The twentieth century

The 1930s Great Depression, with its unprecedented falls in output and persistent and high levels of unemployment, ushered in new ways of thinking (such as Keynesianism) that were predicated on uncertainty (Cameron and Ndhlovu, 1999).

In the southern African context, particularly in South Africa (during the apartheid period of 1948—94), Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) and Botswana (then Bechuanaland), there was increasingly an emphasis on economic growth as a panacea for perceived ‘backwardness’. For example, in South Africa, the Afrikaner nationalists not only extended and institutionalised the racist ideology, but they also justified it on the basis of religious beliefs within the Dutch Reformed Church (also see Freedman, 2013). Significant investment could justifiably be made to white sections of the population within the industrial and agricultural sectors, while the private sector could be given incentives to invest, thus ensuring increased productivity. Overarching national (indicative) sectorial and project planning became the key to rapid capital accumulation.

While the Second World War was characterised by Keynesian interventionist policies (‘dirigiste dogma’, to use Lal’s term) and the introduction of technocratic skills (‘getting technology right’), it also triggered a (re)evaluation amongst the newly educated ‘natives’ of economic growth; that it was not necessarily the same as development (which incorporates literacy, health, education, basic needs, etc.). Emphasis in analysis thus switched to ‘redistribution with growth’ (‘getting income distribution right’). Ironically, the brutality of colonisation, combined with religious ideals of equality before God, had inspired African nationalists to oppose colonisation and policies of racial segregation. Recognition of this political dimension turned attention to the iniquities surrounding the racial and hierarchical system.

The 1960s and 1970s were periods in which nationalist theories coalesced. The political struggles for independence from the (largely British) colonial yoke emphasised either rural/regional planning or under- development/dependency theories, which criticised ethnocentric models, and the role played by indigenous elites and intellectuals. These latter non-ethnocentric indigenous models rejected ‘Western’ models for their inapplicability to southern African historical and cultural experiences (‘getting political relations right’).

In so far as nationalist theories involved the ability of citizens to support and exercise their national identity, as well as national economic projects, there was increased resistance against the colonialists’ divide-and-rule tactics (‘One Zambia, One Nation’, to use Kenneth Kaunda’s rallying call in Zambia). Despite the difficulties in defining a ‘nation’, anti-colonial nationalism was a reaction to the subjugation of indigenous people by foreign, imperial powers. In the southern African context, African nationalists sought to resolve racial and ethnic divisions by either peaceful means (as in Botswana) or via militarism (as in South Africa). The establishment of African nationalism or civic nationalism also involved the active participation of trade unions (as in South Africa and Zambia); and it was also accompanied by advocacy of Christian socialism which emphasised social justice and human rights as a way of bringing together different strands of society for common economic and societal goals.

It is against this background that nationalists in southern Africa began to advocate Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere’s populist version of socialism, that is, African communalism or ujamaa (familyhood or extended family in Swahili) philosophy. This was latterly known in South Africa as umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (becoming a person through one’s relations with others or through community) and in Zambia as ‘Zambian humanism’ (as advocated by Kenneth Kaunda).

Not only was education and collectivised forms of production (‘villagisation’) to be emphasised, but social, economic and political equality was also seen as the key to progress (Nyerere, 1967; Ibhawoh and Dibua, 2003; Pauw, 1996; Saul, 1972). Although this was subsequently toned down in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC), for example, advocated a version of African nationalism or ‘democratic socialism’ (‘a step towards bourgeois democracy’, as enunciated in the 1956 Freedom Charter). This not only had similarities with the American civil rights movement of defiance against unjust laws (social justice), but was also influenced by the ANC’s association with the trade union movement and the South African Communist Party (SACP) with respect to nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy.

For his part, Goran Hyden (1980, 1983) took issue with the ujamaa philosophy and presented an alternative explanation that had echoes of neoclassical economic thinking. In his ‘economy of affection’, he depicted the post-colonial state in Africa as having ‘no structural roots in society, which, as a balloon suspended in mid-air, is being punctuated by excessive demands and is unable to function without an indiscriminate and wasteful consumption of scarce societal resources’ (Hyden, 1983, 19). He contended that, while the colonial government (allegedly) brought positive organisation to African states and aid for the poor, the modern African ‘socialist structures’ placed greater emphasis on social welfare rather than economic growth that was so important to colonial administrators. Inexperienced bureaucrats succumbed to ‘excessive demands’ on the state. When these demands were subsequently not met, the heroes’ status of these leaders at independence quickly dissipated and was replaced by disillusionment where political leaders were seen in the same light as their colonial predecessors, the so-called cynical manipulators.

