The Time-Travelling Economist : Why

Education, Electricity and Fertility Are

Key to Escaping Poverty Charlie
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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

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 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.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Abb. 13 Die Hoflößnitz Eingang zum
Festsaal
Aufnahme von J. Ostermaier, Dresden-Blasewitz

Der beiden prächtigen, vasengekrönten Majolikaöfen in den

beiden Wohnzimmern sei noch besonders gedacht. Der weiß-grüne
im Zimmer der Kurfürstin zeigt als Verzierung der (weißen) Kacheln
Blumen und Fruchtgehänge, der blau-weiße des Kurfürsten (s.
Abbildung 14) Feuersalamander und Ignis (Feuer) in höchst
eigenartiger Darstellung.
 Abb. 14 Die Hoflößnitz Ofen im
Wohnzimmer des Kurfürsten
Aufnahme von J. Ostermaier, Dresden-Blasewitz

Müde vom vielen Schauen gönnen wir uns eine kurze Rast unter
den alten Kastanien der geräumigen Aussichtsterrasse, die
zwischen dem Hoflößnitzer Herrenhause und dem gemütlichen
Weinschanke liegt, der sich in einem der alten Hofgebäude
eingenistet hat. Zu einem Fläschchen Wein oder wenigstens
Schoppen wäre schon der Durst vorhanden. Ob aber auch die
nötigen Billionen, ohne die heutzutage niemand an so etwas denken
darf? Mag die durstige Kehle dursten! Dafür trinkt das durstige Auge
die Schönheit, die der Blick auf die liebliche Lößnitz zu unsern
Füßen bietet, in vollen Zügen. Ein andrer Blick wieder, als vom
Jakobstein über Wackerbarths Ruhe, die aus der Ferne noch einmal
zu uns freundlich herübergrüßt, aber auch bezaubernd schön in
seiner Art. Der um die Vervollkommnung des Lößnitzer Weinbaus
hochverdiente Johann Paul Knoll, der »erste Winzer der Lößnitz«,
dessen Bild in der Schankstube nebenan von der Wand
herablächelt, durfte schon mit Recht singen:

»Hier steht das Helden-Hauß, das um und um mit Reben

Sehr lieblich ist umschrenckt. Die überschöne Flur,
Die selbsten angelegt die gütige Natur,
Kann keinem Lande nicht im wenigsten nachgeben.

Churfürst Johann Georg der Erste ließ es heben;

Der andre Churfürst drauff, des Reiches Cynosur,
Macht es zur Hofe-Stadt, damit auch hier die Spur
Zu sehen möchte seyn, wie Er vergnügt kann leben.

Ein Landes-Vater muß nicht stets in Sorgen stehn;

Drum hat er es zur Lust gantz fürstlich ausgezieret;
Die schönste Schilderey hat Er da auffgeführet,
Daß mit den Frembden es mög in die Wette gehn.

