Culture, Politics, and Money Among the Yoruba

Akanmu Adebayo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351524193
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Monetary Policy
• Index: Economics

This masterful book investigates and analyzes several aspects of money among the Yoruba of Nigeria. Falola and Adebayo explore the origin, philosophy, uses, politics, and problems of acquiring and spending money in Yoruba culture. No prior book exists on this aspect of a major ethnic group in Africa with established connections with the black Diaspora in North America and the Caribbean. Conceived so that each chapter may be read individually, the volume is divided into three parts. Part 1, "Money and Its Uses, " focuses on the transition from barter to cowry currency, the idealistic and pragmatic views of money, the impact of monetization on social stratification, accumulation among members of the elite, and the development of savings, banking, and credit institutions. Part 2, "Money and Its Problems, " investigates the social, political, and cultural problems of money, including money-lending, theft, counterfeiting, and corruption. Part 3, "Money and Oil Economy, " assesses the impact of the oil industry on the Nigerian state and examines both the positive and negative effects of oil money on Yoruba economy, society, and spending. Concluding chapters detail efforts to arrest the crisis that followed the economic slump after the oil boom and led to the adoption of the Structural Adjustment Program, and also evaluate the effects of currency devaluation on personal and communal responsibilities and social payment. Culture, Politics, and Money Among the Yoruba is timely in view of ongoing political and economic changes in Africa. It will be of interest to economists, sociologists, and African studies specialists.

1

Introduction

Although the focus is on the Yoruba, one of the major ethnic groups in West Africa, the theme of this book is broadly conceived in African financial institutions. This is easily one of the fastest-growing fields in African economic history in recent decades. Money, monetary policies, the main currency types, and the socioeconomic and political impact of money on the major currency zones of North and West Africa are being studied; and so are the rotating savings and credit systems (ROSCAs), which serve principally as banking institutions in many parts of precolonial Africa.

Most of the issues addressed in the book are fresh while others break new ground in interpretation and definition in showing the connection between what, at present, exists as separate and disconnected themes in the study of African economic history. This study is also timely in view of the impact of recent and on-going political and economic changes in Africa, and in other parts of the world, on African studies as a discipline. The degree of African indebtedness, the political effects of socioeconomic reforms promoted by African states in response to suggestions by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the imperatives of loan repayment, and the new emphasis on rural development have had great implications for the direction of research in Africa. Moreover, political and economic changes in other parts of the world (such as the collapse of the socialist economic system, constitutional reforms in previously communist societies, and the escalation of ethnic nationalism in many countries) have forced scholars to question old notions and challenge old ideological and theoretical positions. This was partly in order to make sense of the current drastic changes and give direction to the formulation of future policies. The emergence and rapid expansion of feminist studies and the focus on the role of women in the development process also call for an urgent revision of debates thought to have been satisfactorily laid to rest. Indeed, the discussions here are as fresh and as problematic as any topic on African economic history.

This introductory chapter has three parts. The first is a discussion of the idea of money, particularly stressing the cultural and transformative functions. The second is a brief delineation of Yorubaland, the region that is the focus of the study. The third defines the economy of this region and evaluates the transition from “traditional” to “modern” financial systems.

Money

Money has been defined as “anything that can at all times, within a particular national system of markets, be used as a medium of exchange.”¹ James Tobin introduces his entry in the New Pelgrave Dictionary of Money and Finance with the following interesting statement:

Among the conventions of almost every human society of historical record has been the use of money, that is, particular commodities or tokens as measures of value and media of exchange in economic transactions. Somehow the members of a society agree on what will be acceptable tender in making payments and settling debts among themselves. General agreement to the convention, not the particular media agreed upon, is the source of money’s immense value to society.²

The importance of this statement lies in the assertion that every society has money and that somehow they all come to an agreement on the media or material that would be used for that purpose. Another important element in Tobin’s statement is that money serves a number of functions.

The classical view of money emphasizes this utilitarian value of money. Over the course of debate a consensus seems to emerge on the three functions of money: (1) a means of payment or medium of exchange; (2) a unit of account; and (3) a store of value. Money is able to accomplish these functions because, according to Georg Simmel, it is an objective reality with great transformative powers. Simmel describes money further in these terms:

If the economic value of objects is constituted by their mutual relationship of exchangeability, then money is the autonomous expression of this relationship. Money is the representative of abstract value…. In this manner, it becomes one of the links and conditions in the series in which it is, at the same time, contrasted: its value becomes dependent upon supply and demand; its costs of production exert an influence, however slight, upon its value…. Money is measured by the goods against which it is exchanged and also by money itself.³

He also thinks money transforms (even reduces) relationships. According to him,

Money is concerned only with what is common to all: it asks for the exchange value, it reduces all quality and individuality to the question: How much?⁴

Going through the works of the “German school” represented by Simmel, Marx, and Weber, one is likely to conclude, as has Viviana Zelizer, that the classical interpretation would function only in a thoroughgoing market economy. Zelizer provides the following succinct summary of the classical interpretation:

i. The functions and characteristics of money are defined strictly in economic terms. [Money is assumed as] a qualityless, absolutely homogeneous, infinitely divisible, liquid object.

ii. All monies are the same in modern society. Differences can exist in the quantity of money but not in its meaning. Thus, there is only one kind of money—market money.

