The Rational Optimist (P.S.)

by Matt Ridley

Take, therefore, one such typical African country. It is landlocked, drought-prone and has a very high population growth rate. Its people belong to eight different tribes speaking different tongues. When freed from colonial rule in 1966 it had eight miles of paved road (for an area the size of Texas), twenty-two black university graduates, and only 100 secondary school graduates. It was later cursed by a huge diamond mine, crippled by AIDS, devastated by cattle disease, and ruled by one party with little effective opposition. Government spending has remained high; so has wealth inequality. This country, the fourth poorest in the entire world in 1950, has every one of Africa’s curses. Its failure was inevitable and predictable. But Botswana did not fail. It succeeded not just moderately well, but spectacularly. In the thirty years after independence it grew its per capita GDP faster on average (nearly 8 per cent) than any other country in the entire world – faster than Japan, China, South Korea and America during that period. It multiplied its per capita income thirteen times so that its average citizens are now richer than Thais, Bulgarians or Peruvians. It has had no coups, civil wars or dictators. It has experienced no hyperinflation or debt default. It did not wipe out its elephants. It is consistently the most successful economy in the world in recent decades.