Photo by Yogendra Singh
The book Collective Institutions in Industrialized Nations by Samuel E. Enajero discusses the complexities of the sub-Saharan economic system. One of its focal points centers on the various institutions guiding their economy.
The world is collectively facing an economic crisis. Most countries suffer from plummeting gross domestic product, exacerbated by increased unemployment and labor demand. While it’s relatively difficult to quantify the damages it has caused, it’s easy to say that this can be attributed to the ongoing global pandemic, not to mention the diplomatic issues between some countries.
The pandemic’s effect on the economy is passably recent. However, even before it occurred, one country’s financial state has constantly stood out among others.
Africa is one of the countries that have, for so long, experienced an economic crisis. The pandemic has only worsened this dilemma as their labor market situation continues to face challenges, and their cost of living is constantly rising. This situation has persisted for years, perhaps even decades, and it’s a center of various professional research and studies.
Yet, a persistent problem as this might need less outside influence. Instead, it needs a realization from the region and the people’s attempt toward improvement.
African Economic System
Before diving into the African economy, it’s valuable to define what an economic system generally is.
An economic system is established on how governments or countries organize and utilize their available resources, services, and goods across the country they govern. This regulates the factors that manage the resources’ production. While its function primarily focuses on policing the resources, it isn’t encompassed and measured by these materials alone. Instead, it’s encompassed by many institutions, entities, and agencies.
Hence, to influence their economic standard, countries don’t only rely on their goods. This is what African society, especially sub-Saharan Africa, lacks. Various other factors impact the circulation of wealth and resources.
For their citizens to better understand and manage this economic system, they need more knowledge and complete comprehension. Most countries whose economic systems have continuously improved or plateaued at a normal state don’t dependently and rely solely on their trading culture. Instead, they bank on enhancing their workforce and knowledge management.
Sub-Saharan Africa at Its Operational Level
The author explores this detail in the book Collective Institutions in Industrialized Nations by Samuel E. Enajero. He states that societies are comprised of various institutions, yet some of these are taken for granted in this free market democratic capitalism era. The book identifies that some cultures, specifically sub-Saharan Africa, pay little attention to the institutional weaknesses that pull down their economic and living standards.
Enajero illustrates that while changes at the economy’s generic level urge development, modern economic development models include variables at the operational level. Unfortunately, this is where the sub-Saharan culture and society struggle to improve and maximize. A massive factor influencing any country’s economy is its human capital. This can be measured by the citizens’ knowledge, skills, and habits. Increasing the quality of the sub-Saharan’s human capital may improve their productivity and influence the economy’s output.
While the book doesn’t explicitly mention its importance, this article aims to expound how an improvement in education – and operational variables – can help African society improve its economic system. Education might not directly stop poverty. But its effect on people’s productivity and understanding of the general mechanisms of the economy can influence their labor market.
Strengthening Educational and Productivity Framework
The future of every country, not just sub-Saharan Africa, lies in its citizens’ abilities and talents. However, unlike other counties, many have argued that the African education system is outdated and not in line with the world’s current needs.
Ensuring the region receives high-quality education opportunities doesn’t only pave its way to improve economically. It’s the right thing to do to help their citizens survive in such a competitive society.
A better-quality education has and remains wishful thinking for most parts of the place. Hence, sub-Saharan Africa’s society must first tap into improving its education’s quality and relevance by strengthening its capacity to observe and address teaching and learning challenges. These include both teacher-related and student-related issues. They must adjust their traditional technical vocational education and suit its relevancy to the general labor market’s needs. In doing these, they’re allowing an increase in after-school opportunities for their citizens and societal development.
In line with the development of their existing educational system, the sub-Saharan government must also ensure that everyone has access to this. It has been noted that there’s a growing population of out-of-school African children. While this is only the extensive tally, a portion of this must be allotted to the sub-Saharan population.
The current educational standard isn’t the only thing that needs attention. This standard and accessibility must go hand in hand for effectiveness. Hopefully, by addressing the ongoing academic issue, the African government and society can increase their market labor’s productivity, helping alleviate its economic dilemma.
“Reconstructive Upward Causation” and “Ceremonial Encapsulation” of Education
By Samuel Enajero, Ph.D.
