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 THE TIME -
TRAVELLING
ECONOMIST
WHY EDUCATION,
ELECTRICIT Y AND
FERTILIT Y ARE KEY TO
ESCAPING POVERT Y
CH A RLIE ROBERTSON
 The Time-Travelling Economist

“interesting new approach to low income development, highlighting why India

can boom for decades”
—Suresh Prabhu, India’s minister of Civil Aviation (2018–19),
Commerce and Industry (2017–19), Railways (2014–17),
Power (2000–2002)

“I have listened to and read several presentations by Charles Robertson. It is

always amazing how much he captures his audiences’ attention and leaves them
in deep thought, thereafter.
I am sure he will do exactly the same with this book.”
—Dr Shamsuddeen Usman, Nigeria’s Minister of planning (2009–11),
Minister of Finance (2007–09), deputy governor
of the Central Bank of Nigeria (1999–2007)
 Charlie Robertson

The Time-Travelling
Economist
Why Education, Electricity
and Fertility Are Key to Escaping
Poverty
Charlie Robertson
London, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-97596-8    ISBN 978-3-030-97597-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97597-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgements

This book owes a great deal to many people. Firstly, my past and present
macro-strategy colleagues, most obviously Yvonne Mhango, Vikram
Lopez, Daniel Salter and Artem Chubarov. Most of the tables and charts
only exist because of Vikram and Artem.
Also the broader research team, past colleagues and current, including
Nothando Ndebele, Adesoji Solanke, Ahmed Hafez, Ryan Ayache, Seki
Mutukwa, Roy Mutoni, Greg Smith, Johann Pretorius and Oni
Oluwatoyosi.
In offices across Africa over the last decade, I need to thank Temi
Popoola, Stanley Kariuki, Dan Ugwuoke, Yvonne Ike, David Dalhuisen,
Dela Wosornu, Abi Ajisafe and Sam Sule, and in London also Mark
Reed, head of sales trading, who actually reads and has provided thought-­
provoking feedback on my research for many years.
Much appreciation is owed to Anna Vyshlova and Ruslan Babaev for
granting me the time to put this book together and helping provide such
excellent colleagues to work with. Also to Stephen Jennings who inspired
me to join Renaissance Capital and ensured we published the Fastest
Billion, and Ben Samuels who broadened my view to Asia too.  
I owe profound gratitude to Michiko Fox, who helped so much in the
early stages of the book. And I have a debt to Sarah Wangare Kinyanjui,
who was good enough to read and argue with me about many of the
chapters.
v
vi Acknowledgements

It is a mistake to single out specific investors in Africa, Pakistan and

other Frontier markets, but the following have continually provoked,
challenged and often inspired the work in this book: Michael Power,
James Johnstone, Satyen Mehta, Joseph Rohm, Mishnah Seth, Deirdre
Maher, Andy Brudenell, Terence Gray, Suleyman Ba, Andrew Alli, Marc
Stoneham, Larry Speidell, Kevin Daly, John Niepold, Godfrey Mwanza,
Hans-Henrik Skov and James Bannan, Pete Leger, Suhail Suleman, Faisal
Ghori, Ayo Salami, Sebastian Kahlfeld, Lars Bane, David Haglund,
Jennifer Passmore, Nazmeera Moola, Paul Robinson, Randolph
Oosthuizen, Darren Smith, Tarek Karam and Johan De Bruijn, Bob
Mccarthy, Anwaar Wagner, Johannes Loefstrand, Mark Lawrence, Oliver
Bell, Brett Rowley, Nick Padgett, Peter Townshend, Erik Renander,
Matthias Althoff, Susan Wisialko, Karim Sawabini and hundreds more
who I will kick myself for not having mentioned here.
There are a great many civil servants, central bankers and ministers
who have graciously granted their time and knowledge. Many IMF resi-
dent representatives, World Bank staff and embassy officials have pro-
vided their expertise and insights. They have been invaluable. Those who
must be mentioned include Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Arunma Oteh,
Shamsuddeen Usman, Yemi Kale, Yewande Sadiku, Patrick Njoroge,
Terry Ryan, Gyude Moore, Amine Mati and Tolu Ogunlesi.
Then there is a long list of people who don’t quite fit in any of these lists:
Feyi Fawehinmi (@DoubleEph), David Pilling, Adelaide Changole,
Godfrey Mutizwa, Wole Famurewa, Andrew Skipper, Hannah
Ryder, Christopher Cramer, Michelle Essome, Nonso Obikili, Jonathan
Rosenthal, Ceasar Siwale, Stefan Dercon, Aly-Khan Saatchu, Karen
Taylor and again so many others including every one of those who engage
with me on Twitter. Together they educate me daily.
At a more personal level, I need to thank my loving parents and of
course, the family that I am so lucky to have, my partner Emma, and
bright and engaging “children”, Jacca, Sasha and Katya. They all have
remarkable tolerance. There’s only so often anyone should have to hear
sentences that begin “I’ve just found out this amazing fact …”.
 Contents

Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy  1

Electricity: Power to the People 43

Sex and Money: How Many Babies Are Too Many? 93


Debt: A Debt Crisis Is Probably Unavoidable in a Bid to Create
Jobs161

Demographics and Growth: Who Booms, When?193


What the Future Holds: Democracy, Corruption, ESG and
Emigration219

Conclusion243

Glossary251

Bibliography257

Index261
vii
 List of Figures

Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy

Fig. 1 How do countries rank on literacy in 2015? Who can’t grow
sustainably and who can’t industrialise yet? Note: There are no
data for Somalia since 2001; as a failed state, it would not
surprise us if literacy had fallen since then. (Source: UNESCO) 6
Fig. 2 Literacy rate, 2015 versus manufacturing as % of value-added,
2015 or 2016. (Source: UN, Guinea-Bissau 1999, Madagascar
2008, Mali 1979, Papua New Guinea 2004, Rwanda 2014,
Somalia was 4.6% in 1990, Sudan 2011) 6
Fig. 3 Map of literacy rates in Imperial Russia in 1897—also a good
guide to per capita levels today (darker is better). (Source: “The
first general census of the population of the Russian Empire in
1897” (1897–1905), Central Statistical Committee of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs (St. Petersburg), Nikolai
Aleksandrovich Troinitsky) 8
Fig. 4 Literacy rates over the last 120 years: green is over 70%, red is
below 40%. Note: SA 7% refers to non-white population
(white was 96%) and same for the 28% figure. 28% for
Szechuan province (China) is the only data we could find and
refers to 1942–43. For UAE we use Trucial Oman for historic
data. In 1945, only the Jews and Armenians in Turkey had a
literacy rate above 50%. (Source: UNESCO, League of
Nations, various other papers) (Color figure online) 9
ix
x List of Figures

Fig. 5 Literacy rates for the past 125 years for a range of European,
Asian and African frontier economies. (Source: League of
Nations, UNESCO, various other sources) (Color figure online) 13
Fig. 6 Nigeria exports similar amounts of oil per capita as Mexico;
Angola is more like Venezuela. (Source: BP, IMF, Polity V) 14
Fig. 7 Adult literacy data in Africa, since 1943. Note: DR Congo
figure for 1960 from the Belgian embassy at the time. (Source:
UNESCO, various other sources) (Color figure online) 16
Fig. 8 Map of Africa by population size (2020 IMF) and literacy rate
(latest, up to 2018 UNESCO) plus other frontier markets
(top-right). (Source: IMF, Central Bank of West Africa, NBS,
UNESCO)18
Fig. 9 The number of literate adult Nigerians has risen from 2 mn in
1952 to 54 mn in 2015, and might double to 101 mn by
2030. Note: We’ve aligned literacy survey data for 1952, 2003
and 2008 with population estimates in 1950, 2000 and 2005.
2020–30 figures are our forecasts. (Source: UNESCO,
Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, UN, Renaissance Capital) 20
Fig. 10 The lag between secondary school enrolment in 1971 and per
capita GDP ($) in 1991. (Source: UN, IMF, BP) 24
Fig. 11 The lag between secondary school enrolment in 1991 and per
capita GDP ($) in 2011. (Source: UN, IMF, BP) 25
Fig. 12 Only a few countries still have secondary school enrolment
rates below 25–28.5%. (Source: UN, IMF, BP) 26
Fig. 13 For nearly half of the countries where literacy rates are under
80%, improving female literacy would make a huge difference.
(Source: UNESCO, Renaissance Capital) 36
Fig. 14 What role did literacy rates in the 1980s play in determining
per capita GDP 30–35 years later? (high energy exporters per
capita in red). Note: Renaissance Capital estimates for literacy
rates in Russia, Korea, Taiwan, Colombia, Jordan, Egypt.
(Source: World Bank, IMF) 37
Fig. 15 The first decades of industrialisation are low-wage decades—
per capita GDP in nominal $. (Source: IMF) 38
 List of Figures xi

Electricity: Power to the People

Fig. 1 Per capita GDP, in 1960 and 2019—all in constant purchasing
power parity dollars (2017 prices). (Source: Penn tables,
Renaissance Capital) 45
Fig. 2 Electricity consumption is correlated with per capita
GDP. (Source: World Bank Enterprise surveys) 50
Fig. 3 OECD countries have an average electricity price of USc10 per
kWh for industry. (Source: OECD) 51
Fig. 4 MENA and South Asia electricity prices for households in
2014. Note: Egypt’s prices have since been raised significantly.
(Source: World Bank via the Arab Union of Electricity (2014)
for MENA countries, World Bank for South Asia but also
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka power company data) 52
Fig. 5 Electricity prices in Africa. Note: Egypt’s figure is from an
unreliable source. (Source: World Bank except for Egypt) 52
Fig. 6 Electricity is a bigger constraint on business than transport
infrastructure, except when there is plenty of electricity.
(Source: World Bank enterprise surveys, Renaissance Capital) 53
Fig. 7 We’ve come a long way baby—hours of light (equivalent to a
1994 light bulb) provided by 60 hours of labour (log scale).
(Source: Washington Post, Renaissance Capital (2018 estimate)) 55
Fig. 8 Number of annual cases (lhs) since 1960 when electricity is
consistent with manufacturing being 20% of GDP. (Source:
World Bank, EIA) 57
Fig. 9 Kenya needs to double electricity to industrialise, kWh per
capita. (Source: EIA, IEA, World Bank, Renaissance Capital) 67
Fig. 10 Zimbabwe is the only example of premature de-industrialisa-
tion in Africa, manufacturing as % of GDP (rhs), electricity
consumption kWh per capita (lhs). (Source: IEA, EIA, World
Bank, Renaissance Capital) 72
Fig. 11 Mauritius, kWh per capita and manufacturing—Ghana now
similar to Mauritius in the late 1980s. (Source: IEA, EIA,
World Bank) 74
Fig. 12 Tunisia could see manufacturing pick up again, on the back of
good literacy and electricity data, kWh per capita. (Source:
IEA, EIA, World Bank) 76
xii List of Figures

Fig. 13 China is roughly 40 years behind Japan, and Vietnam is

roughly five years behind China. This chart compares China
from 2000–15 against Japan from 1960–85, Vietnam from
2005–10 and Germany from 1960–85 (Source: IEA, EIA) 77
Fig. 14 Tonnes of new annual carbon emissions per capita from
lower- to higher-­income countries. (Source: Edgar) 82
Fig. 15 Investment to GDP over 2010–19 (large oil exporters per
capita in bold). Note: No data for Liberia, Somalia, Sudan or
Zimbabwe, and Libya is excluded due to civil war distorting its
ration. (Source: IMF) 86
Fig. 16 Map of Africa by population size, 2016 (IMF) (each box is
1 mn people) and electricity consumption in 2015 (kWh
per capita via the IEA and EIA) for Africa and other frontier
markets (top right). (Source: IMF, IEA, EIA,
Renaissance Capital) 89

Sex and Money: How Many Babies Are Too Many?

