Cognitive Maturity: The Bane of African Economy

COGNITIVE IMMATURITY: THE BANE OF THE AFRICAN ECONOMY

By Mbaezue, Emmanuel Chukwuemeka

The reasons for Africa’s under-development in the midst of its abundant human and natural resources is one that has continued to create fault-lines amongst scholars and policy makers. Theorists like P.W. Preston, J. Martinussen and J. Rapley belonging to the Structuralist School of thought blame this debased standard of living on over dependence on the West for everything especially trade [1][2][3]. Others like Karl Marx, Fredrick Engels and Walter Rodney trace back the continent’s economic decline to the days of colonialism, further strengthened today by neo-imperialism [4].

On the other side of the divide are theorists who prefer to look into the workings and structuring of Africa’s internal affairs for answers to its economic deterioration. They fall under a group known as the Modernists or the Modernist school of thought. Amongst them are individuals like W.W. Rostow, M. Kamrava, and Herbert Spenser. They are of the view that Africa’s economic backwardness is as a result of inconsistency on the part of Africans to maintain a sufficient political super structure and capable leadership [5].

Asides the above-named theories that have tried to examine Africa’s dwindling economy, there still exists another unique explanation to Africa’s economic crunch, one that has to do with an African’s wave line of thoughts, his cognitive abilities in relation to how he perceives the term “self- preservation”, and why in spite of all the threats to his existence, still prefers to think and reason retrogressively.

Before delving into the details of this hypothesis, it will be appropriate to first get a peripheral understanding of the terms, development and self-preservation. Going by the standards of the World Bank, development or a developed economy is one with more than $1,000 GNP/capital. In a developed economy, the nationwide income as well as per-capita income increases over a long period, and every sector of that economy operates at full capacity.

Haines in addition to this, associates development with modernity [6]. According to him, to be developed is to be modern and that includes industrialization, urbanization and the increased use of technology. For Willis, a developed economy in policy and practice is one that reflects the Millennium Development Goals and these are; poverty eradication, universal primary education, gender equality and women empowerment, reduced childhood mortality, improved maternal health, eradication of HIV and other diseases, environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development [7].

These features encompass the United Nations Expert Committee’s exact definition of development, “Development concerns not only man’s material needs but also improvement of the social conditions of his life. Development is therefore not only economic growth, but growth plus change, social, cultural and institutional as well as economic”. [8] In a nutshell, a developed economy is one that experiences a consistent improvement in every sector and has it extended over a long period of time in order to break the vicious circle of poverty and help the country involved attain self-growth.

The idea of self-preservation is closely linked and not too isolated from development, as only a safe (and in this context, a developed) environment can comfortably sustain life. Millen in referencing Thomas Hobbes’s “Leviathan”, identifies self-preservation as the motivating factor behind the creation of societies. [9] In his bid to escape natural threats to his existence such as oppression, starvation, famine and injury, man had to create societies, an entity in whom he believes lies his only defense against extinction, his only guarantee to survival, hence his internal conviction that there lies security in numbers.

With this he becomes vigilant against all forms of threat to his society, and all his actions are focused on ensuring the survival of that society else he is doomed. In defining self-preservation Karni and Schmeidler [10] see it as the human tendency to maximize its probability of survival in a finite horizon model of which within that period, the decision maker must choose a risky prospect from a feasible set of prospects and may become extinct should his accumulated fortune become non-positive. Self-preservation is fed by fear and pain or both. Psychologically as pointed out by Krishnananda, it is motivated by the desire to satisfy the body and the ego. [11] While needs such as food, shelter and clothing focus on the body, the quest for power, self-esteem, fame and prestige aim to satisfy the ego.