In the meantime, African states were unable to incorporate the independent peasantry that did not feel obliged to be part of the national economy.

In so far as the peasant mode of production has its own informal system of reciprocal support that links together various social and economic units that are otherwise autonomous, the ‘economy of affection’ is thus central to the ability of peasant producers to survive without state assistance. And yet this system also enables peasant producers to take advantage of market incentives within the national economy, while redistributing any gains (derived from money invested in the welfare state) within the ‘economy of affection’. Hyden (1983) describes peasant producers as having ‘one foot in and one foot out of the state’s sphere of influence’. Clearly, appropriation of the surplus from the peasant producers to boost national revenue is not possible, meaning that the state has to rely on alternative sources of income, such as in trade. Moreover, resources are likely to be diverted from the public in general (i.e. wasteful consumption) via white elephants such as unused ‘conference hotels', high- technology weaponry and failed dam constructions. It was thus not surprising that some African leaders adopted authoritarian controls over society. In the circumstances, Hyden (1983) advocates full-scale capitalism in African countries and de-linking from the ‘economy of affection'.

While Hyden (1983) has been criticised for over-generalisation and paying scant attention to historical specificity, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (joint conditionality) went along with this neo-liberal analysis in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to Stabilisation Policies (1950—80) (devaluation of exchange rates; increasing import duties; raising interest rates), they introduced Structural Adjustment Policies (fiscal reform; removal or elimination of subsidies and price and wage controls; targeting of poverty programmes via user charges/fees and means tests; privatisation of public sector activities) for especially less developed countries (LDCs). At a time when many LDCs were using interventionist policies, across-the- board liberalisation involved the increased role of the market, increased openness, and ‘getting prices right' (Lal, 1985, 2006).

This medicine was to be taken until private and foreign investment, and economic growth, had risen substantially. These policies were implemented in, for example, Zambia with disastrous social consequences.

In South Africa, this neo-liberal economic thinking appeared in 1996 in the guise of the government's five-year macroeconomic strategy entitled Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR). It was contended that privatisation, competition (liberalisation), with the state creating an investment-enabling environment, and elimination of exchange controls would not only address the legacy of apartheid, but also increase economic growth by six per cent per annum by 2000 and consequently increase employment (Ndhlovu, 2011). Unlike the earlier (1994) Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) that sought to address redistributive justice, GEAR did not mention inequality (Ramutsindela, 2006; Weeks, 1999). It must also be noted that analysis of women's work in southern Africa has been concentrated on social reproduction, services and so-called ‘traditional work'. Although African States are arguably not neutral social arbiters, they are often presented as central to economic redistribution and therefore gender justice. Relatively few analyses examine the division of labour as central to the process of accumulation, and how power relations can be couched through the complex relationship between class, race and gender (Collins, 2000; Ndhlovu, 2014; Ndhlovu and Spring, 2009).

Notwithstanding this, the worsening global economic situation forced the South African government in particular to subsequently abandon GEAR in favour of the National Development Plan (NDP). Thinking switched to government being central to economic activity. In other words, it was the intention of the NDP to operationalise a version of the developmental state similarly to the ‘Asian Four Tigers' (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) and China. Investment in infrastructure would be prioritised, together with support for regional development plans.

In addition, social grants and national health insurance would be put in place, while some market incentives were also part-and-parcel of this plan. This mixture of Keynesian interventionist policies and free market policies can be described as the New Institutional Economics (Cameron and Ndhlovu, 2000). Besides, meritocracy would arguably be intertwined with informal networks to facilitate the achievement of common economic and social goals. The government would also continue to redress racial and gender divisions via Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (2003) and other legislature (Buhlungu and Tshoaedi, 2012, 113).

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries reflect the challenge of balancing economic growth and accompanying social, political and cultural transitions; as well as constructing national identities and new geographical imaginaries. Indeed, the establishment of a Development Bank by the BRICS nations in 2013 to rival the IMF has given rise to various interpretations of this grouping; is it a neo-colonial relationship or the beginning of unshackling of the chains of dependency/underdevelopment?

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Source: Barnett Vincent (ed.). Routledge Handbook of the History of Global Economic Thought. Routledge,2015. — 359 p. 2015

The twentieth century

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