Published in The New Republic in 1925, this essay challenges the standard question, “What is wrong with Liberia?” and the reflexive American view that Liberia must have failed to develop because of inferior abilities. An early account of what would come to be called neocolonialism, it analyzes the distinctive form of white domination suffered by vulnerable but formally independent Black states such as Liberia: economic exploitation on the part of white states and capitalists through foreign control of natural resources and markets, ruinous loans to the government, and the imposition of costly and ineffective outside experts.