new internationalist
issue 167 - January 1987

The Empire Strikes Back
So many nations of the South have collapsed into despotism
and bankruptcy since their independence. Surely this proves their
incompetence at governing themselves? Ashok Mitra begs to differ.

It is easy to pontificate once you are perched on a per capita income of 15,000 U.S. dollars or more annually. The targets of your advice, admonition, barbs, ridicule, etcetera, are leaders and men in countries where the per capita income ranges around 150 to 400 American dollars, perhaps a little bit more, perhaps a little bit less. How much efficiency, pray, do you expect at this level of earnings? Efficiency is a function of income and capital stock. A higher income allows you the luxury of superior economic infrastructure and superior technology, each of which changes the milieu. Give us your ambience, your income and your assets, we will be about as efficient as you, and who knows, perhaps we will, for good measure, be magnanimous too: we will not rub it in that your assets and your standard of living have a casual link with the exploitation your people had subjected our people to for over a couple of centuries or even beyond.

Up to a point, the same exploitative process which raised the level of competence in the countries of imperialism ensured the economic and administrative retardation of the colonized territories. Even after the formal transfer of power the process continues, but you call it by other names and you have other modalities.

Take, for instance, moral subversion. It is a convenient dual structure of morality: corruption at home is bad, it is however not so in those remote, wretched lands; there is therefore no harm in greasing the palms of local politicians so as to coax decisions in your favour. Pontificatory books are written condemning corruption in economic development in under-developed countries. These belong to the genre of prayers masquerading as wish fulfilments. Be persistent. Not all the politicians over there are corrupt, but if the bait is attractive enough one or two from amongst them may succumb. From then on it will be roses all the way.

Foreign governments therefore send out droves of confidential agents à la our man Wormold; it is a festival of corruption, but righteous corruption. You are out and yet not out; you must sell arms and junk of all descriptions to those people you have been forced to let go; you must have your pet transnational corporations entrenched over there, you must have a sizeable share of the lucrative export and import licenses these countries are doling out. The empire has ceased to exist. So what? Neither the imperial mind nor the imperial attitude has. Exploitation must be pursued through other means, therefore bribe your way in. It is your patriotic mission to render the government leaders over there corrupt.

Did you say that in the formerly colonial countries democratic institutions go to the wall in no time and military despots come on top? But is this not part of the Nahas Pasha¹ syndrome? Your heart was never in setting these countries free; the compulsions of the post-World War II situation forced you to. You lost the short-term battle, but you are determined not to lose the war. You must ensure by whatever means the economic advantages you had enjoyed in the past. You bribe the politicians; in close collaboration with the transnational corporations, you plot strategy after devious strategy. You nonetheless want a more direct grasp on developing events, you therefore latch on to the native army. It is still a fledgling outfit; you promise, out of the goodness of your heart, to put it into regular shape. Altruism spilleth over, you pledge to sink your own money to spruce it up. The quantum of military aid in due course outstrips economic assistance. You proceed with purpose and determination; you pick your favourite colonel; you supply him with ideas - and with funds. You arrange for his professional advancement until one day he arrives at a position of sufficient vantage from where he can launch his coup. This is neither apocrypha nor allegory, but the story of military takeovers as they have taken place in quite a number of countries during the past 30-odd years.

The imperial powers have exhibited a uniformly unerring instinct in one matter. Their favourite politicians in the emancipated countries have invariably been those who side with social reaction. You had a hand in installing them; you would dearly love them to continue for ever. In a free climate, these reactionaries would be shown the door by the majority of the people.

Because of the tendency of Third World peoples to oust puppet-rulers installed by the West, it becomes necessary to cut corners, hedge the regular democratic processes and bend rules and laws. Remember what happened in Guyana more than 30 years ago, all because some politicians and civil servants at Westminster did not like the face of Cheddi Jagan - and some of his slogans? (See box). And what an impressive roster it will make: the names of all the criminals and tyrants,redoubtable Secretaries of State all the way from John Foster Dulles to Henry Kissinger handpicked in continent after continent to fortify 'collective security' and render the globe safe for democracy. (See box).

Two distinct assumptions it would seem, are at work: both have quasi-racist overtones. First is a sneering, supercilious hypothesis that the people to whom political freedom has been accorded are not yet mature for liberal democratic institutions. Don't you see, their social instincts are sometimes near-primitive, steeped in the mode and manners of the Middle Ages? There is therefore nothing particularly wrong if we foist a dictator on them.

The second and even more nauseating assumption is that unequal economic bargaining is a given law of nature. At one end the poor countries will be lectured on the theory of comparative advantage. They will be told how foreign exchange necessary for development can be had through the pursuit of free trade and the vigorous promotion of exports.

Photo: Mark Edwards / Panos

At the other end though, the terms of trade will be tilted against these countries and the crudest quantitative restrictions imposed to shut off the entry of cheap goods manufactured by them. They will inevitably run into a balance of payments crisis; they will borrow and borrow and borrow from private foreign banks; they will borrow simply to meet the interest burden of past borrowings until a time will come when they cease to be credit-worthy.

Developing countries will then approach the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other such international institutions dominated by the erstwhile imperial powers. These institutions will set the most stringent conditions to bail them out. They will be asked to cut down their outlays on education, housing, nutrition and other social welfare programmes. They will be ordered to effect a reduction in food subsidies. They will be instructed to lower taxes on the rich and impose hefty levies on the poor. A free rein will be demanded for foreign capital and foreign goods. Once this is conceded, a crisis will develop in the domestic industries, resulting in massive lay-offs of workers.

The democratically elected government will run into difficulties. Should it refuse to abide by the orders of the international institutions, it will not get the money it has asked for, and without this money the economy will collapse. If it accepts the conditions set by the Fund and the Bank, widespread civil disturbances may ensue, since the standard of living of the majority of the people will be severely affected. Were it to spurn the Fund/Bank money and instead embark on a policy of self-reliance accompanied by a strict regime of sacrifice and abnegation, the government's political opponents would lose no time to take advantage of the situation.

In this atmosphere something has got to give. It is not really surprising that it is the so-called free parliamentary institutions which cave in. Not that those poor countries do not produce their autonomous crooks. But their social and political advance owes not a little to the crafty hands stretched across the seven seas: crafty, imperial hands.

Ashok Mitra is Finance Minister in the state government of West Bengal, India.

1 Nahas Pasha, and Egyptian nationalist leader was summoned to the premiership on the orders of the British Ambassador in 1942 as he was prepared to maintain Egyptian neutrality in WW2. He was dismissed two years later due to a scandal involving public changes of corruption, which was sensational even by Middle Eastern standards.