POLITICAL ECONOMY AND CLASS

***PROBLEMS IN THE APPLICATION OF CLASS THEORY TO AFRICA

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Political economy suggests that the proper starting point for the analysis of the distribution of
power in a society must be the economic relations within that society. The main motor force of
social change is considered to be economic, more especially technological change and such
economic change is alleged to determine the most significant changes in social relations, values
or ideology and political structure. The central concept of political economy is that of class.

CLASS – classes are groups of people who differ from each other in their relationship to the
means of production. The means of production include all the material forces that are brought
into play to produce the goods that are consumed by society. Thus, they include: Land – both
for agricultural production and as a source of raw materials and Tools using the term ‘tools’ in a
broad sense to encompass all forms of technology from the simple hoe to the mass-production
factory. Whether or not a group of individuals can be broadly classified as being the owners of
the means of production is the basic determinant of their class position. Those who own the
means of production exert a tremendous amount of power over those who do not. According to
Karl Marx, the emergence of classes is directly related to the mode of production of society at
any particular time. The mode of production encompasses both the level of development of the
means of production (sometimes called productive forces) and the pattern of ownership of these
forces. The level of development of the productive forces refers to the level of technological
advancement in a particular society. A marxist’s analysis therefore starts with the question:
What kind of technology is used to produce the goods that are consumed by society? Is food
produced with a hoe, with an ox-drawn plough, with a tractor or with chemicals in a food
processing factory?

As societies develop, the tools used to produce food, clothing and other goods become more
complex. Marxist analysis must assume, although we are unlikely to find clear evidence for it,
that there was a period in history when productive forces were spread equitably among all
members of society. However, whether for example, through violence, or because a particular
group had access to crucial raw materials or especially fertile land, inequality began to emerge
and certain people within a society were able to control important resources. Those who own or
control such resources are likely to use them to develop advance means of production of a kind
which most people cannot afford, and thereby further to increase their economic advantage over
those who cannot afford them. The more complex the technology of production, the fewer who
own or control the means of production.

The class which owns the means of production is able, through its ownership to appropriate the
economic surplus of a society. By definition, a society with a subsistence economy is only able
to produce sufficient to cover its bare needs. Once the forces of production become more
complex, however, a society is able to produce more food and other goods than it can consume
at once. Where do these surplus goods go? According to Marx, the class which owns the
means of production takes the surplus in the form of goods, raw materials, or in a relatively
developed economy, money – from the non-owning class which produces it, leaving the non-
owning class with no more than the basic means for its subsistence and reproduction. This
occurs in different ways at different stages of history in different ‘modes of production’.
In any case, the essential question to ask about any society, according to the political
economists is: Who appropriates the surplus and how do they do it? By answering this question,
one can see which is the ‘ruling class’. The ruling class uses state power and ideology in order
to enforce its dominance. In other words, the bureaucracy, the military, the police and
ideological agencies such as established church and the press are all tools of class rule. Their
primary task is that of subordinating the exploited non-ruling classes in society. Any mode of
production involves, however, fundamental conflict between the ruling class and the exploited
classes. This is partly and very simply because the exploited classes are exploited and remain
impoverished while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the relatively few
members of the ruling class.

Secondly, there is according to Marx, an increasing contradiction between the level of

productive forces and the social relations of production. In other words, as the productive forces
(technology) become increasingly advanced in, say, feudal society, the social division into
aristocratic landowners and serfs becomes increasingly out-dated and incapable of making full
use of the developing technology. The serfs are then joined in their rebellion against the feudal
order by the rising bourgeoisie (who are able to make use of the developing technology). These
sources of conflict intensify to the point where the old ruling class is overthrown and replaced by
another class. Since it is the ruling class which controls state power, however, it is necessary for
this class conflict to take the form of violent revolution by which state power is transferred from
the defeated to the victorious class. This transfer in state power results in a transformation of
both the ownership of the means of production and the pattern of surplus appropriation.
Most theorists who use class in the Marxist sense as a tool for the analysis of African societies
and their politics focus on the interaction of four classes:

