leeroy mupariri
Tichaona Zindoga
Herald Correspondent
Zimbabwe and other countries in the Global South or, in the language of development, “the periphery” which covers the developing world — are facing an existential threat of “super-imperialism”.
In his book, ‘Why the World Needs China’, released a few months ago, Kyle Ferrana explains that super-imperialism is the latest, and most profitable system of exploitation by powerful economic interests; following on such brutal systems as feudalism, slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism that were driven by powerful capitalist classes over centuries at the expense of the “lesser” peoples and classes of society.
Ferrana is an American writer and software engineer.
According to Ferrana, the “super-empire” is currently led by the United States and its junior partners in Europe and elsewhere, and presently extracts enormous quantities of wealth from the rest of the world every year.
He states that in terms of economic policy, “super-imperialism” is better known as neoliberalism,” referring to the ideology and practice of free market, which former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher claimed in 1980 that, “There is no alternative”.
To achieve the unprecedented success, it currently enjoys, the US’ “super-empire” relies on four distinct mechanisms of control namely, structural adjustments, economic isolation, military intervention, and soft power.
Ferrana argues that, these are “the supreme instruments of Western hegemony” and as long as they can be exercised with impunity, the world-system cannot be changed.
This article unpacks the concept of the “super-empire” and its relevance to Zimbabwe, which has gone through earlier forms of domination and exploitation in the form of colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Today, Zimbabwe finds itself enmeshed in this system.
The challenges the country is facing today can be traced to the evolution of Western exploitation from British imperialism and colonialism which took place in the 19th century, to the present where it is struggling economically under the burden of currency volatility. This is caused by the use of currency of the super-imperialist, the US, which some commentators have argued will be difficult to extricate itself from.
From colonialism to super-imperialism
Zimbabwe was colonised by Britain in 1890, as the later was at the peak of its imperial powers, carving out parts of the world for its economic benefit.
Colonies such as Zimbabwe, which became known as Southern Rhodesia, so-named after Cecil John Rhodes, a pioneering British colonial agent, provided resources to develop Britain, coming as it did following slavery of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Rhodes was granted the Royal Charter on October 29, 1889, by Queen Victoria which empowered the British South Africa Company (BSAC) the right to conquer and exploit the country on behalf of the British kingdom.
This in itself gives a glimpse into the modus operandi of British imperialism at the time, as such “companies” like BSAC and the Royal Niger Company were the fronts of the empire.
In fact, according to Hobsbawm in ‘The Age of the Empire’, these so-called chartered companies had existed as early as the 14th century during the slave trade era and were companies that received certain rights and privileges under a special charter issued by the sovereign of a European state. This charter usually gave the company a nationally recognised trading monopoly for a specific geographic area and for specific trade items, and the right to use force to open and maintain trade.
According to Hobsbawm, as a way to defray government costs, European exploits in Africa from 1340 until 1900 were usually funded by high-risk venture capital in the form of royally chartered companies, the forerunners of the modern corporation.
The crown provided political support and authorisation for overseas business but the economic risks and military expenses were borne by private individuals and corporations. After 1600 large chartered companies like the Dutch West India Company, the Royal African Company, and the Portuguese Guinea Company created permanent strongholds on the coasts of Africa, though they had to form alliances with local African states to prosper.
They became a dominant force in the 17th and 18th centuries and from 1880 to 1900 — the eras of mercantilism and of the “scramble for Africa,” respectively — royally chartered companies proved to be indispensable tools for the opening of Africa to European commercial and imperial ambition.
The BSAC, which also colonised parts of Southern Africa like present day South Africa, Zambia and Malawi and had the intended goal to carve out the rest of Africa from Cape to Cairo — would be later replaced by settler regimes or direct control from Britain.
In Zimbabwe, the administrative control evolved from the BSAC, whose power ended in 1923 to successive settler formations until the indigenous majority fought and won independence in 1980.
