Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?

"While I'm careful not to romanticize her existence, I think it is neccessary to begin to explore the myth of African poverty; in fact the entire theory of poverty. Does what you call the "pverty trap" quoting Sach, a true Friedmanian economist, mean what exactly? Is poverty a form of loss or merely a situation of abjection? Is want the same as need? Do we for instance need a massive eight-lane highway through your village in order to situate it in the currency of economic development?"

- Obi Nwakanma

Anyone who cannot see poverty in Africa today needs his or her head checked. My grandmother would have died of abject misery, hunger, deprivation and despair today were she alive. The situation in my village is NOTHING like what she enjoyed when she was alive. Like my mother today, she would have trouble buying meat, fish and staples without help from her children. My dad told me this week that he has been unable to claim the money I sent them because armed robbers have shut down nearby banks. He is hoping that by tomorrow they would have concluded their operations. They are too old to go to the farms, it is not safe anyway, you never know who and what is waiting... Erosion has erected a huge deep gulley clean across the one road that cuts through our village. Our friends only visit the villages to erect canopies and under heavily armed guards, dance, drink and show off stolen wealth all night. When they have time, they come to the Internet to mumble bullshit about bullshit. I repeat, we are talking too much. It is time for all of us to put our words into action. Show compassion for our parents, our grandparents, our siblings. This is just not right. How can we in all conscience sit here and encourage a conversation about "the myth of African poverty"??? What does that mean? Let us not romanticize the hell that our mothers went through. My mother would disagree vehemently with your characterization of her life. Be well. I hope to their God that this democracy ends in the most horrid way possible. It is a deadly joke that we cannot sustain.

- Ikhide

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

---

From: Rex Marinus <rexmarinus@hotmail.com>

Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:41:06 +0000

To: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?

"Finally, let me say this: if gentrification and widening disparities were Africa's only problem, this conversation would not be as intense as it is. If Africa's people had basic social infrastructures, access to opportunities for self-fulfillment, jobs, and access to markets, we would not be having a conversation about rising disparities.  I believe that the main problem of Africa is the sheer number of its peoples trapped in extreme poverty. My first priority is to overcome what Sachs calls the poverty trap. Before then, I find the search for economic equality and egalitarian equity a little escapist and a little removed from the immediate priorities of the African poor."
-Moses Ochonu
 
Moses, I'd like you to complicate a bit more, the meaning of poverty. For instance, my grandmother considered herself to have lived well; enjoyed a sense of well-being, and never flew on a plane. Indeed, she refused to enter her son's car because she found it too incompatible with her way of life. It was not her desire. While I'm careful not to romanticize her existence, I think it is neccessary to begin to explore the myth of African poverty; in fact the entire theory of poverty. Does what you call the "pverty trap" quoting Sach, a true Friedmanian economist, mean what exactly? Is poverty a form of loss or merely a situation of abjection? Is want the same as need? Do we for instance need a massive eight-lane highway through your village in order to situate it in the currency of economic development? What exactly is the meaning of "market" and what is the connection between the sovereign market, exchange control, and economic development? Is it possible to presume that  a redefinition of one's material as well as spiritual environment constitutes poverty? But finally to your statement excerpted above, I think you must understand that the "capitalist trap," by which I mean the extreme levels of inequity that characterizes the current situation of the world, be it in Africa or Europe or America, is the exact meaning of poverty.
 
The abduction and appropriation, by a very small percentage of the human population, under various guise, of the limited natural resources of the world, for their own benefit generates conflicts and limits access and creates the poverty trap - the unfillable gap of desire arising from extreme loss of agency. It is neither impractical nor escapist to reach towards "egalitarian equity."  That presumption is quite clearly the fiction of the neo-liberal theorist and mindset long habituated to the notion of triaging the weak and unrepresentable while ignoring the fact of progressive selection. That is the progressive natural selection of the species until there is no longer a species from which to select. In sum, I think the idea of a unique species called the "African poor" is a poor reading of history, particularly, contemporary economic history. It also continues to perpetuate the fiction of an invariant Africa. The effects of the economic policies foisted on African governments, from Reagan and the neo-liberal economists straight out of the Chicago school is having a late-term effect on Europe today. What we Nigerian students saw in the 1980s, and went into the streets, the students are seeing today in Europe and staging their own protests. It is simply that once again, the world has arrived at a most crucial economic crossroads, the pressures of which like the 1920s come from concerns about access to energy resources and global markets. This is leading us almost inexorably to a new worldwide great depression, with the failures of the great international banking and monetary system on which the postwar international system was constructed, and possibly another global war. As for socialism - it was the "new deal" - a socialist document, that saved America when it came to the notches. I salute you.
Obi Nwakanma
 
