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Walter Rodney

175 quotes

“Capital seeks domination. It grows and spreads and seeks to get hold of everything in sight. The exploitation of Africa gave European monopoly capital full opportunities to indulge in its tendencies for expansion and domination.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The efficient accounting and business methods which are supposed to characterize capitalist firms did not drop from the sky. They are the result of historical evolution, and in that evolution the exploitation of Africa played a key role—from the era of the chartered companies right through the colonial period.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Portugal was the lowliest of the colonizing powers in Africa, and its was nothing in Europe without its colonies: so much so that it came to insist that Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea were integral parts of Portugal, just like any province of the European country named Portugal.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In French Equatorial Africa, it was a black man, Felix Eboue, who proved loyal to the forces led by General de Gaulle, and who mobilized manpower against the French and German fascists. Africa provided the base and much of the manpower for launching the counterattack which helped General de Gaulle and the Free French to return to power in France.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole existence and development of capitalism in Britain and France between 1885 and 1960 was bound up with colonization, and Africa played a major role. African colonies meant surplus appropriated on a grand scale; they led to innovations and forward leaps in technology and the organization of capitalist enterprise; and they buttressed the capitalist system at home and abroad with fighting men. Sometimes, it appeared that these two principal colonial powers reaped so many colonial benefits that they suffered from “too much of a good thing.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Colonialism was one aspect of imperialism. Colonialism was based on alien political rule and was restricted to some parts of the world. Imperialism, however, underlay all colonies, extended all over the world (except where replaced by socialist revolutions), and it allowed the participation of all capitalist nations. Therefore, lack of colonies on the part of any capitalist nation was not a barrier to enjoying the fruits of exploiting the colonial and semi-colonial world, which was the backyard of metropolitan capitalism.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Economic partition and repartition of Africa was going on all the time, because the proportions of the spoils that went to different capitalist countries kept changing.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“United States capitalists did not confine themselves to mere trade with Africa, but they also acquired considerable assets within the colonies. It is common knowledge that Liberia was an American colony in everything but name. The U.S.A. supposedly aided the Liberian government with loans, but used the opportunity to take over Liberian customs revenue, to plunder thousands of square miles of Liberian land, and generally to dictate to the weak .”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It must be recalled that North America was that part of the European capitalist system which had been the most direct beneficiary of the massacre of the American Indians and the enslavement of Africans. The continued exploitation of African peoples within its own boundaries and in the Caribbean and Latin America must also be cited as evidence against American monster imperialism. The U.S.A. was a worthy successor to Britain as the leading force and policeman of the imperialist/colonialist world from 1945 onwards.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like its progenitor, capitalism, fascism is totally opposed to socialism. Fascist Germany and Italy attacked both the other capitalist states and the Soviet Union, which was still the only socialist state in the world by 1939. The defeat of fascism was therefore a victory for socialism, and at the same time it preserved the other capitalist nations from having to take the historically retrograde step of fascism.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In brutally suppressing the Maji Maji War in and in attempting genocide against the of (South-West Africa), the German ruling class were getting the experience which they later applied against the Jews and against German workers and progressives.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Colonialism strengthened the Western European ruling class and capitalism as a whole. Particularly in its later phases, it was evidently giving a new lease of life to a mode of production that was otherwise dying. From every viewpoint other than that of the minority class of capitalists, colonialism was a monstrous institution holding back the liberation of man.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Colonialism had only one hand—it was a one-armed bandit.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the first three decades of colonialism, hardly anything was done that could remotely be termed a service to the African people. It was in fact only after the last war that social services were built as a matter of policy. How little they amounted to does not really need illustrating. After all, the statistics which show that Africa today is underdeveloped are the statistics representing the state of affairs at the end of colonialism.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There were no roads connecting different colonies and different parts of the same colony in a manner that made sense with regard to Africa’s needs and development. All roads and railways led down to the sea. They were built to extract gold or manganese or coffee or cotton. They were built to make business possible for the timber companies, trading companies, and agricultural concession firms, and for white settlers. Any catering to African interests was purely coincidental.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One South African saying put forward that “the white man has no kin, his kin is money.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That is a profound revelation of the difference between capitalist and pre-capitalist societies; and when capitalism came into contact with the still largely communal African societies, it introduced money relations at the expense of kinship ties.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After the Second World War, Guinea began to export . In the hands of French and American capitalists, the bauxite became aluminum. In the métropoles, it went into the making of refactory material, electrical conductors, cigarette foil, kitchen utensils, glass, jewel bearings, abrasives, light-weight structures, and aircraft. Guinean bauxite stimulated European shipping and North American hydroelectric power. In Guinea, the colonial bauxite mining left holes in the ground.