A few weeks ago I made what I thought was an innocuous comment on a Twitter news post in response to a news post reporting that police had intercepted a 17 kg marijuana haul, to which I commented “legalize marijuana”, thereby unleashing a tweetstorm that went on for days.
Why is marijuana illegal? Consumption of marijuana is a victimless crime. It has proven therapeutic value, while tobacco is a proven carcinogen that harms both the smoker and third parties through second hand smoke, yet cigarette smoking is legal but marijuana is criminalized? Is it perhaps because, as I opined in the Twitter debate, tobacco is a big global capitalist enterprise, but everyone can roll their own joint?
This article is not about marijuana. It is a critical reflection on the phenomenon we call development. I will be arguing that the phenomenon we call development shares the same historical DNA as the criminalization of marijuana. The case for decriminalization of marijuana is a metaphor for the deconstruction of this thing we call development. This DNA consists of three things: colonialism, Christianity and capitalism. I will reflect on each in turn.
Why is marijuana illegal? Consumption of marijuana is a victimless crime. It has proven therapeutic value, while tobacco is a proven carcinogen that harms both the smoker and third parties through second hand smoke, yet cigarette smoking is legal but marijuana is criminalized? Is it perhaps because, as I opined in the Twitter debate, tobacco is a big global capitalist enterprise, but everyone can roll their own joint?
In her irreverent and hilarious novel, Red Strangers, Espelth Huxley subjects European superiority complex to 
Kikuyu customary law. When Karue sends his insolent young son to collect a long overdue bride-price debt that was the subject of a running feud, a fight breaks out and the young man is killed. The family sets about collecting the “blood money”, a hundred and seventeen goats, to compensate the Karue clan for the loss of their son. But the white man has already arrived and Matu is arrested for the murder of the young man and taken to Tetu to face the white man’s justice.
Karue testifies against Matu (though he was not at the scene) but to his great consternation, he learns that his clan will not be paid blood money. Even though it is Matu’s brother Muthengi’s sword which killed the young man, they agree that Matu will confess to the crime since they are brothers – it does not matter; it could as well have been Matu – only to learn that Matu will belong to the white man for six seasons:
The phenomenon we call development shares the same historical DNA as the criminalization of marijuana. The case for decriminalization of marijuana is a metaphor for the deconstruction of this thing we call development. This DNA consists of three things: colonialism, Christianity and capitalism.
Matu said nothing, for the words did not seem to make sense. He supposed that the interpreter had made a mistake. Muthengi however asked: “But why is Matu to stay here in Tetu? The affair of the young man’s death is between Karue and my father Waseru. What has the stranger to do with it?”
“That is the stranger’s law. Matu killed the evil man. Therefore he stays with stranger.”
“Does the stranger give him to Karue?” Muthengi persisted.
“No, he stays here.”
“Who gives him food?”
“The stranger gives him food.”
“Then what does Karue receive in compensation for his son, who is dead?”
“He does not receive anything.”
“That I cannot understand!” Muthengi exclaimed. “If a man loses his son, or a child his father, must not his family be given compensation for their loss? How else can justice be done?”
“Stranger’s justice is different,” the interpreter said. “Matu must stay here.”
“Then the stranger gets something for Karue’s loss, and Karue’s clan gets nothing at all,” Muthengi said. “This seems to me to be a very peculiar law, and one with no justice in it at all. Now I understand how these strangers have become so exceedingly rich; when they sit in judgement they award nothing to the injured person, but everything to themselves.”
“That is the law nonetheless.” The interpreter said.
A law with no justice at all. Law without justice is the essence of colonialism.
The Agikuyu also concluded that Gūtirī mūthūngū na mūbīa (the white man and the priest are one and the same), by which they meant that the church was part of the colonizing mission. I can attest to this.
