Introduction
In the aftermath of the 2008–09 global economic and financial crisis, the idea that African societies are the last frontier of capitalist expansion has become somewhat pervasive, particularly in mainstream economic thought. For example, David Bartlett (2013), RSM Economic Adviser, and Kingsley Moghalu (2013), former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, referred to Africa as a last frontier. While Moghalu (2013) explains that the term ‘last frontier’ means ‘new territory for conquest’, capitalist conquest to be specific, Bartlett (2013) seems to use the term to mean the growth of markets into Africa. What is often meant by Africa being the last frontier is that Africa is the only place on the globe where many communities remain outside of the capitalist relations of production and circuits of accumulation – non-capitalist societies (I use the plural and not the singular here to emphasise the heterogeneity of society in Africa). The question here is whether African societies have persistently managed to elude the irresistible forces of capitalism which have engulfed almost all parts of the globe. I argue in this debate that to answer this question in the positive is to overlook the distinct manifestations of capitalism in African societies; few African societies (if any) have escaped from the clutches of capitalist relations and circuits of accumulation.
For critics, trying to answer the question of whether African societies are capitalist or not is merely an ‘academic’ exercise, with little material effect. Whether African societies are capitalist or not makes little difference, they would argue. But this question is important for developing a theoretically grounded and political engaged understanding, which can influence the way the world interacts with African societies. It is also important to note that debates on Africa are rarely framed in terms of Africa being capitalist or non-capitalist; the dominant debate on Africa now is framed in terms of market size, gross domestic product growth rates, flow of foreign direct investment and growing domestic demand – the ‘Africa rising’ narrative. For example, the ‘Africa rising’ narrative, sparked by the Economist magazine in 2011, does not speak about capitalism in Africa; it speaks about growing markets as a result of a growing middle class. Few forums, such as the Round Table Debate organised by ROAPE during the 2016 African Studies Association UK conference held at Cambridge University, frame the debate in terms of capitalism in Africa. It is not clear why, in the political economy literature on Africa since the 1990s, few scholars discuss capitalism in Africa. Perhaps the widely held view during the 1960s that capitalist relations were ‘unnatural’ to African societies (un-African), and unacceptable on social, cultural and ethical grounds (see Berg 1964, 550), still has sway in the debate. It is taken for granted either that capitalism is a reality in Africa or that capitalism has yet to spread to Africa – Africa being the last frontier. Given the claims such as Africa is the last frontier, one cannot take for granted the conclusion that African societies are capitalist. The capitalist or non-capitalist nature of African societies has to be illustrated, indicating its main features and trends. In this debate, I reflect on the unique manifestations and changing features of capitalism in Africa. I work from the premise that capitalism has existed on the continent for a long time, though its specific manifestations may be different from what one finds in other places.
What is a capitalist society?
In order to have a meaningful and focused discussion, it is crucial to clarify the question of what makes a society capitalist. Clarifying this question is crucial for the simple reason that not all people have the same understanding of what a capitalist society is (or capitalism for that matter). As Laclau (1971, 4) has observed, given the ‘extended debates that have occurred over the concept of capitalism’, the term should, ‘by no means be taken for granted’. Some scholars think of a capitalist society as one where profit drive overrides any other motives in the way people relate to each other. Others see the taking root of capitalist relations and structures of production as the definitive feature of a capitalist society. Yet for many ordinary people, a capitalist society is understood as simply one that is characterised by exploitation of one section of society by another. Often, a capitalist society is defined by the existence of free-market enterprise, and freedom to sell and buy goods and services. For example, Bruce Bartlett (1990, 27) characterises capitalism in Africa in this way:
Throughout Africa today, capitalism is staging a comeback. After a century of colonialism and 30 years of ‘African Socialism,’ the continent is at last returning to its capitalist roots. It is often asserted that Africa has no capitalist tradition, but this is not so. Africans are natural traders with a long history of barter, exchange, and entrepreneurship that was stifled by government control. (Emphasis added)
What is capitalism?
