Fonctionnaires et hommes d’affaires au Mali

Abstract

Civil servants and businessmen in Mali. Mali is a poor and quite underdeveloped country. It has known nevertheless a very dynamic trading tradition. Today we should distinguish three categories of traders - those of traditional products like cola and traditional practices : - the sons of the latter who, having undergone a modern training abroad, prefer to stick to business and not become civil servants ; - former civil servants who have gone into business : «the new businessmen». Relations between these and the state are of utmost importance. First the private sector has «ruined» successively the «public» sector and so has replaced it. But they have utilized their relations with the state to accumulate. Therefore there is just one class with two components, a bureaucratic and a trading one. Trade is a more successful venture than industry but the trends of accumulation and die dynamism of trade and exchange does not allow us to speak of a «backward», Le. non acumuladve, economy. The cultural background and ethos of the merchant community explains this specific evolution : it is a «rational» one.