 

 _____________________ "If I don't learn to shut my mouth I'll soon go to hell, I, Okigbo, town-crier, together with my iron bell." --Christopher Okigbo


 

---

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:04:21 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?
From: meochonu@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

"for you, socialism is a failed ideal, permitted authoritarianism and dictatorship. capitalism will lead to the improvement of people's lives."

---Ken,


This is obviously an oversimplification of my position. I made it clear that I believe that there is a lot of problems with the current neoliberal order and that it indeed generates inequalities, places constraints, and leads to abuses. We agree on these. But I also argued that socialism is no alternative to the current regime of capital; that we tried it and it immiserated people across the world and Africa and led to little improvement in peoples' lives while conferring privileges, like capitalism does, on the favored class. At any rate, my contention is that the neoliberal order is only expanding, not shrinking and it is not going anywhere soon. Instead it is acquiring new players from the Third World, making it even more global than it already is. You agreed that going back to socialism was not feasible or practical. Given your agreement that we're here and can't go back to your favored socialism, what do we do except to, as I argued, tame, restrain, and humanize capitalism to the extent possible---what the Scandinavians are doing. Like you, I believe that the state should be an instrument of redistribution, compensation, and protection of the poor and weak. This does not preclude the embrace of capital and its wealth-creating potential. The Scandinavian Welfarist regimes have successfully done this. Given all this nuance, it is rather surpirsing to see you reduce the disagreement to the simple statement that I hate socialism and prefer capitalism. I made it clear that I am not inflexible when it comes to ideology and that for me, it is really not about ideology but the abuse and/or effective deployment of a system to create wealth and lift people out of poverty. I, of course, don't think that socialism, given its disastrous track record, is a preferable alternative to the current order. Show me another alternative to the current order outside socialism and the Scandinavian (and to some extent the Chinese where the state remains a strong referee, arbiter, and buffer against the excesses of capitalism) model that I have touted that can help lift people out of extreme poverty and create and distribute wealth and I'll immediately sign up for it. For me, it is what helps to solve the problem of poverty (which I know first hand) and improves the lives of people that matters. It is not about ideology per se. Capitalism is flawed in many ways, but its excesses and flaws and their impacts on the poor can be mitigated while still harnessing its wealth-creating potential. There is no contradiction here, just nuance that is grounded in a quest for progress and the need to defeat or reduce extreme poverty. So, yes, neoliberalism has created many problems around the world, but what is your alternative? A return to socialism? A tamed capitalism which I favor? Another unnamed system of political economy? In one breath you invoke socialism and in another you admit that it is not a viable option for the future. And, instead of disputing my assertion that socialism failed, you now say you're not invested in socialism but fairness, justice, equity, equal opportunity, rights, democracy, etc--the staple progressive menu of aspirations that we all subscribe to. Let me say this as a historian; I have never come across a civilization that flourished, created wealth, and improved lives without costing the citizens something--usually some freedoms and rights and without at least initially producing vulgar extremes of consumption, accumulation, and displacement. Show me a single example in history. This is especially true in the early stages of growth and expansion. Your insistence on the combination of prosperity and democracy and justice is very lofty but it is textbookish and not realistic. Why should it be different with the BRIC countries when in the West, capitalist development produced similar contradictions, which then abated or leveled off over time or ebbed and rose as political and economic movements came and went?

