Samir Amin, you set out to totally demolish Moyo, and barely concealed your contempt of her, why?

She is young and has turned her mind to theoretical matters, critique her by all means but leave out the contempt. She is the daughter of the soil, critique and encourage, by all means.

You took so much away from your piece, because of the barely concealed put downs.
It was so not necessary.

I know nothing about the political economy. I do know that AID has infantilised some African states.

I recently loaned the book from the library to see what the sister had to say. Seeing that the forward was by Niall Ferguson. Was sufficient to put me off!

Yeno Thorli ( Thoughtful Designs)

Extremely important: end the colonization of the African mind !

Do not trust Africans working for the western dominated and financed international institutions like IMF,World Bank,WTO and UNO !

Do not trust Africans educated in western colleges,in particular in social science fields like economics,politics and history !
The best African intellectuals in those fields could not be produced in western colleges but in Africa ! What you could produce there is brainwashed agents of the west.

The reason why so-called "Aid" of the west for Africa failed was it was not intended to help Africa at all.What a stupidity for Africans to even think the west wants to help them.

And finally do not trust European intellectuals,no matter from which country,in matters concerning Africa.

thanks

P.S. corrected version

Toni

Whilst I have not read the article under critique, I can’t help notice the emotive nature of this criticism. The critic, whilst rightly identifying general pitfalls of Brenton Woods ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to aid and development in Africa, fails to acknowledge that Africa is itself very diverse (geo-politically) that it’s impossible to reach the generalised conclusion(s) that he reaches. The narrative about different kinds of ‘aid’ is only helpful inasmuch as it illuminate the ‘storylines’ that aid is usually tied to; but the intrinsic anatomy of aid itself have not changed fundamentally over a very long period.
I think the issue of aid will remain divisive as long as people like Samir Amin continue to peddle the ‘aid with imperialist overtures’ narrative; which of course some corrupt African leaders use as a smokescreen for ineffective governance (note I shy away from the phrase ‘bad governance’). Yamin, just like the World Bank or Goldman Sachs economists he criticises for their capitalist markets ideological development models, comes across as a development technocrat and theorist. His generalisations are not only questionable but potentially dangerous. For example I don’t believe there is any new era of intensified conflict over resources between what he calls ‘emerging powers’ and ‘dominant powers’. In the global economy the turf has since shifted from resources. Resource scarcity was a fad perpetuated by the economic doomsters of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Western countries are not fighting for exclusive access to African natural resources any more; there is a fight for the control of the credit markets, consumer demand and manipulation of the supply – chain. And truly speaking African natural resources are just a minute drop in this trillion dollar economic ocean.
What Africa needs is development, not aid. But this is not new; so much have been written and said but I believe the problem is not with aid nor any perceived hidden imperialist intentions. The problem is with the recipient nations and institutional frameworks built around aid. We, as Africans need to put our houses in order; and I don’t mean simply accepting ‘western- defined’ democracy and good governance (if we have alternatives we should make these explicit) , but we and we shouldn’t expect aid without ‘conditions’ (that will be naïve) We need to sort out our politics and institutions. We need to make our leaders accountable. And we can only do that by making sure African people are fully engaged in politics.
The issue of aid should not only be discussed and evaluated within the realm of economics. Technocrats, development theorists, economists and politicians should not impose their conflicting theories and schools of thought (based on boardroom brain storming sessions, think-tanks and hurried research undertakings)on the aid issue. Because this does not only move us further from possible rational solutions; it simply causes more suffering in African cities and villages. We need pragmatists, not scholars!

Savania Chinamaringa, Consultant, London

Savania Chinamaringa

Thank you for bringing this sharp and insightful critique on aid. Samir rightly mentions that a critique of aid can only be conducted within the framework of political economy. However the political or the "imperial aspect" of aid is unspokenly ignored as to be'ideological', and thus 'non-scientific'.

Vikas Nath

Dambisa Moyo is a young African scholar at the beginning of her career as a public intellectual and while the vicious attacks from the European and American aid industry is understandable, the brutal attacks from African male stream have been quite shocking. Does she not deserve even a little encouragement for her effort?

No matter how many times she repeats that Humanitarian aid (Amin’s solidarity related aid) should not be conflated with economic aid all her critiques make precisely this accusation of her work. Amin is no exception, but Moyo, it has to be said is focused only on economic aid not solidarity.

