Abstract
The complete failure of capitalism after the collapse of socialism has engendered a search for a new model of developmentalism, which will constitute a third alternative paradigm. Capitalism and socialism have both failed to redress the most critical issues of the human condition, which are debilitating poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, unemployment, crippling inequality, lack of access to health care, inequitable distribution of income and resources allocative mechanisms that are calibrated and configured to allocate resources to economic production that would not generate wealth for the enhancement of the common good which appertains to all. Scholars and governments are equally confounded by the possible nature which the third alternative will assume. In this vein, this chapter will argue for a model of development based on African humanist egalitarian principles – the core value animating African socio-economic and political institutions – as an alternative to the capitalist and socialist models.
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Notes
- 1.
According to Fukuyama, history is directional and its end point is capitalist liberal democracy. This view, of course, is not novel. What engages the attention however is the simplicity of Fukuyama’s reformulation of this view point. It is an apologia by Fukuyama, a former U.S. State Department planner. He identifies two prime factors that supposedly push all societies toward this evolutionary goal.
The first is modern natural science complemented by technology, which creates universal cultures. The second vehicle of history which he derived from Hegel is the desire for recognition, driving innovation and personal achievement. Fukuyama’s main concern seems to be whether in the coming of what he considers a capitalist utopia, humans will not become complacently self-absorbed ‘last men’ or, alternatively, revert to ‘first men’ embroiled in destructive wars. His argument that western democracies are not hegemonic is a historical in the light of world history and, particularly, the behaviour of the United States and its allies. He first articulated his thesis in the Foreign Policy Journal, National Interest, summer 1989, where he posited that most recent world history is punctuated by the collapse of absolutist regimes, and concomitantly, there is unprecedented ascendancy of liberal forces in these nations.
- 2.
To create a legal framework for economic development, particularly when considering legal and judicial reforms developing countries should as a matter of priority create substantive and procedurally efficient rules for the husbandry of the economy. A rule could be regarded as substantively efficient if it sets forth a precept that internalizes an externality or compels the efficient allocation of resources. Concomitantly, a rule is procedurally efficient if it eliminates or reduces the cost of or increases the accuracy of using the legal system.
- 3.
Lane (1999, p. 16) wrote ‘former Tanzanian dictator, Julius Nyerere, was single-handedly responsible for the economic destruction of his potentially wealthy nation’.
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Arewa, A., Arewa, A., Arewa, A. (2014). The Humanist Basis of African Communitarianism as Viable Third Alternative Theory of Developmentalism. In: Onazi, O. (eds) African Legal Theory and Contemporary Problems. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 29. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7537-4_12
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