ABSTRACT
For several centuries, as Walter Rodney (1972), Immanuel Wallerstein (1986), and others have told us, Africa has been part of the global economy.1 Perhaps the two most enduring connections between Africa and the West are the Atlantic Slave trade, which lasted roughly 400 years and the European colonial system, which lasted roughly 100 years. While the former connection has been viewed as the most economically exploitative to Africa by the outside world, the latter represented the end result of a long historical process of incorporating Africa into
the global capitalist system. The end of the colonial system in Africa, which took place from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s was supposed to usher in a period of rapid modernization and economic development. The assumption here was that since Africans were now in charge of their own destiny, they would embark on a systematic transformation of the economy via state action to improve the material conditions of their citizens (Nyang’oro 1989). The state actually was expected to play the twin/dual role of developmentalism and welfarism. This expectation was natural because of the promises that were being given to the masses by the elite nationalists who were campaigning hard to dislodge the colonial state. It was also logical that any modern state would perform those functions anyway-given the example of the colonial “mother” country in its own domestic environment-in Britain, France, Belgium, etc. Most former colonial powers are leaders in state welfarism.
