The consequence of the Marxist message

An example of dysfunctional attitudes among elites is provided by Africa, the region with which I am most familiar. Here the dominant source of elite ideas is a particular subculture of western thinking that might be termed neo-Marxism. I am not concerned here with the specific policy errors generated by Marxism, but with the consequence of the Marxist message for attitudes. The predominant concern of the European Marxists has been to criticise their own societies. Inevitably, therefore, their commentaries on development have been concerned to blame the problems of poor countries upon rich societies. This schema limits the role of the developing world to that of victim. The more dreadful the plight of these victims, the more guilty is capitalism.

This mental frame, though not Marxism itself, has proved hugely influential in Africa. In part this is because in the west, only the left has engaged with the continent. The right has switched off, and the centre, rather than oppose the left as it has done so effectively on domestic policy, has found it advantageous to use the victim image for its own purpose: politicians like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown use Africa to demonstrate how much they care. Hence, victimhood is the dominant account that elite Africans hear. Of course, it is comforting to believe that one's failure is the fault of others. But it is also massively disempowering, denying any scope for self-improvement and removing the need to critique one's own actions. The real tragedy of IMF and World Bank policy conditionality in Africa was not that the demanded policy changes were wrong, but that the attempt to impose policy change from outside hardened resistance to them. The psychological term for what happened is "reactance," better expressed as "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." Policy conditionality yielded reluctant, half-hearted reforms that were often merely a pretence: the Kenyan government sold the same reform to the World Bank five times in 15 years.

In Latin America, [Lawrence E Harrison's] region of expertise, much the same process has happened, spiced by anti-Americanism...

Azar Gat's superb book War in Human Civilization...gives us a window into one of the traps that ensnare the bottom billion: violent conflict. Popular misunderstanding of violent conflict in the countries at the bottom is part of the larger misperception: in the neo-Marxist pantheon, rebels are assigned the role of heroes fighting oppression and inequality. Gat systematically analyses the history of violence from its origins. His technique is to compare societies at similar stages of social evolution, even if this implies huge leaps in historical time. He shows that at some stages societies simply lack the means for an effective monopoly of security, and then violence is inevitable. I particularly appreciated his account of why, in hunter-gatherer society, continuous warfare is inherent. He shows that these societies were the antithesis of the havens of peace conjured up by a blinkered past generation of anthropologists.

I will close with an application of the historical leap approach that is pertinent to the postcolonial experience of Africa. Decolonisation thrust Africa into circumstances that bear a family resemblance to the abrupt Roman withdrawal from Britain. British society duly plunged into prolonged civil war, economic decline and mass emigration; Africa has made a better fist of decolonisation than did post-Roman Britain, but has experienced the same consequences. Within the conflicted arena of modern Africa, there is a morally engaging struggle in progress. But it is neither between good rebels and evil governments, nor between good governments and evil international institutions. It is between the reformers within government and their crooked and misguided opponents.