Africa in Chaos: A Comparative History (Paperback)

by George B.N. Ayittey (Author) "Africa is four times the geographical size of the United States and, with its approximately 770 million people, has more than thrice that of the..." (more)
Key Phrases: World Bank, South Africa, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Ghanaian-born economics professor George B.N. Ayittey takes a hard, unsentimental look at the continuing economic, cultural, and political downfall of African countries. While Africa is the world's second-largest continent, containing 770 million people and much of the world's natural resources, he contends that the postcolonial African nations cannot reconcile what he calls "the two Africas," one traditional and one modern (or "Western"). That split, he says, wreaks havoc on the African people, and he comes down hard on "the elites, the parasitic minority group [that operates] by an assortment of imported or borrowed institutions." Africa in Chaos examines the collapse of Nigeria's civilian-led democracy, as well as the anarchy in Liberia, the former Zaire, and Sierra Leone, outlining the suicidal quest for power that hinders Africa's growth. Ayittey, unlike many Afrocentric apologists, does not lay all of the blame for Africa's predicament on the West, but he does insist that solid, long-term investment from Europe and America is needed to lift the motherland out of its mire. His "Ten Commandments for African Intellectuals," intended to lead the way to success, include calls for an embrace of the African past, a relationship with the private sector, and consistent freedom of expression. --Eugene Holley Jr.

From Library Journal
Ayittey (economics, American Univ.), a Ghanaian by birth, provides a harsh critique of Africa's development. Describing the undermining of basic political and economic institutions, primarily since independence, he places much of the blame for the outcomes on African leaders themselves and what he calls their "vampire states." He asserts that African leaders have ignored the strengths of indigenous systems while spouting meaningless rhetoric and resisting meaningful change. These arguments have been raised in numerous other studies by African and Western authors, but Ayittey's focus on the failure and corruption of political, business, bureaucratic, and police leadership is persuasive, if incomplete. One wishes for more viable examples of internal alternatives to the "chaos" he describes to gain a sense of optimism. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.?Bill Rau, Talkoma, Md.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (January 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312217870
• ISBN-13: 978-0312217877
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #540,752 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent chronicle of the demise of civil society in Africa, March 30, 2000

By	Excerpt from "The Independent Review" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

George B. N. Ayittey's latest book, together with his previous ones ("Indigenous African Institutions" and "Africa Betrayed"), places Ayittey within a small group of African scholars whose commitment to classical liberalism is a breath of fresh air on a continent where most well-known scholars are statists. Ayittey and like-minded African scholars regard advancing the ideas of classical liberalism as the cornerstone for the restoration of civil society in Africa....

What explains the dismal performance of African economies? Ayittey's book provides a detailed account of government policies that adversely affect the functioning of markets. Instead of building on markets that prevailed in the indigenous institutions, African leaders adopted policies that involved heavy intervention in markets.... One result of this form of government intervention is that farmers, whose performance is a key to economic development, face extremely high taxes and other forms of intervention that undermine production incentives. Furthermore, in many countries, property rights are insecure, and leaders often engage in arbitrary expropriation....

If political independence did little to advance the material well-being of the majority of Africans, even less was accomplished with regard to the advancement of individual liberties. There is no doubt that colonial rule was oppressive. Institutions and laws established by the colonialists were clearly designed to serve the interests of colonialists, not Africans. As Ayittey documents, however, political independence in Africa has given rise to some of the most oppressive governments in history. The first wave of civilian leaders adopted oppressive laws and outlawed political competition. Laws were enacted that undermined the freedom of expression, and in virtually all countries, governments enacted laws that empowered rulers to detain opponents without trial. In numerous cases, those opposed to the government were killed or disappeared mysteriously....

Ayittey is critical of some of the commonly proposed solutions to the crisis in Africa. For example, foreign aid and loans, such as those advanced by the international organizations, appear to have no positive impact in the long run. In fact, in most cases such aid has contributed to the crisis. Ayittey proposes reform policies that concentrate on the restoration of civil society, whereby civil and economic liberties would be guaranteed. To achieve such a society, Ayittey proposes building on traditional systems of governance. For example, he proposes the establishment of institutions based on the confederacy principle. Such institutions would be more responsive to the public and would more effectively constrain the actions of leaders. Ayittey makes a persuasive case regarding the importance of economic freedom in dealing with the economic crisis in Africa....

In sum, "Africa in Chaos" is an informative book that advances our understanding of African institutions. The book is clearly written and rich in detail. It should be particularly helpful to the "development experts" who are involved in prescribing policies to Africans but who themselves have limited understanding of African institutions.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All true, but..., December 19, 2001

By	Godfrey Mwakikagile, author, (Tanzania) - See all my reviews

Ayittey has written an excellent book. In fact, I'm just as critical of Africa's despotic and kleptocratic regimes in all the books I have written. But I don't entirely agree with his assessment of Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Kenneth Kaunda.

He says his focus is not on the leadership qualities of any of the African leaders but on their policies. It is true that socialism failed to fuel economic growth. But an objective evaluation of what Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda did, shows that they had some success in a number of areas. Yet, Ayittey has almost nothing good to say about them in his book, "Africa in Chaos." In fact, these are the three leaders of whom he's most critical in his book, devoting several pages to them more than any other African leader.

Under Nkrumah, Ghana had the highest per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa. It was Nkrumah who laid the foundation for modern-day Ghana. He built the infrastructure that has sustained and fuelled Ghana's economic development through the years. It is true that there were also many failures under Nkrumah, and after he was gone; for example institutional decay and crumbling infrastructure. But who built those institutions and the infrastructure?