Finally, let me say this: if gentrification and widening disparities were Africa's only problem, this conversation would not be as intense as it is. If Africa's people had basic social infrastructures, access to opportunities for self-fulfillment, jobs, and access to markets, we would not be having a conversation about rising disparities.  I believe that the main problem of Africa is the sheer number of its peoples trapped in extreme poverty. My first priority is to overcome what Sachs calls the poverty trap. Before then, I find the search for economic equality and egalitarian equity a little escapist and a little removed from the immediate priorities of the African poor. First things first. Progressives in the West railed against poverty before they started railing justifiably against fat cats and widening wealth gaps. Responsible, ethical, and visionary leaderships and movements can invert the neoliberal order by modifying it to engineer economic growth, create jobs, build social infrastructure, and improve lives. It is not impossible. They don't have to implement IMF and World Bank programs to the letter if they don't want to. The Chinese, Russians, and Indians didn't. They asserted their sovereignty and defied some neoliberal prescriptions where necessary. The result is what we're seeing today.

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 11:08 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

dear moses
there is no separation between politics and economics: each translates into the other since the function of political rule is to enable economic structures to operate. the question is, in whose interest will they operate.
FINALLY we have a solid basis for our disagreement, and no need to really argue it further:
for you, socialism is a failed ideal, permitted authoritarianism and dictatorship. capitalism will lead to the improvement of people's lives.
for me, socialist ideals are inseparable from progressive political and economic policies, ones that will not perpetuate the wealthy classes enjoying their prosperity at the expense of the poor.
i don't want to turn this argument to socialism, but to the most basic values of justice, equity, of agency for citizens and citizen rights, and by this i certainly mean the right to live a decent life, with food and shelter and medicine. all the things neoliberalism says it is not the responsibility of the state to provide, that we all do better when it is dog eat dog.
the example i have of shocking inequality and injustice in senegal is not isolated: when i asked ordinary people how life was now compared to 20 years ago, they said it was harder to make a living. if you ask people in cameroon, on the street the answer is that things were better before biya.
i will grant that a repressive state might improve living conditions, though typically it will be for the upper classes.
but even there, there must be limits: how many of us would accept servitude in exchange for better food?
brett shadle just wrote this on h-africa: it expresses my sentiments better than i could:

I was unaware that anyone still seriously believes that what Africa really needs to escape poverty is the liberalization of African economies, that "holding others [i.e., the West] responsible for Africa's failings" is simply an excuse dreamed up by bad African leaders, and that there is a one-size-fits-all model for "fixing" Africa. I also was hoping that most of us know the history of neoliberal "reforms" implemented over the past few decades. 

ken

On 12/21/10 9:20 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:

i challenge you, friend moses, to defend this newly unfolding world of wealthy expropriators. you claim not to believe in trickle down. well, it is hard to read about the plight of indian farmers without hearing any defense of current growth rationalize their plight.
you are right, china and india are also generating wealth, and maybe the inequalities will some day be mitigated. right now they are being exacerbated, not only in india, senegal, nigeria, but in new york, detroit, los angeles.
you want me to focus on the emerging power of the newly enriched states: china, india, brazil. i am perfectly happy that the west doesn't enjoy any monopoly on power and wealth. but russia has rightly been called a mafia state; and china is a repressive, authoritarian, dictatorial state that hasn't seen a human right it doesn't want to bury.
what is your notion of a progressive ideology?
there are real choices: in senegal it was between wade and diouf, and the policies of each had real effects on the lives of the masses of senegalese. those who so enthusiastically supported the neoliberal wade have lived to rue the day they supported him, especially those who consider themselves progressive.
is he "lifting the poor out of poverty"? not likely