Fig. 1 Which countries might expect a jump in bank deposits as the
fertility rate falls? (Source: IMF, UN) 94
Fig. 2 Population 2020 (UN), fertility rate 2020–25 (UN, 2019
estimates). (Source: UN) 96
Fig. 3 Africa—particularly when Algeria was considered part of
France—was important in the 1950s. Today there is more
French trade with Belgium than the whole continent of Africa.
(Source: IMF) 100
Fig. 4 Most countries in Africa are too populous to escape poverty via
commodities. (Source: UNCTAD, IMF, Renaissance Capital) 103
Fig. 5 Borrowing costs in low fertility Africa are as low as low fertility
Asia. Note: Nigeria has temporarily been able to manipulate
interest rates lower, this is not sustainable. (Source: Bloomberg) 104
Fig. 6 Electricity is an essential ingredient for industrialisation—
consumption kWh per capita. (Source: EIA, IEA, IMF) 111
Fig. 7 IMF working paper, “China’s High Savings: Drivers, Prospects
and Policies”. (Source: IMF) 114
Fig. 8 Fertility rate and bank deposits (% of GDP)—banking systems
can expand significantly when the fertility rate drops below
3.0. (Source: IMF, UN) 117
Fig. 9 Bank lending as % of GDP depends on bank deposits—and
cannot be high if fertility rates are high. (Source: IMF) 118
 List of Figures xiii

Fig. 10 Which countries might expect a jump in bank deposits as the

fertility rate falls? (Source: IMF, UN) 119
Fig. 11 Average fertility rate trajectory—with some countries added
individually. (Source: UN) 120
Fig. 12 The link appears to be weak between bank deposits and
nominal interest rates. (Source: IMF, Bloomberg) 121
Fig. 13 Real interest rates are lower in countries with larger financial
sectors—2013 bank deposit data compared to real one-year
interest rates over 2014–18. (Source: IMF, World Bank,
Renaissance Capital) 123
Fig. 14 Low-income countries tend to have governments that can only
raise 20% of GDP in revenues. (Source: IMF) 126
Fig. 15 Bank deposits as a percentage of GDP are a useful guide to
current account deficits. Based on 2013 bank deposit ratios to
GDP, we show the CA balances in the subsequent five years.
(Source: UN, IMF, Renaissance Capital) 127
Fig. 16 Exports of goods and services per capita (2017) among DM,
EM, FM and BF countries—capped at $5 k. (Source: IMF) 128
Fig. 17 CA surpluses (black circled countries) tend to have low real
interest rates, even if bank deposits to GDP are small (under
60%), while current account deficit countries (solid red circle
countries) usually have higher rates. There are odd exceptions
in the bottom left quadrant, often in managed currency
regimes (Source: UN, IMF, Renaissance Capital) 129
Fig. 18 At low-income levels, under-five mortality rates are not well
correlated with per capita GDP. (Source: UN, IMF) 134
Fig. 19 The link between under-5 mortality and total fertility rates is
strong. (Source: UN) 137
Fig. 20 An Indonesian family planning poster, encouraging families to
have two children. (Source: Laju Pertumbuhan Penduduk |
Dinas PP & KB (tulangbawangkab.go.id)) 139

Debt: A Debt Crisis Is Probably Unavoidable in a Bid to Create Jobs

Fig. 1 How many 14-year-olds do you know with lots of savings?
(Source: UN) 165
Fig. 2 If Japan remains a good guide, DM bonds yields will be lower
than the 1990s or 2000s (Source: Bloomberg, Renaissance
Capital)167
xiv List of Figures

Fig. 3 EM $ yields were 12% in 2000, 6% in 2010 and 4% in 2020

(Source: Bloomberg) 167
Fig. 4 Borrowing by Africa has boomed, again. Note: Other includes
Gabon, Benin, Cameroon, Namibia, Ethiopia, Mozambique,
Rwanda, Congo, Uganda and Seychelles. (Source: Bloomberg,
Renaissance Capital) 170
Fig. 5 External debt default is mostly a high fertility country prob-
lem. (Source: Reinhart and Rogoff, UN, Renaissance Capital) 174
Fig. 6 Government interest payments as % of GDP (also shown in
country labels) versus interest payments to government
revenues, 2021 estimates. (Source: IMF, Renaissance Capital) 183
Fig. 7 A rough estimate of Zambia’s interest payments as % of GDP
(the difference between the primary and consolidated general
government budget balance as % of GDP). (Source: IMF,
Renaissance Capital) 183
Fig. 8 Gross external debt as % of merchandise goods exports, 2010
and 2019. (Source: World Bank IDS, UNCTAD, SDSS, IMF,
JEDH)186
Fig. 9 Gross external debt to merchandise exports in 2010 and 2019
(Note: this chart unfairly excludes services such as tourism
which brings in a lot of export revenues for countries like
Seychelles). (Source: World Bank, UNCTAD, IMF, JEDH) 187

Demographics and Growth: Who Booms, When?

Fig. 1 How many countries have grown at what average per capita
GDP rate over the past few decades (with country examples for
each column). (Source: IMF) 194
Fig. 2 Per capita GDP growth doubles from 1.4% when there is one
adult for every child or pensioner to 2.8% when there are 1.4
adults per child or pensioner. (Source: UN, World Bank,
Renaissance Capital) 195
Fig. 3 Where fertility rates and the ratio of adults normally coincide.
Note: 5 countries representing nearly 2bn people are shown in
their positions in 2015. (Source: UN, Renaissance Capital) 196
Fig. 4 As the adults ratio to child or pensioner increases, so do bank
deposits as % of GDP. (Source: UN, World Bank, Renaissance
Capital)197
 List of Figures xv

Fig. 5 Ratio of adults to children and pensioners—1960–2070.

(Source: UN) (Color figure online) 198
Fig. 6 The low ratio of adults to children and pensioners explains why
the twentieth century was so tough for Africa. (Source: UN)
(Color figure online) 200
Fig. 7 Expected headline growth from 1960 to 2070, given per capita
GDP and population growth (potential growth) in the
following five years. (Source: UN, World Bank, Renaissance
Capital) (Color figure online) 201
Fig. 8 Expected headline growth from 1960 to 2070, given per capita
GDP and population growth (potential growth) in the
following five years. (Source: UN, World Bank, Renaissance
Capital) (Color figure online) 204

 hat the Future Holds: Democracy, Corruption, ESG

W
and Emigration
Fig. 1 Countries are more likely to flip from a negative (autocracy,
closed anocracy) to a positive (democracy, open anocracy)
Polity V score they get richer (2017 PPP dollars). Note: Over
8300 data points for all countries since 1950 where both Penn
Table and Polity V data are available. (Source: Penn Table,
Polity V, Renaissance Capital) 220
Fig. 2 Wealthy democracies don’t die—% chance of losing a positive
Polity V rating at various per capita GDP wealth levels since
1950. Note: Turkey is the only rich example and very debat-
able. (Source: Penn Table, Polity V, Renaissance Capital) 221
Fig. 3 Political regime type versus the business environment in 2018.
(Source: World Bank, Polity V, Renaissance Capital) 227
Fig. 4 Corruption (2020, Transparency International) scores are
strongly linked to per capita GDP ($, 2021). (Source:
Transparency International, IMF, Renaissance Capital) 228
Fig. 5 Minimum monthly wage in dollars, September 2021. Note:
Eurostat data on the left, while data on the right are estimates
and should be treated cautiously. (Source: Eurostat,
Renaissance Capital) (Color figure online) 235
Fig. 6 At what wealth level does a country’s emigration level peak?
(Source: IZA DP No. 8592: Does Development Reduce
Migration? Michael Clements) 237
 List of Tables

Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy

Table 1 Adult literacy rates—a rough guide to 1800–1950 4
Table 2 Five countries have the misfortune to rank poorly for adult
literacy up to 2018 and secondary school enrolment in 2015 22

Electricity: Power to the People

Table 1 Electricity consumption per item 47
Table 2 Number of incidents of manufacturing GDP (lhs, vertical)
corresponds with electricity consumption per capita up to the
figure in the horizontal axis 56
Table 3 Electricity consumption, kWh per capita 59
Table 4 Electricity generation by source, % of total, 2018 data unless
otherwise noted 84
Table 5 Education (%), electricity (kWh per capita, ranked by this),
manufacturing (% of value-added) and investment (% of GDP) 88

Sex and Money: How Many Babies Are Too Many?

Table 1 Communist revolutions and per capita GDP (2011 PPP dollars) 109
Table 2 Real interest rates over 2014–18 reflected the size of banking
systems and whether the CA was in surplus or deficit 130
Table 3 TFR versus under-five mortality rate per 1000 135

xvii
xviii List of Tables

Table 4 Total fertility rate (children per woman), since 1950 151
Table 5 Total fertility rate (children per woman) compared to bank
deposits as a percentage of GDP (on the right) since 1960 153

Debt: A Debt Crisis Is Probably Unavoidable in a Bid to Create Jobs

Table 1 How many millions of 15–19-year-olds are there? And how
many are seeking a new job this year? 164
Table 2 The debt service burden at various interest rates 168

Demographics and Growth: Who Booms, When?

Table 1 Per capita GDP and GDP in $bn—2021–70 208
Table 2 Per capita GDP and GDP in $bn—2021–70 in 2021 US
dollars, corrected for exchange rate misalignments in 2021 210
Table 3 GDP in index terms if 2021 = 100 and GDP in $bn in 2021
dollars to 2070 212
Table 4 Population and per capita GDP in 2021 dollars, adjusted for
exchange rate misalignment in 2021 215

 hat the Future Holds: Democracy, Corruption, ESG

W
and Emigration
Table 1 % chance of which political regime in each year—African
countries ranked by population size 224
 Introduction

That first time you land in a country is often a sensory overload. The
temperature, the sounds and smells and the slight nerves at passport con-
trol and then the first step outside the airport all provide those first clues
about a country. Lee Kwan Yew, who was probably the world’s greatest
development economist, understood this very well and from the start of
his rule, did all he could to make landing in Singapore a positive experi-
ence. It still is, although Georgia’s practice of handing you a small bottle
of local red wine when you arrive went one better. It is soon clear you are
somewhere different. What is often less clear is “when” you are.
This book tries to show why just three data points are all you need to
answer that question. These are the adult literacy rate (in any language),
average electricity consumption per person and the total fertility rate.
Once you know these three modest pieces of information, you already
know a huge amount, whether you’ve just arrived at your destination by
plane or train, or even just in your imagination via the time-travelling
machine that is a great history book or novel. With them, you might
answer whether you’re in 1980s Peru, 1970s China or 1750s Scotland.
Will there be corruption? What profession does the taxi driver hope his
children will have, and what proportion of his relatives still work in farm-
ing? How many people will have relatives or friends working abroad? If
you’re a governing minister in a lower-income country, these three
xx Introduction

numbers will tell you what your policy priorities should be, and whether
the job will feel overwhelming or give you European-style August holi-
days with your family. If you’re in the diplomatic corps, the military or
intelligence agencies, these figures are enough to tell you whether to
expect a coup, civil unrest or terrorism. Journalists can call their editors
and know just what type of stories they’ll be sending into head office.
Bankers and investors can analyse where the best business and finance
opportunities are, and where the risks are most likely to be.
Yet this book isn’t just for the visitors. It’s really aimed at the popula-
tion, who of course know where they live, but are often unaware of
“when”. This is not a criticism. It is easier to see differences if you’re the
one travelling between countries, and it gets even easier with age. If you’ve
had the good fortune to visit Mumbai in 1991 and up-and-coming 2012,
it is much easier to see “when” Kenya or Pakistan are.
Even for the visitor, it has got harder to recognise the time travel inher-
ent in going abroad. Your mobile phone is likely to work in almost every
city you visit; the people you meet will have seen many of the same films
or TV box-sets, will listen to the same music and follow some of the same
people on Twitter. But this book is not about the individuals you might
easily relate to. It is about countries and comparisons between them, both
today and over time. It is about recognising and learning from time travel.
Yet unlike an economic history book, it aims not to dwell on the past, but
to help reveal the likely future of countries from Asia to Latin America,
but mainly Africa and South Asia. We can work out which countries will
struggle with mass unemployment and default in the coming decades
and which economies will double in size in the 2020s, and double again
in the 2030s.
Why the focus on low-income countries? The psychological roots
might be because, like Freddie Mercury, “I’m just a poor boy from a poor
family” in Cornwall, the lowest-income county of England. My mother
remembers the family washing being dried in a mangle in the shed next
to the (only) toilet, outdoors of course. An adoring grandmother who
loved books so much she would steal away for hours to read them might
have influenced the literacy chapter. The focus on electricity might stem
from the power cuts that struck regularly enough during my childhood
that I can still remember where the candles were kept. It’s a long way
 Introduction xxi

from all that to the other extreme of constant intercontinental air travel,
plush hotels and meetings with presidents and billionaires (well, a few).
The headline reason for the focus on low-income countries is that this
has been my career. It started with forecasts about the poor countries of
Eastern Europe in the 1990s. I was one of the first economists to tell
financial markets they should lend to Eastern Europe at interest rates that
reflected eventual EU membership. This helped Romania move from the
brink of default in 1999 when it was shunned by the market, to one able
to borrow, paving the way for EU entry in 2007. It helped Romania and
the region achieve bounding leaps in living standards. Some are now on
track to surpass the wealth levels of Greece. It was a steep learning curve,
but enjoyable and satisfying, partly because the forecasts were broadly
right. What I didn’t realise then was that deeper underlying trends
explained in this book were at play in driving Central Europe’s conver-
gence towards West European norms—and these were far more impor-
tant than the forecasts of a mere economist.
The last decade has been even more engaging, but an even steeper
learning curve, in part because my UK background is up to two centuries
away from countries like Nigeria or Pakistan that I’ve been working in.
This temporal gap is a problem for both development economists and
wealthy countries engaging with low-income countries. China is more
engaged in Africa than the West partly because China is just a generation
or two ahead of the development in Africa and South Asia, not centuries.
The West and Japan too often misunderstand what’s happening because
they don’t remember what’s important. When it comes to clashes over
culture, some in the West even forget their own history from half a cen-
tury or so ago, when women did not have the vote in Switzerland and gay
sex was a criminal offence.
My primary focus has been on Africa, but also Pakistan and other so-­
called frontier markets. It has proven oddly personal, perhaps because for
anyone living in London, countries such as Nigeria or Pakistan don’t feel
so far away. So many time travel to London, that there is a familiarity
with the Igbo and the Shoshone, the Gambia and Punjab, that runs deep.
The current leader of Gambia worked just 15 minutes’ walk from my
home. Britain’s own history plays a role too. There’s barely a family that
isn’t intertwined at one point with South Asia or Africa. Even a poor
xxii Introduction