Viel schöner noch als schön ist es vor Menschen Sinnen,

Ist aber hier sein Wirth, so ist nichts Schöners drinnen.«
 Die Lößnitz und die Dresdner Heide
Von Oskar Merker, Dresden
Wir sind gewöhnt, die Lößnitz stolz das Sächsische Nizza zu
nennen – wir können es mit berechtigtem Stolze! Herrliche Bilder
des sonnigen Südens werden durch dieses eine Wort lebendig; wir
sehen den Blütenreichtum dieses gesegneten Gebietes, seine schier
unerschöpfliche Fruchtbarkeit, seine Weinberge, seine Obstgärten,
die jedem, der sie einmal in vollem Blütenschmucke gesehen hat,
unvergeßlich sein werden. Über diesem glanzvollen Bilde haben wir
aber ganz verlernt, gleichzeitig der bescheideneren Bilder der
Dresdner Heide zu gedenken. Und doch ist die stolze Lößnitz sehr
wohl von der Heide abhängig gewesen – bis in die Gegenwart
herein! Daß das vergessen werden konnte, hat seinen Grund wohl
vor allem darin, daß die jetzt üblichen »Heidekarten« nur um ein
weniges westwärts über die Prießnitz herübergreifen. Die
»Grundkarte von Deutschland« dagegen gibt auf Blatt 417, 443 die
tatsächlichen Verhältnisse: bis weit nach Westen ist hier das Gebiet
der Dresdner Heide zu erkennen, die »Junge Heide« ist mit umfaßt!
Ein im Dresdner Hauptstaatsarchiv aufbewahrtes Forstzeichenbuch
vom Jahre 1571 umgrenzt durch Nennung der Orte, »so umb die
Heyde gelegen,« deren Gebiet: »Nawendorff, Bieschen, Dracha,
Rödebeul, Serckewitz, Ketzschenbroda, Wansdorff, Reichenberg,
Bocksdorff, Wilschdorff, Renes (Rähnitz), Klotzschen, Lausnitz,
Langenbrück« usw. Mathias Oeder hat, etwa im Jahre 1600, ein
entsprechendes Kartenbild gezeichnet.
Eine Wechselwirkung zwischen der Lößnitz und der Dresdner
Heide ist also wohl ohne weiteres anzunehmen. Einige Streiflichter
hierzu!
Bekannt ist, daß die Dresdner Heide eins der Jagdgebiete der
sächsischen Fürsten von jeher gewesen ist. Die Wettiner waren
bemüht, dieses Gebiet immer mehr abzurunden, seinen Wildbestand
auf unvergleichlicher Höhe zu halten. Verzeichnisse der
Jagdergebnisse geben überraschende Einblicke, ebenso Berichte,
wie der von 1687, in dem wir lesen, daß »bey der Hirschfeist 609
Mann … aus 17 Ämbtern … aufgewarttet« haben, die 19 Mann des
Amtes Moritzburg z. B. »vom 13. Julii bis mit den 1. Sept. zusammen
51 Tage …« Die Dörfer, die der Wildbahn angrenzten, waren nicht zu
beneiden! Immer und immer wieder klagen sie über entstandenen
Wildschaden und bitten um Entschädigung. Oft erreichen sie erst
nach langer Zeit, oft nicht einmal ganz ihr Ziel!
Das sind Dinge, die genug bekannt, die aber oft geflissentlich
einseitig scharf beleuchtet worden sind! Haben die Bauern der
Lößnitzdörfer nicht auch um anderes gebeten, als um Ersatz für
erlittenen Wildschaden? Haben sie nicht oft auch Gesuche
eingereicht, sich aus der Heide Holz für ihren Hausbau, für Planken
um ihre Weinberge, Holz für Weinpfähle holen zu dürfen? Haben sie
dies nicht ebenso erhalten, wie die Erlaubnis zum Streurechen, zur
Hutung in der Heide? Aber gleich bringt man den Hinweis auf die
bäuerlichen Gegenleistungen, die bestanden haben in »Sensen- und
Sicheltagen zum Vorwerk Ostra und in Jagddiensten auf Dresdner
Heide«. Warum fragt man nicht danach, was jenen im Winter das
mangelnde Stroh hätte ersetzen können, wenn sie das Laub der
Heide nicht gehabt hätten?! Warum weist man nicht darauf hin, wie
unentbehrlich ihrem Vieh vom Frühjahre bis zum späten Herbste
diese Hutung in der Heide gewesen ist?!
Ich habe durch eine starke Linie auf der eingangs erwähnten
»Grundkarte« (s. Abb. 1) all die Gemeinden – ohne Dresden –
umschlossen, die in der Heide von jenen Rechten Gebrauch
gemacht haben. Oft zum Schaden des Waldes, zum Schmerze der
Oberförster, die sehr wohl erkannten, wie schädlich ihrem Walde
diese Nutzung war!
Eine Bittschrift vom Jahre 1580 möchte ich hier einfügen – nicht,
um Nörglern Stoff zu bieten! Sie betrifft »die Sieben Dorffschafften
Kaditz, Serckwitz, Radebeull, Trachau, Pischenn, Muckten vnd
V̈ bigen«, die, wollten sie ihren Holzbedarf decken, nicht etwa in die
nahe Heide, sondern »in den Tarandischen Waldt« ziehen mußten,
während »etzliche Dorffschafften vber der Elbe In die Dreßdnische
Heide« gewiesen wurden! Noch 1593 ist die Angelegenheit nicht
endgültig geregelt, weil »der her Jegermeister durch den Zeitlichen
thot von dieser welt abgefordert worden«.

