Dear USA Africa,
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Igwe, Dickson Ogbonnaya
Criminology and Security Studies Department
School of Arts and Social Sciences
National Open University of Nigeria.
On Tuesday, February 23, 2016 8:58 PM, 'Chambi Chachage' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
From: Yash Tandon <tandonmail@yahoo.com>
To: Chambi Chachage <chambi78@yahoo.com>; Wanazuoni <wanazuoni@yahoogroups.com>; "szalanga@gmail.com" <szalanga@gmail.com>; "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: [...]
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: Class Analysis 101
Dear friends,This is an interesting debate. I was engaged in this debate in mid-1970s at the University of Dar es Salaam - see Yash Tandon ed. "Class, State & Imperialism" (TPH, 1979)Later, from 1973 to 1980 I was involved in the struggle against Idi Amin in Uganda together with people like Dani Nabudere and Omwony Ojwok… and millions of Ugandans. We learnt in the heat of the struggle that our principal enemy was Imperialism, and that we had to make alliances cutting across classes amongst nationalist Ugandans. It was a very intense and challenging struggle ... but that is another story for another day. I should add that the "national question" in Uganda remains unresolved.In 1980s and 90s – for some 20 years - I worked in the rural areas of Zimbabwe (not at the University). I discovered that you don't have to be a Marxist to know that are classes. In the Zambezi Valley where I worked for some 15 years, the people most exploited were women, especially farm workers. Nonetheless, I learnt from the women that they had to join forces cutting across their class divisions in order to fight against a deeply embedded male-dominated system of production and exchange.I used to publish a weekly called "Sustainable Development Bulletin" in which I recorded the struggles that were waging on the ground in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa … i.e in the southern African region.Let me cut down my story. In 1997 I founded an organisation called SEATINI (Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and negotiations Institute). Together with other comrades, for the last 18 years, we have been resisting the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the European Union. Let me sum up our experience in one sentence: the Empire is alive and kiching; the National Question remains unresolved; and above all, the Empire is waging war against Africa. I have documented this in my book "Trade is War" (1975, OR-Books)Theory is fine; practice is far more complex. Classes exist, of course. But there are other identities that surface during active struggles. How to resolve internal class (and other – gender, ethnic, religious, language, etc.) contradictions while resisting the Empire is something we had leant (again in theory) from the Chinese experience under Mao. But to put the strategy and tactics of this struggle on the ground is very challenging. In the last chapter of "Trade is War" I try to grapple with this question… in my way. The debate remains open.In solidarity and in the name of Pan-African struggle against the EmpireYash TandonFrom: Chambi Chachage <chambi78@yahoo.com>
To: Wanazuoni <wanazuoni@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 7:52 AM
Subject: Class Analysis 101
*Also take note of the attached article, written in 1982, analyzing among others, Shivji's take on class:----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Samuel Zalanga <szalanga@gmail.com>
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 3:15 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - On Class and Social Status in Nigeria and Africa
I remember encountering this debate in a serious fashion as an undergraduate and it has since that time remained with me. I took a course in political science from a lecturer who is Asian I believe but I was told he was from Malawi. His name was: Y. M. Adam. The guy was a serious Marxist scholar but not doctrinaire. It is from him that I learned the importance of differentiating between theoretical arguments on social class and the need to ground them on a Marxist methodology instead of rhetoric. He was really helpful. He told us that no one should answer his question in the exam in class without reading an article he wrote in a journal, where he actually addresses the kind of concern you have, which are legitimate questions. I think though that the question applies more to the past of Africa like, the precolonial era than this era of neoliberal globalization. Here are my few thoughts about the subject. The article he wrote is now very old but in terms of the insights it provides to the kinds of concerns you raised, it is very relevant. I have in case you are interested attached the article in two parts.1. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN "CLASS IN ITSELF AND CLASS FOR ITSELF." This is an important distinction that Marx made in terms of analyzing social classes. Essentially, Marx is saying that when a social class exists but it is not conscious of its status and interest as a class, then it is class in itself. But when a class exists and it is aware and conscious of itself and organize to pursue its self-interest or class interest, then it is class for itself. A social class can only pursue class struggle with a view to changing society if it has developed class consciousness. Unfortunately, there are so many variables that can mitigate or meditate the development of class consciousnesses. Marx focused on religion and things like nationalism as obstacles. He ignored things like gender. He felt that as class struggle continues, workers will rise above the idea of the nation which for him was a ruling class ideology. So one way to think about that is to say that many groups in Africa are class in itself (Klasse en Sich) but not class for itself (Klasse fuer Sich), but this is an argument that is hard to sustain in today's Africa looking at how there is an organized group that knows its interest and is trying to use all dominant institutions to protect those interests. Of course some argue that the problem of Africa is not the question of classes per se, but the lack of a bourgeois nationalism or bourgeois nationalist. Fanon in his chapter on "The pitfalls of national consciousness" in "The Wretched of the Earth" laments this bourgeoisie that is satisfied to consume what is the fruits of the bourgeois revolution and creativity in the West, with no any intellectual curiosity of their own to recreate their own society. They are just satisfied to consume. Whatever!2. FOCUSING ON MARX'S METHODOLOGY RATHER THAN RHETORIC: According to Adam, instead of focusing mechanically on Marx's rhetoric about class, in which case he shifted somewhat in the way he discusses it in the Communist Manifesto vis-a-vis The Eighteenth Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte, we should focus on methodology. In the Communist Manifesto which was a polemical document, Marx's argument is very sharp, but when he deals with an empirical case in the 18th Brumaire, he is more careful. From this, theoreticians and methodologists argue that instead of mechanistically applying European Marxist class analysis to Africa, the real essence of Marx's analysis is that in order to identify social classes, the first thing we need to do is to identify the mode of production i.e., an empirical approach. What is the mode of production in that society, and who controls it or who extracts the most surplus from it, and who puts in more work or labor time but do not get much out of it or at least they forfeit part of the fruits of that labor.I believe your conclusion about Hausa-Fulani and Ashanti is correct and consistent with this methodological argument that is being recommended by Y.M. Adam. Basil Davidson's documentary episode on Africa, with particular reference to precolonial administrative systems of Kingdoms, where he focused on Nigeria's Hausa-Fulani highlights this issue. The horse in the Kano Emir's palace seemed better taken care of than some of the peasants. I know this is not nice to to say but it is obvious from the documentary. Even today, some peasants are not better off in terms of the attention they received compared to the horses of some of the ruling classes in the North. So with this methodological approach, the big question is what is the mode of production first and foremost. Once you identified it you can then know who are the social classes. One can remain agnostic as to the nomenclature. The names of the social classes may not be the exact proletariat and bourgeois but at least the classes would be there and that is the strength of this methodology, --- which avoids a mechanistic application of class analysis. We must remember that Marx's own theory could not be mechanistically applied to Asia and so he had to create a whole additional and separate mode of production called Asiatic mode. Moreover, Marx in the 18th Brumaire described peasants as sack of potatoes because he thought they cannot develop class consciousness.3. MAX WEBER'S CONTRIBUTION TO CLASS ANALYSIS: Max Weber built on Marx's work on class analysis. Some call him the bourgeois Max. He came from the German political establishment, but I see his ideas as more relevant and dangerous for our world day. Many in the West are afraid of Marx primarily because he said, capitalism is not going to survive, it is going to collapse and that is why we shall be in trouble. Well, Max Weber said, we are going to be in trouble because capitalism is going to succeed. So for those looking forward to the success of capitalism, Weber is saying you ain't seen anything yet. Marx thought that the main criterion for determining class location is one's relationship to the means of production, i.e., who owns and who does not own the means of production.On the other hand, Max Weber said that this is true but there are more nuances to that. Of course Weber live to see capitalism developed further than Marx. First, Weber, adds the idea that it is not mere ownership and lack of ownership that is the key issue but your "market situation." What he meant by that is that even if you own a means of production, what you get out of it is not just dependent on the ownership but the market situation i.e., how the market values that particular property or even a person's human capital. In other words, we can subdivide the bourgeoisie or property owners in terms of how what they own is valued in the market: property, stocks, shares etc. On the other hand, even among the proletariat, people may just sell their labor but the market might value some labor more than others e.g., basket ball and American football players, or some talk show host that make some ungodly money for no other reason but the way the market evaluates their labor or human capital. In this case, Weber even deepens Marx's analysis and makes it more nuanced and this is very relevant to contemporary Africa.There are some Africans with certain cultural