Africa Media Review Vol. 8 No. 2  1994
©African  Council for Communication  Education

Some Reflections on the

Dependency Theory

Luke Uka Uche*

Abstract

The  challenge  facing  contemporary  scholarship  in  communication  and
development is that of boldly addressing the issue of the hegemonic structure
and control of the world economy and the systematic strangulation of Africa
and the rest of the Third World by the industrialized world. To shy away from
addressing the Issue that the under-development of the Third World societies
came about through colonalism is to run away from reality.

Communication  in  the  development  process  of Africa  was  denied  a
Marshall  Plan  despite  her  contribution  to  the  economic  attainment  of
world peace after World War II.

* Luke  Uka  Uche  teaches  in  the  Department  of  Mass  Communications,
University of Lagos, Nigeria.

Quelques Reflexions sin-
la Theorie de  Dependence

par Luke Uka Uche*

Rfesumfe

Actuellement,  le defl pour les etudiants dans les domaines de communication
et  du  developpement  c'est  celui  d'adresser  la  question  de  la  structure
hegemonique, 
le  controle  de  l'economie  du  monde,  et  la  strangulation
systematique de l'Afrique et le reste du Tiers Monde par les pays developpes.
Eviter de discuter le fait  que le sous-developpement  du Tiers-Monde  est le
resultat du colonialisme,  c'est eviter la realite.

Au cours du  processus  de developpement  en Afrique,  on a refuse  un
plan gigantesque dans le domaine de la communication malgre sa contribution
au  developpement  economique  et  a  1'industrialisation  de  l'Europe  et  de
l'Amerique et aussi sa contribution a la realisation de la paix dans le monde
apres la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale.

* Luke Uka Uche enseigne dans le Departement de la Communication  des
Masses a l'Universite de Lagos,  Nigeria.

40

Introduction

Independence  from  Europe's  colonial rule  came to the  first  African
country south of the Sahara exactly twelve years after the end of the
World War II (WWII) in 1945. It was Ghana, formerly Gold Coast, that
enjoyed the honour of being the first to attain independent  status in
black Africa  on  March  6,  1957. The  former  name,  Gold  Coast,  is
not only suggestive, but also reminiscent of the height of the state of
the ecstasy of the Europeans in their exploitation and looting of Ghana's
gold for the development of Europe.  In the  1960s, most sub-Saharan
African countries became independent nation states.  Colonial African
states  sent  their  soldiers to fight on the Allied  side  (of course  their
colonial masters')  during WW II.  Colonial Africa  also shipped  food-
stuffs for the feeding of the Allied forces; she also sent materials for the
Allied war efforts.  In short, Africa contributed in no small measure in
the  defeat  of the Axis powers.  Soon after WW II, the  United  States
implemented the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction and rehabilitation
of  Europe  in  order  to  overcome  the  scars  of  the  WW n.  For  the
technological and economic heights Europeans have attained, as well
as the degree of political stability they now enjoy, credit is partly due
to the Marshall Plan.

Inspite of the fact that Africa went through the triple jeopardy of
participating  In WW II; being a victim  of the  slave trade;  and  being
traumatized by, and deprived as a result of colonialism that  secured
the exploitation of its raw materials, agricultural products and mineral
resources for the industrialization of Europe, it was denied its own fair
share  of  the  Marshall  Plan  for  the  development  of  the  continent.
Africa, thus, joined the comity of nations handicapped, short-changed
and cheated.

Africa's  background  makes  her  quest  for  Industrialization
problematique. The problem Is that communication in the development
process  of  Africa  was  denied  a  Marshall  Plan,  despite  Africa's
contribution  to  the  economic  development  and  Industrialization  of
Europe and America, and attainment of world peace after WW II.

One would  have thought that  lack of economic rehabilitation of
the African societies, soon after independence, under a package similar
to the Marshall Plan, was an oversight.  But it was not, as Africa's debt
crisis and  other events demonstrate. At no time in the history of the
development of African  societies has the need arisen to prepare  and
mount a special social development, rehabilitation and reconstruction
package  from  the  United  States, Western  democracies  and  Japan,
than  at  the  present  time  of  zero  economic  growth  and  industrial
development  in sub-Saharan Africa.  This is a result  of the  current

