📖 Lessons from Thomas Sowell: How Wealth, Poverty and Politics Explains 🇨🇲 Cameroon’s Underdevelopment

What Sowell’s global insights reveal about the roots of Cameroon’s challenges — and the reforms that could unlock its path to prosperity.

In today’s world, where economic disparities dominate public discourse, Thomas Sowell’s Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective (revised edition, 2016) offers a clear yet nuanced way of thinking about prosperity and stagnation. Sowell, an economist and social theorist, argues that wealth is not merely the product of luck 🍀, exploitation 🛑, or natural resource endowment ⛏, but the result of a complex interplay between 🌍 geography, 🎭 culture, 👩‍🏫 human capital, and 🏛 politics. He draws on global case studies—from Japan’s rapid modernization 🇯🇵 to the enduring success of immigrant groups like the overseas Chinese 🇨🇳—to show that societies that deliberately cultivate productive habits and institutions can overcome historical disadvantages. His central message is that lasting prosperity cannot be manufactured through redistribution 🔄 or blame; it must be earned through continuous investment in productivity and innovation ⚙️.

For 🇨🇲 Cameroon, a nation of more than 28 million people in Central Africa, Sowell’s insights resonate with uncomfortable clarity. Rich in oil 🛢, timber 🌲, cocoa 🍫, and minerals ⛰, Cameroon nevertheless remains constrained by systemic poverty, corruption 💰, and conflict ⚔️. From the vibrant markets of Douala 🏙 to the drought-prone plains of the Far North 🌾, the daily reality for many Cameroonians is shaped by challenges that are often seen as inevitable. Yet, as Sowell might argue, these are not unchangeable conditions; they are, in large part, the consequence of internal factors that can be addressed. His framework invites a shift in focus—from external scapegoats such as colonialism’s legacy 📜 to the internal reforms 🔧 that can spark genuine transformation.

Sowell’s first key insight is that geography matters, but it is not destiny. Physical landscapes can either facilitate 🚢 or constrain 📉 trade, innovation, and connectivity. Europe’s navigable rivers, for instance, spurred commerce and industrial growth, while isolated or landlocked regions often fell behind unless they invested in overcoming their natural constraints. Cameroon’s geography offers both opportunities and obstacles. Its fertile volcanic soils 🌋 and Atlantic coastline 🌊 are potential engines for agricultural and maritime trade, yet vast swathes of the country remain cut off by poor roads 🛣 and limited infrastructure 🏗. Farmers in the mountainous Northwest often struggle to get cocoa to market on time, echoing Sowell’s warning that without deliberate investment in transportation and infrastructure, geography can become a silent barrier to prosperity.

Culture, for Sowell, can either be a society’s greatest asset 💎 or a silent obstacle to its progress. In Cameroon’s case, cultural diversity—more than 250 ethnic groups—should be a strength. Yet, in practice, ethnic loyalties and tribal politics often take precedence over national cohesion 🤝. In urban centers like Douala, the entrepreneurial spirit of communities such as the Bamileke shows how values of thrift 💰, hard work 💪, and risk-taking 🚀 can generate wealth even in challenging conditions. By contrast, in some rural areas, resistance to modern farming methods 🚜, coupled with dependency on aid 🎁, reinforces cycles of low productivity. For Sowell, cultures that reward initiative and adaptability tend to break free from poverty, while those that normalize inefficiency or dependency remain stagnant.

No society, Sowell insists, can truly prosper without investing in its people 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦. Human capital—skills, education, and health 🏥—is the ultimate wealth generator. This is where Cameroon faces a profound challenge. The World Bank estimates that a child born in Cameroon today will reach only 40% of their full productivity potential due to deficits in schooling 📚, nutrition, and healthcare 🩺. In the Anglophone regions, the education crisis is even more severe, with years of school closures 🚫 leaving a generation of children disadvantaged. Sowell’s prescription, drawn from the example of the “Asian Tigers” 🐅, is clear: invest heavily in practical education and vocational training that directly feed into productive sectors such as agro-processing 🌽, manufacturing 🏭, and technology 💻.

Politics, in Sowell’s analysis, is the decisive factor that can either accelerate ⏩ or derail 🛑 development. Stable and transparent governance builds trust and invites investment 💼; corruption and divisive policies erode both. Under President Paul Biya’s decades-long rule, Cameroon’s corruption ranking remains among the lowest globally, and rent-seeking around oil revenues continues to privilege elites over the wider population. Conflict—whether the Anglophone crisis in the west or Boko Haram’s incursions in the north—has drained resources 💸 and undermined security. Sowell warns that political systems which foster dependency, reward loyalty over merit, and avoid accountability inevitably stifle innovation and production.

To illustrate that such obstacles can be overcome, Sowell points to Scotland’s transformation 🏴 between the 17th and 19th centuries. Once one of Europe’s poorest and most geographically disadvantaged regions, Scotland reoriented itself through a cultural embrace of education 🎓, the spread of literacy after the Reformation, and integration into larger markets via the 1707 Act of Union with England. These changes unleashed an era of intellectual 💡 and industrial achievement, producing figures such as Adam Smith and James Watt. Crucially, this transformation was not driven by resource endowment but by internal reforms and a culture that prized knowledge 📖 and innovation. For Cameroon, the lesson is direct: with political stability, educational investment, and cultural shifts toward productivity, geographic and historical disadvantages need not dictate the future.

In the end, Sowell’s argument is one of agency 🔑. The road from underdevelopment to prosperity lies in cultivating the internal conditions for growth—connecting remote regions 🗺, fostering productive cultural norms, equipping citizens with market-relevant skills, and reforming governance to reward value creation over rent-seeking. Cameroon’s challenges are real, but so too is its potential. As Sowell would put it, the measure of a society’s future is not in what it has been given, but in what it chooses to produce.

📖 Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective (Thomas Sowell, Revised Edition, 2016) 📚 Get it on Amazon