Earlier, we tried to establish the fact that the bulk of the blame for Africa’s under-developed status has been on external (western) influence. Nhema and Zeleza have gone ahead to argue that most of Africa’s deadliest conflicts were as a result of the divisive nature of European politics handed down to post-colonial African countries, which later became a pedestal for Africa’s most brutal civil wars in Rwanda and Nigeria [12]. In the same vein, Europe’s obsession with Africa’s mineral resources propelled it towards intensifying the civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

True as these maybe, not everybody agrees with this notion. The living conditions of most Africans today as opined by Guest are similar to that of most Europeans during the days before the industrial revolution. [13] Europeans too, just like Africans, experienced slavery; According to him “The vast majority of the people were serfs, bonded laborers, tied to the land, forced at their lord’s whim to fight for him, sleep with him or harvest his corn”. Also, contrary to the near popular belief that slavery began with the arrival of the Arabs, then the Portuguese, the French and the English, 30-60% of Africans were already enslaved by their fellow Africans before the Europeans arrived.

Guest further argues that if colonialism was truly what held Africans back from development, how come the continent never boomed when the Europeans left, how is it that countries like China, India and Mexico who too like Africa, experienced colonialism, have today become global economic super-powers? Foster- Caster’s answer to these questions forms the crux of this paper’s argument. Using the term, psychologism, he identifies the psyche and to an extent, the culture of those in the 3rd world as responsible for their state of existence [14].

According to him, rather than being creative, innovative and entrepreneurial, they prefer to be passive, conservative and even superstitious. Larrain and Mclelland [15][16] implicitly add that Africans lack the craving for achievement- a self-conscious desire to do well among potential actual entrepreneurs, which is the key to a developed economy. For an average African the true essence of the society is lost, and his African principles eulogized and identified by Mazrui as “Romantic Primitivism” [17] has been discarded. In place of the common good he now toils for the individual good, ignoring the communal spirit.

Contrary to the innovative spirit and hard work that kept the Europeans alive, helped them develop and guarantee their survival against many odds, when today’s African thinks of self-preservation, he thinks of it in terms of how he can eliminate his perceived competitors so that he alone can gain from the available resources. He gives the term, “self preservation” a whole new meaning, and in spite of all the threats to his survival, he still perceives the elimination of his opponents as the only solution to his problems.

This explains his desire to perpetuate himself in power, his over dependence on mineral/natural resources, and his xenophobic disposition towards others. Prehistoric man to a great extent was equated to the animals. He fed and survived on animals whom he sees as lower than himself. As he evolved he started thinking of more advanced ways of surviving through the use of technology and industrialization, reducing his over-dependence on animals and fruits. Even when he consumed, he still found ways of replenishing.

The present day African on the other hand is yet to attain this level of cognition. He still “preys” on those he considers lower to himself and his economic productivity levels, according to Mazrui are still very low. For now he’s yet to think out areas of need for other counties and continents, areas where his ability to produce can be put to the test and eventually become a huge source of economic wealth. Using the women, Mazrui opines that “They (the women) have moved from the productive sector to the service sector, they learn a European Language and the verbal literary skills only to leave the soil in favor of the office, the hoe in favor of the white collar”.

To remedy Africa’s economic backwardness, a lessons-learned approach should be adopted in the face of our economic crisis. Africa should occasionally compare notes and learn from those countries they started their economic race with. In the words of Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, Africa can only succeed, “if its aims and objectives are defined by Africans themselves, if its programs are designed by ourselves and if we take responsibility for the success and failures of our policies” (Guest, 2010).

The Whiteman ostensibly may be superior to his black counter-part but his pigmentation is not better, nor is his intellectual capacity higher. He only achieves more economically

because he channels his thoughts and energy in the right direction.

FOOTNOTES

1.      P.W. Preston, Development Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1996), 179- 189.

2.       J.Martinussen, Society, State and Market: A Guide to Competing Theories of

Development (London: Zed Press and Pretoria: HSRC, 1997), 73.

3.       J. Rapley, Understanding Development: Theory and Practice in the Third World

(London:UCL, 1996), 12-16.

