ABSTRACT
The number of feudal states in Africa has proliferated even in the last few years, the authors of the accounts explicitly or implicitly rejecting the caveat about the use of this term. The identification of 'feudalism' in Africa has been associated with the left rather than the right. This chapter suggests that we need to take a closer look at the means and organization of production in Africa and Europe instead of tacitly assuming identity in these important respects. The concept of non-monetary economics is hardly applicable to pre-colonial Africa, with the possible exception of certain hunting groups of minimal importance. From the point of view of mercantile economy, parts of Africa were not dissimilar to Western Europe of the same period. In West Africa the diffuse government characteristic of European feudalism often took the different form of a system of succession by which the paramountcy passed between the various segments of the ruling estate.
