The West might take a lot of Africa's cognitive elites for itself, but criticizing this would in large part assume that smart people are the properties of their birth/home countries, which I strongly disagree with.
Honestly, I think it's the left recycling the old arguments against colonialism--Britain and France really did benefit from exploiting the third world--and not bothering to notice when you swap out the villains and move into the future the argument doesn't really work anymore.
Man, there is so much straw-manning here. First, I am not myself well-read on uneven exchange concept but it is crucial to that view of "underdevelopment" or "dependency" theories. Second, I think people usually complain that the West developed by ways that are not readily available for other countries (degrees of protectionism, exploitation of cheap resources and labor during colonization (basically military conquests) and etc.), the real problem is that the West refuses mostly to acknowledge this in discussing the development in africa and more importantly, some advantages enjoyed by the West today (immaterial institutions like law or market or democracy or physical ones like buildings, factories, sanitation, internet (at the beginning)) took years and arrangements that spilled over socially like in education and health care and their connection to existing private sector and proper endogenous governance institutions. Usually, Africa is forced on fast-pace development that ignores the formation of human capital and also proper product development (it takes 3 years for a market to adapt a practice 10 years for government project and 25 years for academia to produce) (also read the book about how regionalism rules not globalism). Third specifically, a big problem with US is its stringent refusal for global regulations that is consistent because of power politics (from war on terror to wto trade liberalization to climate change to the pandemics to social media networks) and it plays out internally in US in form of libertarianism (sometimes it requires to be authoritarian to achieve en masse liberty). Fourth, US kills cultures under liberal tenets and killing cultures distort realities of people without subsquent fast material improvement (read politics of the governed by Chatterjee)
First, even if we accept the premise (which I find implausible) that the $17 billion in exports from Africa to the United States is exploitation due to "uneven exchange", the United States donates over $17 billion to Africa in humanitarian aid every year. So it's hard to see howthe US exploits Africa on net.
Second, let's accept your story (which I find implausible) about how the West developed. Even if it were the case that Britain could only acquire the steam engine and other industrial technologies via protectionism and colonization, it's not like Africa has to also do protectionsim and colonization to get technology. The technologies are already available.
Third, if a big problem for Africa is stringent refusal to create consistent global regulations, then why isn't it a big problem for other countries? There were no consistent global regulations during the time when the West developed, and by your stipulation there aren't any now.
Fourth, let's accept your story that exposure to American liberalism kills cultures. How does that explain why the countries with cultures getting replaced by American liberalism are poorer than America? America's culture is American liberalism.
For the first part, a) humanitarian aid is different from the business relations that govern factors of production because humanitarian aid is subject to a. very different calculus than using resources (human or non-human) for production.
b) donating money for getting favors through entrenched networks of crony capitalism (like in Egypt) or serving your interest geopolitically is no different than giving fish without teaching someone how to fish (read Sarah Smierciaks' Cronyism and Elite Capture in Egypt From Businessmen Cabinet to Military Inc.)
c) the damage (cost) caused by US companies' current mode of production and operation on the social, political and economic sphere is not equivalent to the amount they receive, it is much lower (similar to inflation and interest rates in a country). Second, the material damage already caused by colonization is not repatriated at fast rate to solve the issues left from that era.
Second, a) colonization made resources cheap (human labor and commodities) to travel and use on scale due to non-existence of nation-states that intervene in the economy and have certain obligations to its citizens (these obligations are copy-pasted from the Western World because back then, there was labor coercion and people there were treated as subjects). The relative price of commodities to the production process is not replicable now (because the production process has gotten more complicated over time and second, the accessibility of that within the nation-state and modern world paradigm has been much complicated). b) let's take the example of a smartphone (what stops africa from making a smartphone and export it?), first, most of technology details is owned by private companies (not publicly available as you make it). Second, how can I produce a smartphone if I do not have the basics done for me (electricity, food, housing, roads and education). Second, the incentives for working for multinationals on individual basis is rational (although on the collective it is bad) because the infrastructure there is laid out for me (there is not starting from scratch there), it is financially better and there is existing market for people wanting to buy the smartphone I am working on. Even if africa did produce a comparable good product (in the range of Samsung), would it possible to appeal to the European market or American market over their own multinationals? of course not and more importantly, if it succeeds at home, it means that the US multinationals will lose a lot of money because the african market (the developed parts) used to buy already american products so it is a two-way no for the incentive of production of a sophisticated good like that. A clear example is what is happening now with chinese EVs as it indicate clearly that the West is not keen on accepting a better competitor and using non-market institutions to protect its advantage.
