, in our journal and on our website. In this post, we share Laureen Snider’s Afterword, which concludes the book. Snider powerfully situates economic crime in Africa within the global neoliberal capitalist system, reminding us that every type of capitalist enterprise has invaded the continent, seeking maximum profit with minimal investment and no regard for the people.){kind=link}
Last year ROAPE publish new edited collection, Capitalism and Economic Crime in Africa: The Neoliberal Period. The volume brings together a collection of research articles, briefings and blog posts that were published over a period of nearly 40 years (1986–2023), in our journal and on our website. In this post, we share Laureen Snider’s Afterword, which concludes the book. Snider powerfully situates economic crime in Africa within the global neoliberal capitalist system, reminding us that every type of capitalist enterprise has invaded the continent, seeking maximum profit with minimal investment and no regard for the people.
By Laureen Snider
The subtitle of the editorial of ROAPE’s special issue in 2019 on Economic Fraud, ‘They’re all in it together: the social production of fraud in capitalist Africa’ (Wiegratz 2019), aptly expresses one of the few generalisations applicable to these varied studies of the states that make up the continent of Africa. While this generalisation has been true since the advent of colonialism (and before it in some cases) (Dupré and Rey 1973; Breckenridge 2021), the latest phase of globalisation, specifically the era of neoliberal capitalism that began in Britain and the United States in the early 1980s, has vastly amplified the pace, depth and extent of exploitation.
Every kind of capitalist organisation has invaded every country in Africa and they are virtually all seeking maximum profit from minimum investment – and with minimal concern for the cultural, political and economic conditions, traditions or history of the citizens of these countries. Indeed, Africans themselves, particularly business, political and military elites, have sometimes been active collaborators in the corporate oppression and plundering. But while the imperatives of profit maximisation and its corollaries, racism and exploitation, are key factors shaping African societies, not-for-profit organisations, donors and ‘first world’ activists are sometimes equally corrupt and equally blind to the complex realities Africans in different states must navigate to survive (and sometimes thrive) under challenging economic and political circumstances.
I will defend the above generalisation despite the fact that such generalisations are odious: always partial and always suspect, particularly in a continent such as Africa where states have had such different experiences in the past 30 years with globalised capitalism. The logistics, details and lived experiences of neoliberal capitalism vary widely across and within each country – historical, political, economic and geographic differences mean that no country is experiencing neoliberal capitalism at exactly the same rate, in the same ways, or with the same consequences. The countries with minerals or resources valued by multi-national corporations and governments in the global North, such as oil in Nigeria and diamonds in the Congo, have had the longest and therefore most brutal experiences. And as Allen (Chapter 17) points out, there are many different Africas. Earlier attempts to generalise about African governments – claims that they are all under military rule, all one-party states, or corrupt, or marked by strife across ethnic (tribal) groups – have not stood the test of time: there is simply too much variation now and in the past. The kind of case-study-based empirical examination such differences require is exactly what the articles in this book provide: here we see that the concentration of donor bodies on the corruption of the public sector has allowed private sector fraud to flourish; that much-lauded micro-credit programmes have harmed millions of the poor they were meant to benefit; the problematic nature of financial technology as a poverty-reduction tool; the complicity of the World Bank and many donor agencies in the destruction of local industries and cultures; and more. In this commentary, I will pick apart some of the major themes and issues raised in the articles, and note one startling omission.
Theme 1: The perils of looking at Africa through neoliberal lenses
Virtually all the readings in this volume point out the tendencies to and dangers of applying neoliberal capitalist ‘solutions’ to ‘fix’ whatever Western experts deem is wrong with the African state they are studying. Directly or indirectly, these neoliberal lenses are seen as one of the main reasons development schemes and remedies for corruption have either been ineffective or have backfired. Unintended consequences have created many situations where the ‘cure’ is worse than the ‘disease’. Indeed, Szeftel (Chapter 18) argues that corruption is a consequence of new governance and development schemes, not a cause, and by demonising all government programmes international bodies have undermined the establishment of the public institutions necessary to build stable democracies. In Chapter 19, Szeftel shows how anti-corruption reformers have prevented the growth of a new African middle class, as liberalisation reduced the resources of the state and intensified competition for ‘the right to plunder’. And as Mykhalchenko and Wiegratz (Chapter 33) note, big donors, development agencies and states are all pushing anti-fraud initiatives that target subaltern classes while providing new business opportunities for neoliberal elites that run these anti-fraud companies. There is little concern about the role of the state and multinational corporations in facilitating fraud, or the interests and roles of donors and powerful foreign actors. Which relates directly to the second theme.