Nkrumah built schools, hospitals, roads, factories, dams and bridges, railways and harbors. Tens of thousands of people in Ghana who are lawyers, doctors, engineers, nurses, teachers, accountants, agriculturalists, scientists and others wouldn't be what they are today had it not been for the educational opportunities provided by Nkrumah.

Ayittey talks about quality, saying that what mattered during Nkrumah's reign was quantity, not quality. What's the quality of the Ghanaian elite, including Ayittey himself, educated under Nkrumah? Are they not as good as anybody else? What was the quality of education at the University of Ghana, Legon? Did it admit and train students of mediocre mental calibre? Did it have inferior academic programmes? And an inferior faculty? Were more people dying in Ghanaian hospitals than they were being saved? Did the schools, hospitals, factories, roads and other infrastructure Nkrumah built do more harm than good? Would Ghana have been better off without them like Zaire under Mobutu?

In Tanzania, Nyerere also built schools, hospitals, clinics, factories, roads and railways, dams and bridges, hydroelectric power plants and other infrastructure. Although his policy of Ujamaa (meaning familyhood in Kiswahili) was not very successful, it did enable the country to bring the people together and closer to each other in order to provide them with vital social services. The people had easier access to schools, clinics, clean water and other services provided by the government, than they otherwise would have been, because they lived closer to each other; which would have been impossible had they been spread too thin across the country, living miles and and miles apart.

Also under Nyerere, education was free, from primary school all the way to the university level. Medical services were also free, in spite of the fact that Tanzania is one of poorest countries in the world. Still, under Nyerere, it was able to afford all that. Everybody had equal opportunity. Under his leadership, Tanzania also made quantum leaps in education. It had the highest literacy rate in Africa, and one of the highest in the world, higher than India's which has one of the largest numbers of educated people and the third largest number of scientists after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

One of the biggest achievements under Nyerere was in the area of adult education. Tanzania, on a scale unprecedented anywhere else in the world, launched a massive adult education campaign to teach millions of people how to read and write. Within only a few years, almost the entire adult population of Tanzania - rural peasants, urban workers and others - became literate. Almost everybody in Tanzania, besides children not yet in school, was able to read and write. And the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania became one of the most renowned academic institutions in the world, in less than ten years, with an outstanding faculty including some of the best and internationally acclaimed scholars from many countries.

Provision of vital services even to some of the most remote parts of the country - far removed from urban and social centres - was not uncommon although the services were, I must admit, curtailed through the years because of economic problems. Yet, all that was achieved under Nyerere who sincerely believed, and made sure, that everybody had equal access to the nation's resources. I know all this because I am a Tanzanian myself, born and brought up in Tanzania, and was one of the beneficiaries of Nyerere's egalitarian policies.

Tanzania has come a long way, and still has a long way to go. But give credit where credit is due, in spite of failures in a number of areas, and which must be acknowledged by all of us. I even admit that in my books. But also look at where we were before: At independence in 1961, Tanganyika (before uniting with Zanzibar in 1964 to form Tanzania) had only 120 university graduates, including two lawyers who had to draft and negotiate more than 150 international treaties for the young nation and handle other legal matters for the country. With 120 university graduates, Tanganyika was, of course, better off than the former Belgian Congo which had only 16 at independence in 1960, and Nyasaland (now Malawi) with only 34 at independence in 1964. Still, that was nowhere close to what Tanganyika would have been had the British tried to develop the colony; which was never their intention. None of the 120 university graduates got their degrees in Tanganyika. There was no university in the country. The British never built one, and never intended to build one. Tanganyika built one after independence, and it became internationally renowned as an excellent academic institution in less than a decade.

The 120 university graduates Tanganyika had at independence was nothing in terms of manpower for a country; not even for a province or region. As Julius Nyerere said not long before he died:

"We took over a country with 85 percent of its adults illiterate. The British ruled us for 43 years. When they left, there were two trained engineers and 12 doctors. When I stepped down there was 91 percent literacy and nearly every child was at school. We trained thousands of engineers, doctors, and teachers."

Nyerere stepped down in 1985. And all that was achieved within 24 years since independence. No mean achievement.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Start but more is needed, March 13, 2001

By	"jbarreh" (Hollister, Ca USA) - See all my reviews

I have to commend Mr. Ayittey for writing from fresh point of view. I liked the fact that he emphasized that Africa has to look inwards to solve its problems. I have two problems with the book a) Small factual mistakes which may not be serious but never the less undermine the confidence in the author's littany of figures and facts. One such example is the dedication to Mr. Joe Modise which the author claimed to be dead but an other reviewer mentioned that he is well and alive. One mistake I noticed is that the author said that North Somalia was colonized by the Italians and Southern Somalia by the British when the fact is exactly the opposite. b) The Author built a good case that African leaders are to blame for the misery in Africa. I kept asking myself through out the book "but what caused the majority of African leaders to take the wrong path?" I waited and waited for an answer through the whole book but the only explanation that Mr. Ayittey could come up was to fall back to the very thing that he claimed very vociferously at the start of the book that he is against, to blame colonialism. He explained the failure of African leaders is due to the fact that they are product of colonialism. I believe that Mr. Ayittey did dileneate the problems clearly and he did offer the obvious solutions but his analysis of the causes of the problems were not deep enough, even though I believe is started the right discussion, the debate of interaction of western/alien ideas and African ways of self rule. Also as an other reviewer put it, the Author should put himself in the shoes of millions of Africans who fight daily ( and lose their lifes often) for the ideals he is spousing.