Economic transformation in Africa is tied to the colonial legacy. The spectre of colonialism haunts growth and development efforts. The African economy as it is known today has its roots in the colonial exploitation and appropriation of resources. Colonialism introduced capitalism with its idea of the free market but this free market benefited the colonizing nations, leaving unprecedented levels of poverty throughout the continent. Understanding the history of colonial primitive accumulation is critical to understanding the economic realities of present day Africa, in particular, the continent’s insistence on trading with countries like China. This paper seeks to explore the violent and exploitative nature of the colonial economy and how it led to economic stagnation and failed economic policies in post-colonial Africa. It also examines the efforts by Africans to find a better model for economic development that is not tainted by the colonial legacy of color domination and policy prescription.
The paper proceeds with an introduction to economic exploitation in colonial and post-colonial Africa. It then examines the violent appropriation of African resources in the colonial era and how it amounted to exploitation and underdevelopment. The last part explores the recent history of European capitalism in Africa especially as it competes with Chinese state capitalism in the neo-colonization of the continent. The paper seeks to show the importance of understanding the capitalist system as complicit in the exploitation of black people in Africa. This is reflected in the link between violence and capitalist exploitation.
The colonization of the African continent was a violent process that saw people displaced from their homes into new habitats and new national boundaries were created to suit the needs of the colonizers. Through the partition of continent, Europe sought to create enclaves of economic exploitation. Africa was supposed to feed the growing European economies and at the same time provide a market for finished goods. Franz Fanon observes that colonization was a violent phenomenon and any reaction or effort to end it needed violence. He further notes that for a “very long time the native devotes his energies to ending certain definite abuses: forced labor, corporal punishment, inequality of salaries and limitation of political rights etc” (Fanon 148). This fight for certain rights leave a vacuum for energy expended towards acquiring skills on how to govern and invent. As Walter Rodney notes, the goal of colonialism was never to provide social services or any means for Africans to better their conditions. It took three decades after colonization for Europeans to start thinking of providing social and economic services to Africans.
The damage of colonial exploitation can be seen in Rodney’s assessment of Portugal’s contribution to its colonies. Rodney notes that the Portuguese in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique boasted that they had 500 years of civilizing Africans; this is despite the fact that in 500 years, they had failed to train a single black African doctor in Mozambique (Rodney 270). Another aspect of historical exploitation is how services were created only to ensure that white settlers got the standards of living of those in the colonizing homeland. The building of infrastructure was done only to make life for settlers more enjoyable. The gravity of exploitation can be observed in how in places like Ibadan, Nigeria fifty Europeans had access to eleven hospital beds while more than half a million African could only access thirty-four beds. All these characteristics exacerbated the economic exploitation of the Africans (Rodney 272). Workers had limited access to health facilities even though that could have benefited the colonizers in terms of health labor.
The division of resources between the European settlers and the native Africans help in reflecting on the living and working conditions of the Africans. Africans generally lived in a pitiful state because they were considered to have few rights than Europeans. Fanon draws a sharp contrast between the areas of the natives and colonizers. He argued that “the settler’s town is a strongly built town, all made of stone and steel. It is a brightly-lit townThe settler town is a town of white people, of foreignersThe negro village, the medina, the reservation, is a place of ill-fame, people by men of evil repute. They are born there, it matters little where or how; they die there” (Fanon 154). The picture that Fanon paints is a sharp and disheartening contrast of the exploiter and the exploited’s world.
The exploitation of African people did not just uproot identities but also led to the emergence of a new class of exploiters. The illusion of freedom from colonialism brought to the fore a black middle class that was incapable of effective leadership and economic management. This new crop of rulers came to power out of envy of the colonizers rather than genuine will to see the condition of their fellow black men change. Thus all their effort was relegated to the accumulation of enough wealth to match that of the colonizers. What colonization managed to do was create a sense of hopelessness that was taken advantage of by a few unprepared intellectually inept individuals that constituted part of the middle class. According to Fanon, “the national middle class which takes over power at the end of the colonial regime is an underdeveloped middle class” (149). The new ruling class lacks economic power. It is not at all engaged in the process of economic production, is not interested in inventions and does not concern itself with building anything of significance.
Economic exploitation in post-colonial Africa was made possible by the fact that individuals who were granted to right to rule and make decisions about the economy lacked the knowledge. They inherited a system that prided itself in bleeding and exploiting and were left with nothing but continuity of the same system. Fanon observes that the economy in post-colonial countries developed outside the limits of the knowledge of the new African ruling class (151). Economic mismanagement in countries like Zimbabwe took a violent and cataclysmic turn and led to more than thirty-five years of underdevelopment.
The exploitation of African economies has continued throughout the 20th and 21st century. Over the past decade, African economies have embraced loans and trade deals with China. Despite the risks involved in investing in a volatile and uncertain climate, China buoyed by strong economic performance at home and the demand for resources to feed its developing economy began to extend loans and invest in big infrastructure projects in almost all African countries except for Swaziland. The emergence of China as a new trading partner brings to the fore arguments about the nature and effect of capitalism on the African economies. Researchers and politicians have been skeptical of capitalism as a panacea to the continent’s economic woes.
