2 - The Crisis of the New International Division of Labour, Authoritarianism and the Transition to Free-Market Economies in Africa
Africa Development,
Vol. 12 No. 2 (1987): Africa Development
Abstract
Selon la thèse qui fait l'objet du présent document, la crise q traversent actuellement les économies africaines est dans une certa mesure la conséquence de la mutation subie par ces économies au sein la division internationale du travail, et des politiques (souvent m conçues) visant à amener ces changements.
L'argument avancé ici voudrait qu'aussi bien le contenu des programm des "réformes économiques" en cours en Afrique, que les forces politiques qui régit ce processus de "réformes" - la désarticulation entre réforme économique et lutte des classes - donnent une coloration répressive particulière (et inévitable) à ce processus de réformes. Ainsi, le régime militaire, archétype du régime de "banquiers" est le promoteur idéal de ces réformes. La militarisation de l'appareil de l'Etat dans le contexte africain actuel, va de pair avec la domination, favorisée par la crise, d'idéologies de marché et le retard de la réintégration des économies africaines sur le marché international.
Toutefois il ne faudrait pas que ces origines autoritaires nous empêchent de voir la nature du projet; la dissolution du marché national oblige - et tel est en effet son objet - les pays africains "à adopter, sous peine d'extinction, le mode de production bourgeois" [Marx]. Il est évident que la dette internationale favorise ces transformations.
Dans un article évocateur, The Economist fait observer qu"aucun des gouvernements (afficains) qui appliquent ces nouvelles politiques n'a encore été renversé par un coup d'Etat, malgré plusieurs tentatives". Même en passant sous silence le cas du Soudan où le gouvernement de Nimeiry a été renversé en Avril 1986 après adoption des politiques du FMI, une interprétation différente des faits est possible. Il peut se faire que la venue (ou le retour) des militaires au pouvoir précède l'adoption de ces politiques et constitue donc le contexte politique de leur application. Le Ghana (1981), le Nigéria (1983) et la Guinée (1985) illustrent bien cette situation (en dépit des différences internes de ces régimes militaires) et peuvent servir d'exemples à l'avenir.
S'il n'y a pas eu davantage de régimes civils renversés, c'est parce que les régimes en place, tant civils que militaires, étaient déjà assez répressifs pour asseoir sans grands changements, un cadre politique approprié. Il faudrait cependant souligner la modification de la base historique et économique de l'autoritarisme, qui devrait être vu essentiellement dans le contexte actuel, comme l'instrument politique de la réorganisation massive, en période de crise, des conditions sociales de production en Afrique et de la transition tardive vers des économies de marché.
Il convient de souligner que la solution des erreurs politiques passées ne réside pas dans un retour de ces économies à l'exportation de produits agricoles comme le préconisent les théories issues de la thèse des "avantages comparés". Le présent document expose également une fois de plus les raisons pour lesquelles dans les circonstances actuelles, la démocratisation de la réforme n'est pas possible. L'on peut énoncer sans ambages les leçons essentielles: si les programmes de réformes exécutés actuellement en Afrique ne sont pas assortis de mesures de démocratisation et n'encouragent pas l'engagement des populations, ils ne seront tout simplement pas viables. La première condition à remplir dans le processus de démocratisation, c'est de donner à la "politique" la place qui lui revient de droit dans les programmes de réformes, en d'autres termes de "réarticuler" la politique et l'économie. A cet effet, il convient avant tout de faire en sorte que les ministres des finances (et l'ensemble de l'appareil de planification) rendent davantage compte à leurs administrés et de faire face - et non d'ignorer - aux questions sérieures de souveraineté nationale qui sont posées par les programmes de réformes de la Banque mondiale dans leur forme actuelle. La deuxième condition à remplir dans cette voie est la reconnaissance qu'il n'est pas de démocratisation possible sans l'orientation de la réforme économique vers la satisfaction des besoins essentiels. Pour cela il importe de réorienter fondamentalement les objectifs des programmes actuels, de manière à reporter l'accent non de la recherche du profit - celle-ci étant à mon avis souhaitable, mais des stratégies de croissance visant à la production destinée au marché extérieur, à la croissance en vue du développement des marchés intérieurs et de la satisfaction des besoins des populations
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- This implies then that neither dependency theory nor the "basic constraints" approach can adequately conceptualise or explain this crisis.
- For an extended analysis of the significance of political independence in this respect, see Bill Warren, "Imperialism and Capitalist Industrialisation", New Left Review. 81, 1974. The
- United Africa Company (UAC) described independence as the "greatest challenge" to
- foreign firms operating in Africa, a challenge to which the company responded by moving progressively from commercial to semi-industrial activity.