At a real risk of oversimplifying a complex and highly nuanced debate, I want to suggest that there are two broad approaches to the question of what constitutes a capitalist society. One approach focuses on the articulation of capitalist relations of production as the defining feature of a capitalist society. For example, Alavi (1982) is clear that it is the social relations of production emanating from the capitalist mode of production which define a capitalist society in the Marxian system of thought. Analysts who use this framework to analyse capitalism in Africa often conclude that most African societies are pre-capitalist, perhaps on the ‘long road’ to becoming capitalist. Reasons given in support of this view include that most Africans have not been ‘captured’ into capitalist relations and structures of production (Hyden 1980, 1986); giving rise to what has been termed ‘a stunted form’ of capitalism (Cox and Negi 2010), meaning that the process of separating the direct producers from the means of production has been incomplete and nebulous. The popular example that is often given is that almost 90% of rural residents in Africa still ‘own’ the land they use (Cox and Negi 2010).
The other view on this question takes a deductive approach, asserting that capitalist relations have long been established on the continent, and therefore African societies have been capitalist for a long time. Proponents of this view argue that from the time Africa came into contact with the capitalist world, African societies have been irreversibly drawn deeper into capitalist social relations (Amin 1972; Wallerstein 1980). Wallerstein (1980), in particular, argues that the incorporation of a society into the capitalist system through exchange of necessary goods or services draws that society into capitalist relations by means of a unified global division of labour. Analysts who use this approach argue that the restrictive meaning given to the term capitalism, as a system defined primarily by a particular mode of production, amounts to reducing society to a mode of production. They point out that one has to take into account the broader social, cultural, economic and political contexts to appreciate the way society is structured (Amin 1972).
Capitalism without feudalism?
The two sides of the debate outlined above are clearly a simplification of a complex debate which takes different forms and nuances. The outline above is presented to highlight the contest around the question of what capitalism is. The main problematic in this case is to assume that capitalism should develop everywhere in the same way it did in Europe, that every other country would have to go through the same stages that countries in Europe went through (see for instance Rostow 1960). Here we have a full dose of the modernisation capsule in which history must be repeated. This unidirectional, ‘single path’ understanding of history is what Lionel Cliffe (1987, 626) calls the ‘crude forms of historical materialism’, which in political economy terms has been expressed in formulations such as there can be ‘no capitalism without a full dose of feudalism’.
This view of capitalism has made it difficult to appreciate the various manifestations of capitalist formations in different contexts. As Ouma (2017) noted in the earlier ROAPE roundtable briefing, this has made it possible for some political economists to simply ignore the empirical evidence, seeking to go on with their grand theoretical frames as if theory should not be challenged by data. For example, it is very common to come across the argument that since the ‘direct producers’ in Africa are not ‘doubly free’ – free from the means of production and free to sell their labour for survival – African societies have remained pre-capitalist (Cox and Negi 2010), meaning that Africans are not driven by necessity to engage in wage labour; the majority still rely on land for their livelihood; and there is no compulsion to engage in wage labour, since they have alternative means of livelihood, no matter how rudimentary these may be. It has, for instance, been argued that Africans ‘merely press their noses against the shop-window of the market place’ (Hyden 1986, 691), suggesting that market relations are not yet entrenched in most African societies; that most people interact with each other by means of what has been referred to as the ‘economy of affection’ (Hyden 1986).
My task here is not to go into a detailed explanation of how capitalist relations manifest in different places and times, but to try and isolate fundamental features of capitalist relations, and then proceed to see if we can find similar relations in Africa. If capitalist formations can in fact differ according to the material conditions from which they arise, then it might be useful to focus on the effects which are similar in many contexts. If we focus on capitalist social formations, it is possible to isolate common features, regardless of time and place. Here I would like to focus on three fundamental features of capitalism: (i) exploitation of the majority by a capitalist class (whatever form this may take – internal contradictions), (ii) concentration of power and control in a few (which might be corporations and political elites – internal instability) and, as a result, (iii) highly unequal distribution of resources and wealth in society (unevenness). Applying these three fundamental features to African societies, it would be hard to deny that these societies have for a long time been capitalist. However, as Laclau (1971) observes, exploitation can be found in many societies including non-capitalist, and as such it is not unique to capitalist societies. It is rather the specific form of exploitation which sets capitalist societies apart; particularly the systematic exploitative relationships involving the extraction of ‘surplus’ by economic means as opposed to non- or extra-economic means.
