Iweriebor on the book: Africapitalism: Sustainable Business and Development in Africa

IHAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK so I cannot comment on it in general or its chapters in any detail. I am sure they would all make interesting reading. My comment is just on the Contents. The various themes certainly address important issues in contemporary business environment practice and development from the point of view of Africapitalism.

But to me the most striking thing which is at the core of the organic inadequacy of Africapitalism as an ideology is that there is absolutely no reference to production activities, to domestic technology manufacture or development and no reference to industrialization as the provider of the capacity for mass production of goods and services in economic systems.

I suspect that this is not an omission but reflects the intellectual orientation and ideological choice of contemporary African governments and significant elements of African business elite, bureaucracy, technocracy and intelligentsia. This can be formulated as follows: technology is Western and not African; African industrialization will always depend on the permanent importation of “Western” technology. Therefore, technology and instruments of industrialization and technology can best be provided for African “development” through foreigners and foreign direct investment (FDI).

If this is broadly true it is no surprise that a book on Africapitalism has no reference to production, technology or industrialization.

My basic perspective is that FDI can never, ever lead to Africa’s development. In fact, I conceptualize FDI as the Fetish of Disempowerment.