ABSTRACT
“Denmark” is Francis Fukuyama’s allegory of a well-governed, peaceful, prosperous, and uncorrupted place. It captures some aspects of the Belgian Congo after the Second World War. Economic growth averaged 5.2 percent a year in the 1950s. Since the early 1980s, most Congolese dream to live in Poto or in the West. Poto implies good life and success even if it means doing menial paying jobs. The Belgian Congo state was a real coordinated political entity that developed an economic signaling device to create a market friendly environment. It directed the economy with a friendly hand. It also identified national economic goals and operated with various degrees of pressure to urge the private sector to act in accordance with state goals. The Belgian Congo was a colony of extraction straddling the equator with the worst humid climate. The chapter presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
