Africa: Quo Vadis?

Two recent articles take interesting looks at the futures of market dominant minorities in Africa. The first, from The Economist, looks at one market dominant minority that is leaving the continent:

A decade-and-a-half after the end of apartheid, violent crime is pushing more and more whites out of South Africa. Exactly how many are leaving is impossible to say. Few admit that they are quitting for good, and the government does not collect the necessary statistics. But large white South African diasporas, both English- and Afrikaans-speaking, have sprouted in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and many cities of North America. Economist

An interesting look at the last great European market dominant minority in Africa, and why it is shrinking away.

The second article describes Africa's up and coming market dominant minority--the Chinese:

China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid advantages of shameless exploitation.

For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, promises of new roads, railways, hospitals and schools - in return for giving Peking a free and tax-free run at Africa's rich resources of oil, minerals and metals.

For the people, there are these wretched leavings, which, miserable as they are, must be better than the near-starvation they otherwise face. _DailyMail

Both articles are well worth reading. If one believes in the "blank slate" hypothesis--that all humans are born with roughly equal aptitudes to learn, work, and excel--one is left to wonder why Africa needs market dominant minorities in the first place? What is wrong with the African people themselves, that they require such outside assistance?

Africa has serious problems that will not be solved by corrupt dealings with outside enterprises. The thugs who rule most African countries will do quite well from these deals, but the people themselves continue to be exploited. That is the way of Africa. The exploiters may change, marginally, but the people themselves carry a much heavier burden than necessary.