Liberia, Aug. 12 -- In the early 1960s, a Northwestern-led team of economists arrived to study what was then one of the fastest-growing economies on earth. Liberia was booming. Iron ore was moving through new ports, rubber was flowing, and foreign capital was arriving faster than almost anywhere in the world. They spent years examining this miracle, and in 1966 they published their conclusion under a title that should have haunted us forever: Growth Without Development: An Economic Survey of Liberia.

By Sei Philip Pleiwon, contributing writer

Their verdict was simple and devastating. Liberia had enormous economic activity and almost no economic transformation. The concessions operated beside the country, not inside it. Money moved throu...