iii. A sharp dichotomy is established between money and nonpecuniary values…. Money is qualitatively neutral; personal, social and sacred values are qualitatively distinct, unexchangeable, and indivisible.

iv. Monetary concerns are seen as constantly enlarging, quantifying, and often corrupting all areas of life. As an abstract medium of exchange, money has not only the freedom but also the power to draw an increasing number of goods and services into a web of the market. Money is thus the vehicle for an inevitable commodification of society.

v. The power of money to transform nonpecuniary values is unquestioned, while the reciprocal transformation of money by values or social relations is seldom conceptualized or else explicitly rejected.⁵

Neoclassical theories, which include monetarism, general equilibrium theory, rational expectation theory, and neoclassical Keynesianism, all agree with many of the positions above but emphasize the function of money as a numeraire. That is, money is a yardstick “upon which to measure the relative prices (and therefore scarcities) of the various goods that are produced.”⁶ Keynes especially holds money as the means of contractual settlement and a store of value. As a store of value, money has the following two properties: “i) the elasticity of production is zero or negligible, and ii) the elasticity of substitution is zero or negligible.”⁷

The present study benefits only to a small extent from these classical and neoclassical theories. For one thing, these theories emphasize the modern market economies and assume that present and future trends are statistically known or predictable. African economies in the past were not mathematically calculable, neither are they predictable now because of the paucity of statistical evidence and data. This study could only be qualitative rather than quantitative. For another thing, in this study we are interested in money as a cultural phenomenon. In other words, money for us in this study is not an abstraction or an objective reality. It is an economic and cultural product and, at the same time, it has transformative powers on the economy and the culture that have produced it. This is why we have chosen to derive our conceptual framework from researches in the economic history of West Africa, and situate our analysis in the general framework of economic history.

Whereas in Western societies economic research dominates the literature on currencies and monetary policies, in Africa until recently the field was virtually the monopoly of anthropologists. This arose partly from the fact that Western or Western-trained scholars have tended to regard African precolonial currencies as “primitive” and left the field to disciplines such as anthropology and ethnology, which study the socalled primitive cultures. Although some progress occurred in the study of African financial institutions, recent anthropological researches have not completely abandoned this notion that Africa’s currencies were primitive. In her introduction to the volume on money and monetary policies in West and Equatorial Africa, Jane Guyer compares African currencies to those of Europe and the West. She states that Africa’s monies have developed “in a continuous though shifting relationship” to the currencies of Europe. She also boldly states that these currencies “have never been ‘primitive’ in the absolute sense.” Nevertheless, she admits that African currencies “have always been—by various dynamics—‘primitive’ or ‘special purpose’ relative to the capacities of their contemporary European counterparts.”⁸ “Primitive money,” it should be understood, “consists of a range of recognized objects generally with no other use, whose relative natural scarcity ensures a stable money stock.”⁹ Seen this way, it is possible to agree with Jane Guyer that Yoruba (and, indeed, Africa’s) precolonial currencies were “primitive.” They were not primitive, however, if we go by Thomas Crump’s further clarification that primitive money is found in societies “where there is no market in land or labor, where no goods are produced for exchange, and [where the uses of money] are generally non-commercial.”¹⁰ Indeed, as will be shown in this study, the contrary was the case in Yorubaland.

Despite this humble beginning, the literature on the development of African financial systems has been expanding. This growth arose initially from the effort to explain the “currency revolution” that resulted from colonialism.¹¹ More recently, however, the expansion in the literature owes to the complementary factors of the triumph of the capitalists system in the West and in many parts of Asia, and the collapse of the economies of several African countries. Economic historians are paying closer attention to issues of monetization, capitalization, credit, and finance. Under close scrutiny are matters of the coexistence, interaction, and transformation of informal and formal (or traditional and modern) financial institutions. Given the degree of indebtedness on the continent, scholars seem to suggest that the hope for Africa’s development is in the complete transformation of its financial systems.

One area that has received attention in the literature is the resilience of preindustrial financial institutions in developing nations. Of note is the discussion on the ROSCAs. Anthropological interest in these associations began in the middle of this century when Bascom published his findings on the Yoruba.¹² Indeed esusu, the Yoruba name for these associations and the name used in Bascom’s article, dominated the literature until Clifford Geertz coined the phrase “rotating credit association” in an article published in 1962.¹³ Geertz was pessimistic about the future of ROSCAs. Considering them as the “middle rung” of the development process, Geertz believed that these associations would be replaced by modern credit institutions. This article was followed immediately by Shirley Ardener’s comparative study published in 1964.¹⁴ Ardener documents the existence of ROSCAs in many societies around the world. She disagrees with Geertz’s view of the future of ROSCAs. She finds that instead of declining these associations were actually expanding in significance “in reaction to the insecurity of the banking system” and were disrupting the normal operation of the modern banks.¹⁵

These early studies fostered several others, and the field soon fascinated development economists who have attempted to evaluate the profitability of these associations’ savings and lending practices.¹⁶ Nevertheless, anthropologists have continued to work on ROSCAs, the most recent being the volume edited by Shirley Ardener and Sandra Burman.¹⁷ Contributors to this volume present several case studies demonstrating the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• Currency Conversion Table
• 1. Introduction
• Part 1: Money and Its Uses
• Part 2: Money and Its Problems
• Part 3: Money and Oil Economy
• Bibliography
• Index