
they'll even come over and do it! How cool is that?!? Uhh, not that cool when
you were sitting on top of oil reserves the size of saudi arabia that are now
all but bone dry with some entrepreneurial farmers pumping up a few barrels
for a slight short term profit.

The main law that seems to be missing everywhere is "X amount stays here. No
really. Invest whatever you want, but a certain part of the gained value is
stuck in the local economy and another chunk is paid to locals because OUR
HOUSE".

------
jquery
Zambia's average IQ is 77. Is it _possible_ that an average IQ of 77 isn't
conducive to prosperity?

~~~
mynameishere
People reject this for various reasons:

1\. They firmly believe IQ doesn't means anything.

2\. They realize IQ means something but that it is mostly mutable (Flynn
effect, etc).

3\. They realize it's not especially mutable, but the tests in poor countries
are unreliable.

4\. They reject such possibilities because they actually believe their
lifetime of propaganda that "All men are created equal" etc, etc, and so don't
even give IQ much thought.

5\. They don't even raise the question because it's politically or socially
uncomfortable. For people in academia or in charities, this could extend to
losing employment and gaining pariah status.

6\. They realize demographics actually do matter but don't want to consider
the fact because:

6a. Same reason as #5.

6b. It's hopeless. No one wants to just walk away from a problem.

6c. Sunk-cost fallacy.

6d. "Helping" people or even discussing "helping" people gives a sense of
moral purpose, or even moral superiority. (This is Bill Gates' reason, almost
assuredly.) By contrast, saying, "Well, forget Zambia, look at the whole damn
world: Black people just sort-of breed poverty," is the exact opposite. To say
that in polite company is very offensive.

~~~
jquery
You'd think for people in academia, addressing socially and politically
uncomfortable truths would be their du jour. How can the world fix the problem
when it won't even look at possible causes?

~~~
true_religion
I think the above poster is getting something wrong. While no one is going to
come out and say "IQ is the cause for poverty", they'll happily say that poor
education is and aim to fix it.

By providing good nutrition to the young, and good education the IQ 'problem'
mostly takes care of itself.

------
tokenadult
"So Zambia is not failed. It is simply very, very poor. Sixty-four percent of
the population lives on less than $1 per day"

And that is the key fact. Many of the comments in this thread are not specific
to Zambia. There was a time when Zambia looked like a success story among
African countries, as the first national leader after independence seemed more
democratically minded and less corrupt than many leaders in Africa. The year
Zambia became independent, I have read, it was wealthier than Taiwan--where my
wife was living at the time. Zambia was neither unusually poor nor unusually
badly governed among countries of the world when it gained independence.

So the key question in looking at international examples of national
development is to slog through the process of John Stuart Mill's "method of
agreement and difference"[1] and figure out what commonalities help countries
develop and prosper, and what commonalities drag down the fortunes of the
inhabitants of a country. "Ninety-four percent of the land in Zambia is
customary or traditional, no one has a title to it. It’s not just sitting
there, people are living on it, farming, grazing animals, it’s just
technically under the control of a chief." That jumps out at me as a huge
difference between Zambia and many countries that have developed more
successfully--clear land title that can be readily transferred for money.
Taiwan makes better use of its land, and developed better, I hypothesis, in
part because it is clear who owns what land and who has rights in land. (There
was land reform for poor peasants, making them landowners, in Taiwan in the
1950s. Then the economic development began there.)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods#Joint_method_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods#Joint_method_of_agreement_and_difference)

AFTER EDIT: I posted hurriedly at first, having an appointment to get to. One
other point, which generalizes to more parts of Africa and more parts of east
Asia, is that for a given level of educational spending, many east Asian
countries invested mostly in good-quality primary education for the masses,
while many African countries set up a national university available only to an
elite minority of the population. (And often enough, the national university
graduates from African countries became part of the "brain drain" to other
countries.) Raising the skill level of the masses diversifies the economy and
makes even countries with very limited natural resources--of which Japan and
Taiwan are noteworthy examples--able to develop through trade and transition
from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy and then to a
postindustrial economy. Few African countries have pursued a national
education policy of broad primary education, those that have are among the
African countries that are faring best.

------
narrator
If you want to get a feel for what Africa is really like watch the acclaimed
documentary Darwin's Nightmare
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424024/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424024/)).
I've knew a couple who slummed it in Tanzania for a few years and there
stories are hard to believe but are more or less in line with this movie.

------
halfninety
Democracy is a way to guarantee human rights in a developed or semi-developed
country, it's not a way to develop your poor country. Installing democracy in
a poor country is like installing Windows 7 on a 486: you gain the benefits of
the new system, but you have to live with the accompanied slow speed, caused
by the fact that the minimum system requirement is not met.

------
axilmar
The reason Zambia is poor is the exact same reason other countries are poor:
the people of Zambia don't sell enough products to other economies in order to
get richer.

Why don't they do that? it's a matter of culture. They don't open up to the
possibilities of the economy around and outside their country.

------
melipone
Not sure, but I heard that the book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond
addresses this question.

------
crassus
Westerners, and Americans in particular, are very bad at understanding
nationalism. This prevents them from understanding the failure of post-
colonialism.

Throughout Africa and the Middle East we see countries with straight borders
that used to be colonies of Western powers. These powers left and left behind
democratic governments. These governments are plagued by the fact that the
_countries_ they rule over are not _nations_.

A country is a political entity - a set of borders enforced by an army. A
nation is a psycho-social entity. It is a group that people identify with,
normally composed based on ethnic, linguistic, or religious similarity.
Nationhood marks an in-group. Americans have an anti-nationalist, universalist
ideology, so their brains reject this reality to the detriment of the places
their armies occupy.

In most post-colonial countries, there are many different nations within an
arbitrary border. Democracy does not work because the citizens don't see
themselves as the same _people_. When a person gets power in the government,
of course he turns into a "kleptocrat" instead of working for the common good
because he doesn't value the "common good". He values the good of his people.

These post-colonial countries are also prone to civil war. If one ethno-
religious group gets the majority over another, the losing group doesn't see
the government as legitimate. So there is war and genocide. The post-colonial
idealists in the West have done more damage to the world than the colonialists
ever did through the proxy of civil war.

Democracy in the Congo led to decades of Civil War and now we even see Bantus
eating Pygmies[1] - rape, disfigurement, and even cannibalism have become
weapons in a brutal civil war. Likewise, if American troops leave Afghanistan,
we will see a recap of the 90's civil war between the northern and southern
ethnic groups.

There is no "Afghan" people - there are Pashtun and Tajik and Uzbek[2]. And
they were on the tail-end of a civil war before the USA invaded, and now the
USA wants them to _vote together_. What insanity. In an ominous sign, no
Pashtun will join the "national" Afghan army. Putting people within the same
borders and putting a single army in control over them doesn't magically make
them care about each other.

This is leaving behind the absurdity of trying to impose Western norms on an
African continent lacking thousands of years of western history with
literature, law, and democracy. You don't get to Tom Paine without Cato - and
there was a 1700 year process connecting the two. Western thinking about the
rest of the world is full of unicorns and pixie dust.

[1]
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/09/congo.jamesasti...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/09/congo.jamesastill)

[2]
[http://origins.osu.edu/sites/default/files/2-12-map586.jpg](http://origins.osu.edu/sites/default/files/2-12-map586.jpg)

