As Walter Rodney observed, “It is typical of underdeveloped economies that they do not -- or are not allowed to -- concentrate on those sectors of the economy which in turn will generate growth and raise production to a new level altogether, and there are very few ties between one sector and another so that, say, agriculture and industry could react beneficially on each other.”
Earlier allegedly “developmental trade” strategies, such as the EU’s “Everything But Arms” deal, haven’t worked, because of strict rules of origin and serious supply-side constraints. There is simply no capacity in African firms to penetrate Europe given this continent’s small production runs and high transport costs.
As Keet suggested, it therefore may be time to question trade itself -- not merely the mythical “export-led growth” shibboleth -- in part because climate change will soon invoke hefty taxes on ships (whose dirty bunker oil sends vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere).
How Europe underdevelops Africa and how some fight back
Patrick Bond and Richard Kamidza (2008-06-17)
In even the most exploitative African sites of repression and capital accumulation, sometimes corporations take a hit, and victims sometimes unite on continental lines instead of being divided-and-conquered. Turns in the class struggle might have surprised Walter Rodney, the political economist whose 1972 classic “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” provided detailed critiques of corporate looting.
In early June, the British-Dutch firm Shell Oil – one of Rodney’s targets - was instructed to depart from the Ogoniland region within the Niger Delta, where in 1995 Shell officials were responsible for the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. After decades of abuse, women protesters, local NGOs and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) gave Shell the shove. France’s Total appears next in line, in part because of additional pressure from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.
Across the continent, exploitation by other European capitalists and politicians has become so extreme that something has to break. Although it was six months ago that the European Union’s ultramanipulative trade negotiator, Peter Mandelson, cajoled 18 weak African leaderships -- including crisis-ridden Cote d’Ivoire, neoliberal Ghana and numerous frightened agro-exporting countries -- into the trap of signing interim “Economic Partnership Agreements” (EPAs), a backlash is now growing.
