I really wish mr beast could see this article. Perhaps then he would be able to incorporate your ideas instead and also share your viewpoints with his foloower
Jimmy Donaldson better known as Mr. Beast means well, his heart is in the right place, and it is clear he genuinely cares about the children of Africa. But nonetheless, his project is going to fail miserably and end in disaster and those praising him clearly haven’t thought about what he’s doing a day in their lives. All they see is what looks like a kind act. But a kind act is totally worthless if it can’t actually solve the problem.
Mr. Beast is on the road to being a modern day, Don Quixote. His work will all come to nothing and isn’t worth a hill of beans at the end of the day. It’s because once again some western do-gooder however well-intentioned, comes in and thinks they know what’s best for Africans. That doesn’t and never will work. Mr. Beast will eventually come to admit this one day.
Mr. Beasts efforts amount giving a bunch of random kids some free food and building some defective pumps that don’t work. Wow! How generous of you! You’re such a hero, Mr. Beast! But without African maintenance workers to keep those wells and pumps running they’ll break down. Some already have as a matter of fact. The rest of what he did was charity. Well, the western-based philanthropic model has done nothing but keep Africa poor.
The claim that one school’s attendance is already up 10% is likely a lie for PR purposes. Those kids probably ate the food than went right back to the coco fields. Mr. Beast and the “geniuses” who advise him are total clowns who have embarrassed themselves. He has surrounded himself with a bunch of yes men who all tell him what he wants to hear and promote the same solutions that have been done for decades that don’t work.
Also, who’s gonna pay for the cost of those above-mentioned pumps or manage the water resources? Not Jimmy, he’ll be too busy off playing Superman and saving the world. Foreign NGOs have made the same mistake countless times. The pumps they install break and that’s the end of that. The better solution would be to let African entrepreneurs and businesses create the solutions to these problems. Businesses have no hope of solving these problems if foreign actors offer them however ineffective, for free.
African governments can also just sit back and chill out and let NGOs do all the work while they sit on their hands, take bribes and kickbacks and get rich. Meanwhile, nothing really changes, and ordinary Africans suffer greatly while foreigners and NGOs are left searching their heads as to what went wrong. What Mr. Beast is doing with his charity efforts is also unintentionally racist. This is
because it portrays Africans as passive bystanders who can’t do anything without the help of white westerner’s charity. Magette’s story about that young girl in Senegal who said she had come to the conclusion black Africans were inferior because of how often she’d seen them portrayed as helpless and dependent. But after creating great products with her own two hands, she came to see that this is nothing more than a sinister lie.
Oh yes, I’d also point out that western charity puts African companies out of business. Let’s take for instance TOMS Shoes started by Blake Mycoskie who only managed to enrich himself while keeping Africans dependent while also putting Senegalese shoe manufacturers out of business. That’s right, Africans lost their jobs and livelihoods! If they didn’t close down altogether, they had no choice but to cut staff.
You need a heart AND a head if you’re going to help the poor! All that aid from USAID (which is just a covert front for the CIA anyway) didn’t lift African nations out of poverty now did it? Let’s explore some better ideas. First off, economic freedom! African countries need to cut taxes, roll back regulations, ditch tariffs and adopt free trade, and reform their labor laws. The proof is in the pudding. Economic freedom took Mauritius from a low-income country to a middle-income country. Mr. Beast and others like need to redirect their resources to finding African solutions to African problems instead of playing the great white savior. How about building cities in Africa without all these economic barriers? Start businesses that can sell products sourced in Africa and made by Africans. When people are actively working and help create things they gain pride and self-esteem.
But their response shows how deluded, out of touch and close minded they are. They essentially said “Yeah, don’t care, our way is the only way. We know what’s best for you. Shut up Africans and let us westerners do your thinking for you!” Let’s not do that. If you want to help Africa dear readers learn from Mr. Beast what not to do. I would propose instead doing what Magette suggested. Back African organizations fighting to make governmental and economic reforms, treating Africans as legitimate business partners, spotlight African investment funds, support and promote free-market solutions to Africa’s problems, help fund the building of Prospera Cities. Dignity for Africans is what we need to be fostering NOT dependency!
