Burton K Wheeler
The G.O.A.T. That Can't Be Got
- Location
- Tr'ondëk
The World Bank keeps GDP statistics going back to 1960. This is very handy because DRC got its independence in 1961. At the time, per capita GNI was $230 a year. India was $90. After crisis, civil war, and decades of Mobutu's kleptocracy, the country completely collapsed in the 1990's. It's limping along at one notch above "failed state" and despite having had extensive infrastructure development in the 1950's and massive natural resources, its per capita GNI is only twice what it was at independence.
Just to the south is Zambia. It became independent in 1964. Zambia, like DRC, had extensive mineral resources and a large white population working in the industrial sector. Zambia had, in Kenneth Kaunda, a moderate leftist ruler much like the murdered Patrice Lumumba. He struck a balance between opposing colonial regimes and cozying up to the West. The white population was mostly left alone, though a lot left on independence and more trickled out when Kaunda nationalized the mining industry. Kaunda also banned other political parties and ruled for 30 years, but when he left office, there was no civil war, just a peaceful transition to democracy. Other than occasional Rhodesian and South African raids, Zambia was largely untouched by war. Its total economic dependence on copper mining and lack of other industry means economic growth has been a bit cyclic, but its GDP growth has been 2.5 times that of DRC, with GNI growing 3.5 times as fast, from $200 in 1960 to $1360 in 2016 (and rising as high as $1770 when copper prices were higher). Besides copper, Zambia has a fairly well-developed agricultural sector, with a lot of large farm enterprises run by white Zimbabweans and South Africans, who the government has deliberately lured in recent years.
So a Congo that avoids civil war can expect at MINIMUM a GNI the same as India's today (It should be noted that Zambia's poverty rate is almost twice that of India). Zambia is a long way from being a best-case scenario, with its lack of industry outside copper and political corruption. Congo was more industrialized in 1960 and could easily have grown faster than Zambia did. If one posits a peaceful transition of power from Lumumba to his successor and a heavy investment in education, Congo could double Zambia's GNI.
I'm usually leery of making direct comparisons between countries like that, but the similarities between Kaunda and Lumumba caught my eye, so I put numbers in a spreadsheet, like I do when I'm supposed to be working. It's jarring to realize just how much the untenable situation the Belgians created at independence and Mobutu perpetuated messed up the country. A very comparable country became fairly prosperous by African standards just by avoiding war. Everyone here probably knows that China and India were much poorer than Africa in the immediate postwar decades, but analyzing the growth trends side by side makes one realize how bad things could be in, say, China, if warlordism had continued after WWII, or if Deng Xiaoping had failed.
Just to the south is Zambia. It became independent in 1964. Zambia, like DRC, had extensive mineral resources and a large white population working in the industrial sector. Zambia had, in Kenneth Kaunda, a moderate leftist ruler much like the murdered Patrice Lumumba. He struck a balance between opposing colonial regimes and cozying up to the West. The white population was mostly left alone, though a lot left on independence and more trickled out when Kaunda nationalized the mining industry. Kaunda also banned other political parties and ruled for 30 years, but when he left office, there was no civil war, just a peaceful transition to democracy. Other than occasional Rhodesian and South African raids, Zambia was largely untouched by war. Its total economic dependence on copper mining and lack of other industry means economic growth has been a bit cyclic, but its GDP growth has been 2.5 times that of DRC, with GNI growing 3.5 times as fast, from $200 in 1960 to $1360 in 2016 (and rising as high as $1770 when copper prices were higher). Besides copper, Zambia has a fairly well-developed agricultural sector, with a lot of large farm enterprises run by white Zimbabweans and South Africans, who the government has deliberately lured in recent years.
So a Congo that avoids civil war can expect at MINIMUM a GNI the same as India's today (It should be noted that Zambia's poverty rate is almost twice that of India). Zambia is a long way from being a best-case scenario, with its lack of industry outside copper and political corruption. Congo was more industrialized in 1960 and could easily have grown faster than Zambia did. If one posits a peaceful transition of power from Lumumba to his successor and a heavy investment in education, Congo could double Zambia's GNI.
I'm usually leery of making direct comparisons between countries like that, but the similarities between Kaunda and Lumumba caught my eye, so I put numbers in a spreadsheet, like I do when I'm supposed to be working. It's jarring to realize just how much the untenable situation the Belgians created at independence and Mobutu perpetuated messed up the country. A very comparable country became fairly prosperous by African standards just by avoiding war. Everyone here probably knows that China and India were much poorer than Africa in the immediate postwar decades, but analyzing the growth trends side by side makes one realize how bad things could be in, say, China, if warlordism had continued after WWII, or if Deng Xiaoping had failed.