The Economist Magazine Cover For 01-11-2025

Cover Story: The capitalist revolution Africa needs Inbox The Economist Unsubscribe 10:02 AM (2 hours ago) to me The Economist Read in browser January 11th 2025 How we chose this week’s image SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s image Insert a clear and simple description of the image Edward Carr Deputy editor This week we had two covers, on the future of Africa and Donald Trump’s promise to deport undocumented migrants. I also have news of a competition to design your own cover for The Economist, but more on that later. Although we rarely put Africa on our cover, demography is making the continent more important than at any time in the modern era. By 2030 more than half the young people entering the global workforce will be African. By 2035 one in every five people on the planet will live in Africa, compared with one in eight in 2000. Our editorial draws on a special report about what we are calling Africa’s “growth gap”. In the past decade, as much of the world has thrived, Africa has slipped behind. Income per person has fallen from a third of that in the rest of the world in 2000 to a quarter. Output per head may be no higher in 2026 than it was in 2015. Our editorial is about how to put that right. This is a beautiful image, but it tells the wrong story. Africa’s future will be determined in its towns. It depends not on copying and pasting well-meaning proposals by World Bank development economists, but on the enterprise and determination of Africans themselves. Unfortunately, the continent has a long journey ahead. Services, where ever more Africans find work, are less productive than in any other region—and barely more productive than in 2010. For all the talk of using digital technology and clean energy to leapfrog ahead, Africa lacks the 20th-century kit needed to thrive in the 21st. Less than 4% of farmland is irrigated and almost half of sub-Saharan Africans lack electricity. Here are two more ideas that focus on the problem. However, the image of Africa tethered to a spike inevitably recalls slavery; and the bar-charted zebra looks like an ad from Investec. In their very different ways, they distract from our editorial message that the world’s poorest continent should embrace its least fashionable idea: growth powered by open markets and capitalism. These designs represent a break with the past. African leaders need to get serious about growth. They should adopt the self-confident spirit of modernisation seen in East Asia in the 20th century, and today in India and elsewhere. That means building a political consensus in favour of growth. The good news is that a new generation of Africans, born several decades after independence, care a lot more about their careers than they do about colonialism. That is a revolutionary creed for Africa. We liked the energy of the fist and the allusion to Black Power, with a clutch of dollars denoting the importance of a capitalist ethos. Yellow on black was a bit gloomy, so we reversed the colours. If other continents can prosper, so can Africa. It is time its leaders discovered a sense of ambition and optimism. Africa does not require saving. It needs less paternalism, complacency and corruption—and more capitalism. In our American edition we look forward to what will be a signature policy of the Trump administration. Donald Trump has threatened to deport 15m undocumented migrants. That will not happen. Shipping out such a huge number would be extraordinarily expensive and would shock the labour market, raising the prices of goods and services that illegal immigrants help provide. And yet Mr Trump was elected with a clear mandate to deal with the enduring chaos at the border that shook the early years of the Biden presidency. Our cover was about what that would mean. The barbed wire incorporating Mr Trump’s manic moniker is quite something. Given the practical difficulties, he will surely be tempted to focus on theatrical cruelty as a substitute for real action. Expect workplace raids with camera crews in tow, harsh internment in border states and a surge in the number of ICE agents in sanctuary cities. But some of us thought this evoked prison camps rather than deportation. We looked for something different. In Mr Trump’s first term fewer people were actually deported than under Barack Obama. This time he seems to want the focus on immigration to be real. His deputy chief of staff is Stephen Miller, who yearns to restrict legal as well as illegal migration. His border tsar is Tom Homan, one of the inventors of the family-separation policy in Mr Trump’s first term. And he has threatened to deploy the National Guard to help with deportations, whereas previous presidents used soldiers only for logistical support. The deporter-in-chief has barged aside the mother of exiles and is telling the huddled masses where they can put it. Instead of cradling the lamp beside the golden door Mr Trump is pointing the way to the exit. We tried drawing a copper-green president-elect, but a photograph was better. And deporter-in-chief, a title originally bestowed on Mr Obama, was a bit obvious. No Republican politician can outflank Mr Trump on immigration. That creates the scope for a deal that combines effective border enforcement with a right to stay for the 11m or so law-abiding migrants who have long made America their home and who cannot and should not be deported. The chances are that Mr Trump will want to keep immigration as a wedge issue and to pick fights with Democratic governors and mayors. But he also has an opportunity. And now for the competition. Dedicated readers will recognise this cover-length editorial on the virtues of GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, from our edition of October 26th 2024. We would like you to design an alternative cover to ours, with your own headline, and to send it as a PDF attachment to coverstory@economist.com by Monday February 3rd. The three best entries will each receive a copy of our new “Cover Story” book, which assembles our covers of 2024 week by week. Anybody can enter, so please pass on these details to the budding designers among your friends and family. Good luck! Cover image • View large image (“The capitalist revolution Africa needs”) • View large image (“Donald the Deporter”) Backing stories → The capitalist revolution Africa needs (Leader) → Why the economic gap between Africa and the rest of the world is growing (Special report) → Donald the Deporter (Leader) → How far will Donald Trump go to get rid of illegal immigrants? (Briefing)