Exactly right and so elegantly and beautifully written. Thank you, I applaud you and your excellent insight into the economic incentive philosophy. People need agency if you want them to contribute to their own self esteem and improvement.
When I heard "the highest paid Youtuber was called Mr Beast, I immediately sensed something fishy about the man. What? "beast?" Just another wolf in sheep clothing. Africa is waking up, we are in the right direction and sis I will definitely go with your projects any day!
If the pumps break and there is no NGO to fix them, why don’t the locals get together and have them fixed? Are the pumps not valuable to the community? Obviously the community would have to generate the money to pay for the maintenance, but isn’t the author arguing that the locals (or government) pay for installing the pumps AND the maintenance themselves? So even if digging the wells and the pumps were free, that still leaves space for entrepreneurs to start a maintenance business.
When everyone is out for themselves you may have an 'on the surface ' community but well just read Emile Zola novels set in the 19th century French countryside. It may look idyllic and there may be a surface semblance of 'community' but everyone is watching closely for the slightest sign of weakness in a neighbour that might enable them to get hold of their land,house,livestock and generally send them to The Poorhouse.
You've hit the nail on the head not only for Western aide and charity in other parts of the world, but for this model in the West itself. Even if many in America are rich, many others are encouraged to be dependent (controllable) and others who are perfectly capable are kept out of the business sector by high regulation and even bigger companies. It leads to a feeling of deapair and depression. People want to contribute, want to feel they have something of value to give. We all do. When you talk about not looking at the policy, but the effects of the policy, there is just a willful blindness. I hope your message gets across.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that the regulatory environment is holding Africa back. However, I think your argument that MrBeast is actually harming Africa seems a bit weak. Even entrepreneurs need clean drinking water.
Either Africa receives so much free stuff that it's prosperous on the basis of the free stuff, or else there is still demand going unsatisfied. If the latter, that should provide room for local entrepreneurs.
Jim Rogers, the hedge fund guy. retired in the early 1980s with over $100M. He wrote 2 books (Investment Biker & Adventure Capitalist) in about 1994 & 2002 respectively. For the books, he had ridden 100,000 miles, and 150,000 miles around the world. He was looking for investment opportunities.
Many miles of the trips were in Africa. Your contributions to churches that sent "used clothing" to Africa, merely put the seamstresses out of business across the continent. For the same reason you wrote above - you can't compete with free.
He specifically had NO good words for the NGOs in Africa. They were elite whites mainly, and enjoyed the fruits of 5-star hotel stays, without finding out what actually helped the Africans get on the road to building wealth. Yet we have liberals complaining about Elon Musk trying to defund those same NGOs.
It's quite a miracle how the progressives in every Western liberal democracy are turning back the clock on progress with their moral parochialism that refutes the behavioral realpolitik of Machiavelli and Milton Friedman in favor of the "noble savage" fable in which all poor minorities are inherently worthy of charity, but they don't know what's best for them. Not only is their hubris achieving bad results in foreign aid, but the anti colonial project of bringing radical Islamists into Western civilization imperils not only the Western natives, but all other immigrants who do not happen to be jihadis. Perhaps the most expensive experiment in fatal hubris of the past century.
I appreciate this article but the real problem is Africans are keeping Africa poor. As much as we can blame Mr Beast for the contributions he has made the onus is on us the Africans who keep begging for aid from the west. We need to be accountable for the suffering our nation is going through. We don’t need aid we need trade amongst ourselves but we can’t even do that. Our leaders are signing away our precious minerals to buy expensive western cars and homes abroad that’s the real things keeping Africa poor. How many kids have you fed ? How many wells have you dug ? Easy to deflect to Mr Beast when the problems are home grown
I'm a little confused about the whole concept of creating "enterprise" zones with reduced regulations to encourage businesses.
