Monday 5 May 2014

Microcredit - Africa Works, looking at the "lens" Marxist by Imani Turner


In 2008, The Benetton Group launched a campaign on “Microcredit- Africa works”. The advertising campaign was chosen to show the new face of Africa and not the one that is portrayed on TV, by companies to send money to help the less fortunate. The Benetton Group are supporting Africa Works with their goals on helping the poor. The campaign is to show awareness of the change in the country's economic development. They worked with different people who had different trades . In this campaign they used a fisherman, decorator, musician, jewellery-maker, farmer, tailor, two textile sellers and a boxer. “"We chose to support and promote this important project because, unlike traditional acts of solidarity it offers tangible support to small local entrepreneurs through the efficient use of microcredit” (Africa works press release, 2008).

I chose to look at the “lens” Marxist. I thought this would relate to this campaign to show the difference in the working class and the capitalist class.  How a working class can change themselves. In Marxist theory the more capital they have to put in the business the more they can gain profit or capital.Marxism holds that workers in capitalist nations are alienated because they have no claim to ownership of the products they make.

“Poverty is a persistent problem in developing countries. Caught within vicious circles of various kinds, the poor continue to remain poor primarily because they are poor. One of these vicious circles is created due to the lack of financial resources to generate livelihoods and income creating a wheel of low incomes, lack of livelihoods and low resources” ( Burra, N. , Deshmukh, R. , Murthy, R. 2005)

Microcredit was formed by Muhammad Yunus. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. Microcredit supply of loans, savings, insurance and other basic financial services to low-income households and microenterprises, often in emerging economies, where people do not normally have access to normal bank loans. This helps people better their working lives . Microcredit helps the poorest to escape poverty through economic development. A person who has a trade and could benefit with new equipment to better their business , they would be able to apply for a loan to buy the item e.g. a tailor sewing freehand could buy a sewing machine to make their productions faster. It does not demand collateral but relies on the formation of borrowing and repaying back slowly. Commodity culture where the workers can gain all the tools they need for their trade that will help their development of the business. The idea is to see the end of global poverty. A world where we are not reliable on hand-outs and can fend for ourselves. “in recent years, microcredit or in its wider dimension microfinance has become a much favoured policy intervention for poverty alleviation in the developing countries especially the least developed countries” (Wohlmuth, 2005, P228). We have to realize that they live and work in the informal economy. Individuals are selling their labour in the market and strive to smooth consumption over the life-cycle.

This helps the community transform, empower and sustain their lives. By giving a person a loan, they can employ other people from the area to work for them creating sustainable community-based businesses and this results in growth in the economy.  by helping the lower class they can become entrepreneur and work freely and gain from their own profits than if the was working in a corporation that gained from the catabolism. The profits from these businesses enable them to work themselves and their families out of poverty. “To gain an edge in the profit-stakes the capitalist must either work the workers harder (increase the working day) lower their wages or introduce more machinery. In the end the industrial capitalist likes to introduce machinery as it is more efficient and can qualitatively increase production.”( Hardy,2013, Chapter 12). This would be the situation if they worked for a company and the company benefited on the increased machinery and the workers would be having to work twice as hard and fast but with the same little pay. More profit and power for the company but the same wage for the lower class. It aims to help women not to rely on men to have the money to support the family. It helps them gain education, health and wealth in order to be their own person and make it more diverse. There has been a rise in the number of business run by women since this scheme was introduced. There have been reports that women are more reliable than men to pay back these loans. It empowers women by giving them confidence by expanding their economic situations.

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By looking at the images of this campaign you are able to see the people are proud at what they are doing, they have the power to control their lives. They are not reeling on hand-outs and are trying to better themselves and others around.

Although not everyone is benefiting microcredit like the campaign suggests. There has been a global criticism of this form of credit. According to a recent article , it has pushed people further into debt buy not being able to pay back their loans if their business fails. “Concerned investors are rapidly leaving the bloated microcredit sector, with many users arguing that it is on the verge of a self-orchestrated collapse.” ( Guardian, 2013). Unemployment in the country is higher now  than before the microfinance campaign came into action. The power has been taken away from them and back into the hands of the higher cooperation’s.  “Only now are people realizing that the real aim of the private banks and microcredit institutions in South Africa – exactly as in the case of Wall Street's infamous sub-prime lenders – was not to help their poor clients, but to extract as much value from them in the shortest time possible before leaving the sector and moving on to other fields of business.”( Guardian, 2013). The people fell into False consciousness that they would have a better life if they signed up to the loans and would be able to get themselves out of poverty. There has been a few companies who have taken advantage on the success on this scheme by some charging 97% repayment, seeing this as a money making strategy than helping the poor. This is feeding on peoples vulnerability. There was no assessments to see if the people they was lending to was able to sustain their business and be able to repay their loans back.

When I think about the microcredit for Africa, I think about the modern day loans company’s we see on the TV everyday e.g. Wonga, quick quid and cash lady are a few.  “The crusade against Wonga is in danger of resurrecting the stereotype of the avaricious Jewish moneylender” (telegraph, 2013)

I recently watched a documentary on BBC One called “Reggie Yates's Extreme South Africa” . this made me think about this campaign. But instead of the program focusing on the black south Africans being poor like you would expect and you have been brought up seeing on TV constantly , it actually showed how the country has changed and the lower class was the white south Africans. They  have to live in poverty, fend for themselves, there is no help from the government and if a job opportunity came up where a white and a black person with equal education applied for the job, there is a new law that the black person will be offered first. “white youth charities claim that up to 400,000 of them now live below the poverty line, with many shacked up in small, makeshift camps, although these figures remain hotly disputed”. (BBC, 2014)

In conclusion I find that the power is with whoever is chasing after the money. Who wants to fight for it more , where this could be the entrepreneur or the organisation exploiting people.  There will always be poverty in the world, we will not be able to fix the issue but we can decrease it slowly. The reason there will be poverty is there are places that will not be able to get this scheme in place as the capitalist is greater and makes it harder for the working class in order ti fulfil demands for cheaper products from western countries e.g. china & Bangladesh using child labour and sweat factory’s.
                                   
 
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