Abstract
Africa’s Future: Darkness to Destiny provides a thought-provoking overview of Africa’s economic evolution. Drawing on such diverse fields as geopolitics, economics and history, Duncan Clarke challenges the conventional economic thinking about Africa and posits a unique formulation of the continent’s economic past, present and future. He sets out to address tough questions such as: What can explain Africa’s socio-economic shape, its economic growth and the cyclical nature of its long-term performance? And what will shape the continent’s economic future?
Clarke argues that, today, African economies can only be understood through sufficient recognition of how the continent’s long history has shaped its economies, states and socio-economic structures. He posits that the current shape of African economies is a result of adaptation and evolution of economic structures and institutions and continues to reflect a complex mix of ancient, subsistence, medieval-like, survivalist and modern realities and pathways. He provides a notion of economic modes to illustrate this argument.
Clarke defines the essence of an economic mode as ‘the association within it of entities of the like-minded, even some with competing interests’ (p. 37) and offers examples of modes such as industrial, mining, plantation and oil and gas. Within each mode, a host of smaller entities such as individuals, households or firms compete for economic survival. These nodes and modes make up the basis of the African economy. The nodes seek economic survival within a mode, across several modes, by moving to a new mode or within a mode that transforms into a different mode altogether. Clarke posits that each node aims for survival with an ‘aim of meeting subsistence needs, including social and economic wealth retention, if possible accumulation, and continuous replication over time’ (p. 40). This renders the modes subject to continuous and adaptive change, which is often unplanned and unpredictable. Clarke argues that modes and nodes have increased significantly with time, and exhibit longer time spans than states, governments and political arrangements in the continent.
The theory of economic modes in continuous adjustment does not conform to the traditional concepts of nation-states and discrete economies. The models and analytical metrics found in an econometrician’s toolbox equally fall short of measuring Clarke’s vision. He argues that Africa’s economic fabric is more nuanced than economic models, macroeconomics, and growth theory can tell based on national-level statistics. While economic analysis based on national accounts and other aggregated indicators can describe trends and processes on the level of the modern state, they don’t capture deeper economic realities. Clarke argues that only analyzing African economic history through this bottom-up perspective will allow for understanding the economics of the continent.
Clarke advocates against afro-pessimism and afro-optimism in intuiting the economic future of the continent. His critical account forecasts that while Africa will see massive population growth, this will not yield the demographic dividend of increased productivity or sustained economic growth without sizeable additional efforts. As Africa has a large underdeveloped natural resource base, Clarke posits the continent is not poor, but poorly managed. Dealing with politics, economic policy related to the poor productivity of land and agrarian assets, low long-term growth rates and cyclical downsides, management of investment and wealth accumulation are no small tasks for the African governments. Clarke is hopeful that the economic modes in Africa will enable economic growth and continuity, but cautions that diffusion and differentiation inside the continent may increase.
Divided into four parts, the book comprises 12 chapters, which cover Africa’s economic history from the Stone Age until present day. Part 1 describes the original economic existence in Africa, its spread out of the continent and the early evolution of subsistence strategies within Africa. It also depicts the pathways through which many of the original mechanisms of subsistence and survival continue to make up the current economic realities through a complex adaptive process. Part 2 sketches the economic strategies from the Stone Age until explorers, launching the first wave of continental globalization, ‘discovered’ the continent. This part additionally describes how nature and ecology have shaped the economic strategies throughout the continent’s history. Part 3 focuses on the arrival of the nation-state and examines how the contemporary economic landscape continues to reflect much older survival and subsistence strategies. The final part reviews literature on African economies and development economics and concludes with an exploration of possible economic trajectories.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the African economies battled through what are often termed as ‘the lost decades’. In the past decade, the continent had one of the highest growth rates encouraging investment and sparking discussion about ‘Africa Rising’, ‘African Phoenix’, ‘African century’ and ‘African economic take-off’. Clarke’s critical account is timely given that many an economist, politician, expert, even guru, and celebrity are eager to explain and fix the continent’s economics and offer forecasts for its future. The book features many descriptive maps, case studies and references to leading works on African economics, which make it accessible to readers with varying levels of familiarity with the subject matter.
Ultimately, the book offers a thoughtful critical account stemming from deep knowledge and a wide viewpoint of an insider. Clarke challenges mainstream assumptions and theories and does not spare leading economic scholars and thinkers or various international organizations from his critique. While it is refreshing to look at the continent from Clarke’s unique perspective, the reader is left with some practical questions. Clarke underscores the limitations of conventional applied economics to measure and analyze Africa’s economic processes, but doesn’t offer much as a practical alternative. He mentions that the elements of economic evolution have not been studied empirically and suggests that lack of data and theory may be to blame. It would have been interesting to hear more about even preliminary empirical work, because, ultimately, realizing better policy planning and evaluation requires more than a critical account.