Mutumwa Mawere

What is a gentlemen's club? What, if any, is its usefulness to nation building? What role did it play in the consolidation and sustenance of the colonial political economy?

The origins of gentlemen's clubs is to be found in 18th century English society where members-only private clubs were established to promote and protect interests of members.

They were set up by and for English upper society but today they are a universal phenomenon.

Our knowledge of the few that were and are successful in climbing the opportunity ladder behaved, organized, and transmitted their wealth to future generations is limited by our own experiences.

However, to the upper classes in any society, the need to work in a net (network) cannot be overstated.

It must be accepted that the dominant wealth transmission mechanism is either through death or marriage.

In both mechanisms, the need for qualification or for one to prove oneself is not relevant.

When one marries rich, then wealth transmission is automatic and seamless.

When one dies, the power of the deceased passes to successors and human history has demonstrated that no amount of wealth will make it possible for anyone to use such wealth to cheat dead.

Gentlemen's clubs were originally meant for men and typically upper class men were defined as gentle.
So lower class men were not welcome because they were deemed to have nothing in common with the upper class but there was nothing to stop lower class men from aspiring to prove themselves and join the club.

Some who saw no prospect of climbing the opportunity ladder voted with their feet to the colonies and through this mechanism managed to accumulate wealth that then allowed them to join the prestigious clubs in the metropolis.

These clubs became a home from home. They provided a platform for men to network and share experiences but above all acted as an incentive for the excluded to find ways in a lifetime to be part of the "brain trust" of any nation that they chose to be part of.

However, today many of the clubs are now open about gender and social standing of members. Many countries outside the UK have copied the model.

In post-colonial Africa, very few clubs have been established and it is generally frowned upon to create exclusive clubs in the midst of poverty and hopelessness.

In colonial Africa, many clubs were established to provide a platform for political and business leaders to meet and craft ways to ensure the viability and durability of the colonial business model.

The model did not last as anticipated but what it did was to enable the beneficiaries to stake their claim on Africa that endured even beyond the demise of the political system that supported it.

Post-colonial Africa has produced its own elites. Some of these elites have amassed huge personal fortunes. In any society, those who make it necessarily become the subject of ridicule and criticism.

In the USA, for example, such elites were commonly described as robber barons. Not many businesspersons would escape being characterized as beneficiaries of questionable business practices in their rise to fame.

The term derives from the medieval German lords who illegally charged exorbitant tolls on ships that used the Rhine.

Although we all love competition, there is hardly no businessmen who gets into business with low ambitions. Most successful businessmen want to control and dominate the market.

In the journey to success, market power becomes critical and consolidation has been shown to deliver products and services at lower costs.

The anti-monopoly behavior of the 1880s in the USA and the greed of financial robbers who are blamed for the financial meltdown of 2008/9 led to public scorn for big business and so-called gentlemen.

Post-colonial Africa has failed to produce its own critical thinkers and decision makers who openly and constructively organize themselves to ensure the preservation of their industrial and commercial legacies.

In the post-colonial African context, the heroic age of African enterprise has never arrived and the few who make it tend to be inward looking and exhibit pop-star tendencies.

If nation states can produce some kind of order in the political market where political clubs can seize power through organization, why has it been difficult to bring order to the business market where small and emergent businessmen can climb the business ladder with hope?

Even in free and democratic societies, order is imperative to ensure stability of markets. Industrializing Africa will necessarily have to be a process and not a play of good versus evil.

It is often easy to make unexamined ideological and assumptions and presuppositions in describing the few who make it and to regard them as beneficiaries of unethical and illegal business practices.

If one day, one wants to be in big business then it is important that we invest in understanding the mind of a big business player.

If by being big, one necessarily has to be evil then there would be no real incentive for anyone to engage in business.

In building America from an idea in the minds of its founders, there are few individuals who stand out.

One of such individuals was Mr. John Pierpont Morgan (17 April 1837 - March 1913) who after 75 years of existence on this earth earned a reputation as a great financier, banker and art collector of his time; his life experience is pregnant with lessons for all of us who believe that Africa's better days are yet to come but it is only through working together that this can be realized.

It was Morgan who in 1892 was the brains and financier of the creation of General Electric and the creation of the United States Steel Corporation in 1901.

During the period, 1890-1913, Morgan was responsible for organizing and underwriting the securities of a record of 42 corporations.

In spite of his immense wealth and power, Morgan understood the need for the rich to be organized if America had to live up to its promise.

He was a founder of the Metropolitan Club of New York and its President from 1891 and 1900. He led from the front with distinction.

History records that when Morgan's friend, Mr. Frank King, whom he had proposed was black-balled by the Union Club of which Morgan was a member, because he had done manual labor in his youth, Morgan resigned from the Union.

He resigned from the Union Club on principle. The Union Club was exclusive and the exclusion of King exposed the limitations of a civilization based on permanent segregation and prejudice.

Mr. Morgan did not give up. He proceeded to donate the land on 5th Avenue and 60th Street at a cost of $125,000, and with these words to his colleague, Stanford White, "Build me a club fit for gentlemen. Fuck the expense" he launched the Metropolitan Club.

With this project, Mr. King became a charter member demonstrating that prejudice can inspire people to build institutions.
What lessons do we learn from Morgan? For some Africans, the rejection of Mr. King would have led to strategies to destroy the Union Club instead of inspiring the building of new institutions.

Africa inherited clubs but we have yet to see some of Africa's influential people to adopt the attitude of Mr. Morgan.

Whatever the expense, the club had to be built and it was. What informed Mr. Morgan to resolve that it was important to do what he did?

We need our own men who are gentle to stand up and be counted.

Africa requires men of vision and compassion but above all people who are connected so that even Africa's Frank Kings may also be part of the "brain trust" that will inform our continent's choices on how best to organize ourselves for winning the game of development.