Capitalism and African societies
While it is possible to track the development of capitalist relations and production structures in African societies over time, it is always difficult to pinpoint a particular time when the three basic features of capitalism identified above manifest in African societies. As noted above, there are some scholars who argue that in a true Marxian sense, capitalism can be said to emerge only when the capitalist mode and social relations of production are entrenched, i.e. the separation of the ‘direct producer’ from the means of production (Alavi 1982; Bettelheim 1972; Laclau 1971). According to this view, the ‘fundamental economic relationship of capitalism is constituted by the free labourer’s sale of his [sic] labour-power, whose necessary precondition is the loss by the direct producer of ownership of means of production’ (Laclau 1971, 4). Based on this approach, African societies can only be capitalist if the direct producers have the means of production. As long as small direct producers own the means of production, these societies have not fulfilled the ‘necessary precondition’ of being a capitalist society. It is further argued that the claim that capitalism existed during the mercantilist period is a result of confusing the exploitative exchange relations with the core Marxist concept of capitalist modes and relations of production. For example, it has been argued that it ‘is in classical political economy and Weber, rather than in Marx, that we find conceptions of capitalism founded on exchange and trade rather than social relations of production’ (Alavi 1982, 174). But this is a narrow conception of capitalism which in the African context may lead to grave underplaying of capitalist relations.
Wage labour is central to this understanding of capitalism, as evident in the argument that even if in earlier societies ‘the dominant classes exploited the direct producers – that is exploited the economic surplus they created’, that ‘was not capitalism in the Marxist sense of the term, since no free labour market existed’(Laclau 1971, 4, emphasis in original). Alavi (1982) makes a similar argument, emphasising the importance of modes of production as crucial to a Marxian understanding of capitalism and not exchange relations, even though the latter lead to exploitation:
Modes of production and social relations of production structured by them, rather than relations of exchange, define capitalism in a Marxist conception. Trade links do not by themselves unify societal entities into a structurally single economic system. (Alavi 1982, 173)
But this understanding of capitalism has been criticised for relying entirely on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western European manifestation of capitalism (see Leys 1982; Nabudere 2006; Onimode 1988). This restrictive conceptualisation of capitalism has proved to be problematic when applied to the experience of capitalism outside of Western Europe and North America. In Africa for instance, the extraction of economic surplus has not only been restricted to wage labour relations; exploitation has been mediated through a complex network of capitalist operations ranging from multinational companies engaged in the extractive industry to service-oriented capitalist firms such as banks, shipping companies and insurance firms for centuries (see Rodney 1972).
Capitalism and the African village
For those who argue that African societies are not capitalist, the reference point has always been the ‘traditional African village’, which has been perceived as characterised predominantly by kinship ties, or the ‘economy of affection’, as mentioned above (Hyden 1980). According to this view, in these villages labour ‘is not necessarily a commodity’, for such engagements are still embellished in the ‘dense social networks that make labour exchanges as much part of a pre-capitalist economy of affection’ (Hyden 1986, 694). But as other analysts have observed, even the remotest village in Africa had by the 1960s been sucked into the capitalist commodity circulation as cash-crop growers or simply periodic sources of wage labour (Arrighi and Saul 1968). This was more the case at the time Hyden was writing during the 1980s. Today, even the most remote villages in Africa have been permeated with capitalist transactions, ranging from the purchase of washing powder from Unilever and seeds from Monsanto and its subsidiaries, to the sale of maize grain to the subsidiaries of the vertically integrated commodity giants, Archer Daniels Midlands, Bunge, and Cargill, which operate throughout the continent. Here it is clear that Africans are not just in contact with the capitalist system, but are deeply drawn into capitalist relations not primarily as wage labourers, but in an indirect way through the production of commodities in agriculture and extractives.