African Association for Evolutionary Economics (www.aafee.org)
“Learning is the development of the modes and means of cognition, calculation and assessment.”––(Hodgson, 2003). Education upgrades the human self from its rudimentary local institutions to a sophisticated being capable of facing domestic and global challenges. Education also enables individuals to recognize and enhance their natural ability to produce and contribute to their environment. In short, education is the creation of human capital.
There are two broad types of education––formal and informal education. While OECD countries begin formal education at 3-4 years old (early childhood development, kindergarten, primary, secondary and university), sub-Saharan African nations are still tied to the systems established by their colonial masters––elementary, secondary and university. Primary and secondary education is not mandatory. Furthermore, the fact that the majority of parents either did not receive or were poorly educated, early childhood informal education that children receive from their mothers’ kitchen, is generally unpredictable. Informal education supplied by radio, TV, newspapers, and in recent times via the internet, is very scanty for individuals in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, many young boys and girls run around without proper education.
I thank the Blog Contributor for bringing up this important topic at this early stage of the site. Note that Africa is a continent of over 50 countries; 45 of which are in sub-Sahara.
In retrospect, one would agree that the colonial masters in Africa were guided by benevolence as they assumed the responsibility of changing local institutions prior to their leadership exit from the continent. Watching the people continuously perform rituals, they could recollect their experience in England and Rome in the Dark Ages. With assistance from the Church, those types of spirituality were eradicated or minimized in England by the 17th century. Beginning with Missionary schools in Africa, followed by primary and secondary schools in every community of the nations, then universities across the continent, it was obvious that the colonial masters had good intentions by leaving behind desired instrumental institutions.
In addition, many Africans were sent abroad on scholarships to study in European higher education systems in sciences, engineering, humanities, social studies, business, etcetera. Sixty-plus years after independence, these scholarships persist, not only in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States, and Russia, but in other parts of the world. Besides, there are scholarships by non-governmental organizations and private corporations. There are also millions of private students of African origin who acquired, and continue to study abroad. However, the legion of African graduates from colonial days until today in domestic and international universities is yet to make a single dent in the monumental socio-economic problems in Africa. What went wrong?
If education attained in Africa is out-of-date as asserted by the Contributory Blogger, the quality of education obtained by Africans abroad would not be obsolete, since they receive the same lectures and share the same facilities as home students and international students. There must be other reasons modern education has not improved Africa’s predicaments. The reasons could be traced to some home-grown institutions other than education.
What are institutions? “Institutions are durable system of established social rules and conventions that structure social interactions.” (Hodgson, 2003). In the “Hidden Persuaders,” Hodgson analyzed hidden institutions that influence or deter individuals from absorbing new ideas. He applies the principles of “reconstructive upward causation” and “downward causation” in the natural and social sciences as the impetus for certain behaviors. The concept of “reconstructive upward causation” occurs when lower species attack and change the formation of a higher species. For example, in biology, the COVID-19 attacks humans and makes them sick by altering their cells. In computer science, a self-replicating code could shut down a computer network. Analogically, in social science, lower institutions such as existing local norms and customs, when encountered by a higher institution (education), could reconstruct the latter and render it locally ineffective.
Ceremonial Encapsulation: Bush (1987), citing earlier Veblen’s work, refers to the decimation of education and new ideas in a social structure as “ceremonial encapsulation.” They mentioned three types of ceremonialism, and here, we consider two types––past-binding and future-binding ceremonial encapsulations. The past-binding ceremonial encapsulation occurs when pre-existing traditional values and customs prevail over well-orchestrated educational systems or technological innovations. Since the local mode of valuation is ceremonial compared to the instrumental mode brought by education, there is a conflict, and the local mode of assessing situations prevails.
Past-binding ceremonial encapsulation is common in developing nations, especially if community elders and Chiefs believe new ideas would disrupt their existing pride and privilege. Potts (2007) and Dopfer (2012), along the lines of Schumpeterian meso economics, describe three types of rules (institutions). These are zero-order, first-order, and second-order rules. Zero-order rules are traditional values, norms, customs, and religion. The second-order rules are education, innovations, and R&D. Past-binding ceremonial encapsulation is when the zero-order rule engulfs the second-order rules, such as education.
