Page 48 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 5

ECONOMY

AFRIKONOMICS

Theory Part 2

Mfuniselwa Bhengu

Prof. Herbert Vilakazi (2001), writing in the New Agenda journal (a South African
Journal of Social and Economic Policy) of 2001 had this to say: “We must real-
ize that what is called ‘economics’, as it is taught in our universities, is simply a
reflection of the economic experiences of the White community, which in itself
is an extension of the economic experiences of developed Western countries. The
challenge for us in Africa, is to develop a new economics, which shall be a reflec-
tion of the economic experiences of the overwhelming majority of society, the
African people…Our economics must begin with an accurate knowledge of the
situation and needs of the overwhelming majority of Africans in rural and semi
rural areas, and in the townships of urban areas”.

ith Africans, culture is is insufficient since it produces themselves in terms of ancestry,
about how the past unemployment, low wages, mo- religion, language, history, val-
Wmust interact with the nopoly, business cycle crises ues, customs, and institutions.
future. It is about how social and bankruptcies; it is transient People use politics, not just to
values are transmitted and indi- since it will disappear just as advance their interests but also
viduals are made to be part of a feudalism and earlier systems to define their identity. We know
society. disappeared, and for the same who we are only when we know
Therefore, culture among the general reasons”. who we are not and often only
Bantus is regulated by the phi- Perhaps, this is what led Hun- when we know whom we are
losophy of Ubuntu, which insists tington (1996: 21) to say “the against. Nation states remain
that the very identity of each per- most important distinctions principal actors in world affairs,
son is bound up with others in a among peoples are not ideolog- and their behavior is shaped
community of all. In a globalized ical, political or economic. They as in the past by the pursuit of
world, our sense of Ubuntu must are cultural. Peoples and na- power and wealth, but it is also
extend right across the planet. tions are attempting to answer shaped by cultural preferences,
The more global the market, the the most basic question humans commonalities and differences”.
more it must be balanced by a can face: Who are you? And Marcel Mauss (1990; 76) argued
global culture of solidarity, atten- they are answering that ques- that: “It is our western societies
tive to the needs of the weakest. tion in the traditional way human who have recently made man an
Dalton (1975) describes capital- beings have answered it, by ref- ‘economic animal. But we are
ism as “…immoral, unjust and erence to the things that mean not yet all creatures of this ge-
humanly degrading…Capitalism most to them. People define nus. Among the masses and the

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