Basically the African male stream argues that Dambisa Moyo is not up to the task of criticising imperialism. But, does she claim to be an activist? Is she a believer in Marxism –Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought as some of us once were? No! So why should we say she is not up to the task as if her mission is the same as ours? As one who was brought up on dependencia theory and Samir Amin thought, I can say without any regret that two generations of nuanced anti-imperialist critique have led us nowhere. If we paid more attention to what other people were doing and saying maybe we would not be trapped in the Sahara as we currently are.

According to Amin “She only seems to be familiar with a few blinkered development theorists, like David Landes, whose ‘revelations’ are at best trivial (he concludes, for example, that ‘aid’ tends to benefit a small elite minority).”And would you disagree with that? Can the same not be said of dependency generally? So even when she is in agreement with dependencia because she does not refer to the work of the senior African male stream she is condemned.

Amin says “The key question – still unanswered – remains: What strategic political aim does this aid serve?”This is indeed a good question but the problem that Moyo, in my view, is concerned with is the HOW? The main (not sole) strategic aim for hegemony is domination. If we keep asking WHY when it is so obvious, we will spend another generation wishing for auto centric development and a Pol Pot to lead to the Maoist heaven.

You can see the dictatorial tendency in the old African male stream when Amin says: A critique of aid can only be conducted within the framework of political economy. Now that is so closed min it is hard to believe that this is the same Samir Amin who hammered TINA in the past. It is just the same stubbornness that we saw in Margaret Thatcher when she said there is no alternative, or Christians saying it is only through Jesus that one can enter the kingdom of heaven. All that we know suggests that there are always alternatives even if we do not know them. For us to accept that there is no alternative to Samir Amin Thought is to condemn ourselves to permanent stagnation. There are alternatives but we shall never know if we insist on silencing everyone who does not mouth political economy.

I agree with Samir Amin that Moyo lacks knowledge of political economy but I do hold it against her and I certainly do not agree that political economy has all the answers, or that Moyo’s thesis is entirely wrong because of its lack of political economy. In my own review of the book (which Pambazuku did not publish incidentally, understandably to promote the rival Yash Tandon book but nevertheless stifling debate!) I said: - But what Moyo does that is new is that she spells out the alternatives in the language of the economist and not political activist, we shall see later that in the end the little matter of “political will” will loom large and veto most of her well thought out suggestions. Politics, as far as development goes, is always in command – for better or for worse.

Those who want to read my full review will find it at < http://www.zambian.com/zambia/directory/business/business-admin-info/html/dead-aid-dambisa-moyo.html>

So Moyo wrongly refers to Lumumba as a ‘communist leader. Touché! Yes she is the American educated daughter of American educated Zambian parents, however, this book is not about Lumumba whose short stay in office does not tell us anything about his development model though it tells us a lot about what Africans are up against. What I know is that in Zambia Moyo studied natural sciences and not history so her poor knowledge of Lumumba is understandable but it is not an issue worth debating.

Since he started off on the wrong foot by asking WHY instead of HOW Amin highlights the trivial in order to trivialize Moyo’s argument and fails to see its main value: 1) to show her World Bank peers that there is another way; 2) to show her Harvard and Oxford professors that they suggest one model for Africa – aid, and explore other paths for Eastern Europe and Asia relying on, among other things, money markets. Again and again Amin exposes his one track mind and single solution explanations such as when he tells us that “She does not realise that China’s current success is a product of the radical Maoist revolution that it went through.” How simplistic!

Yes the Maoist revolution cannot be ignored but neither can several millennia of Chinese statecraft, Confucianism, population size, regimentation, family values, and a lingering sense of humiliation emanating from the semi-colonial experience. China unlike sub-Saharan Africa was not enslaved by Arabs and Europeans or carved into balkanised colonies. But lest we forget, Samir Amin admires Maoism as did Pol Pot. I doubt that Deng Xiao Ping, the capitalist roader who supervised the Four Modernizations would count Samir Amin and Pol Pot among his comrades. Beware of single cause explanations, beware of TINA for even in Maoism there is a principal contradiction and an infinite number of secondary ones. You stifle alternative explanations to your own detriment.

There is nothing Moyo can add to our knowledge of the past, of political economy and of auto centric development. It is the future that we are worried about. What would be the point of producing yet another dependencia pamphlet? Hundreds of scholars have already done that, most of them in an era before Moyo was even born. Why must we repeat or even update old critiques? Her concern is to encourage us to abandon a development model that has a half century of failure behind it and whether we like it or not our equally teleological modernist narrative of political economy has an equally long history of failure.

The Kariba dam was built with US backed World Bank loans so that Zambia would produce the copper and Zimbabwe the chrome that the USA was building strategic stocks of during the Cold War. Neither Amin nor Moyo knows the history of the dam that well but Amin’s suggestion that Kariba power was meant for South Africa and not Zambia misses the point. That was not an American concern. So we can all do with some refresher course in history.

