Building Sound Economic Foundations (part 1)

By Uthman Ibrahim-Morrison & Abu Bakr Carberry

Adapted from Last of the Lion Kings (Black Stone Press) and first published in Alarm Magazine issue 12 (May 1995)

We are living in a time when the explosion of Afrocentric scholarship has transformed our overall understanding of African and world history. This has given rise to a new awareness and fresh optimism. However, failure to grasp clearly what to do and what not to do on a day to day level in order to transform general principles into workable social realities is frequently the main source of the conflicts and confusion which obstruct our advancement towards the economic, cultural and political renewal we seek as Africans. What follows are the first indications of an economic critique and a broad plan of action which will enable us to avoid some of the dangerous pitfalls which recent history has shown will otherwise engulf us.

The Meaning of Autonomy

We are compelled to make the issue of this age the POLITICAL AUTONOMY of the Africans. The issue cannot be one of equal or civil rights, for this is merely the slave begging ÔmassaÕ for better treatment, except that now the slaves are begging for a piece of the Ôgreat white cakeÕ. A free people do not do this, free people do not claim rights they have duty. Supplicating for rights is the disposition and action of the slave. If a free man is not given what is due to him then he takes it or replaces it with something better according to his own choice. In examining the word autonomy we observe that the meaning of the prefix auto is to be able to act by oneself, independently, it is self perpetuating, independent of other, self determining. The root nomy comes from the Greek nomos meaning to manage and is related to law and distribution. Autonomy is having or making oneÕs own laws. This is self-government. Autonomy is choosing to be self governing. The outward manifestation of autonomy is the people choosing their own leader who is the distributor of justice amongst them. Their and his submission is to well known parameters of just and civilised everyday behaviour. Law traditionally meant something Ôlaid downÕ or ÔfixedÕ. It was a Ôfixed pathÕ a Ôcriterion by which things are placedÕ. Law is a receptacle which encases and protects the purity of natural and spontaneous behaviour and determines their acceptable limits. These fundamental concepts of human behaviour and organisation transcend language and culture whether it be Greek, Zulu, Chinese, Semitic or Akan. The other aspect of the meaning of autonomy is the independent distribution of wealth. It is the ECONOMIC EMPOWERING of the community; the provision of the means to a people whose spirits are free. ECONOMIC WEALTH IS NOT THE MEANS TO FREEDOM, IT IS A MEANS FOR PEOPLE WHOSE SPIRITS ARE FREE!

This word economy provides one of the keys to the path we are pursuing. The root of eco is Oikos the household, which combined with nomos gives us the word economy which is hence the management of the household. The household is the domain of the family, beyond the family is the clan, beyond the clan is the tribe. The settled gathering of families and tribes is the basic foundation for the city-state. The political history of Africa revolves around the city state, whether it be Kumasi of the Ashante, Gao of Mali, Ghana of the Empire of Ghana, Sokoto of the Hausa-Fulani empire or Bulawayo of the great Zulu nation. It is now possible to see the African and deeply holistic root of the concept of POLITICAL AUTONOMY.

The word politics is derived from the authentic reality of the polis or the city-state, and not its artificial extension to the administration of the nation state and the ambitious pursuit of its corrupt offices. This realisation returns us to the sanity of our Afrocentric root, namely the refusal to tamper with natural human limits and adherence to natural scales of societal organisation. This was the victory of African civilisation and the mark of our nobility until the intrusion of the northern barbarian, who had abandoned the well trodden path of human balance leaving us a legacy of unworkable, unmanageable and unnatural nation states such as Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan, Angola, Chad, Somalia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Liberia, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Guyana, Belize, Colombia, Brazil etc. The list is endless.

USURY:

The Hidden Enemy of Autonomy EuropeÕs greatest weapon of global subjugation is not its armies. The means by which it sustained its rise to world domination was banking and techniques of finance based upon the imposition of paper money. It provides the life blood of this system, which is credit. The global economy functions by its access to credit, for the global economy is a systematic entrapment in debt, from the individual to the national level. A detailed critique of the global economy is beyond the scope of the present article, what we will hasten to give is a synopsis of the technique of usury whose grip has taken systematic control of the world economy and threatens permanent sabotage to our own plans and efforts to free ourselves. Usury is an unjustified increment charged over and above established values. Usury is the antithesis of natural commerce. The difference between natural commerce and usurious commerce is illustrated by the following examples:

Natural Commerce: A purchases cocoa from B for £100 in Accra, A travels to Johannesburg and sells his cocoa to C for £150, the result is £50 profit. Natural commerce requires the trader to complete a cycle of two transactions, before the result can be known, there must be a purchase and a sale. There has also been work done in packing and transporting the cocoa from Accra to Johannesburg. This is the true nature of trade there is purchase, sale and there is work. In strictly financial terms the result is either profit, loss or break-even. Hence, there is also a natural element of risk.

Usurious commerce: A does not have any money so B says to him, ÒI will sell you 100kg worth of cocoa now, and you can repay me 150kg worth in two weeks.Ó Here there is only one completed transaction, the sale, and for the delay in payment B surcharges A 50kg over and above the established value of the goods. B has made his gains in one transaction only, he has eliminated the natural element of risk and he has done no work. His excuse for charging 50% over the value of the goods is that the payment is delayed. If B continues to sell like this he increases his stock by half every time he performs a sale. He disposes with the need to both buy and sell in the normal way. In this way the natural cycle of purchase and sale is broken, this is the effect of usury. The usurer takes in and does not give out, he consumes the life blood of the community without returning anything to it, his activity is parasitical. It is for this reason that every civilisation with the exception of the present one has always criminalised the practice of usury and shunned the usurer.