4.       Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, On Colonialism. Articles from the New York Tribune and other writings (New York: International Publishers, 1972).

5.       M.Kamrava, Politics and Society in the Third World (London:Routledge, 1993), 36.

6.       Richard Haines, “Development Theory” In Introduction to Development Studies, Frik De Beer and Hennie Swanepoel, (Southern Africa: Oxford University Press, 2000), 31-58.

7.       K. Willis, Theories and Practices of Development (London: Routledge, 2005),

“The United Nations Expert Committee”, Economic Development and Growth, 2003, www.newagepublishers.com/samplechapter/000186.pdf.

9.       Raymond Millen, “The Hobbesian Notion of Self-Preservation concerning Human

Behaviour During an Insurgency”, (Paper presented at the United States Army, Strategic Studies Institute, 2006-07), http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/article/06winter/millen.pdf.htm.

10.     Edi Karni and David Schmeidler, “Self Preservation as a Foundation of Rational

Behaviour under Risk”, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 7 (1986): 71-81, North-Holland.

11.     Swami Kishnananda, “Self-Preservation Instinct”, The Study and Practice ofYoga: An Exposition of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 2014. www.swami-krishnananda.org/patanjali/raja_59.html.

12.     Alfred Nhema and Paul T.Zeleza, eds., The Roots of African Conflicts: The Causes and Costs, (Oxford: James Currey Press, 2008), 6-19.

13.     Robert Guest, The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption and African Lives (Washington DC: Smithsonian Press, 2010), 7-14.

14.     A. Foster-Carter, The Sociology of Development (Ormskirk: Causeway, 1986), 22.

15.     J.Larrain, Theories of Development (Cambridge:Polity, 1989).

16.     D.C. Mclelland, The Achieving Society (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961).

17.     Ali A. Mazrui, The Africans: A Reader (New York: Praeger Publisher, 1986), xv xvii.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Foster-Carter, A. The Sociology of Development. Ormskirk:Causewa, 1986.

Guest, Robert. The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption and African Lives. Washington DC: Smithsonian Press, 2010.

Haines, Richard. “Development Theory” In Introduction to Development Studies, Frik de Beer and Hennie Swanepoel. Southern Africa: Oxford University Press,

2000.

Kamrava, M. Politics and Society in the Third World. London: Routledge, 1993.

Karni, Edi and Schmeidler, David. “Self-Preservation as a foundation of rational

behavior under risk” Journal of economic behavior and organization 7(1986):

71-81, North-Holland.

Krishnananda, Swami. “The Self-Preservation Instinct”. The study and practice of the

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 2014. www.swami-krishnananda.org/patanjali/raja_59.html.

Larrain, J. Theories of Development. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989.

Martinussen, J. Society, State and Market: A Guide to Competing Theories of Development. London: Zed Press and Pretoria: HSRC, 1997.

Marx, Karl and Engels, Fredrick. On Colonialism. Articles from the New York Tribune

and other writings. New York: International Publishers, 1972.

Mazrui, A. Ali. The Africans: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publisher, 1986.

Mclelland, D.C. The Achieving Society. Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961.

Millen, Raymond. “The Hobbesian Notion of Self-Preservation Concerning Human

Behavior during an Insurgency”. Paper presented at the United States Army,

Strategic Studies Institute, 2006-07. http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/

pubs/parameters/article/06winter/millen.pdf.

Nhema, Alfred and Paul T. Zeleza, eds. The Roots of African Conflicts: The Causes and Costs. Oxford : James Currey Press, 2008.

Preston, P.W. Development Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1996.

Rapley, J. Understanding Development: Theory and Practice in the Third World.

London:UCL, 1996.

“The United Nations Expert Committee”. Economic Development and Growth. 2003.

www.newagepublishers.com/samplechapter/000186.pdf.

Willis, K. Theories and Practices of Development. London: Routeledge, 2005.