How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973Walter Rodney 1973How Europe Underdeveloped AfricaPublished by: Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London andTanzanian Publishing House, Dar-Es-Salaam 1973, Transcript from6th reprint, 1983;Transcribed: by Joaquin Arriola.ToPat, Muthoni, Mashaka andthe extended familyContentsPrefaceChapter One. Some Questions on Development1.1 What is Development1.2 What is Underdevelopment?Chapter Two. How Africa Developed Before the Comingof the Europeans up to the 15th ey-walter/how-europe/index.htm (1 of 3) [8/22/05 11:01:42 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 19732.1 General Over-View2.2 Concrete ExamplesChapter Three. Africa’s Contribution to EuropeanCapitalist Development — the Pre-Colonial Period3.1 How Europe Became the Dominant Section of a WorldWide Trade System3.2 Africa’s contribution to the economy and beliefs of earlycapitalist EuropeChapter Four. Europe and the Roots of AfricanUnderdevelopment — to 18854.1 The European Slave Trade as a Basic Factor in AfricanUnderdevelopment4.2 Technological Stagnation and Distortion of the AfricanEconomy in the Pre-Colonial Epoch4.3 Continuing Politico-Military Developments in Africa —1500 to 1885Chapter Five. Africa’s Contribution to the CapitalistDevelopment of Europe — the Colonial Period5.1 Expatriation of African Surplus Under rodney-walter/how-europe/index.htm (2 of 3) [8/22/05 11:01:42 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 19735.2 The Strengthening of Technological and Military Aspectsof CapitalismChapter Six. Colonialism as a System forUnderdeveloping Africa6.1 The Supposed Benefits of Colonialism to Africa6.2 Negative Character of the Social, Political and EconomicConsequences6.3 Education for Underdevelopment6.4 Development by ContradictionWalter Rodney Archive Marxism & Anti-Imperialism in y-walter/how-europe/index.htm (3 of 3) [8/22/05 11:01:42 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973PrefaceThis book derives from a concern with the contemporary Africansituation. It delves into the past only because otherwise it would beimpossible to understand how the present came into being and what thetrends are for the near future. In the search for an understanding of whatis now called “underdevelopment” in Africa, the limits of enquiry havehad to be fixed as far apart as the fifteenth century, on the one hand andthe end of the colonial period, on the other hand.Ideally. an analysis of underdevelopment should come even closer tothe present than the end of the colonial period in the 1960s. Thephenomenon of neo-colonialism cries out for extensive investigation inorder to formulate the strategy and tactics of African emancipation anddevelopment. This study does not go that far, but at least certainsolutions are implicit in a correct historical evaluation, just as givenmedical remedies are indicated or contra-indicated by a correctdiagnosis of a patient’s condition and an accurate case-history.Hopefully, the facts and interpretation that follow will make a smallcontribution towards reinforcing the conclusion that Africandevelopment is possible only on the basis of a radical break with theinternational capitalist system, which has been the principal agency ofunderdevelopment of Africa over the last five centuries.As the reader will observe, the question of development strategy istackled briefly in the final section by A.M. Babu, former Minister lter/how-europe/preface.htm (1 of 2) [8/22/05 11:02:45 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973Economic Affairs and Development Planning, who has been activelyinvolved in fashioning policy along those lines in the Tanzanian context[n.b.: not included in this reprint]. It is no accident that the text as awhole has been written within Tanzania, where expressions of concernfor development have been accompanied by considerably more positiveaction than in several other parts of the continent.Many colleagues and comrades shared in the preparation of this work.Special thanks must go to comrades Karim Hirji and Henry Mapolu ofthe University of Dar es Salaam, who read the manuscript in a spirit ofconstructive criticism. But, contrary to the fashion in most prefaces, Iwill not add that “all mistakes and shortcomings are entirely myresponsibility.” That is sheer bourgeois subjectivism. Responsibility inmatters of these sorts is always collective, especially with regard to theremedying of shortcomings. My thanks also go to the TanzaniaPublishing House and Bogle L'Ouverture Publications for co-operatingin producing this volume as simply and cheaply as possible. Thepurpose has been to try and reach Africans who wish to explore furtherthe nature of their exploitation, rather than to satisfy the ‘standard, setby our oppressors and their spokesmen in the academic world.Walter Rodney.Dar es Salaam.Table of ney-walter/how-europe/preface.htm (2 of 2) [8/22/05 11:02:45 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973Chapter OneSome Questions on Development‘In contrast with the surging growth of the countries in our socialist campand the development taking place, albeit much more slowly, in themajority of the capitalist countries, is the unquestionable fact that a largeproportion of the so-called underdeveloped countries are in totalstagnation, and that in some of them the rate of economic growth is lowerthan that of population increase.‘These characteristics are not fortuitous; they correspond strictly to thenature of the capitalist system in full expansion, which transfers to thedependent countries the most abusive and barefaced forms of exploitation.It must be clearly understood that the only way to solve the questions nowbesetting mankind is to eliminate completely the exploitation of dependentcountries by developed capitalist countries, with all the consequences thatthis implies.’Che Guevara, 1964.1. 