family in Cornwall had ancestors who used their new-found adult liter-
acy, and the infrastructure of new railways and ports of the nineteenth
century, to escape poverty and find work in emerging markets such as the
US, South Africa and Venezuela.
In the last decade, whether in new capital cities, in lockdown London
or my Twitter feed, I keep encountering the same questions. Why is my
country poor? What have we done to deserve this government? When is
it going to get better?
In these questions, there are echoes of Karl Marx’s critique of Europe
in the nineteenth century. At a time when labour was in ample supply,
but savings were not and capital was expensive, it was fairly clear to Marx
who was to blame. Capitalists were at fault, and labour was being deprived
of their rightful share of profits. It wasn’t long before imperialism was
intertwined with capitalism in the critique, and it was the “third world”
and “labour” that were being deprived of justified profits by the rich who
would keep them forever poor.
This was already an attractive argument for many in Africa, Latin
America or Asia in the 1960s when dependency theory tried to explain
the relative wealth of the West and the poverty in the developing world.
Commodity exporters were dependent on, and suppressed by, richer
industrial economies. It remains an attractive theory for some today,
including a few policymakers in powerful positions. Poor countries are
kept poor by the West. France is using West African foreign exchange
reserves to fund the French budget. Washington consensus policies
ruined Nigeria in the 1980s leading to millions of fewer births. Mining
companies exploit Africa’s riches and fail to pay proper taxes. Foreign
bankers charge excessive interest rates when they lend to the poor. The
West and its public and private sector minions are using all the tools at
their disposal to keep Africa down. The IMF and World Bank always
demand cuts in government spending. A fair price is not paid for Ivorian
cocoa or cobalt in the Congo. Wages are suppressed and a continent stays
in poverty. The temptation for the suppressed governments to fight back,
to raid the coffers of these foreign-owned companies with taxes or fines
or to bully mining and energy companies out of a country, so the residual
company can be run for the benefit “of the people”, is a difficult tempta-
tion to resist.
 Introduction xxiii

It is not just foreign capitalists who are blamed though. From Abuja to
Dar es Salaam, I’ve heard local bankers condemned for the high (often
20–30%) interest rates they charge businesses and households. Worse
still, in the eyes of local finance ministry officials, these banks charge
double-digit rates to their own governments. Governments struggling to
fund education, infrastructure, an effective judiciary and health service
have to borrow at high rates to the apparent benefit of the bankers and
the wealthy with deposits in those banks. It is not a huge surprise when
there is a backlash and legislators put a cap on interest rates or go the
whole hog, as in Ethiopia, and force banks to lend at sub-inflation inter-
est rates to certain companies.
The only advantage of being a local capitalist—even a banker—is they
are often admired for what they have achieved and for keeping at least
some of their money in-country. Given the challenges of running a busi-
ness, the idea that you might grow it so large that you can fund private jet
travel, be feted in London and provide jobs for thousands is seen by many
as extreme good fortune. Even promises by Nigeria’s most famous bil-
lionaire, Aliko Dangote, to rescue my local football club Arsenal are gen-
erally appreciated, except by Manchester United fans. As with a lottery
winner, it is hard to begrudge good luck, especially when that money is
reinvested locally (Dangote has invested across the continent, and not
actually bought Arsenal). It’s a rather different sentiment from what we
see in the US or Europe, when the more extreme voices call on American
billionaires to have their wealth confiscated to wipe out student debt or
provide a one-off cheque to every citizen.
Yet the trouble with all these explanations of poverty is that they are
wrong. Marxism fails conceptually, and not because communism was
never tried properly, but because Marx failed to forecast demo-
graphic change.
Poor countries are not kept poor by the West.
Africa’s wealth is not under its soil.
Local bankers are not ripping off borrowers.
African risk is not mispriced by western fund managers.
It has taken a decade of constant questioning and research, and more
flights than I’d like to admit in these environmentally conscious times, to
uncover what I outline in this book. The expense has been borne by (and
xxiv Introduction

hopefully some of the benefits will accrue to) the investors who have a
different perspective on the challenges in much of Africa, South Asia and
Latin America. When they travel, they ask will this country be the next
China or to be more with the 2020s zeitgeist, the next Vietnam? They see
that life is tough for most, but these investors have also time travelled.
Some investors remember when Asian success stories looked hopeless and
know the situation will improve. But they all want to know, when?
The answers to the questions outlined above are simple. The reason so
many are poor is because literacy has been too low, because electricity
consumption still is too low and because countries are starved of cheap
investment when family sizes are too high. As you can see, the arguments
get progressively more controversial as we move along.
Few debate the education argument. It helps that it is based on a the-
ory espoused 60 years ago by Mary Jean Bowman that looked at eco-
nomic development in a range of countries from eighteenth-century
Great Britain to twentieth-century Spain. She argued that you need adult
literacy (in any language) of 70–80% to industrialise and escape poverty.
At under 40% adult literacy, you can’t sustainably grow. This in itself is
enough to explain the mess in Afghanistan or parts of the Sahel region in
Africa, as I told US Africa Command when they flew me out to their
headquarters a few years ago. I explained that given the adult literacy rate,
terrorism (at worst) and insecurity (at best) will emanate from these
countries for at least the next decade. As one perceptive officer then
pointed out, “So you’re saying, if in 2001, we’d spent money funding
education in Afghanistan instead of bombing the country, today
Afghanistan would be a success story instead of a warzone we’re still
embroiled in”. Yes, exactly. “And that neither the Sahel nor Afghanistan
are going to get better for the next decade.” Yes, exactly. Since that meet-
ing, the US has pulled its troops out of Afghanistan and the Sahel region.
President Macron of France in 2021 also announced a reduction in troops
in the region, recognising the problems there are also a development
problem. He’s right. Unfortunately, money to fund better education pro-
vision has not been poured in.
However, the best news is that adult illiteracy is now confined to just a
few countries. Most of the world, and most of Africa, has the education
level necessary to escape poverty, to become more like India or China. It
 Introduction xxv

is an impressive achievement given the starting point of adult literacy that

was 20% or less when many of these countries became independent.
While some have said Africa prematurely de-industrialised in the 1980s
and 1990s, the key message in this book is that they had premature
industrialisation, because the human capital was insufficient to industri-
alise except in three countries. All three industrialised.
The only question I get about education is whether this is correlation
or causation. My simple answer is this. No country has sustained wealth
while remaining ignorant. Every country that has sustained wealth has
decent adult literacy. I’ll save the embarrassing story about Oman for the
first chapter.
But education is not the only precondition to escape poverty. Joe
Studwell in his excellent book How Asia Works dismissed education as
overly emphasised in development literature. If adult literacy is such a big
deal, he asked, why has the Philippines done so badly? His argument is
not ageing well because the Philippines is now booming. But he was
obviously right for a long time. The answer turns out to be electricity. For
decades the Philippines did not have enough.
Why is electricity so important? To be honest, this is not a question
you will hear often in South Africa, which has suffered power cuts ever
since 2008, or Nigeria where I’ve had more than a few meetings in a hot
stuffy dark office having climbed five flights of stairs in over
30 °C. Electricity is something too many take for granted.
The explanation is simple. When you have a literate workforce that is
ready to move out of zero value-added subsistence farming, the first
industrial job they take is inside a textile mill. Just ask any time traveller
to industrial revolution England or South Carolina in the 1890s. It is
exactly what is happening in Ethiopia today. There are plenty of countries
from China to Vietnam and now Bangladesh, with a literate workforce
and textile factories that have cheap reliable electricity. If you have expen-
sive, erratic electricity, your textile mill will not compete with cheap
Chinese-made imports. If you have a barely literate workforce—with
workers who expect to go home during the harvest season—you will
struggle to compete. Bangladesh exports more textiles in a month than
14 African countries can export in a year, combined. Why? Because they
have a literate workforce with cheap reliable electricity.
xxvi Introduction

Achieving high adult literacy is a multi-generational challenge. With

hindsight, James Bond in The Living Daylights and Rambo should argu-
ably have been supporting Afghanistan’s communist government in the
1980s against the western-backed (largely illiterate) mujahideen. From
improving women’s education to electricity, communist governments
have generally done a good job. But electricity ought to be quick to sort
out. If most countries in the world now have sufficient literacy to escape
poverty, but most in Africa don’t have enough electricity, surely electricity
provision to textile mills should be the priority of every government. So
why is electricity still a problem in Nigeria in 2021 when the presidential
election of 2011 was won by the candidate promising electric power to
the people?
Here we have to turn to the crucial issue of interest rates and the cost
of investment. Power stations, transmission grids and distribution net-
works are very expensive to build. They only make a return over decades.
Governments, or the private sector, have to pay upfront to build them.
Anyone who’s spent five minutes with a government minister in any low-­
income country knows that very few governments have a few billion dol-
lars just lying around ready to finance the power sector. So governments
turn to borrowing to finance infrastructure. But double-digit interest
rates are prohibitively expensive. Electricity supplied from expensive
loans has to be sold at an expensive rate to pay the interest. This means
textiles mills in most African countries are relatively uncompetitive when
they are competing against a Bangladeshi textile firm.
So how can Bangladesh borrow at low rates while Nigeria can’t? How
did China roll out its electricity grid cheaply, while Kenya has to pay
double-digit interest rates to achieve the same? As noted above, some
think they know the answer—it is rapacious local banks or foreigners
who can’t price African risk properly.
Yet high interest rates are not the reality for all of Africa. In Mauritius,
one-year borrowing costs of 2% are the same as in China. At this point,
I’m usually told that Mauritius is not really Africa, it is more Indian (my
debaters fail to explain why Mauritius can borrow so much more cheaply
than India). So I mention Morocco where interest rates are also low like
China or Vietnam. Then I’m told Morocco is not really Africa either,
they’re Arabs and different. Again my debaters fail to explain why
 Introduction xxvii

Morocco borrows cheaply but Egypt does not. My point is that low inter-
est rates determine electricity supply and, indeed, investment in general.
Mauritius and Morocco have both low interest rates and electricity in
abundance. They also have very large amounts of cash in their banks.
I visited Rabat and asked the Moroccan central bank why savings were
so high and interest rates were so low, but the official admitted he didn’t
know. He then laughed and told me it was because Morocco took all the
wealth from Southern Spain when the Moors were pushed out in 1492
and they’d been saving ever since. Sadly, the data nerd in me has to dispel
this romantic notion. It turns out Moroccan savings only boomed
500 years after this, and it was because women halved their average fertil-
ity rate from 5.5 children in the 1980s to under 3.0 children in the
mid-­1990s. A decade later, Renault cars were rolling off Moroccan pro-
duction lines.
We discovered the link between family size, national savings and inter-
est rates via an IMF research paper on China. This found that since the
1970s, over half of the rise of household savings (which are massive) in
China was due solely to smaller family sizes. Those savings have been
poured into the banking system. Flooded with deposits, those banks have
then lent out that money to businesses and the government at low rates.
Why does family size matter? When you have 5–6 children, you have
no savings. Children are your savings. They are your unemployment ben-
efit, your pension and your healthcare provision. You have no money left
to put in the bank at the end of the month. You send the kids out to work
rather than fund them at school until they’re 18. When the average fam-
ily has no savings, bank deposits are small in your country, money is
scarce but in high demand, so it becomes expensive. Interest rates are
high. This ensures that investment is low, so few jobs are created. The kids
you send out to work as teenagers struggle to find jobs, and don’t really
have the education they need either. Fears intensify about mass unem-
ployment and low or negative per capita GDP growth. This is how the
gap in wealth between low-income countries and rich countries, such as
the US, dramatically widened rather than narrowed between 1960 and
today. While well-educated Americans get richer, billions stayed poor. If
you live in Zimbabwe, many will tell you the economy functioned better
in the old days, and this isn’t just the elderly being sentimental. It’s true.
xxviii Introduction