I spent a considerable part of my childhood and youth at my grandparents’ home in Kijabe, a Christian mission hamlet sad to be the third largest missionary centre in the world, run by the African Inland Mission, the parent of the African Inland Church (AIC). It is, to the best of my knowledge, the only alcohol-free community in Kenya. There is not a single bar in the town, and the shops do not stock alcohol and cigarettes either.
The town belongs to the church. With the exception of public schools, all other formal institutions in the town are part of the church establishment. There’s the Kijabe Mission Hospital, a bible school, a radio station, printing press and the Rift Valley Academy, an international school. Formal wage jobs and business opportunities are given on the basis of religiosity.
Kijabe, a Christian mission hamlet sad to be the third largest missionary centre in the world, run by the African Inland Mission…the town belongs to the church…[and] the community is divided into two: the “saved” and the “unsaved.” My grandfather who was a rebel of sorts designated the Holy Joes as either “hinga” (hypocrites) or “njuhiga” (opportunists). The combination of the two he reserved for the clergy.
The community is divided into two: the “saved” and the “unsaved.” My grandfather who was a rebel of sorts (he was a school teacher far away and only came home on occasional weekends and school holidays) designated the Holy Joes as either “hinga” (hypocrites) or “njuhiga” (opportunists). The combination of the two he reserved for the clergy. Four decades on, not much has changed. It is still a place where drunkards are upright, honorable people, and obsequious sanctimonious scoundrels are the pillars of society. Kijabe is a microcosm of the damage that the Church has wrought in Africa.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines capitalism as “an economic system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than the state”. The Marriam-Webster is more elaborate. It defines capitalism as “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision and by prices, production and distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market”.
According to these definitions we would be compelled to conclude that pre-colonial Africa was capitalist. Being largely stateless, trade was unregulated and the means of production privately owned by default. We would be wrong. These dictionary definitions are flawed. What they define are contemporary and mostly Western market economics. The juxtaposition of private and state ownership already points to the capitalism/socialism dichotomy, a 20th century phenomenon.
Capitalism as a distinct economic system was introduced in the political lexicon by Karl Marx. Marx refers to it variously as the “capitalist mode of production” or “capitalist system,” and it is thus defined in the Communist Manifesto co-authored by Marx and Friedrich Engels:
“The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labour power to the greatest possible extent.”
Abraham Lincoln, in a speech to the US congress, weighed in on the presumption of capitalism as the default of market economy thus:
“It is not needed, nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless. Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation.”
Although Lincoln’s speech, given in 1861, predates his famed correspondence with Marx, Lincoln was very likely influenced by his ideas, since Marx was a prolific contributor to the US press in the 1850s.
The dictionary definition’s most dangerous flaw is that of conflating capitalism with a market economy. It gives the market economy a bad name. The defining feature of capitalism is one where capital employs wage labour. A market economy on the other hand, does not prescribe which factor of production employs the other. Capital can hire labour, or labour can hire capital. To illustrate, consider the boda boda industry. One will find riders (labour) who hire motorcycles (capital) at a fixed fee, owner-operators and even riders who have invested in motorcycles that they lease out.
The defining feature of capitalism is one where capital employs wage labour. A market economy on the other hand, does not prescribe which factor of production employs the other. Capital can hire labour, or labour can hire capital.
It is tempting to dismiss the boda boda industry as a jua kali anomaly, an exception rather than the rule. Here in Kenya we have cooperatives and other collective commercial enterprises operating in many sectors, including one of the largest and most successful financial cooperatives (SACCOs) sectors in the world. SACCOs operate in the market economy, for profit, but they really don’t compete with each other—the serve their members. The smallholder farmer-owned KTDA conglomerate is Kenya’s largest manufacturing concern, and the single largest exporter of black teas on the world. These enterprises operate in the market, they really do not compete with each other, they coexist and cooperate, as each seeks to serve their respective members.
