Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism

According to Nkrumah, “Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism” (1). In spite of the rich resources to be found in Africa, these resources largely enrich those who act to keep Africa in poverty. Reserves of iron, coal, and petroleum are comparable or greater to those found in the United States or the Soviet Union, yet Africa has a fraction of these states’ power and wealth. To show how Africa’s immense resources are being used “for the greater development of overseas interests” (2), Nkrumah cites a list of resources exported to Great Britain, France, and Germany in 1957 alone. Though it possesses essential minerals and metals, Africa lags behind much-smaller nations in terms of industrial development and has no integrated industry based on these exported resources.

Mining is an important industry in many African countries, but the mining industry provides profits for foreign countries rather than local inhabitants. The mines supply the industries of European countries, rather than African countries. Even within the mining companies, a disproportionate amount of salary is paid to European executives at the expense of African laborers. To illustrate the poverty of Africa, Nkrumah cites a table showing the income per capita of African countries, which is often among the lowest in the world. Most newly-independent African states developed plans for industrialization and rounded economic growth, but this has been implemented slowly.

The historical extraction of wealth by colonial countries greatly inhibits neo-colonial states from industrializing. In spite of the United Nations’ reports to the contrary, “imperial specialists and apologists” (7) suggest that African countries should focus on agriculture rather than industry. Nkrumah believes that Africa cannot benefit from agricultural development until the developed world pays “a fair price for its cash crops” (9) and cites examples from Nigeria and Ghana, which have trebled agricultural output only to see their gross earnings stagnate or fall. Nkrumah suggests that states could unite into a coalition to demand fairer prices. Agriculture alone is not enough, however, so “the answer must be industrialization” (11).

Nkrumah notes that South Africa has one of the continent’s most developed economies, but one which is heavily reliant on mining. As such, most profits are shipped out of the country and the Western countries which invest capital in the South African economy extract this wealth, rather than allow it to benefit the people of South Africa. In Nigeria, similar Western companies see a greater profitability in agriculture, so this is the sector which receives the most investment. Nigeria does have an abundance of oil, though it is extracted by Western companies for their profit.

In the United States, companies such as General Electric even advertise the African origins of their products. These products enrich American shareholders at the expense of the African people in the locations where the materials are extracted. The “balkanization” of Africa, Nkrumah suggests, is a deliberate attempt to keep resources cheap.

As per a 1962 United Nations report, West Africa has a multitude of “very small states” (15) in terms of population and production that is comparable only to South America. Nkrumah points to this as an example of the balkanization policy of the departing colonial rulers. During the independence process, colonial powers such as Great Britain and France divided territories into competing states and provinces, which ensured that these devolved regional governments would be consistently more powerful than unified central planning.

The threat of withdrawing or removing infrastructure, materials, and other pre-independence resources meant that countries were forced to accept independence on the terms of the departing colonizers and “under such adverse conditions that they had in fact to maintain all the military, financial, commercial and economic links of the previous colonial period” (17). The distribution of conditional foreign aid is then used to ensure that this situation remains in place. French firms and individuals, for example, must be granted greater access to resources and materials in the former colonies, lest the foreign aid be cut off. The emergence of the European Common Market, however, has subsumed these discreet arrangements between Western countries and their former colonies into “the collective neo-colonialism of the European Common Market” (19).

Nkrumah believes that the study of neo-colonialism is particularly valuable as Africa provides examples of many different types of state, such as “the non-aligned and the neo-colonialist camp, colonies and racialist States such as South Africa” (20). Regardless of their idiosyncrasies, they are all beholden to vestigial colonial control. Neocolonialism also allows for the projection of political and military power. Nkrumah describes the history of Libya as an example of the way in which Western countries have swapped African colonies back and forth without regard for the desires of the local population. Military arrangements with former colonial powers are fading, he explains, because they are unpopular and counterproductive in terms of national security.

Nkrumah believes that the people of Africa support a continent-wide form of unity as a response to neo-colonialism. He describes the route to such unity, which includes the removal of artificial boundaries. Common currencies, greater communications, and economic planning on a continental scale could help, but Nkrumah preaches the need for urgency. Through economic unity and planning, he suggests, every country in Africa can “specialize in producing the goods and crops for which it is best suited” (27). Delays, difficult bargaining, and compromises may present difficulties, but these can be overcome.

Nkrumah makes suggestions on which industries and products would be better suited for international planning and which could be handled on a national level. Agriculture, fishing, and forestry should be handled in a similar manner, with regions and states specializing in certain types of production. Scientific research, engineering, and social services could also benefit from pan-African co-operation. All these fields should be considered interdependent, so improvement in one fuels improvement in another.