When you have 2–3 children, they become your investment. There are
fewer of them, so it becomes more important that each succeeds. You save
for their education, perhaps you send them to university. Being able to
save and invest in them becomes plausible when you have just 2–3 chil-
dren; you have more chance of putting money aside at the end of each
month. Bank deposits grow. Money becomes more plentiful. Interest
rates fall. High investment helps create jobs and countries get richer. Your
country becomes a success story.
And this we have found to be globally true. Countries with high fertil-
ity rates are in poverty, with high interest rates and little investment.
Countries with low fertility rates enjoy high savings, low interest rates
and high investment. The latter escape poverty. Since 1960, there are no
sustained exceptions to this.
It is a point Marx entirely missed in the nineteenth century for under-
standable reasons. Back then no country had seen family size drop to 2–3
children. France was among the first and that didn’t happen until 1900.
My Cornish and Devonian great grandparents born in the 1870s and
1880s were born into families of 5–11 children per mother (not all sur-
vived childhood). They would share a lot of similarities to a family in
Niger today. They collected water from a well, lived without electricity
and some died within a mile of where they’d been born.
The reality that Marx saw was large families, a shortage of savings, a
high cost of capital and no prospect of that changing. It was a recipe for
unrest. It was the reality of Imperial Russia in the run-up to the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917, and the reality of China as it became communist in
1949. It continues to be a reality in parts of Africa today.
This book aims to help policymakers recognise what long-term mea-
sures need to be taken to ensure their countries thrive in the twenty-first
century. Encouraging smaller families, providing good basic education
and investing in electricity to support export manufacturing are the key
elements. Great progress has already been made, but this coming decade
offers a once in a lifetime opportunity to accelerate it—but at consider-
able risk as we outline in the chapter “Debt: A Debt Crisis Is Probably
Unavoidable in a Bid to Create Jobs”. Global borrowing rates are lower
than a generation ago. Foreign money is now available to fund invest-
ment, similar to what the UK did for the US in the nineteenth century,
 Introduction xxix

or what the US did for Korea and Taiwan in the 1960s. This can help
provide the investment that so many countries need. The risk is that
countries borrow more than they can manage.
Blaming local banks, foreign mining companies, bond investors or the
60-year-old legacy of colonialism for current difficulties is tempting but
is a distraction that does not address the fundamental problems. The goal
of this book is not to defend these actors. Some foreign mining compa-
nies surely do attempt to minimise their tax payments. Bond investors
could spend a little longer analysing the credits they buy. The imperial
legacy does add to challenges facing rulers today—just look at the lan-
guage or tribal divides that trouble countries from Cameroon to Somalia.
Leaving colonial India or Africa with an adult literacy rate so low that
growth was not sustainable is hardly something anyone in these former
imperial powers can be proud of.
But the key point of this book is that the solutions to the challenges in
Africa or Asia today can be home-grown. They don’t require a US- or
Chinese-led commodity price boom. They don’t need UK or French par-
liamentarians to pass anti-corruption legislation. Every country in Africa
and Asia could be adopting the “beyond aid” mantra of Ghana’s president
within a generation.
We already know South Asia’s and Africa’s development will be
extremely varied in coming years. India and Bangladesh should thrive, a
fact recognised by many, and Pakistan can join them within a decade.
The second industrialisation wave in Africa will be led by North Africa
and possibly Ghana or Kenya. The demographic trends are already
favourable in North Africa, but are improving in much of East Africa,
Southern Africa and Southern Nigeria. The greatest difficulties are likely
in Angola, DR Congo, Northern Nigeria and the Sahel region. Based on
the most recent UN forecasts, some countries such as Tanzania or Angola
are not going to see their fertility rate drop below 3 until about 2070,
170 years after France. The 100 years after France got its fertility rate
below 3.0 was mostly very good for France’s economy—Tanzania’s good
century won’t start until 2070 unless demographic problems are addressed.
UN demographic forecasts may well be wrong. But even the most
rapid fall in family size still means that many countries will be starved of
domestic savings for a decade or two. Luckily, there is one golden key that
xxx Introduction

can open the door to higher investment. As Asia has shown, cheap
exchange rates can help deliver the trade and current account surpluses,
which means dollars and euros flow to your country. If the surplus is big
enough, this can drive down interest rates. It is perhaps the easiest policy
shift to make, and some, for example Ghana and Angola, have done this
in recent years.
Some silver keys can help in the process too, but are not so easy to
make happen. Encouraging in foreign direct and portfolio investment
provides another way to supply the capital that will compensate for a lack
of domestic savings. But in this, countries are in competition with others.
As the smart former CEO of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council
often had to explain to local leaders, global businesses do not need
Nigeria, just as they did not need China for most of the twentieth cen-
tury. As countries such as Rwanda have found, being open and welcom-
ing to foreign direct investors does not actually mean FDI will come.
Where does this all fit into the existing economic literature?
Unfortunately, the debate has long gone past many of the issues raised
here. The question in Russia or Iran has been about how to raise the birth
rate, not cut it. The most vocal demographic concerns in the western
press are about the crisis of an ageing society, not one that is too young.
The electricity debate in developed economies is about how quickly a
country can shift from fossil fuels to green energy. Few bother to note
that US plans for 24 GW of new wind-generated electricity over
2021–2022 add about 0.2% to its generation capacity, but alone would
be enough to more than double all the existing electricity generation
from any source in Nigeria with its 200 mn+ population. About the only
time electricity gets a mention is when environmental campaigners push
back against Chinese-financed coal power plants in Pakistan or elsewhere.
Meanwhile with regard to education, the UK asks whether 50% of young
people should be at university, not whether girls should learn to read and
write. The issues that remain so important, that mattered for all of our
countries at one point or another, are too often ignored, despite how
crucial they are for billions of people. This book tries to bring alive eco-
nomic history and show how relevant it remains for the future.
The Growth Commission of 2008 did highlight five themes that the
most successful economies since the 1950s shared: (1) They all imported
 Introduction xxxi

the knowledge of the rest of the world and exported what it wanted; (2)
they maintained macroeconomic stability; (3) they mustered high rates
of saving and investment; (4) they let markets allocate resources and (5)
they had committed, credible and capable governments.
At the risk of simplifying too much—in the hope that this gets read by
more than the 84,000 who have downloaded the Growth Commission
report in the past 13 years—we argue that achieving high adult literacy,
rolling out electricity to factories and reducing the birth rate go a long
way to achieving each one of these goals. Getting the birth rate down
increases savings and therefore makes investment cheaper. As a result,
governments do not need to borrow so much abroad, and their interest
burden can fall, so they are more likely to maintain macroeconomic sta-
bility. The result is governments that look more credible and capable.
This book is controversial because it requires many to give up on their
belief systems about what is holding back lower-income countries.
Colonialism, or neo-colonialism, can no longer independently explain
away a country’s relative weakness. Commodity exploitation by the West
and now China is not the major problem. Local rich elites with their cor-
ruption, or the high interest rates changed by banks, are symptoms, not
the causes of the challenges facing countries today. Challenging these
views will alienate many on the left. “Investment bank economist thinks
corruption, exploitation and colonialism aren’t important issues” is a
headline that is easy to imagine in The Guardian.
More controversial still, we argue that these challenges have often been
addressed most quickly by communist governments. From Russia to
Vietnam, the Leninist priorities of universal adult literacy and electrifica-
tion and decent health care have made a huge difference within one to
two decades. So many of the issues confronting low-income countries
today are the same as those that faced China in the 1940s, Russia in the
1910s and England in the 1840s when Friedrich Engels began writing
that morphed into the Communist Manifesto. So it should not be a sur-
prise that this approach might still have relevance today. Letting markets
allocate resources does work, as Western Europe, the US or Japan all
demonstrate, but often slowly. “Investment bank economist thinks com-
munism is justified in Africa” would raise the temperature of many Wall
Street Journal readers.
xxxii Introduction

It is possible that Africa will be home to the last communist revolu-

tions. Mass unemployment of 20–30% in the two biggest economies,
Nigeria and South Africa, is already a potential trigger for it. But it
shouldn’t be anyone’s central scenario. Successful communist revolutions
tend to have been born in war—and war is far less common than it was.
Revolutionaries were often supplied with weaponry and money by other
communist governments, but communist governments are an awful lot
less common than they were too.
Communism may be effective in delivering the preconditions for
industrialisation, but it has an appalling track record for taking countries
out of the middle-income trap. Russia eventually dumped it in the 1990s.
China and Vietnam are communist in name only, but not economic real-
ity. Semi-communist countries such as Cuba and North Korea are
nowhere near as powerful or influential as the USSR or China were a few
generations ago. Communism is not a multi-generational solution to the
challenges facing low-income countries today.
This book has multiple audiences but really just one purpose, which is
to improve the outlook for the lower-income countries around the world.
Mass adult literacy campaigns could change West Africa’s outlook within
a decade. Well-directed foreign borrowing could double sub-Saharan
electricity provision within a decade. Policies to support lower fertility
could reduce the number of countries with excessive fertility from over 40
now to around 10 by 2030 and zero by 2040.
I hope policymakers will focus on the issues that are likely to make the
most difference in coming years. Amidst the mass of challenges facing
any government in a low-income country, keeping a focus on just three is
what should guarantee a better life for coming generations.
I also hope public opinion will recognise that education, electricity
and family size are the priority. If this is understood, it might be easier to
reject the siren calls of populist leaders who try and distract attention
onto other areas. It is always tempting to blame poverty on amoral for-
eign investors, foreign colonialist governments or the greed of domestic
business and finance communities, but this is too often counter-­
productive, time-consuming and ineffective.
The media has a vital role to play in holding governments to account
and channelling public opinion. If the western media are understandably
 Introduction xxxiii

more interested in low fertility than high fertility, it is up to African or

Pakistan’s media to publish what is important for Africa and Pakistan.
For investors, this book shows which economies should improve the
most and when they will do so. From Vietnam and probably Bangladesh
and then Pakistan in Asia, to Morocco, Egypt and Ghana, then Kenya
and Rwanda, huge progress has already been made and these economies
may be as hard to recognise in 20 years as Mumbai was to me in 2012.
Others are in danger of lagging, but focused government and central
bank efforts (potentially even communist government efforts) in Nigeria,
Angola or DR Congo could accelerate change.
But there is a warning here too for investors. The temptation of savings-­
starved governments to borrow excessively is probably as high today as it
has ever been. Borrowing costs had plunged globally by 2021 to the low-
est levels in centuries. Even as they rise in 2022, there is a fantastic oppor-
tunity to leap ahead with more spending on adult literacy, electricity and
transport, but also a great risk of bribing voters with lower taxes that
doesn’t help provide a return that will service this debt.
So this book will demonstrate in chapter “Education: No Take-Off
Without Adult Literacy” how 13-year-old Greek kids can successfully tell
me, after a short presentation and based only on adult literacy data in
1950, which African country was the richest in 2020. We’ll see in chapter
“Electricity: Power to the People” how electricity is holding back
­sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) industrialisation, and how, by coming later to
electrification, Africa will achieve the greenest industrial revolution that
any continent has seen. In chapter “Sex and Money: How Many Babies
Are Too Many?”, we’ll move onto demographics and see how smaller
family size is so closely related to Asian success in the past two decades.
Chapter “Debt: A Debt Crisis Is Probably Unavoidable in a Bid to Create
Jobs” will address the opportunity and risk that stems from the world’s
largest-ever savings glut in the West and Japan coinciding with the last
global savings shortage in parts of Asia and Africa. In chapter
“Demographics and Growth: Who Booms, When?”, we get still more
speculative and forecast which countries are likely to grow the most in the
coming decades, and which are most likely to still be in poverty in
2050—explaining why Egypt’s economy will likely surpass Nigeria’s in
the 2030s, and why India will remain bigger than Africa for most of the
xxxiv Introduction

next 40 years. I hope many of the forecasts are wrong. If governments

respond to the message from this book, their countries will be richer, the
people better off and the standard of living vastly improved. In chapter
“What the Future Holds: Democracy, Corruption, ESG and Emigration”
we note the impact some of this will have, on democratisation, in terms
of improved environmental, social and governance indicators, but curi-
ously also in the huge increase in mass migration that in twenty-first-­
century Africa might echo what we saw out of nineteenth-century Europe.
This book is the result of a decade of thoughts and conversations, from
businesspeople and taxi drivers (of course) to the smartest central bank
governor I’ve met (in Africa, of course), combined with the constant
challenges from the knowledgeable investors and journalists who’ve reli-
ably questioned every assertion I’ve ever made. Light-bulb moments
included an argument in Nairobi with a posh investment banker about
whether Kenya has enough electricity, the woman who asked Nigeria’s
vice-president about excessive fertility at a conference in London (the
world is small enough that I identified her while writing this book) and
all of the people who asked me at every conference whether robots will
take all of Africa’s jobs. The tone of this book is different from our first
effort a decade ago, The Fastest Billion: The Story Behind Africa’s Economic
Revolution, but some elements have remained constant, including the
focus on education. That book and this one could probably have never
have happened without my colleague Yvonne Mhango, Africa economist
at Renaissance Capital, who has guided, educated and advised me for
over a decade.
This book is meant to inform and stimulate debate. Most of the ideas
have come about because of questions. Please do send me constructive
criticism. Email them, tweet them—I’m keen to learn.
Yours
Charlie Robertson
Global chief economist
 Education: No Take Off Without Adult
Literacy