Doesn't the national government have to approve such measures?
If so, doesn't that imply that the national government knows that these things are beneficial?
If so, why isn't the effort focused on changing the laws and easing the burdensome environment on the whole country, rather than just a few special economic zones?
If the government of the country is so corrupt or inept that it refuses to do what needs to be done to increase the prosperity of the entire country, what leads people to believe that they'd leave a cash cow like a successful economic zone alone? If the zone succeeded and prosperous businesses resulted, how long would it be before those same corrupt and/or inept government decided to "cash in" on the successes there by levying onerous taxes on it? A government that oppresses the entire rest of the country can be expected to just leave something like that alone?
Not to mention the potential for graft it offers. Want to start a business in the zone? You'll need permission first right? Who will you have to bribe to get that permission? Who's nephew or cousin or brother will you need to add to your board of directors with a substantial salary in order to ensure you don't fall under the eye of the national regulatory establishment?
I agree that "charity" to alleviate systemic issues is rarely effective and often more harmful than good. It just enables destructive policies and practices to continue and creates a culture of dependency. But I don't see special carveouts and exceptions to be the answer. That just creates a ripe environment for corruption, favoritism, nepotism and graft.
I honestly don't know what the answer is...other than just leave them alone and let them figure out their own problems...but I'm pretty sure this "solution" isn't it any more than Mr. Beast's self-serving "philanthropy" is.
As someone deeply involved with the mission to bring the Próspera model to Africa, I understand your concerns. They're questions we've grappled with extensively in our planning.
The reality we face is that nationwide reform in many African countries has proven extremely challenging.
I've spent years working on national-level reforms, and it's frustratingly slow. By the time you manage to eliminate one set of problematic regulations, another set has emerged elsewhere in the system. You might succeed in simplifying business registration only to find new tax complications have emerged, or you fix customs procedures only to discover new licensing requirements. The bureaucracy regenerates itself faster than reforms can dismantle it, and decades can pass with minimal progress despite the best efforts of reformers.
Entrenched interests resist change, and the political will for comprehensive transformation often falters. While it would be ideal to see business-friendly policies implemented across entire nations immediately, history has shown this rarely happens all at once.
What we've observed in places like Shenzhen (China), Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai is that special jurisdictions can serve as catalysts for broader change. When people see prosperity emerging in these zones, jobs being created, infrastructure developing, businesses thriving, it builds momentum for wider reforms. Success is difficult to argue with.
Regarding corruption concerns, you've touched on something we take very seriously. Modern special jurisdictions like Próspera incorporate sophisticated protections against government overreach that weren't present in earlier SEZ models. These include constitutional safeguards, international treaty protections, and transparent governance systems with clear checks and balances.
The Próspera model specifically features contractual relationships with residents, dispute resolution through international arbitration, and a governance structure designed to resist political capture.
We're bringing these same principles to our work in Africa, adapted to local contexts.
The goal isn't to create isolated bubbles of prosperity. Rather, we aim to demonstrate what's possible when entrepreneurs are empowered with clear rules, efficient administration, and protection from arbitrary interference. The ultimate vision is for these principles to spread beyond our zones.
Waiting for perfect nationwide reform has left generations of Africans without economic opportunity. We believe this approach offers a practical path forward that can deliver real benefits to real people in the near term, while building momentum for broader change.
I was confused about that too. The "enterprise zones" I understand deregulation buoys economic activity. It's was one of the first things Trump addressed as POTUS. I think in this case she's talking about targeted geo-capitalism and it made more sense after watching the second YouTube video. I just fail to be able to measure if Mr beast truly does more harm than good
I really wish mr beast could see this article. Perhaps then he would be able to incorporate your ideas instead and also share your viewpoints with his foloower
Jimmy Donaldson better known as Mr. Beast means well, his heart is in the right place, and it is clear he genuinely cares about the children of Africa. But nonetheless, his project is going to fail miserably and end in disaster and those praising him clearly haven’t thought about what he’s doing a day in their lives. All they see is what looks like a kind act. But a kind act is totally worthless if it can’t actually solve the problem.
