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Africa and World Economy: Prospects for Real Economic Growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Ann Seidman
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Extract

Crystal ball gazing is hardly the province of social scientists. The best one can do, in attempting to assess the prospects for real economic growth by the year 2000, is to examine the contradictory trends and struggles shaping the political economy of Africa and the world today, and suggest potential alternative outcomes. Even the possibilities are obscure.

What is clear is that, despite over ten years of independence for over 40 African countries, the majority of African peoples still confront the overriding problem of poverty. Living on a continent endowed with extensive mineral agricultural resources, they still suffer from among the lowest per capita incomes and the highest mortality rates in the world.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Winter 1978 , pp. 46 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1978 

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References

Notes

1. For example Seidman, A., Planning for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (New York: Prager, 1974, and Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1974)Google Scholar.

2. Sklar, R. L., Corporate Power in an African State (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975).Google Scholar.

3. U. S. Department of Commerce, Survey of Current Business (March 1975), Table 2C, pp. 22-23, gives data relating to U. S. investment in South Africa; and Republic of South Africa, Census of Foreign Transactions, Liabilities, and Assets, 31 December 1973, shows the overall pattern of foreign investment there.

4. A., and Seidman, N., U. S. Multinationals and Southern Africa (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, and Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill, forthcoming)Google Scholar. See also United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Transnational Corporations, Report of the Secretariat, Activities of Transnational Corporations in Southern Africa and the Extent of their Collaboration with the Illegal Regimes in the Area, E/C. 10/26, 6 April 1977.

5. This process has been described in Johnstone, E., Class, Race, and Gold (London: Ruttledge, Keegan Paul, 1977)Google Scholar; see also J., H. and Simons, R. E., Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850 to 1950 (Penguin African Library, 1968)Google Scholar.

6. For example Houghton, D. Hobart, Economic Growth in South Africa (London and Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

7. Young argued this position explicitly at a meeting of businessmen in South Africa arranged by Oppenheimer, the head of the Anglo American Corporation, itself a transnational corporation based in South Africa.

8. Many studies have shown how the export-orientation of agriculture contributed to limiting the surpluses of foodstuffs required to survive the drought in the early 1970s. These are well summarized in Lape, Frances Moore and Collins, Joseph, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1977)Google Scholar.

9. See for example A. Seidman, “The Distorted Growth of Import Substitution Industry: The Zambián Case.” Journal of Modern African Studies, 12 (1974).

10. Wellson, P. A., Borrowing by Developing Countries on the Euro-Currency Market (Parish: Development Centre of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1977)Google Scholar.

11. See New York Times, “Monetary Fund Gives Gloomy Assessment,” September 12, 1977.

12. The efforts of transnational banks to conceal their loans to South Africa renders it especially difficult to give precise data (South African Financial Mail, November 12, 1976). Examination of available reports from the Bank for International Settlements (reported in The Financial Times, London, June 18, 1977) and other sources (e.g. Campbell, M. and Chiles, F., “New Data on LDC Debt,” The Financial Times, London, June 17, 1977 Google Scholar) indicates a minimum of $9 billion. South African Reserve Bank data (Quarterly Bulletin, December 1976, pp. 64-65) indicate that international sources have grossly underestimated total South African external debt, and suggest a figure closer to $12 billion.

13. Hance, W. A., Population, Migration, and Urbanization in Africa (New York and London: Columbia University Press. 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Nyerere, J., Socialism and Rural Development (Dar es Salaam, 1967)Google Scholar; for critiques, see e.g. P. Gutkind and I. Wallerstein, eds., Political Economy of Africa; see also Shivji, I. G., The Silent Class Struggle (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1973)Google Scholar.

15. For example République Algérienne Démocratique et Populaire, Plan Quadriennal, 1974-1977, Rapport General (Alger, 1974).

16. Economist Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Economie Review of Angola, Mozambique, 1st Quarter, 1977, surveys the current situation. See also Machel, S., The Tasks Ahead: Selected Speeches of Smaora Moises Machel (Afro-American Information Services, New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Machel, S., Establecer podor para servir as masses (Lisboa: Publicacois Nova Aurora, 1974)Google Scholar;and Frelimo, , III Congresso da Frelimo, Directivas Economicas e Sociais (Maputo: February 18, 1977)Google Scholar.

17. See Seidman, R. B., State, Law and Development (London: Croom-Helm, Ltd., forthcoming)Google Scholar for discussion of the necessity of participation for development.

18. For discussion of these possibilities in Central and Southern Africa, see Seidman, A., “The Potentials of Economic Integration in Central and Southern Africa,” paper presented to Wingspread Conference, sponsored by Clark University and Johnstone Foundation, Fall 1975 Google Scholar.

19. Ibid. See also Yash P. Ghai, Reflections on Law and Economic Integration in East Africa, Research Report No. 36, Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1977, and review of it by A. Seidman, in African Law Studies, forthcoming.