---Ken,

You have shifted the discussion from the economic realm. You are now conflating economic ideology with political system. Fine. Socialist regimes were authoritarian systems under the garb of socialism. Fine. But isn't pure socialism (derived from pristine Marxian prescriptions) a recipe for authoritarianism and dictatorship? Is it inherently ( at least at the revolutionary stage) about the violations of rights and authoritarian acts that are supposedly in the interest of the poor? Is it by accident that it is called a dictatorship of the Proletariat? Please let's separate economics from the politics of rights and freedoms. That politics can be a slippery slope, a dead end debate. Yes, China and Russia may not be democratic in the Western sense, but India and Brazil, two other countries that have successfully exploited the global neoliberal infrastructure, are. Besides, there is no industrialized country, capitalist or socialist, that do/did not have varying degrees of authoritarianism, political repression, and/or imperial domination and racism in its history. So, I don't know where the correlation between human rights/democracy and ability to create and distribute wealth lie. Some countries can create and distribute wealth effectively while enforcing political strictures; others that are supposedly democratic are not able to. I just don't see your point here.

Go to Lagos in Nigeria. What you describe for Senegal is taking place under Governor Fashola (he's working with the Chinese, the Germans--an assortment of foreign capitalists) to gentrify and develop many parts of the state. Yet Governor Fashola is reputed to be one of the best governors and "performing" politicians in Nigeria!  Go figure! The lesson is simple: instead of simply decrying the visibly expanding disparities in incomes and status in our world, why don't we look at how locals are actually relating to these capitalist investments that are supposedly responsible for the growing disparities. In the early days of the Chinese and Indian embrace of "foreign investment" Western liberal outrage reached a crescendo and took on a tone similar to what you're saying here: critique of gentrification, displacement of the poor, destruction of familiar ways of life of the poor, land grabs, and the pitfalls of conspicuous consumption and consumerism (all of them genuine but overblown concerns anchored on the sensitivities of Euro-American liberal economic anxieties) etc filled the air. I even read some of this stuff in grad school. A decade or two later, MILLIONS of Chinese people have been lifted out of poverty, Chinese unemployment has been fought to a standstill, standard and and quality of life have improved for millions of Chinese who would otherwise not have had a shot at a decent life, and the Chinese have emerged as the primary financiers of world debt. All of this while the gap between the rich and poor and the displacement of poor Chinese people in some sectors have been occurring. Ditto India. In both countries, what you describe about yawning disparities between the rich and the poor are real but so is the fact that these countries how engineered the emergence of a massive Middle class and have lifted millions of their citizens out of poverty. Considering where they began, this is pretty remarkable. The problems you focus on are real, but history tells us that it is a fact of capitalist ascent. It happened in Britain, US, France, and other Industrialized bastions of capitalism. These disparities may narrow or expand. But as more and more people over many generations take advantage of existing infrastructures funded by created wealth to get themselves educated or trained, more and more people are actually lifted out of poverty EVEN WHEN THE GAP BETWEEN THE RICH AND THE POOR expands. In the Third World, if people can live decently and have infrastructure with which to improve themselves, they won't care as much as the Westerner about income disparity. I haven't seen this disparity become a problem in India, Brazil or China. The answer may lie in the fact that many poor people are, for the first time, tasting a decent life and are happy. Early capitalism especially has a way of sharpening the class divides because whole new classes (the Middle class; professiona class, etc) are being created. What was the poverty rate in America in the late 19th century and what is it today? To deny economic progress because we want to do the noble act of drawing attention to inequality is a tad disingenuous. Yes, wealth disparities are increasing, and the displacement of poor people continues apace with capitalist expansion and the spread of neoliberalism. But in countries and zones like China, Singapore, India, Brazil, and China where the leadership found a way to game the capitalist system to their advantage, millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. I know that in terms of visuals and melodrama, this is a less sexy and emotionally evocative story than the story of gentrification, displacement, and increasing disparities. But if you're poor, being lifted out of poverty is a big deal even if it happens through the instrumentality of a fundamentally unjust neoliberal global system that is displacing your kind elsewhere while further enriching the rich. Again, these propositions are inherently messy tradeoffs and cannot be sliced and diced neatly. Multiple transformations are going on in different places as a result of the global triumph of capital. To single out one tiny urban spot in Senegal as an illustration of the effect of global capital is to be selective in one's perception of what capital is doing around the world and the possibilities that capital can be both a force for good and bad--for lifting people out of poverty and for displacing the poor. In countries like Brazil, India, China, Russia, and other places, the have found a way to turn adversity and constraint into a blessing. As a result, neoliberalism has done more good for them than it has bad.

