The New Black Economic Development Strategy

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century black economic development strategies have been hampered by a failure to address the basic liberatory impulse of the black community. By that I mean there has been a disjunction between the essential developmental seeds of the community, many of which can be spelled out in fairly precise terms, and the programs and achievements of economic development strategists. This problem is demonstrated in the longstanding wretched conditions faced by the majority of black people 1 and in the abundance of marginal programs, projects and institutions that serve more to mollify than to develop. The absence of a truly liberatory strategy is obscured in part by the general cacophony about alternatives and the pervasive opportunism and malaise among would-be strategists and doers.Though these observations are not seriously challenged by well-meaning members of the black community, wide diversity does exist as to the actual character of black oppression and on the question of how to ameliorate the unsatisfactory circumstances faced by black people. Indeed, it is necessary to add that even the use of the term "oppression" to describe the black condition is not accepted uniformly.Many of the problems faced by blacks are reflections of the generalized economic difficulties that beset the world community. Others are related more particularly to the structural crisis of the capitalist system. Yet, at a more fundamental level, we might say that black oppression is compounded by the fact that blacks as a group have become increasingly obsolete to the American economy. This last observation is of critical importance because blacks have not developed a strategy, not even a short-term strategy, that moves from this assumption and attempts to address the profound structural problems confronting black people. Thus, I would contend that at the base of all the black community's difficulties lies the problem of economic development strategy.