Abb. 1 Grundkarte
Details
Geldknappheit ist durchaus keine neuzeitliche Erfindung! Anno
1675 hat ein »Wohlverordtneter Cammer-Juncker, auch Ober Forst
u. Wildtmeister … vor eingelieferte Hirsch Wildts und andere Heuthe
auch Rehe felle und anders (Wölfe sind mehrfach noch genannt!)
noch 496 fl 2 gr an Jägerrechte zu fordern«. Er bittet, wenigstens die
Hälfte ihm zu gewähren – die Forderung betraf die Jahre 1670–
1675!! Treue Dienste müssen aber doch belohnt werden! Ist kein
Geld da, dann eben auf andre Weise! Und so war denn der Kurfürst
auf den Gedanken verfallen, sein Waldgebiet dort zu opfern, wo es
der Wildbahn nicht schädlich war: er verlieh an Stelle vielleicht sehr
dringlicher Gehaltszulagen ein Stück derartigen Heidebodens – als
Weinbergsgelände! Die Karte (Abb. 2) nennt Namen und Stand der
Bedachten: Forstleute und Amtsschreiber, Bürgermeister und
Kammerdiener, alle werden fast gleichmäßig bedacht: zwischen vier
und sechs Ackern schwankt die Größe der »Neuen Weinbergstede«.
Die Karte zeigt übrigens auch, wie der Kurfürst gleichzeitig die
Gelegenheit benutzt hat, sein Heidegebiet abzurunden: »Diesen
Feldwinkl treten die Zwantzig Personen von Rädebeil vnderthenigst
ab! Zu ergäntzung dieser heyden ecken!« lesen wir unter anderem
im nordöstlichen Teile der Karte – sie ist umgekehrt orientiert wie
unsere Karten! Seit 1627 hat sie geruht – zum ersten Male wird sie
hier abgedruckt – im Dresdner Hauptstaatsarchiv fand ich sie (Loc.
38525, Rep. XVIIIa, Dresden 185), eine Zeichnung des Balthasar
Zimmermann, des kursächsischen Markscheiders, des Vetters jenes
berühmteren Mathias Oeder, dessen Heidekarte von 1600 bereits
Erwähnung fand.