Capitalism and the African peasant
The view of African villages being outside the capitalist circuits of circulation and accumulation has often been associated with the idea of peasants in rural Africa being regulated by pre-capitalist relations (Hyden 1980). But this view obscures the crucial fact that capitalist operations have penetrated African societies, including peasant communities, in unique ways. Similarly, the idea that capitalism in Africa has not lived up to its potential because it has not exploited Africans deeply enough for it to release its productive forces for the transformation of the continent, as it has done in other parts of the world (Kay 1975), overlooks capitalism’s tendency of thriving through creating spatial uneven development. Further, the argument that Africans have not been exploited enough disregards the havoc that capitalist operations on the continent, for centuries, have wreaked by crudely exploiting African people through various mechanisms including the slave trade and semi-bonded labour in cocoa and rubber plantations. Here one might argue that Africans are just being exploited by capitalists who operate on the continent but that these societies are not capitalist. But it is the exploitation of African societies through capitalist relations (economic relations not by force) that makes these societies very much part of global capitalism.
Capitalist manifestations in Africa
While it is essential to pay attention to the unique manifestations of capitalism in Africa, in order to have a more enhanced understanding, the African experience needs to be situated in the totality of global capitalism, not in isolation. Arrighi (2002) elaborates on this point, stating that focusing on either external or internal factors alone only leads to a partial understanding of what is going on. For this reason, Arrighi and Saul’s (1968) argument that the productive potential and structural transformation of the continent is constrained by global capitalist dynamics which affect and operate through the domestic economy is a useful starting point.
In their famous analysis of socialism and the predicament of development in Africa, Arrighi and Saul (1968) suggest that a useful starting point in analysing capitalism in Africa is to look at the structure of African economies, which have always been dominated by ‘independent producers’, with limited wage employment averaging 11.1% during the 1960s (see Arrighi and Saul 1968, 143), a situation which has largely remained unchanged over the last five decades, with wage employment stagnating in most countries (see ECA 2016). As noted above, the average wage employment ratio in the continent in 2015 was estimated at 12%, with countries such as Benin, Niger, Sudan, Angola, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Liberia reporting below 10% (see ILO 2015). But this statistic has often led to the erroneous view that the rest of the non-wage labourers are not ‘captured’ by capitalist relations and therefore are not capitalist societies (see Hyden 1986).
Capitalist mechanisms in African societies
Arrighi and Saul (1968) suggest that the main mechanism through which capitalism operates and has shaped African societies is through the way surplus value is captured. In their view, this is central to the analysis and understanding of how capitalist relations affect all sections of African societies including the ‘independent producers’. According to them, there are three fundamental ways in which the surplus generated in the continent is absorbed into the capitalist circuits of accumulation. The first is that the larger part of the surplus generated in African societies is drained through expatriation of profit and payment of salaries to expatriates (now experts/consultants); the second is that the remaining surplus is then used by a small section of African society in wage employment (the ‘labour aristocracy’) through their discretionary consumption; and the third is that part of the unconsumed surplus is then used as investment in the production of consumer goods and not capital goods. The draining of the economic surplus through profit taking, interests and dividends paid out to the owners of capital has been ‘an efficient device for transferring surplus generated abroad to the advanced capitalist countries’ (Arrighi and Saul 1968, 149). Although this analysis was made in the context of the 1960s, the phenomenon of surplus transfer from Africa has largely remained intact, and has increased as predicted, especially in the last decade and a half when the extraction of natural resources has intensified. A study conducted by a high-level panel of experts commissioned by the African Union concluded that illicit outflows alone (i.e. excluding the legal outflows) amount to US$50 billion per annum (see AU/ECA 2015).
This draining of the economic surplus from Africa affects not only those who are directly involved in wage employment; it affects even those in non-wage activities through the consumption of products that are linked to the global capitalist product circulation. Small farmers in remote villages who sell their crops to buy detergents such as Omo or Ariel are actually participating in the capitalist circuits of accumulation by means of the money that eventually is shipped out of Africa to the mother company in the USA (P&G).1 The interactions have entrenched capitalist relations in these societies, such that these relations have now become a normal way of life.