Their objective is not to maximize profit but rather, to improve the welfare of their members. It is possible to conceive of a market economy consisting of a boda boda-style industrial organization, cooperatives and KTDA-type concerns. It is also readily apparent that such an economy would not have the malevolent character we associate with modern-day globalized capitalism.
In Marx and Engels’ day, capital meant industrial capital—machinery and equipment. When he talks of mutual benefits, Lincoln is talking about industrial capital. The malevolence of capitalism is rooted in the nature of finance capital — what Costas Lapavistas has termed “profiting without producing”. Financial capitalism separates profits from production and seeks only a return on money. The malevolence of finance capitalism was postulated most forcefully by Lenin in his 1917 essay Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. E.K Hunt’s textbook History of Economic Thought provides a cogent and most pertinent summary of the thesis:
“When productive capacity grew faster than consumer demand, there was very soon an excess of this capacity and hence there were very few profitable domestic investment outlets. Foreign investment was the only answer. But in so far as the same problem existed in every industrialized capitalist country, such foreign investment was only possible if [the] non-capitalized could be “civilized”, “Christianized” and “uplifted” — that is, if their traditional institutions could be forcefully destroyed, and the people coercively brought under the domain of the “invisible hand” of market capitalism.”
“Uplifted.” Is this not the thing we now call development?
As regards destruction of traditional institutions, it is instructive that when colonialism introduced wage labour, the Agikuyu devised a name for it, guthukuma (verb), as distinct from wiira (work). Gūthūkūma which is most likely a corruption of the swahili word sukuma (to push) conveys involuntary toil. Work was not sold. Even destitute people were not subjected to wage labour. They were adopted as tenants (ahoi), and given an opportunity to work for themselves. When extra hands were needed, such as walling a hut (gūthinga), one invited community members to help (gūtūmana wiira meaning “invitation to work”). The only obligation was to feed the people generously. Even today, if you serve someone a large helping, they might exclaim kari ithinga? (is it for walling work). But over time the distinction disappeared, and wage labour appropriated wiira. People conscripted into servitude and undignified chores resigned themselves to the pragramism of wiira ni wiira, (“work is work”, kazi ni kazi in Kiswahili), which you still hear today. But hidden in the pragmatism is a psychology of resistance that makes Africans problematic wage labour. Deep down, we resent it.
When productive capacity grew faster than consumer demand, there was very soon an excess of this capacity and hence there were very few profitable domestic investment outlets. Foreign investment was the only answer. But in so far as the same problem existed in every industrialized capitalist country, such foreign investment was only possible if [the] non-capitalized could be “civilized”, “Christianized” and “uplifted” — that is, if their traditional institutions could be forcefully destroyed, and the people coercively brought under the domain of the “invisible hand” of market capitalism.
We need not revisit European imperialism to validate the thesis. With its US$ 3.2 trillion trade surplus and excess production capacity at home, China’s unfolding debt imperialism is as textbook a case of Lenin’s capitalist imperative as it can get. It is instructive that China’s imperial ambitions are propelled by the State, rather than private capital — the China Roads and Bridges Corporation is the new Imperial British East Africa Company. This is further repudiation of the dictionary definition of capitalism.
Not to be outdone, the whats-her-name-again Brexit-befuddled British premier was out here hawking “upliftment” aid and investment. The Iron Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is touring West Africa. Last year, Germany published a report proposing a Marshall Plan for Africa. It is a sloppy, callous offensive document, down to dredging up slavery and the 1884 Berlin Conference, as if we need a reminder. That aside, the big idea of the Marshal plan is surprise, surprise, to leverage aid to increase German private investment in Africa.
With its US$ 3.2 trillion trade surplus and excess production capacity at home, China’s unfolding debt imperialism is as textbook a case of Lenin’s capitalist imperative as it can get. It is instructive that China’s imperial ambitions are propelled by the State, rather than private capital — the China Roads and Bridges Corporation is the new Imperial British East Africa Company.
Development is but another name for imperialism.