41

excruciating debt burden.  In 1990, African and Third World countries
gave back £2.4 billion  (sterling)  in debt repayments  to the  United
Kingdom than they received In new loans, Investment,  export credit
and aid from her government and charities. The underdevelopment of
African societies is perhaps a lucrative business to the industrialized
world.  This is aptly Illustrated by Lawrence Summers' "dirty" memo
that  caused  not  only an International uproar,  but  also outrage  and
Indignation.  Mr. Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, in a
December  12,  1991, internal  memorandum  to  his  colleagues,  had
suggested  that  the  World  Bank  encourage  "more migration  of  the
dirty industries" in the Industrialized world to the LDCs (Less Developed
countries).  Hear his logic and contempt for the Third World countries
and Africa:

I can think of three reasons:
i) The measurement of the costs of health-Impairing pollution depends on
the forgone earnings from Increased  morbidity and  mortality.  From this
point  of view,  a  given  amount  of  health-Impairing  pollution  should  be
done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with
the  lowest wages.  I think  the  economic  logic behind  dumping  a  load  of
toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should  face
up to that.

il) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments
of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always thought that  under-
populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted: their air quality is
probable vastly inefficiently  low (sic) compared  to Los Angeles  or Mexico
City.  Only the lamentable  facts  that  so much  pollution  is generated  by
non-tradable  Industries  (transport,  electrical  generation)  and  that  the
unit  transport  costs  of  solid  waste  are  so  high  prevent  world-welfare
enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.

iii)  The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health  reasons
is  likely to have very high  income-elasticity.  The concern  over an  agent
that  causes  a  one-in-a  million  change  in  the  odds  of prostate  cancer  is
obviously going to be much higher In a country where people survive to get
prostate  cancer  than  in  a  country  where  under-5  mortality  Is  200  per
thousand.  Also, much of the concern over industrial atmospheric discharge
is about visibility-impairing particulates.  These discharges may have very
little direct  health  impact.  Clearly  trade  in  goods that  embody  aesthetic
pollution concerns could be welfare-enhancing.  While production is mobile
the consumption of pretty air is a  non-tradable.

The  problem  with  the  arguments  against  all  these  proposals  for  more
pollution In LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons,  social
concerns,  lack  of  adequate  markets,  etc.)  could  be  turned  around  and
used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalisation."
frhe Economist, February  8 -  14,  1992, p.66).

42

It is, therefore, no longer a surprise now, on reflection, to associate
the secret dumping of 10,000 tons of poisonous, toxic Industrial waste
in Nigeria's seaport town of Koko by ships from  the Italian port of
Pisa,  that  exposed  that  area  of  Nigeria  to  toxic  and  radioactive
substances,  with Western backed  international  conspiracy  (Uche,
1990).  A veritable  legacy  in  the  development  process  is  that
communication  media  emerge  out  of  economic  growth  and
industrialization  of  any  society.  Communication  plays  no  role  in  a
society  that  has  stunted  social  development.  Communication
is  unquestionably  a  by-product  of  economic  and  Industrial
development.  Summers' memo is a complete nullity of the programmes
of  the  World  Bank,  International  Monetary  Fund  (IMF)  and  other
similar Institutions of the West in the development of Africa  and the
Third World.  The true agenda of the re-colonization of Africa  and, if
need be, the destruction of its environment, people and natural habitat
by  the  most  powerful  and  industrialized  nations  of  the  world  is
beginning to unfold.

The Dependency  Theory  Revisited

The dominant modernization paradigm that saw development in terms
of economic growth came into being to primarily give support to the
foreign  policy  agenda,  interests  and  adventures  of  the  Western
democracies in the diffusion  of their dominant cultural values in the
socio-political development of traditional societies (White, 1988; 1989).
The assumed failure of the modernization paradigm gave birth to the
dependency-dissociation paradigm.  This resulted from the works of
Latin American and African  social scientists, who attacked the Euro-
American  ethnocentrism  of  the  modernization  paradigm  (Servaes,
1990).  To the  dependistas  of Latin America  (as they  are  popularly
referred  to), the dependency paradigm postulates that the process of
development should be analyzed  at the following macro levels: regional,
central,  and  peripheral;  external  factors  are  responsible  for  the
underdevelopment  of the Third World; the  deprivation  of surplus  at
the  periphery  promotes  the  continuous  development  of the  centre,
which  action  ensures  the  underdevelopment  of the  periphery;  and
finally,  the periphery should  dissociate  itself from  the world market
and strive for self-reliance  [Ibid.  110).

In  a  nutshell,  Servaes  (1990)  summarizes  the  theoretical

postulation of the dependistas thus:

...  the  domination  of  the  periphery  by  the  center  occurs  through  a
combination of power politics, culture, and so on. The specific components

43

of the domination of any nation at a given point In time vary from those of
another  as a  result  of the variations  In numerous  factors,  powers, the
nature of structure of the periphery nation, and the degree of resistance to
domination.

Arnin (1971) had used Cote dlvoire as a case study of a prototype
nation that was experiencing economic growth without simultaneous
development, which implied that  "an export-oriented  and externally
generated  growth  process  results  in  the lack  of any internal  self-
centred  dynamics," [Ibid,  p.68).  Although Amln had opined that "a
mature capitalist development process could only take place by effecting
a break with the world market," the Ivorien development strategy had
as its main objective, "to establish development through  a high degree
of intergration into the world market," [Ibid].

One significant contribution of Amin and the entire representatives
of the Dependency School of Thought is that some two decades later
their intellectual prophecy that warned of the dangers of economic
growth  patterned  after  the West  had come to be  appreciated  with
subdued silence in Africa just before the end of the 20th Century. The
worry  of the  dependency  theorists  became  an  embodiment  of the
goals,  aspirations  and  expectations  in  the  struggle  for  self-
determination,  self-sufficiency,  and self-reliance  in the Third World
countries;  determination to legitimize and assert  their  political and
economic independence.

The  need  for  relevant  communication  media  in  the  quest  for
development and cultural autonomy became critical and unassailable.
The domination of Western traditions and cultural biases led to protest
literature  that  partly  culminated  in the movement  for North-South
dialogue  for  a  new world  economic  order  and  now the  moribund
UNESCO-sponsored New World Information and Communication Order
debate.  Besides generating new awareness that challenged the status
quo in the international  system, the dependency paradigm, going by
the total collapse of the economies of Africa, was not a ruse after all.
However, Mowlana and Wilson (1990) are inclined to observe that

'the  dependency  theory  in all Its variations...  was not a  new model of
development but only a collection of critiques of the orthodox approaches.
The  critiques  dealt  primarily  with  various  perceived  causes  of
underdevelopment rather than establishing new meanings of development.'

We can, therefore, dare say that the dependency-dissociation paradigm
was indeed, not only a major theory, but also a critique of the liberal
capitalist model of development that was backed by the theories of
exogenously induced change and economic growth , deemed to be the

44

sine qua non of progress, supported  by capital-intensive  technology
imported from the West with Western ideas, centralized planning and
encouraged a philosophy that underdevelopment had internal causes',
[Ibid, pp.29-30).

The dependency "theory" was, therefore, an oflf-shoot of frustration
the modernization development paradigm brought along in the wake
of the derailment of its promise of great expectations.  A leading critic
of  the  dependency  theory,  Apter  (1987),  sees  the  contribution  of
dependency  theory  only  in  its  ability  to  "reveal  that  which  liberal
modernization  theory  ignores;" accusing  it  of being  "too  dire  in  its
critiques of capitalism and neocolonialism."  According to Apter,  "to
consider development in terms of the agents of capitalism, compradore
classes,  multinational  corporations,  and  other  Instruments  of
domination through which the workings of Imperialism... will produce
the dependency as a kind of negative inevitability seems at best simple-
minded.  The absence of such Instruments would not necessarily help
countries develop," (Ibid, p.26). Apter is certainly correct in his portrait
of dependency school of thought as critics of modernization paradigm.
But  it  is  doubtful  If  the  presence  of  those  western  engineered
instruments  Apter  has  alluded  to  the  dependency  theorists  has
necessarily helped the Less Developing Countries to develop.

For instance, Marcussen and Torp (1982) - some twelve years ago,
used Cote d'lvoire as a case study in their investigation to counter the
dependency school of thought (especially Samir Amin).  They claimed
to have generated incontrovertible data to substantiate (their) argument
that the centre does not necessarily block capitalist  development  in
the periphery.  Instead, so they argued, the centre only organizes the
periphery for its Integration Into the world economy as an equal and
competitive partner.  They, therefore, appealed to Amin and others in
the dependency school of thought, to start to think of a basic change
of theoretical paradigm if we are to understand the relations between
the centre and periphery. They enthused:  "We have tried to demonstrate
that,  with  heavy  influence  from  international  capital,  and  with  the
Ivorien state as the most dynamic factor In the internal situation, the
Ivory Coast has the potentiality In its agricultural and industrial sectors
to transcend the 'blocked development' situation," (p. 139).

Marcussen and Torp, (Ibid.) of course, knew that Cote d'lvoire was
economically living on borrowed time. Because the dependency school
of thought  was  seen  as  neo-Marxist,  whose  critique  of  capitalism
focused  on the relations between centre and periphery (Apter,  1987)
as it continues to shift "the focus away from endogenous to exogenous
causes  of  class  polarization,  a  process  universalized  by  such
instrumentalities  as  multinational  corporations  and  compradore

45

classes," the ultra-conservative right did whatever it could to write it
(i.e. dependency school) off, irrespective of any seeming logic it brought
forward.  It was at the height of the intellectual campaign of calumny
against  the  dependency  school  of  thought  that  Cote  d'lvoire  was
presented  to the  international  community,  by Marcussen  and  Torp
(1982), thus:

With regard to all the major world market factors, the Ivory Coast occupies
a  unique  role.  Its  intergratlon  into  the  world  market  has  taken  place
continuously since independence in 1960... the Ivory Coast has experienced
a  growth  process which  is  sometimes  called  an  economic  miracle.  Not
only has  its growth  process been  remarkable,  but  it  has  also been very
constant and  regular.

But, alas, why is it then that Cote d'lvoire's intentional attempt to
establish  an  integrated  global  economy  that  is  modelled  after  the
industrialized Western nations, is yet to materialize since independence
in  1960,  all  the  flatteries  from  Western  development  researchers
notwithstanding?

The Dependency Theory  and the National Experiences  of
Cote d'lvoire,  Ghana and  Nigeria

One is made to understand  and  appreciate the fact that the Ivorian
economic miracle came about due to the existence of some "dynamic
elements in the changing historical conditions for capital accumulation
in the Western countries" as "these elements are responsible for the
creation of new productive structures in parts of the periphery which
may  very  well  break  with  the  'blocked  development'  situation",
(Marcussen and Torp, 1982). What happened to Cote d'lvoire, contrary
to Marcussen's and Torp's claim, was the contrary, when viewed from
the prevailing economic woes Cote d'lvoire and the rest of Africa  are
going  through  as  at  1992.  Consequently,  the  notion  of  "blocked
development' situation in which the underdeveloped world finds itself,
primarily due to the fact that the international capitalist system  has
created an international division of labour that makes the LDCs the
suppliers of raw materials to the centre, as well as acting as markets
for the sales of its (centres') manufactured  goods.  This is a validation
of more than two decades of the critiques of Samir Amin and others in
the  dependency school of thought.  Cote d'lvoire  is not  an  island of
calm  and  development  in  the  troubled  African  terrain.  The  1991
World Bank Report classified  Cote d'lvoire,  a  country  of  11 million
people,  as  one  of  the  most  depressed  economies  among  the  so-
called medium-income level countries. Cote d'lvoire's external debt

46

of US $15,412 million as at 1989, (World Bank 1991) is indeed agreat
burden  that  will  continue  to  make  her  a  social  cleavage  of  the
industrialised West.

Similarly in Ghana, it is the same experience. At independence in
1957,  Ghana  had  achieved  60%  literacy  rate  (an  exceptionally
remarkable  feat  for  an  under  developed  nation  on  attainment  of
independence),  produced  10% of the  world's  gold,  her  income  per
capita as at  1957 was equal to that of Spain, and she had US $1,000
million in her external reserve (Jensen,  1991), and above all, she was
a leading exporter of cocoa. Ghana was thus ranked as one of Africa's
most  advanced  nations.  But  once  the  industrialized  West  started
tinkering with the prices of those basic commodities (especially gold
and cocoa) that  sustained  Ghana's economic growth, she started  to
experience "blocked" development.  She supplied the raw materials to
the centre, and as a periphery she was the market for the sale of the
manufactured  products  from  the  centre  that  she  and  other
underdeveloped economies supplied the raw materials for.  Her desire
to  get  integrated  into  the  global  economy was  effectively  blocked
through commodity price fixing by the industrialized Western countries
because of the romance her first president, Kwame Nkruma, had had
with former communist countries of the East and USSR  Consequently,
Ghana's  economic  growth  pommelled.  From  an  exchange  rate  of
C2.75 to one US$ in  1983, Ghana's local currency fell to  C990.00
to one US$.  Ghana first experienced what Cote d'lvoire is currently
going through.

The World  Bank  and  International  Monetary  Fund  introduced
Structural Adjustment  Programmes  (SAP) in  Ghana.  The  result  is
that  it  has  brought  about  new prosperity  only to  the  executives of
multinational  companies  and  their  local  cohorts  due  to  the  liberal
investment  climate  that  had  led  to  the  (Second  Coming)  of  many
foreign  companies  into  the  country.  The  result  was  that  the  real
beneficiaries  of  Ghana's  economic  environment  were  the  foreign
investors  because  of the  flow  of foreign  capital  and  expertise  they
brought in the country (Kadiri, 1991). Other beneficiaries of Ghana's
economic recovery programme also include bureau de change monetary
speculators  and  tax  evading smugglers  (Ibid, p. 12).  On  the  other
hand,  the lowest paid of Ghana's civil servant  earns a little  over
US $50.00  (Jensen, p. 16). Ghana's economy is being  reconstructed
through massive foreign finance in the form of loans, grants and aids;
most of the infrastructures that have been built are fuelled by borrowed
money (Ibid, p. 17) from the World Bank and IMF and other Western
creditors.  The pertinent questions that arise are:  Isn't Ghana going
through the same vicious cycle as Cote d'lvoire?  What measures are

47

there to stop capital flight by foreign companies? Are not Ghana  and
Cote  d'lvoire's  national  experiences  in  foreign  debt  procurement  a
classic case of blocked development to guarantee perpetual dependency
of the periphery?

Nigeria also shares a similar experience.  As at 1990, her external
borrowing  stood  at  US $33  billion,  out  of Africa's  US $270  billion
external  debt.  Nigeria's  oil wealth  attracted  foreign  investors  that
ended up blocking her development and integration into world economy.
This was coupled with the ruling elites' high propensity for corruption.
From her previous ranking as a medium-income developing economy,
Nigeria has dropped to being the  13th poorest country in the world,
according  to the World Bank.  Consequently,  Nigeria,  Ghana,  Cote
d'lvoire  and  all  African  economies  (perhaps,  minus  that  of  South
Africa)  typify  what  Apter  (1987)  refers  to  as  "a  zero-sum  political
situation," in which a typical response to satisfy the economic needs of
the masses and other marginalized groups by the government would
be "to borrow from outside, thereby increasing indebtedness; another
is  to  offer  special  inducements  to  outside  investors  in  hopes  of
stimulating  growth  and  generating  new  employment  opportunities
both  in new industries  and  service occupations  (thereby  increasing
dependence)."  That  is  what  is  happening  in  Africa. 
It  has  been
revealed that in one single year, Nigeria and Mexico, due to fluctuating
changes  in  international  commodity  prices,  which  were  externally-
induced by the industrialized world, lost US $10 billion and US $11
billion, respectively (Fossedal,  1989).  Nigeria's own loss was almost
one-third  of her  external  debt.  Is this  another  evidence  of blocked
development?

In recent times, hard  core theorists of the  capital markets  have
come  up  with  the  argument  that  market  forces  that  allowed
international prices to shape internal prices and patterns of resource
allocation, coupled with a minimum of state intervention in the domestic
economy,  as well  as  competition  at  international  level had  indeed,
been  responsible  factors  that  produced  rapid  and  egalitarian
development  in  the  Newly Industrializing  Countries  (NICs)  of  East
Asia  (Bienefeld,  1988).  On the  contrary,  Manfred  (1988)  holds  the
view  that  accumulating  detailed  evidence  has  shown  that  the
governments in East Asia, especially Taiwan and  South Korea, have
been highly interventionist in production, in capital markets, in trade,
in  marketing  and  in  research  and  development.  Bienefeld  (1988)
informs us that, "their relative economic success has allowed them to
gradually  liberalize  their  economies  at  the  margins,  so  that  this
liberalization  should  be  seen more  as the  consequence  than  as  the
cause of their success".

48

The  various  Structural  Adjustment  Programmes  (SAP)  and
Economic Recovery Programmes (ERP) most African governments are
implementing as an antidote for ailing economies by the World Bank
and  IMF  simply  go to  support  and  reinforce  the  argument  of  the
liberal/capitalist  economists  that  the  only  option  for  the  African
countries is to accept their role as mere "appendages of the international
market and should ride that market's coat-tails to prosperity," (Bienefeld
1988).  The Implication of this, Bienefeld (p.77) reasons, would be the
undermining of Africa's  ability to build those political coalitions that
would "ultimately have to develop their capacity to sustain coherent
national development strategies that are both economically dynamic
and sensitive to that particular society's long term social and political
needs."  Bienefeld in 1988 (pp.77 & 78) made the following forecast on
Africa's political economy:

Deeply in debt, the African  economies will have little choice but  to give a
high priority to these export activities, even though their populations may
be starving and export prices may be collapsing. Meanwhile the resulting
financial squeeze and import famine will destroy local markets,  decimate
infrastructure, undermine social welfare, destabilize currencies and provoke
political instability.  The resulting deterioration in the investment  climate
will make a  mockery  of the  [World) Bank's  promise  of greater  efficiency
and increased inflows of foreign  capital.

When viewed  from  Nigeria's,  Ghana's  and  Cote  d'lvoire's  national
situations, Blenefeld's forecast  is just  a prophesy that came true too
soon.

Nothing could be  more  analytical,  predictive  and  interpretative
than the following summation by Bienefeld  (p.78) of how Africa  has
been permanently trapped in the vicious cycle of underdevelopment:

Most countries in Africa have now fallen (or been enticed) into a trap  from
which there is no easy escape.  Moreover, there should be no doubt  that
the same international agencies and the same international market  forces
that  are  now  being  portrayed  as  the  'solution'  to  their  problems,  were
instrumental  in encouraging and  financing  them along the road to  ruin.
Today's African countries are literally trapped within economic  structures
that were almost entirely built with 'expert' approval and with international
finance between  1960 and  1980.  Most of these structures became unviable
because under the international conditions prevailing after the mid- 1970s,
these  countries  could no longer earn  nearly enough foreign  exchange  to
meet  the  minimum  import  levels  required  to  keep  them  functioning
effectively.  The consequent  import  shortages  reduced  rates  of  capacity
utilization, increased corruption and destroyed infrastructure which raised
costs  of  production  and  further  undermined  economic  viability.  Once

49

confronted  with this 'now' situation,  most African  governments  faced  an
Impossible  choice:  they  could  either  allow their  earlier  investments  to
collapse,  because  In  retrospect,  many  of  these  now  appeared  as  costly
'mistakes'; or they could squeeze more foreign exchange out of agriculture
In  a  desperate  effort  to  avert  such  a  collapse.  Unfortunately,  although
both of these options are extremely painful,  neither Is likely to be viable.

Why Africa is  Underdeveloped

The understanding of the genesis of Africa's underdevelopment is the
beginning of wisdom of prescriptive panacea for Africa's  development
and  true  integration  in a  free  market  economy.  Colonialism is  the
mother and root of all evil that has derailed Africa.  Whether we like it
or not, the way and manner the African  colonies were  administered
and handed over to the nationalists, most of whom later turned out to
be  military  and  political  puppets  and  economic  saboteurs,  made
dependency inevitable.  Because of the high-handedness with which
the African colonies were administered, the colonizing European powers
handed  over  highly  centrally  planned,  state-managed,  command
economies. What existed to complement this type of economic structure
were  pockets  of  small-scale  and  medium-level  market-organized
economies that the state granted some form of limited autonomy.  The
way and manner the economy was structured and handed over to the
nationalist  leaders  at  independence  made  African  economic
development,  industrialization,  political  stability  and  social  equity
problematique.  The inadequacy  of the  colonial  economic  structure
Africa inherited is well articulated by Calvocoressi (1985) in the following
passage:

The essence of the charge against colonial economics is that the colonizer
was  attracted  to  the  colony  by  its  resources  and  his  business  was  the
removal of these resources.  Specifically chosen areas were developed and
stripped  - annually if they were agricultural, until exhausted  if they were
mineral.  Markets in neighbouring African  territories were not developed
and the colony became increasingly riveted to the economy of the metropole,
as  a  flourishing  but  dependent  modern  economy  was  inserted  into  the
colony  alongside  the  stagnant  traditional  economy.  The  profits  of  the
former  were  garnered  by  the  foreigner  and  by  a  small  elite  of  African
farmers,  traders  and chiefs while the wider economy benefited  not at  all
because taxation of profits was light or evadable or non-existent.

Africa's  continued  economic  dependency  continues  to  be  a
flourishing  business  to  the  West  and  their  African  ruling  puppets
because,  "any  attempt  to  transform 
the  economy  from  colonial
exploitation to a more autonomous and profitable development requires
extensive  help  from  the  outside  world....  Development  in  the  first

50

decades  of  Independence  was  Industrialization  which,  however
appealing to the ruling few, was both alien to Africans In general and
especially dependent on foreign funds and goodwill," (Ibid., p.33). The
social origin of Africa's underdevelopment is the introduction of large-
scale  commercial  activities  without  the  development  of  Industry  -
hence African nations became only buyers and sellers.  They became
great consumers  of Western products, instead  of being producers of
their own Industrial outputs for export purposes and foreign exchange
earnings.  Momoh  (1992)  has  argued  that  the  colonial  and  post-
colonial  periods  were  used  to  complete  the  destruction  of  Africa's
industrial  orientation  because  from  the  era  of  slave  trade  through
colonialism  Africa  was  never  encouraged  to  process  the  primary
commodities it could produce.  Consequently, the present formula of
international capital flow for the location of Western satellite Industries
In Africa  Is nothing but  a fire-brigade  approach to solving a  serious
problem  of underdevelopment.  It  is therefore  logical to  agree  with
Momoh that "the importing of capital through loans, aides and grants,
and machinery and technologies": only represents  another  method
keeping our productive capacity and base completely destroyed as, "it
is a clever neo-colonialist device of perpetuating our dependence and
subservience."

At independence, Mozambique had put in place what was thought
to be a model of a carefully constructed social system that would have
been  "able to  salvage  a  social democratic mid-way between  market
and  planned  economy,"  (Wolfers,  1992).  But  the  South  African
government-assisted  insurgency  and  terrorism  that  Renamo
(Mozambique National Resistance) mounted, destabilized Mozambique.
She was, thus,  forced  into  dependence  on foreign  aid  whereby  the
donor countries and agencies could determine her fundamental policy
and usurp the role of her government  because according to Joseph
Hanlon's Mozambique: Who Calls the Shots? (as reviewed by Wolfers)
the  Mozambican  "government  has  no  money  of its  own"  as  "every
tractor, lorry, car, seed or hoe comes from  a donor".  Consequently,
the international aid industry, estimated to be worth US $50 billion a
year  on a  global  scale, the World Bank, the  International  Monetary
Fund,  South  Africa  and  Renamo  have  all  succeeded  in  the
"recolonization  of Mozambique to the  eventual benefit  of the  former
interests of colonial times," (Wolfers, 1992).

There  seems  to  be  a  major  misconception  of  how  the  liberal,
market-organized economies around the world operate by the location
of satellite industries in the peripheries from the centre; these industries
are usually brought  in on borrowed  loans that  are repaid in  foreign
exchange.  The paradox is that the outputs of the Industries are not
enough to meet the loan demands upon which they were Installed In

51

the first place.  This practice furthers  dependency.  If the answer to
the  basic  requirement  of  a  humane  economy,  to  deliver  real
incomes that  are widely shared  is to be found  in the integrated,  free
market economy, the African countries might as well seriously ponder,
take notice of,  and give serious thought to McCracken's (1991) two-
dimensional suggestions that are simple, direct and easy to apply as a
possible  and  plausible  solution  to  overcoming  under-development.
McCracken  (1991)  posits  that  for  economic  progress  to  occur,  we
must have an answer to his first question: "How can we take advantage
of a stock of knowledge and creativity that does not exist in its totality
in any place and never will?" His answer to the above question is the
adoption of the liberal, market-organized economic system because of
the logical answers it has.  According to him:  "anyone who has a new
idea can try it  out.  If it is not good,  and most  of them  are not,  the
quantity of the nation's productive resources thus 'wasted* is negligible.
For those who have  a  good idea,  the  rewards  can be  substantial...
William Hewlett  and  David Packard became  rich,  but  of far  greater
significance  is  that  the American  economy  has  the  great  Hewlett-
Packard Company with its thousands of jobs and its capability at the
forefront  of technology."

McCracken's  (1991)  second  question,  and  perhaps  suggested
solution,  "is how the  new that  is better will displace the  old."  The
following is his answer:

The  liberal,  market-organized  economic  order  has  a  straightforward
procedure.  Let the old and  new battle it out  in the impersonal  arena of
open, competitive markets.  If consumers, free to chose in these open and
competitive markets,  prefer  the new, the old is forced  out  of the  market
and  disappears.  There  is  a  procedure  for  continuous  cleansing  of  the
system as the productive resources are moved from the old to the new and
better. And for this process also, the market economy can draw upon  the
wisdom of the entire community to sort out the new products that  should
prevail - and whose production will then become a claim on the economy's
inevitably limited  supply of productive resources.  Contrast this with  the
process in a command economy, where a bureaucracy must  make these
decisions.  More comfortable with old ways, the pertinent department will
inevitably be skeptical of the new, and even experts are often off target in
judging what people will want to buy.  These decisions are better left to the
more Impersonal markets.

We interpret McCracken's views to mean a domestic, liberal, market-
organized economy that is not infestedhy  the flow of foreign capitals,
investments, satellite industries that are based in the centre, but one
that is based on the natives' ingenuity to inventions and discoveries in
science and technology that would be translated into commerce and

52

export.  In such  a setting, local national industrial development  and
growth through competition, displaces a centrally-planned, command
economy that is susceptible to bureaucratization and corruption of
immense  dimension.  McCracken's  application  of  knowledge
and  creativity is lar reaching  in its implication.  It means  that  It  is
when  a  society applies its scientific  and  technological  knowledge to
making inventions (creativity) that industries develop.  Manufactured
products are then exported to compete in a global free market economy,
where the  new products compete with the  old in an open market of
varied and competitive markets for the survival of the fittest.  That Is
the ideal free market economy that can develop Africa.  The solution Is
neither the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) strategy
and  its  Structural  Adjustment  Programmes  nor  the  command
economies that are characterized by centralization and bureaucracy.
According to Turok,  (1987) the  Strategy  of import  substitution  that
had initially raised hopes that Africa would become increasingly self-
reliant became a mirage.  Turok (ibid.) makes the following revelation:

While a sizeable consumer goods industry emerged in many countries, it
did not encourage the development of key industries  with strong domestic
linkages.  Instead,  the two-thirds of total value  added  in  manufacturing
attributed  to consumer goods like clothing, Pharmaceuticals,  paper,  etc.
are still imported at a major cost in foreign exchange resources.  There has
been  relatively  little utilization  of local materials  in  the  total  production
process and, therefore,  little saving in foreign exchange.

Perhaps,  the  biggest  failure  of  policy  has  been  the  failure  to  develop
linkages backwards and forwards between agriculture and the rest of  the
productive  economy.  Industry  does  not  use  the  indigenous  material
resources  as  a  base  but  continues  to  look  to  imported  raw  materials.
Even local minerals are not used or processed. There are abundant supplies
of phosphates, limestone, iron, bauxite, and  copper, but Africa  continues
to import fertilizers, cement, iron and  steel, aluminium, etc.

From the foregoing and other critical views that preceeded Turok's
(Ibid.)  we  can  see  that  Africa  is  yet  to  liberate  itself  from  the
encumbrances  of colonial  linkages  of import  substitution  economy
that has led to its economic quagmire and wholesale dependency that
may deny her some degree of respectability in post-modern information
society.

Conclusion

The heavy indebtedness of Third World countries to the industrialized
Western countries and the refusal  of the latter to write-off  the  debt.

53

mean that economic dependency will for a long time be a permanent
feature of North-South relations.

The collapse  of communism  has meant  the  collapse  of a  major
alternative development paradigm —  the Marxist-Leninist model, that
forced capitalism to develop a social welfare system for Its marginalized
productive labour force.  This has led to a massive resurgence of neo-
imperiallsm and the Western institutions that sustain it (such as the
International  Monetary Fund  and  the  World  Bank).  The  challenge
facing contemporary scholarship In its analysis of political economy of
communication  and  development  Is  that  of  boldly  addressing  the
issue  of the  hegemonic  structure  and  control of the world  economy
and the  systematic  strangulation  of Africa  and the rest  of the Third
World by the industrialized world.  To shy away from addressing the
issue that the under-development of Third World societies came about
through colonialism is to run away from reality.

The trickling of whatever form  of life-line from the West that  still
sustains the dependent Third World nations has its origin in the social
structures that the West left In the wake of the retreat of its imperialism.
The current  indebtedness  of the Third World is just  a by-product of
fractured  social systems that the West half-heartedly developed In the
former  colonies.  The African  and  Third  World  debt  crisis  and  its
adverse effect are leading to a gradual decay and non-development of
most Third World  societies in an  age of post-modernism.  For us  to
chronicle the problem of dependency, especially as it affects the process
of  communication  and  development  when  the  developed  world  is
enjoying the benefits  of post-industrial  society, means that we must
also be honest enough to admit that colonization and exploitation of
the Third World societies by the West constituted a serious draw-back
in social equity and  equal pace of development in the  former.

The concept of a new world order has gained diplomatic, political,
economic and academic legitimacy since the democratization process
began  in Eastern  Europe  and the  former  Soviet Union.  But for  the
new  world  order  to  achieve  its  goals,  the  specialized  international
organizations and developed democracies will have to put in place the
necessary  machinery  that  would  guarantee  (to  the  people  of  the
developing  nations  and  the  emerging  democracies)  the  acceptable
social institutions and structures that would lead to enhanced living
standards for greater productivity and capacity for generating higher
income  per  capita,  and  accentuated  social  activities  for  economic
development  that  would  lead  to  the  realization  of  the  political
empowerment of the individual in a brand new world.  Such a measure
will effectively check dependency.

54

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