Author: Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo
Journal: GAESEMA / CHAPTER 6 OF BOOK IV THE ORIGIN OF ALL PRODUCTION, 2nd WORK (MONEY IS A COMPLEX PRODUCT)
Year: 2025

Abstract
The article “Money and Politics: Historical Paths Toward African Monetary Reform”, authored by the Angolan philosopher Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo, offers a philosophical and productive analysis of the relationship between money and politics in the African context, through the lens of the GAESEMA Philosophy. The work explores, in 12 well-developed points, how money has historically been linked to political power, governmental morality, and productive justice.

Using both historical and contemporary examples — such as the Roman Empire, the crisis of the Weimar Republic in Germany, the U.S. monetary stimulus in 2008, China’s controlled policy, the collapse of Zimbabwe, and the current dilemmas faced by Angola and Venezuela — the author argues that the economic instability in African countries results from the disconnection between monetary issuance and real production. The article emphasizes that printing money without productive backing leads to inflation, social impoverishment, and external dependence.

The most innovative aspect of the text lies in its strong advocacy for the legalization and appreciation of the African informal market. Gilson Ângelo asserts that this sector is the true expression of the African peoples’ economy, born from their cultural practices, solidarity networks, and economic resistance. To ignore it is to deny the continent’s very productive reality. The GAESEMA Philosophy proposes that African currency must be born from local production and social justice — not from external pressures or foreign models. Money must reflect the people’s value, not the fragility of the state.

With a critical, constructive, and educational approach, the article offers concrete pathways for African states to accelerate their economic reform without sacrificing their people — drawing inspiration from historical lessons and adjusting policies to the productive soul of their territory.

Introduction
At its deepest essence, money is not merely a means of exchange — it is a mirror of the political and moral system that governs a society. It reveals the ethical, economic, and spiritual choices of a people. According to the GAESEMA Philosophy, money must be understood as a human product, born from just production and deeply influenced by political decisions.

When examining the history of great nations and the challenges faced by African countries, it becomes clear that money and politics are intrinsically linked — and when that relationship is mismanaged, it results in crises that punish the most vulnerable. This article is a proposal for understanding and reform, based on a critical, African, and production-centered reading of global monetary history.

1. The Political Origin of Money
Money does not arise by chance. It is always the result of a political structure that creates, regulates, and distributes it. In ancient times, kings and emperors held the monopoly over coinage as the ultimate symbol of sovereignty. In Ancient Rome, for example, emperors minted coins to finance wars and public works — but also to affirm their authority.

However, this power was not without consequence: printing more coins without productive backing led to inflation and a loss of the real value of money. This penalized workers and the poor, destabilizing society.

In the modern world, central banks have assumed this role — yet still under the strong influence of political interests. The example of the Federal Reserve during the 2008 U.S. financial crisis illustrates how political decisions channeled trillions of dollars to rescue banks, with little regard for workers or small entrepreneurs. In other words, politics shapes money — and when that framework is unjust, money loses its ethical value.

2. Money and the State
In GAESEMA Philosophy, the State must not manage money merely as a technical mechanism, but as an ethical commitment to social justice. The creation of money should be proportional to the country’s productive reality and the well-being of its population. When the State prints money without aligning it with real productive capacity, it creates an economic lie that will result in poverty, accelerated inflation, and widespread dependence.

China offers an example of controlled state management: the central government regulates the flow of money according to growth targets, investment strategies, and inflation control. While this does not eliminate inequalities, it demonstrates that monetary policy can be used as a tool for nation-building rather than exploitation.

In contrast, in many African states, money is manipulated according to electoral cycles, external pressures, or temporary political conveniences — without any real commitment to the people’s future. This is not political neutrality; it is productive betrayal.

3. Politics in Monetary Inflation and Deflation: Between Real Production and Political Will

In the classical view, inflation and deflation are presented as technical imbalances between supply and demand. However, through the lens of the GAESEMA Philosophy and the critical reflection of the Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo, these phenomena must be understood as products of human decisions—particularly political ones. In other words, inflation and deflation are not merely spontaneous effects of the market but expressions of social relations and intentional choices within a political and productive system.