This is the chapter you will hopefully have least cause to disagree with.
You’re literate and as you’re reading this book, you hope to learn some-
thing valuable. You understand the benefits of education.
That education matters for economic development is very clear in the
data. While illiterate ancestors could invent the wheel, the bow and arrow
and learn to sail, there’s no scientific advance or any medical breakthrough
I’m aware of in recent centuries that has come from an illiterate woman
or man. More broadly, there’s no successful economy in the world today
that lacks basic literacy skills.
Indeed, no illiterate society in the history of mankind has got much
above a subsistence level of economic existence. Those empires that could
eke out some sort of surplus from their illiterate populations and built last-
ing monuments you might visit today, from Egypt’s pyramids to China’s
Great Wall to the Mayan temples, were led by literate elites. Even Genghis
Khan, whose empire is more famous for the destruction it wrought,
ensured his orders were written down in Uyghur script. But literate elites
have never been sufficient to lift a country and its people out of poverty, as
we can see from Abyssinia—with inscriptions dating back to the 600s—or
Pakistan in the twentieth century which could build a nuclear bomb,
while remaining low income. It is mass literacy that matters.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

C. Robertson, The Time-Travelling Economist,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97597-5_1
2 C. Robertson

Note that we are not equating literacy with intelligence—but we

expect mass literacy to unleash intelligence. How many Marie Curies or
Albert Einsteins have never been discovered because they did not have
the opportunity to learn how to read and write? A disproportionate num-
ber will have been lost from Africa and South Asia in the past century.
Given this, we already have a simple answer to why so many countries
failed to get out of subsistence poverty in the twentieth century. Too
many people couldn’t read or write. They could not escape subsistence
agriculture by taking the usual first step into a textile mill, as pioneered
by England with its “dark, satanic mills” in the eighteenth century. The
US followed in its footsteps in the nineteenth century and now Bangladesh
and Pakistan are doing the same—just check the labels of your clothes. As
we’ll show later, a few countries still can’t make this first step, but the best
news is that there are only a few. Admittedly that first step might not
need to be into manufacturing (more on that in the next chapter), given
the rise of tech and off-shoring services, but literacy is essential for those
jobs too.
While the link between literacy and light manufacturing is easy to see
in the data, it took me years of questioning before I understood why it
matters. Finally, Dexter, a retired country manager of Levi jeans, explained
it in a way that an economist could comprehend. He’d run plants from
Sri Lanka to the Philippines in the 1980s. I knew both countries had
good adult literacy in the 1980s, so I asked him why did working in a
textile and garments factory require anybody to be able to read and write?
Surely, it’s just stitching clothes on an assembly line.1 “Yes, Charlie, but
when the jeans are stitched, how does the worker know whether to put
the jeans in the box destined for the US or the box for Europe?” He was
being simplistic, but it is still the answer I give everyone who asks.
Some months later, I met an industrialist in Lagos, Nigeria, who
employs thousands in a textile manufacturing plant. The adult literacy
rate in that city is over 80%, but I asked whether she tried to save money
by offering lower-wage work to illiterate people, perhaps as security
guards where literacy might not matter. Not a chance, she answered.
Every single employee must be literate. “Why would I employ anybody
who wasn’t?” It might be hard to understand for those who live in coun-
tries where literacy has been around 100% for a century, but to those
 Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy 3

living in societies where basic reading and writing are not taken for
granted, the answer to my question was very obvious.
The lowest paid workers in any textile mill that I’ve heard about may
be those cited in a 2019 NYU Stern study of the garment industry in
Hawassa Industrial Park, Ethiopia.2 They earn about $26 a month which
is far less than Bangladeshi garment workers who in 2018/2019 saw their
pay increase by 50% to nearly $100 a month. Applicants for these
Hawassa jobs, in a country where only half of adults are literate, must
have an eighth-grade education (to around 12–13 years old). That may
match Bangladesh, where nearly three in four adults are literate. But it is
hard to know how rigorously that Hawassa literacy requirement is
enforced. The report highlights the problems of lateness, absenteeism,
chatting at the workstation or even leaving the job to attend the harvest.
As a result local managers complain that all-in Ethiopian labour costs end
up being higher than Bangladeshi labour. The NYU Stern authors sug-
gest higher wages would reduce the 100% annual turnover of employ-
ment, and talk admiringly of China’s textile revolution and its much
higher wage levels. But Ethiopia’s literacy rate today is similar to China’s
in the 1970s and the wage levels reflect that. In any case, China is now
too expensive and is losing its textile industry to Vietnam, Bangladesh
and others. One painful take-away from the report is that Ethiopia is
struggling to industrialise, before enough of the population is educated
enough to make it a success. To justify that comment, I have to take you
back to another book.
If I had to be locked up anywhere, the ideal would probably be inside
the library of the London School of Economics and Political Science. On
a dusty, rarely touched shelf—because who concerns themselves about
this issue anymore?3—I found reference to a study on literacy and indus-
trialisation by Mary Jean Bowman and her husband Arnold Anderson
from 1963. They argued—using examples from the UK’s industrial revo-
lution to the much later twentieth-century industrialisation of Spain—
that historical data showed that countries could not grow sustainably
unless a country achieved 40% adult literacy, and could not industri-
alise unless literacy levels reached 70–80%. While France (40%) and
the UK (52%) were not industrial economies in 1800, both were by
4 C. Robertson

1900 with literacy rates of 95% and 97%, respectively. Japan moved
faster, rising from 25% in 1850 to 75% by 1900 (Table 1).
Korea did it even quicker. Its literacy rate was just 22% in 1930. The
imperial ruler Japan saw no need to provide more than primary educa-
tion for Koreans, and even that didn’t produce universal literacy. Raising
the literacy rate became a top goal for both newly independent North
and South Korean governments. In South Korea, a strong focus on pri-
mary schooling and adult literacy (e.g. via night schools) meant that 22%
(which is also cited for 1945) was raised to 86% by 1954 and 96% by
1958. These figures don’t quite align with UNESCO data, which suggest
adult literacy was still only 87% by 1970, but either way, Korea went
from not being able to grow sustainably in 1945 to being able to indus-
trialise within just 25 years.4 It has become a cliché to shock audiences at
development conferences by telling them that Ghana was richer than
Korea in 1960—but Ghana had only increased its adult literacy rate from
23% around 1950 to 27% by 1960 and 30% in 1970. At that level,
Ghana could not grow sustainably. Ghana’s early efforts to industrialise in
the 1960s—funded by foreign debt—were doomed to failure.
Does this nearly 60-year-old theory still hold true? The surprising5
answer is yes.
Adult literacy tests by the way are not particularly gruelling. Emily
Smith-Greenaway notes in her 2015 paper6 that to measure literacy,

Table 1 Adult literacy rates—a rough guide to 1800–1950

1800 1850 1900 1950
UK 52 61 97 100
US 72 78 89 97
France 40 58 95 99
Netherlands 75 75 90 100
Sweden 83 90 100 100
Germany 84 95 100 100
Australia 45 80 98
Japan 20 25 75 100
Note: This is from a very wide variety of sources and should only be used as a
rough guide. For example, Germany’s figures from Prussia’s military enlistment
(so presumably male only). I suspect the 61% figure for the UK is not the figure
Mary Jean Bowman would have used
Source: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7437.pdf
 Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy 5

interviewers ask women to read one of four possible sentences aloud in

their preferred language: “Parents love their children”, “Farming is hard
work”, “The child is reading a book” or “Children work hard at school”.
Just to emphasise the point, this is in their preferred language. No one
suggests adult literacy in a global language such as English or French is
required for industrialisation; Japan managed very well with Japanese.
Also notable is the phrase “farming is hard work”. This is one reason why
literate adults end up leaving subsistence agriculture to seek work in tex-
tile mills; the work is still hard but is better paid. A study in Ibadan,
Nigeria, in the early 1970s showed that every single child who got a sec-
ondary school education left the villages, while 94% with no schooling
remained behind.7
Below we show all the countries where literacy rates were below 70%
in 2015. There were only nine countries (we include Somalia8), where
adult literacy is below 40%, and all bar Afghanistan are in Africa. It is no
coincidence that none get the attention of global business and that many
of them are beset by coups, civil war and unrest. The 1960s theory that
they cannot grow sustainably looks very well supported today.
In the 40–70% literacy range are a group of countries which have
enough literacy to grow, but not to industrialise. These range from
Ethiopia to Nigeria within Africa, and from Pakistan to Haiti globally,
and again, the theory looks well supported by the evidence (Fig. 1).
We then compared these literacy rates to manufacturing as a share of
value added in the economy. It was striking that not a single country with
an adult literacy rate below 80% can boast a manufacturing sector equiv-
alent to 20% of GDP. Yet this was a level of manufacturing that Korea
reached as early as 1972. Among 36 countries with a literacy rate of
40–70%, manufacturing averaged just 9% of GDP. The very highest
18% ratio is for Morocco which has 72% literacy (so it is in the right
zone to industrialise). Close behind was Bangladesh which was then
reported to have a literacy rate of 60% (since revised to 65% for 2015
and above 70% now). It is great to see a 60-year-old theory still sup-
ported by the facts (Fig. 2).
Still more fascinating is some of the other evidence we’ve uncovered
about the incredible power of adult literacy. It does not just tell us who
6 C. Robertson

Literacy rates % of population, 2015

Total Men Women

Industrialisation cannot occur
100
until literacy is 70-80%
90 85
77 75
80 74 74 72 72
71 71 70
67 66 65 65 Sustained growth impossible
70 64 64 63
61 61 60 60
59 59 below 40% literacy
56 56 56
60 52
49 48 48
50 43
40 38 38 38 38
37
40 33 32
30
30
19
20
10
0
Eritrea

Nigeria

Senegal

Mauritania

Liberia
DRC

Angola

Nepal

PNG

Mozambique
Sudan

Sierra Leone

CAR
Malawi

Gambia, The

Burkina Faso
Ethiopia

Mali
South Sudan
Madagascar

Bhutan

Cote d'Ivoire
Chad
Benin

Guinea

Somalia (2001)
Uganda

Morocco
Rwanda

Togo
Yemen, Rep.

Timor-Leste

Haiti
Guinea-Bissau

Pakistan

Niger
Bangladesh

Afghanistan
Cameroon

India
Burundi

Fig. 1 How do countries rank on literacy in 2015? Who can’t grow sustainably
and who can’t industrialise yet? Note: There are no data for Somalia since 2001;
as a failed state, it would not surprise us if literacy had fallen since then.
(Source: UNESCO)

Manufacturing, % of value added, 2015 or 16 Literacy, 2015

90 20
80 18
70 16
14
60
12
50
10
40
8
30
6
20 4
10 2
0 0
Guinea-Bissau

Somalia (2001)
Angola
Yemen, Rep.

