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Classless Society and One-Party State Ideology in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Benjamin Neuberger
Benjamin Neuberger*
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York, New York
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Extract

This paper is designed to explore the theory which relates the one-party state ideology to the class conditions prevalent in African societies. It is not my intention to argue against the one-party state and for the multiparty system because the latter seems inappropriate for Africa at its present stage of development. This article is an attempt to analyze critically one aspect of the African one-party state ideology rather than to evaluate the whole doctrine that only one-party states can lead African states toward rapid development and national unity.

Many African leaders defend the one-party system on the Marxist ground that political parties are part of the political-social super-structure which articulates basic economic class interests. They argue that there are no distinct economic classes in Africa and that, therefore, there is no justification for the existence of more than one party. Multipartyism in Europe, the United States, and even such developing countries as India is regarded as an outgrowth of class struggles which took place in the past and continue today.

African leaders suggest that in Africa there never were classes in the Marxist sense nor do they exist today. The Nigerian priest B. Onuoha states: “The idea of social classes, of a closed group, whose privilege it was to enjoy the best of everything and an underprivileged group for whom anything was good enough is foreign to Africa” (Onuoha 1965, p. 34). Most African leaders agree with him. Even the General Federation of African Trade Unions, which would presumably represent a specific working-class interest, declares that there is no class differentiation in Africa and that there are no large discrepancies between the living standards of Africa's major social groups (Friedland and Rosberg 1964, p. 22).

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , September 1971 , pp. 287 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1971

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References

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