Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> This was something that Heartfield and Henwood used to argue, except they
> formulated it slightly differently. They said that imperialism was
> manifested by the refusal of Great Britain, USA et al to invest in Africa.
Invest in what? The Benin stock market? Imagine Lloyd's of London
setting up a public health insurance system in Sierre Leone. I don't
think so. Africa desperately needs investment in basic infrastructure
but this won't be forthcoming from capitalist companies and states.
>From capital's point of view, there is little opportunity to
make money in Africa esp. sub-saharan Africa and the risks are high. The
exception would be oil, gems/minerals and private armies but those are
mostly sewn up by MNC's and local
robbers/thugs. The prices of African agricultural products like cocoa,
cotton, tea, nuts etc. have been falling, so there is no cash-crop
agriculture either.
One of Leys' points is that there is no capitalist class
in Africa to carry out cap accumulation. The 'elite' that do exist are a
rentier type ripping off the public purse and Western aid funds. There
is no internal market either. You can't sell twinkies and Budweiser in
an area where the average income is $450 dollars per year. Net FDI in
s-s Africa has been negative every year since 1984. MOst countries
budgets are drawn up entirely from foreign aid. Subsaharan Africa has
%10 of the world's population but only %3 of world output and %1 of
world income. Population growth has been outstripping productivity. Add
environmental problems like the devastation of Senegal fishing and ,as
Leys puts it, you have one big neo-Malthusian death trap. The population
of s-s Africa is set to be 1-1.2 billion by 2020. Egypt and South Africa
aside, the whole continent could drop below the ocean and it would make
no difference to the world economy. This is what Leys meanswhen he talks
of the 'marginalisation' of AFrica. In short, the problems are so great
it is doubtful that capitalism will even get off the ground (yeah, and
this is 2001). The
problems faced by a socialist movement would be similiar to what the
Bosheviks faced in 1918-19 or the FSLN faced in 1979.
> Using excuses conveniently provided by Greenpeace and company, the
> imperialists prevented multinationals from "developing" Africa.
The multinationals are the imperialists and they certainly haven't been
developing Africa or any other area because they do not iniate
back/forward linkages, hire the skilled workers from the home country,
externalize costs, demand concessions from foreign governments and so
on. There might be a point here though.
Environmental groups preventing the construction of cheap energy sources
(hydro, coal) which enabled the West to "get rich quick". The
environmental groups are probably right about ecological devastation but
where are they supposed to get their energy from?
This
> argument obviously has little to do with Marxism and more to do with Samuel
> Huntington. Speaking of Africa, I am midway in Bill Freund's "The Making of
> Contemporary Africa" which I highly recommend. His attention is focused on
> the need to transform African agriculture,
Yes, if even worse famines than we have today are to be avoided in the
future.
which is a point that might be
> lost on certain Marxists who see socialism solely in terms of the need to
> develop heavy industry or who assume that it is the role of third world
> countries to supply coffee beans for their morning fix at Starbucks.
Yes, I guess the point is that there ain't going to be any heavy
industry in Africa with the current world economic structure. Starbucks
aren't going to get their coffee there either. Africa can't compete with
Latin America. Total marginalisation. The Africans should take things
into there own hands a la Cuba. Most African countries are so marginal
to the world economy that the 'delinking' Samir AMin talks about could
be accomplished with ease. Default on the debt, kick the MNC's out and
clean house big time. From the point of view in the imperialist
countries, there are four options (as I see it):
1- eliminate immmigration restrictions and let the peoples of the global
south into the northern countries creating a world labor market.
2- pull up the draw bridge into the castle OECD and watch billions of
people drown in the moat i.e. die from famine and hack each other to
death on the 6o'clock
news.
3- keep the global south alive through foreign aid. A kind of collective
welfare for the relative surplus population (the majority of the world's
population)
4- Socialist revolution, esp. in the imperialist countries.
I'm with option 4, options 1-3 are what we have today.
Sam Pawlett
[p.s. Lou-I'm going to crosspost to Marxism-- I haven't posted in a
while.]
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