Abb. 2 Karte von Balthasar Zimmermann 1627

Zimmermann besaß übrigens auch einen Weinberg in unserem

Gebiete – er hatte ja »dem Hause Sachsen langwierige, treue
Dienste« genug geleistet! »Mit großen vncosten hatte er den Platz
gerodet, mit weinstöcken bestecket vnd eine Mauer von Stein vnd
Plancken darumb geführet. Die Soldaten hatten aber (noch dazu im
Winter!) die Plancken wegkgeholet vnd verbrandt«. In der Nähe
befand sich ein Fleck, den seine Erben 1634 gern gehabt hätten.
Des Vaters Haus hatten sie »schulden halber verkauffen müssen,
vnd des Weinberges aus ermangelung Tüngers konnten sie nicht
mechtig werden«. Auf jenem Heideflecke sollten nun »einbaar Kühe
des Sommers über ihre trifft vndt weyde haben«. Der Fleck lag aber
innerhalb »der allgemeinen huttung«, der er auch verbleiben soll,
das Gesuch muß also abgelehnt werden – 1638 haben es die Erben
noch einmal versucht. Jener Heidefleck reichte »bis an die
Bohmwiese«, so berichtet der Oberforstmeister Bernstein; Balzer
Zimmermanns Erben schreiben: »bis an die Bahnwiese« – und
Oeder? Auf seiner Karte steht: »Am Baum«. Ob nun die
»Bahnwiese« endlich verschwindet und der »Baumwiese« Platz
macht?!
Zimmermanns Karte zeigt noch ein anderes sprachlich so
lehrreiches Beispiel: an der »Meisnischen stras« – der alten! – liegt
»Schneeweisens Bres«, also die Weinpresse des Schneeweiß! In
dem erwähnten Schriftstücke von 1627 wird sie oft zur genaueren
Ortsbestimmung benutzt. Das Gelände muß Hofbedienten zugesagt
haben; sie bewerben sich darum, »damit den Armen Gesellen zu
fortstellung der geringen Heußlichen nahrung vnd beßerer erhaltung
der Kleinen Kinderlein solcher vonn den trotzigen Bauern
außgeschlagener vbriger Platz (er hatte den Serkowitzern zunächst
nicht zugesagt!), der doch sonsten von andernn leuten ausgebeten
werden dürffte, gleich andern Dienern vnd Rentherey Schreiben
gnedigst bewilliget vnd Erblich eingereumt werden möge. Die Zinß
vnd Landsteuer wollen sie Jedesmahl gehorsamblich abstatten …«
Für sie, die Ortsfremden, wird nun auf einmal jene Presse zur
»Weißen Preße im Zippell genant«! Wozu auch »schneeweiß« –
weiß genügt! So mag mancher Name entstanden sein, den wir uns
heute nicht mehr erklären können! –
Streiflichter in Verhältnisse, die jahrhundertelang das Leben der
Bewohner der Lößnitz ganz wesentlich beeinflußt haben!
 Der Untergang des Weinbaus
Von Prof. Dr. A. Naumann
O du weinfrohe Lößnitz! Vor vier Jahrzehnten noch grünten
allüberall deine Rebenhöhen, mostvergnügte Menschen jubelten auf
deinen gartengeschmückten Straßen, und manch »graue« Züge
führten wackere Zecher heimwärts.
Winzerfeste wurden gefeiert, die Tausende natur- und
weinbegeisterter Städter in deine gesegneten Gefilde führten. Das
berühmteste Winzerfest fand statt am 25. Oktober des Jahres 1840.
Es war ein vaterländisches Fest »in Verbindung mit einer Wein- und
Traubenausstellung und Musterung,« wie es in der Denkschrift heißt.
Das Bild des Winzerzuges ist von Prof. Moritz Retzsch entworfen,
und dieses figurenreiche Erinnerungsblatt (Abbildung 1) ist noch in
gar mancher Weinstube, sogar in farbiger Ausführung[2], als
Wandschmuck zu finden.