Mr. Beast is on the road to being a modern day, Don Quixote. His work will all come to nothing and isn’t worth a hill of beans at the end of the day. It’s because once again some western do-gooder however well-intentioned, comes in and thinks they know what’s best for Africans. That doesn’t and never will work. Mr. Beast will eventually come to admit this one day.
Mr. Beasts efforts amount giving a bunch of random kids some free food and building some defective pumps that don’t work. Wow! How generous of you! You’re such a hero, Mr. Beast! But without African maintenance workers to keep those wells and pumps running they’ll break down. Some already have as a matter of fact. The rest of what he did was charity. Well, the western-based philanthropic model has done nothing but keep Africa poor.
The claim that one school’s attendance is already up 10% is likely a lie for PR purposes. Those kids probably ate the food than went right back to the coco fields. Mr. Beast and the “geniuses” who advise him are total clowns who have embarrassed themselves. He has surrounded himself with a bunch of yes men who all tell him what he wants to hear and promote the same solutions that have been done for decades that don’t work.
Also, who’s gonna pay for the cost of those above-mentioned pumps or manage the water resources? Not Jimmy, he’ll be too busy off playing Superman and saving the world. Foreign NGOs have made the same mistake countless times. The pumps they install break and that’s the end of that. The better solution would be to let African entrepreneurs and businesses create the solutions to these problems. Businesses have no hope of solving these problems if foreign actors offer them however ineffective, for free.
African governments can also just sit back and chill out and let NGOs do all the work while they sit on their hands, take bribes and kickbacks and get rich. Meanwhile, nothing really changes, and ordinary Africans suffer greatly while foreigners and NGOs are left searching their heads as to what went wrong. What Mr. Beast is doing with his charity efforts is also unintentionally racist. This is
because it portrays Africans as passive bystanders who can’t do anything without the help of white westerner’s charity. Magette’s story about that young girl in Senegal who said she had come to the conclusion black Africans were inferior because of how often she’d seen them portrayed as helpless and dependent. But after creating great products with her own two hands, she came to see that this is nothing more than a sinister lie.
Oh yes, I’d also point out that western charity puts African companies out of business. Let’s take for instance TOMS Shoes started by Blake Mycoskie who only managed to enrich himself while keeping Africans dependent while also putting Senegalese shoe manufacturers out of business. That’s right, Africans lost their jobs and livelihoods! If they didn’t close down altogether, they had no choice but to cut staff.
You need a heart AND a head if you’re going to help the poor! All that aid from USAID (which is just a covert front for the CIA anyway) didn’t lift African nations out of poverty now did it? Let’s explore some better ideas. First off, economic freedom! African countries need to cut taxes, roll back regulations, ditch tariffs and adopt free trade, and reform their labor laws. The proof is in the pudding. Economic freedom took Mauritius from a low-income country to a middle-income country. Mr. Beast and others like need to redirect their resources to finding African solutions to African problems instead of playing the great white savior. How about building cities in Africa without all these economic barriers? Start businesses that can sell products sourced in Africa and made by Africans. When people are actively working and help create things they gain pride and self-esteem.
But their response shows how deluded, out of touch and close minded they are. They essentially said “Yeah, don’t care, our way is the only way. We know what’s best for you. Shut up Africans and let us westerners do your thinking for you!” Let’s not do that. If you want to help Africa dear readers learn from Mr. Beast what not to do. I would propose instead doing what Magette suggested. Back African organizations fighting to make governmental and economic reforms, treating Africans as legitimate business partners, spotlight African investment funds, support and promote free-market solutions to Africa’s problems, help fund the building of Prospera Cities. Dignity for Africans is what we need to be fostering NOT dependency!