Mutating capitalist societies in Africa
Although Africa has been relating to the capitalist world for a long time, the nature of this relationship has always been one of crude exploitation of African people, but the mechanisms and rules of engagement have been changing over time.
One of the examples is the increasing interconnectedness and, as a result, the growing vulnerability of African societies to exploitation, domination and control. There are several examples of this in Africa, including jobless growth (which is now reaching crisis proportions in many countries, see ECA 2016), increasing volatility with regard to financial and capital flows, and the growing dependence on foreign capital. All these dynamics are mediated through global capitalist relations and circuits of accumulation (see Patnaik 2016) and have led to significant transformation of African societies, reflecting the fundamental logic of capitalism.
The other example is the ongoing phenomenon of rapid urbanisation, which in some quarters has been linked to what is now called ‘Africa’s capitalist revolution’ (see Kapstein 2009). The urbanisation phenomenon has brought the question of labour in Africa into sharp focus as more people migrating to urban areas are unable to find wage employment; most of them work in the self-employed informal sector (ECA 2016). And now, the issue is no longer so much about the urban and the rural disparities, but the urban sector is increasingly manifesting worrying levels of unevenness. Here we are seeing visible features of a capitalist society with a growing ‘reserve army of labour’.
The third example regarding capitalist relations in Africa is the eagerness and apparent commitment to promoting foreign direct investment. Now, most African governments are competing with each other in the frantic rush to appear investor-friendly at any cost (see Kapstein 2009). The ease of doing business survey conducted by the World Bank every year has now created a stampede among African governments in the tussle to claim the top spot on the investor-friendly chart. The catchphrase is ‘Africa is open for business’, and there is every effort made to make it easy for foreign investors through the creation of ‘one-stop business parks’ and the waiving of visa requirements, foreign exchange controls and trade regulations. As it has been observed, ‘While the tired industrial nations of the West are nationalising their banks and engaging in various forms of protectionism, Africa remains open for business – promoting [free] trade, foreign direct investment, and domestic entrepreneurship’ (Kapstein 2009, 119). This has reinforced the assertion that African countries are now more capitalist than the industrial countries. Here we see African states often in alliance with capital to promote foreign investments and development, and again this is a typical feature of a capitalist society where the state is positioned to serve the interests of international capital, in this instance.
The other critical change we have seen in most African societies is the expansion of credit and the growth of finance capital. Although this is still not widespread in most countries, there are a number of countries where credit and hire purchase facilities have been expanding rapidly, targeting the 10% of those in wage employment and a small proportion of those who own viable businesses. The expansion of the credit sector is slowly transforming social relations in African societies in very significant ways including altering family relations and norms. A notable effect this is having on societies in Africa is the reduced ability to provide assistance to relatives beyond the nuclear family, especially for the working class, whose space to help family members is squeezed by the slavelike credit conditions. Again, this is a feature that commonly characterises capitalist societies.
De-radicalised scholarship
While these changes have been occurring and transforming African societies in significant ways, the critical scholarship on the changing nature of capitalism in African has surprisingly become thin. This is in contrast with the situation during the 1970s when political economy analysts paid more attention to understanding these dynamics, situating them in the global context (ROAPE 1974). The declining levels of analysis of capitalism in Africa are surprising in the sense that at the time when African societies are said to be becoming more capitalist than the post-industrial capitalist societies themselves, scholarship has shied away from analysing the nature of capitalism and its unique manifestations in Africa. The larger part of the scholarly work on the political economy of Africa has focused on analysing the effects of structural adjustment programmes. For instance, we have not seen scholarship examining how the new employment structures relate to the type and scope of capital coming in and out of the continent; we have seen a declining number of analyses of how the new forms of capitalist social formations affect and relate to capitalist production in the continent. Clearly, there is a need now to understand the specificity of the emerging capitalist formations and relations in African societies. This is why the forum provided by ROAPE is particularly essential, and one hopes that it will inspire new debates about how capitalism is slowly transforming African societies.