According to the author, there are two distinct fields of interpretation for inflation:

• Natural inflation, which results from real processes between production and consumption, and
• Artificial inflation, which stems from institutional policy that manipulates these flows to serve strategic power goals or government agendas.

The first is inevitable, as it derives from time, scarcity, seasonality, and the limits of productive capacity. The second, however, is manufactured—it arises when the State alters the natural course of the economy in the name of the majority, that is, through democratic or populist logic, which does not always represent productive justice.

Gilson Ângelo notes that in modern politics, money and its effects no longer follow just the natural cycles of production. On the contrary, the entire structure of political coexistence—from laws, taxes, wages, and social programs to agricultural subsidies and food prices—is a form of artificially organized production, created for normative ends. In this context, even inflation can be seen as a political production, consciously built to redistribute, correct, or postpone crises. Therefore, inflation is not always a mistake—it is, at times, a deliberate political instrument.

However, the author warns of the risks of manipulating inflation without considering the rhythms of real production. If the State imposes growth, distribution, or consumption targets that are disconnected from the actual capacity to generate value (such as food, housing, energy, or services), it creates an inflationary economy that exists only on paper—a theater of figures that conceals the silent impoverishment of families. This is the point at which political morality separates from productive morality.

A paradigmatic example remains the Weimar Republic (Germany, 1920s), where the government printed massive amounts of money to pay reparations for World War I. The result was historic hyperinflation: in 1923, a simple loaf of bread could cost billions of marks. The currency completely lost its function as a measure of value and medium of exchange, and society descended into chaos. This experience demonstrated that the manipulation of currency, under the pretext of political necessity, can lead to social disasters, ideological polarization, and institutional collapse.

For the GAESEMA Philosophy, true monetary policy must place production at the ethical and strategic center of economic decisions. This means that currency issuance, inflation control, and interest rate definition must be aligned with the real capacity to generate wealth, meet needs, and maintain the balance between what is produced and what is consumed. Beyond that lies the realm of political illusion and social instability.

Thus, inflation and deflation are not just numbers or graphs for economists—they are moral decisions, with a direct impact on human dignity. And every moral decision requires responsibility, historical awareness, and a commitment to just production. Governments that ignore this transform money into a weapon of oppression, rather than a tool for prosperity.

4. Money as a Political Instrument: Between Monetary Control and Decision-Making Power

In the GAESEMA Philosophy, money is not merely a medium of exchange or a store of value. It is, essentially, an instrument of political execution, historically shaped to organize and control the productive flows of a nation. According to the Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo, the true origin of the modern economy—as we know it—does not lie in commerce or production, but in the financial and monetary control exercised by governments. Economics, as the science of exchange and the satisfaction of needs, was born from a political will to organize scarcity and prioritize collective interests under central authority. In this understanding, money is a weapon—an economic firearm—of politics, just as a gun is a tool of social control used by police or armed forces. Both instruments—the weapon and the currency—serve to reinforce the authority of the State and ensure obedience or submission: one through physical fear, the other through control over economic survival. That is why currency issuance and financial regulation are, in their essence, sophisticated forms of power.

Gilson Ângelo argues that, after the initial decision to create money (a political act), money becomes a device for executing the political agendas of governments. The quantity, allocation, and circulation of money are deliberately adjusted according to the interests of the ruling regimes. In other words, it is not production that determines the value of money, but politics that determines how much production is worth—or even who is allowed to produce. When politics ignores this ethical and technical responsibility, money becomes detached from reality and begins to generate social distortions, inflation, scarcity, and conflict.

This phenomenon is clearly visible in the case of Venezuela. There, the government used the printing of money as a political strategy to sustain social programs, buy support, and uphold populist rhetoric. However, without productive backing to sustain the growing money supply, the value of the currency evaporated. In 2018, inflation exceeded 1,000,000%. The currency lost its function as a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value. Families lost access to food, healthcare, and transport. Money ceased to represent real production and became a symbol of propaganda and collective despair. This collapse demonstrates that money, when manipulated politically without respect for the logic of production and social justice, ceases to serve the people and turns into a covert mechanism of repression. It rewards allies, punishes opponents, and enriches elites while workers are excluded from the productive pact.