Nkrumah turns to the need for political as well as economic unity so as to combat “the imperialists and their strategy of neo-colonialism” (31). The international monopoly, he notes, is impossible to avoid, but a policy of non-alignment can ensure fair pricing and compensation in international markets. Nkrumah argues for a “central connective socialist policy” (33) to overcome international capitalist exploitation of Africa.

Some newly-independent countries, he admits, are reluctant to sever ties to their former colonial powers—an example of how neo-colonialism has captured many supposedly independent countries. Western journalists have called on African countries to follow the advice of Western financial institutions, which Nkrumah criticizes as hollow and self-serving. These people, he believes, do not have Africans’ best interests in mind. He cautions against following their “indirect subversion” (35). Instead, he suggests, “only a united Africa through an All-African Union Government can defeat them” (36).

Vladimir Lenin considered imperialism to be “the highest stage of capitalism” (37). Through a variety of anti-competitive measures, monopoly capitalism became an international confraternity which was then dealt a blow by the Russian Revolution of 1917, which represented the first time that the capitalist order needed to “engage in a defensive struggle against an opposing ideology” (38). These capitalist forces deliberately isolated socialist states, propping up fascism as a competing ideology.

The outbreak of World War II signified this failure to deal with the crises of imperialist capitalism, while the wave of independence movements represented a second ideological front on which capitalism was being challenged. Financial and imperial forces used profits of colonialism to “pass some of the crumbs” (39) to working-class movements in their own countries, using the wealth extracted from colonized countries to address class conflicts at home. Nkrumah then believes that the two World Wars were fought “for the redivision of the world by monopoly capitalism” (40).

Physically distant from the ravages of World War II, the United States took over from Britain as “the leading role in international financial monopoly” (41), while European countries were focused on rebuilding their own countries and their colonies were pushing for independence. The United States ceased to be isolationist and adapted old colonialist policies for a new financial-led era.

Nkrumah uses examples of Cuba and the fight over oil resources as an example of how this new era manifests. He describes how one of the fundamental paradoxes of capitalism is the inefficient way in which goods and commodities are trafficked back and forth between similar countries in the name of profit. Public relations is an example of “parasitic jobs” (44) which aim to produce only profit. America leads the proliferation of finance capital into former colonial countries, in collusion with subservient European financial institutions. As such, the United States was the “real victor of both world wars” (47).

Domestically, American mining industries are being threatened by neo-colonialism. Greater profits can be made by exploiting African miners, for example, than paying American miners. Financial capital invests in American industries such as farming, which are supported by government investment. As a result, the highly-industrialized countries engage in fierce competition with one another by applying tariffs and taxes to imported goods that have been subsidized by cheap neo-colonial labor or by government subsidy. As a result, “all the instruments and mechanics of international imperialism, expressed in monopoly coalitions, are brought to bear in a general descent upon the new, needy countries” (50).

Tools like foreign aid are superficial offers of help which, in reality, are “subterraneously benefiting the interested donors and their countries in old and new ways” (50). This foreign aid is the same as what was once known “simply as foreign investment” (51).

Though the imperial age has supposedly ended, Nkrumah suggests, other “means of subjugation” (52) have emerged. The British Empire has become the Commonwealth, he points out, but the proceeds of exploitation have only increased. Many of the most profitable British companies are directly involved in colonial exploitation.

In spite of these efforts, many developing countries have turned toward socialism to further national progress. The imperialist countries are battling among themselves for profit and primacy, as well as the emergence of socialism in the developing countries. Western leaders consider “the uncommitted peoples of Asia and Africa” (55) as fodder in an ideological battle. Financial aid is one means by which Western countries “turn the State sector into an appendage of private capital” (55) and undermine centralized economies.

Despite their ideological interest in neo-colonialism, the United States often falsely portrays itself as “the ‘anti-colonial’ power in condemnation of British imperialism” (56). Since the beginning of the 20th century, the United States has risen to occupy and surpass the dominant financial position of the former colonial powers. As well as increasing profits, the intensification of the Cold War demonstrates the extent to which America has policed the emergence of socialism in Africa and Asia. America “plays the lead” (61) in the construction of neo-colonialism, but the former colonial powers offer financial and expert help in doing so.

The drive for monopoly and profits has also fueled the search for reserves of metal and minerals in developing countries, funded by Western countries. The all-encompassing nature of these monopolies creates huge potential profits, but also exposes the monopolies to the danger of being stretched too thin. Though they may claim to be helping African countries, the aim of these monopolies is “to monopolize Africa’s sources of raw materials” (65). At the present rate, Nkrumah suggests, African countries might need 200 years to reach the desired development levels which the Western monopolies claim to offer.

The competition for these resources is so intense that Western powers are willing to use their militaries to defend “the issue of whose pawn” (68) former colonies will remain, such as French soldiers being stationed in Gabon during an uprising to prevent the threat of American foreign investment becoming involved in the mineral trade.