1 What is Development?Development in human society is a many-sided process. At the level ofthe individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom,creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well-being. Someof these are virtually moral categories and are difficult to evaluate –depending as they do on the age in which one lives, one’s class origins,and one’s personal code of what is right and what is wrong. However,what is indisputable is that the achievement of any of those aspects lter/how-europe/ch01.htm (1 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973personal development is very much tied in with the state of the societyas a whole. From earliest times, man found it convenient and necessaryto come together in groups to hunt and for the sake of survival. Therelations which develop within any given social group are crucial to anunderstanding of the society as a whole: Freedom, responsibility, skill,etc. have real meaning only in terms of the relations of men in society.Of course, each social group comes into contact with others. Therelations between individuals in any two societies are regulated by theform of the two societies. Their respective political structures areimportant because the ruling elements within each group are the onesthat begin to dialogue, trade or fight, as the case may be. At the level ofsocial groups, therefore, development implies an increasing capacity toregulate both internal and external relationships. Much of humanhistory has been a fight for survival against natural hazards and againstreal and imagined human enemies. Development in the past has alwaysmeant the increase in the ability to guard the independence of the socialgroup and indeed to infringe upon the freedom of others - somethingthat often came about irrespective of the will of the persons within thesocieties involved.Men are not the only beings which operate in groups, but the humanspecies embarked upon a unique line of development because man hadthe capacity to make and use tools. The very act of making tools was astimulus to increasing rationality rather than the consequence of a fullymatured intellect. In historical terms, man the worker was every bit asimportant as man the thinker, because the work with tools liberated alter/how-europe/ch01.htm (2 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973from sheer physical necessity, so that he could impose himself uponother more powerful species and upon nature itself. The tools withwhich men work and the manner in which they organise their labour areboth important indices of social development.More often than not, the term ‘development’ is used in an exclusiveeconomic sense – the justification being that the type of economy isitself an index of other social features. What then is economicdevelopment? A society develops economically as its members increasejointly their capacity for dealing with the environment. This capacityfor dealing with the environment is dependent on the extent to whichthey understand the laws of nature (science), on the extent to whichthey put that understanding into practice by devising tools (technology),and on the manner in which work is organised. Taking a long-termview, it can be said that there has been constant economic developmentwithin human society since the origins of man, because man hasmultiplied enormously his capacity to win a living from nature. Themagnitude of man’s achievement is best understood by reflecting on theearly history of human society and noting firstly, the progress fromcrude stone tools to the use of metals; secondly, the changeover fromhunting and gathering wild fruit to the domestication of animals and thegrowing of food crops; and thirdly, the improvement in the character ofwork from being an individualistic activity towards an activity whichassumes a social character through the participation of many.Every people have shown a capacity for independently increasing theirability to live a more satisfactory life through exploiting the dney-walter/how-europe/ch01.htm (3 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973of nature. Every continent independently participated in the earlyepochs of the extension of man’s control over his environment – whichmeans in effect that every continent can point to a period of economicdevelopment. Africa, being the original home of man, was a majorparticipant in the processes in which human groups displayed an everincreasing capacity to extract a living from the natural environment.Indeed, in the early period, Africa was the focus of the physicaldevelopment of man as such, as distinct from other living beings.Development was universal because the conditions leading eacheconomic expansion were universal. Everywhere, man was faced withthe task of survival by meeting fundamental material needs; and bettertools were a consequence of the interplay between human beings andnature as part of the struggle for survival. Of course, human history isnot a record of advances and nothing else. There were periods in everypart of the world when there were temporary setbacks and actualreduction of the capacity to produce basic necessities and other servicesfor the population. But the overall tendency was towards increasedproduction, and at given points of time the increase in the quantity ofgoods was associated with a change in the quality or character ofsociety. This will be shown later with reference to Africa, but toindicate the universal application of the principle ofquantitative/qualitative change an example will be drawn from China.Early man in China lived at the mercy of nature, and slowly discoveredsuch basic things as the fact that fire can be man-made and that seeds ofsome grasses could be planted in the soil to meet food a/rodney-walter/how-europe/ch01.htm (4 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973Those discoveries helped inhabitants of China to have simple farmingcommunities using stone tools and producing enough for baresubsistence. That was achieved several thousand years before the birthof Christ or the flight of the Prophet Muhammad. The goods producedat that stage were divided more equally among the members of society,who lived and worked in families. By the time of the T'ang dynasty ofthe 7th century A.D., China had expanded its economic capacity notonly to grow more food but also to manufacture a wide variety of itemssuch as silks, porcelain, ships and scientific devices. This of courserepresented a quantitative increase in the goods produced, and it wasinter-related with qualitative changes in Chinese society. By the laterdate, there was a political state, where before there were only selfgovernment units. Instead of every family and every. individualperforming the tasks of agriculturalists, house-builders, tailors, etc.,there had arisen specialization of function. Most of the population stilltilled the land, but there were skilled artisans who made silk andporcelain, bureaucrats who administered