A vivid example occurred just yesterday during the NATO summit in The Hague, when President Donald Trump pressured allied countries to raise military spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. This massive increase in resource allocation would require each nation to assess whether its real productive base—industrial, technological, logistical—could support such demand. However, partisan political support, driven by U.S. strategic interests, overrode that consideration. For instance, Spain, under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, pushed back and maintained its target around the usual 2%, arguing that the proposed 5% was unfeasible and potentially harmful to its internal economic capacity.

This demonstrates that even among the most united and powerful nations, money continues to be an instrument of political manipulation—self-imposed as a target, even when there is no productive structure to support the official intention. Politics dictates before economics—not the other way around.

The GAESEMA Philosophy highlights that this imbalance reinforces the dependence of weaker nations. The greater the nation, the more resources it demands—but also the greater the need for coherence between money, politics, and production. Without that, the increase in resources becomes political theater, resulting in internal fragility.

Therefore, money does not build the State—real production does, based on culture, labor, and national sovereignty. And the State is only strong if it respects that foundation. The rest—GDP figures, defense quotas, inflation targets—is political propaganda, not honest production. And as long as we ignore this philosophical truth, we will remain under the rule of this economic weapon that fires upon the future of our peoples.

The lesson is clear: no amount of money can compensate for the absence of real production or resolve crises of political legitimacy. The greater the nation, the greater its dependency on a balanced economic system. And the contemporary world proves this. That is why Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo proposes a profound reform of African monetary policy: that money be subordinated once again to production—not to the propaganda of power. Currency must be born from productivity, labor, and social ethics—not from political cunning or the desire for control.

5. The Impact of Money on Political Morality

The way a society treats money reveals its political soul and its stage of moral development. When wealth is accumulated by a few while the majority live in scarcity, this is not just an economic problem—it is an ethical and structural diagnosis. Extreme inequality results from political choices: tax laws, exchange regimes, subsidy policies, and monetary issuance mechanisms that favor elites and punish workers. These decisions shape a nation’s justice structure and determine the level of equity and solidarity among its citizens.

In the GAESEMA Philosophy, money must reflect collective integrity. It must be born from labor, circulate with fairness, and return to the common good. When money is detached from morality, it becomes a symbol of exploitation and domination. The financialization of politics—through lobbying, institutionalized corruption, and private campaign financing—transforms money into a means of power, not of justice. The inevitable outcome is the loss of social trust and the weakening of a nation’s moral fabric.

However, the Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo argues that despite political vices, politics also opens institutional spaces that allow the people to produce independently and live with dignity within their means—putting food on the table, educating their children, and exercising cultural autonomy. It is in this space that informal markets become central. For African countries, they are the true reflection of their people’s productive identity. Ignoring these informal markets is equivalent to ignoring the very soul of a people.

In practice, if a government chooses to eliminate informality without offering realistic and culturally respectful alternatives, it cuts off the lifeblood that sustains its own existence. For the thinker, it is precisely at the popular level where true moral meaning resides, guided by an unwritten but living culture. It is in this context that the Angolan Constitution, in Article 38, guarantees the right to free economic initiative—a principle that should be protected and expanded, not restricted by technocracy.

The thinker argues that many economists and scholars, having been educated in foreign academic centers, end up inverting the logic of reality: instead of recognizing that the economy is the child of production, they reduce production to a mere economic activity, stripping it of its cultural and moral function. This creates a dangerous disconnect between official economic theory and the concrete reality lived by African peoples.