- However in situations of severe or exceptional crisis reactionary governments may arise, which are quite prepared to diminish or even cast off altogether these political/democratic constraints in order to impose the purely economic rationality of "growth" policies. Such is the case with the recent emergence of right-wing governments armed with monetarist ideologies in the Western democracies, and at the extreme, of fascist governments.
- For instance since April 1983 Ghana's currency (the cedi) has been devalued by 96 % in terms of the U.S. dollar. The first devaluation in 1983 was estimated to have reduced real
- wages by almost 50 %. The Guinean currency has been devalued by 92 % since 1985.
- Nigeria has recently abolished agricultural marketing boards. The circumstances here however are clearly peculiar, since agricultural export produce has played a severely reduced role in government finances since the 1970s, having been almost completely displaced by oil (98% of federal revenue in 1984).
- In some respects it could even be argued that both the economic and the political-ideological conditions of semi- industrialisation have tended not to eliminate but
- rather to consolidate petty-commodity forms and the "multiform" character of the economy.
- In the periphery these political relations should not be confused with "national"
- boundaries since they are in fact co- extensive with the world market, involving "foreign" capitalists and "national" wage-labour and politico-administrative and other functionaries.
- Hence a significant shift ih these relations - precisely what is occurring in the "reform programmes" of the lender agencies - may provoke fears of "neo-colonialism" and "recolonisation" and be resisted at that level.
- This is particularly clear in the bitter opposition to "privatisation" in almost all African countries undergoing adjustment programmes.
- An indication of the termination of the conditions of autonomy is the sputtering of the many "revolutions" launched on the continent in the seventies and early eighties.
- An earlier statement of this position, developed with a somewhat different emphasis and in the context of the experiences of Indonesia, Argentina, and Turkey, appears in Hutchful [1986]. Hirschman [1979] considers more explicitly the relationship between orthodox economic policies and authoritarianism in Latin America in the 1970s, in his critique of John Sheahan's "Market- Oriented Economic Policies and Political Repression in Latin America", Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. XXViii, 2, 1980 (a paper that unfortunately came too late to my attention to influence my own analysis). Hirschman disputes the connection explored by Sheahan, quoting the experiences of Colombia, where a gradual process of adjustment made it possible to escape such authoritarian results. However Colombia's experiences cannot be generalized, since a major characteristic of most recent adjustment programmes is precisely the attempt to equalize domestic and international prices over the very short term. Hirschman himself conceptualises the problem rather in terms of what he describes as the alternation between "reform" and "entrepreneurial" functions in Latin America. It may be pointed out in any case that his periods of the'"entrepreneurial function", which coincide with authoritarian political rule, take the form most frequently of a return to orthodox economic policies.
- In any case this ambivalence is based on a misperception. While state action may help to "free" the market (defined as the immediate area of exchange relationship), the strong contradictions associated with this process as well as with the normal operations of the "free" market require - not a liquidation of the state's presence - but rather its displacement and consolidation at other social levels. Intriguingly, realization of the need for strong state action in the initial construction of the market was basic to classical liberalism but has been lost on their neo-classical progeny.
- According to The Economist (June 28, 1986), "Debt is enforcing the belated but
- necessary reform of Africa's economic policies". Since the African debts (like the even
- larger ones of Latin America) are admitted to be unpayable, obviously then "debt-related
- policies" must be related to something else other than debt-repayment Two "real"
- objectives come to mind: first the insistence on unserviceable debts constitutes a precautionary claim of African's potential future surplus; and second (and most important) the debt provides the appropriate political conditions for these market-oriented reforms.
- "Black Africa's Future: Can it go Capitalist?" June 28, 1986. The Economist is not the only organ extolling the "sensible economic policies" now being followed by Third World governments, cf. also Time Magazine, July 20, 1986.
- For Ghana and Nigeria, see my paper, "With or Without the Fund? Recent Adjustment Programmes in Ghana and Nigeria", University of Toronto (mimeo), April 1986.
- It may be objected that precisely the most important new development in the political character of militarism in Africa is its anti-authoritarian, populist and even "progressive" direction, exemplified by Ghana and Burkina Faso. In my recent paper, "New Elements in the Political Theory and Practice of Militarism in Africa International Journal (forthcoming: October 1986) I have tried to insist on the complex character of these regimes and the extremely unstable class "conjunctures" they initially represent, which makes them both fairly autonomous in the short run and essentially unpredictable in the final directions which they will take. The case of Ghana demonstrates how this unstable conjuncture may be resolved in favour of precisely the kind of transformations under discussion here.
References
This implies then that neither dependency theory nor the "basic constraints" approach can adequately conceptualise or explain this crisis.