Accusing Moyo of not doing enough for political economy sounds like saying that the Holy Bible is not Islamic enough. Why must Moyo write Amin’s book and answer all his puzzles? You cannot judge a book by what it did not say if it was not meant to say those things in the first place.


There are many things I will highlight in my longer review suffice it to say for now that it does not matter what the aim of aid is and one does not have to know chaos theory to know that there are always unexpected results, that is why the road to hell is paved with Good intentions. Aid tends to corrupt because leaders that do not depend on taxes collected from their own citizens and rely on foreign aid (or oil revenues instead) are not accountable to their citizens. They do not bother conducting a proper census or to keep up to date tax records. Unlike voters, markets have a tendency to punish the sloppy and ineffective. Granted that she may be showing too much faith in the power of money markets but the point that Moyo makes is that for as long as there is foreign aid and African leaders are answerable to the World Bank and not to their electorates, there is no reason why the status quo will not continue to exist. There is of course the option of the socialist revolution but it is not the only one and it is certainly not Dambisa Moyo’s job to write another What is to be Done? In part Samir Amin has already done that and has been doing it forever.

And this, in my reading of Moyo is precisely why she calls for an exit plan for foreign aid in Africa. If Egypt cannot go down that path maybe Mauritius can so we should not writ it off altogether. What we cannot accept is the suggestion that there is no alternative to Maoism, Thatcherism, foreign aid, Pentecostalism or autocented development. Stifling alternative voices, especially from young scholars like Dambisa Moyo will certainly keep Africa in darkness and both Samir Amin and Pamabazuka should be ashamed of themselves for making it their duty to silence Dambisa Moyo and to promote political economy as the only way. Luckily there will always be other ways whether you like it or not and we should now allow the young generation to also have their say.

Owen Sichone Pretoria University

Its obvious these two people are highly educated and articulate, but just like every one else ENSLAVED from cradle to grave, by the creation of money out of NOTHING as a compound interest bearing DEBT, which results in a child dying every second in servicing this debt.
They also do not realise that the Third World debt in particular and debt in general is absolutely necessary to keep the Ponzi banking system going.
I wonder whether as a result of this creation of money no country is free or sovereign.
''Let me control the issue of a nations currency I do not care who writes it's laws.
The Private bank the FED is able to issue this fiat currency, the U$ dollar thus able to control the world.
Here was my challenge to the US presidential candidates
you all may find it baffeling.
''"Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal -- that there is no human relation between master and slave.": Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy - (1828-1910)

A reply I sent to prospective Presidential candidate with some additions

''Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." : Sir Josiah Stamp (1880-1941) President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain

"Endless money forms the sinews of war." : Marcus Tullius Cicero -
(106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
Professor. J. K. Galbraith
You are living in a totalitarian tripartite dictatorship, viz Elected, Press and financial. The last sustaining the two former, due to the fact that money is created out of NOTHING as an interest bearing DEBT enslaving you all from cradle to grave. Any other legislation is only cosmetic, giving a semblance of democracy. What is needed is a basic paradigm shift in the Noe classical economics which governed by interest bearing DEBT, get the money lenders out of the market, get the elected government to issue the money towards productive capacity as interest free loans, to be repaid and debt cancelled, hence counter inflationary.
The insidious and invidious practice of usury is NOT necessary or inevitable.
You are doing a good job but running in the wrong direction just as the rest of the poor devils.
Unless you addresses the question of Money Supply, you all will remain enslaved, and the enslaved will do any thing as they are ordered to do and be willing connon foder to fight illegal illicit wars based on lies
In the Third World a child is killed EVERY THREE SECONDS, the HOLOCAUST is alive and well and had been for decades, you all have been blind
The US is BANKRUPT it total debt is U$56 Trillions including Fed debt and obligations and rising at U$ ! Trillion a year.
Interest alone was U$45 Billion last year.
We are borrowing at £500 million a DAY, our (U.K) total debt is £ 1.8 Trillion
'' It's well enough that our people of the nation do not understand our our Banking and Monetary system if they do there will be a revolution to morrow,''Henry Ford
There is the next round of Commercial property collaspe
Plus Credit Card Debts running in to Trillions

David Soori

Another insightful analysis by Amin on Africa's structural exploitation by Western capital.

Is an alliance with China the only way forward? Or can regional integration break the neo colonial chain?

Joan Nimarkoh FAO

ISSN 1753-6839  Fahamu