capital that is needed in the kind of market and economy in the continent today and they are cashing it. The market in this respect is amoral. On the other hand, Weber makes the case that in contrast to Marx seeing class consciousness as an immediate mobilizer for social action, he thought that what was more likely to galvanize people to action is their social status, or the prestige associated to a certain group as part of their identity. For instance, students in a university might come from different social classes but if one of them is shot for no other reason than he or she is a student, such an act is more likely to mobilize action quickly because as a status-group, their identity is more easily mobilized. In the case of Nigeria, in spite of difference of social class within ethnic groups, if a member of a particular ethnic group is killed for no other reason than his or her ethnic identity, which is a status identity, such an action can easily galvanize sentiment an action than class mobilization.Class identity is mediated by many variables, such as religion, ethnicity, gender, and in some cases what some call a moral economy, where there is inequality and exploitation but there is also obligation on the rich to protect the poor. James Scott discusses this with regards to peasants in Malaysia. Some of the slave owners used this argument in the Southern U.S. They said that biblically, they have the right to own slaves but owning the slaves come with a moral responsibility to treat them well as Apostle Paul counseled the owners, while appealing to the slaves to respect and obey their masters. If your concern is with pure inequality, there is nothing wrong with focusing on on status groups or prestige and how it is used to allow some to get access to scarce resources while others are denied.Whatever the case, looking at Weber's analysis and Marxist methodology, there are indeed social classes that have solidified in postcolonial Africa, notwithstanding mitigating factors, which equally apply in the West. In the U.S., because of nationalism or better known here as patriotism, President Ronald Reagan persuaded many democrats to vote republican. Meanwhile, one politician said, if you want to live like a republican, vote democrat. When the labor movement shifted to the right in the name of patriotism or sentimental talk about their labor being used to subsidized presumably "lazy" black people on welfare, they suffered for it both under republicans and democrats who committed themselves to neoliberal globalization. The second episode of the documentary "Commanding Heights" which is free online shows how Clinton betrayed labor movements after he assumed office.4. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT's NEO-MARXIST CLASS ANALYSIS AND THE "LABOR ARISTOCRACY THESIS OF ARRIGHI AND JOHN SAUL": As capitalism has deepened in different parts of the world even if it is dependent capitalism in some places, now there is the question of a new class that derives its power through management and control of resources, not through ownership i.e., management and control on behalf of the owners. This is the group that could be called technocrats. They are not truly the owners, and so in that respect they are answerable to others, but at the same time, they control people and resources. They occupy a contradictory but very influential position in society. They have not interest in changing the system in the interest of those at the bottom. They tend to identify with the upper classes. Indeed, this is part of what blunted class struggle especially when combined with the theory of embourgeoisement which simply meant the working class have become bourgeoisified with the evolution of capitalism and they became more interested in succeeding within the system instead of changing it. This after all may not be sustainable though. I believe Erik Olin Wright who is at the University of Wisconsin Madison has made a great contribution here. The emergence of this class is significant even in Africa. Dangote's business relies on technocrats from different parts of Nigeria and overseas. On the other hand, even though there are many factors that have contributed to diminish the nature and substance of of working class movements or labor movements, Arrighi and Saul long ago noted that there was a problem in Africa with what they called the labor aristocracy thesis. This is a situation where the upper cream of the labor movement identifies itself with the management instead of the people they are supposed to represent. They try to take care of their interest at the expense of the broader goals of the labor movement, and so over time this has killed the movement. The leaders are co-opted.In a broader context, this has had a devastating consequences on class analysis because as Thomas Piketty argues in his "Capital in the 21st Century" the relative prosperity that took place in the postwar period in the West was not an inherent function of capitalist logic, but a product of a particular form of institutional arrangement or rearrangement necessitated by war and and the emergence of particular social movements that put pressure on the system that led it to be reorganized. Without social movements or some major shock in the system such as war, capitalist accumulation strategy in and of itself has no commitment to deal with the question of fair distribution. This is a moral and ethical question that when an economic, social and political system is bereft of, then, the end would be