Bangladesh

Afghanistan

Burkina Faso
Madagascar
Timor-Leste
Bhutan

Mozambique

Gambia, The

Sierra Leone

Cote d'Ivoire

South Sudan
Sudan
DRC

Rwanda

Mauritania

Liberia
Eritrea
Uganda

Morocco

Nigeria

Pakistan

CAR
Malawi
Nepal

PNG

Senegal

Ethiopia

Benin

Guinea
Togo

Haiti

Chad

Niger
Mali
Cameroon
Burundi

India

Fig. 2 Literacy rate, 2015 versus manufacturing as % of value-added, 2015 or

2016. (Source: UN, Guinea-Bissau 1999, Madagascar 2008, Mali 1979, Papua New
Guinea 2004, Rwanda 2014, Somalia was 4.6% in 1990, Sudan 2011)

can get out of poverty today, it also tells us who will be thriving a century
into the future.
You might have heard of the famous reply that Zhou Enlai of China
gave to US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1972, when asked his
thoughts about the French Revolution. He replied that it was too early to
tell. It was taken as evidence of China’s long view of history that events
from 1789 France were still considered as recent. Unfortunately for the
 Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy 7

anecdote, Zhou Enlai was in fact referring to the Paris riots of 1968. So
that left me with no excuse that “it was too early to tell” when I was asked
to write up the legacy of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Yet it turns out
that a century-long viewpoint does have advantages.
There was just one census conducted in Imperial Russia, a generation
before the Bolshevik Revolution accelerated the rise of education and
electricity. It showed adult literacy was as low as 10–30% in most of rural
Russia and modern-day Ukraine, and was only above 75% in what is now
Finland and Estonia. Imperial Russia was a poor country that exported
agricultural products and depended on foreign capital to build infrastruc-
ture like the trans-Siberian railway that only in 1904 finally linked the
country from east to west. It was too late to help Russia avoid defeat in
the 1904–05 war with Japan. A 26% adult literacy rate in Russia com-
pared with roughly 75% in Japan was always going to give the illiterate
country a grave disadvantage. A decade later, illiterate Russia would be
defeated again, this time by Germany, whose adult literacy rate was
already 100% by 1900.9 The Bolshevik Revolution then led to a regime
which fast-tracked adult literacy. By 1941, when Soviet Russia was next at
war with Germany, their adult literacy rates were both above 80%. Soviet
Russia had industrialised, had a bigger population and won (Fig. 3).10
What is wonderful about this map of adult literacy in 1897 is that the
same map and colour coding could also be labelled “per capita GDP in
2020”. Finland’s per capita GDP was around $48,000 followed by
Estonia at $23,000, and then Latvia, Lithuania and Poland ($15–20 k)
with Russia ($10 k) and Georgia and Ukraine ($3–4 k) lagging far
behind.11 It appears that one set of questions asked by census collectors
before humans had mastered powered flight can tell us about a country’s
wealth in a year when probes were landing on Mars.12
Admittedly, Finland, the Baltic states and Poland also benefited from
closer trade links with wealthy Western Europe. They all also saw a shorter
period under communism than Russia, Ukraine or Georgia. Other fac-
tors play a role in wealth levels. But these are not the only countries to
show the long legacy of adult literacy.
Below we show data we have collected on adult literacy for periods
around 1900, 1925, 1950, 1975 and every five years since then. The data
are from a huge range of sources, but primarily the League of Nations and
8 C. Robertson

Fig. 3 Map of literacy rates in Imperial Russia in 1897—also a good guide to per
capita levels today (darker is better). (Source: “The first general census of the
population of the Russian Empire in 1897” (1897–1905), Central Statistical
Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (St. Petersburg), Nikolai
Aleksandrovich Troinitsky)
 Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy 9

1897-1914 1920-40 1943-52 1975-79 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 2005-09 2010-14 2015-19
Argentina 64 75 86 94 96 97 99 99 99
Brazil 35 40 49 68 75 81 87 90 91 93
Chile 50 68 80 91 94 96 98 97 97
China 28 48 66 78 91 95 97
Colombia 40 54 62 84 91 91 93 93 94 95
Czech Rep 96 98 100
Egypt 7 14 20 38 39 44 37 56 55 67 73 71
Greece 37 47 74 91 93 96 94 97 98
Hungary 68 88 95 99 99 99 99 99
India 7 9 20 41 48 61 63 69 74
Indonesia 8 18 67 82 90 92 94 95
Israel 94 92
Jordan 18 67 69 82 90 92 95 98
Korea 32 33 85 91 92 98
Kuwait 18 60 68 74 77 78 83 94 96 96
Malaysia 40 70 83 89 93 95
Mexico 25 39 63 83 88 91 93 94 95
Morocco 13 30 39 42 52 56 68 74
Pakistan 7 9 14 26 34 43 53 56 59
Peru 42 48 82 87 88 89 94 94
Philippines 48 60 83 94 93 95 96 98
Poland 70 93 99 99 99 99 100 99 100 100
Portugal 29 41 56 79 88 90 95 96
Qatar 8 70 76 77 83 87 91 91 93
Russia 26 54 93 98 99 100 100
Saudi Arabia 3 71 81 94 95
South Africa 7 28 76 82 91 93 91
Taiwan 60 94 96 98 98 99
Thailand 52 88 93 94 95 93
Turkey 19 32 62 66 76 79 87 89 95 96
UAE 3 54 71 77 90 93
Venezuela 28 52 85 90 93 95 95 97

Fig. 4 Literacy rates over the last 120 years: green is over 70%, red is below 40%.
Note: SA 7% refers to non-white population (white was 96%) and same for the
28% figure. 28% for Szechuan province (China) is the only data we could find and
refers to 1942–43. For UAE we use Trucial Oman for historic data. In 1945, only the
Jews and Armenians in Turkey had a literacy rate above 50%. (Source: UNESCO,
League of Nations, various other papers) (Color figure online)

UNESCO. They do unfortunately use different definitions of literacy

and slightly different age ranges, so we need to treat the data cautiously.
But it explains so much (Fig. 4).
Looking back 100 years, to the generation immediately after World
War I (WWI), the most literate countries shown here were in Central
Europe and Argentina. Czechoslovakia’s adult literacy was nearly 100%.
By the 1930s it was the only democracy in the region and one of the most
successful industrial economies in the world. Weak British and French
leaders allowed the country to be swallowed up by Nazi Germany with-
out a fight in 1938–39, with the payback coming in 1940 when Czech-­
made tanks contributed to France’s military defeat—tanks that could
only be built by a country with high adult literacy.
Were it not for the imposition of communism from 1945 until
1989/1990, there is little doubt that Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary
would have shared in Western Europe’s surge of post-war prosperity. Even
10 C. Robertson

after two generations of communism, it has taken just 30 years since the
fall of the Berlin Wall, for the Czech Republic to overtake the wealth of
Greece and Portugal. The per capita GDP primacy you might have
expected from looking at 1920 adult literacy data has been restored.
Hungary and Poland are not far behind.
Argentina has a quite exceptional ability to periodically snatch defeat
from the jaws of development success. We will come across one other
country in Africa that has done similarly in the past few decades.13 But
even Argentina has a per capita GDP today of nearly $10 k, far higher
than Ukraine or Georgia. With a highly literate population, it is hard to
prevent economic success.
Korea and Taiwan show that 1900 literacy data are not destiny—both
were able to advance very successfully after 1950 despite relatively low
literacy levels in 1900. They prioritised sequential investment in educa-
tion, first at primary level, then high school and finally universities. By
the 2000s, Korean industrialisation was so advanced that its brands were
becoming household names globally.
The literacy data make it clear why China could industrialise decades
ahead of India. China reached 70% adult literacy in the 1990s, India
took another 25 years. At a headline level this undermines the thesis that
China has grown more quickly than India because it is an autocracy.14
Education alone provides an explanation. However, autocratic commu-
nist regimes do improve education and literacy rates.15 Few have done so
faster than the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, which improved liter-
acy rates by roughly 2 percentage points (ppts) annually over a genera-
tion.16 Most countries achieve something closer to 1 ppt.
South Africa (SA) deserves a special mention. From the first data we
can find, there was a huge racial gap in literacy rates. Before WWI, the
white population had a 96% literacy rate (similar to Czechoslovakia)
while the non-white population had a 7% literacy rate (similar to India).
With those data points alone, we might guess that black South Africans
today would have a per capita GDP of $2 k (as in India), while white
South Africans might have a per capita GDP of $20 k or more, similar to
Czechia or Portugal. That is probably not too far off the mark. SA’s capita
GDP average of $5–6 k conceals a great racial disparity between the 80%
population that is black and the 20% share of white, coloured and other
 Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy 11

minorities. Assuming $20 k per capita GDP for the 20% and $2 k for the
80%, you end up with $5–6 k.
Even around 1950, the literacy rate for black South Africans was still
only 28%, below Turkey’s level and equivalent to Mexico’s rate before
WWI. Up until the 1990s, the apartheid regime prioritised white educa-
tion over black education, and the political struggle for a vote saw many
boycott the racist educational system in the 1970s and 1980s. Even after
free elections in 1994 there was reluctance on the part of financial mar-
kets to fund significant budget deficits that might help address the educa-
tion gap via a heavy investment programme. In 1996, only 2% of the
white population had less than seven years of schooling, while 41% of the
black population had this little (with Indian/Asian and coloured popula-
tions in between). The 2% figure for the white population was the same
in 2011, for the black population it improved to 22%—but this still
leaves one-fifth with a huge educational disadvantage.17 In addition, there
is evidence from World Bank reports that the quality of education being
provided in SA remains too low for the economy to escape the middle-­
income trap.
Only in the last decade have we noticed greater efforts on the part of
the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to spend more on educa-
tion on a per capita basis. In part, this stems from fewer births, so main-
taining spending levels does increase spending per child. Nonetheless, the
education and per capita GDP gap in SA will be with us for generations
to come. There will be an obvious racial discrepancy in wealth levels that
only radical tax and spend policies could allay. Should the black popula-
tion continue to carry the burden of poverty stemming from illiteracy
over a hundred years ago? Should the white population be penalised in
part because their great-great-grandparents were literate? The easiest pol-
icy to justify is one which prioritises far better education for all, but it will
take generations and maybe centuries to rectify the imbalance from the
1890s. The US, which also has a big educational racial divide stemming
from slavery that was only abolished 150 years ago, demonstrates how
long it can take to address.
This review of most of the emerging markets of today helps to explain
why many did not industrialise before the 1980s. The education levels
were not high enough. As recently as three decades ago, the economist
12 C. Robertson

Paul Bairoch found that just four countries (Taiwan, Singapore, South
Korea and Hong Kong), “which represent less than 3% of the Third
World market economies’ population, in 1990, provided almost two
thirds of the total exports (excluding re-exports) of manufactured goods
of the entire Third World”. This is a shocking number. But at that time,
one in five adult Chinese could not read or write. It was inconceivable
that mobile phones might be built in emerging markets; only highly liter-
ate countries such as Finland could possibly make a world-beating prod-
uct like Nokia. But within three decades (by 2018) Hong Kong and
Singapore had joined the ranks of developed markets, China accounted
for 28% of global manufacturing and Nokia had been smashed by Korea’s
Samsung and the Chinese-manufactured American-designed iPhone.
Such startling success has encouraged global investors to seek out the
next wave of countries, labelled “frontier” markets, to see who can echo
what East Asia has achieved. A number are in South Asia, many are in
Africa. Within frontier as defined by index provider MSCI which com-
piles indices that fund managers can use to compare their performance,
there are also a few small emerging European markets and some in the
Middle East too. Emerging Europeans with high literacy in the 1920s are
among the richest today. The former Yugoslav republics still reflect the
literacy rates of a century ago, just as we saw with Imperial Russia;
Slovenia has much higher per capita GDP than Croatia or Serbia
(Fig. 5).
Sri Lanka, with the highest literacy rate in South Asia in the 1980s, has
a well-established textiles and electronics industry. The main surprise
from these data is why Sri Lanka has not done better. The 1986–2009
civil war is the obvious explanation.
Even now India lags Sri Lanka, but India did reach 74% literacy in
2018.18 Prime Minister Narendra Modi has embarked on a “Made in
India” campaign to increase manufacturing. It comes at just the right
time. Even 15 years ago, when the term “premature deindustrialisation”
was coined by researchers looking at falling manufacturing in developing
economies and specifically certain Indian states, India’s adult literacy rate
meant it could not industrialise.19 Now it can. It is 25 years behind China,
and so in the next 20 years, more and more of the products you buy will
be made in India.
 Education: No Take Off Without Adult Literacy 13

1897-1914 1920-40 1943-52 1975-79 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 2005-09 2010-14 2015-19
Bahrain 13 70 84 87 91 97
Bangladesh 7 9 14 29 35 48 47 60 72
Ivory Coast 3 34 36 49 42 47
Kazakhstan 5 54 93 98 100 100 100
Kenya 23 82 72 79 82
Lebanon 48 72 80 86 90 95
Mauritius 52 80 84 91 92
Nigeria 12 35 55 55 61 62
Oman 3 36 55 55 81 87 89 95
Senegal 3 27 39 46 47 56
Sri Lanka 29 40 58 87 91 91 91 92
Tunisia 18 48 59 74 77 80 81
Vietnam 18 84 88 90 90 94 95

Croatia 46 69 84 97 98 99 99
Estonia 78 92 93 100 100 100 100
Lithuania 71 85 93 98 100 100 100
Romania 22 57 77 97 97 99 99
Serbia 21 53 73 96 98 99
Slovenia 78 95 98 100 100 100 100
Georgia 26 54 93 100 100 100
Iran 11 37 52 66 73 77 83 84 86
Iraq 13 32 36 36 74 77 85
Ukraine 26 54 93 99 100 100

Fig. 5 Literacy rates for the past 125 years for a range of European, Asian and
African frontier economies. (Source: League of Nations, UNESCO, various other
sources) (Color figure online)

