#dmingml Contrasting African & Western attitudes on money. Interesting perspectives on macro & micro solutions

Just concluded the most insightful book on financial matters contrasting African and Western attitudes I have ever read. I wish I had known of this before my last seven trips to the continent!

 

David Maranz wrote African Friends and Money Matters out of the frustration many Westerners experience when they travel and work in Africa.Although most people who visit would expect attitudes to be different, on aday-to-day level most people don't anticipate what this might look like on a practical level.

 

Starting with an overview of Africa's economic system (with a very broad brush stroke, as it differs considerably country by country), Maranz presents 90 observations of African behaviour to money and how they specifically contrast with Western behaviours. These 90 observations provide a wealth of knowledge and insightthat anybody who travels to Africa or intends living there will find to be extremely helpful. As one contemplates the notion of poverty and development in the light of alleviating severe social issues within their geo-political landscape, Maranz's work provides some revealing observations. The 90 observations are broken down into six major categories: 

 

•    The Use of Resources

•    Friendship

•    The Role of Solidarity

•    Society and People of Means

•    Loans and Debts

•    Business Matters

 

If you anticipate travelling to Africa in the future, I encourage you to get a copy of Maranz’ book and consider his 90 observations. They are well worth reading.

 

For the sake of brevity however, I want to highlight one conflict that emerged: It relates to short-term and long-term thinking, or micro-solutions to macro-solutions, and the attitudes that sit behind them.

 

Short-Term & Long-Term Wealth

 

The fundamental economic consideration in the majority of African societies according to Maranz, is the distribution of economic resources so that all persons may have their minimum needs met, or at least that they may survive. Central to this is the welfare of family and kin, and the importance of solidarity and sharing. In contrast to this, the primary consideration in the West is the accumulation of capital and wealth: a rather individualistic pursuit.

 

Of course, these are generalisations and although a little simplistic do help us to understand some of the conflicts we experience when those of us in the West who are comfortable pursuing financial security and wealth in an overtly consumerist culture, are suddenly confronted with the realities of what many African families and communities do not have, and barely able to provide for their basic human needs for shelter, food, health and education that the West has taken for granted. Bryant L. Myers in Walking With the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development, addresses some of these conflicts and understandings from the perspectives of what he defines as the poor and the non-poor.

 

Distribution of wealth and the expectations that we have of those who have wealth and how it should be used are varied, and one can appreciate why the perspectives of those who are merely trying to provide for the basic needs of their families and kin are different from those who have the capacity to meet these needs and go beyond this to simply accumulating more money, wealth and possessions.

 

Maranz draws out another distinction in the different economic systems. Where African societies tend to focus on micro-solutions, the West focuses on macro-solutions that tend to consider larger scale solutions that benefit a greater number of people beyond the immediate problem with the view that this may eradicate the problem altogether. Micro-solutions on the other hand focus on improving only the immediate situation or problem. It is a short-term solution only. Maranz provides some examples of why this occurs, and at the root of them is the fundamental importance of relationship and community for the African. Therefore, solutions focus on increasing interactions, no matter how inefficient they may seem. According to Maranz however, this is increasingly coming under threat where

 

“major disruptions have come from urbanization, the influence of Western ideas of individualism, greater geographic mobility, long-term economic crises, and the transition from family self-sufficiency to cash dependency”. (9)

 

Reflecting upon this belief, I could not help but wonder if in the West we too have had out lives disrupted in a similar way: urbanization, individualism, mobility, fluctuating financial markets, and cash dependency. These have indeed led to greater efficiencies in many dimensions of our daily lives, and it would be difficult to argue that these have not resulted in a quality of life we enjoy and have come to expect.

 

What is troubling however, is the reality that we still seem unable to resolve the poverty many of us experience in our relationships, and that the cause of this may be the very things we are notprepared to let go.

 

Perhaps we are not so macro in our thinking after all!