Prospects for social democracy in postcolonial societies

Abstract

Between the two extremes of capitalism and communism, democratic socialism provided a vague ideological comfort to the Afro‐Asian nationalist, vague because democratic socialism allowed the nationalists to produce a fine mismatch of capitalist and communist theories. They rejected the economics of capitalism because it produced great income disparities, but accepted its political ideas of democracy, rule of law, and other liberal benefits. They admired, on the other hand, the communist model of industrial transformation of a socially backward society, but deplored its system of political subjugation. They did not even enquire whether the economic benefits of communism (a belief not challenged until the late 1980s) could be wedded to the political blessings of capitalism. But the possibility of achieving such a mismatch provided great comfort to the Afro‐Asian nationalists, because they could spin out new ideologies without having to explain or substantiate them. Hence, Jawaharlal Nehru of India went about building socialism on the basis of central economic planning and parliamentary sovereignty, Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal mixed Negritude with socialism, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana linked scientific socialism with what he blandly coined as “conscientism.” The ease with which such ideologies were cooked up set a fashion among Third World leaders to act as individual political guides for their own people. Unlike the communist theory of class warfare, their ideas were highly eclectic and flexible, and therefore considered less dangerous to the colonial system. Hence, although the communists were suppressed almost everywhere in the colonies, social democrats of various breeds were tolerated and even encouraged by the colonial administrators. In some cases, as in the countries of Commonwealth Africa, British socialists, Fabians, and trade unionists actively disseminated democratic socialist ideas among the African nationalists. In Francophone Africa, after their initial bonhomie with the French communists, most African leaders turned to different socialist groups for intellectual sustenance.