For this reason, Gilson Ângelo proposes a deep constitutional reform: the creation of a specific constitutional article dedicated to production as the foundation of life and national sovereignty. This article should be understood in two dimensions: as a fundamental right of the citizen and as a necessary social duty. In Angola, for example, this article should appear in two key sections of the Constitution:

1. In TITLE II – FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES, CHAPTER II – RIGHTS, FREEDOMS, AND GUARANTEES, SECTION I, establishing production as a fundamental right of the citizen;
2. In CHAPTER III – ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES, integrating production as a collective obligation for the maintenance of the common good.

From this foundation, universities dedicated to the science of production should be established—institutions capable of integrating popular knowledge into formal education systems and public policy. These universities would also serve to embrace practical ideas and solutions that traditional academia often fails to formulate, precisely because it does not understand the cultural logic of production embedded in the people.

This reform would also give new meaning to other fundamental rights guaranteed by the Angolan Constitution, such as:

• Art. 40: Freedom of expression and information,
• Art. 41: Freedom of conscience, religion, and worship,
• Art. 42: Intellectual property,
• Art. 43: Freedom of cultural and scientific creation.

All these rights, according to the thinker, find their full realization in the field of production, for it is there that culture, faith, creative expression, and intellectual freedom take on practical and material form.

Ultimately, the people must understand that they are the legal and moral contributors to any monetary system. If the people produce, they do not suffer. But if they do not produce, even with all the banks and governments in the world on their side, they will not escape dependency, exclusion, and poverty. That is why no economic theory can replace real production. And where this awareness is not awakened, academic arrogance will continue destroying the productive soul of African nations.

6. History as a Monetary School for Africa

The world’s great economies — such as the United States, Germany, and China — were not born as global powers. They had to endure deep social and economic crises before becoming leading producers of goods and services. The core lesson from these nations is clear: money does not create wealth — it is an instrument that must respect productive standards. It merely supports the social levels of production. If the people produce, money submits to social will and reality. But if the people do not produce, money declares itself as a source of power — transforming into a tool of domination.

The Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo emphasizes that money is not defined by its quantity, but by the direct relationship it maintains with the real cycles of production and consumption. This means that a country that prints money without a deeply rooted culture of production is generating a monetary void — where money circulates without representing real value, thus promoting inflation, unemployment, external dependence, and even humanitarian crises.

History shows that the United States had to face the Great Depression and the 2008 financial crisis to reform its financial system and restructure its economy based on productive trust. Germany, after World War I, experienced the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, where a devalued currency led the country into economic collapse and political instability — ultimately facilitating the rise of Nazism. Both cases prove that world powers had to learn that no monetary policy can substitute for a solid productive base.

China is perhaps the most emblematic and current example. After decades of extreme poverty and political isolation, it adopted a centralized planning model focused on investment in infrastructure, technical education, and agricultural and industrial production. Today, China is the largest producer of goods and services on the planet and stands on equal footing — or even superiority — with the United States in various technological and commercial sectors. It provides services to most African governments, exports products across the world — including to Western nations — and engages in trade disputes with the globe’s greatest powers. This trajectory demonstrates that money is only effective when aligned with a policy of real production, supported by a culture of labor and a national strategy.

Africa must understand that it is not behind — it is in process. But this process needs to be accelerated with historical awareness, realistic planning, and urgent productive reform. The continent must abandon the magical view of money as an immediate solution and instead recognize it as a reflection of its internal capacity to generate value, dignity, and sovereignty.

In this sense, history ceases to be just an archive of the past and becomes a living monetary school — where African countries can learn, adapt, and reform their policies without punishing their people for the naivety of past eras. Global experience shows that every crisis is also a turning point. The question is: in which direction do we want to turn?

According to the GAESEMA Philosophy, the answer lies in reconnecting money to the productive soul of the people.

7. Production as the Foundation of Monetary Value

No currency has value in and of itself. It only represents the value of what has been produced, exchanged, or reserved. Therefore, printing money without production is like issuing certificates for a harvest that never took place. In practice, it is deceiving the people and disorganizing the economy. The GAESEMA Philosophy proposes that all monetary policy must begin with production. This requires listening to small producers, formalizing the real market, and protecting local production chains.

