[Short thread] In 1980, the publication of “Monnaie, servitude et liberté. La répression monétaire de l’Afrique” (“Money, servitude and freedom. The monetary repression of Africa”) by Cameroonian economist Joseph Tchundjang Pouemi, caused a stir among supporters of the CFA franc. 
Taking everyone by surprise, Pouemi put forward the iconoclastic argument that Africa’s economic problems, its "underdevelopment", had primarily a monetary origin.
He argued that without monetary sovereignty no state can implement economic policies that allow for the accumulation of capital and the full employment of resources and labour, for the fact that money, in the sense of credit created by the banking system, precedes production.
In a capitalist system, in order to put a production process in motion, entrepreneurs must have access to loans in the form of credit in order to, for example, buy raw materials and pay wages. Without money creation, capital accumulation is unthinkable.
This thesis, which forms the basis of the "monetary theory of production", had already been advanced by leading economists such as Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter.
Joseph Tchundjang Pouemi took it up once again, visually describing money as an "empty good" which is then "filled" by production.
Therefore, if we want to stimulate the growth of production and reduce the underemployment of the workforce, it is essential to have a functioning monetary and financial system that distributes credit to productive sectors and economic projects.
According to Joseph Tchundjang Pouemi, monetary dependence is the foundation of all other forms of dependence. Hence his demand for monetary liberation for the benefit of the peoples of the continent.
"Africa will be made through the currency or it will not be made": these are the words that conclude Pouemi’s masterpiece.
[This is an excerpt from the fantastic book “L’arme invisible de la Françafrique: Une histoire du franc CFA”, by @fpigeaud and @nssylla , which we will published next year in English by @PlutoPress. Stay tuned!] [End of thread]
