Page 26 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 13

Economy

that is the metropolitan culture. which the prosperous members of ment that denies the universality
the multiracial middle-class were of Western capitalism. Economic
We are at a point in time when the riding in comfort on the upper deck, relations of Western capitalism are
dominance of the universe of Eu- while the almost wholly black un- relative to Western civilization only.
ropean singularity is being encom- skilled, unemployed have-nots were Individual in an African society was
passed or engulfed by the multiverse crowded uncomfortably in the lower not threatened by starvation unless
of our shared humanity. The central deck’. The question is: How do we the community as a whole was in
concern for the practice of philos- build that stairway between the two like predicament. Among Africans
ophy focused on the formerly col- decks? That is the minor challenge ‘whoever needs assistance receives
onized world should be directed at facing the mooted Economic Code- it unquestioningly’. In other words,
helping to create a situation in which sa, if at all it will ever take place. in African economic relations, a
the enduring residue of our colonial The biggest major challenge is how concern for human well-being takes
part is systematically overcome. do we embed European-oriented precedence over the profit motive.
economy in the African lived expe-
We are, at a formal level, beyond the riences?. The question of failure to reconcile
constricting confines of colonialism, the indigenous African econom-
and yet every aspect of existence in The knowledge paradigm of the ic relations and practice, which is
the formerly colonized world, and in future is beginning to develop by embodied and underpinned by an
Africa specifically, is still, in essential reaching out to those excluded. It is African humanism, with European
and fundamental ways, determined a compassionate but strategic evolu- market economy (capitalism), which
and controlled by our former colo- tion through contemplation during is embodied in, and underpinned by,
nizers. This is not to allocate blame which the outer voice of possibility the culture of European econom-
but to locate specifically the source meets the inner voice of disenfran- ism, has always attracted the atten-
of our present predicament, not chisement. Significant and intimate tion of scholars and policymakers.
only as it pertains to our economic connections are then made between
and political dependence on the the pain and the creative impulses Development of a New Economics
West, but also as it pertains to our essential for the transcendence, The challenge is to develop a new
dependence and subordinate posi- which then become the very touch- economics, which shall be a reflec-
tion in the realm of thinking and in stones of healing and creativity. We tion of the economic experiences
questions of knowledge. need to deal with the root-cause of the overwhelming majority of
of economic development failure society, a very large proportion of
The interiorized hegemony of the in South Africa and in Africa as a which lives in rural and semi-rural
West – our enduring ‘faith’ in the whole. areas. Our economics must begin
‘shadow’ of the dead colonial God with an accurate knowledge of the
– finds its ‘objective’ correlate in the Cultural Element situation and needs of the over-
historical integration and subordina- Modern neoclassical economics whelming majority of Africans in
tion of our systems of knowledge tends to downplay the importance rural and semi-rural areas, and in
to the world system of knowledge of culture to economic develop- the shacks and townships of our
and know-how, just as underdevel- ment, yet there is a cultural di- urban areas. Our economics must be
opment as a whole results, primarily, mension to economic behavior. inclusive and relevant to everybody’s
not from any original backwardness, Economists make the simplifying local ecology and experiences. In
but from the integration of our sub- assumption that human beings are short, our economics needs to be
sistence economies into the world rational utility-maximizing indi- deimperialised. At the same time we
capitalist market. viduals, and that such maximizing need to have a look at both negative
behavior is largely invariant across and positive sides of capitalism.
Recently there has been a call for an different human societies. Gradually,
‘Economic Codesa’ to, among other because of the advance of western While capitalism is widely criticised,
things, to unpack the theory that European technology, everything and correctly so, but there are some
says we live in a country with two came to be controlled more and advantages of capitalism, as follows:
economies, that is, the first economy more by the European side. There 1. Capitalism is an internally stable
and the second economy, wherein is a convincing argument in our rich economic system, in that it
we may liken ‘our socio-economic literature that there is a different is consistent with human behavior.
situation to a double-decker bus in economic anthropological argu- You have to work to survive, and

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