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An interesting critical Analysis of a book entitled \"How the Tropics Underdeveloped the Negro: A Questioning Theory of Development by Prof Willie J Okowa of the University of Portharcourt, Nigeria.
In searching for the exact reasons why Africa is confronted with development challenges. I scripted it

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English

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African (General) British (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)

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Hey, welcome to polynomial X. I'm poor lady. This is the first recording on critical analysis of development literature and my first pick as the book entitled how the tropics under developed the ***** a question and theory of development by Professor Willy jay Ochoa of the Department of Economics investor report occurred River State Nigeria. The development Economics literature How the tropics and developed the ***** question and theory of development is by every measure an excellent book because the author summoned the courage to do the difficult task of picking holds and the conventional wisdom around black Africans and a development with a view to identifying the causes and recommending a remedy. Published in 1996 by paragraph, IX a questioning theory of development expresses the firm position that the causes of Black Africans and the development are not external to wait. In the preface to the book, the author boldly captures the position of his book in this way and I quote, the era of anti imperialism and anti capitalism in our development policy posture must be consigned now to the dustbin of history. And of course now with this, the author has effectively attached the reader to think again if they think that colonialism, imperialism and capitalism are the causes of black africa's unfortunate fates. The question and theory of development is in very many ways and influential development literature, not least, it emanates from black africa. So it is a critical look at self that is devoid of self indulgence and it doesn't plunder in this influential development literature. Professor kua makes his case in a manner that's not only convincing but believable that the conditions, social and economic, but importantly, scientific, technological and generally cultural that defined the collective struggle of Western societies facilitated the industrial revolution and eventual takeoff. Unfortunately, black African societies did not take part in these history long struggles and so do not have the good fortune of having these critical enabling conditions in place to lend support to the development aspirations of these societies. That is so they are taken off for this reason. This influential professor of economics is unapologetically emphatic that black African societies do not have the capacity to successfully and independently undertake modern economic growth. That is to successfully take off. As a consequence, the author recommends that governments of black African societies make conscious deliberate effort to install the ideal political economy environment with a view to attracting foreign capital, foreign investment and foreign know how these are. His exact words and I quote, unless we create the political economy environment that attracts Western capital technology and know how we cannot hope to successfully launch our take off. In the near term end of quote, this conclusion is tight to appoint the author, effectively argued in the book, which is that pure market forces do not exist in black African economies Using historical statistical trends of governmental consumption expenditure as a proportion of GMP the top threat in developing countries and richest in 1958 a year chosen to represent takeoff for these countries averaged 13.8% Astonishingly. This percentage of governmental consumption expenditure was roughly three times the statistical values for developed countries in the takeoff period. The author therefore, relies on the statistical comparison to conclude on the absence of peer market forces in economies in Black Africa, they are being replaced by institutional forces. Professor Komura believes as a result of the excessive governmental involvement in the economies of Black Africa. The author therefore, believes that a better understanding and appreciation of the reality of development challenges of black African societies can emanate only from political economy or institutional analysis, according to him. And I quote, excessive governmental involvement in the economies of many of these countries has introduced significant institutional elements into their operations to a large extent. Therefore, classical market forces have been replaced by an amalgam of market and institutional forces in some sentence, for example, the Nigerian case. The institutional forces have overpowered the market forces. Classical economic analysis based as it is and appear, market system has been therefore, in such certainty reigned at largely relevant only political economy or institutional analysis can help to capture the fundamental essence of the reality. End of quote, I'd like to point out a foremost point of view of the author. This critical phase in a question of fear of development and that is demand sent at consumption of development and underdevelopment in discussing the classical conceptions of development and underdevelopment by the many schools support the author, Hence at a fundamental conceptual inadequacy and the failure of every single one of them to provide a role for man to play. He argues that man is at the center of it all and the development or underdevelopment round about him and should rightly be held accountable for his good or bad faith and the man centered conception of under development and development in it. Man is pitted against