After the Second World War, Guinea began to export . In the hands of French and American capitalists, the bauxite became aluminum. In the métropoles,… - Walter Rodney

Europeans were anxious to acquire gold in Africa because there was a pressing need for gold coin within the growing capitalist money economy.

It is the practice of monopoly concerns to move into new fields which supplement or even replace their old business. That is necessary to avoid their entire capital from being tied up in products that go out of fashion.

If one accepts that the government is always the servant of a particular class, it is perfectly understandable that the colonial governments should have been in collusion with capitalists to siphon off surplus from Africa to Europe. But even if one does not start from that (Marxist) premise, it would be impossible to ignore the evidence of how the colonial administrators worked as committees on behalf of the big capitalists. The governors in the colonies had to listen to the local representatives of the companies and to their principals. Indeed, there were company representatives who wielded influence in several colonies at the same time.