Usury occurs when:

a) Commodities are treated in a manner contrary to their nature; eg renting food or any other commodity which is consumed by its use such as money. In the example of usurious commerce given above B was in reality renting out cocoa.

b) Unnatural restrictions are placed upon the marketplace; eg monopolies imposed by law such as copyrights and patents all of which open the door to the artificial manipulation of prices. The other major restriction is the imposition of a medium of exchange (so called legal tender) which opens the door for the manipulators and manufacturers of that currency to interfere with every transaction which takes place.

c) There is no fair exchange of value for value; this means that the exchange is not based upon the free and autonomous assessment of both parties involved.

The emphasis must be on Ôvalue for valueÕ, the time factor introduced by delayed payment does not affect the value of the goods at the moment of exchange. To allow the attachment of conditions such as this which are alien to the specific transaction, would be to allow the use of the transaction to coerce additional advantages to the detriment of one of the parties eg, ÒI will only sell you this cocoa for £100 if you buy these sacks for £1 each.Ó Give and take is part of the reality of life, this is in recognition of the fact that we need and depend upon each other. The stipulation of fair exchange is just and allows both parties to benefit. Business transactions are the life blood which nourish a community therefore they must be kept free of corruption. Usury is a poison which affects the entire body of society. Once it corrupts business transactions it results in ÔincurableÕ inflation, unemployment, crippling taxation and widespread poverty while promoting the formation of unjust monopolies and a totally unbalanced distribution of wealth in favour of a small banking plutocracy, as we will see below.

Paper Money and Banking

Sir Josiah Stamp, Governor of the Bank of England wrote as follows: ÒThe modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding sleight of hand ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin...Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again...Take this power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear for then this would be a better and happier world to live in...But if you want to continue to be the slaves of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery then let the bankers continue to create money and control credit.Ó

One of the major functions of banking is the renting of money by way of interest bearing loans. When the central bank sets the base interest rate what occurs is that any business activity which earns a profit which is less than the base rate loses its competitiveness and the money is attracted to the bank instead. This has the effect of destroying businesses which operate at a rate of profitability less than the interest rates. This restricts the market, creating unemployment. Banking is a parasitical insertion between those with surplus wealth and those in need of access to wealth for loans or investment. We deposit our money with the bank and they lend it out at interest to those who are in need of it. They usurp the wealth of the community and rent it back to them. The Rothchilds wrote to colleagues in 1863 as follows: ÒThose few who can understand the system will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people being mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burden without complaint and perhaps without even realising that the system is inimical to their interest.Ó

It should now be clear that the system of usury is truly the greatest enemy we face and involves much more than the lending of money at excessive rates of interest. The usurious mind-set is a moral impairment which given an opening permeates every sphere of social behaviour. This mind-set is best defined as an expectation that to obtain something for nothing is perfectly acceptable or worse still, a mark of success and ingenuity to be emulated, refined and repeated on a larger and larger scale. It is, in fact, a disease which once it has overcome a societyÕs natural defences of ancient laws, prohibitions, moral teachings and good practices, eventually ends up in widespread destruction of the social and economic fabric. As a people on the verge of a new beginning we have an unprecedented opportunity to rid ourselves of this pestilence. If we do not take full advantage of this awareness now, we will pay an awful price later and we will have failed before we have even begun. We cannot afford to be led into a repetition of the historic economic failure whose cannibalistic oppressiveness continues to exploit us and which at best can only lead us to exploit each other by the same methods. The call to establish our own banks is a prime example of this dangerous naivety. As long as we Africans think paper money is real, we will remain obedient slaves to it and all of our best efforts to gain business success and economic autonomy can only result in complicity with a system that is inimical to our own interests as a whole. Once we recognise the poverty and utter fantasy of the world money system, then and only then will we realise the absolute urgency for an economic strategy which is genuinely and radically autonomous to be incorporated into our understanding of Afrocentric politics.

We propose a return to the use of mediums of exchange with inherent value such as gold and silver to be minted and guaranteed by the leaders of our communities. The eventual widespread use of gold and silver currencies or any other currency with real value, together with the refusal to accept valueless pieces of paper, will lead to the exposure and destruction of the fraudulent edifice of the usurious economy whether here or in our own countries. In view of all this we must begin to to take action on two fronts:

a) Markets ÒA city without a free marketplace will be a city of slaves...Ó The proper establishment of marketplaces free of access, free of rents, free of taxes, free of paper money and free of usurious practices will only be possible in our own autonomous geographical spaces, the new city-states. However, the setting up of markets at strategic points in order to facilitate and encourage trade and as an arena where some of the conditions we have mentioned can begin to be introduced experimentally (such as the use of our own real currencies), will be the first phase of our thrust to free our people from the humiliation of unemployment or having to work for someone else, and to promote the building of our own economy. In this respect we applaud the work of Alarm Promotions whose vibrant monthly African Market shows what can be achieved by a small number of committed people of vision and action.

b) Business Clubs and Associations ÒEconomic wealth is not the means to freedom, it is a means for people whose spirits are free!Ó The business clubs and associations will bring together associated traders and or producers in order to facilitate cooperation amongst themselves for the strategic gathering of real wealth and resources, rather than open ended networking for limited financial gains. These are just two key elements in the first phase of a much broader and ambitious strategy whose details would take us far beyond the scope of the present article. However, the ultimate aim can be nothing less than the establishment of autonomous city-states governed with spiritual, social and economic justice by leaders chosen from amongst ourselves. If we do not believe these aims are achievable, then our minds are still in bondage to the conditioning of the New World Order.