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Socialism and Economic Development in Tropical Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Giovanni Arrighi  and
John S. Saul
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Extract

A noted economist (Perroux) has defined socialism as ‘le développement de tout l'homme et de tous les hommes’. Providing the motor for a drive towards socialism there is generally to be found a conviction that man's creative potential can only be fully realised in a society which transcends the cultural centrality of “possessive individualism’ and in which a signal measure of economic and social equality, the preconditions for genuine political democracy, are guaranteed. In the best of socialist intellectual work, however, socialists have been equally interested in economic development and in the full release of the potential for growth of the productive forces in a society. Within this tradition it was perhaps Marx who most dramatically fused the concern for economic development and the concern for the elimination of class inequalities in his presentation of the socialist case. He argued that the inequalities of the bourgeois society of his day increasingly meant that the potential of the available industrial machine would not be realised: inequality and muffled productive forces thus went hand in hand’.1

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , August 1968 , pp. 141 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

Page 141 note 1 On the continued validity of a much refined Marxist critique of contemporary capitalist society along similar lines, see Baran, P. and Sweezy, P. M., Monopoly Capital (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

Page 142 note 1 Berg, E., ‘Socialism and Economic Development in Tropical Africa’, in The Quarterly Journal of Economics (Cambridge, Mass.), 11 1964.Google Scholar For typical citations see Coleman, J. S., ‘The Resurrection of Political Economy’, in Mawazo (Kampala), 1, 1967;Google Scholar and Anderson, C., Mehden, F. Van der, and Young, C., Issues of Political Development (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967), ch. 10.Google Scholar

Page 143 note 1 K. C. Doctor and H. Gallis estimate that the proportion of the labour force of tropical Africa in wage employment is, on average, 11.1 per cent. However, migrant labour, characterised by partial dependence upon wage employment for its subsistence, is included in the estimate, so that the proletariat proper accounts for a lower percentage than the above. The estimate is in ‘Size and Characteristics of Wage Employment in Africa: statistical estimates’, International Labour Review (Geneva), XCIII, 2, 02 1966.Google Scholar

Page 143 note 2 For a bibliography on traditional African systems, see Middleton, J., The Effect of Economic Development on Traditional Political Systems South of the Sahara (The Hague, 1966).Google Scholar

Page 144 note 1 Cf. Myint, H., The Economics of Developing Countries (London, 1964), ch. 3,Google Scholar and also Walker, D., ‘Problems of Economic Development of East Africa’, in Robinson, E. A. G. (ed.), Economic Development for Africa South of the Sahara (London, 1964), pp. 111–14.Google Scholar

Page 144 note 2 The adjective ‘unproductive’ has, of course, no negative implication concerning the rationality or the necessity within the traditional society of activities so characterised.

Page 145 note 1 Cf. Myint, op. cit. and Walker, op. cit.

Page 145 note 2 We define ‘surplus’ as the difference between the aggregate net output produced (net, that is, of the means of production used up in the process) and the means of subsistence consumed by the community, both referred to a given period of time. By ‘subsistence’ we understand goods that are socially recognised as necessities, so that they exclude what may be called ‘discretionary’ consumption. On the concept of the surplus see Baran, P. A., The Political Economy of Growth (New York, 1967), ch. 2;Google Scholar and Betteiheim, C., ‘Le Surplus économique, facteur de base d'une politique de développement’, in his Planfication et croissance accéléré (Paris, 1965).Google Scholar Our definition is closer to Bettelheim's than to Baran's.

Page 146 note 1 This ‘ideal’ type is analysed in greater detail in Arrighi, G., ‘International Corporations, Labour Aristocracies and Economic Development in Tropical Africa’, in Horowitz, D. (ed.), The Corporations and the Cold War (London, forthcoming).Google Scholar The category ‘capital goods’ must be understood in a very broad sense as including all those goods which directly increase the productive capacity of the economy.

Page 146 note 2 The concepts of ‘industrial centres’ and ‘periphery’ have been introduced by Raul Prebisch to designate the advanced industrial economies and the relatively under-developed countries, respectively.

Page 146 note 3 Perroux, F. and Demonts, R., ‘Large Firms—Small Nations’, in Présence africaine (Paris), X, 38. 1961, p. 46.Google Scholar

Page 147 note 1 Lloyd, P. (ed.), The New Elites of Tropical Africa (London, 1966), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

Page 147 note 2 Turner, H. A., Wage Trends, Wage Policies and Collective Bargaining: the problems for underdeveloped countries (Cambridge, 1965), p. 21.Google Scholar

Page 147 note 3 Brown, M. Barratt, After Imperialism (London, 1963), p. 419.Google Scholar

Page 148 note 1 Quoted in Alavi, H., ‘Imperialism Old and New’, in The Socialist Register 1964 (London), pp. 106–7.Google Scholar

Page 148 note 2 Cf. O.E.C.D., National Accounts of Less Developed Countries (Paris, 1967), preliminary.Google Scholar

Page 148 note 3 Cf. Arrighi, op. cit. and Turner, op. cit. pp. 12–13.

