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Betrayal: Why Socialism Failed in Africa
Betrayal: Why Socialism Failed in Africa
George B. N. Ayittey
The following is abridged from a speech delivered at “Evenings at
FEE” in April 2005.
Free at last! This euphoric cry rang across Africa in the 1960s as one country after another gained independence
from Western colonial rule. New national flags were unfurled to the
strains of new national anthems. Leaders who fought gallantly and
won independence were hailed as heroes. The dream of self-rule,
political freedom and economic progress was finally to become a
reality. Africa was now free to develop in its own image: but into
what? The challenge was daunting.
This
dream never came true. The astounding natural wealth of the
continent (gold, diamonds, palladium,
titanium-name the mineral and you will find it in Africa!) was never
used to lift the people out of poverty. By any standard, the vast
majority of African people are worse off today than they were 40
years ago. The only thing that has changed is the skin color of the
oppressor: from white to black.
Africans feel betrayed, yet it's not something we can talk about
here in America because it is not politically correct.
What
went wrong? First, democracy and pluralism were denounced as both
"Western invention" and "imperialist dogma." In all but four
countries, a one-party state rule was imposed, concentrating power
in the hands of one individual. You don't have to be a rocket
scientist to know that any political system with such concentration
of power will degenerate into tyranny. The Soviet Union gave us a
perfect example of it.
Second, new African leaders rejected capitalism. They harbored a
deep distrust and distaste for capitalism, falsely perceiving it as
an extension of colonialism and imperialism. To them, freedom from
colonial rule meant freedom from capitalism, free enterprise and
foreign investment, which was viewed as "foreign exploitation." To
them, Soviet-style socialism with the state determining the economic
destiny of the people seemed the most adequate and fair way to
protect their hard-won sovereignty and to move Africa toward
economic prosperity.
Socialism in Africa
Such
a socialist transformation required the institution of excessive
legislative regulations and controls. All unoccupied land was
appropriated by the government. Many foreign companies were
nationalized, and numerous state-owned enterprises were established.
Roadblocks and passbook systems were employed to control the
movement of Africans. Marketing boards and export regulations were
tightened to fleece the cash crop producers. Price controls were
imposed on farmers and merchants to make food cheap for the urban
elites. Bewildering arrays of restrictions were imposed on imports,
capital transfers, industry, wages, trade unions, prices, rents,
interest rates and the like. Economic progress suffered, as it
always does whenever the state intervenes. Poor planning and
coordination resulted in dislocation of industries, low morale, lack
of discipline and accountability, nepotism, disincentive to produce
and chronic shortages of goods and services. Black markets naturally
emerged; bribery and corruption thrived, lining the pockets of the
elites and making them even more powerful.
West
and East, governments poured money into new African economies with
the same predictable results.
- In Kenya, the Norwegian government provided $25 million to
set up a fish-freezing project for certain tribesmen. After the
factory was built, a small problem was discovered: the tribesmen
don’t fish—they raise goats!
- In Senegal, the United States provided aid to build 50
crop-storage depots. They were built in locations the peasants never
visited.
- In Sudan, the Soviets built a milk bottling plant at Babanusa. But the Babanusa tribesmen drink their milk straight from the cow,
and there aren’t any facilities to ship milk out of the area. The
20-year-old plant hasn’t produced a single bottle of milk.
- In Uganda, Yugoslavia built a state-owned factory that canned
mangoes. The factory had a canning capacity that exceeded the entire
world's trade in canned mangoes.
- In Somalia, the Italians built a banana-boxing plant. When
the state-owned plant was completed it was discovered that the
quantity of bananas needed for the facility to break even exceeded
the country’s entire production of bananas.
Who Is Rich in Africa?
If
you want to understand why Africa is so poor and America is so rich,
ask yourself the following question: How do the rich in both places
make and secure their wealth?
Here
in America, the richest person is Bill Gates. How did he make his
money? He earned it in the private sector by producing computer
software. Who are the richest in Africa? Heads
of states. What did they create or produce to make their
fortunes? The answer is simple: nothing! They became rich by using
power and privilege to rob their suffering people. African leaders
betrayed us. Back in the 1960s they promised: “Only socialism will
save Africa!” But in reality their “Swiss-bank socialism” destroyed
Africa, allowing them to rape and plunder state treasuries for
private accounts in Swiss and other foreign banks. According to a
Zimbabwean official, “In Zimbabwe, socialism means what’s mine is
mine, but what’s yours we share!”
In
Nigeria between 1970 and 2000 more than $35 billion in oil revenue
disappeared into the Nigerian government’s coffers. Nobody knows
what happened to the money.
