Africa and the curse of foreign ideas

How our nations’ pursuit of foreign ideologies is an impediment to our growth and transformation

THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | By Andrew M. Mwenda | My friends and I have been engaged in a debate about the role of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in development. There is widespread belief that development requires FDI. Foreign investors and “investors” are venerated in Africa.

Everywhere on our vast continent, they are given red carpet treatment. With the sole exception of Eritrea, African presidents spend more time with these foreign investors and “investors” in the name of promoting “development” than they do with local investors.

Although the enlightenment allegedly inaugurated the “Age of Reason” we continue to hold beliefs largely based on axiomatic faith. For instance, we believe in the Christian God and his infinite goodness and kindness despite his genocidal murders through burnings and floods.

In the same way we also believe that FDI is the goose that lays the golden egg of growth and development. This even though it is difficult to point to any country that developed because of FDI. [Here the best index would be the ration of FDI to GDP]. We also forget that colonialism was basically FDI.

As Thomas Piketty has argued in his magnum opus, Capital in the 21^st Century, the historical record shows that FDI has not been a driver of development. None of the countries in Asia that transformed – Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and now China – relied on large FDI flows. Instead, they financed their own investments in physical capital and most critically, their human capital.

Most recent research shows investment in human capital was the most important driver of their transformation. Conversely, countries the commanding heights of whose economies were owned by the venerated FDI – especially in Africa and Latin America – have fared badly in their developmental efforts.

What is the problem here? It is ideological hegemony. I use hegemony here in the classic Antonio Gramsci sense as the sum total of beliefs, explanations, values and mores that a dominant social group develops, and subordinate social groups accept as the norm i.e. the normal way things are or should be.

Hegemony is, therefore, the universally dominant ideology that justifies the existing social, political and economic arrangements as natural, normal, inevitable and of benefit to everyone. Yet these arrangements are artificial social constructs developed by and for the benefit of the dominant social group in a polity.

Even within rich Western countries where all these ideas emanate, the same applies. Just follow the current election campaigns in the USA. There is a dominant argument, most especially with the Republican Party, but largely supported by the Democratic Party as well, that free [unregulated] markets are the goose that lays the golden egg of prosperity.

Many countries have privatized public enterprises, liberalized large sections of the economy, deregulated economic sectors and even cut taxes. All these ideas have been promoted on the claims that liberalized and unregulated private enterprise benefits everyone in the country.

After over 40 years of these reforms, Western and other economies have grown. But the benefits of this growth have gone almost entirely to the richest top 10%. In the USA and UK, there has not been real [after adjusting for inflation] increase in household incomes since 1974. So basically, these ideas were promoted by the rich to serve the rich.

But they were sold and accepted as benefiting everyone. In spite of overwhelming evidence of the resultant concentration of income (today the richest 1% in the US and UK earn 46% of and own 60% of wealth), these ideas remain dominant.

How is this possible? The rich control the narrative – the way the story is told. They own the mass media, big tech and fund both universities and think tanks where research and ideas are generated i.e. where the national narrative is generated. This ideological hegemony affects us in poor countries as well. The people who lead us in politics, our civil servants, our academics, our journalists, activits etc. are all beholden to these ideologies. We take the ideas on the independence of the central bank, on the need for FDI, on the necessity to control inflation at 5%, on strict regulation of commercial banks as neutral, objective and good for us.

For poor countries, it is even worse. We are made to believe that our leaders are corrupt, brutal and selfish; that Western interventions seek to promote honest and clean government, a free press, free association and assembly, free and fair democratic elections and protect our human.

We think these intrusions into our affairs are done out of a genuine concern for our wellbeing. To make matters worse, the issues they raise about corruption and brutality by our leaders are true. But we forget that nowhere is propaganda more effective (and destructive) than when it uses (and abuses) actual facts.

The second issue is that we do not see that these ideas (corrupt and brutal leaders stifling development) are interest begotten. There are interests in Western countries that profit from them. The individual ambassador rooting for them may be aware of the real national interest. But this is not always the case.

For the most part, these diplomats are genuinely convinced that they are doing good. Otherwise, they would not sound as authentic. It is their subconscious or even unconscious assimilation of these cultural narratives that makes them effective agents of their nations’ interests.

The development of our countries is hampered by many factors. But the principal challenge is ideological hegemony. Our political leaders, civil servants, academics, journalists, civil society activists, etc. are married to beliefs that seek to benefit international capital but are presented as beneficial to us as well.

Of course, holding these ideas is also profitable for sections of our society. Those who espouse them find promising careers in Western dominated institutions. For instance, they get jobs in international development institutions such as the UN, IMF, World Bank, multinational corporations, scholarships in Western universities, etc.

In all these instances, they are socialized to hold ideas and beliefs that are detrimental to our national interests. This is made worse by the fact that our nations lack a national bourgeoise with distinct interests and able to articulate these interests and provide an ideological justification for them.

What we have are petit bourgeoisie and comprador groups whose bread is buttered by collaboration with multinational interests. The state we have in Africa and the elite groups who control it is based on ideas that benefit multinational capital. Our own state, like Ayi Kwei Amah’s beautiful ones, is not yet born.

*****

amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug