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Savior or a Curse
According to Rodney (1972), there are many sides to national development. The education of a nation, as Clarke (1992) observes, prepares it for the responsible use of power. What happens when a population within a nation finds itself socialized to collectively work against itself?
Accumulation of Money, loss of Power
Marable (1983) describes the history of American history and politics as a protracted act of systemic underdevelopment of Black people in which corporate white corporate power fuels itself from black powerlessness, while Black people simultaneously experience profound leaps in capital accumulation. How does this happen when Americans are routinely taught that money is power?
Rhoden (2006) using team sport as an analogy, explains that many dilemmas persist in American life most specifically inclusion without power. This partially explains how it is possible, for example, that a select group of people within the population of society can be rewarded with economic, social, and political access within that society as long that select group remains fundamentally and essentially individualistic or at the very least status quo.
Skinner (1971) simplifies this explanation significantly when he explains that behavior actually operates on the environment to produce consequences and the functioning environment can actually be manipulated. If this is true, then the group of people who define the functioning environment predetermines behavior, by the control of rewards and punishments, and access to basic resources.
Williams (1993) describes a phenomenon known colloquially as ‘rugged individualism.’ Some of us remember the euphemism, ‘doing one’s own thing.’ To remedy this condition, one must re-define democracy in such a way that it becomes cooperative in every phase of human life. This approach works in the area of economics as well. In fact cooperative economics has a longer history in this country, though it is not popularly taught in schools, yet we see its manifestations everyday.
Cooperation and Money
Rural America taught us how to ‘swap work.’ One person offers one service in exchange for a good or a service of like value. This cooperative approach works particularly well in cash poor societies, such as the rural South. Light (1972) cites numerous cooperative economic strategies such as ethnic trade guilds, business leagues, and revolving savings and credit associations that are called by many names depending upon the language of the people practicing this approach.
Perhaps the most dramatically successful example of cooperative economics in western culture was the Rochdale Cooperated Society. Based in England, it consisted of prosperous artisans, businessmen, for the most part, while the rest were working men mostly in the textile trades. To get a picture of how success the Rochdale Cooperated Society was, one only needs to look at its name. The word society suggests that every need that a group of people has shall be met by the society. Every need from economic needs to health needs including hospital care were successfully provided for using the cooperative economic paradigm.
The Rochdale Cooperated society, while dramatically successful, defined itself in large part because of its rules, regulations, guidelines, and values. The 1844 Rule Book explains that ethics and cooperation must be mutually exclusive. Without these two concepts, there could be no cooperated society.
A contemporary example of a successful cooperative economic approach comes from he nation of Cameroon. Their use of the cooperative savings and credit association known as the tontine has redefined banking in that nation. It has reached the point that western-styled banks have become largely useless in that country. While the word has ominous connotations and is often defined as an insurance scheme here in the U.S and in western Europe, the tontine has successfully refinanced an impoverished West African nation’s business population. Management and Finance have been two areas of economics that have always been an achilles heel for most third world countries, most specifically African nations. Among the Mouride in Senegal, the tontine serves a mutual aid function in the event of loss due to fire, flood, etc. Françoise Foning credits her business success in Cameroon almost entirely to the tontine.
Conclusion
While there continues to be an ongoing battle between socialists and capitalists as to whether the world is moving toward capitalism or toward socialism, there are examples of philosophical synthesis that aren’t positively capitalist while not positively socialist. Yet this synthesis does not seem to be a contradiction of either of the two.
References
- Rhoden, William, C. (2006). Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. Crown Publishers. New York, NY.
- Williams, Chancellor. (1993). The Re-Birth of African Civilization. U.B. & U.S. Communications Systems Inc. Hampton, VA.
- Clarke, John, H. (1992). Africans at the Crossroads: Notes for an African World Revolution. African World Press Inc. Trenton, NJ.
- Marble, Manning. (1983). How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society. South End Press. Boston, MA.
- Light, Ivan, H. (1972). Ethnic Enterprise in America: Business and Welfare Among Chinese, Japanese, and Blacks. University of California Press. Berkley, CA. Los Angeles, CA. London, England.
- Rodney, Walter. (1972). How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications. Great Britain.
- Skinner, B.F. (1971). Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Penguin Books. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.
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