Page 149 note 1 In the case of the U.S.A., for example, figures contained in the Surveys of Current Business of the U.S. Department of Commerce show that total direct investment abroad, for the period 1950–63, amounted to $17,382m. against a total inflow of investment income of $29,416m. Cf. Baran and Sweezy, op. cit. p. 107. Data derived from the same source show that, in the period 1959–64, U.S. direct investment (excluding oil) in Africa amounted to $386m. and investment income to $610m.

Page 149 note 2 Cf. Morgan, D. J., British Private Investment in East Africa: report of a survey and a conference (London, 1965).Google Scholar

Page 150 note 1 The concept of ‘perverse growth’ has been introduced by Sachs, Ignacy. Cf. his ‘On Growth Potential, Proportional Growth, and Perverse Growth’, in Czechoslouak Economic Papers (Prague), VII, 1966, pp. 65–71.Google Scholar

Page 151 note 1 See Amin, S., Le Développement du capitalisme en Côle d'Ivoire (Paris, 1967);Google ScholarAmin, S., ‘Côte d'Ivoire: valeur et limites d'une expérience’, in Jeune Afrique (Paris), 10 1967;Google ScholarDobrska, Z., ‘Economic Development of the Ivory Coast from the Winning of Independence’, in Africana Bulletin (Warsaw), v, 1966.Google Scholar

Page 151 note 2 It is surprising that apologists of foreign private investment in Africa (who consider the drain on the surplus a payment for technical assistance and finance supplied by the international corporations) have seldom paused to consider whether the managerial, administrative, and technical skills supplied are suited to the requirements of the receiving economies from the standpoint of their growth potential (as opposed to some short-term effects on income and employment).

Page 151 note 3 Cf. Sachs, op. cit.

Page 152 note 1 For an excellent discussion of problems of socialist development in a non-industrial environment, see Schurmann, F., Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966).Google Scholar

Page 152 note 2 Cf. Chodak, S., ‘Social Classes in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in Africana Bulletin, iv, 1966.Google Scholar

Page 153 note 1 See Amin, S., Trois expériences africaines de développement: le Mali, Ia Guinée, et le Ghana (Paris, 1965), pp. 10–17 and 230–32;Google Scholar also ‘The Class Struggle in Africa’ (anon.), in Révolution (Paris), 1, p. 9.Google Scholar

Page 154 note 1 See, particularly, Mohan, J., ‘Varieties of African Socialism’, in The Socialist Register 1966 (London).Google Scholar Also Friedland, W. H. and Rosberg, C. G. Jr, African Socialism (Stanford, 1964);Google ScholarAndrain, Charles, ‘Democracy and Socialism: ideologies of African leaders’, in Apter, D. (ed.), Ideology and Discontent (New York, 1964);Google Scholar and Charles, Bernard, ‘Le Socialisme africaine, mythes et réalités’, in Revue française de science politique (Paris), XV, 1965, p. 856.Google Scholar

Page 155 note 1 In Africa Report (Washington), 05 1963,Google Scholar ‘Special Issue on African Socialism’, pp. 26–7.

Page 155 note 2 This is the title of a useful book on related themes edited by Peter Lloyd (London, 1966).

Page 155 note 3 For this distinction see Deutscher, Isaac, ‘Russia’, in Galenson, W. (ed.), Comparative Labour Movements (New York, 1952);Google Scholar and Friedland and Rosberg, op. cit. p. 19.

Page 156 note 1 Worsley, Peter, The Third World (London, 1964), ch. 4.Google Scholar For a detailed critique of ‘populism’ see Saul, John S., ‘On African Populism’, in Geilner, E. and Ionescu, G. (eds.), Populism (London, 1968).Google Scholar

Page 156 note 2 This essay is reproduced in Nyerere, J. K., Freedom and Unity/Uhuru no Umoja (Dar es Salaam and London, 1966 & 1967), pp. 162–71.Google Scholar It was first published in 1962.

Page 157 note 1 Both Baako's remark and the subsequent comment are to be found in Fitch, B. and Oppenheimer, M., Ghona: end of an illusion (New York, 1966), p. 112.Google Scholar

Page 157 note 2 Friedland and Rosberg, op. cit. p. 16.

Page 158 note 1 Cf. K. Grundy, ‘Mali: the prospects of “Planned Socialism”’, ibid. p. 192.

Page 158 note 2 From Le Monde (Paris), 11 12 1962,Google Scholar cited in Africa Report, 05 1963, p. 18.Google Scholar

Page 159 note 1 Though the emergence of a small but often outspoken trading class in a country like Ghana, for example, can play an important role in defining the trajectory of socialist experiments.

