[lbo-talk] [DEBATE] : (Fwd) Doug Henwood on elite climate change strategy

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Apr 24 07:24:27 PDT 2007


Patrick:

Yeah, but you're missing the main point. We don't have electricity or water/sanitation grids in Africa because as they are constructed - usually with generation, transmission and distribution capex paid for with aid or a damn World Bank or AfDB loan - they quickly fall into disrepair. The simple reason is that operating and maintenance costs cannot be met (because the loan-pushers doing the planning were too optimistic), since in most cases the people paying for these utilities are too poor to afford their short-run marginal cost. If you don't

[WS:] No, I am not missing that point at all. I am pretty well aware of the fact the much of Africa does not have an economy that can sustain its population. It is not possible to look at the energy problem outside that larger context.

Your solution to this problem seems to be Robin-Hoodism - taking it from the rich to give handouts to the poor. I can understand that this trope has a certain populist appeal, but it is essentially a fairy tale. First, it is politically DOA. But even if by some odd chance someone tried to implement, it would a sure recipe for a disaster. Zimbabwe is a case in point. Feeding up beggars with manna falling from the sky or miraculously multiplied bread and fish makes good x-tian fairy tales - but it is just that, a fairy tale.

My solution o or rather humble suggestion is to limit consumption and increase investment to create an economy that can sustain the population - not just in energy production but roads, production plants and above human capital.

One more thing. You seem to believe that Africa's problems are foreign-made, while I believe that they are home-made. I am very well familiar with that cultural trope, which was very popular when I lived in Poland. If you believed the, , Poland would have been another America if it were not for the Soviet Union. In reality, it was mostly a pre-modern rural society propelled to the 20th century by the Soviet-made economic policies (which btw emphasized investment and curbed consumption, just as the structural adjustment programs are trying to accomplish!) that brought it on a par with the rest of Europe. But instead of thanking the Soviets, Polish nationalists and populists blamed them for their own ineptitude, corruption, and greed. It was an easy thing to do - sit on the government guaranteed sinecure, do nothing and bitch that the manna is not falling from the sky in sufficient quantities. It was all the Soviets' fault.

Now fast forward to 2007, and the bums still sit on their fat asses, do nothing, blame the communists that have been gone for almost 20 years, and bitch that EU manna is not falling from the sky in sufficient quantities. Sorry, comrade, but I just ain't buying this trope of "them robbing us" so "we have to rob them to get what rightfully ours," whether it is Eastern Europe or any other part of the world. It is nothing but ethnocentric fairy tales spoon-fed to ignorant people by unscrupulous politicians and demagogues.

We have to agree to disagree on that.

Wojtek



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