Thank you for your work.
Exactly right and so elegantly and beautifully written. Thank you, I applaud you and your excellent insight into the economic incentive philosophy. People need agency if you want them to contribute to their own self esteem and improvement.
Wade gets it: Self-sufficiency is the key to both self esteem and prosperity. Go Magatte!
When I heard "the highest paid Youtuber was called Mr Beast, I immediately sensed something fishy about the man. What? "beast?" Just another wolf in sheep clothing. Africa is waking up, we are in the right direction and sis I will definitely go with your projects any day!
If the pumps break and there is no NGO to fix them, why don’t the locals get together and have them fixed? Are the pumps not valuable to the community? Obviously the community would have to generate the money to pay for the maintenance, but isn’t the author arguing that the locals (or government) pay for installing the pumps AND the maintenance themselves? So even if digging the wells and the pumps were free, that still leaves space for entrepreneurs to start a maintenance business.
When everyone is out for themselves you may have an 'on the surface ' community but well just read Emile Zola novels set in the 19th century French countryside. It may look idyllic and there may be a surface semblance of 'community' but everyone is watching closely for the slightest sign of weakness in a neighbour that might enable them to get hold of their land,house,livestock and generally send them to The Poorhouse.
This is a great read!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Magatte reminds me very much of Madame C J Walker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madam_C._J._Walker
You've hit the nail on the head not only for Western aide and charity in other parts of the world, but for this model in the West itself. Even if many in America are rich, many others are encouraged to be dependent (controllable) and others who are perfectly capable are kept out of the business sector by high regulation and even bigger companies. It leads to a feeling of deapair and depression. People want to contribute, want to feel they have something of value to give. We all do. When you talk about not looking at the policy, but the effects of the policy, there is just a willful blindness. I hope your message gets across.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that the regulatory environment is holding Africa back. However, I think your argument that MrBeast is actually harming Africa seems a bit weak. Even entrepreneurs need clean drinking water.
Either Africa receives so much free stuff that it's prosperous on the basis of the free stuff, or else there is still demand going unsatisfied. If the latter, that should provide room for local entrepreneurs.
Jim Rogers, the hedge fund guy. retired in the early 1980s with over $100M. He wrote 2 books (Investment Biker & Adventure Capitalist) in about 1994 & 2002 respectively. For the books, he had ridden 100,000 miles, and 150,000 miles around the world. He was looking for investment opportunities.
Many miles of the trips were in Africa. Your contributions to churches that sent "used clothing" to Africa, merely put the seamstresses out of business across the continent. For the same reason you wrote above - you can't compete with free.
He specifically had NO good words for the NGOs in Africa. They were elite whites mainly, and enjoyed the fruits of 5-star hotel stays, without finding out what actually helped the Africans get on the road to building wealth. Yet we have liberals complaining about Elon Musk trying to defund those same NGOs.
It's quite a miracle how the progressives in every Western liberal democracy are turning back the clock on progress with their moral parochialism that refutes the behavioral realpolitik of Machiavelli and Milton Friedman in favor of the "noble savage" fable in which all poor minorities are inherently worthy of charity, but they don't know what's best for them. Not only is their hubris achieving bad results in foreign aid, but the anti colonial project of bringing radical Islamists into Western civilization imperils not only the Western natives, but all other immigrants who do not happen to be jihadis. Perhaps the most expensive experiment in fatal hubris of the past century.
Let’s call it what it really is. Delusional thinking. He is engaging in delusional thinking.
I appreciate this article but the real problem is Africans are keeping Africa poor. As much as we can blame Mr Beast for the contributions he has made the onus is on us the Africans who keep begging for aid from the west. We need to be accountable for the suffering our nation is going through. We don’t need aid we need trade amongst ourselves but we can’t even do that. Our leaders are signing away our precious minerals to buy expensive western cars and homes abroad that’s the real things keeping Africa poor. How many kids have you fed ? How many wells have you dug ? Easy to deflect to Mr Beast when the problems are home grown
I'm a little confused about the whole concept of creating "enterprise" zones with reduced regulations to encourage businesses.
