Opening ParagraphA visitor to West Africa today will find most of the conventional trappings of a western civilization. He can travel on trains and in motor-cars and airplanes, and stay at rest-houses equipped with electric light and a flushed toilet. He can visit African homes furnished in the latest western style in which there is refrigeration and cooking is done by electricity. He will see Africans working in shops, offices, and factories, growing crops for foreign consumption, and leasing and renting land. He will visit churches and schools, play outdoor games, attend dances, performances of amateur dramatics, baby shows, and buy a flag for charity—all these activities being organized by Africans. On the other hand, he will also see a majority of Africans living in huts of wattle and daub and of grass, herding cattle, and cultivating their farms and plots with home-made implements, pounding their food in mortars, crossing rivers in dug-out canoes, dancing to the music of wooden drums, and worshipping ancient gods and spirits.
Countries in the hamster’s wheel?: Nurkse- Duesenberry demonstration effects and the determinants of saving.