1. THE BOURGEOISIE – In a capitalist society, according to Marxist theory, the bourgeoisie

class owns the means of production, holds state power and appropriates society’s surplus. It is
a class in which Europe emerged with capitalism and which, through its desire to expand its
control and its wealth, greatly increased the productive capacity of the society of which it was a
part. By investing in industrial expansion, the European bourgeoisie brought about substantial
economic development. It has been argued that there is no domestic bourgeoisie in African
nations since the means of industrial production and mineral extraction in them are largely
owned either by foreigners or by the state. In addition, it is largely foreign firms which exploit
peasant export crop producers by setting the prices paid for their crops at an artificially low level
and by setting the cost of imported goods at artificially high levels. On the basis of this then, the
dominant class (if not the actual ruling class) in African societies is the western metropolitan or
neo-colonial bourgeoisie. Moreover, whereas this bourgeoisie has brought about substantial
economic development in Europe itself, it has rather created ‘underdevelopment’ or ‘dependent
development’ in Africa by draining the surplus of African production back to Europe instead of
investing it locally. How then are we to describe the position of African government, leaders and
state officials enjoying very high incomes by local standards? It has been suggested that since
they derive their power, in part, and much of their wealth from their relationship with the foreign
bourgeoisie, serving the latter’s interests, they should be termed a ‘comprador’ bourgeoisie
meaning an agent of foreign interests. At the same time, it has to be recognised that such
people gain much of their wealth also by appropriating some of society’s surplus through their
control of the state apparatus, especially state marketing boards which exploit the peasant just
as more or even more than do foreign firms. On these grounds, they might be termed a
‘bureaucratic’ bourgeoisie. Whichever term seems the more appropriate, however, it is clear
that, in so far as they do not actually own the means of production, they cannot be considered a
pure bourgeoisie in the original Marxist sense.
2. THE PETTY BOURGEOSIE – Marx originally used the term ‘petty’ bourgeoisie to refer to
small shopkeepers and businessmen who, although they owned their own means of production
or subsistence, did not employ wage-labour on any significant scale. There are obviously many
traders and such like in most African societies who are petty bourgeois in this sense. Some
political economists have come to use the term in a wider sense, however, to refer to all those –
lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, and others, who though not owning the means of
production, are led by their relatively high level of education and other skills to identify with the
foreign bourgeoisie and local bureaucratic bourgeoisie or even to aspire to become members of
the latter class. Though their cultural values and ideological orientation, they thus provide
support for the system of capitalist dependency.

3. THE PROLETARIAT - As defined by Marx, the proletariat is a class of people who own
nothing except their own labour power which they must sell in order to survive. The proletariat
may be urban or rural dwelling, working in factories or other manufacturing enterprises or on
farms. The term is normally applied, however to urban workers. The owners of the means of
production appropriate the surplus that springs from the proletariat’s labour and pay it low
wages, wages far below the value of what the proletariat produces. The proletariat does exist in
Africa in pure form, but as we shall see in our discussion of the peasant class, the extent to
which the proletariat is totally dependent for its survival on being employed by the bourgeoisie
may be qualified by its retention, however limited, of access to agricultural land or other sources
of petty production.

Again, while Marx characterised the proletariat class as the most exploited class in 19 th century
Europe, one that had nothing to lose but its chains, it cannot be clearly characterised in 20 th
century Africa. In the first place, the African working class is very small. In the second place,
urban workers are sometimes more privileged than the peasantry, which comprises the vast
majority of the population. Indeed, it has been argued by some political economists that at least
part of the African working class belongs to the more privileged part of the society.

4. THE PEASANTRY – Because of the continued importance of relatively small scale

agriculture in Africa, the peasantry represents a substantial proportion of the population.
Peasants own relatively small areas of land and usually employ family labour to produce their
own subsistence needs as well as a surplus for exchange on the market (farmers who own
large areas of land and employ considerable numbers of wage labourers are better described
as ‘capitalist farmers’). It is through their investment with the market that peasants come into
contact and conflict with other classes.

PROBLEMS IN THE APPLICATION OF CLASS THEORY TO AFRICA

One of the major problems in the application of class theory to Africa lies in the fact that the
distinction between classes is often not as clear as in more fully developed capitalist societies.
We have already referred to the modifications that it is necessary to make to the concepts of the
bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. Moreover, it is often not possible to make a categorical
distinction between the proletariat and the peasantry. Many of the people who work in the cities
still maintain land in the country. They may migrate to paid work only during the non-farming
seasons, or they may have other members of their family permanently working on the land. In
the city, they are wage labourers separated from ownership of the means of production hence
the proletariat, while in the country, their ownership of land and tools classifies them as
peasants. There are also peasants who, besides maintaining their own farmland, work on the
farms of others and can both be classified as both peasants and (agricultural) proletariats.
Because of the abundance of land and the economic security which it provides in Africa, very
few people have completely broken from the land. Thus, it is difficult and sometimes misleading
to make rigid class distinctions.

This fluidity is due to the relative youth of classes associated with the capitalist phase of
development in Africa. Rooted in the ownership or non-ownership of the means of capitalist
production, such classes that is, the bourgeoisie and proletariat can best be described as being
in a state of formation in Africa. The imposition of colonial capitalism created the conditions in
which such classes began to emerge. For an embryonic class to become a fully developed
class however, it is necessary that its members develop class consciousness, a sense of
solidarity and an awareness of the conflict of its interests with those of other classes. According
to Marx, when classes come into being, their crucial characteristics can be isolated and
described by the observer. At some point in this process, the class in question may come into
consciousness of its own interests and pursue them in conflict with other classes. It is
questionable whether class consciousness is widespread in Africa at present, however, as this
quotation suggests, it is both expressed and created. Up to the present time, political conflict in
Africa has only occasionally taken the form of over class conflict.