Extracting Profit: Imperialism, Neoliberalism and the New Scramble for Africa

by Lee Wengraf

A piercing historical explanation of poverty and inequality in African societies today and the social impact of resource-driven growth, Extracting Profit explains why Africa, in the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century, has undergone an economic boom. Rising global prices in oil and minerals have produced a scramble for Africa’s natural resources, led by investment from U.S., European and Chinese companies, and joined by emerging economies from around the globe. African economies have reached new heights, even outpacing rates of growth seen in much of the rest of the world. Examined through the lens of case studies of the oil fields of the Niger River Delta, the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline and the East African infrastructure boom, this period of “Africa rising” did not lead to the creation of jobs, but has instead fueled the extraction of natural resources, profits accruing to global capital, and an increasingly wealthy African ruling class. Extracting Profit argues that the roots of today’s social and economic conditions lie in the historical legacies of colonialism and the imposition of so-called “reforms” by global financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The chokehold of debt and austerity of the late twentieth century paved the way for severe assaults on African working classes through neoliberal privatization and deregulation. And while the scramble for Africa’s resources has heightened the pace of ecological devastation, examples from Somalia and the West African Ebola outbreak reveal a frightening surge of militarization on the part of China and the U.S. Yet this “new scramble” has not gone unchallenged. With accounts of platinum workers’ struggles in South Africa, Nigerian labor organizing and pro-democracy upheavals in Uganda and Burkina Faso, Extracting Profit offers several narratives of grassroots organizing and protest, pointing to the potential for resistance to global capital and fundamental change, in Africa and beyond.

Genres: Africa, Economics, Politics, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

Published March 6, 2018

Reviews

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, this is not an academic text, so don't make the mistake I did and go in expecting careful analysis. Instead, this is a solid overview full of block quotes from a wide range of sources outlining the impact of colonialism and continued hegemony on Africa through a look at natural resource extraction. She tries to add Marxism in as a framework at the beginning and end of each chapter, but I wish she hadn't and had stuck instead to the useful part which was the collation of data and experience across the continent.

[Alexandria Avona · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be five stars but it makes a lot of the same mistakes that many of the content I've bought from Haymarket books has been guilty of; mainly identifying the problem, but not doing a study why what they want, "a worker's unification" isn't working. They failed to put together that "stomach politics" --voting from need, and voting because a fundamental, basic need is being filled by a certain party -- is precisely the technique that allows for the illusion of democracy that keeps international extractive interests in power by not alerting them to the non-democratic violation happening because it was a "democratic" election. Voting from the stomach or voting from the housing need *should not* be viewed as a democratic election; it should be viewed as an extortion of human rights. Then, when these individuals are in charge they walk back on their promises and jail and even torture anyone who points that out. What democratically elected individual would risk losing their constituency in such a way when called out for false promises, other than one that never respected it to begin with and knows there's nothing to alienate...just a few foreign powers to play a "democratic vanity" game with? To me, this book shows me not that we need a "worker's unification" which a democracy should be, but rather we need to stop calling elections that don't receive fulfilled promises and force their vote through providing for basic needs democratic. We need true democracy, but the problem is that's not possible without a small period where the foundation is revamped so that needs are covered and next election people aren't voting on need. That is a combination of both of the techniques mentioned in the book.

In addition, the book does in fact concur that China does in fact allow for corruption as a cheap trick to gain more power in Africa without the USA, weaponizing the fact they don't answer to transparency NATO based procedures and simply covering up these illicit (and pretty disgusting enablements) in a black box of lies and lack of transparency which China is notoriously guilty of when it comes to financial and even medical policy. However, "democracy" excuses for extraction by Western countries "concerned about human rights" are just as hypocritical. What's left are indigenous individuals who can't voice their opinions because they are deep in the horrifying process of being stripped of all their resources by two huge powerhouses that are keen to make sure there is no foundation for them to fight back. I think it was very ignorant of the author to say that "instability leads to revolution'; I think that's wrong. Instability is the very tool of these horrifying superpowers to keep the individuals in an ongoing cycle of trauma so they can't cohere their thoughts and kick off their assailant. So that one 'got past the dragon' so the speak.

It also speaks on governing by debt...blaming Africa for the failed neoliberal policies that include deregulation and "flexibilization" based on arbitrary black box issues that are incompetently run due to there being no sincerely interested financial watchdog in the area outside of extractive interests and people vaguely interested in a social revolution without any real plan or ability to speak on how and why it would and doesn't happen.

It also speaks on the Africa's known issue of only having raw resources and industry loans being levied by predatory alternations of Chinese corruption-enablement or American/European neoliberal restructuring scams meant to keep local finances covertly destabilized to avoid indigenous empowerment and to keep extractive processes of things like oil uninterrupted all while pretending to care about democracy which is truly horrifying for the reputation of democracy in Africa, and may explain a lot of the anti-democratic thought in Africa...those that believe there "is no real democracy" are not familiar with anarchic democracy but false-face neoliberal democracies used by extractive Western human rights coalitions.

Depressed wages are also big in this book. Nowhere else but in Africa have I seen wages allowed to get to such a level; another example they gave is *the Chinese not giving African miners helmets until they have worked there two months*...that's horrifying. The depressed wages, despite being the wages assigned by "human rights" European countries, are kept minimal simply because a lot of times they found Africans that low post-Chinese exploitation, and whatever they say about human rights, the deal was so sweet so they kept it going. They took the temptation and that's something those who actually care should never unsee...when they had to make a hard moral choice that would actually cost them, many of these "human rights" concerned European countries kept covertly going with the horrifyingly dehumanized wage that China had either installed or allowed to happen at the hands of local thugs (usually a combination of both). Then most of the profits go straight into the hands of firms, showing just how bad the extraction was...at a certain point it just becomes clear it's an ongoing financial rape. There's no other way to put it. They can't kick these two off because they're too big, and they're both full of sh*t, to be frank.

Really horrifying book and it told the truth. However, it lacks any sufficiently good plan and analysis for how to get out of that logistically using the knowledge that the book established. I think that's a waste a time to build up the foreknowledge like that only to completely flop when it's time for an actionable, potent plan. It's clear according to the reading the victims don't have the resources to figure that out...so it's up to people that do, like people who write books on Africa for money and have that kind of time to also take the time to come up with a truly doable way out.

[Bill Perrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite good; but spoiled a bit by Trotskyite inappropriate mantras which pop up as a “must do” for this author. Edit out the rants and it would be a god book.

[J.J. Amaworo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding look at the tragedy (still unfolding) of what Europe and the West did, and is doing, to Africa: the massacres, genocide, exploitation, and theft of natural resources. Essential reading for anyone interested in the future of this most beautiful and troubled continent. Full review on jjawilson.wordpress.com.