We Have Always Been CrowdFunding, we just never called it that

A while back, in one of those debates, we love to have with friends whether political or economic I made a remark to a friend that put him in stitches for days. The debate was about an economic model suitable for an emerging economy like South Africa. What was so funny to my friend was the remark I made that we need to learn from Zulu economics in creating a new modern economy for South Africa. I know, perhaps you would have joined him too, Zulu economics Mngoma, what the heck?

It funny to us to think of African pre-colonisation societies with economies, let alone ones we can learn from.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia defines economies thus:

There are a variety of modern definitions of economics. Some of the differences may reflect evolving views of the subject or different views among economists.^[14] Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1776) defined what was then called political economy as “an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations”, in particular as:

a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator [with the twofold objectives of providing] a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people … [and] to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue for the public services.^[15]

 

From this definition one can therefore deduce that even Bantu people had economies  before colonization.  However what I was referring to though was the practice of Ama-Zulu- upon marriage, a young couple would be given free land, a bull and a cow and the community would come together to help build a house, a hut obviously. From the start the young family is expected to begin making meaningful contribution to the life of the society and the society in turn helped the young family meet it’s needs. I suspect the Zulu Kingdom was not merely about fighting wars, the European popular narrative, but that of a successful kingdom with an economy to rival any of it’s kind. I am sure other African nations also had their ways of managing their economies. So imagine an economic model where the state, when you finish your studies or marry, giving you start up capital and free housing, society coming together to help you out.

Wow – no more jobs, (I definitely believe that one day in the future employment will be a thing of the past, like those huge first mobile phones that people carried around like boxes before cellphones, remember them. I believe in the future people will be value creators not job seekers, but then this is a topic for another time.)

Central to this economic construct were community members coming together to support each other. In modern South Africa this concept has evolved to be known as stokvel, community members coming together to fund someone else achieve a certain goal. I propose that crowdfunding is an extension of this concept into the world wide web.

As a budding entrepreneur myself I can attest to the frustration and heart ache of having a killer business plan only to be told by some bank personnel that it is not good enough and therefore they will not fund it. (if they don’t actually steal the idea later, you might shake your head, it’s more common than you think.). That then becomes the end of a promising business idea and the death of someone’s dreams. Well, no longer, thanks to technology, particularly the internet, now you don’t really need the bank personnel, you just need a crowdfunding platform like the GoodStarter.co.za. Now, the market decides, if the idea is great, people will fund it and help you bring it into the market. This method has been very successfully used internationally, please google it. I once read that if there is one thing any Caesar in the Roman empire understood better than anyone, was the power of the crowd, hence the gladiator games that used to go on and on sometimes for days on end. “Win the crowd, rule the empire“. I even venture to suggest that all advertising is based on this idea as well.

Perhaps in a classic story of all developing economies, raw material taken to developed countries and coming back as finished products, the stokvel or ‘ukubeka isandla’ (giving a hand) has come back as crowdfunding, yay! Ten years from now someone might again laugh themselves to stitches when you tell them that crowdfunding is an old African custom, hew!

Visit http://www.GoodStarter.co.za – and browse our projects. Spread the good news, there is a new way of raising start up capital. That business can be started, that film or documentary can be made, that CD can be recorded, that book in you published, with crowdfunding, opportunities are endless and there is so much more we can do. If it is to be, then it is up to you.