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Some Economic Factors in the Political Development of the Gold Coast*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

David E. Apter
David E. Apter
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

Is it possible for an underdeveloped area to construct democratic parliamentary organs as the means of allocating central political authority in a society, simultaneously widi the pursuit of rapid economic development? This is what we shall examine in the following discussion. That the problem is of significance can perhaps readily be conceded. It has implications for the colonial policy of those Western nations that still have large territorial holdings in many diverse parts of the globe. It assumes more crucial significance as colonial empires disintegrate under the combined pressures of economic and political demands by nationalists and as competing ideologies find service in the cause of independence.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , Fall 1954 , pp. 409 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1954

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References

1 Savings is here regarded as that part of the national income not consumed over a given fiscal period, and available for investment.

2 However, it is quite possible that this will aid political institutional transfer of other types of authority systems under certain circumstances, such as the Stalinist or Titnist (communist) types or Falangist or Nazi (fascist) types modified to fit local conditions.

3 These three assumptions are presumed to have general relevance and not apply peculiarly to the Gold Coast.

4 Some of the noneconomic considerations crucial to the institutionalization of parliamentary democracy in the Gold Coast have been treated in the essay “Parliamentary Democracy in the Gold Coast” in the forthcoming volume Africa in the Modern World, a symposium of the lectures of the twenty-ninth Institute of the Norman Wait Harris Foundation.

5 Sears, Dudley and Ross, C. R., Report on Financial and Physical Problems of Deielopment in the Cold Coast (Accra. 1952)Google Scholar.

6 This does not, however, mean that any attemptis made here to select the economic variable and give it independent status. We are not concerned with linear theories of causality.

7 There is, at present, an all-African Cabinet, a Legislative Assembly elected from 104 constituencies by direct election, a British-type court system, a party system (primarily limited at present to the Convention People's Party of which Kwame Nkrumah is life chairman), and a Gold Coast Civil Service.

8 See Busia, K. A., The Potilion of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Athanti (London: Oxford University Press, 1951)Google Scholar, for the most recent discussion of the functions of chieftainey in the Gold Coast and their modifications due to Western social impacts.

9 See Hailey, Lord, African Survey (London. 1938), pp. 775–80. andGoogle ScholarBuell, Raymond L.. The Native Problem in Africa (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928), p. 833Google Scholar.

10 Of course other factors are significant here as well. The southerners who largely control the government have had a traditional contempt for the north. The northerners who provided most of the slaves, whom the Ashanti would either keep or sell, fear and dislike domination by the south.

11 There is no permanent European population, and Europeans are barred by law from owning land.

12 Some clarification is necessary on this point. It is not that hard work per se has no standing. It is work remote from traditional society, away from the Gemeinschojt and for a foreign employer or boss who may be of another ethnie group, in a process remote to the local community in which the individual ties remain. Similarly, one does not migrate easily from one ethnic and geographic area to another in a fundamental orientational sense. That is to say, the Fanti in the north is still a Fanti. His associations, values, and affective tics are still Fanti. It is not like a person from New York “moving” to Minneapolis, carrying his nuclear family with him and joining the same kind of status and social groups to which he is accustomed. In other words, social pressure for hard work in a foreign occupation is not reinforced by other individuals. They also regard the occupation as temporary, their homes elsewhere, their primary occupations rural, and their labor community or tribally oriented rather than toward industry or commerce.

13 Fortes, M., Dynamics of Clanship Amongst the Tallensi (London, 1945), discusses this problem in some detailGoogle Scholar.

14 Orde-Browne, Major G. St. J., Labor Conditions in West Africa, Cmd. 6277 (London, 1941), p. 24Google Scholar.

18 Busia, K. A., Social SurveySekondi-Takoradi (Accra, 1948)Google Scholar.

18 Orde-Browne, Labor Conditions.

17 “Pawning,” for example, allows wards or children to work off a debt to another. It is somewhat similar to indenture and results in little more than slavery. Another item, entirely common, is paying off someone for a favor. Almost everything requires a “dash.” One may have to “dash” the foreman periodically to keep a job or “dash” the nurse in the hospital to see a doctor or “dash” the policeman to keep from getting a ticket. The pattern is ubiquitous and scarcely considered an evil, inasmuch at he who accepts a “dash” is then obligated to perform the required service. Obviously, however, this works to the advantage of those with money.

18 E. Franklin Frazicr, “Impact of coloni:i1ism an African Social Forms and Personality” in the forthcoming volume Africa in the Modern World, a symposium of the lectures of the twenty-ninth lnstitute of the Norman Wait Harris Foundation.

19 For a discussion of this factor. sec “Economic Problems in British West Africa” in Clark, F. Legros el al., The New West Africa (London: Georage Allen and Unwin, 1953)Google Scholar.

20 For a short and able discussion of the scheme see Davison, R. K.. “The Volta River Aluminum Scheme,” The Political Quarterly, XXV, No. 1, 55–67Google Scholar.

21 For an adequate but partly outdated discussion see Hinden, Rila, Plan fur Africa (London. 1941), PP. 119–22Google Scholar.

22 Not. it might be added, without the grave misgivings of some of the more left-wing Croups who feel that grave dangers arc incurred in this process.

23 This does not mean to say that nothing was done before that date. Cold mining was in of eration and the railroads had been built. For a good discussion of the economic history of the Gold coast see Bourret, F. M., The Cold Coast (London. 1952)Google Scholar.

24 See Davison, “Volta River Aluminum Scheme.” See also Legislative Assembly Debates. 1953. Issue No. 1, Vol. II, for the debate on the scheme.

25 See the Gold Coast Cocoa Marketing Board, First Annual Report and Accounts (Accra, 1949)- The Cocua Marketing Hoard is, in effect, the major control point in the Gold Coast economy. By paying farmers far less than the world price of cocoa and putting the difference in a stabilization uml insurance fund, they hare kept inflationary pressures lower than might have been expected. If the world price of cocoa drops below a certain minimum, the reserves nf the board are then to be used to pay farmers the difference between the world price and a stabilized price, thereby reducing the immediate impact of the world market upon the economy of the Gold CoastGoogle Scholar.

26 For the Damongo Scheme proposal in qutlinc see “Daniongo,” supplement to the Gold Coast Weekly Review, II, No. IJ (March ad, 1952). For a particularly pertinent discussion of some of the problems attending development in Africa see Frankel, S. H., The Economic Imputi on Underdeveloped Societies (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953)Google Scholar.

27 The problems facing those who would develop the Gold Coast in this fashion are nowhere more dearly indicated than in the C.W.E., which was subject to special investigation for financial irregularities in 1053, with some of its highest ranking employees alleged to have tampered with the rcairds. sold items privately, and so forth. See the Cold Gust newspaper. Daily Graphic (Accra), 07 12. 1954Google Scholar.

28 This does not imply thai there were no savings. Grain, for example, was stored, and cattle, in some areas, represented saved wealth, readily used for exchange or food, a practice different from some areas in East Africa where cattle serve as prestige indices and are a net drain on the owner.

29 It might be added that tuch fishermen'ssocieties are not products of secular economic patterns, as are co-operatives; rather they are traditional organizations somewhat similar to craft groups, but with political and religious features as well, which are now reinforced by serving some secular purposes such as insurance, lending, and so forth.

30 This is not to say that traditional social life operated on the basis of nonrational criteria hut tn point out that the range of factors considered germane to the solution of problems and the patterns of logical choice in British-type conciliar organs are intimately related, as are logical choice and economic efficiency.