Revisiting Africa’s “Socialist” Past to Design Africa’s Future Political Economy

Abstract

The sad reality of Africa’s socio-economic underdevelopment is beyond contention. What has been vigorously debated is the choice of a suitable political economy to lift Africa out of this historical abyss. Some have prescribed the adoption of capitalism, i.e. the free market economy. Others advocate for socialism or a centrally planned economic model. Indeed, some African thinkers, especially those of the independence era, contend that some variant of the socialist creed is indigenous to the African economic culture. Yet others have advocated some form of mixed economy, one that would synthesize elements of the capitalist system with elements of scientific socialism. In this paper, we first interrogate the idea of “African socialism”. We contend that those who promote this idea operate based on a flawed interpretation of the economic arrangement of pre-colonial African societies. We then propose the adoption of a mixed economy whose content is in part composed of two ideas derivable from a critical evaluation of the pre-colonial political economy of many African societies, namely, the land tenure system and what we describe here as a socialized public sphere. Key Words African socialism, political economy