Mr. Ntalaja's summary of my article (December 1970 issue) omits the essence of my argument: that a distorted system of incentives, which is unlikely to be seriously altered, makes Pan-Africanism purely academic and points the way to eventual upheaval and anti-intellectural revolution. Furthermore, because a disproportionate part of government revenues in Africa are obtained from the relatively poor, an expanding government bureaucracy implies an expanding system of exploitation of the poor and the productive by the rich certified elite who “administer.” In my abstract model I have defined certified elite as the people who hold certificates and diplomas from the existing educational system. The degree to which these certified people do control the governments of Africa is open to empirical verification; I have merely gone on the basis of my own casual observation in a number of African countries over the past eighteen years and decided to assume that they do for the purposes of my model. I obviously believe that my assumption is the only relevant one. The administrative or corporate state appears to have arrived in several African nations and to be well on the way in others.

The international comparison of absolute salary levels, Nigerian certificate holder versus British certificate holder, has no true economic meaning as long as productivities also differ. As I pointed out (p. 420), the British administrator may be supported by a capital investment which enables him to produce more than his less well-supported Nigerian counterpart. What is useful, and to a degree comparable, is the ratio of salaries and wages within each nation. Comparison of absolute salary levels is usually found as an argument by the certified elite to support government exploitation of the poor.