Third, regulations now exist (unlike during the time of development of West, and it adds technical burden (administrative and technological) to the ability to produce and generate surplus within time horizon (during west time, you could produce garbage and sell it, but consumers are now more literate and expects certain standard which makes production process much hard), but they are not applied consistently and fairly. Regulations in broad sense refer to standards, for example, if we put standards on how what a good product should contain (because of expected environmental and social risk) then it is important that these regulations are applied consistently (not merely they exist). Consistent regulations ensure that the market is not rigged and it is socially beneficial for humans. For example, (correct me if I am wrong) the FDA was created because some sellers manipulated the market and sold essentially rotten food because of price. This had welfare implications on the society, and this welfare affected the economy and future production (because of its effect as unhealthy population grows and strains other aspects of the economy). These pre-conditions for capital accumulation now is a big problem for other countries as well, the difference is that they received most of US (along with the amount) funding at different time of history like Asia during coldwar or Europe post World War II. This is not replicable by definition and more importantly, the history of racism in US played part in how blacks are seen in the society. In fact, regulations also played an important in enabling mass production and thus the accumulation of capital (without regulation, most competitive markets would not exist and oligopolistic markets (derived from competitive market) would not exist. Also, without regulations and institutions, there would be a lot of rent-seeking (unlike in the West because rule of law is becoming part of the society).
Fourth, Is all american culture liberal or only high-culture? by that I mean, there is a very big conservative rural culture in US and a lot of christian missionaries operate in Africa on that basis (read The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People). Second, american liberalism affect the social preferences which makes it hard from a mass market to occur (which could have been possible under homogenous culture). For example, if american movies are portraying certain social norms, it makes people rebellious in their own culture, so you end up (like in the most of Africa) dual society and the problem with that is taking away the predicability of the market. For the most part, markets require predictability (and a bit of innovation), without stable social and political culture (that is endogenous), capital would not be accumulated in the same way as countries with stable culture.
The West might take a lot of Africa's cognitive elites for itself, but criticizing this would in large part assume that smart people are the properties of their birth/home countries, which I strongly disagree with.
Honestly, I think it's the left recycling the old arguments against colonialism--Britain and France really did benefit from exploiting the third world--and not bothering to notice when you swap out the villains and move into the future the argument doesn't really work anymore.
Man, there is so much straw-manning here. First, I am not myself well-read on uneven exchange concept but it is crucial to that view of "underdevelopment" or "dependency" theories. Second, I think people usually complain that the West developed by ways that are not readily available for other countries (degrees of protectionism, exploitation of cheap resources and labor during colonization (basically military conquests) and etc.), the real problem is that the West refuses mostly to acknowledge this in discussing the development in africa and more importantly, some advantages enjoyed by the West today (immaterial institutions like law or market or democracy or physical ones like buildings, factories, sanitation, internet (at the beginning)) took years and arrangements that spilled over socially like in education and health care and their connection to existing private sector and proper endogenous governance institutions. Usually, Africa is forced on fast-pace development that ignores the formation of human capital and also proper product development (it takes 3 years for a market to adapt a practice 10 years for government project and 25 years for academia to produce) (also read the book about how regionalism rules not globalism). Third specifically, a big problem with US is its stringent refusal for global regulations that is consistent because of power politics (from war on terror to wto trade liberalization to climate change to the pandemics to social media networks) and it plays out internally in US in form of libertarianism (sometimes it requires to be authoritarian to achieve en masse liberty). Fourth, US kills cultures under liberal tenets and killing cultures distort realities of people without subsquent fast material improvement (read politics of the governed by Chatterjee)
First, even if we accept the premise (which I find implausible) that the $17 billion in exports from Africa to the United States is exploitation due to "uneven exchange", the United States donates over $17 billion to Africa in humanitarian aid every year. So it's hard to see howthe US exploits Africa on net.
Second, let's accept your story (which I find implausible) about how the West developed. Even if it were the case that Britain could only acquire the steam engine and other industrial technologies via protectionism and colonization, it's not like Africa has to also do protectionsim and colonization to get technology. The technologies are already available.
