Page 50 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 4

ECONOMY ECONOMY

through the widespread adoption middle class blacks and whites Human aspirations are watered
of laissez-faire neo-liberal policies that there really is no future for down to shopping behaviour and
in Africa, including South Africa. the capitalism on which their pres- channelled into stale consumer-
This situation led to the co-exis- ent lifestyle depends and that an ism.
tence of two economic systems, attractive, sustainable future for The result of this encounter be-
i.e. the first economy and second their children and grandchildren tween the two cultures (Africa and
economy, and Murove (2008, 86) is possible along the way of in- West), is that the disadvantaged
sees this dichotomy like this: terest-free credits linked to social culture, which is African culture,
The African economic context merits. could not assimilate totally the
has two economic systems that We need to bear in mind how dominant Western culture. This
seem to exist side by side. We the racialist mindset was allowed has led to the disadvantagedness
have a modern economic system and cultivated only for as long as and dislocation of African culture,
that is urban and another that is it was good for capital accumu- which led Africans to struggle and
rural or traditional. The modern lation. While racialism was still fight for their cultural renaissance
economy is Western-oriented, good for business, the thought and liberation, within the context
while the rural economy works that blacks and whites could get of economics, whilst the domi-
according to African traditional along and work perfectly well to- nant culture, pushes forward with
values. Although Western capital- gether as political equals was dis- its existent dominant cultural way
ism has been in Africa for a long missed out of hand as an impossi- of doing things. The following are
time, these dual economies have ble dream. But it became obvious effects of such encounter:
remained separate through the 1980s and 90s that (1) The Africans/Third World
From the time of the discovery modern capitalism needs mar- countries become disadvan-
of diamonds in 1869 and gold in ket-attached blacks and whites taged,
1886, the South African story has to work, bank-borrowing and con- (2) Western capitalism gets stunt-
been thoroughly capitalist, with sume equally well, however, still ed and fails to thrive in an African
the commitment to elitist wealth little real concern for the growing setting/Third World situations,
accumulation wearing the cloak number of people who do not and
of first British imperialism, then have access to the market. (3) The global economic order is,
Afrikaner nationalism and now In pre-colonial Afrika, the individ- thus, not in balance.
black economic empowerment. ual’s freedom was equally subject According to Adu Boahen (“Af-
The rise of the educated black to the overall community interest. rican Perspectives on Colonial-
middle class, against a back- There existed social sanctions, ism”, 1987; 101-102),
ground of growing poverty, began which were meant to reign in un- …the colonial system led to the
well before the political dispensa- tethered individual freedom, and I delay of industrial and technolog-
tion in 1994 in South Africa. While will explain this more below. ical development in Africa. One
the mean income of the lowest of the typical features of the co-
40 percent of African households The Problem Statement lonial political economy was the
declined by almost 40 percent be- As explained above, through total neglect of industrialization
tween 1970 and 1991, the mean Western capitalism (which em- and of the processing of locally
income of the richest 20 percent bodies Western culture), African produced raw materials and agri-
(representing 5.6 million people) ethics and African economic rela- cultural products in the colonies.
increased by 40 percent. Today tions (which embody African cul- It should not be forgotten that be-
more than one in four of the rich- ture) were disrupted and put al- fore the colonial period, Africans
est 20 percent of households in most into non-existence, because were producing their own build-
the land are African, compared to Western capitalism tends to be a ing materials, their pottery and
one in 10 in 1975. science of self interest, of how to crockery, their soap, breads, iron,
Like middle class people ev- best accommodate individual be- tools, and especially cloth; above
erywhere, the new black elite in haviour by means of markets and all, they were producing the gold
South Africa have the education the commodification of human re- that was exported to Europe and
but not the inclination, yet, to lations. Much of it still reflects the the Mediteranean world. Had the
question the assumptions of capi- particular philosophical tradition traditional production and tech-
talism that underpin their well-be- of British culture inaugurated by niques in all these areas been
ing and the poverty of their ‘less Hume and his followers. There is modernized and had industrial-
fortunate’ compatriots. This may no room for a logic of human val- ization been promoted, African in-
be changed as it is borne in on ues and rationally founded ethics. dustrial and technological devel-

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