West Africa's Libertarian Moment.

• Author: Keenan, Jillian

IN DECEMBER 2017, after 10 years of delays, Senegalese president Macky Sall finally unveiled the brand-new Dakar airport before a crowd of supporters waving posters of his face. With a cost of roughly $600 million, and a footprint five times the size of the previous airport, nothing about the project was small--including its ambitions. The presidents of Gabon, The Gambia, and Guinea Bissau joined Sall for the launch, underlining the dream: Blaise Diagne International Airport, they hope, will become a regional transport hub that jump-starts local economies and symbolizes the bright West African future.

As it turns out, the airport inauguration did symbolize West Africa's shifting climate. Just not in the way any of the politicians planned.

A new airport needs a new airline, so the Senegalese government launched one of those, too. Air Senegal, the new state-owned national carrier, replaces its predecessor, Senegal Airlines (shut down in 2016), which itself replaced Air Senegal International (shut down in 2009).

Everyone hoped that Air Senegal could succeed where those before it failed. Aviation Minister Maimouna Ndoye Seck insisted a national airline was "a necessity." Government officials wanted the airline to claim the honor of operating the new airport's first commercial flight.

But it was not to be. Air Senegal couldn't get all of the necessary flight licenses together in time for the launch, so its inaugural flight was symbolic only. Instead, the honor of the new airport's first commercial flight went to Transair, a privately owned local carrier.

As the government airline watched from the ground, burdened by gravity and the weight of unfinished paperwork, the private airline took off.

ENTER AFRICAPITALISM

FOR DECADES, WEST Africa was inhospitable soil for the seeds of libertarianism. Leopold Senghor, the first president of Senegal, famously argued that socialism is an inherent fit for the region, saying: "Africa's social background of tribal community life not only makes socialism natural to Africa, but excludes the validity of the theory of class struggle." Along with Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Modibo Keita of Mali, Senghor designed a model of West African governance in which social development would be guided by a large public sector. Driven by this vision (and considerable financial support from the USSR), state participation in regional economies was taken to extremes: in Ghana, for example, Nkrumah nationalized all foreign companies, imposed price controls, collectivized agriculture, and established state-run industries in everything from cocoa processing to pharmaceuticals to metallurgy.

But George Ayittey, a Ghanaian economist who has argued that "Africa is poor because she is not free," says private business and free enterprise have deep--albeit misunderstood--cultural roots on the continent. Visit any market and it's plain to see: West Africa is an energetic hive of entrepreneurship.

"One can be communalistic or socialistic without being a socialist," Ayittey writes in Defeating Dictators: Fighting Tyranny in Africa and Around the World. "In peasant societies, the means of production are owned by the clan, [which] acts as a corporate body or unit. However, the clan is not the same as the tribal government; it is a private entity and, therefore, the means of production are privately owned."

He describes West Africa's history of socialist experiments as a rejection of colonialism: After all, Lenin said imperialist colonialism is the highest stage of capitalism, so it makes sense that the Lenin-reading survivors of imperialism would reject its alleged economic roots. But that rejection (and the pillaging legacy of colonialism) has resulted in a paradox: At the turn of the 21st century, Africa was the richest continent in the world in terms of natural resources, but the poorest in terms of socio-economic development and inclusive growth.

But after decades of heavy-handed government regulation, something new is happening across West Africa. Privatization, deregulation, and free market capitalism--along with growing skepticism of state control--are gaining momentum.

Ayittey cautions against characterizing the movement as a specifically "libertarian" one--"ideological tenets that are meaningful in the U.S. may not necessarily translate in Africa," he says, noting that, for example, the term conservative has different meanings in the United States and Russia. But he agrees that West Africa has a growing "disgust or revulsion against political leaders and governments." Nigerian entrepreneur Tony Elumelu calls it "Africapitalism"--the urge to combat economic and social challenges with entrepreneurship rather than charity or state intervention.

"It is a drastic departure from the old model of centralized governments managingbasic industries," Elumelu writes in his manifesto, Africapitalism: ThePath to Economic Prosperity and Social Wealth. "That is the heart of Africapitalism: long-term investment that creates economic prosperity (a commercial objective), as well as social wealth."

West Africa is certainly not a Utopia of unfettered socio-economic liberty. Anti-government theories are growing largely because the region's political leaders have crammed authoritarianism down citizens' throats for so long. In recent months, Cameroon's Francophone-dominated government has cracked down violently on Anglophone secessionists seeking independence. In Senegal, Franco-Beninese activist Kemi Seba was arrested and deported after he publicly set fire to a banknote to protest the colonial currency still being used by eight West African countries. In November 2017, the Mauritanian Cabinet approved an amendment to the penal code that would punish "defamation to God, the Prophet Muhammad, Holy Books, angels or prophets" by death. LGBT...