You asked what is my notion of a progressive ideology. Mine is a progressive ideology that works towards a more just global capitalist system but which pragmatically believes that the poor can be protected from the excesses of capitalism (or compensated for damages) while being enabled to take advantage of its openings; an economic system that redistributes not just created wealth but also opportunities so as to mitigate the abuses of capital and greed and give everyone a FAIR chance at success; a political system that makes laws and policies to protect the weak, poor, and vulnerable while empowering them to help themselves. This is an oversimplification and is crudely stated for brevity, but as you can see, I am not ideologically rigid, although I am progressive in my politics and socially liberal (within limits). I welcome and will promote whatever is a proven formula for lifting people out of poverty, improving lives, and delivering effective leadership. It is, for me, not about ideology but its abuse or effective deployment to ameliorate the condition of mankind.

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 5:21 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

dear moses, i will try to respond to your email. not sure my speculations are worthy of such deep reflections, but will do my best to respond.
--i don't think of myself as trotskyist; just believe in the implicit calls for a just society that left politics embraces. if anything i prefer the mouffe and laclau approach
--in my previous email i tried to distinguish between the effects of neoliberalism on europe and africa, right? between say irish and malian people, so i won't repeat the examples, just affirm my agreement that the effects are felt differently. why bother? because too many interventions here seem to see a universal european hegemon versus a uniformly victimized africa, and i have tried repeatedly to make distinctions within africa and within other reaches of the world, not see this flatly.
--it is true that i am focusing on class, or wealth, and economics in this thread. but since i am already arguing that portugal doesn't equal the gambia, it seems we agree that poverty in different places is radically different. you want me to say the effects of globalization are experienced differentially--that's what i have been trying to say all along. anyway....
--i have an "unconscious euro-american liberal intellectual universalism"? hard to respond to this.... let's keep to the issues, and leave my personal, trotskyite, 60ish etc etc out of it. it doesn't help, and since i can't even tell you who i am, why would you want to speculate.
it isn't some kind of soft liberalism to rail against the effects of globalization--and if it is, then i share this same ill with sissako who made it the subject of his film Bamako. it is also the view of spivak who cuts to the chase on this topic.

--your next paragraph is really the heart of the matter, and i hope others will express their opinions. please drop all the other stuff in your first paragraph--there is no real debate there. the question here is crucial: where do we come in today on the issue of contemporary capitalism. you distract us if you raise the issue of the u.s.s.r., or cuba, or wherever socialism's banner was raised. i don't want to get into a false argument about totalitarianism versus democracy, or so-called socialism in authoritarian garb versus so-called free world capitalist economies or states. i want to ask a simple question: are we hanging our hearts on the current neoliberal capitalist order, on leaders who can best manipulate their way within the strictures of this order, on states like india or china that have resolutely turned to exploiting that order, as the ideal for africa?
that is the only question that matters.
my opinion is really quite simple, and as a critic of literature and cinema, i do like images to convey my thought.
i lived in an apartment complex in mermoz, in dakar, which was adjacent the the corniche and the back end of suffolk university, an extension of the same university in boston, a business school. between the road and the very high wall of suffolk lay about 20-30 feet of ground, with some brush cover between the wall and the street. toward the summer of 2006 we had flooding, and the street was largely covered with water and sewage. it was repellent.
now, there were poor families that lived in that space. their children would wander into the street to play. it was a sad sight.  and if you carried on to the intersection, there on the corniche, were mansions of the very very wealthy, with all their accoutrements of guardiens, pools, power generators, you name it. i can't let go of the contrast, a world that is now infinitely more divided than ever before between these two positions of wealth and poverty.
when wade was elected in 2000, it was with the rhetoric of neoliberal development. and he gave that to senegal. the lands of that beautiful corniche, what senghor had called the permanent possession of the people of senegal, were gradually expropriated, sold to kuweit and others building hotels and mansions, cutting it off to the public.
now i have seen that same pattern of "development" on the mediterranean coast of spain, of northern michigan, of everywhere there is a beautiful coast for the wealthy to take.
i challenge you, friend moses, to defend this newly unfolding world of wealthy expropriators. you claim not to believe in trickle down. well, it is hard to read about the plight of indian farmers without hearing any defense of current growth rationalize their plight.
you are right, china and india are also generating wealth, and maybe the inequalities will some day be mitigated. right now they are being exacerbated, not only in india, senegal, nigeria, but in new york, detroit, los angeles.
you want me to focus on the emerging power of the newly enriched states: china, india, brazil. i am perfectly happy that the west doesn't enjoy any monopoly on power and wealth. but russia has rightly been called a mafia state; and china is a repressive, authoritarian, dictatorial state that hasn't seen a human right it doesn't want to bury.
what is your notion of a progressive ideology?
there are real choices: in senegal it was between wade and diouf, and the policies of each had real effects on the lives of the masses of senegalese. those who so enthusiastically supported the neoliberal wade have lived to rue the day they supported him, especially those who consider themselves progressive.
is he "lifting the poor out of poverty"? not likely

