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Afro-Marxist Regimes: Ideology and Public Policy
In pristine condition, covers excellent, no marks or signs of wear. Not ex-library.
- GenresAfrica
335 pages, Hardcover
Published December 31, 1987
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March 2, 2023
- Dedicated to the legacy of Samora Machel
- contributions from scholars within the countries described
- neither dismissive or nor uncritical to the ideological frameworks which the Afro-Marxist regimes use to conceive of their own development.
This book is a gem. Impossible to understand why it's so rare, or so unknown. Spiritual successor to Afrocommunism, the final contemporary monograph on African marxist regimes, it's unavoidable in its very neglected field. In depth discuss to follow, but to offer a glance behind the veil: the most productive concept introduced here is the tension between 'strong regimes' and 'soft states'. Harried decolonization left nations ensconsed in barely functional and understaffed states, oftentimes with goals inimical to the populace, reliant on economic networks that were rapidly drying up. As Nigel Harris argued for protectionism, Mason for fascism and Polanyi for socialism, the realization of African state socialism was often more a post-factum coming to terms with the real and terminal dysfunction of a market system, and less the work of a heroic and promethean Party — Ethiopia, most tellingly, lacking any kind of party. That's not a knock against the system — all state socialisms so to speak hacked their way into being — but rather it draws out the contingencies necessary for their emergence, and the conditions and challenges these origins might throw up along the way. Given that the first major station on the railroad to socialism is a state through which to rearrange economic life, decolonization forced winners of the political struggle — oftentimes paramilitary groups — to create an institution that could in turn seed the state. Strong regimes abound.
- contributions from scholars within the countries described
- neither dismissive or nor uncritical to the ideological frameworks which the Afro-Marxist regimes use to conceive of their own development.
This book is a gem. Impossible to understand why it's so rare, or so unknown. Spiritual successor to Afrocommunism, the final contemporary monograph on African marxist regimes, it's unavoidable in its very neglected field. In depth discuss to follow, but to offer a glance behind the veil: the most productive concept introduced here is the tension between 'strong regimes' and 'soft states'. Harried decolonization left nations ensconsed in barely functional and understaffed states, oftentimes with goals inimical to the populace, reliant on economic networks that were rapidly drying up. As Nigel Harris argued for protectionism, Mason for fascism and Polanyi for socialism, the realization of African state socialism was often more a post-factum coming to terms with the real and terminal dysfunction of a market system, and less the work of a heroic and promethean Party — Ethiopia, most tellingly, lacking any kind of party. That's not a knock against the system — all state socialisms so to speak hacked their way into being — but rather it draws out the contingencies necessary for their emergence, and the conditions and challenges these origins might throw up along the way. Given that the first major station on the railroad to socialism is a state through which to rearrange economic life, decolonization forced winners of the political struggle — oftentimes paramilitary groups — to create an institution that could in turn seed the state. Strong regimes abound.
Displaying 1 of 1 review