Production precedes the economy, money, formal education, systems of government, and institutional labor structures. It is a primary manifestation of human existence, arising immediately after the first vital act: breathing. To produce is, therefore, one of the most authentic ways a human being affirms their presence in the world, establishes relationships with their environment, and transforms the reality around them.

From this perspective, the GAESEMA Philosophy proposes a break from traditional models that reduce the human being to the condition of a consumer—passive before mass production systems and market logic. On the contrary, man is seen as a producer by nature — a spiritual being with the capacity to generate goods, ideas, food, beauty, cultural values, commercial wealth, and even eternal expressions.

Production, in this context, is not limited to a physical or mechanical act, but involves the full exercise of creativity, consciousness, and transformative intention. Production is a reflection of the human soul in motion, and its origin lies in the spirit, in the mind, and in the word.

With this perspective, this work presents production as a structured language that can be understood, taught, and reproduced. Just as one learns the alphabet to communicate, one can also learn the codes of production to create, transform, and liberate. In the book by Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo — The A, E, I, O, U of Production — five necessary elements are elevated to the status of universal symbols of an integral productive process, representing the five fundamental steps of human creation.

This model is at once spiritual, philosophical, and pedagogical. It enables a new kind of literacy: not just of thought, but of creative action. For whoever learns to think autonomously, learns to produce freely. And whoever knows how to produce freely, will never become a slave to systems, ideologies, or markets.

Therefore, this introduction is an invitation to radically rethink how we relate to work, to goods, to knowledge, and to the very meaning of human existence. It is a proposal to reeducate society starting from production — not as accumulation, but as an expression of the fullness of being.

8. The Danger of Raw Material Dependency

Many African countries depend almost exclusively on the export of raw materials, such as oil, diamonds, or timber. This creates a paradox: the country is rich in resources but poor in added value. The money generated by these exports flows into reserves, debt payments, or governmental elites, without being transformed into internal productive value.

When oil prices fall, for example, the national currency depreciates, wages stagnate, and public services collapse. Local agricultural and artisanal production is ignored. This is not a technical crisis — it is a moral one. The solution lies in diversifying the economy based on what the people know how to do. Valuing local labor is the key to saving the currency.

For the Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo, this point represents one of the greatest silent tragedies of African economies: an unperceived dependency that inevitably leads to structural exploitation. His philosophical and political critique is based on the principle that resource-exploiting countries extract value not from the raw material itself, but from their ability to transform, refine, and reintegrate that resource into internal productive processes — raising it to a level of added value that exporting countries like Angola cannot reach due to a lack of productive sovereignty.

This structural dependency generates a vicious cycle: the country with natural resources exports them in raw form, at minimal prices dictated by international market logics dominated by external interests. Those same resources return as refined goods — such as oil, which leaves Angola at a low price and returns as fuel, plastics, lubricants, and other derivatives at exponentially higher prices — establishing a model of productive and financial impoverishment.

According to Gilson Ângelo, this proves that it is not the resource itself that determines the value of an economy, but the intellectual, scientific, technological, and cultural production applied to that resource. Countries with strong central banks and high-valued currencies, such as the United States or China, do not lead because they have more natural resources, but because they have developed production structures that support the value of their currency. It is transformative production that creates value — not mere extraction.

In this context, the economies of resource-exploiting countries are strategically managed: they maintain a constant and controlled level of production, not only to meet domestic demand but to ensure a stable value for their currency, as it is backed by their real production. In contrast, countries like Angola, whose economy is based on raw material exports, are at the mercy of international market prices, left vulnerable to currency fluctuations and financial instability.

When oil prices drop, for instance, Angola’s economy goes into crisis: the national currency devalues, wages lose purchasing power, public services collapse, and the people suffer. This is not merely a technical or economic crisis — it is, above all, a moral and philosophical one. Because true sovereignty is not in owning resources, but in knowing how to transform them. A country that does not produce based on what it has will ultimately lose even what it owns.

