The nine member-states of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (S.A.D.C.C.) – Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland – are notable for their collective weakness relative to South Africa, and their very wide economic and political heterogeneity.1 Only four, or at most five, have economies whose annual G.D.P. exceeds $2,000 million: two of these, Angola and Mozambique, are under more or less constant attack from South Africa or its surrogate forces, while Tanzania is actually the most remote, physically and economically. At the same time, Malawi, Swaziland, and Lesotho – who are not in the so-called ‘Frontline’, unlike the other six – have rather close political relations with Pretoria, Malawi most substantively since as early as 1966 and Swaziland since 1982.2 Botswana is more independent politically, with a modest G.D.P. and very small population.

We have it from the celebrated Max Weber that the behaviour of nations is determined not by ideas but by ‘interests’ – a loaded concept in the sense that these are dependent on the interpretation given by a nation to its environment. This implies that ‘images of reality’ are crucial in the definition of what are national interests and what are not. Perceptions thus determine inter-state relations, and existing Policies should be seen as reactions to images of interests, pressures, and assumed underlying objectives.

Few observers reckon that the white citadel will fall overnight, yet the days of racial minority rule in South Africa are now widely assumed to be running out. But the future can rarely be tamed in advance, and many of the more optimistic scenarios and hopes concerning a transition to a non-racial form of state may well prove to be hopelessly misplaced. Even so, to the extent that it is considered that history is now finally on the move, debate about the nature of opportunities available to, and constraints upon a post-apartheid state becomes not only more legitimate but more urgent. The ambition of this article is to provide a framework for consideration of whether a non-racial South Africa could or will be socialist.

There are fads in development economics,1 and the latest today, at least in the North, is what may be called laissez-faireism. This states the belief that a retreat from government activism in economic affairs is the major means of improving the quality of a country's performance. It is seen as ‘central to the solution of a lot of the problems we see around the world’.2

Such a strategy stresses the benefits of reliance on markets, on profit incentives, and on the growth of private sectors. Free-market pricing is crucial not only for products (in Africa, particularly agricultural products), but also in factor markets and in international transactions. Wages should be allowed to find their own level, as determined by supply and demand. Exchange rates should also be permitted to approach their natyral levels, for artificially over-valued exchange rates are especially damaging. Tariffs and other forms of protection should be cut back. Countries should turn away from inward-looking import-substitution towards outward-looking export-orientation. 3

There is continuing concern throughout most of Africa about the supply of food, notably because of its impact on the nutritional status of so many millions.2 In 1984, John Mellor and Bruce Johnston reported on trends in production and indicated that Africa had the slowest food growth rates in comparison with other country groupings throughout the world. They also acknowledged the extent of malnutrition and the complex system of interactions which influence food production and consumption.3 Earlier reviews of the food-deficit problems called attention to environmental constraints and the variety of experimental strategies for agricultural development tried in Africa. Michael Lofchie and Stephen Commins concluded that fundamental changes in governmental policies are needed in order to facilitate peasant production and participation, and they suggested a balance between the retention of traditional agricultural systems and the introduction of modern agricultural practices.4 Carl Eicher emphasised the need for intensive investigation into production constraints in order to provide the knowledge base for better strategies and programmes, and among the research priorities identified were those related to food consumption and nutrition.5 However, although more national macro-level surveys are obviously needed, they alone will not help us to understand the relationships between household-based food production and consumption systems, nor the rôle of the family in allocating labour and food.

Most writers on Zambia are agreed that President Kenneth Kaunda has grown more powerful over the last two decades by having learned to deal with changing circumstances, and that he has developed a unique position as an able and trusted mediator among political factions. There is also a consensus among those authors, however, that Kaunda's powers are rather severely constrained by the bourgeoisie-in-formation, by the weakening of the governing United National Independence Party (U.N.I.P.), by a declining economy, and by a difficult international environment, and that these limitations are growing stronger as time passes despite his ideological initiative in formulating what is known as ‘Zambian Humanism’.1

During World War II, some 65,000 Ghanaians were under the command of British officers in the Royal West African Frontier Force, and since India was the transit and refuelling station for those en route to Burma, the 30,000 who served there briefly experienced life in both countries. There has been much conjecture about the impact of the war on participating African soldiers,1 and this article focuses on the nature and socio-economic implications of their experience as later revealed by the veterans themselves in two rather overlooked sources of information: oral interviews and locally published materials.

This short article was written in June 1972 as an attempt to provide an eye-witness account of the Busia Government and its difficulties, and is published now as a contribution to the continuing discussion about the reasons for that régime's collapse. Professor Le Vine was Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Legon, during 1969–71, and is the author of Political Corruption, the Ghana Case (Stanford, 1975), a study of the Nkrumah period.

‘Autopsy’ is, perhaps, too harsh a word; possibly ‘requiem’ would have been more appropriate. Unfortunately, however, save for the members of the Government displaced by the coup d'état of 13 January 1972, the régime of Dr Kofi A. Busia had few mourners in Ghana. Most Ghanaians appear to have shaken their heads, gone about their usual business, and awaited the future with cynical patience. As coups go, Colonel Ignatius Acheampong's exercise was a model of quiet efficiency – it met virtually no resistance, took no casyalties, and had almost no noticeable effect on the ordinary bustle of life and affairs in the capital cuty. The ensuing celebrations were perfunctory, and what dancing in the streets there was seemed to be half-hearted at best.