Next-door is fast-growing Bangladesh, with a literacy rate most

recently estimated at 75% in 2019. It exported nearly $3bn a month of
textiles in 2018/2019, more than 14 African economies export in a year.
It is capturing the textiles businesses that increasingly higher cost China
is sloughing off as it shifts into heavy industry and tech.
Last in the region is Pakistan, with a literacy rate of 59% in 2017, a
country still reliant on good harvests for decent economic growth. We’ll
explain below why you might still buy clothes made in Pakistan, despite
a “too low” literacy rate.
Post-communist Vietnam is widely seen as “the next China” and that
makes sense given its high education levels, which are at least in part a
legacy of communism. Having achieved high adult literacy, Vietnam
exports tens of thousands of its students to attend universities even in
countries it was at war with in the 1970s, Australia and the US (Vietnamese
are among the top-10 nationalities attending US universities). Enough
have returned to support stellar economic growth. Vietnam’s industrial
success is such that it exported $2700 of goods per person in 2019, way
above China’s $1800.
We’ve made little mention yet of the Gulf oil exporters. They might be
the main—and only a temporary—exception to our argument that
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Maÿ, aux boys et aux jolis petits jeunes gens, pour qui elle est faite
et qui la battront comme plâtre et lui demanderont de l’argent… Fais
comme moi : ne te marie pas.
Et Phuc parlait pareillement, sur la chaloupe descendant de
Saïgon ; et le vieux notable de Phuôc-Tinh l’avertissait de monter la
garde autour de son cœur. Couché dans l’herbe douce de la
clairière, il avait entendu la forêt le rappeler à elle, comme l’avait
appelé aussi la mer : toutes deux avaient essayé d’arracher l’âme de
leur enfant aux griffes féminines qui la déchiraient. Ainsi les hommes
et les choses avaient crié à Hiên le Maboul qu’il faisait fausse route
et de rebrousser chemin. Mais l’illusion tenace avait voilé ses yeux
et bouché ses oreilles : elle seule avait fait son malheur.
Alors, inconséquent et désespéré, au lieu de la maudire, il pleura
l’illusion écroulée, l’illusion enchanteresse et divine. Il pleurait, le dos
tourné à la mer murmurante, regardant sans la voir l’avenue des
frangipaniers où Maÿ s’était enfuie. Le sable humide et froid
submergeait ses pieds nus. Un taret rongeait le bois criard d’un
sampan ; une chouette hululait ; sur la nappe scintillante des étoiles,
le Phare ouvrait et refermait son œil écarlate.
Il semblait à Hiên sortir d’un long sommeil et que la nuit elle-
même avait dormi, et qu’elle se reprenait seulement à vivre. Il
pleurait, cependant, comme avait pleuré, un soir, la femme invisible
derrière les stores abaissés de sa case, comme avaient pleuré les
suppliants prosternés devant le pagodon de pisé, sous le banyan,
comme pleurait le soldat français crachant ses poumons sur le
revers du talus, comme pleure, depuis le commencement des
siècles, l’humanité penchée sur les débris de ses illusions…
Derrière la montagne de Ganh-Ray, la lune se leva, ronde et
nacrée. Hiên le Maboul se tourna vers la baie où pâlissaient les
falots des jonques, où luisaient les flancs des vagues. La tentation
lui vint d’aller vers elles, qui berceraient sa peine, étoufferaient sous
leur chant intarissable et triomphant ses cris de rébellion, lui
donneraient le calme et la paix définitifs. Il se résolut à mourir :
puisque la vie l’avait déçu et blessé, à quoi bon vivre ?… Oui !
mourir ! mourir et dormir ! Ne plus sentir au cœur l’affreuse plaie
saigner goutte à goutte ; à la gorge, l’étreinte se resserrer, jusqu’au
râle ! ne plus pleurer, ne plus souffrir !
Il marcha dans le sable semé de planches pourries, de branches,
d’algues, de galets verdissants ; l’eau tourbillonnante monta jusqu’à
ses chevilles…
Il n’alla pas plus avant : il se souvint de l’Aïeul. Tout au fond de
sa pauvre âme enfantine, peut-être une lueur imperceptible d’espoir
vacillait-elle, espoir vague que le maître lui dirait les mots qui
guérissent, les mots qui consolent.
— J’irai voir l’Aïeul, puis je reviendrai mourir… Je veux revoir
l’Aïeul !
Il gravit la berge inondée de clair de lune, courut, à perdre
haleine, dans l’avenue déserte où sommeillaient les chiens jaunes,
où ricanaient les ombres difformes des banyans. Le parfum
écœurant des fleurs de frangipaniers saturait la nuit chaude.
*
* *

Les bouddhas satisfaits qu’ensanglante la lampe considèrent,

sans se départir de leur immuable sourire, le gueux écroulé sur les
genoux aux pieds de l’Aïeul. Par les persiennes ouvertes, la nuit
lumineuse entre avec la brise, qui remue discrètement les panses
dorées des lanternes chinoises. Le dernier sanglot de Hiên résonne
encore dans la haute pièce, où ondulent les panneaux de satin
chatoyant et les plis raides des étendards, où frissonnent les feuilles
aiguës des cycas.
L’Aïeul, navré, pose la main sur la nuque noire de son grand
enfant sauvage et songe à la faiblesse dérisoire des consolations
qu’il pourra lui proposer. Hiên le Maboul est venu à lui, d’instinct,
comme l’enfant à qui l’on a fait du mal vient se jeter dans les jupons
de sa mère ; il lui a dit avec des plaintes rauques et des soupirs de
détresse, il lui a dit l’attente au bord de la route, Maÿ apparue entre
les clochettes des bougainvillias, l’aveu tombé des lèvres
méprisantes et Maÿ étendue dans le varech, couvrant de ses deux
bras repliés son visage épouvanté ; il a dit la crise de rage homicide
et l’angoisse de la connaissance entière.
— Tu sais les paroles qui guérissent, implore-t-il. Prononce-les :
dis les mots qui font oublier, et, lorsque je sortirai de ta maison, je
serai un homme nouveau, ignorant qu’il a aimé et souffert… Tu es
sage, tu es bon ; aux jours de chagrin, nous invoquions ton nom,
comme d’autres invoquent leurs dieux, et, déjà, le faix de nos
misères nous paraissait moins pesant. Souffle sur ma douleur : elle
s’envolera de mon cœur où elle a fait son nid. Tu es grand, tu es
fort : rien ne peut te résister ; tu as balayé d’un regard le tyran
devant qui nous rampions ; tu as porté la lumière dans mon âme
obscure d’enfant des bois…
— J’ai eu tort, trois fois tort ! confesse l’Aïeul ; j’aurais dû laisser
ton âme à sa pénombre, à son heureuse inconscience. Tu avais le
bonheur, ne connaissant de l’humanité que les gestes animaux. Je
savais qu’après avoir mordu au fruit amer de la science humaine tu
viendrais te rouler, quelque jour, à mes pieds, désabusé et hurlant.
Mais quoi ! tu m’as supplié, tu m’as dit : « Je veux être un homme
comme les autres hommes et je saurai me faire aimer de Maÿ… » Je
t’ai instruit, je t’ai appris les grimaces essentielles, je t’ai révélé tes
semblables. Accroupi contre ma chaise, assis dans ma voiture, tu as
écouté et retenu mes préceptes… Tu as appris à vivre. La suprême
leçon, celle qui ne pouvait te venir de moi, la vie s’est chargée de te
la donner : elle t’a fait connaître la désillusion et la douleur.
— Thi-Teu me l’avait dit ! gémit Hiên.
— Ainsi mes prévisions se sont réalisées : tes illusions sont
mortes, et te voilà, tombé de ton rêve et pleurant pitoyablement…
Pleure, petit frère, pleure jusqu’à vider ton cœur trop plein ! Lorsque
tes larmes auront séché, tu seras certain que ton éducation est
parachevée et que tu es un homme, puisque tu as connu la douleur.
— Dis-moi, dis-moi les mots qui guérissent cette douleur.
— Je ne les sais pas : personne ne les sait. Aux maux qui nous
viennent de la femme nul ne connaît de remède… que le temps !…
Le temps seul t’apportera l’apaisement, l’oubli total, peut-être…
 — Je ne puis oublier !
— L’oubli viendra, peut-être, un jour… Alors tu seras pareil à un
dieu. Tu assisteras, souriant et amusé, aux contorsions de tes
contemporains qui s’acharneront à la découverte des bas-fonds de
l’âme féminine ; tu assisteras aux évolutions des pantins dont les
ficelles sont entre les doigts de la femme. Tu écouteras sonner les
rimes douloureuses forgées pour l’aimée idéale par des adolescents
ignorants comme tu le fus. Spectateur échappé miraculeusement du
Cirque où l’on se dévore, tu ne te lasseras point d’admirer l’infinie
sottise des lutteurs, que nul enjeu ne récompensera et qui laissent
sur le sable tout le sang de leurs veines et de leur cœur. Tu seras
pareil à un dieu… Tu m’écoutes, Hiên ?
— J’écoute, Aïeul : mais je n’entends pas les paroles. J’entends
Maÿ qui me parle et ricane à mon oreille… Je souffre et j’ai envie de
mourir… Fais taire Maÿ, Aïeul, chasse-la !… Dis-moi, dis-moi les
mots qui guérissent !…
— Je ne les sais pas !
— Je suis ton enfant : guéris-moi !
— Je ne puis te guérir.
— Maÿ ! Maÿ ! que t’avais-je fait ?…
Les bouddhas barbus n’ont point sourcillé : ils ont déjà perçu tant
de cris pareils ! Des siècles ont passé depuis que l’artiste mongol les
coula dans le moule d’argile : ils savent que les gosiers humains
sont coutumiers de semblables rugissements, et ils ne s’émeuvent
point de ceux-ci, pas plus que ne les émeut l’appel mélancolique des
chats-huants qu’apporte la nuit criblée de lucioles.
Hiên le Maboul lève vers son maître ses yeux ternes où se sont
éteintes les dernières lueurs d’illusion ; il se dresse péniblement et
lentement, comme le travailleur qu’attend une besogne ingrate.
— Je m’en vais, Aïeul vénérable !
— Où vas-tu ?
— Je vais… je vais au camp.
 — Tu mens ! Il est trop tard pour rentrer au camp. Tu mens : ta
voix tremble, tes mains tremblent… Où vas-tu ?
— Je vais au camp.
— Reste ici. Tu dormiras sur une natte, près de mon lit. Si les
idées mauvaises te reprennent, je te parlerai et tu n’y penseras plus.
Reste ici. Dans quelques jours je retourne vers les forêts d’Annam :
tu viendras avec moi. Couche-toi sur cette natte.

Derrière la moustiquaire de gaze, l’Aïeul s’est jeté sur le lit blanc

que parsèment les éventails de paille de riz et les écrans japonais. Il
feuillette distraitement le livre ami qui, aux rares heures de souci, le
rappelle au scepticisme sans âpreté, à la contemplation sereine et
souriante de la vie. Le charme habituel n’opère pas ; l’Aïeul est
mécontent et triste : sa philosophie mise en présence d’une douleur
réelle ne lui a fourni que des formules vaines, émoussées. Il fut
impuissant à panser les plaies du serviteur blessé qui est accouru
vers son maître. Maintenant encore, tandis qu’il épelle les phrases
vides de sens, il entend monter jusqu’à lui les soupirs profonds du
misérable qu’il ne sut pas soigner.
— Tu pleures, Hiên ?
— Je ne pleure pas, Aïeul vénérable.
— Essaie de dormir.
Le grand corps maigre s’immobilise sur la natte ; Hiên ferme les
poings et, les yeux clos, tâche de dormir pour obéir à l’Aïeul. Vains
efforts : le mal lancinant est en lui, qui le harcèle. Et l’idée fixe
reparaît : mourir ! mourir !… A quoi bon vivre ? Demain sera tel
qu’aujourd’hui. L’oubli viendra, quelque jour, peut-être, a dit l’Aïeul ;
mais, pendant des mois, des années, Hiên traînera ce boulet du
souvenir. C’est l’oubli immédiat qu’il lui faut, et le maître tout-
puissant a déclaré qu’il n’était pas en son pouvoir de le lui
accorder… Mourir ! il est l’heure de mourir ! Impossible de tarder
davantage : l’aube blême va balayer les brumes qui flottent sur la
plaine et la mer : il faut mourir avant que soit venue l’aube.
 Hiên se lève silencieusement, se penche sur le lit où l’Aïeul s’est
endormi ; il le regarde une dernière fois ; il regarde longuement cet
homme qui fut bon pour lui et hésite un instant. Mais, à son oreille,
Maÿ ricane… A travers la moustiquaire, il pose ses lèvres sur la
main de son maître et se faufile sous la véranda où fuient les
chauves-souris…
Il court par des routes inconnues vers la mer dont il entend la
voix énorme. Il approche, et la voix se fait plus retentissante et plus
implorante ; il distingue les paroles qu’elle gémit :
— Ne meurs pas, mon petit, ne meurs pas !…
— Ne meurs pas, mon petit, ne meurs pas ! supplie la forêt
anxieuse qui dévale aux flancs des massifs.
Hiên le Maboul n’entend plus la voix de la mer et de la forêt : le
rire aigu de Maÿ emplit ses oreilles. Il court ; le voilà devant la baie
où ruissellent les traînées de clarté lunaire, pareilles à des essaims
de poissons volants qui bondiraient hors de l’eau phosphorescente.
Et les voix que renforce le vent se font plus impératives. Hiên
comprend vaguement que l’eau ne voudra pas de lui, et, d’ailleurs,
une idée nouvelle lui vient : il se pendra aux branches du banyan qui
est devant la case du sergent Cang.
Il se hâte vers la mort, talonné par l’invisible mal, talonné aussi
par la peur de voir apparaître derrière le panache des aréquiers les
reflets roses de l’aube.
Voici le camp. La sentinelle dort dans sa guérite. C’est Nho ; il
ronfle paisiblement, accroupi sur la planche, le mousqueton entre les
jambes et la tête inclinée sur l’épaule.
Dans la case de Maÿ, pas une lumière, pas un souffle.
Qu’importe Maÿ, du reste ? Hiên a poussé contre le tronc centenaire
le billot de teck qui sert aux femmes des tirailleurs à fendre leur bois.
Il déroule sa longue ceinture de laine rouge, la jette par-dessus une
grosse branche et la noue solidement.
Il a bien calculé : debout sur le billot, son menton affleure la
boucle du nœud coulant. Il introduit sa tête dans la boucle, se
penche, pousse du pied le morceau de bois qui se dérobe et roule.
La courte lutte commence qui précède le grand repos.
La mer et la forêt sanglotent.