1
2

4
5

7
 8
Gez. v. M. Retzsch Lith. v. E. Otte. Gedr. v. E. Böhme.
Abb. 1 Winzerzug

Kein Mensch ahnte in den achtziger Jahren des vorigen

Jahrhunderts den Feind, der, an den Wurzeln der Reben saugend,
all dieser Rebenherrlichkeit und Weinfröhlichkeit ein Ende bereiten
sollte. Ein winziger Schnabelkerf »die Reblaus« war unter der
sommerdurchwärmten Erde an der Arbeit; jahrzehntelang hatte sie
sich unbemerkt in das Wurzelwerk des europäischen Weinstockes,
unserer Vitis vinifera eingenistet.
Sie senkte ihre Stechborsten tief hinein in das weiche Gewebe der
Wurzelspitzen und saugte die Bildungssäfte auf (Abb. 2f). Wohl
wehrte sich das Wurzelende und suchte durch Anschwellungen und
hakige Krümmungen (Abb. 2h) den Feind zu überwuchern und zu
erdrücken; aber die Vermehrungskraft der Reblaus war zu gewaltig!
Die Altläuse (Abb. 2d) legten unbefruchtet, als sogenannte Ammen,
mehr denn vierzig Eier, denen nach zehn Tagen schon Jungläuse
(Abb. 2c) entschlüpften, die nach kurzer Saugtätigkeit wiederum
unbefruchtet zur Eiablage fähig waren. Bis zu fünf Generationen
wuchsen in einem Jahre heran, so daß eine einzige Wurzellaus die
Stammutter von etwa dreiundsiebzig Millionen Nachkommen sein
konnte. Da eine so ungeheuere Nachkommenschaft am
Geburtsstocke nicht genügend Nahrung fand, mußte die jugendliche,
ziemlich bewegliche Reblaus neue Nahrungsquellen aufsuchen und
dabei unterirdisch einen mühsamen Weg von Rebstock zu Rebstock
zurücklegen. Im sächsischen Weinbau war zur Vermehrung der
Weinstöcke das sogenannte Senkverfahren üblich: von einem
Mutterstock wurden die Reben niedergebogen und in die Erde
eingegraben, damit die Zweigspitzen, über der Erde hervorragend,
zu neuen Rebstöcken heranwuchsen. Hierdurch wurden für die
wandernden Jungläuse von Stock zu Stock bequeme unterirdische
Brücken geboten, und wir dürfen in den meisten Fällen die rasche
Verheerung der sächsischen Berge auf dieses Senkverfahren
zurückführen. – Mit jedem Karstschlag, mit jedem vom Winzerfuße
weitergetragenen Erdklümpchen verbreitete sich der tückische Feind
über alle Weingelände der Lößnitz, und bald konnte ein Kundiger an
dem Gilben des Stockes, an der nachlassenden Wuchskraft der
Reben, an dem jährlich geringer werdenden Ertrag herausfühlen,
daß dem Weinbau der Lößnitz, ja dem sächsischen Weinbau, eine
Katastrophe drohte. Im Jahre 1885 wurde durch einen Gärtner der
Lößnitz in den Königlichen Weinbergen daselbst die Reblaus
aufgefunden und der sächsischen Regierung darüber pflichtgemäß
Bericht erstattet.
Der damalige Garteninspektor Lämmerhirt, als Vertreter des
Landes-Obstbauvereins wurde mit Feststellung und Untersuchung
des Schädlings betraut, und als die Verseuchung größerer Flächen
durch die Reblaus erwiesen war, wurde der Reichsregierung
Mitteilung gemacht.
Dieselbe ordnete für Sachsen als Reichskommissar den
Oberförster Koch aus Trier ab und verfügte die durch die
internationale Konferenz der weinbautreibenden Staaten
festgesetzten Bekämpfungsmaßregeln. Es zeigte sich nun, daß die
Ausdehnung der Reblausschädigungen in Sachsen bereits einen
großen Umfang angenommen hatte; zumal die königlichen
Weinberge durften infolge ihres starken Befalles als die Herde der
Kalamität betrachtet werden.
Es erregte schon damals großes Erstaunen, daß die
Weinbergsinspektoren nicht vorher auf den schon lange bekannten
furchtbaren Rebfeind aufmerksam geworden waren. Inwieweit einer
oder der andern Behörde, beziehentlich deren Vertretern,
entsprechende Vorhalte zu machen wären, ist jetzt eine müßige
Frage.
 Tatsache war, daß die von Oberförster Koch mit zahlreichen
Hilfskräften und kostspieligen Bekämpfungsmitteln (Petroleum,
Schwefelkohlenstoff) organisierte Abwehr des Schädlings kaum
genügte, um die verseuchten Weinkulturflächen rechts der Elbe
einigermaßen gründlich zu untersuchen, geschweige denn zu retten.
Bereits im Jahre 1886 wurde mit dem Kampf gegen den
übermächtigen Schädling begonnen.
Woher aber war der Feind zu uns gekommen? War er schon seit
Jahrhunderten bei uns heimisch? Fast mußte es so scheinen, wenn
wir die Größe der Verheerung ermessen, welche die Reblaus nicht
bloß bei uns, nein auch in allen Weinbau treibenden Gebieten
Europas[3] angerichtet hatte. Nach allem, was wir bis jetzt
nachprüfen konnten, ist dieser Schädling aus Nord-Amerika zu uns
gelangt. Im Jahre 1865 wurde in der Provence die Reblaus zuerst
auf dem europäischen Kontinent aufgefunden. Sie soll von Amerika
aus in Englands große Weintreibereien gelangt und auf diesem
Umweg auch in die Freilandkulturen des europäischen Festlandes
gekommen sein. Nachdem sie ihren Vernichtungszug in den
südlichen Ländern Europas begonnen, gelangte sie in den achtziger
Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts auch zu uns nach Deutschland.
Zum Verständnis der zu schildernden Bekämpfungsmaßnahmen
diene eine kurze Betrachtung der Lebensweise unseres Schädlings.
 Abb. 2 Die Vernichterin des Lößnitzer Weinbaues: die Reblaus (Phylloxera
vastatrix) in ihrer Entwicklung