~~~
phreeza
I lived in Zambia for a year around 2005, and my impression was that this
'nation-building' is one thing that Kaunda did really quite well. There is a
strong sense of identity of being Zambian in parallel to the tribal identity.
One way of achieving this was stationing secondary school students(almost all
secondary schools are boarding schools) and young public employees (and in 70s
quasi-socialist Zambia almost everyone with a job was a public employee) in
regions other that their original tribal region. As a result, very many people
married into different tribes, and very many people now have several tribal
identites, which as a result aren't very strong.

Also they are indoctrinated that 'tribalism' is a bad thing, and they learn a
lot about Bismarck in school. There is also a bantu language that isn't really
associated with one of the major tribes but is a kind of lingua franca beside
english in the urban centres.

~~~
eru
Why Bismarck?

~~~
6ren
Because
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck)
unified Germany (I guess).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification)
of China was more significant, I think, but via war.

Counterexample:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization)

~~~
phreeza
Yes I believe that is the reason. Not a perfect analogy but I guess the point
is that a nation can be united from what used to be a collection of fiefdoms.

~~~
eru
I guess Italy would be a better comparison, because that didn't used to be a
nation. Germany was united by culture and language for a while. (Only 1 in 40
people spoke what later became standard Italian upon unification.)

But I guess Germany is the more aspiring role model.

------
Kudzu_Bob
Zambia is poor because it never had an Ice Age.

~~~
krapp
explain?

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
Observation is prior to explanation. Compile a list of countries good at
wealth-creation. Then make another list of the ones where people went through
Ice Age conditions. Now compare them.

~~~
ufo
Correlation does not equal causation.

------
hartator
Anyone care for a little tdlr; ?

~~~
curtis
It's a little long for a TLDR, but:

> The only thing I’m able to conclude after my trip here is that it’s
> incredibly difficult for a poor country to go about getting un-poor. Just
> when you think you’ve got the right narrative, another one comes bursting
> out of the footnotes. It’s the informality. No, it’s the taxes. No, it’s the
> mining companies. No, it’s the regulators.

> And that’s what makes fixing it so difficult. Does Zambia need better
> schools? Debt relief? Microfinance? Nicer mining companies? Better laws?
> Stronger enforcement? Yes. All of them. And all at the same time.

> You can’t fix the land issues without tackling the corruption. You can’t fix
> the corruption without tackling the politics. You can’t fix the politics
> without addressing the culture. Thomas’ family told him his nephews didn’t
> need to be in school. From their perspective, that’s not totally irrational.
> In a country with so few formal jobs and so much competition for getting
> them, I can see how spending hundreds of hours, thousands of kwachas, on
> education would seem superfluous. Thomas’ daughter wants to become a lawyer.
> You could almost forgive Thomas if he told her that the bar exam failure
> rate is more than 90 percent, so what’s the use?

~~~
curtis
Shortly thereafter, the author also writes:

> A week after I leave Lusaka, I meet a Zambian expat in Zimbabwe. She left
> Lusaka four years ago, and she says every time she returns, there are more
> cars, more roads, more restaurants, bars, gyms, decent cappuccinos.

> I tell her that in Lusaka I saw construction cranes on the horizon in every
> direction.

> “It’s all malls,” she says. “Zambians love to go to the goddamn mall.”

> That’s not the only reason for optimism. Inflation is down to seven percent
> from 20 percent last decade. International investors pledged $750 million
> last year to build infrastructure. The new draft of the constitution limits
> presidential powers and confronts the MP-hopping problem. Fundamentally,
> Zambia is a stable country sitting on top of an El Dorado of fertile land
> and lucrative minerals. In the long run, things will probably get better.

