Castel-Branco was opening a two day IESE international conference on “Mozambique: Accumulation and Transformation in a Context of International Crisis”. Apart from the 66 academic papers that are being presented, the Conference provides an opportunity “to celebrate the work and thought” of Ruth First, and of the recently deceased development economist Alice Amsden, who was to have attended the gathering.
Ruth First, Castel-Branco said, “dedicated her life not only to fighting against apartheid, injustice and discrimination, but also to understanding what to do and how to do it, which required a rigorous understanding of capitalism and of its historical specificities in our region”.
“For her, a political programme was not a box full of slogans”, he added. “For her, a programme of political transformation came from rigorous social research into the contradictions and struggles within society – such research would reveal both the questions to be asked, and the methods for answering them”.
“She often asked”, Castel-Branco recalled, “of what value are decisions dressed in the nicest words and intentions when we are unable, or do not want, to implement them, or when they cannot be implemented?”
“To understand what to do, Ruth wanted first to understand what existed, how things were functioning and were related, and why they functioned and related in this way”, he continued. “In her classes, she insisted that the point of research is to understand what exists, not to indicate what is missing”.
Ruth would not start with the answers, but with the questions, starting from the principle that “we should research what we do not know, not what we already know. She did not start with the solution – the strategy, or the opinion that everyone has – but with the question: what is happening, what is the problem we want to solve, what is the specific political process through which this problem can be solved. Research what we do not know, instead of covering over ignorance with opinions”.
Nor did Ruth First separate economics from politics – “she tried to understand the specific economic and political basis for real political choices, possibilities and struggle”, said Castel-Branco.
As for Alice Amsden, winner of the 2002 Wassil Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought, her work, Castel-Branco said, “illustrated the importance of an active State in promoting industrialization, a perspective that was fundamental in the late 20th century for offering alternatives to the domination of neo-liberalism”.
“Alice was concerned with the need to understand the functioning of the capitalist economy and of its transformation and the role of the state in this process”, he added. “She demystified the fantasies of perfect markets and perfect competition”.
The IESE conference brings a wide range of academics from across the world, speaking on matters ranging from monetary policy, to the agrarian question in Mozambique, to issues of food security, poverty and social protection.
Post published in: Africa News