For an extended analysis of the significance of political independence in this respect, see Bill Warren, "Imperialism and Capitalist Industrialisation", New Left Review. 81, 1974. The
United Africa Company (UAC) described independence as the "greatest challenge" to
foreign firms operating in Africa, a challenge to which the company responded by moving progressively from commercial to semi-industrial activity.
However in situations of severe or exceptional crisis reactionary governments may arise, which are quite prepared to diminish or even cast off altogether these political/democratic constraints in order to impose the purely economic rationality of "growth" policies. Such is the case with the recent emergence of right-wing governments armed with monetarist ideologies in the Western democracies, and at the extreme, of fascist governments.
For instance since April 1983 Ghana's currency (the cedi) has been devalued by 96 % in terms of the U.S. dollar. The first devaluation in 1983 was estimated to have reduced real
wages by almost 50 %. The Guinean currency has been devalued by 92 % since 1985.
Nigeria has recently abolished agricultural marketing boards. The circumstances here however are clearly peculiar, since agricultural export produce has played a severely reduced role in government finances since the 1970s, having been almost completely displaced by oil (98% of federal revenue in 1984).
In some respects it could even be argued that both the economic and the political-ideological conditions of semi- industrialisation have tended not to eliminate but
rather to consolidate petty-commodity forms and the "multiform" character of the economy.
In the periphery these political relations should not be confused with "national"
boundaries since they are in fact co- extensive with the world market, involving "foreign" capitalists and "national" wage-labour and politico-administrative and other functionaries.
Hence a significant shift ih these relations - precisely what is occurring in the "reform programmes" of the lender agencies - may provoke fears of "neo-colonialism" and "recolonisation" and be resisted at that level.
This is particularly clear in the bitter opposition to "privatisation" in almost all African countries undergoing adjustment programmes.
An indication of the termination of the conditions of autonomy is the sputtering of the many "revolutions" launched on the continent in the seventies and early eighties.
An earlier statement of this position, developed with a somewhat different emphasis and in the context of the experiences of Indonesia, Argentina, and Turkey, appears in Hutchful [1986]. Hirschman [1979] considers more explicitly the relationship between orthodox economic policies and authoritarianism in Latin America in the 1970s, in his critique of John Sheahan's "Market- Oriented Economic Policies and Political Repression in Latin America", Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. XXViii, 2, 1980 (a paper that unfortunately came too late to my attention to influence my own analysis). Hirschman disputes the connection explored by Sheahan, quoting the experiences of Colombia, where a gradual process of adjustment made it possible to escape such authoritarian results. However Colombia's experiences cannot be generalized, since a major characteristic of most recent adjustment programmes is precisely the attempt to equalize domestic and international prices over the very short term. Hirschman himself conceptualises the problem rather in terms of what he describes as the alternation between "reform" and "entrepreneurial" functions in Latin America. It may be pointed out in any case that his periods of the'"entrepreneurial function", which coincide with authoritarian political rule, take the form most frequently of a return to orthodox economic policies.
In any case this ambivalence is based on a misperception. While state action may help to "free" the market (defined as the immediate area of exchange relationship), the strong contradictions associated with this process as well as with the normal operations of the "free" market require - not a liquidation of the state's presence - but rather its displacement and consolidation at other social levels. Intriguingly, realization of the need for strong state action in the initial construction of the market was basic to classical liberalism but has been lost on their neo-classical progeny.
According to The Economist (June 28, 1986), "Debt is enforcing the belated but
necessary reform of Africa's economic policies". Since the African debts (like the even
larger ones of Latin America) are admitted to be unpayable, obviously then "debt-related
policies" must be related to something else other than debt-repayment Two "real"
objectives come to mind: first the insistence on unserviceable debts constitutes a precautionary claim of African's potential future surplus; and second (and most important) the debt provides the appropriate political conditions for these market-oriented reforms.
"Black Africa's Future: Can it go Capitalist?" June 28, 1986. The Economist is not the only organ extolling the "sensible economic policies" now being followed by Third World governments, cf. also Time Magazine, July 20, 1986.
For Ghana and Nigeria, see my paper, "With or Without the Fund? Recent Adjustment Programmes in Ghana and Nigeria", University of Toronto (mimeo), April 1986.
It may be objected that precisely the most important new development in the political character of militarism in Africa is its anti-authoritarian, populist and even "progressive" direction, exemplified by Ghana and Burkina Faso. In my recent paper, "New Elements in the Political Theory and Practice of Militarism in Africa International Journal (forthcoming: October 1986) I have tried to insist on the complex character of these regimes and the extremely unstable class "conjunctures" they initially represent, which makes them both fairly autonomous in the short run and essentially unpredictable in the final directions which they will take. The case of Ghana demonstrates how this unstable conjuncture may be resolved in favour of precisely the kind of transformations under discussion here.