After gaining independence starting in the 50's and 60's many new African leaders embraced the idea of "African socialism". This African socialism seemed to be an African version of the Soviet Union where Africa's new leaders adopted one party governments and planned economies similar to the Soviet Union. But the results of this African socialism didn't play out well. This heavy state intervention approach could be said to be one of the main reasons post colonial Africa has had development problems. Here's an example of African socialism. The problem as I see it is that African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana wanted a Socialist dominate economy. Had he gone the mixed economy route he would have been aware of areas of the economy where market approaches would have worked better.
Isn't this one of the biggest problems with a socialist economy? Don't prices have to be determined by market forces(supply and demand etc) and not by price controls coming from governments? By not having prices being determined by the market how will the government know what types of adjustments will need to be made with a product?
