Mo Money Mo Problems
“Mo Money Mo Problems" is a single by the American rapper The Notorious B.I.G. It is the second single from his album Life After Death which was released posthumously. However though this piece is not going to be about the song, it would contain the subject it. Money.
I have never really given much thought to the way I feel about money or my connection to it while growing up in Sub-Saharan Africa.
However, right now I feel those experiences and a complete lack of a basic education on money and its uses may have shaped my own attitudes towards it.
I also strongly feel huge part of our problems could be the stigma and our lack of knowledge of its true value, its history and how its use could benefit us or leave us worse-off.
I have also thought about the problem of the lack of mobility (in ALL forms) and to what extent it presents a disadvantage for many and greatly affects the way we talk, think and feel about money. It also influences our progression, enables stagnation, and how we are perceived by more organised nations who do business with us.
The question “How much should I pay you?” is often seen as intimidating. You may end up being over-priced for a service or under-priced or met with silence simply because many of us do not have a sense of entitlement to it even when being presented with the opportunity of providing a service in exchange for it.
Mo Money
Before colonisation, most people in Sub — Saharan Africa lived in economies where they enjoyed access to abundant commons — land, water, forests, livestock and operated within systems based on of sharing and reciprocity. So people did not really need money to live. This also means they really could not be descried as being poor.
The coming of the colonisers meant that these systems would be abolished.
Its possible that in making attempts at creating innovations that have now helped create the economic world we now live in, people were forced off the land and into European-owned mines, factories and plantations, where they were paid wages for work they probably never wanted to do in the first place. But shouldn't work should be considered a good thing is a good thing?
Shouldn't work and the creation of wages create post war opportunities for Europe’s colonial powers to defend their freedoms using resources from the continent and for its colonies to make financial gains, gain access to markets and new technologies?
Mo Problems
However this introduction of wages in exchange for work does not appear to have long term beneficial effects for its colonies as it did for the colonisers.
It seems apparent that most often the burden on colonial subjects far exceeded any reciprocal investments in public goods, and they had no real structures in place in educating the locals on their methods of running their trading activities.
To make matters more difficult, post-independence, the CFA franc would be designated in the French Colonies in order for the French to control the resources, economic structures and political systems and our would mean we would be left worse off.
Recently this currency has been blamed for destroying any prospects of economic development in all of its user nations but on the other hand its use has benefited the major French and overseas corporations, the executives of the zone’s central banks, the African “elites” who have already spent years repatriating and hoarding wealth acquired at the expense of benefiting healthcare systems, the provision of good infrastructure and Social welfare. The question is.. Are the leaders too ignorant or too afraid to upset France and other western countries?
I feel it may be combination of both but more a case of ignorance stemming from the introduction of Money as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.
My Own Ignorance
As a teenage girl growing up in Cameroon I remember terms such as “Economic Crisis” and devaluation being used but really having no understanding of what it meant or even worse that my life and that of our family would be negatively affected by them.
The “Francophones” or French Speakers in the city I lived in with my parents would also often use the term “Crise Economique” which means Economic Crisis. In fact there was even a song I really enjoyed and often sang along to by an artist called Hilarion Nguema and the chorus went like this;
“ Conjuncture “
“ Conjuncture “
“ Crise économique”
“C’est la sécheresse des banques”
This translates as;
“State of affairs”
“State of affairs”
“Economic crisis”
“It’s the drought of the banks”
I obviously felt no connection to the meaning of these lyrics as a teenager and never bothered to ask anyone around me what they meant. However I do remember my father being made redundant, and my mother would have to find ways of supporting us. The Crisis or the “Crise” Mr Nguema was referring to and that I was ignorantly singing along to was directly impacting my life and those of my siblings and thorough it all there seemed to be no real systems in place to educate us on rising Inflation and what it would mean for the country.
I recently completed a degree in Economics and Business which means to a great extent I am equipped with more than a basic understanding of the importance of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and have analytical skills permitting me to analyse basic elements in an economy.
However it now seems in order to understand the behavior and interactions of the people on the African continent and how its economies work, I feel there is a strong case for a completely different approach in teaching this very important social science.