what Weber described as "an iron cage" rather than a "garden of Eden." This is Weber's conclusion with regard to the process of rationalization that infuses modern capitalism, which is amoral. He did not see any end in sight to the process and he saw it as destroying any solid foundation for meaning. Today, we live in a world where increasingly, people have more meaning and power as consumers with effective purchasing power than as citizens. This means that the concept of citizenship which shaped the struggles of many social movements (Britain in the 1600s and The French Revolution, Anti-colonial Struggle etc) is now being subverted by the status of a consumer. If one is a consumer with effective purchasing power, he or she is likely to enjoy more benefits than a citizen with no standing in the marketplace. Consumers with purchasing power constitute viable markets.5. LEGITIMIZATION OF CLASS INEQUALITY: There is a strong tendency among some African scholars and more importantly other elites to claim that African people and societies are so unique that what happened in Europe may have nothing useful for Africa to learn from. I do not agree with that. Often it is in the area of class analysis that this becomes prominent. Such people will say that African societies are harmonious and communal and so they are inherently and naturally the antithesis to class analysis. What such people ignore is that even if precolonial Africa had no social classes presumably, which is a false claim with regard to many societies, given that different societies were at different levels of evolution, in the postcolonial period, Africa became part of the modern world under terms that were not her own. In fact many of the postcolonial leaders made the best use of the postcolonial modern system to further their selfish interest. But they identify Africa at a particular period in her evolution and then keep the continent static as if it is not changing or it is immune to the forces of change. If there was Ubuntu in the past, one cannot assume that such an Ubuntu or "Ubuntogogy" as someone called it is still there intact. In many respects this is the problem of all human societies and civilization.The claim by some Afrocentric scholars to recover and reenact this pure Africa of the past, to me is not a worthwhile effort from an anthropological point of view. If Africans are part of the human family, we have to admit that there are certain fundamental universals about human societies as they evolve and Africa cannot be an exception. It is true that every culture is in some respects unique but there are certain underlying realities that apply across the board. This attempt to avoid any serious discussion of class analysis in Africa because of the presumed communal or harmonious nature of the continent can indeed be considered as part of a ruling class ideology and therefore a means to legitimize class or status inequality by making it look natural. It is not surprising that in many parts of Africa, even in religious circles, the struggle for social justice is not something that is taken seriously or put in the front burner. We are told that we should respect elders even though in the traditional concept of respect for the elderly, the elderly have a huge social responsibility towards the ordinary people who are weak in society. Now the elders want respect but they do not want to sacrifice or perform their true role as elders. Interestingly, China, based on Confucian ideology is a very hierarchical society but it also has the potential for serious revolution or uprising because the ordinary citizens believe that if they play their own part faithfully but the elites fail to play their own part towards the citizens, the citizens have a moral right to rise up and fight against the system. Why this does not happen in Africa in a widespread manner bothers me.I hope this helps. As I said above, I have attached the article that I read on this issue at Bayero University Kano as an undergraduate, which of course shaped my thinking on the analytical complexity of this topic.SamuelOn Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 6:22 AM, Shola Adenekan <sholaadenekan@gmail.com> wrote:Dear All,--Sorry to barge in on you like this. Can you please provide some tips as per this:I have been thinking about the experience of class in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, but I'm struggling with using a western framework to define my thinking. Is the word 'class' for example, applicable in an African context when we take into consideration the fact that social status operates (or operated) in many African societies (pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial) differently from that of Europe? Are 'social status' and 'class' interchangeable or do I need to be careful not to lump them together.Now, I reject this notion of classless pre-colonial Africa as I'm not blinded to the fact that social status played a lot of role in Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani as well as Ashanti history. I need help in thinking through to the way in which social status operated in these societies; Can we use the word 'class' or 'social status' in framing this consciousness?Thanks so much in advance for your tips. You can email me off the list if that is preferable.--Regards,Dr. Shola AdenekanAfrican Literature and CulturesUniversity of BremenEditor/Publisher:
The New Black Magazine - http://www.thenewblackmagazine.com/
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