Theme 2: The failures of neoliberal ‘reform’ or ‘Plus ca change,plus c’est la meme chose’
While this book is a valuable contribution to a more critical understanding of the forces that shape African citizens and states, their economic and political realities, the discourses employed, the struggles and the barriers, the failures and all too infrequent ‘successes’, my first reaction to this manuscript was despair. Again and again, we see how the neoliberal turn has enabled fraud, through the neoliberal lenses described above, through deregulation and ‘de-supervision’, through compulsory restructuring programmes imposed by bodies such as the World Bank. And we see how the rich natural resources of African countries have been plundered, and how easily multinational corporations have avoided consequences for the destruction, social and individual injuries, and the deaths they have caused. In every sector of the economy, fraud has been normalised as an accepted route to riches. Easy credit, for example, has made South Africa both the most indebted country in the world, and the most unequal (Bateman, Chapter 2). Similarly, deregulation and trade liberalisation have facilitated anti-competitive conduct and collusion across the cement and fertiliser industries in south and east Africa (Vilakazi and Roberts, Chapter 1). MacManus (Chapter 13) tells us how Trafigura, a multinational oil trading company, avoided any meaningful legal sanctions for killing at least 16 people and injuring thousands by dumping hazardous waste in Côte d’Ivoire. Taylor (Chapter 22) points out that neoliberal ‘structural adjustments’ in Central Africa have unleashed new forms of regionalism and created ‘new opportunities for private appropriation of public resources’ (p. 341). Privatising state copper mines in Zambia has produced ‘a secure environment for investment’, making multinational corporations happy while giving domestic elites new opportunities ‘for personal accumulation’ (Craig, Chapter 21, p. 323). I could go on – Mouan (Chapter 11) tells the story of mostly unsuccessful attempts to reform Sonangol, the state-owned oil company in Angola; Akpomera (Chapter 27) shows how elite corruption in Nigeria has impeded efforts to prevent very dangerous practices (crude oil theft from pipelines); Adibe et. al (Chapter 28) describe Nigeria’s dilemma when former warlords did not receive the privatised oil contracts they were expecting.
The destructive consequences of neoliberalism, not just in Africa but globally, have been extensively documented by scholars in critical criminology, law, sociology and politics. These include the massive increases in inequality, within and across nations (Zucman 2015; Piketty and Zucman 2014; Alstadsaeter et al. 2018); the normalisation of fraud (Whyte and Wiegratz 2016; Wiegratz and Whyte 2016; Tombs and Whyte 2015, 2020; Snider 2023; Urry 2014); and the weakening of government and public institutions, especially regulatory agencies and those tasked with holding powerful institutions to account (Snider 2019, 2020; Bittle 2012). Others have pointed out that the purpose of any and all regulatory reform in capitalist states, including those purportedly undertaken to fight economic crime/ fraud), whether in the global North or South, is to ‘maintain the steady rate and function of the machinery of industry and commerce’ to ensure ‘a stable system of production, distribution and consumption’ (Whyte 2018, 2; also Baars 2017; Tombs and Whyte 2015). In other words, laws holding powerful corporate actors to account are only passed by capitalist states when the misdeeds of corporations have become so blatant that the stability of the economic system appears threatened. And one of their key purposes is not to stem the abuse but to maintain the consensus of the governed, non-elite population. Given such widespread and well documented disasters, it is tempting to argue that the fiascos documented in this book are to be expected, considering that African countries endured centuries of colonialism and racism before neoliberalism came along. But this is not the full story of neoliberalism in Africa.
Theme 3: Innovation and agency
Despite all this doom and gloom we also see, over and over, the determination of African actors to innovate, to turn interventions they did not seek into advantages. Various African actors have taken neoliberalism and run with it, turning it in different ways, going over, under and around the restrictions Western institutions (the World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO) and donor institutions) have put on them. De Beukelaer and Fredriksson (Chapter 5, p. 127) show how Ghanaians are fighting for their traditional ‘cultural rights’ based on ‘education, community and values, not monetary gain’ in battles against the application of international copyright laws imposed (originally) by colonisers, and now by the UN and WTO. Madimu (Chapter 25) demonstrates that ‘illegal’ gold miners in South Africa have built an orderly subculture and economy that supports thousands of people in this region. One of the more upbeat articles (Bracking, Chapter 3) shows the mixed, but sometimes positive, effects of Black Economic Empowerment policies in South Africa. She notes that Black Economic Empowerment ‘is changing people’s understanding of fairness and equity, which is performative of further economic redistribution’ (p. 106). Bracking also, importantly, underlines the risks of generalising about people’s reactions to social change. As she points out, the black capitalist class created by Black Economic Empowerment programmes justifies its legal and illegal activities through a ‘bricolage’ of ideas, some drawn from neoliberalism, some from ideas of ‘radical economic transformation’, restitution and economic justice plus ‘generic ideas of honesty and theft filtered through ideas of race’ (p. 84). Laudati (Chapter 23) examines how armed groups create ‘opportunities, alternative livelihoods and governance structures’ (p. 345), contrary to the simplistic good/ bad interpretations of conflict studies. African actors in the Congo ‘negotiate their lives’ by building ‘complex and innovative social networks’ (p. 360). Similarly, Vogel (Chapter 24) describes how African chiefs, traders, rebels-turned-politicians and military commanders (the incontournables) evade transnational regulations and neoliberal peacebuilding efforts to end generations of exploitation and corruption in mineral mining in Eastern Congo. In a similar vein, the article by Meagher (1990, Chapter 20) shows how unlicensed local traders in Uganda have evaded neo-liberal structural adjustments by reorganising their trading networks. She also points out that the ‘unregulated financial flows’ that Western ‘experts’ are trying to stamp out have been crucial in keeping African societies from collapsing under ‘the ravages of structural adjustment’ (p. 319).