The second potent type of ceremonialism that may render education, and other viable democratic institutions in sub-Saharan Africa redundant, is the future-binding ceremonial encapsulation. Future-binding ceremonial encapsulation is visible in modern higher education. Higher education all over the world now serves the industry’s needs. Instead of the dissemination of unconfined and expanded knowledge horizons, curricula are simply designed for employment in specific industries. Therefore, the pinnacle of success in higher education is to “get a job” and retain it. In past-binding encapsulation, existing institution influences and overshadows a new institution that crosses its path. In future-binding encapsulation, the characteristics and formations of a higher order institution (education), which societies rely on for social progress, changes and narrows its focus over time.
For instance, the economic problems in sub-Saharan Africa are institutions in the generic domain (see my paper titled, “Rational Choice or Institutional Rationality,” under published articles). However, a good number of the jobs are in the operational domain. Money and banking has been prominent in economics since the 1970s after the gold standard was abolished. Rewarding careers in economics, including nations’ economic ministers and advisers are those with backgrounds in the financial and capital markets, international finance, and central banking. Economics curricula in many departments have been streamlined to reflect these areas of job availability. Other fields in economics and related disciplines are completely suppressed.
For some time now, economic policies have been redesigned to manipulate variables in the aforementioned areas. These financial-based policies have plunged sub-Saharan African nations into piles of debt decade after decade. Are sub-Saharan African nations victim of future-binding ceremonial encapsulation in education? It is future-binding because students of economics, who societies hoped, would resolve underdevelopment issues, are scholarly constrained to think and pursue areas they consider rewarding, but irrelevant to actual economic development. This could also be true in other disciplines.
In summary, education is the process of transforming the rudimentary human to knowledgeable, methodological, and daring economic individual with the capacity to rationalize, and carry out complicated tasks. Historically, evidence suggests that education has drastically improved the social dynamics of many societies through new ideas, by organizing environments, providing an abundance of products, and reducing inequality. Nonetheless, education failed in all these aspects in sub-Saharan Africa. This article argues that the reasons could be linked to zero-order institutions (norms, customs and religion) that “reconstruct” upper-order institutions such as education and renders the latter redundant.
Past-binding ceremonial encapsulation is when pre-existing norms and values in a society strangulate new ideas brought about by education. Future-binding ceremonial encapsulation refers to the practice in higher education where curricula are narrowed and tailored for industry employment. Recipients of this type of education would be unable to resolve issues outside their areas of specialization and employment.
Solutions to Ceremonial Encapsulation in Education: Past-binding ceremonial encapsulation and reconstructive upward causation, as experienced in sub-Saharan Africa, would require explicit policies that could isolate, displace or neutralize social norms, customs, and religion from the secular sectors. Currently, they are blended, and traditional values, customs, and religions have the upper-hand. Sub-Saharan African nations have not considered placing traditional myths and related practices along with similar antiquities in the museums where they belong as carried out in other parts of the world. They inadvertently uphold these values and norms that “reconstruct” or “encapsulate” new ideas, thinking these poverty-inducing norms are their source of pride, but actually, they operate in a subconscious world.
Future-binding ceremonial encapsulation of education, which was in effect long before sub-Saharan African economies became independent, could be subjugated by curriculum review, especially in the social science disciplines. These disciplines are vulnerable to adulteration because they are scientifically impure. At the policy level, future-binding ceremonial encapsulation in economic development could be avoided by selecting a broad array of professionals from different fields of studies, including urban and regional planners, behavioral psychologists, economic historians, industry experts, and the like to be among a team of economic advisers to those in power, as opposed to only central bankers or financial analysts. Central banking should not be the main focus of national economic development. It ought to be a peripheral or an auxiliary policy applied periodically to “lubricate” an economy.
References
Bush, P. (1987). “The Theory of Institutional Change.” Journal of Economic Issues. Vol. 21, #2, pp.1072-1116.
Dopfer, K. (2012). “The Origins of Meso Economics: Schumpeter’s Legacy and Beyond.” Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Vol. 22, pp. 133-160
Potts, J. (2007). “Clarence Ayres Memorial Lecture (2007): Evolutionary Institutional Economics.” Journal of Economic Issues.” Vol. 41, #2, pp. 341-350.
Schumpeter, J. (1912/1934). The Theory of Economic Development. (Translated by Opie, R.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.