Ironically and tragically, the troubles of foreign domination, control and exploitation did not end.
Ferrana cites such luminary African thinkers such as Kwame Nkrumah and Frantz Fanon as explaining that the end of colonialism paved way for neo-colonialism, which scholars have generally described as the continuation of foreign rule after the “former colonial power has in theory relinquished political control”; or, in effect, countries having the so-called flag independence but do not control the economy and may be subject to destabilisation, as happened in many countries in the post-independence era.
A critical factor in this changing dynamic is the replacement of the old colonial power, Britain, with American control of the global economy.
One understands from Ferrana’s account that the US found out that the model colonialism was not working, an inconvenience, even, little wonder the US was involved in the decolonisation process; something that Zimbabwe can attest to as the US played a prominent part in the Lancaster House Conference that ended the liberation war between indigenous people and British settlers.
Unfortunately, this was not a force for good. [Not least, according to those familiar with the episode, the US brokered “independence talks” in bad faith as they made promises on such areas as funding land reform, which they never fulfilled.]
Mechanisms of super-imperialism
For Zimbabwe, winning independence simply meant entering the next stage of America’s “super-imperialism”, and a careful review of our history reveals the surprising truth in Ferrana’s thesis: first of all, the economic relations between Zimbabwe and white capital did not fundamentally change, as Anglo-American and western companies continued to exist, untouched by the new political reality; flourishing even in the post-independence era, shorn of the destabilising circumstance of war, which, as pointed above, support the idea that the US favoured decolonisation for its economic interests – just like slavery had become unprofitable and inconvenient, before colonialism kicked in.
The following developments in the political and economic condition of Zimbabwe are more depressing.
Following early years of pursuing socialist ideals, Zimbabwe was eventually forced by the West (read the US) to adopt neoliberal policies as an ostensible cure for economic growth and stability, which culminated in the Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes, predicated on getting aid from the Bretton Woods Institutions, the American controlled, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Typically, as had taken place elsewhere from Mexico and Bolivia to a whole host of nearly 100 developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia; this resulted in socio-economic distress.
Companies retrenched workers or closed, Government cut social spending in sectors like health and education; and some State companies were privatised.
As was seen elsewhere, the experiment failed and left the country vulnerable to economic, social and political pressures domestically, while it accumulated debt that is being used to transfer the wealth of the country to the West through repayments.
Zimbabwe became ensnared in the global financial system, and to date old prescriptions are being repackaged for same bitter medicine.
From 2001, Western countries imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe following the land reform programme; the land question being a huge historical, political and social justice issue that had been unresolved, in spite of, or because of the Americans.
Sanctions on Zimbabwe and other countries are the manifestation of economic isolation, domination as well as instrument to transfer the wealth of poor countries to the US. Ferrana noted that the use of economic isolation as a weapon has increased tremendously since the collapse of the socialist bloc, and points to a study in 2000, which tracked the applications of sanctions through the 1990s imposed by the US or the European Union.
Since then, according to Ferrana, every successive US administration has issued a higher yearly average of new sanctions designations. But what do sanctions do?
“Their primary purpose is to prevent further development by depriving the victim country of capital and starving its labour force,” explains Ferrana. “If such policies bring about the conditions for a successful counter-revolution or coup by US-backed opposition forces within the country, so much the better for their architects; but if not, it is enough that the victims’ poverty and starvation serve as an example to others, and to limit the spread of any anti-imperialist ideology that might interfere with the dispossessive accumulation process elsewhere in the periphery.” These insights have been widely accepted in the case of Zimbabwe, and writers have spent acres of space denouncing the sanctions as the chief weapon against Zimbabwe’s economy from the time they were imposed, to date, as they were responsible for de-industrialisation, skills flight, collapse of social services and made Zimbabwe’s commodities from agriculture and mining uncompetitive on the global market. Key examples would include the Western countries barring trade, balance of payment support, access to international finance or debt cancellation or forgiveness.
… to be continued