his natural environment. Either he tames its or the environment cut short his existence. For man to have the upper hand, he must understand the laws of nature and knowledge of the laws of nature and natural phenomena is known as science and its resultant knowledge known as scientific knowledge. But before one can arrive at scientific knowledge from an understanding of the laws of nature, he must first have the awareness that nature has laws that are irrefutable and potentially beneficial to him. This awareness is known as scientific consciousness. With scientific consciousness and knowledge. Man then is equipped to deliberately device tools and apply these tools to the task of making his harsh natural environment friendly inhabitable. The tools devised by the use of scientific knowledge is therefore known as technology in the man centered conception of development and the development as defined by the author as man's low level of development of the scientific consciousness. Scientific knowledge and technology in relation to another. Man equally hinted as human interactions is another critical aspect to development and said that human interactions must be guided by social laws, just as scientific laws enabled man to effectively deal with nature for developments to naturally results in similar manner. The author talks of the awareness of the existence of social laws. He terms has infra social consciousness, knowledge of the laws, social consciousness and the setting up of institutions to ensure the best use of the laws institutional technology. It categorizes development in terms of the level of development of infra social consciousness, social consciousness and institutional technology. The author therefore concludes that, quote in general then, as societies are developed to the extent in relation to other societies to which its people lack scientific consciousness. Scientific knowledge and technology on the one hand, and infra social consciousness, social consciousness and institutional technology on the other. Now, I'm fascinated by the author's compelling argument that in the pool of forces driving development in black African economies, the institutional forces have held sway to the point of completely overpowering free market forces in some of these economies. Whether peer market or mixed economy, heavy governmental involvement complicates things to the extent that political power holders and policymakers ought to appreciate political economy approach to attract and developments either from governance style, which is generally poor in black african economies or from the uniqueness of developments challenges across the subcontinent, heavy governmental involvement in the economy is a thought in factor for as long as development policy making is filtered to market economy principles. I also deduced from a question and theory of development, that black african economies should tinker with pierre market economics to suit their unique particularities and drive their development agendas, but should be willing to learn from the developed world in the process, whatever that tank crane will result in should have at the heart of it, an economic model driven by science, technology and innovation and the man centered conception of underdevelopment and development. The conventional wisdom that says external factors are the causes of black Africans and the development as humiliating the weekends. In fact, it suffers complete obliteration. It focuses attention rather on the black African and his society as directly and largely responsible for the under development that has plagued him and his society. The author concludes in this regards, and I quote, fundamentally under development and development must be seen in terms of the degree to which societies are able to devise tools naturally and institutionally with which to productively manipulate their environments. End of quote, a society that has the capacity to come up with development technologies and institutions as the tools with which to translate its development dreams to practical reality, will effortlessly exploit another society that doesn't have these capacities. The moment these two societies enter into some sort of economic and political relationship. The reason is simple. The relationship is the most unequal one such that the benefit that accrues to the society with less capacity will be nowhere near what will accrue to the society with the more capacity there will be exploitation even when exploitation is unattended. A question, in theory of development is certainly well researched and therefore original. It is interesting and clearly directed a development policy making in Black Africa. Market forces would like to restate can hardly attract sustained development to Black African economies for a whole host of reasons, all of which can fall into the singular attack of poor governance, but more especially because of excessive governmental involvement in the economy. In fact, the incompatibility of excessive governmental involvement in the economy that is organized around three market principles and a careless bias of development policy making towards market forces will continue to weaken development prospects until it is addressed and to address it requires that development has made an institutional goal rather than a goal of the markets though. Multidimensional in nature, development or the lack of it in Black Africa can be better appreciated the moment mine is placed at the center of it all for as long as the critical preconditions for development are absent in Black Africa. Development will remain elusive. In conclusion, I consider the question in Theory of Development, the one book you must read, it will provoke your thoughts and afford you a totally new perspective the development challenges facing Black Africa. In fact, it blames the victim for its bad faith, but for a good reason