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the south of Tanganyika, the British mined gold as fast as they could from 1933 onwards at a place called . By 1953, they had gobbled it all up and exported it abroad. By the end of the colonial period, Chunya was one of the most backward spots in the whole of Tanganyika, which was itself known as the poor Cinderella of East Africa. If that was modernization, and given the price paid in exploitation and oppression, then Africans would have been better off in the bush.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Failure to improve agricultural tools and methods on behalf of African peasants was not a matter of a bad decision by colonial policy-makers. It was an inescapable feature of colonialism as a whole, based on the understanding that the international division of labor aimed at skills in the metropoles and low-level manpower in the dependencies. It was also a result of the considerable use of force (including taxation) in African labor relations. People can be forced to perform simple manual labor, but very little else.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nationalism is a certain form of unity which grows out of historical experience. It is a sense of oneness that emerges from social groups trying to control their environment and to defend their gains against competing groups. The nation-state also imposes order and maintains stability within its own boundaries, usually on behalf of a given class. All of those characteristics were present in nineteenth-century African states, some of which were much larger than the colonies arbitrarily defined by Europeans.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Under slavery, power lay in the hands of the slavemasters: under colonialism, power lay in the hands of the colonialists. The loss of power for the various African states meant a reduction in the freedom of every individual.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“, a former French colonial minister, explained that the French Revolution was not fought on behalf of the blacks of Africa. Bourgeois liberty, equality, and fraternity was not for colonial subjects. Africans had to make do with bayonets, riot acts, and gunboats.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“During the centuries of pre-colonial trade, some control over social, political, and economic life was retained in Africa, in spite of the disadvantageous commerce with Europeans. That little control over internal matters disappeared under colonialism. Colonialism went much further than trade. It meant a tendency towards direct appropriation by Europeans of the social institutions within Africa. Africans ceased to set indigenous cultural goals and standards, and lost full command of training young members of the society. Those were undoubtedly major steps backward.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The resourcefulness of West African market women is well known, but it was put to petty purposes. The problem posed to capitalists and workers in Europe while making insecticide from African pyrethrum was one requiring that resourcefulness be expressed in a technical direction. But the problem posed to an African market woman by the necessity to make a penny more profit on every tin of imported sardines was resolved sometimes by a little more vigor, sometimes by a touch of dishonesty, and sometimes by resort to "juju.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Instead of speeding up growth, colonial activities such as mining and cash-crop farming speeded up the decay of "traditional" African life. In many parts of the continent, vital aspects of culture were adversely affected, nothing better was substituted, and only a lifeless shell was left.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every farming people have a staple food, plus a variety of other supplements. Historians, agronomists, and botanists have all contributed to showing the great variety of such foods within the pre-colonial African economy. There were numerous crops which were domesticated within the African continent, there were several wild food species (notably fruits), and Africans had shown no conservatism in adopting useful food plants of Asian or American origin. Diversified agriculture was within the African tradition. Monoculture was a colonialist invention.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who have studied the nutritional conditions of “primitive” Africans in tropical Africa are unanimous in stating that they show no clinical signs of dietary deficiency. One of the most striking indications of the superiority of indigenous African diet is the magnificent condition of the teeth. One researcher among six ethnic groups in Kenya could not find a single case of tooth decay, not a single deformation of dental arch. But when those same people were transplanted and put on the “civilized” diet available under colonialism, their teeth began to decay at once.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A country’s wealth comes not from taxes but from production.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no getting away from the conclusion reached by the African educationalist Abdou Moumini that “colonial education corrupted the thinking and sensibilities of the African and filled him with abnormal complexes.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Apart from language, the pillar of cultural imperialism in most colonies was religion.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“s are designed to function as props to a given society, and the educated in the young age groups automatically carry over their values when their turn comes to make decisions in the society.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only positive development in colonialism was when it ended.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The process by which Africa produced thirty-odd sovereign states was an extremely complex one, characterized by an interplay of forces and calculations on the part of various groups of Africans, on the part of the colonial powers, and on the part of interest groups inside the metropolis. [...] It must be stressed that the move for the regaining of independence was initiated by the African people; and, to whatever extent that objective was realized, the motor force of the people must be taken into account.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“African independence was greeted with pomp, ceremony, and a resurgence of traditional African music and dance. “A new day has dawned,” “we are on the threshold of a new era,” “we have now entered into the political kingdom”—those were the phrases of the day, and they were repeated until they became clichés.