This theme is echoed in broader literatures on the imposition of neoliberalism in the global South and North. Nor is this surprising. We never know how knowledge claims, in this case those of neoliberal pundits, will be taken up, adapted and adopted. As argued elsewhere, knowledge claims with legs are those that resonate with dominant cultural agendas (Snider 2000; Garland 2001), and those that promise economic and/ or political rewards to groups that matter. Neoliberal knowledge claims have been easy for governments and corporations to ‘hear’, and quickly become hegemonic because they are consonant with the interests and agendas of powerful actors and institutions, and they use the language of Chicago-school economics – its claims that markets need to be set ‘free’ of government intervention have proved particularly popular. Claims that demand a redistribution of income, power, prestige and advocate taking benefits from the most powerful groups in the society to the least are the hardest to ‘hear’, and much more work – more research, activism and time – is required to get such claims translated into workable and ameliorative policies. Research studies justifying intensified punishment and incarceration for the poor and racialised, Bauman’s ‘inept consumers’, are likewise easy for neoliberal governments and their publicists to hear because they direct anger and attention downward, onto those easiest to demonise, and away from the criminality of those upholding the existing distribution of power and privilege (Garland 2001; Wacquant 2009a, 2009b). Scientific studies documenting climate change, conversely, are the most difficult as they threaten the mammoth fossil fuel and plastics industries. But, as we have seen, neoliberal knowledge claims are also resisted, translated by local elites to their advantage, but also by local activists and people just trying to live their lives and survive. This flexibility proved lifesaving when Nigeria, under pressure from international financial institutions, privatised its health care system (see Klantschnig and Huang, Chapter 4).
One major omission in this work is the absence of studies celebrating (or even documenting) the role of women in African societies. Development literatures have frequently identified African women as crucial to the economic and cultural survival of their societies (Afisi 2010; Sudarkasa 1986; Burgess 1994), but their role is seldom noted. While no collection can be all things to all people, it is a significant, but sadly common omission. It is not unusual for studies of fraud and corruption to concentrate on male actors, perhaps because males dominate the financial and political elites that such studies focus upon. And many of the academics, those writing the articles, are also men!
Conclusion
As Breckenridge (2021, 9) points out, political economy scholars in northern academia have shown ‘an impressively consistent disinterest’ in African economies; this is also the case for criminology. The articles in this book constitute an important corrective. They illustrate the relevance of African states to themes in critical criminology, corporate crime, and crimes of the powerful. The battles over copyright protection, deemed the sine qua none of neoliberal capitalism, have led to crackdowns on ‘media piracy’ (as in Ghana, Chapter 5). Such attempts to privatise and commodify culture put the lie to capitalist claims that freedom of expression and cultural sovereignty will be protected. Studies such as Bracking’s (Chapter 3) and Laudati’s (Chapter 23) show the complexity of resistance, its appearance in unexpected places and the unexpected forms it can take.
The articles in this book further illustrate the validity of claims in critical criminology literatures that stress the interdependence of the capitalist state and the multinational corporation and the relevance of understanding this interdependence if one wants to make sense of crimes (corporate and others) under capitalism. They also, importantly, illustrate that the analysed cases are often classic ‘crimes of globalization’ (Rothe and Friedrichs 2014), harms that disproportionately affect income-poorer countries (and the income-poorer communities therein particularly) and disproportionately benefit richer countries and the corporations based in them.