ken

Ken, the problem with your contention is that it has huge blind spots. You are always universalizing the problem, denying that Africa is a peculiar victim of the neoliberal order you discuss. I understand the Troskyist provenance of your contentions. You're advocating the need for a global solidarity of working, poor peoples who are united by their collective victimhood in the hands of a predatory capitalist order. Ken, the blind spot in your contention is that it is not only on the basis of class or economic victimhood that people organize or mobilize. Even class solidarity and victimhood have disparities and degrees that follow from race, culture, geographic location, resource gap, religion, etc. You want to discuss your all conquering neoliberal hegemony and its deterministic qualities outside of these parallel realities. I don't think that is helpful. Is your narrative not being clearly structured by an unconscious Euro-American liberal intellectual universalism? Are you going to look me in the face and say with a bold face that the poor peoples of Africa experience the global neoliberal order in the same way as those of Portugal, Ireland, Spain or the United States? Does poverty mean the same thing in these countries as it does in Africa or India or other non-Western spaces? Will you equate the opportunities afforded these European peoples by the neoliberal order with those afforded the peoples of Africa? Or argue that they are victims of the order to the same degree? Or that they've been impoverished to the same degree? Or that their personal economies have been empowered or disempowered to the same degree? Your advocacy of an ameliorative twenty first century Socialist International and your insistence on an undifferentiated, organic, coherent influence of global capital and your Manichean division of the world into the simplistic categories of rich and poor (without regard to degree, racial privilege, culture, religion, location etc) is, to put it rather bluntly, quite dated. This debate was conducted among black intellectuals, especially among black Marxists, as early as the Harlem renaissance and more vigorously in the 1950s and '60s. Many black Marxists eventually abandoned the universalism of doctrinaire Marxism and its inattention to the peculiar fates of colored, Third World peoples under capitalism. They insisted on acknowledging the role that color, history, location, etc plays to mitigate or exacerbate the fates of people under the global capitalist order. So, with all due respect, it seems to me that you may not be aware that this debate was conducted and fairly settled decades ago. To acknowledge that the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America started their journey from a position of peculiar disadvantage vis-a-vis the working, poor white peoples of Euro-America is to be faithful to historical realities. It is not the search for authentic parameters or an obsession with particularism. China and India (and to some extent Brazil) have caught on in spite of their peculiar handicap, not because of it.