Doesn't the national government have to approve such measures?
If so, doesn't that imply that the national government knows that these things are beneficial?
If so, why isn't the effort focused on changing the laws and easing the burdensome environment on the whole country, rather than just a few special economic zones?
If the government of the country is so corrupt or inept that it refuses to do what needs to be done to increase the prosperity of the entire country, what leads people to believe that they'd leave a cash cow like a successful economic zone alone? If the zone succeeded and prosperous businesses resulted, how long would it be before those same corrupt and/or inept government decided to "cash in" on the successes there by levying onerous taxes on it? A government that oppresses the entire rest of the country can be expected to just leave something like that alone?
Not to mention the potential for graft it offers. Want to start a business in the zone? You'll need permission first right? Who will you have to bribe to get that permission? Who's nephew or cousin or brother will you need to add to your board of directors with a substantial salary in order to ensure you don't fall under the eye of the national regulatory establishment?
I agree that "charity" to alleviate systemic issues is rarely effective and often more harmful than good. It just enables destructive policies and practices to continue and creates a culture of dependency. But I don't see special carveouts and exceptions to be the answer. That just creates a ripe environment for corruption, favoritism, nepotism and graft.
I honestly don't know what the answer is...other than just leave them alone and let them figure out their own problems...but I'm pretty sure this "solution" isn't it any more than Mr. Beast's self-serving "philanthropy" is.
As someone deeply involved with the mission to bring the Próspera model to Africa, I understand your concerns. They're questions we've grappled with extensively in our planning.
The reality we face is that nationwide reform in many African countries has proven extremely challenging.
I've spent years working on national-level reforms, and it's frustratingly slow. By the time you manage to eliminate one set of problematic regulations, another set has emerged elsewhere in the system. You might succeed in simplifying business registration only to find new tax complications have emerged, or you fix customs procedures only to discover new licensing requirements. The bureaucracy regenerates itself faster than reforms can dismantle it, and decades can pass with minimal progress despite the best efforts of reformers.
Entrenched interests resist change, and the political will for comprehensive transformation often falters. While it would be ideal to see business-friendly policies implemented across entire nations immediately, history has shown this rarely happens all at once.
What we've observed in places like Shenzhen (China), Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai is that special jurisdictions can serve as catalysts for broader change. When people see prosperity emerging in these zones, jobs being created, infrastructure developing, businesses thriving, it builds momentum for wider reforms. Success is difficult to argue with.
Regarding corruption concerns, you've touched on something we take very seriously. Modern special jurisdictions like Próspera incorporate sophisticated protections against government overreach that weren't present in earlier SEZ models. These include constitutional safeguards, international treaty protections, and transparent governance systems with clear checks and balances.
The Próspera model specifically features contractual relationships with residents, dispute resolution through international arbitration, and a governance structure designed to resist political capture.
We're bringing these same principles to our work in Africa, adapted to local contexts.
The goal isn't to create isolated bubbles of prosperity. Rather, we aim to demonstrate what's possible when entrepreneurs are empowered with clear rules, efficient administration, and protection from arbitrary interference. The ultimate vision is for these principles to spread beyond our zones.
Waiting for perfect nationwide reform has left generations of Africans without economic opportunity. We believe this approach offers a practical path forward that can deliver real benefits to real people in the near term, while building momentum for broader change.
More on Próspera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag33vtp11t0&t=3879s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lRneEd2Pxc
I was confused about that too. The "enterprise zones" I understand deregulation buoys economic activity. It's was one of the first things Trump addressed as POTUS. I think in this case she's talking about targeted geo-capitalism and it made more sense after watching the second YouTube video. I just fail to be able to measure if Mr beast truly does more harm than good