You closed on the right note. Supply is not the problem. Under capitalism, it is never the problem. Demand is. Half a dozen East Asian nations took advantage of the growth of the US and European markets in an age of unparalleled growth in the period 1950-1988 and churned out huge amounts of consumer goods that First World corporations no longer wanted to make using union labour in the advanced capitalist world. If anyone hasn't noticed, except for China and India (which have fairly large internal markets and powrful state apparatuses) the "tigers" ain't what they used to be, especially Indonesia and Thailand. Their overheated economies melted down like Three Mile Island in the late 1990s and they have not matched their pre-1999 growth rates since. The question is, who would absorb the excess production that an African "economic miracle" would generate? All good businessmen (but almost no economists) ask one simple question before they invest: what's my market? Businessmen who depend on Say's Law that every product generates its own demand go out of business quick. You have to know who you are selling to, and the likelihood that they will buy. Too bad you can never find a Harvard or Standford-trained economist who gets it (they prefer blaming the victims of the global order and spouting free market balderdash).

The PRC considers Soros a criminal for instigating the Asian financial crash in the mid 90's. There's a publication from the PLA (army of the PLC) called 'Unrestricted Warfare' (available for free online) which states that.

I think the answer to James Levy's point about who is to consume the supply is staring us in the face. If it's Africa time to rise up via supplying the world, the most ready consumers of cheap finished products will be the economies in Asia that at time will have moved on to bigger and better things. This might not happen tomorrow, but given enough time this could happen. Economic progress is not a zero sum game.

All the Asian Tigers defied neoliberal principles in one way or another. When they finally adopted some, that led to problems in the late 90s, which set quite an example.

Africa and Latin America are the parts of the world that have been most thoroughly subject to neoliberalism. The answer is obvious.

Factories, unlike neoMarxist rhetoric, don't spring up full blown overnight. Nor is it a simple matter of 'Just sprinkle freedom and aid around liberally' and have them pop out of the ground like Mangoes.

Productive capacity needs all of the following:

Capital

A work force

An educated work force

An educational system

A system of enforceable contract law

A way to moderate or limit corruption

A credit market

A transportation system

Industrial raw support inputs e.g. electricity, water, motor oil

And probably a few other things. Asia didn't spontaneously erupt in industrialization w/o those things. Those components were already in place. In fact if you want to make an anti globalist tear out their dreadlocks, point out that one factor most of those countries have in common is a traditionally English speaking educational system based on tried and true colonialism. India, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, East Africa for the most part flew the Union Jack or the banner of the Greater East India company. Whereas Angola, Mozambique, Congo, C.A.R, Algeria, Viet Nam were run by the Portugese, Belgians and French, notorious for their neglect.

No if you want to build an exportable washing machine then you need first to be able to integrate manufacturing operations into a business culture that reduces investor risk enough so that they can establish operations. No one's going to, for example build cars in Egypt if they don't know even if there is a court system that can redress conflicts without running the risk of good old fashioned populist neo Marxist nationalization.

Andrew,

You're missing the point by a wide margin! The issue is not CAN AFRICA BE MORE LIKE CHINA, the issue is can Africa exploit its development blueprint based on its unique social, cultural and economic milieu? The following article answers that question succinctly:

http://www.diamonds.net/news/NewsItem.aspx?ArticleID=17862

In a nutshell, Africa cannot duplicate China. What Africa can do and is doing is fuel the emerging economies of the world by transforming a primary commodity based model in to industry and services. One need only look at the current rapprochement between Africa and China to understand the dynamics of this new relationship. Much hot air has been expended on criticizing China's voracious appetite for Africa's raw materials; again this is missing the bigger picture. As Donald Kaberuka of the African Development Bank pointed out, the problem with China's investment is that there is not enough of it! Definitely the Chinese are coming for raw materials but more importantly they are coming to exploit a lucrative market for their products and services. Many African countries are already exploiting Chinese investments in agri-business, industry and infrastructure to finance value addition in their commodity supply chain and export products that are in demand in these 'manufacturing hubs.' From minerals to agricultural produce, the goal is trade with China, India, Brazil, Russia, Timbuktu or what have you that ensures Africans take as big a stake in control of the entire production and distribution process as is possible. And in the process, African economies can increasingly diversify in to the services sectors. And definitely cheap Chinese imports stifle the fledgling manufacturing sector, but even here Africans are getting smarter......countries are beginning to co-invest with China in terms of domestic production so that rather than going head to head with China they can find a niche in its production and distribution network or take South Africa that successfully negotiated trade quotas in exchange for other investments.

In terms of a lucrative market, there is a good nexus between the aims of the emerging Chinese SME sector and the fledgling African one. Before the Chinese SME can cater to the sophisticated Western tastes it must first hone and fine tune its product and service offering, where do you think they are going to incubate and innovate?