Page 159 note 2 Murray, Roger, ‘Second Thoughts on Ghana’, in New Left Review (London), XLII, 03–04 1967, p. 34.Google Scholar

Page 160 note 1 Lloyd, op. cit. introduction.

Page 160 note 2 At the extreme, of course, one has the example of Kenya, where the ideology of ‘socialism’ is being used unscrupulously to rationalise the march of the new African élite into all sectors of the economy, public and private. Not all uses of this rationale are so crude, but there is a certain consistency to the African pattern, none the less.

Page 160 note 3 Amin. op. cit. p. 277.

Page 161 note 1 Chaliand, G., ‘Indépendance nationale et révolution’, in Partisans, xxix–xxx, 05–06 1966Google Scholar, special issue, ‘L'Afrique dans l'épreuve’.

Page 161 note 2 On this subject see Cohn Legum, ‘Socialism in Ghana: a political interpretation’, in Friedland and Rosberg, op. cit.

Page 161 note 3 Murray, op. cit. p. 35.

Page 161 note 4 Green, R., ‘Four African Development Plans: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 11, 2, 08 1965;Google Scholar Amin, op. cit.

Page 161 note 5 Amin, ibid. p. 229 (our translation). Perhaps most markedly lacking was a sustained attempt to analyse relations between traditional and modem sectors and to integrate long- term industrial and agricultural strategies along the lines we have suggested in section I.

Page 162 note 1 Murray, op. cit.

Page 162 note 2 Cf. Turner, op. cit. pp. 12–14.

Page 162 note 3 Fitch and Oppenheimer, op. cit. p. 105.

Page 163 note 1 Berg, op. cit. pp. 556–60.

Page 163 note 2 Drew, Walter H., ‘How Socialist are African Economies?’, in Africa Report, 05 1963, p. 12;Google ScholarAmeillon, B., La Guinée, bilan d'une indéperutance (Paris, 1964).Google Scholar The latter lays particular emphasis not only upon the compromised position (vis-à-vis foreign capital) of the Guinean régime, but also on the consolidation of a ‘bureaucratic class’ in power. See especially part in, ch. 2, ‘Du Socialisme d'état à l'étatisation de classe’.

Page 163 note 3 Rimmer, Douglas, ‘The Crisis of the Ghana Economy’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, IV, 1, 1966.Google Scholar

Page 164 note 1 The former quotation is from Murray, op. cit., the latter from Fitch and Oppenheimer, op. cit. Both echo Fanon's rather more dramatic utterance on the subject: ‘The national middle class discovers its heroic mission: that of intermediary. Seen through its eyes, its mission is nothing to do with transforming the nation; it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged, which today puts on the mask of neo-colonialisin’. The Wretched of the Earth, (London, 1967), p. 122.Google Scholar

Page 164 note 2 Cf. Tony Killick, ‘Volta River Project’, in Birmingham, W., Neustadt, I., and Omaboe, E. N., A Study of Contemporary Ghana (London, 1966).Google Scholar

Page 165 note 1 On this subject see Murray, Roger, ‘Militarism in Africa’, in New Left Review, xxxviii, 07–08 1966.Google Scholar

Page 165 note 2 Nycrere, op. cit.

Page 165 note 3 For a suggestive discussion of the importance of ‘revolutionary intellectuals’ see Cammett, John, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism (Stanford, 1967), ch.10.Google Scholar

Page 166 note 1 On T.A.N.U. in the pre-Arusha Declaration period, see Bienen, H., Tanzania: parry transformation and economia development (Princeton, 1967),Google Scholar a useful work despite the misleading picture which it presents of the ideological dimensions of the Tanzanian experience.

Page 166 note 2 See The Arusha Declaration and Tanu's Policy on Socialism and Self-Reliance (Dar es Salaam, 1967);Google Scholar also Arusha Declaration: answers to questions (Dar no Salaam, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 167 note 1 As one example, such leaders are to be subject to severe restrictions in their hiring of labour, a practice which would involve, in the language of Arusha, ‘exploitation’.

Page 167 note 2 Nyerere, Julius K., Socialism and Rural Development (Dar es Salaam, 1967).Google Scholar ‘Whether this particular aspiration is premature is, as we have noted, a moot point. The President himself does not fully explore the links between agricultural development and an ‘egalitarian’ mode of production beyond remarking that ‘if this kind of capitalist development takes place widely over the country, we may get a good statistical increase in the national wealth of Tanzania, but the masses of the people will not necessarily be better off. On the contrary, as land becomes more scarce we will find ourselves with a farmers’ class and a labourers’ class, with the latter being unable to work for themselves or to receive a full return for the contribution they are making to the total output.’

Page 168 note 1 Berg, op. cit. p. 571.

Page 168 note 2 For a similar point of view, albeit from a Marxist perspective, see ‘The Class Struggle in Africa’.

Page 168 note 3 Berg, op. cit. p. 573.