Despite the positive economic outlook, the African state is faced with a dilemma: on one hand, there is a need to realign different economic spheres and establish political legitimacy and accountability in the face of the local constituency and the broader international community, and, on the opposing end- the need to attract big infrastructure loans that come with limited conditionality. The terms of these loans are often unclear. Only one key element of the term is clear which is the fact that natural resources in the form of oil (Angola), cooper (Zambia) are used as payment. Given the lack of transparency within the Chinese aid system and the technological as well as institutional challenges faced by the African countries, how accountable is the loan recipient to its citizens?
One of the driving forces behind Africa’s look east policy (more focus on trade with other developing regions such as East Asia as compared to traditional donor countries) has been the fact that most of the continent’s governments have failed to meet the conditions necessary to gain the confidence of lenders. Limited conditionality and lax borrowing terms has made it easier for African countries to embrace Chinese loans. Loans from western countries and international finance institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) normally come with conditions of good governance and trade liberalization. Most developing nations especially those in Africa South of the Sahara rarely meet these conditions. Nelson argues that the primary goal of binding conditionality is to limit the borrower’s policy discretion to ensure “full and expeditious repayment” of the loan (301). In his analysis of conditionality terms of the IMF, Nelson observes that “the institution (IMF) views itself as providing a lifeline to countries suffering balance-of payments problems that are in good part a consequence of unwise policies; giving loans without narrowing the range of policy actions available to the government risks feeding a permanent payments crisis (or, worse, rewarding failed policies)” (301). Another goal for conditional lending especially from western donors is to improve overall economic performance. Economic exploitation in the immediate modern history has taken a turn whereby international economic institutions are said to have legitimate claims to putting conditions on developing countries.
Research on the effectiveness of neoliberal conditionality policies in fostering economic growth has been inconclusive. Developing nations have decried the failure of neoliberal policy recommendations in helping to create or sustain growth. It is out of the failure of the IMF and the World Bank policy prescriptions that the celebration of the developmental state has emerged. Japan and China have been heralded as successes in having the government managing to control economic growth and not leaving the fate of the economy to the free unfettered markets. The traditional mechanisms drawn to promote compliance with loan terms have been criticized and challenged by both development economists and policymakers in loan recipient countries. As Wang and Ozanne observes, it is not apparent that the conditions imposed by lenders, which are based on the market-oriented policies that form the “Washington Consensus” can really assist economic growth (237). Although these policies are common practice in developed countries, developmental state theory argues that a strong government able to alter market forces is essential for generating development.
In conclusion, economic realities in colonial and post-colonial Africa are fraught with instances of exploitation. It is evident that the exploitation of the African economy that has been going on for centuries is still a reality today. Colonialism created a never ending cycle of exploitation that even the new black ruling class is incapable of destroying. New rulers have matched the greed of past colonizers and the Bretton Woods institute has made it possible for former colonizers to continue influencing economic outcomes in Africa. Primitive accumulation robbed Africans in the colonial era and the system did not change with the coming of independence.
Works Cited
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. NY, New York: Grove Press, 1963.
Nelson, S. C. “Playing Favorites: How Shared Beliefs Shape the IMF’s Lending
Decisions.” International Organization (2014): 297-328.
Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington: Howard University Press,
2012.
Wang, Xiaobing and Ozanne, Adam. “The West’s Aid Dilemma and the Chinese Solution?”
Paper Proposal
This paper proposal seeks to explore and examine economic exploitation of the African continent since colonial times. The argument put forward is that colonial economic policy making and implementation was a violent and exploitative phenomenon that led to the long term disintegration of African economic institutions. The creation of a separate world between the settlers and the natives led to psychological exploitation. This exploitation enabled the rise of a new black ruling middle class whose goal was to accumulate as much wealth as possible rather than govern fairly and create economic opportunities for all people. The lack of reliable economic instruments and the creation of new instruments for economic management of former colonies by the Europeans has led Africans to experiment with other economic models such as those presented by China.
The paper proceeds with an introduction to economic exploitation in colonial and post-colonial Africa. It then examines the violent appropriation of African resources in the colonial era and how it amounted to exploitation and underdevelopment. The last part explores the recent history of European capitalism in Africa especially as it competes with Chinese state capitalism in the neo-colonization of the continent. The paper seeks to show the importance of understanding the capitalist system as complicit in the exploitation of black people in Africa. This is reflected in the link between violence and capitalist exploitation. The case of loans and conditions placed upon loan acquisition by African economies shows that economic exploitation has taken a new reality. It has changed from overt exploitation to one that is more international and institution implicit. Economic exploitation of Africana people is apparent throughout the globe and it is in Africa were it has morphed into a different kind because black rulers took on the colonizer’s position.