Im Laufe der bereits erwähnten ungeschlechtlich erzeugten

Generationen traten, vielleicht infolge besonderer Ernährung, mit
Flügelstumpfen begabte Läuse auf, die man auf den schönen
Namen »Nymphen« getauft hat (Abb. 2a). Aus dieser schon mit
einer Art Taille versehenen Form entwickelt sich in warmen
Sommern eine geflügelte Laus: Die Reblausfliege (Abb. 2b). Diese
fliegt bei ruhigem Wetter auf benachbarte Berge und kann, vom
Winde getrieben, Kilometerstrecken zurücklegen. Sie landet
schließlich auf einem Weinblatt und legt dort wenige Eier von teils
runder, teils ovaler Form. Aus diesen erst schlüpfen die eigentlichen
»Geschlechtstiere« (Abb. 2e); aus den kleinen runden die
Männchen, aus den größeren ovalen die Weibchen. Beide
entbehren der Saugorgane, sind also bloße Geschlechtsmaschinen,
die nur dem Geschäfte der Begattung obliegen. Das befruchtete
Weibchen legt ein einziges, etwas dickschaligeres dunkles Winterei.
 Aufnahme von P. Georg Schäfer, Dresden
Abb. 3 Nußbaum in der Hoflößnitz

Es ist kaum anzunehmen, daß es in unseren Breiten oft zur

Ablage dieses Eies kommt, da um diese Zeit die bereits herbstlich
kühlen Nächte das Aufkommen der Geschlechtstiere in Frage
stellen. Wir müssen vielmehr annehmen, daß bei uns eine
Verbreitung nur durch Wanderung oder Verschleppung der
Wurzelreblaus möglich war[4]. Wir wußten nicht einmal mit Sicherheit,
wohin diese Wintereier abgelegt werden, ob an Weinstöcke, an
Rebpfähle oder an die Bäume, welche im Weinberge gepflanzt sind.
In der Lößnitz waren es meist Pfirsiche und Nußbäume. Ist doch das
gute Gedeihen des Nußbaumes (Abb. 3) u. a. ein besonderes
Kennzeichen guter und warmer Weinlagen; auch die Edelkastanie
(Abb. 4) deutet auf solche hin.
Ich mußte trotz allen Dunkels, welches über die Ablage des
Wintereies herrscht, diese Frage berühren, damit gewisse
drakonische Bekämpfungsmaßnahmen, nämlich das Abhauen und
Verbrennen der auf infizierten Bergen stehenden Bäume ihre
Erklärung finden. Haben doch gerade diese Maßregeln unter der
weinbautreibenden Bevölkerung der Lößnitz besonders böses Blut
gemacht, und ich erinnere mich noch mancher Tränen und Flüche,
die gerade der Vernichtung besonders geliebter Bäume galten. Auch
mir hat ebendiese Forderung gar oft meine Pflicht besonders schwer
gemacht.
Die Bekämpfungsmaßnahmen haben im Laufe der Jahrzehnte
manche Wandlung erfahren, eins aber ist sicher, daß sie eine völlige
Vernichtung der Reblaus nicht erreichen konnten!
Es war im Jahre 1886 als ich, an der Dresdner technischen
Hochschule Chemie studierend, durch Zeitungsnotizen darauf
aufmerksam wurde, daß für die Untersuchung reblaus-verseuchter
Gelände Hilfssachverständige gesucht wurden, welche mit der
Handhabung der Lupe vertraut und insektenkundig waren. Da ich
zum Weiterstudium auf Gelderwerb angewiesen war, machte ich
mich eines Tages auf den Weg, mich beim Reichskommissar um die
Stellung eines Hilfssachverständigen zu bewerben. Ich kam damals
zum erstenmal in die herrlichen Gefilde der Lößnitz und war
geradezu entzückt über die harmonische Vereinigung einer
jahrhundertealten, anheimelnden, vornehmen Siedlungskultur mit
einer herrlichen, durch die grünen Höhen der Weingelände
verschönten Natur. In dem Bad-Hotel zu Kötzschenbroda wollte ich
mich bei einem Schoppen Schieler nach dem Aufenthalt des
Reichskommissar Koch erkundigen. Da sah ich – es war
Frühstückszeit – am Nebentisch eine fröhliche Runde, zu welcher,
stürmisch begrüßt, ein jovialer alter Herr trat, eben der gesuchte
Herr Kommissar. Ich stellte mich ihm vor, brachte dreist meinen
Wunsch an, wurde an die frohe Tafelrunde gebeten, und nach etwa
einer Viertelstunde nicht allzu strenger Prüfung ward ich unter
frohem Gläserklingen wohlbestallter Hilfssachverständiger für
Reblausuntersuchungen in der Lößnitz; wohlgemerkt! mit sechs
Mark Tagegeld, für mich eine wertvolle Studienbeihilfe. Meine
Kollegen waren teils Forststudenten, teils Männer mit
landwirtschaftlicher Hochschulbildung, teils Gärtner. Ich habe meine
Stellung als Hilfssachverständiger genügend lange bekleidet, um
aus eigener Erfahrung erzählen zu können, wie sich Untersuchung
und Vernichtung der Weinberge damals vollzog – leider muß ich
sagen »Vernichtung der Weinberge«, denn die Bekämpfung des
Schädlings gelang bei der in der Lößnitz übermächtig auftretenden
und überall verbreiteten Reblaus nicht mehr. Nur wenige Berge
waren damals beinahe reblausfrei; es waren die vortrefflich
gehaltenen von Nacke und Böhme, die auch noch heute einen
Bestand aus jener Zeit – natürlich verjüngt – besitzen.
Die Untersuchung der Weinberge auf Reblaus wurde
folgendermaßen vorgenommen.