Another blind spot in your analysis is the notion that seems to drive much of your contribution: that only capitalist expansion comes with prices, costs, and disparities. Come on Ken, after all that we know about the ugly underbelly of most socialist regimes and the exclusionary practices beneath the beautiful egalitarian rhetoric, can you still make the claim that socialism and other self-described egalitarian systems (especially in the Third World) were not as big a machine for creating inequalities, disparities in opportunities, and poverty as capitalism has been? Mine is not a mindless endorcement of trickle down. But can you compare the standard of living of Chinese and Indian peoples in the period before their neoliberal revival to that of today? No system is a perfect creator and (re)distributor of wealth, and the notion of total economic equality is a mirage. Economics and politics are tradeoffs for the creation of the greatest possible aggregate value for society. In every system there will be victims, losers, and collateral damage. This true of China, India, and Brazil, just as there has been victims and damages for centuries in the Euro-American bastions of capitalism. That is precisely why the emphasis should be on taming capitalism, restraining it, curbing its excesses, and giving it a human face. It can be done. It has been done to varying degrees in the Scandinavian countries, which have a good balance of capitalism and robust social welfare states that perennially repair or at least soothe the injuries and damages caused by capitalist wealth creation.

Lastly, the more I read your contribution, the more I come away thinking that you're projecting your American, white liberal economic anxieties that are informed by the class dynamics and wealth disparities of America unto Africa. It is problematic to do that. When I hear Americans talk about poverty sometimes and about infrastructural decay, my experiential references are alerted and I cannot but laugh at the elitist luxuries that underpin these narratives of "poverty," "inequality," and capitalist exploitation. Ditto when I listen to Americans discuss the global catastrophe that is climate change and how Africans need to be protected from it. They don't even stop to think that in much of Africa, climate change is a discourse of luxury and that pollution is not a choice but a byproduct of staying alive. Even the narrative of unemployment in America will bow to the unemployment realities of many African countries. It's no contest. So, I will counsel caution in the ways that we construct equivalences between the experiences of diverse peoples under the global capitalist order and the way that we constantly seek to universalize both the problem and the solution to it. The economic priorities of the African poor, workers, and the unemployed do not always mirror those of their counterparts in the West. Their demands are often more basic, more mundane, more modest. They would welcome a better, just economic order in place of the predatory neoliberal order of today. But they'll also appreciate it if their leaders were able to adroitly negotiate and navigate this system to provide jobs, livable incomes, and BASIC infrastructure for them.

And it's not about who is compassionate and who is not. We all care about the poor. But do we exclusively invest energy in insulating the poor from the excesses of neoliberalism and neglect using the rules of the neoliberal game and our resources to improve their lot? Would building a wedge between the poor and their neoliberal surrounding magically transform their economic fates? To the extent that we're saddled with an ever expanding neoliberal system, isn't it a mark of compassion to try and maneuver within it to solve some basic problems that poor people face and to turn constraints into strengths? The poor in India, Brazil, Singapore, China, and Russia, are slowly but steadily writing their own scripts in the story of their countries' economic ascent. We all hope for a fundamental global redress and a just global order. But until the Utopian alternative to global capitalism materializes, it is reasonable to urge African leaders and elites to take a cue from the examples we have provided and take advantage of the limited openings in the international systems to lift some of their people out of extreme poverty. It is being done, however imperfectly and at whatever cost, in India, China, Brazil, and Russia as we speak.

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 8:58 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

pius
outside of maybe north korea, what country's economy and social structure does not obey the logic introduced by neoliberal capitalism. to a lesser degree in one location, to a greater in another?
for instance, neoliberalism dictates free trade and enforces it by imf rules. so it is built around a worldwide system of financial exchanges that dictate conditions for lending and borrowing. those that provide the funding are not subject to tariff rules; that that borrow are subject to tariff rules. both operate within the same system, although the impact is felt differently. the borrowers run enormous risks, as we have seen with the rules for borrowing stifling the ability of local african farmers to compete. when malawi chose to forgo the loans in order to support their own crops, things improved.
maybe the loans worked better for ghana than for mali. again, there is room within the system, as everyone has been loudly and correctly arguing, to maneuver, so that some states do better than others. but all are maneuvering within the same systemic constraints.
consider iceland's vertiginous fall, along with ireland's, before you tell me that europe stands outside the system. all are vulnerable to its effects, but not all are positioned in the same way within the system. thus germany emerges relatively unscathed; but english university students are completely screwed.