Ainsi finit Hiên le Maboul qui voulut vivre comme les autres
hommes.
 XXIII

L’Aïeul ouvrit la porte, par où pénétra l’aube grise et froide.

Essoufflé et rouge, le sergent Cang le salua :
— Aïeul à deux galons, Hiên le Maboul est mort.
Derrière lui, Bèp-Thoï se détournait, pour que nul ne vît couler
une larme sur ses joues flétries.
— Il s’est pendu à une branche du banyan qui est devant ma
porte. J’ai défendu d’y toucher avant ton arrivée : à quoi bon ? Le
corps était déjà glacé et raide : il devait être mort depuis des heures.
Que faut-il faire ?
— Attends-moi !
Tandis qu’ils se hâtaient vers le camp, à travers le village
endormi, le vieux sergent se lamentait.
— La vieillesse engourdit mon corps : je dors rarement, mais,
lorsque le sommeil vient à moi, je suis pareil à un cadavre. Je n’ai
pas entendu le cri d’agonie du malheureux ; d’autres l’ont entendu,
mais n’ont point bougé, croyant que les malins esprits se battaient
sur la plage… Et le pauvre fou est mort tout seul, et maintenant il est
là, accroché à sa ceinture ; le vent remue les pans de sa veste, et
l’on croirait qu’il va bouger encore ; mais il est bien mort… Il était fou,
bien sûr ! Il y a longtemps que sa folie couvait, mais, hier soir, elle a
éclaté tout à fait. Ma fille Maÿ, qui était allée au marché, est revenue
en courant, échevelée, sa tunique déchirée et tachée de boue,
hurlant d’épouvante, nous criant de fermer la porte, que Hiên la
poursuivait et voulait la tuer. Elle claquait des dents et la fièvre la
tenait. Je n’ai pu savoir où elle avait rencontré le malheureux
furieux… Il a dû errer ensuite dans la nuit pour fuir la folie, mais elle
l’a rattrapé et voici qu’elle a fait son œuvre…
— Oui, dit l’Aïeul, c’est elle qui l’a persuadé de mourir.
 — Le voilà !
Dans la lumière incertaine, l’Aïeul vit son enfant mort : il lut dans
les yeux vitreux, dans les bras allongés, l’accablement, l’infinie
lassitude, le désespoir qui avaient inspiré à l’âme tourmentée le
désir du sommeil sans rêves et sans terme.
Les petits soldats attentifs déposèrent le vaincu sur un brancard,
abaissèrent sur le regard farouche les paupières noires, rendirent à
la face toute sa beauté sauvage, lui donnèrent la sérénité qu’il
n’avait jamais connue. Comme sonnait le réveil ils couchèrent leur
camarade sur une natte où pleuvaient les pétales des flamboyants…
Vêtu de blanc, coiffé de son salacco, Hiên dormit toute la
matinée à l’ombre des flamboyants, veillé par Phuc et par Nho,
bercé par les chansons des vagues et des bambous ; et sa figure
paisible, tournée vers le ciel incandescent, semblait joyeuse du
grand soleil épanoui, des feuilles tendres qui jaillissaient des
bourgeons éclatés, des moineaux qui pépiaient dans la paille des
toits, des papillons indécis… Cependant les marteaux des
charpentiers cognaient à grands coups sourds les planches du
cercueil et les sanglots des deux gardiens accroupis leur
répondaient.
*
* *

— Aïeul à deux galons, dit Cang, c’est toi qui représentes la

famille absente : il t’appartient de donner des ordres. Tout est prêt :
le bonze et le catafalque sont là.
L’Aïeul s’avance vers le cercueil ouvert ; il soulève le voile de
papier grenat qui recouvre le visage de Hiên le Maboul et lève la
main, selon les rites. Les charpentiers rabattent le massif couvercle
de teck et frappent sur les clous de cuivre : l’humble tirailleur est
prisonnier dans son étroite caisse laquée et incrustée de nacre. Car
le maître a voulu que son serviteur reposât dans un cercueil de
riche : comme un mandarin, le gueux sera trimbalé dans le beau
catafalque doré, pavoisé d’oriflammes rouges et blanches ; bonzes,
chanteurs, pleureuses et musiciens, grassement payés, ne lui
ménageront ni les grimaces, ni les hurlements, ni les lamentations.
Les pétards éparpillent dans la poussière leurs tubes
déchiquetés et noircis. Le gong, les tams-tams emplissent la baie de
leurs pulsations sonores ; les flûtes soupirent langoureusement, les
violons à deux cordes nasillent. Et le cortège se met en marche, le
long de la baie scintillante où courent des frissons lumineux.
En avant, chemine le bonze qui, par les routes convenables,
mènera l’âme du défunt jusqu’à la tombe et jusqu’à l’éternité sereine.
Le bâton à la main, il écarte les ombres malveillantes et les gamins
qui se bousculent sur la chaussée, dans leur joie de prendre part à
cette magnifique cérémonie. Ensuite défile l’interminable procession
des brancards où sont étalées des victuailles : cochons rôtis et
peints au vermillon, régimes de bananes, gâteaux de riz, jattes de
nuoc-mâm, toutes bonnes choses dont est supposé se nourrir le
mort, mais qui serviront ce soir au repas de funérailles. Des
garçonnets agitent des banderoles d’étoffe blanche, où des
caractères à l’encre de Chine exaltent les vertus de Hiên ; et, comme
l’écrivain qui les rédigea fut élu entre les plus habiles de sa
corporation, les habitants du village s’extasient sur le choix heureux
des épithètes flatteuses qui sont accolées au nom du mort. Deux
porteurs balancent sur leurs épaules un coffre pourpre où s’érige la
Tablette, planchette double où sont inscrits les noms, prénoms, titres
qui furent la propriété de Hiên.
Quarante robustes sampaniers chancellent sous les énormes
madriers de teck sculpté que couronne le catafalque en forme de
pagodon : derrière les panneaux à jour plaqués de cuivre doré et de
clinquant, le cercueil est enfermé. Vers lui les baguettes d’encens
envoient leur légère fumée bleue ; vers lui montent les grincements
des violons, les battements précipités des tams-tams, les
ronflements des gongs, les trilles des flûtes, les cris aigres des
chanteurs psalmodiant des litanies baroques, le cliquetis de la
coquille de bois que frappe à tour de bras un tirailleur, les
hululements des pleureuses voilées de crépon blanc et courbées
derrière le catafalque.
 Deux vieillards effeuillent des carrés de papier argenté et doré
qui figurent d’incalculables trésors : les mauvais esprits qui pullulent
et guettent la pauvre âme sont généralement cupides, et pendant
qu’ils se ruent sur les lingots d’or et d’argent, dont la route est
jonchée, le mort se hâte vers la fosse, où cesse tout risque de
poursuite.
Derrière le cercueil, l’Aïeul conduit le deuil. Bien plus que le
vieillard indifférent qui, à cette heure, s’éveille de la sieste dans le
village lointain, il est le père du pauvre hère que cahotent les
épaules lasses des sampaniers. Une vraie douleur de père le
bouleverse, tandis qu’il se redresse dans le dolman de toile blanche
à boutons d’or. Sous la visière basse du casque, ses yeux clairs, qui
semblent considérer les hampes des oriflammes et les cagoules des
pleureuses, évoquent inlassablement le simple et naïf compagnon
que la vie a dégoûté de vivre.
Il s’accuse de faiblesse et d’imprévoyance : pourquoi a-t-il cédé
aux supplications de l’innocent qui voulut acquérir la science
mauvaise ?
Pourquoi l’a-t-il aidé dans sa recherche de l’amour qu’il savait
devoir aboutir à la désillusion ? Pourquoi enfin, à l’heure où la
tentation de la mort rôdait autour du cerveau fou, n’a-t-il pas veillé
sur le sauvage désarmé et qui ne pouvait se garder seul ?… Il songe
que, ce soir, dans la maison vide, les grosses mains noires ne se
poseront pas sur son genou, les bons yeux luisants ne lui donneront
pas leur caresse confiante. Il songe que toute sa philosophie légère
et insouciante est impuissante à lui fournir une seule formule de
consolation vraie. Une fois de plus, en face de la mort, il pleure,
silencieusement et sans larmes, ses croyances envolées.
Sur la route écarlate sonnent les semelles ferrées des sous-
officiers français ; puis viennent les tirailleurs en grande tenue,
martelant la terre dure de leurs pieds nus, et les femmes, et le
village tout entier.
*
* *
 C’est fini. On a mis sur le cercueil des bâtonnets, du riz et des
œufs, et les fossoyeurs ont rejeté sur Hiên le sable chauffé par le
soleil. Tous les gens qui sont venus accompagner le mort sont
retournés vers la vie. L’Aïeul est parti, longtemps après les autres,
entraîné par Bèp-Thoï qui s’est hasardé à le prendre par la main
pour l’emmener.
Hiên le Maboul sommeille dans son cercueil de teck laqué, et le
crépuscule tombe sur lui… Il dort, au flanc de la dune
qu’empanachent les aréquiers aux palmes bavardes. A ses pieds
ondulent les rizières plates où planent les crabiers, où déambulent
les graves marabouts, où coassent les crapauds-buffles charmés de
la soirée fraîche.
Là-bas, dans le feuillage terne des banyans pâlissent le toit
rouge et les vérandas roses de la maison de l’Aïeul. Entre les fûts
inclinés des cocotiers las, les vergues brunes des sampans se
balancent sur la baie cuivrée. La lisière de la forêt proche
s’enténèbre.
Hiên le Maboul, qui voulut goûter de la vie et que la vie écœura,
dort paisiblement, et les voix tristes de la mer et des arbres bercent
son sommeil sans rêves.

Hengay-Lam (Tonkin).

FIN

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Vol.
ADOLPHE ADERER
Le Drapeau ou la Foi ? 1
L’AUTEUR DE « AMITIÉ AMOUREUSE » et JEAN DE FOSSENDAL
L’Amour Guette 1
RENÉ BAZIN
Mémoires d’une vieille fille 1
TRISTAN BERNARD
Théâtre (tome I) 1
GEORGES BIZET
Lettres de Bizet 1
RENÉ BOYLESVE
Mon Amour 1
GUY CHANTEPLEURE
Le Baiser au Clair de Lune 1
PIERRE DE COULEVAIN
Au Cœur de la Vie 1
GRAZIA DELEDDA
Le Fantôme du Passé 1
LOUIS ESTANG
L’Affaire Nell 1
ANATOLE FRANCE
L’Ile des Pingouins 1
LÉON FRAPIÉ
La Figurante 1
GÉRARD D’HOUVILLE
Le Temps d’aimer 1
HUGUES LAPAIRE
L’Épervier 1
PHILIPPE LAUTREY
Histoire d’une Demoiselle de Modes 1
JULES LEMAITRE
Jean Racine 1
MARIE LAPARCERIE
La Comédie Douloureuse 1
ANDRÉ LICHTENBERGER
La Folle Aventure 1
PIERRE LOTI
Les Désenchantées 1
CAMILLE MAUCLAIR
L’Amour tragique 1
COMTESSE MATHIEU DE NOAILLES
Les Éblouissements 1
ERNEST PSICHARI
Terres de Soleil et de Sommeil 1
GASTON RAGEOT
Un Grand Homme 1
G. RÉVAL
Les Camp-Volantes de la Riviera 1
MARQUIS DE SÉGUR
Esquisses et Récits 1
H. SUDERMANN
Parmi les Pierres 1
ANDRÉ TARDIEU
Notes sur les États-Unis 1
MARCELLE TINAYRE
L’Amour qui pleure 1
LÉON DE TINSEAU
Le Port d’attache 1
JEAN-LOUIS VAUDOYER
L’Amour Masqué 1
JEAN VIOLLIS
Monsieur le Principal 1
COLETTE YVER
Princesses de Science 1
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