You're right in that the situation in Ghana is a lot more complex than simple "libertarian-socialist" idealism. I am an advocate of libertarianism and free market economies, but I am also realistic enough to know that you can't drop something like freedom on a nation all at once, if there is no cultural and philosophical background for that sort of thing. The former Soviet Union is a good example of how difficult this is, although I think they are finally pulling out of the morass.

Our founding fathers had a strong and consistent philosophical foundation under their ideas for our nation, many of which were codified into the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Despite the collectivist decay of the Constitution over the years, this has still helped us get where we are today.

The mechanism for somehow shoehorning a thugocracy or totalitarian nation into a free society could be the subject of a major academic thesis. I don't know of any tried and reliable method as yet. There are several schools of thought on this, including gradualism like you mention, and the "dump into deep water" approach that assumes people given freedom will eventually come up with their own solutions. Each of these has points for and against it, including past experiences. I remember the Chicago free market economists who attempted to drag Chile and other parts of Latin America into a free market system. There were successes, but notable failures too. In my opinion it proved that, despite what some people might say, a free economy and a free political system are more tightly linked than most people think.

My personal position is that I don't think it would work (or even be possible) to try and magically impose an instant free society on any nation--including our own. Still, we should at least make each small individual political and economic decision about which way to go so that we go in the direction of freedom, and not socialism. Right now in America we have gradualism toward socialism. I would like to see the direction reversed, and will constantly harp on this, even if I don't live to see the results.