Mutumwa Mawere

In response to my article of last week entitled: "Black Economic Empowerment Revisited", a person using the name Utopia responded with the following comment: "If the government did not do anything about economic independence, then the political independence could have remained hollow, and will continue to be so unless it is filled with material contents. Let's face it, if nothing is done to even the playing field then blacks will continue to play a subservient role in a country they are governing." 



He then posed four questions that I think are critical in better appreciating the challenges and prospects for leveling the post-colonial economic playing field.

 The majority of the people in Africa are black and their role and place in the economy, therefore, necessarily becomes an issue of concern especially given that the colonial system excluded this class of people from participating in the economic system.

More importantly, the colonial state actors were racially, political and economically aligned. The link between white state control and white economic privilege was direct and often perceived to be causal.

The foundation of the colonial state with its racial outlook and thrust is perceived to have permanently positioned whites to maintain and sustain an economic advantage over the majority of the African people.

The civil rights struggle to the extent that it sought to decouple race from state control, had to be the harbinger of the struggle for the total emancipation of the subjugated majority.

I now turn to the questions posed by Utopia. The first question reads as follows: "Should we all expect our personal circumstances to improve without improving ourselves?"

My response is that human beings are sovereign and they make their own choices in life. Any country is as good as the summation of the outcomes from the actions of its citizens. Africa's future can only change if its citizens want it to change. The change must begin at the individual level. The pursuit of self-interest and growth need not undermine the collective development.

In fact, nations that allow for individuals to pursue their own interests tend to do well than nations that restrict individual creativeness and innovation. We, therefore, cannot expect personal circumstances to improve without individuals improving themselves.

Individuals are the drivers of any change and no amount of rhetoric about the past ills of colonialism will change the status of Africa today. Solutions have to be found to meet the needs of the current generation and it is the decisions that are made today that affect the future and each generation has a part to play in laying the foundations for the future.

The second question posed reads as follows: "In addition to education, socio-political stability, and the access to capital (i.e. the opportunity to fail with one's own efforts), should handouts via the maternal state be included as a pre-requisite of development?"

Handouts like the fruits of inheritance do not necessarily guarantee success but it sure helps to get a good head start. The state is a creature of citizens and its capacity to intervene is determined by the actions of the very citizens it is expected to serve. It derives its income from the income generated from the activities of the citizens.

Some have argued that a developmental state necessarily requires the state to intervene and direct the transformation process. However, the state can at best be a facilitator and catalyst and its role as a financier can also be critical in enabling citizens to convert ideas and dreams into concrete products and solutions required to reduce the frontiers of poverty.

The market system on its own cannot bridge the capital and execution gaps that confront Africa let alone the knowledge gaps that exist particularly in financial literacy. The construction of capital and the role of money in human development have to be understood in its proper context.

Should the state be the driver of economic change in post-colonial Africa? Can the state be relied upon to deliver the promise?

I still believe that human beings are the most complex assets and as such any progressive society has to be founded on principles that allow human beings to be free to make their own choices. Self-interest drives human beings to scale the heights and, therefore, it is more important to invest in the institutional and legal framework that promotes the respect of the rule of law, human and property rights as a prerequisite of development.

Electoral processes have never been known to produce superior individuals armed with the kind of wisdom and capacity generally expected by citizens. It would be naïve to expect state actors who are human beings like all of us to solve all the challenges that face citizens rather it is up to the citizens to demand that they are given space to do what is in their interests.

Ultimately, any parent who seeks to clone their children will soon discover that once born children can take their own personality and the best one can do, as a parent is to support the choices that children make. Parents generally can achieve more in shaping the character of their children through persuasion rather than through prescription.

Human beings need to be fed and the people who produce the food have to be rewarded so that they can continue to produce. Any system that allows the owners of property to exchange their title for equivalent value will ultimately win than one that arbitrarily imposes prices based on some notion that the poor would be protected through administrative controls than through a market system.

The third question reads as follows: "Despite having a near identical colonial heritage to Africans, do we still hear Asians fingering the Marxist Rosary whilst humming from the "We Were Wronged" hymn book?"

 The Asians have shown that it is possible to construct a post-colonial economic model without necessarily investing in the past and its wrongs. The emergence of the Asian economic renewal is directly linked to their rejection of orthodox Marxist ideology as the modus operandi in nation building. The Asian economies allowed for the market to determine prices and play a role in allocating scare resources. Citizens were given the freedom to make the choices generally expected in a functioning economic system. Although they were equally wronged, they chose to move on and become the change they wanted to see in their countries. The transformation of some of the Asian economies into prosperous nations has to be understood in the kind of ideological choices that were made.

 The final question posed reads as follows: "(Ghana was wealthier than most of those states in the 50's.) How much of Asia's progress was the result of "allocation and redistribution?"


Asian economic progress was less to do with allocation and redistribution than with an investment in key foundational principles required to support a progressive nation in which the drivers of economic change are the individual citizens. The state can play its role as a referee, market corrector and shareholder of assets that produce public goods and other assets that are critical for the nation that the private sector cannot or is unwilling to own and operate.

Africa's promise can be delivered by the actions of free citizens supported by a state that acts as a good parent. The conversation about the challenges and prospects for Africa moving forward has to be informed by a proper understanding of the foundational principles that are required for sustainable and prosperous nation building.