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…it becomes self-defeating for someone in the Caribbean or in the United States to suggest that Africa is the sole, or even the main, vehicle of black struggle. Because black struggle must be universalized wherever black people happen to be.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Development in human society is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility, and material well-being. Some of these are virtually moral categories and are difficult to evaluate—depending as they do on the age in which one lives, one’s class origins, and one’s personal code of what is wrong. However, what is indisputable is that the achievement of any of those aspects of personal development is very much tied in with the state of the society as a whole. From earliest times, man found it convenient and necessary to come together in groups to hunt and for the sake of survival. The relations which develop within any given social group are crucial to an understanding of the society as a whole. Freedom, responsibility, skill, have real meaning only in terms of the relations of men in society.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“However, the peasants and workers of Europe (and eventually the inhabitants of the whole world) paid a huge price so that the capitalists could make their profits from the human labor that always lies behind the machines. That contradicts other facets of development, especially viewed from the standpoint of those who suffered and still suffer to make capitalist achievements possible. This latter group are the majority of mankind. To advance, they must overthrow capitalism; and that is why at the moment capitalism stands in the path of further human social development. To put it another way, the social (class) relations of capitalism are now outmoded, just as slave and feudal relations became outmoded in their time.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Capitalism has proved incapable of transcending fundamental weaknesses such as underutilization of productive capacity, the persistence of a permanent sector of unemployed, and periodic related to the concept of “market”—which is concerned with people’s ability to pay rather than their need for commodities. Capitalism has created its own irrationalities such as a vicious white racism, the tremendous waste associated with advertising, and the irrationality of incredible poverty in the midst of wealth and wastage even inside the biggest capitalist economies, such as that of the United States of America. Above all, capitalism has intensified its own political contradictions in trying to subjugate nations and continents outside of Europe, so that workers and peasants in every part of the globe have become self-conscious and are determined to take their destiny into their own hands.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In some quarters it has often been thought wise to substitute the term "developing" for "underdeveloped". One of the reasons for so doing is to avoid any unpleasantness which may be attached to the second term, which might be interpreted as meaning underdeveloped mentally, physically, morally, or in any other respect. Actually, if “underdevelopment” were related to anything other than comparing economies, then the most underdeveloped country in the world would be the U.S.A., which practices external oppression on a massive scale, while internally there is a blend of exploitation, brutality, and psychiatric disorder.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has been noted with irony that the principal “industry” of many underdeveloped countries is administration. Not long ago, 60 per cent of the internal revenue of Dahomey went into paying salaries of civil servants and government leaders. The salaries given to the elected politicians are higher than those given to a British Member of Parliament, and the number of parliamentarians in the underdeveloped African countries is also relatively high. In , there is one parliamentary representative for every six thousand inhabitants, compared to one French parliamentary representative for every hundred thousand Frenchmen. Many more figures of that sort indicate that in describing a typical underdeveloped economy it is essential to point out the high disproportion of the locally distributed wealth that goes into the pockets of a privileged few.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Members of the privileged groups inside Africa always defend themselves by saying that they pay the taxes which keep the government going. At face value this statement sounds reasonable, but on close examination it is really the most absurd argument and shows total ignorance of how the economy functions. Taxes do not produce national wealth and development. Wealth has to be produced out of nature—from tilling the land or mining metals or felling trees or turning raw materials into finished products for human consumption. These things are done by the vast majority of the population who are peasants and workers. There would be no incomes to tax if the laboring population did not work. The incomes given to civil servants, professionals, merchants, come from the store of wealth produced by the community. Quite apart from the injustices in the distribution of wealth, one has to dismiss the argument that “the taxpayers’” money is what develops a country. In pursuing the goal of development, one must start with the producers and move on from there to see whether the products of their labor are being rationally utilized to bring greater independence and well-being to the nation.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The interpretation that underdevelopment is somehow ordained by God is emphasized because of the racist trend in European scholarship. It is in line with racist prejudice to say openly or to imply that their countries are more developed because their people are innately superior, and that the responsibility for the economic backwardness of Africa lies in the generic backwardness of the race of black Africans. An even bigger problem is that the people of Africa and other parts of the colonized world have gone through a cultural and psychological crisis and have accepted, at least partially, the European version of things. That means that the African himself has doubts about his capacity to transform and develop his natural environment. With such doubts, he even challenges those of his brothers who say that Africa can and will develop through the efforts of its own people. If we can determine when underdevelopment came about, it would dismiss the lingering suspicion that it is racially or otherwise predetermined and that we can do little about it.