Thus, the Angolan thinker defends that the only way to break this cycle of impoverishment is to invest in economic diversification based on popular knowledge, artisanal talent, family farming, local industries, and technologies suited to the people’s reality. Valuing local labor, encouraging autonomous production, strengthening artisanal ideology, and creating mechanisms to protect national production chains are essential steps to rebuild the value of the currency from the productive identity of the country.

In this way, Gilson Ângelo proposes a new philosophy of economic independence — one not based on a desperate search for foreign investment or submission to foreign macroeconomic models, but on the recognition that the people are already rich — not because of the resources they possess, but because of the production potential they carry. This is the new moral paradigm that must guide the constitutional, educational, and productive reforms of contemporary Africa.

9. The Role of Banks and the Financial System

Banks should be allies of production, not loan sharks of the system. However, in the African context — particularly in countries like Angola — we observe that banks operate within an exclusionary logic, geared almost exclusively toward large companies or individuals already integrated into state or corporate systems. The small producer, the artisan, the family farmer, and the informal entrepreneur remain on the margins, ignored by banking policies designed without consideration for the local social, cultural, and productive realities.

Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo argues that banks are, by nature, institutions that serve the economic interests of a Central Bank, which in turn is hierarchically subordinate to a political power with executive interests defined by the ruling parties. In other words, politics commands the economy, and the economy sets the terms under which banks operate.

If the moral and productive culture of a people is weakened by poor governance or administrative naivety, the financial system becomes a reflection of those failures: bureaucratic, unjust, and exclusionary. For example, two men living in the same region — one a government employee, the other an artisan working with traditional knowledge — do not have equal access to financial resources. The former can access bank credit because he is integrated into the state system and possesses the legal documentation required, such as a property title, formal contract, or tax registration. The latter, no matter how creative or productive he may be, cannot even open a bank account.

This model might work in highly developed nations, where the state has the capacity to register and monitor all its citizens. However, in countries with large populations and weak administrative infrastructure — like China — the state creates alternative mechanisms: community currencies, local banks, popular cooperatives, and digital systems adapted to local needs. The goal is to ensure that no citizen is excluded from the economic machinery due to a lack of state recognition.

In the Angolan and broader African context, due to the lack of real political will, many citizens still do not have access to fundamental legal documents — such as property deeds or registration of productive activities. This amounts to an indirect order given to banks to deny credit to the majority of the population. In other words, financial exclusion is not a technical error, but a direct consequence of administrative structure and political choices.

Gilson Ângelo states that, under these conditions, the people must reform their productive ideologies. The only way not to suffer is to start producing — ideas, objects, art, food, solutions. When people produce, bureaucratic systems become secondary. Dependence on the state and the bank diminishes. And it is at this moment that banks begin chasing after producers, offering credit and incentives, because they understand that the true engine of the economy is those who generate value.

Banks do not exist to replace producers, but to mediate between them. The banking function should be morally oriented: to serve as a bridge between those who produce and those who consume, facilitating the flow of wealth. The GAESEMA Philosophy advocates that national banks be reoriented with this purpose. This includes:

• Establishing fair and transparent interest rates;
• Creating real microcredit programs with guidance and support;
• Financing local cooperatives and community-based productive initiatives;
• Encouraging formalization of production without requiring the denial of the people’s cultural identity;
• Building trust with productive communities by recognizing their real value.

In summary, the financial system must be rebuilt as a moral system, guided by the truth of production and not the illusion of profit. Only then will banks become legitimate allies of sovereignty, economic justice, and the real development of African nations.

10. The IMF, Austerity, and African Monetary Sovereignty

Relations with institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank are deeply complex and laden with political, economic, and cultural implications. Frequently, structural adjustment programs imposed by these institutions — in the name of macroeconomic stability — demand severe fiscal reforms, social spending cuts, financial liberalization, and the adoption of standardized technological systems that often do not align with the cultural and administrative realities of African countries.

Angola experienced this after 2008: cuts in social investment, salary freezes, tax increases, and brain drain — all to fulfill commitments to the IMF. But what is the value of a currency that no longer represents the people? Monetary sovereignty is not merely the act of printing money — it is the power to decide for whom and for what purpose that money is printed.

Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo argues that the real issue does not lie solely in the loans themselves, but in the conditions for their implementation imposed by the creditors. The IMF, for example, often requires beneficiary countries to adopt standardized financial and fiscal systems — such as management software similar to Primavera — demanding that every citizen be fully identified and integrated into the national tax system. However, in many African countries, the majority of the productive population does not even possess a formal ID number or active tax registration. This makes the entire system inefficient and exclusionary.

When IMF funds enter the country, they are automatically channeled into sectors that are formally registered within state systems. These sectors, however, do not always represent the country’s true productive strength. Worse still, space is created for political elites to appropriate the resources, creating personal businesses or favoring connected companies, while the original producer — the one who could generate wealth and innovation rooted in local realities — is left out.

As an example, imagine two men living in the same region. One works for the state or a formally registered company and thus has access to the banking system and financing. The other is a creative artisan, rich in local knowledge, but operates outside of state registries. Only the first will have access to credit policies supported by IMF agreements. The second, in order to be recognized, would have to abandon his authentic productive logic and adapt to a system that ignores him.

This scenario produces a tragic inversion: the politician, with access to financing, becomes an entrepreneur and opens a bar selling imported drinks, while the true producer is forced to work in that bar under precarious conditions. If that producer had direct access to credit and institutional support, he could found a local beverage factory, generate employment, strengthen cultural identity, and contribute to the real development of the nation.

Therefore, Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo argues that any international loan must be preceded by a cultural and structural analysis of the society in which it will be applied. The IMF, no matter how technically competent or well-intentioned it may be, cannot continue operating as if all countries share the same administrative reality as developed nations. It is necessary to respect the productive soul of each people.

In this context, monetary sovereignty does not mean merely printing money; it means deciding autonomously for whom and for what purpose that money is printed. When that sovereignty is dismissed in the name of externally imposed austerity, what is jeopardized is not only the economy — it is the moral, social, and cultural future of an entire nation.

11. The Informal Market: The Ignored Economic Soul
The Urgency of Integrating the Informal Market: Cultural Recognition and Structured Legalization

One of the most overlooked — and simultaneously most powerful — points for economic and political reform in African states is the full recognition and integration of the informal market into the national productive system. The GAESEMA Philosophy holds that money is a direct expression of production and social organization; therefore, to ignore the largest form of spontaneous production in many African countries is to ignore the very economic soul of the people.

The informal market, often marginalized by state planning, is not merely a space for survival: it is a portrait of creativity, resistance, and community organization. It is a complex and functional ecosystem that responds to the absence of effective public policies, offering practical solutions to the daily needs of the population. This market is built on cultural traditions, trust-based relationships, and local dynamics. More than an alternative, it is the dominant reality of production and trade in many African countries.

In urban peripheries, popular neighborhoods, and rural zones, informal trade sustains thousands of families and fuels economic exchanges. Street vendors, open-air sellers, market women, local mechanics, roadside farmers, taxi drivers, motorcycle taxis, small tailors, and others are real productive agents operating without subsidies, without institutional protection, and often under legal repression. Yet it is precisely this population that ensures the circulation of goods, food, and services where the State cannot reach.

Integrating the informal market into the national productive system is not a gesture of concession: it is a strategic measure of economic justice and realistic development. This requires, however, that states abandon the colonial and imported posture of “exclusive modernization” that attempts to impose Western or Asian models without considering the African social structure. Formalization must be inclusive and respectful, based on community dialogue, economic education, and the appreciation of existing practices.

The legalization of the informal market should not mean its bureaucratization. The historical error of many African governments has been trying to convert the informal market into a formal enterprise, with unrealistic demands and excessive taxes. This approach, besides being unfair, is economically counterproductive. Instead, the proposal is to create special informal economic zones, with simplified tax regimes, access to microcredit, adapted infrastructure, and technical training. This would enable a gradual, protected, and conscious transition of informal producers into an integrated economy — one where their practices are valued and their rights guaranteed.

