Living Well In A Dump With Oil - An Amoralist's Happy Life In Africa

Friedland Bingham was a child of privilege and some honor. His ancestors had been founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and had gone on to establish the New Haven Plantations and Yale University, and his father, known as a man of Constitutional principle, a historian, and a philosopher had been Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

 

He wrote in his memoir, A Man of Justice, that his juridical inspiration came from Epictetus and the Stoics, men who subscribed to no religious or moral principle, but adhered to a more universal philosophy of acceptance. Such amoral wisdom of course did not begin with Epictetus but in Mohenjo-Daro, the first settlement of the Aryans who brought with them a fundamental distrust of destiny's capriciousness and set down the first notions of an evolutionary religion, Hinduism. 

The Buddha followed the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads and offered that 'there is no change but change', the philosophy that there can be no absolutes in a randomly ordered, permanently shifting world. 

Justice Bingham, guided by this philosophy was never a partisan jurist, never tempted by the rightness of conservatism or liberalism, only the fundamental meaning of the words of Jefferson and his colleagues. 

 

And so it was that Bingham's son, Friedland, followed in the stoic footsteps of his father - not in the law, but in economics.  The law of supply and demand was a neutral principle which guided all life, whether in actual buying and selling or in contractual matters as well.  Good marriages were those in which the partners were equally balanced - individual price points established, and behavior following accordingly. 

Bingham took his post-graduate academic credentials to international development - the process of assisting the poor countries of Africa to progress and ultimately join the commonwealth of developed nations. 

After a very short time, he realized that those who thought that such development was possible were just whistlin' Dixie, and that the big men of Africa had no interest whatsoever in changing their tune.  They were becoming impossibly wealthy thanks to their control over rare earth metals, gas, and oil so in demand in the West; and thanks also to the millions of dollars in bi-lateral and multi-lateral financial and economic assistance shifted to off-shore bank accounts.  The World Bank, African Development Bank, USAID, and every European donor saw their generous soft loans and grants disappear like wisps of smoke. 

From the very beginning of his professional career in Africa, Friedland had no other interest than the challenge of adapting pure economics to immature markets.   If a country subscribed to the principles of the Scottish Enlightenment and the economic wisdom of Adam Smith and instituted appropriate reforms, so much the better; but his job was simply to lay out the architecture for such reform, provide a manual for construction, and leave the rest to the revolving wheels of history. 

So, in country after country, he designed a suitable economic plan and left the country satisfied that he had done what his patrons expected of him and had met his own personal challenge.  While many of his colleagues smitten by the presumed nature of international 'development' - doing good - and persisting in that febrile idealism by renegotiating loans, and trying 'more culturally appropriate' and congenial approaches to development, Friedland was under no such illusions. He understood that Africa had after over sixty years of independence, become shamelessly poor, misgoverned, and as ruled by tribalism, animism, totemism and bald-faced nepotism as ever before. 

As such, there was no other alternative than to do the prescribed dance of Siva, recreating the universe after destroying it in a perpetual, amoral, inevitable, and unavoidable cycle.  His economic charting of the future was but the first arpeggio of the dance, his architectural renderings, the plies and pas-de-deux, a graceful, beautiful expression of intellect and design. What came of it meant absolutely nothing. 

Given such a philosophy, it was easy for Friedland to live the good life in Africa, which despite its political miasma, offered five-star hotels, excellent cuisine, and marvelous views.  Again, unlike many of his development colleagues who felt that such a sybaritic life was shameful given the poverty and suffering of the people around them, Friedland had no such qualms.  Africa was a miserable mess, unlikely to achieve European standards, and expressing grief over a situation caused by a very definable and remediable set of socio-cultural and political factors, was silly, vain, and purposeless. 

So Friedland always took the executive suites at the modern hotels presidents built to show Western visitors their forward-looking vision of a top-of-the-line Africa; always ate at the French restaurants supported by presidents' men and their European advisors; and squired the most beautiful Fulani, mulatto women.  

The 'Ile de France' was one such restaurant in an African capital.  Run by a Parisian chef who had been given a Michelin star for his boutique marvel in the 7th arrondissement and who had been offered ten times his French salary and given unlimited import privileges by the President, the restaurant was the equal of any in Paris or Lyon.  There were always live lobsters and Belon oysters, the finest foie gras, and of course inimitable Burgundy and Bordeaux wines - all affordable on Friedland's all-expenses-paid account. 

 

This particular country had all it takes for an accumulation of wealth at the top - vast reserves of oil and underground fields of scandium and lanthanum so extensive they could power half the smart phones and computers in the world.  European countries would give anything to get their hands on these metals, and did so.  They looked the other way as millions of unaccountable monies flowed into the personal treasury of the President while private companies hired by them kicked back millions more. 

So the cost of construction of the Hotel Independence and the fluid transfers of funds and import access for the Ile de France were but a drop in the bucket.  The Oak Bar at the hotel was not only the favored watering hole for expatriates but the place to see and be seen by the local glitterati. 

'An apple doesn't fall far from the tree', said Friedland's father to his son over prime rib and martinis at his own see-and-be-seen Washington steakhouse, very appreciative of the young man's approach to economics and life.  It was indeed possible, both men knew and shared, to combine serious intellectual enterprise and epicureanism - a sojourn in a shithole need not be that bad - and with a conscience free of consequence like they both had, life could be a wonder.