My historical research and essays. Some of the articles may no longer represent my current views and exist here as a record.
This article came to my attention years later (2022) and successfully debunks Sen’s methodology by refuting his statistics. Sen uses forecasts, not actual production records to prove his point. But in actual fact, there was a drastic food shortage. The famine was not man-made, but caused by many natural disasters. The human reaction was going …
In 1964, Kenya gained its independence under the Kenyan African National Union (KANU), led by Jomo Kenyatta. Since then, the country has faced similar problems to much of Africa. Two primary approaches have arisen to explain Kenya’s political and economic crisis: the Institutional and the Neopatrimonialism approach. Institutions are defined as the formal and informal …
Read more “Was the failure of Kenya Institutional or Neopatrimonial?”
The Chinese Famine, despite much research and study, still confuses many. For two decades, the Chinese state covered it up.[1] Even now, researchers must rely on state data.[2] In response to the difficulty of finding trustworthy statistics, many researchers aim to adjust statistics, using a toolset of comparative stats and other factors, while others turn …
Development, despites its deceptively simple name, has no singular discourse or meaning. To many, it refers to the growth of a country’s economy – a state-led drive to improve indicators such as Gross National Product (GNP).[1] This view is problematic. It poses development as a nihilistic venture, with no humane ends. In contrast to these …
Read more “Humanising Development with Sen’s Enhancement of Capability”
An economy is ultimately built on trust. If society trusts the system, then the system will remain. In the latter half of the 20th century, after a Golden Age of economic prosperity, the system of many capitalist countries began to collapse[1]. The economic policy of these nations was termed the ‘Keynesian Consensus’ (KC) – a …
Kaoru Sugihara (2013) argues that industrialisation can be viewed as two distinctive paths – the Western Path and the Asian Path. The Western Path is that seen in European industrialisation, while the Asian Path is that identified for East Asian industrialisers (specifically Japan). This essay will be contrasting the paths in terms of the historical …
Come 1984, Escom (Escom and Eskom will be used interchangeably) was flagging. In response to protests against the electricity monopoly, then president, PW Botha, appointed the De Villiers Commission of Inquiry to investigate solutions to the institutions problems.[1] This Commission had the fundamental purpose of restructuring the management of Escom to transform the institution into …
Read more “Eskom’s Implementation of the De Villiers Commission”
During the 20th century, nations from the regions of East Asia, Latin America and Africa all sought to become globally competitive through industrialisation. Some, like the East Asian Tigers, succeeded while others experienced tumultuous results (Latin America) or did not achieve development at all (Africa). This essay will be comparing each region and their general …
Read more “Comparing Developmental Paths in East Asia, Latin America and Africa”
The study of the Brazilian state’s role in industrialisation has been split into two contested focuses: the ‘Entrepreneurial State’ (ES) and Important Substitution Industrialisation (ISI). Kesidou (2004) argues that the former theory is more important in examining the state and industrialisation in Brazil. This essay is in no way implying that either ES or ISI …
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) had an integral role in Post-WW2 Japanese economic development. While it is inaccurate to have called Japan a planned economy, during this era, it was definitely not a laissez faire economy. MITI had an important role in not only determining the route of Japan’s development, but in …