The African Continental Free Trade Area

Franklin Obeng‐Odoom

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2020, vol. 79, issue 1, 167-197

Abstract: Monopolies continue to dominate world trade by controlling global production and distribution chains. Neither free trade nor fair trade has transformed this system; the recent rise in nativism and pseudo‐protectionism has not, and cannot, address these problems either. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the largest free trade area in the world, promises to be different. AfCFTA rejects classical, neoclassical, and Marxist theories of trade, appealing, instead, to non‐aligned pan‐Africanism. It advocates continental free trade as a way to overcome the lingering effects of slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism. However, its exclusive focus on continental Africa, its disinterest in systemic redistribution, and encouragement of the private appropriation of socially created land rents prevents AfCFTA from achieving its goals. In fact, AfCFTA might actually foster inequality—progress alongside of poverty—and in so doing, undermine the very essence of this trade regime. What Henry George (1886) called “true free trade,” a theory based on making land common by socializing land rent, offers a more promising and powerful model through which to achieve the pan‐African agenda. Indeed, only true free trade can definitively decolonize global trade.

Date: 2020
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