Third, if a big problem for Africa is stringent refusal to create consistent global regulations, then why isn't it a big problem for other countries? There were no consistent global regulations during the time when the West developed, and by your stipulation there aren't any now.
Fourth, let's accept your story that exposure to American liberalism kills cultures. How does that explain why the countries with cultures getting replaced by American liberalism are poorer than America? America's culture is American liberalism.
For the first part, a) humanitarian aid is different from the business relations that govern factors of production because humanitarian aid is subject to a. very different calculus than using resources (human or non-human) for production.
b) donating money for getting favors through entrenched networks of crony capitalism (like in Egypt) or serving your interest geopolitically is no different than giving fish without teaching someone how to fish (read Sarah Smierciaks' Cronyism and Elite Capture in Egypt From Businessmen Cabinet to Military Inc.)
c) the damage (cost) caused by US companies' current mode of production and operation on the social, political and economic sphere is not equivalent to the amount they receive, it is much lower (similar to inflation and interest rates in a country). Second, the material damage already caused by colonization is not repatriated at fast rate to solve the issues left from that era.
Second, a) colonization made resources cheap (human labor and commodities) to travel and use on scale due to non-existence of nation-states that intervene in the economy and have certain obligations to its citizens (these obligations are copy-pasted from the Western World because back then, there was labor coercion and people there were treated as subjects). The relative price of commodities to the production process is not replicable now (because the production process has gotten more complicated over time and second, the accessibility of that within the nation-state and modern world paradigm has been much complicated). b) let's take the example of a smartphone (what stops africa from making a smartphone and export it?), first, most of technology details is owned by private companies (not publicly available as you make it). Second, how can I produce a smartphone if I do not have the basics done for me (electricity, food, housing, roads and education). Second, the incentives for working for multinationals on individual basis is rational (although on the collective it is bad) because the infrastructure there is laid out for me (there is not starting from scratch there), it is financially better and there is existing market for people wanting to buy the smartphone I am working on. Even if africa did produce a comparable good product (in the range of Samsung), would it possible to appeal to the European market or American market over their own multinationals? of course not and more importantly, if it succeeds at home, it means that the US multinationals will lose a lot of money because the african market (the developed parts) used to buy already american products so it is a two-way no for the incentive of production of a sophisticated good like that. A clear example is what is happening now with chinese EVs as it indicate clearly that the West is not keen on accepting a better competitor and using non-market institutions to protect its advantage.
Third, regulations now exist (unlike during the time of development of West, and it adds technical burden (administrative and technological) to the ability to produce and generate surplus within time horizon (during west time, you could produce garbage and sell it, but consumers are now more literate and expects certain standard which makes production process much hard), but they are not applied consistently and fairly. Regulations in broad sense refer to standards, for example, if we put standards on how what a good product should contain (because of expected environmental and social risk) then it is important that these regulations are applied consistently (not merely they exist). Consistent regulations ensure that the market is not rigged and it is socially beneficial for humans. For example, (correct me if I am wrong) the FDA was created because some sellers manipulated the market and sold essentially rotten food because of price. This had welfare implications on the society, and this welfare affected the economy and future production (because of its effect as unhealthy population grows and strains other aspects of the economy). These pre-conditions for capital accumulation now is a big problem for other countries as well, the difference is that they received most of US (along with the amount) funding at different time of history like Asia during coldwar or Europe post World War II. This is not replicable by definition and more importantly, the history of racism in US played part in how blacks are seen in the society. In fact, regulations also played an important in enabling mass production and thus the accumulation of capital (without regulation, most competitive markets would not exist and oligopolistic markets (derived from competitive market) would not exist. Also, without regulations and institutions, there would be a lot of rent-seeking (unlike in the West because rule of law is becoming part of the society).
Fourth, Is all american culture liberal or only high-culture? by that I mean, there is a very big conservative rural culture in US and a lot of christian missionaries operate in Africa on that basis (read The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People). Second, american liberalism affect the social preferences which makes it hard from a mass market to occur (which could have been possible under homogenous culture). For example, if american movies are portraying certain social norms, it makes people rebellious in their own culture, so you end up (like in the most of Africa) dual society and the problem with that is taking away the predicability of the market. For the most part, markets require predictability (and a bit of innovation), without stable social and political culture (that is endogenous), capital would not be accumulated in the same way as countries with stable culture.