Draft of book review for American Historical Review: Josephine F. Milburn. British Business and Ghanaian Independence. Hanover, N.H. : University Press of New England, for the University of Rhode Island. 1977 Pp. ix, 156

Seidman, Ann

English

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Boston UniversityOpenBU http://open.bu.eduSeidman Research Papers Book reviewsBook review: British business andGhanaian independencehttps://hdl.handle.net/2144/20732Boston University1-\-v !~ l C.CWI ~ )hi--.1 C;u.JL ~ ~dA Ct 11\C\. lJ ' rs c; ( Ol.vt h -VIL ( f-ct (J A book review: B 18--0 vv'l ~ \<;Ht • _:r 11 <L 4-1 j l/ < British Business anrl Ghanaian Independence, by Josephine F. Milburn (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1977), 156 pp. Ghana'.s development perspectives were widely accalimed when it became the first subSaharan nation to attain political independence after World War II. Yet today its economy is characterized by stagnatiorir ~ · Mi ghcune· ployment, a swellen international debt, skyrocketing inflation, and the continuinR enrichment of a narrow class of business managers and top goe ment personnel in the midst of mass impoverishment of the peasantry and working people. One might, therefore, look forward with anticipation t o reading Josephine Milburn's book, British Busin.~ss_and Ghanaian I~~._e~n~ dence, in hopes of discovering at least some elements of an explanation 1 this sad outcome. · ~ilburn declares at the outset that she seeks to assess the relatiorno between business firms and the colonial and post-colonial governments to evaluate the "generally populat views about business" ranging from those of the British administrators to those{ which ' she'· atttibutes·,to rLenin <Jn r; Nikrumah ~ : of the •conspiratorial nature of business.' Her evidence, muc '' it from government and company documents, relates primarily to the marke i .. activities of the three big cocoa firms, the United Africa Company, John and Cadbury, during the 1937-1957 period. She ~ives only a superficial ~. of the post-independence relations of business and government. She concl The firms' efforts were primarily directed toward real17..ation of profits from the sale of cocoa on the world market and from the selling of goods on the Coast •••• But foreign investment in cocoa has contributed to development of 2 central monetary market in West Africa anrt has brought about the conditions end motivation necessary for economic and national development. (p. 116) The scope of her analysis, as well as her conclusion, is, however, se :r: limited by her narrow analytical perspective. She describes in great rle t < the.sometimes cooperating, sometimes conflictln,r efforts of the colonial -2-and administrato:r:s to establish vi able, on-~oing cocoa marketing structu T· especially during the turbulent times of the cocoa - holdup ; and the post- 1' . · indepe~dence struggles. But she obscures the reality that, whatever t h e : disagreement over details, the colonial firms and administrators did w o~ . togeb!ier over the years to forge an institutional framework which shackJ the Ghanaian peasantry and economy to production of ever-increasing am m; of cocoa beans for the firms' profitable manufacture and sale ifi the. c or of their global operations. Milburn's book does not really explore the wealth of evidence as t o way this initiated the process of 'development of underdevelopment' wh i c s at the root of Ghana's current predicament. The issue is not, as she s t -; , whether the companies 'conspired' with the government. Rather it is tr inherited institutional structure, shaped unrier the protection of the C • · l umbrella, ~enabled ; . a handful of '; oligopolistic firms to accumulate and r e ... '·· capital in the extraction of raw materials and sale of manufactured goo;: :,he particular conditions of the then-Gold Coast. The mass of the African try was alternatively enticed and coerced by the imposition of the money e c , t o provirte the essential cheap labor. Tens of thowands worked as sharec r • . ' investing their time and muscle in planting' and harvesting cocoa from 1·: he companies, throµgh their control of the marketing process, reaped the v Only a limited class -- those who accumulated capital by hiring labor a > vesting in specuali.tive trade and real estate or who became managers a n• ·: r-visors in the comuanies or government posts -- participated in the benc ·f the resulting distorted idevelopment'. These, too, were the ~in benef es of. the Africanization programs which Milbnrn praises as company contrH .. In . short# ... the -tdetailed government and company documents which Milbt: t e ~ at length may interest those concerned with minutiae of company-colonia They do not ~ppearr~ to-!' support · her unduly optimistic . -consh1~ions~ ·': Ihstc a:nalysis tends to obscure the underlying institutionalization process t · :.es at the root of the problems that plague Ghana to this day. ~"t PtY\ V' >l(·~ lA. 

Book review: British business and Ghanaian independence

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Book review: British business and Ghanaian independence

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