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Every country aspires to develop economically, socially, politically, technologically, culturally and in every other dimension of development that one can think about. But globalization has thrown the world into a competitive arena since each country needs the other in the development agenda.

Whether by design, ignorance, recklessness in economic and political management or lack of fairness in the globalised competitive world, some countries are extremely wealthy whilst others are living on the fringes of survival.

International political economy (IPE) uses politics and economics to explain international relations and the impact of these relations on the development of nations.  Sometimes socio-cultural dynamics come into play all in an attempt to explain why some countries are developed and others are developing or underdeveloped.   The various explanations expounded end up in protracted debates and arguments.  However, all the schools of thought dwell on elements like the influence of the state and its institutions.  Individual actors and organizations contribute in shaping the system through which economic interactions are expressed and how these interactions, within and without, have on political and economic structures and outcomes.

One historical argument that has gained currency is the dependency theory. This theory holds that the growth of today’s rich countries impoverished the third world countries and that international capitalism still blocks its progress.  The proponents of this theory include Frantz Fanon, Celso Furtado, Walter Rodney, Theotonio Dos Santos Osvaldo. This school of thought is of the view that it is an active process of impoverishment embarked upon by the liberal capitalist world to systematically impoverish third world countries.

The strategy was to create a capitalist expansion for European markets under the guise of globalization.  This capitalist expansion coupled with the domination of third world countries through colonialism and neo-colonialism changed the social systems of societies for over four centuries. Colonialism and neo-colonialism made third world countries producers of raw materials through the theory of comparative cost advantage.  It is no wonder that the railway lines in Ghana were dotted along areas where there were timber, gold, diamond, cocoa and other raw materials. Interestingly all these lines lead to the ports.  These raw materials were used to support industries in the West. Expansion of the industrial world shaped the 3^rd World. The above scenario changed the structure of the third world. William Eric of Trinidad and Tobago painted a practical example as to how slavery boosted sugar production in the Carribeans to the advantage of the colonial masters thus creating a middle class bourgeoisie in Britain.  In his view Africans were fundamentally uprooted and changed by centuries of slavery and colonialism. The British never made any attempt to establish industries to convert most of the raw materials into finished goods.  The fact of the matter is that sugar cane had no significance for the economy of the Caribbean and cocoa to the Africa.  No wonder in spite of the 2011 increase in the price of cocoa beans on the world market and the fact that the government is paying over 80% of same to farmers they are still the most impoverished and vulnerable people in the country sometimes hedging their farms for loans.

The most alarming aspect of these economic and political relations is the syndrome of ‘Modern day Dependency’ and the role played by Multi-National Economies.  These economies conspire through the use of unfavourable terms of trade, tariffs and stronger bargaining power to create undue advantage to impoverish third world countries. The confessions of the Economic Hitman attests to the foul means that developed countries use to undermine developing countries( this would be expatiated in detail together with other tactics used by corporate and individual agents to subjugate third world countries)

Multi-National Financial Institutions (IMF, World Bank) have introduced programmes in Africa that further plunged African countries into intolerable economic malaise.  The cold war era spelled doom for African countries when the Eastern and Western blocks strived to exact the allegiance of African countries. The United States of America adopted the Marshall Plan to achieve this objective among others. Under the Marshall Plan a huge amount of money was set aside to revamp the economies of Europe after the Second World War. This was necessary because Europe remained the main market of the Americans.  A peanut was set aside for Africa as a  bait  to force African countries to adopt liberalism.  To access these facility,  policies like the Structural Adjustment and Economic Recovery Programmes were introduced. Workers were retrenched, subsidies were removed and countries were forced to adopt particular political system. The economy was to be liberalized into the arena of globalization and freedom of speech and fundamental human rights was propagated.  Regular democratic, free and fair elections were prescribed for all nations that were poor enough to survive on this fund.  Ghana was trapped within this web during the AFRC/PNDC era and despite the rhetoric of communism and Socialism financial constraint that confronted the government at the time compelled the then Minister for Finance, Dr Kwesi Botchwey to advice the government to drop the ideological pronouncement and opt for economic survival. The floodgate was open and the Britton Woods prescriptions was therefore taken hook, line and sinker. 

