Thomas Piketty in conversation with the Africa Report
More hereWhat about industrialisation? How difficult would that be given that, as you point out, 20% of African capital is held by foreigners. Does it complicate matters?
image courtesy of Wikipedia
Foreign investment is complicated – it's like a drug or slow poison. It can be useful as long as it doesn't take proportions that are too large. When you have a significant part of your capital owned by foreign entities, it often leads to cycles of political tensions and big political cycles with groups either supporting the foreign owners, sometimes in a very unfair and inequitable manner, and sometimes expropriating the foreign ownership in a way that is not so efficient. I think it's important to realise that basically no country in history has become rich through foreign investment.