Reading this book immediately spurs the response: what can we do? How can we fix all these injuries, all this harm, all these unpunished crimes? Africa has had centuries of experience with ‘fixers’ of all kinds, Westerners certain that ‘we’ know what is best for Africans, from the imperialists and missionaries (and it was often hard to tell the difference) of the 19th century to the neoliberal capitalists and donor groups of today. Nevertheless, given the levels of harm that neoliberal capitalism is inflicting, critical academics are forced to ask what kinds of resistance are possible. Are there any ‘remedies’ that would ‘make things better’, more equal, more humane? Should ‘we’ be arguing for more law, more regulation? Why, when we have argued and empirically demonstrated that well-meaning, small L liberal reforms – such as attempts to crack down on corporations by passing and enforcing new laws or attempts to persuade corporations to be socially responsible – strengthen neoliberal capitalism rather than weaken it (Whyte 2018; Baars 2017; Tombs and Whyte 2015)? As Tombs and Whyte (2020) pointed out, crimes of the powerful have become so widespread and ubiquitous that many people have concluded that they are inevitable, normal, merely ‘business as usual’. The outrage is mostly gone. And because there is a symbiotic relationship between the neoliberal state and private actors (specifically multi-national corporations), the nation-state that we rely on to (from time to time) pass laws to hold the powerful to account is complicit in corporate harms. Whether state-initiated (crimes committed at the behest of or with the tacit approval of government, such as the illegal separation of immigrants and their children at the US–Mexico border under the Trump regime), or state-facilitated (state complicity through failure to regulate or wilful blindness), the capitalist state is omnipresent (Michalowski and Kramer 2006; Aulette and Michalowski 1993; Tombs and Whyte 2020). So, what kind of emancipatory politics is possible? How can we suggest even more laws and regulations when we know that any real, life-enhancing social change coming from anti-crime/ anti-fraud measures is unlikely? At best, the smallest and weakest corporations will be held to account until the media spotlight on their offences fades and corporations and regulators return to normal practices (Snider 2015, 2020; Bittle 2012).
If this is what happens in the global North, where there are more ‘watchers’, more social movements dedicated to exposing crimes against the environment, workers, stock market investors and so forth, what can we expect in the global South, where regulatory controls are often even weaker? Academics and activists are hoist on our own petard – we have concocted a perfect recipe for alienation, cynicism and apathy, a self-defeating prophecy. Thus, we have no choice but to engage. Whyte (2020) has suggested an international statute banning crimes of ecocide, enforced by the International Criminal Court – but admits that even if we could hold CEOs accountable this way, it would not stop the production of climate-destroying materials such as plastics or fuels such as oil. Baars (2017) argues that such laws will strengthen and legitimate, not weaken, global capitalism.
I will conclude, by arguing with Tombs and Whyte (2020) that one of the most important obligations of academics is to retain the language of criminality, with its historic demonising and denunciatory baggage, and seek out weak points where corporate harms can be challenged. Law is a site of struggle, not necessarily and forever a tool of capital (Bittle et al. 2018). Activists need tools to challenge what passes as common sense. We need to interrogate the hubris of capitalism by questioning its assumed right to appropriate whatever surplus a particular economy produces and distribute this surplus to enrich its cronies – and its assumed right to externalise all its costs (Snider 2014, 2019). Glasbeek (2017, 2018) has argued for removing the advantages and protections that capitalist legal systems have given corporations – limited liability, the right to incorporate, the right to secrecy – and make CEOs and boards of directors pay, fiscally, politically and morally, for crimes committed under their auspices.
As Jessop (2000, 325) points out, capitalism involves ‘inherently antagonistic and contradictory human relations’ and balancing the contradictions between capital’s incessant drive to accumulate and the need to legitimate an exploitative capitalist social system is a constant challenge. Networks and alliances are constantly in flux. Unexpected events such as earthquakes, invasions, and the recent Covid-19 pandemic have to be managed and manipulated by neoliberal elites to prevent crises and restore the consent of the governed. These times of crisis offer opportunities for transformative social change – piecemeal and uneven and localised as such change always is. Our job is to counter the belief that the status quo is inevitable, that There is No Alternative (the dreaded TINA), and point out alternate imaginaries and alternative social orders (Tombs and Whyte 2020). And as I write this, the Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been charged with committing severe human rights violations in the Central African Republic, Mali, Libya and possibly others. In Mali the Wagner Group has supplanted Western, French-led forces, in league with the autocratic government that recently seized power, and the UN has documented the murder of hundreds of civilians (Engels 2023).
Feature image: Toxic waste dumbing in a market in Lagos, Nigeria ( Wiki commons)
Laureen Snider is a Professor of Sociology who specializes in the study of Corporate Crime, Surveillance and Regulation, Feminism and Sociologies of Punishment