Alarmingly, African countries could not compete with the external economies in terms of industrialization because their industries had expanded over time to enjoy economies of scale and the theory of comparative advantage made sense then in an economy that had been forced to enter the global market of unfair competition.  The few industries that established here used capital intensive strategies of production thus employing very few hands.  Unemployment was the inevitable result.  The critical issue here was that the expatriate industrialist repatriated all his profits to his country and had no incentive to re-invest due to political instability.  The local bourgeoisie could not challenge the foreign capitalist and were therefore outcompeted from business.

What perpetuated the traces of colonialism and which Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah could perceive and termed neo-colonialism was a complex network of a centre-periphery syndrome manipulated by a body of local and foreign compradors.  Within the colonial state (e.g. Ghana) was a centre and a periphery and within the metropolis (e.g. Britain) was a centre and a periphery. The centre in each state was represented by the bourgeoisies whilst the periphery was represented by the masses of the people.  There was a vast difference between the attitude of the bourgeoisie in Britain and that of Ghana in terms of the economic relationship between the bourgeoisies and the masses in the peripheries of both countries.  Whilst the Bourgeoisie in Britain served his capitalist interest he did not unduly disadvantaged the periphery into abject poverty but the bourgeoisie in Ghana became the comprador of the bourgeoisie in Britain and apart from serving his own interest never served the interest of his periphery.  This comprador relationship enabled the British capitalist even after independence to be able to rely on the Bourgeoisie in Ghana to serve his interest by manipulating the system through the local comprador. This is what leads to the endemic corruption and a political and economic system put in place by the local bourgeoisie to facilitate the interest of the metropolitan bourgeoisie.  This has persisted till now. 

Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah never compromised on this and warned African leaders of dangerous elements in their own governments who would help the former colonial masters to perpetuate his evil agenda. So during the time of Osagyefo there were industries assembling Neoplan cars, manufacturing motorbikes, matches, glass factories, corned beef factory, canned tomato factories, GIHOC, Jute factory, Nsawam cannery, Pwalugu cannery, Tomos, Akasanoma fridge and radio some of which are still in use and a host of them. Currently, political instability, victimization, recrimination, and sheer pettiness aggravated by globalization has killed all these factories to the extent that Ghana now imports toothpick, catapult, khebab sticks, tin tomatoes and over thirty brands of rice.  A nation of consumption and not of production can never join the comity of nations called developed countries.

At least during the 1960s the economy of Ghana was a robust one and could compare, if not better than, some of the now so-called Asian Tigers.

China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan have refused to become pawns in the hands of the developed powers and now china is ruling the world economically through industrialization.

The question  is; what went wrong with the political economy of developing countries?

 Keeping the new generation ignorant of the reasons of our economic predicament and how we became appendages to the superpowers would be the greatest disservice and posterity would never forgive us.

The question to ask now is how do we break the vestiges of colonialism perpetuated by the local bourgeoisies through corruption and adoption of political and economic policies that perpetuate us as consumers and not producers.  China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan have all done it.  What happened to our current leaders? Is it politics of stomach stability?  Corruption? Lack of patriotism and political will? Or is the current political dispensation not suitable for us?

Why

In fact, all the countries mentioned above did not reach the apogee of their development under democratic rule. General Park, Mahathir Mohammed, Mao Tse Tson, Suharto, Singh Ham Ree were all brutal leaders but it was under their rule that their countries reached the period of economic take off.  According to the records available it is only Norway that practiced multi-party democracy even when they were poor that have joined the developed nations.  American, Great Britain, Germany all practiced one form of political discrimination or the other.  Should Ghana go back to despotic rule as happened under President Rawlings’ AFRC/PNDC?

 Hell no because we dont have beneficiary dictators as the Asians had.