finally, it dispirits me to see moses cite approvingly the ascension of new states like india or china within this system, as proof that it accommodates positive change. there is not a shred of concern over the vast numbers of people whose impoverished conditions are exploited by the constraints of neoliberal capitalism, as though there were no price to be paid in capitalism's workings, as though there were no labor to be exploited, as though there were no police actions in china to repress workers' rights, as though the advances for the very rich offset any abuses of the working class
how far we have come from a notion of progressive politics in africa when the idea of fighting for freedom did not mean freedom to become as rich as possible, never mind who suffers as a consequence.
moses and others are right to say we are here, we can't go back to older days with socialist ideals.  but there i a huge difference between those like david brooks whose admiration for the rich and their ways is unstinted, and those like bob herbert who aligns himself with the poor and continues to fight for their rights.
now in dakar as in new york it isn't a question of simply the rich and the poor, it is the superrich, the obscenely rich, the don't-ever-dare-to-try-to-tax-me rich, the this-country=belongs-to-me-i-own-it-and-everything-in-it, and the poor whose life is marked by struggle, unemployment, and the sight of a fortress's wall, always from the outside.
whose voice am i hearing? is it gbagbo, or limbaugh?
ken

On 12/20/10 10:42 PM, Pius Adesanmi wrote:

"i stated, as clearly as i could, that africa does not stand in a different position vis-a-vis neoliberal capitalism or globalization than any other country" - Ken Ken, Ken, Ken: You mean "any other continent?" If our enemies rush for your jugular because of this dangerous slip up, remember to tell them that I denied ever knowing you three times before the cock crowed. Pius --- On Tue, 21/12/10, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote: From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess? To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Date: Tuesday, 21 December, 2010, 2:46 chikwendu i have two problems with your argument first, you, and others, have constructed a straw man, or refuse to hear or accept the argument i advanced. i stated, as clearly as i could, that africa does not stand in a different position vis-a-vis neoliberal capitalism or globalization than any other country; that the effects of today's capitalism is to generate enormous disparities in wealth, to generate a reliance on minimal state social services in the faith that corporate development will take care of social needs, and that the increasing size of the empoverished populations, in countries i listed from every continent, follow that pattern. i also acknowledge that there are disparities in power, which contribute to the weaker or poorer states and populations suffering more. but there is no more agency as such for any state, no matter how wealthy, to escape these forces. i don't know how many examples i need to give: i offered russia at one point. how about ireland and spain, portugal, the miracle states of the eu. now the catastrophe states, with enormous problems of unemployment and poverty, debt, anger in the streets, you name it. secondly, pace pius's picture, it isn't a question of "academic arguments," but simply intellectual arguments. how much anti-intellectualism do we have to bear in these arguments. first it is foucault, misspelled to boot, then the academy or western thinkers. it is incredible that we can't have an intelligent discussion on questions of economic growth or political structures without seeking to establish some formula for authenticity as a basis for thought. let me see...i don't like the fact that freud came from austria, as did hitler, so the unconscious must be a nazi invention or should we ask where newton came from before we board a plane? is the academy in which gravity's law in taught somehow less capable of understanding the forces involved than the engineer who builds the plane or the captain who flies it??  did the engineer validate f=ma? discover f=ma? if this path of reasoning bothers you, i suggest you ignore it since it is emerging from my computer in east lansing, no doubt a very remote location from the hard realities of life. so my question is, what is the use of thought? where is thought's home validated? "the academy" is, in fact, yet another straw man in this argument, deflecting us from the issues at hand which are oversimplified into notions of agency that are never really given meaningful definition. ken On 12/20/10 3:05 PM, Chikwendu Ukaegbu wrote: > Academic arguments that continue to paint the African as slave to structure do a disservice to the continent because the commanding heights of the global economy will not and cannot philanthropically plant national development in African countries. -- kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph.  517 803 8839  517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.   For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   For previous archives, visit  http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html   To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-       unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--  kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph.  517 803 8839  517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--
There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.


---Mohandas Gandhi
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--  kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph.  517 803 8839  517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--
There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.


---Mohandas Gandhi
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--  kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph.  517 803 8839  517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--
There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.


---Mohandas Gandhi

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com