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the “experts” from capitalist countries do not give a racist explanation, they nevertheless confuse the issue by giving as causes of underdevelopment the things which really are consequences. For example, they would argue that Africa is in a state of backwardness as a result of lacking skilled personnel to develop. It is true that because of lack of engineers Africa cannot on its own build more roads, bridges, and hydroelectric stations. But that is not a cause of underdevelopment, except in the sense that causes and effects come together and reinforce each other. The fact of the matter is that the most profound reasons for the economic backwardness of a given African nation are not to be found inside that nation. All that we can find inside are the symptoms of underdevelopment and the secondary factors that make for poverty. Mistaken interpretations of the causes of underdevelopment usually stem either from prejudiced thinking or from the error of believing that one can learn the answers by looking inside the underdeveloped economy. The true explanation lies in seeking out the relationship between Africa and certain developed countries and in recognizing that it is a relationship of exploitation.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the common means by which one nation exploits another and one that is relevant to Africa’s external relations is exploitation through trade. When the terms of trade are set by one country in a manner entirely advantageous to itself, then the trade is usually detrimental to the trading partner. To be specific, one can take the export of agricultural produce from Africa and the import of manufactured goods into Africa from Europe, North America, and Japan. The big nations establish the price of the agricultural products and subject these prices to frequent reductions. At the same time the price of manufactured goods is also set by them, along with the s necessary for trade in the ships of those nations. The minerals of Africa also fall into the same category as agricultural produce as far as pricing is concerned. The whole import-export relationship between Africa and its trading partners is one of unequal exchange and of exploitation.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“More far-reaching than just trade is the actual ownership of the means of production in one country by the citizens of another. When citizens of Europe own the land and the mines of Africa, this is the most direct way of sucking the African continent. Under colonialism the ownership was complete and backed by military domination. Today, in many African countries the foreign ownership is still present, although the armies and flags of foreign powers have been removed. So long as foreigners own land, mines, factories, banks, insurance companies, means of transportation, newspapers, power stations, then for so long will the wealth of Africa flow outwards into the hands of those elements. In other words, in the absence of direct political control, foreign investment insures that the natural resources and the labor of Africa produce economic value which is lost to the continent.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most of the people who write about underdevelopment and who are read in the continents of Africa, Asia, and Latin America are spokesmen for the capitalist or bourgeois world. They seek to justify capitalist exploitation both inside and outside their own countries. One of the things which they do to confuse the issue is to place all underdeveloped countries in one camp and all developed countries in another camp irrespective of different social systems; so that the terms capitalist and socialist never enter the discussion. Instead, one is faced with a simple division between the industrialized nations and those that are not industrialized. It is true that both the United States and the Soviet Union are industrialized and it is true that when one looks at the statistics, countries such as France, Norway, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania are much closer together than any one of them is to an African country. But it is absolutely necessary to determine whether the standard of living in a given industrialized country is a product of its own internal resources or whether it stems from exploiting other countries. The United States has a small proportion of the world’s population and exploitable natural wealth but it enjoys a huge percentage of the wealth which comes from exploiting the labor and natural resources of the whole world.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dependent nations can never be considered developed. It is true that modern conditions force all countries to be mutually interdependent in order to satisfy the needs of their citizens; but that is not incompatible with economic independence because economic independence does not mean isolation. It does, however, require a capacity to exercise choice in external relations, and above all it requires that a nation’s growth at some point must become self-reliant and self-sustaining. Such things are obviously in direct contradiction to the economic dependence of numerous countries on the metropoles of Western Europe, North America, and Japan.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the social and cultural level, there are many features which aid in keeping underdeveloped countries integrated into the capitalist system and at the same time hanging on to the apron strings of the metropoles. The Christian church has always been a major instrument for cultural penetration and cultural dominance, in spite of the fact that in many instances Africans sought to set up independent churches. Equally important has been the role of education in producing Africans to service the capitalist system and to subscribe to its values. Recently, the imperialists have been using new universities in Africa to keep themselves entrenched at the highest academic level.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“During the colonial period, the forms of political subordination in Africa were obvious. There were governors, colonial officials, and police. In politically independent African states, the metropolitan capitalists have to insure favorable political decisions by remote control. So they set up their political puppets in many parts of Africa, who shamelessly agree to compromise with the vicious apartheid regime of South Africa when their masters tell them to do so. [...] The presence of a group of African sell-outs is part of the definition of underdevelopment. Any diagnosis of underdevelopment in Africa will reveal not just low per capita income and protein deficiencies, but also the gentlemen who dance in , , and when music is played in Paris, London, and New York.”
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source