Professor Iweriebor’s Notes on “Africapitalism: A Management Idea for Business in Africa”

THIS ARTICLE MAKES VERY interesting reading in terms of its own premises and its attempts to expand the intellectual and cultural grounding of Africapitalism. This it does through the invocation and application of the Ubuntu idea or the concept of African humanism as well as its proposals of moral or ethical values for the practice of Africapitalism for business and development

2. However, since this does not derive from the original formulation of Africapitalism the invocation of the concept of Ubuntu/African humanism feels forced. It also highlights the fact that the original formulation of Africapitalism expresses no organic connection to African philosophical ideas or world views, cultural and historical heritages or ethical principles.

3. The article’s other contribution that makes it an exciting read is its conception and description of Africapitalism as an Imaginative Moral-Linguistic Project. This framework enables the authors to propose some foundational values such as: the sense of progress and prosperity; the sense of parity; the sense of peace and harmony and the sense of place and belongingness.

4. The concept of Ubuntu or African humanism and the foundational values advanced by the authors can stand as independent ideas and values derived from ancient African societal traditions and heritages. They are not inherently anchored on any capitalist economic arrangement. It seems that these concepts and values are attached to the concept of Africapitalism in order to make this doctrine more palatable to Africans as seemingly connected to cherished and admired African societal values which are not usually associated with Western capitalism.

5. Since the authors are concerned with Africapitalism as a business management idea it seems that the invocation of African humanistic principles and values are intended to help African businesses or businesses in Africa to incorporate these attractive ideals into their management practice.

6. If these humanistic principles and values are to be appended to Africapitalism how will this be done? Contemporary African private sector as a derivative of an imposed economic system is organically disconnected to African economic management practices and traditions. And, in fact, African private sectors practitioners reify and treat Western business management practices as if they are divine creations rather than local national experiences that are pretentiously universalized. African elite followers of everything Western happily adopt and attempt to copy local Western national business practices that are universalized as “international best practices”. African business leaders and enterprises strive mightily to be seen be doing business based on these reified Western business practices so as to be seen as modern.

7. The article does not identify or articulate any clear-cut strategies for actual economic development under Africapitalism. Consequently, it does not address the core of Western capitalism as a system of profit maximization based on mass production of goods and services. This is based on Western capitalism fostering of endogenous technology development and equipment and machinery manufacture and its creation of the associated facilitative financial infrastructure. It is arguable that the industrial mass production and relative availability of goods have been the saving grace of capitalism despite its grounding on unblinkered exploitation of labour and the conversions of human beings into exchangeable and disposable commodities.

Despite the gloss of liberalism on Western capitalism this exploitative practice is at its core.

8. Finally, any economic systems adopted by contemporary Africans must have explicit strategies of selfequipment for self-propulsion to mass production and in-continent prosperity generation.

9. The current parlous and challenging conditions of Africans cannot be left to theoretical and academic experimentation and elaborations.

African lives and dignity are too precious for such activities.

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