AN ETHICAL CRITIQUE OF NEOLIBERAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

Following decades of abysmal developmental performance in most of post-colonial Africa, the collapse of centrally planned economies in Eastern Europe and the consequent triumph of the neoliberal ideology, there has been a paradigm shift in international policy circles and in mainstream academia about the appropriate developmental trajectory for the underdeveloped states of the African continent. Thus, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO actively canvass for the “rolling back of the state” in order to unleash the potential of market forces in the developmental process. This development no doubt has altered the relationship between the trio of state, civil society and the market in favor of the latter. This paper attempts an ethical critique of the neoliberal model of development. It specifically demonstrates that the combination of the logics of unbridled market capitalism, reckless state apparatus and hostile international environment generates consequences which are not only morally indefensible but also deepens Africa’s developmental crisis. In addition, it argues that unless Africans relentlessly pursue the reconstruction of their domestic societies as well as the global economic architecture along the lines of egalitarianism, justice and humanity, Africa will continue to be plagued by the pathologies of underdevelopment. The paper concludes by sketching the outlines of the way forward