Aufnahme von Preusch, Dresden

Abb. 4 Edelkastanie im Grundstück des Herrn
Geheimrat Hilger in Zitzschewig: Haus Kynast
 Die Hilfssachverständigen, geführt von einem Sachverständigen,
etwa vier bis fünf Herren, begaben sich mit je zwei bis drei Arbeitern
(meist Winzern und gelernten Weinbergsarbeitern) in den zu
untersuchendem Weinberg, unter Vorzeigen eines vom Ministerium
des Innern ausgestellten Ausweises.
Ein allgemeiner Überblick über den Rebbestand ließ schon durch
die muldenförmige Abnahme der Wuchskraft und durch
Gelbstichigkeit der sonst tiefgrünen Stöcke einen Schluß auf die
reblausbefallenen Bergteile zu. Der Beweis des Befalls konnte aber
erst dadurch erbracht werden, daß die flach unter der
Bodenoberfläche verlaufenden sogenannten Tauwurzeln durch uns
mit der Lupe auf Anwesenheit von Reblaus geprüft wurden. Die
Arbeiter »schlugen die Stöcke an«, das heißt sie entfernten am
Wurzelhals die Erde bis zum Erscheinen der Wurzeln, schnitten
letztere ab und reichten sie dem Untersuchenden zu. (Abb. 5.)
 Aufnahme von Joh. Hartmann
Abb. 5 Untersuchung der Weinberge auf Reblaus

Dabei wurde reihenweise vorgerückt und möglichst jeder dritte

Stock angeschlagen. Fand sich der Schädling an den hakenförmigen
Krümmungen der Wurzeln, den Nodositäten, vor, was leider nur zu
oft eintrat – so wurde das von uns durch ein kräftig gerufenes
»Laus« verkündet, und ein Arbeiter kalkte den Rebpfahl des
befallenen Stockes oben ausgiebig an. Im Umkreis eines infizierten
Stockes wurde alsdann jeder Stock untersucht, und bald zeigte eine
ganze Anzahl weißer Pfahlspitzen den aufgefundenen Reblausherd
an. In diesen Herd wurden noch die scheinbar gesunden Reben im
Zwanzigmeter-Umkreis einbezirkt, und das Ganze wurde von einer
besonderen Kolonne, die mit pfahl- und drahtbeladenem Wagen
ankam, eingedrahtet und mit einer Verbotstafel versehen, welche
das Betreten des Herdes, auch den Besitzern, versagte. Die