Additionally, the cultural recognition of the informal market is essential. This market did not arise by chance. It is the result of a long history of exclusion — but also of local wisdom. It reproduces systems of trust, solidarity, and reciprocity that are not taught in universities or development banks. African productive culture is alive in street markets, popular fairs, makeshift workshops, and in the thoughts of its writers and sages — where value is not only monetary, but also social and spiritual. To ignore this dimension is like trying to plant seeds in soil that refuses to accept foreign roots.

It is urgent, therefore, that African states include the informal market in their development plans. This implies legal recognition, financial support, technical training, and minimum infrastructure. But above all, it implies recognizing that development cannot be achieved through technocratic planning alone — it must listen to the people where the people are already producing. For national currency to have real value, it must circulate where life actually happens: in alleys, in public squares, in rural areas, in forgotten neighborhoods. It is there that money gains a soul.

Integrating the informal market also strengthens national sovereignty. Many countries depend on foreign currencies, external financing, or imports simply because they fail to recognize their own productive base. If millions of informal producers were empowered, trained, and organized, they could become the greatest economic force in each nation. Adaptive formalization, combined with the productive spirituality of the GAESEMA Philosophy, could give rise to a new model of state — a state that serves, recognizes, and is built from the real production and culture of its people.

The integration of the informal market is not just an economic proposal — it is an imperative of justice, dignity, and historical recognition. By integrating this sector, African governments would be taking a historic step: abandoning the colonial view that sees the people as a problem, and embracing the sovereign vision that sees the people as the solution. The informal is not backwardness — it is ancestry, creativity, and potential. It is up to reformist leaders to build public policies that reflect this profound truth.

Finally, it is essential to understand that informality is not merely an economic condition, but also a cultural ideology. It represents a worldview centered on sharing, family labor, adaptability, and proximity between producer and consumer. It is the true African market. To deny it is to deny Africa. That is why the GAESEMA proposal is clear: to legalize, support, and integrate the informal market is to recognize the economic identity of the continent. It is to give soul to the currency and to politics — connecting them directly to the people’s reality.

Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo concludes that if Angola and Africa wish to create an economic model that is self-sustaining and sovereign, they must start where everything is already functioning: the vast informal markets. In doing so, they will stop importing foreign formulas and begin exporting wisdom rooted in their own culture and productive practice.

12. Conclusion: Money as a Reflection of Just Politics
In the context of the GAESEMA Philosophy, money is inseparable from politics and morality through the lens of production. It should not be seen merely as a financial instrument, but rather as a tool which, when used with justice, can serve human development and collective prosperity. Politics holds the power to shape the nature of money, and the way this politics is conducted will determine whether money becomes a force of oppression or a tool of freedom and prosperity for all.

When money is politically manipulated without a commitment to social well-being, it ceases to be a just product and begins to reflect inequality, injustice, and exploitation. GAESEMA Philosophy proposes that money be treated as a reflection of just production and collective morality. Instead of being simply a means of exchange or a symbol of power, money should reflect an economic system that respects human rights, equity, and sustainable development. Monetary policy must be approached responsibly, with the aim of ensuring fair wealth distribution and promoting collective well-being. Only in this way can money — as a human creation — fulfill its natural function: to be a reflection of a healthy, just, and balanced economy.

References
• ÂNGELO, Gilson Guilherme Miguel. Money is a Complex Product: The Spiritual, Philosophical, and Political Truth About Money. GAESEMA Philosophy Collection, Book II. Luanda: GAESEMA Editions, 2025.
• POLANYI, Karl. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 2000.
• MARX, Karl. Capital – A Critique of Political Economy. São Paulo: Boitempo Editorial, 2011.
• GRAEBER, David. Debt: The First 5,000 Years. New York: Melville House, 2011.
• DOWBOR, Ladislau. The Era of Unproductive Capital. São Paulo: Autonomia Literária, 2017.
• AMIN, Samir. Capitalism in the 21st Century. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2016.

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