the state and Buddhist andConfucian religious philosophers who specialized in trying to explainthose things that lay outside of immediate understanding.Specialization and division of labour led to more production as well asinequality in distribution. A small section of Chinese society came totake a large disproportionate share of the proceeds of human labour, andthat was the section which did least to actually generate wealth byworking in agriculture or industry. They could afford to do so becausegrave inequalties had emerged in the ownership of the basic means ofproduction, which was the land. Family land became smaller as far lter/how-europe/ch01.htm (5 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973most peasants were concerned, and a minority took over the greaterportion of the land. Those changes in land tenure were part and parcelof development in its broadest sense. That is why development cannotbe seen purely as an economic affair, but rather as an overall socialprocess which is dependent upon the outcome of man’s efforts to dealwith his natural environment.Through careful study, it is possible to comprehend some of the verycomplicated links between the changes in the economic base andchanges in the rest of the superstructure of the society – including thesphere of ideology and social beliefs. The changeover fromcommunalism in Asia and Europe led for instance to codes of behaviourpeculiar to feudalism. The conduct of the European knights in armourhad much in common with that of the Japanese Samurai or warriors.They developed notions of so-called ‘chivalry’ – conduct becoming agentleman knight on horseback; while in contrast had to learn extremehumility, deference and obsequiousness – symbolised by doffing hiscap and standing bare-headed before his superiors. In Africa, too, it wasto be found that the rise of the state and superior classes led to thepractice whereby common subjects prostrated themselves in thepresence of the monarchs and aristocrats. When the point had beenreached, it became clear that the rough equality of the family had givenway to a new state of society.In the natural sciences, it is well known that in many instancesquantitative change becomes qualitative after a certain period. Thecommon example is the way that water can absorb heat (a /rodney-walter/how-europe/ch01.htm (6 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973process) until at 100 C it changes to steam (a qualitative change ofform). Similarly, in human society it has always been the case that theexpansion of the economy leads eventually to a change in the form ofsocial relations. Karl Marx, writing in the 19th century, was the firstwriter to appreciate this, and he distinguished within European historyseveral stages of development. The first major stage following aftersimple bands of hunters was Communalism where property wascollectively owned, work was done in common, and goods were sharedout equally. The second was Slavery, caused by the extension ofdomineering elements within the family and by some groups beingoverwhelmed by others. Slaves did a variety of tasks, but their main jobwas to produce food. The next was Feudalism where agricultureremained the principal means of making a livelihood, but the landwhich was necessary for that purpose was in the hands of the few, andthey took the lion’s share of the wealth. The workers on the land (nowcalled Serfs) were no longer the personal property of the masters, butthey were tied to the land of a particular manor or estate. When themanor changed hands, the serfs had to remain there and provide goodsfor the landlord – just keeping enough to feed themselves. Just as thechild of a slave was a slave, so the children of serfs were also serfs.Then came Capitalism, under which the greatest wealth in the societywas produced not in agriculture but by machines – in factories and inmines. Like the preceding phase of feudalism, capitalism wascharacterised by the concentration in a few hands of ownership of themeans of producing wealth and by unequal distribution of the productsof human labour. The few who dominated were the bourgeoisie whohad originated in the merchants and craftsmen of the feudal epoch, alter/how-europe/ch01.htm (7 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973who rose to be industrialists and financiers. Meanwhile, the serfs weredeclared legally free to leave the land and to go in search ofemployment in capitalist enterprises. Their labour thereby became acommodity – something to be bought and sold.It was predicted that there would be a further stage – that of Socialism –in which the principle of economic would be restored, as incommunalism. In the present century, the phase of Socialism has indeedemerged in some countries. Economically, each succeeding stagerepresented development in the strict sense that there was increasedcapacity to control the material environment and thereby to create moregoods and services for the community. The greater quantity of goodsand services were based on greatest skills and human inventiveness.Man was liberated in the sense of having more opportunities to displayand develop his talents. Whether man uplifted himself in a moral senseis open to dispute. The advance in production increased the range ofpowers which sections of society had over other sections, and itmultiplied the violence which was part of the competition for survivaland growth among social groups. It is not at all clear that a soldierserving capitalism in the last World War was less ‘primitive’ in theelemental sense of the word than a soldier serving in one of Japan’sfeudal armies in the 16th century, or for that matter a hunter living inthe first phase of human organisation in the forests of Brazil.Nevertheless, we do know that in those three respective epochs huntingband, feudalism, capitalism-the quality of life improved. It became lesshazardous and less uncertain, and members of society potentially hadgreater choice over their destinies. All of that is involved when alter/how-europe/ch01.htm (8 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:06 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973 Walter Rodney 1973 How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Published by: Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London and Tanzanian Publishing House, Dar-Es-Salaam 1973, Transcript from
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