There was an old story of three friends that found an old safe filled with gold coins while they were hunting. In excitement, two of them gave the younger one a gold-coin to go purchase food and drinks so they can relax before sharing the gold. While going, the younger man planned to poison the other two’s food, so that he could have all the gold alone. Also, the two older men thought of killing the younger one on his return, so that they can have the gold to themselves. Eventually, the gold remained unused, as the two older men died from poison after strangling the younger one on his arrival. Without creating a system that connects growth and consumption to steady productivity, sharing consumption will breed dependence, greed and conflict.
The idea of sharing a ‘certain’ patrimony or commonwealth brought a high level of dependence, crises and deaths in Africa. Communities whose members were historically known for their productivity have become lazy and greedy while expecting shares from a supposed commonwealth. They no longer need to produce things, support other people’s productivity, nor improve their former productive efforts and systems. All they now do is thumbprint some ballot papers or obtain some certificated papers and start demanding amenities, infrastructure and lucrative office jobs. Some ‘intellectuals’ evoke Ujamaa philosophy to support their claim for sharing consumption between the colonially-merged peoples as solution for Africa’s problems.
Productivity is the highest factor for uniting, improving and harmonizing people’s relationships in a society.[1] Couples get more united and responsible for each other when they produce a child together. Teammates, soldiers or colleagues get more united when their collaboration solves common problems or satisfies common needs. Because they produce great results by working together, they value each person’s contribution and feel the need to protect one another. But when the system for productivity is blocked, people become desperate fight to accumulate consumption.
After the industrial revolution, European industrialists moved out in search of raw materials for their industries. Wherever they saw desired raw materials, they invaded to choke the people’s production in order to exploit the raw materials. They kill or depose resistant community rulers, before installing and paying soft ones to support their socio-economic bondage. Then they merge several unconsented communities under a neo-colonial structure in order to use some to exploit the others. And to sustain this exploitation, the colonialists pay the postcolonial regimes to seize and export the resources that people need for production. Then, the postcolonial administrators create states and ministries for controlling the people by sharing consumption as infrastructure, salaries and welfare.
Today, Africans that are held in the unproductive political structures for sharing consumption are called lazy, corrupt and wicked. Yet, Africans are not really wicked. Instead, they present Africans find themselves in an unproductive system for sharing consumption, which breeds greed and desperation.
To overcome this unproductive system of sharing consumption, the different communities have to look inwards to define their human and natural resources. Afterwards, they have to start educating their people to use their natural resources to produce their tools and consumable goods. Then, they can liaise with other communities for higher industrial collaboration and trade. For without productive collaboration, Africans will remain hostile to one another in a greedy dependence on foreign goods. And any man who only leaves his children a legacy of sharing consumption has left the seed of conflict in his family.
Consumption is the new slavery,[2] for he who feeds you controls you.
[1] Chukwunwike Enekwechi, “Social effects of productivity for every society” in Restartnaija. www.restartnaija.com/2019/01/01/social-effects-of-productivity-for-every-society/ retrieved 8th November, 2019.
[2] Timothy Alexander Guzman, “The debt matrix: consumption and modern-day slavery” in Globalresearch, December 01, 2013. www.globalresearch.ca/the-debt-matrix-consumption-and-modern-day-slavery/5359923