Africa’s most notorious kleptocrat,
Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, accumulated a fortune of $10 billion. He could have
written a personal check to pay off his country’s entire foreign
debt of $7 billion! Olusegun Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria,
claims that African leaders have stolen $142 billion from their
people since independence. That makes me very angry. If these
leaders, who are always begging the West to help Africa— and begging
belittles the dignity of the fine African people-would only return
half the loot they have hoarded, it would put Africa in much better
financial shape.
The Spirit of Africa
Socialism is always wrong. It is as alien to Africa as it is to the
rest of the world. Traditional Africa was never socialist. It had
private ownership of the means of production (land, labor and
capital), free enterprise, free village markets, free trade and an
entrepreneurial spirit. There is a great deal of confusion about
communal land ownership in traditional Africa. But historically land
in Africa was never communally owned, as the myth goes. It was
privately owned by the family or clan, not a tribal government. In
the West, the basic economic and social unit is the individual. In
Africa, the basic economic and social unit is the extended family.
For example, if you ask: “Whom does this land belong to?” the
African will tell you: “It belongs to all of us,” meaning his
extended family, which is a private entity. Africans also believe in
a sacred bond between the living and the dead. Thus the land where
their ancestors are buried cannot be sold. Traditionally Africans
have gone about their activities of their own free will. The farmers
produce what they need and sell the surpluses on open village
markets. Such markets existed in Africa for centuries, long before the Europeans arrived. But to justify their choice of
socialism, new African leaders insisted that these markets were
colonial institutions. After independence, the leaders could have
restored such indigenous markets and built upon them. They chose to
destroy them—in some cases actually blowing them up. Free
enterprise and free trade flourished in pre-colonial Africa, with
commercial routes crisscrossing the whole continent. Africans didn’t
need their chief’s permission to engage in trade or business. Chiefs
didn’t determine prices; the market did.
People had their own ways of raising capital. In West Africa, for
example, market activity was dominated by women. They understood how
to raise capital using “revolving credit.” Ten women would get
together and contribute $10 each a month into a pot. At the end of
the month there was $100 in the pot. The women would then take turns
using this money as capital—for instance, to buy a sewing machine.
All
of this proves that nobody can defend socialism on the basis of
African tradition. African governments alone imposed the alien
ideology of socialism on their countries, consolidating an enormous
economic and political power in the hands of the state. Over the
years this evolved into what I call a vampire state, or a gangster
state. Throughout the continent there are de facto apartheid
regimes, where those in power use government to advance their interests and exclude everybody
else, thus leading Africa into disaster. In the 1980s, with the
economy in deep crisis, African leaders acknowledged some of their
grave mistakes. Many signed agreements with the World Bank,
promising to reform their abominable political and economic systems.
Between 1981 and 1991 the World Bank spent $25 billion in an attempt
to reform 29 African countries. The grim reality was a failure rate
of more than 80 percent. Only six out of the 29 succeeded.
This
is yet more proof that the African leaders are simply not interested
in reform. They are not about to relinquish the economic control
that has allowed them to build their personal empires and punish
their rivals. All they are willing to do under international
pressure is what I call the “Babangida Boogie”: one step forward, three steps back, a flip and a side kick
to land in a fat Swiss bank account.
The
same is true on the political front. In 1990 only four African
countries were democratic. Even though the leaders came under
demands to reform their political systems, today only 16 African
countries are democratic. Political democratization has stalled. It
is important to distinguish between “modern” and “traditional”
Africa. It is the traditional systems that must be restored for
Africa to rejuvenate. Africa’s crisis is of modern socialist making
and stems from the misrule, mismanagement and corruption of the
elite. The problem that we face today is the legacy of this
betrayal, because the people you rob eventually rebel against you.
African leadership turned its back on its people, rejecting vital
political and market reforms. If this continues, more and more
countries will ignite in wars and devastation.
This
is the reality we face in Africa today.
 A native of Ghana, Dr. George Ayittey has firsthand knowledge of how the
overreaching hand of government brought tyranny and misery
to virtually all of Africa. War, disease, state terrorism
and wanton carnage have devastated a continent that once had
hope.
Dr. Ayittey is a passionate advocate of free men, free markets, and the
rule of law as solutions to the problems that plague Africa
today. He is the author of five books and
dozens of articles.
He lectures extensively on the problems confounding
Africa’s development and is a frequent guest on radio and
television programs, including Nightline, The News Hour, BBC World News,
and CNN.
Dr. George Ayittey is
Distinguished Economist at American University in Washington D.C.,> and the President of the
Free Africa Foundation.
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