Abstract
Neoliberal Moral Economy: Capitalism, Socio-Cultural Change and Fraud in Uganda provides a scholarly contribution to better understanding neoliberal policies and programs and the impact they have on political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of African societies. The book critically examines the liberal narrative in Uganda, showing in what way changes in the global political economy affect social structures, values, and norms, which in turn shape the moral dynamics of orientations, relationships, and practices. The author proposes that the neoliberal fragmentation of state institutions favoring deregulated free-market economy has transformed the polity, society, and moral landscape in Uganda and elsewhere where the state is unable to respond to and regulate financial and market sectors, making fraud and corruption foreseeable.
The book consists of nine chapters, each considering empirical evidence of how neoliberalism has changed Uganda into a society where fake microfinance, pyramid schemes, dishonest money-laundering practices, fraud, and corruption are conducive to the neoliberal frame. New moral codes that came as the result of the intensive restructuring of social institutions and the subsequent normative changes have replaced the previous moral economy which recognized the value of relationships, collective solidarity, fairness, kindness, and honesty. Threats of violence, intimidation, abusive language, and mob culture have now become acceptable tools to maintain power.
The book engages with interdisciplinary theoretical work in sociology, history, anthropology, moral economy, and political economy to examine the factors that influence moral restructuring in the neoliberal economy in Uganda, and asks three key questions: (1) How does the neoliberal economy change moral economy? (2) Which reforms have shaped the moral underpinnings of economic activities in Uganda? and (3) How has trade, income, and the accumulation of wealth affected social moral norms and moral ordering?
Uganda is chosen as a case study because it is considered a politically and economically ‘useful partner’ for Western powers in the Global North. In the 1980s, neoliberal sub-Saharan Africa experienced neoliberal structural reforms: a cultural and political moral-economic reordering imposed on society by external actors. This change brought rising inequality, corruption, and economic activity that caused a deterioration in consumer confidence and lowered the level of trust in the private sector (trust between traders and farmers) and the public sector (trust between citizens and their government). International donors and Western countries – through top-down interference, restructuring, and redefining the hierarchies of power – have created conditions that would reposition capital in relation to labor, and the ruling class in relation to the subaltern class, henceforth determining what is possible in Uganda.
Using qualitative methodology (focus groups and interviews with individuals) and secondary data analysis (review of documents, literature, and local media reports), the author demonstrates (with empirical evidence) the relationship between morality and political economy, showing us the ways in which ‘the marketization of social relations, a general empowerment and hegemony of capital’ (especially of large private corporations) has resulted in restructuring of ‘people’s subjectivities, relationships and everyday practices’ (p. 19). Through the interviews with farmers, traders, and other individuals, the author shows that the money-driven neoliberal economy has restricted socioeconomic rights and disturbed labor relations where employment without contracts, poor working conditions, and low wages have become common practices. The new system has brought a culture of uncertainty, competition, and individualism.
The author argues that after 20 years of economic growth, Uganda moved towards a free-market society (versus, for instance, a socialist economy) and this change is essential for understanding how people today perceive state actors and how traders and farmers define accountability, cooperation, respect, honesty, and fairness. The contradiction within neoliberal political economy that, on the one hand, empowers and frees individuals from state control, providing them with the unrestrained ability to make individual and independent choices, seek economic opportunities, protect their self-interest, gain income, and accumulate wealth is rarely linked to the loss of boundaries between the private and public spheres and a loss of empathy, collectivity, fairness, and honesty. As structures and contexts are altered by economic reforms, markets are shaped by and shape perceptions, interactions, relations, and social value systems where fraud becomes conducive to the political and economic neoliberal order. Liberal transformations have brought changes in sociocultural structures and dynamics so that money now governs ‘normative calculus,’ shaping the quality of daily lives, relationships, values, emotions, and practices (p. 200). The question of money has literally become ‘the matter of survival’ (p. 196).
The investigation of how neoliberalism is short-sighted and focused on immediate gains shows inherent antagonisms as it advances individual rights. What interviews confirm is that most people in contemporary Uganda, in particular farmers and traders, miss some level of socioeconomic equality and government intervention in market issues (p. 180). Although rare, the author shows that organized resistance to the neoliberal moral economy frame is possible, but it requires ‘deliberalizing’ Ugandan political, normative, and cultural networks through organized action. Such a process would improve business practices and social standing through restructuring and new types of moral norms, moral self, and social-relational categories (pp. 37, 324). Thus, to resist the neoliberal moral economy framework in a free-market economy requires adopting a ‘nonneoliberal’ framework and mobilization with a long-term purpose. Reformers aim to consolidate market economies and stimulate the new types of morals that would influence how people relate to and treat one another.
Neoliberal Moral Economy: Capitalism, Socio-Cultural Change and Fraud in Uganda offers a much-needed examination of social and cultural changes and moral practices that come with neoliberalism as a global ideology and economic program that is conducive to fraud and corruption. Sociologists and human rights scholars exploring how the global neoliberal political economy has restricted socioeconomic equality, giving birth to a new type of moral economy in the Global South in general, and postcolonial African societies in particular, will find this book very interesting.