Honoring George Ayittey: Champion of African Freedom, Markets, and Truth

[Editorial Note: This article was originally published on the Mises Wire, and we extend our gratitude to them for agreeing to feature it.]

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I was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. George B.N. Ayittey—a bold scholar, fearless truth-teller, and tireless champion of Africa’s freedom, prosperity, and dignity. May his soul rest in peace.

Though I never had the privilege of meeting him personally and have only recently begun delving into his work, it is clear that Professor Ayittey is one of Africa’s greatest economists. In a world dominated by statist ideologies, his unwavering commitment to free-market economics, grounded in Africa’s own heritage, marks him as an honest intellectual and a principled voice for liberty.

Born in Ghana in 1945 and passing in January 2022 in the United States—his home for much of his life—Dr. Ayittey held degrees from the University of Ghana (B.Sc. in Economics), the University of Western Ontario (M.A.), and the University of Manitoba (Ph.D.). He served as a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University, a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, and an associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He also founded the Free Africa Foundation in 1993 to promote economic reform and civil liberty across the continent.

Ayittey authored numerous books, articles, and essays that appeared in leading outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He made regular media appearances and was invited to testify before U.S. congressional committees—an indication of his influence and stature.

Among his many important works, Indigenous African Institutions (1991; 2nd ed., 2006) stands out as his magnum opus. It dismantles the widespread myth that free markets, enterprise, and trade are Western imports. Ayittey showed that these were historically embedded in Africa’s economic traditions—long before colonialism. His scholarship revealed that the truly foreign impositions were the statist and socialist systems introduced during the colonial and postcolonial periods.

Ayittey’s Africa Betrayed (1992), winner of the Mencken Award, Africa in Chaos (1998), Africa Unchained (2006), and Defeating Dictators (2011), form a powerful intellectual arsenal against authoritarianism and centralized economic management. His work consistently emphasizes that Africa’s future depends not on mimicking alien ideologies—whether Western socialism or Eastern authoritarianism—but on reviving and building upon Africa’s native systems of free enterprise and decentralized governance.

In Africa Unchained, Ayittey wrote:

There is nothing wrong with the traditional economic system of free markets, free enterprise, and free trade. All the leadership had to do after independence was to build on it. Only Botswana did this. But the vast majority of African leaders—an assortment of black neocolonialists, Swiss-bank socialists, quack revolutionaries, and crocodile liberators—instead went abroad and copied all sorts of alien practices to impose on their people.

In another scathing piece, How Socialism Destroyed Africa, Ayittey detailed the devastation wrought by statist regimes:

Equating capitalism with colonialism, Africa’s nationalist leaders rejected it and adopted socialism in the 1960s. Foreign companies were nationalized, a string of state-owned enterprises were established and a plethora of state controls on rent, prices, imports, and foreign exchange were imposed… But nowhere in Africa was the socialist experiment successful.

George Ayittey was more than a scholar. He was a moral voice—unyielding in his critique of dictatorship, statism, and the betrayal of Africans by their own leaders. He inspired generations with his intellectual courage and refusal to conform to the dominant ideological orthodoxy.

Africa has lost a great mind, but Ayittey’s legacy will continue to echo. His life’s work remains a powerful foundation for those of us who seek to build a free, just, and prosperous Africa rooted in its own traditions of free markets and voluntary exchange.

Thank you, Professor Ayittey. Your scholarship is pioneering and enlightening. May future generations walk the path of truth you so courageously cleared.