| | Goran Hyden has written a well-documented, clearly -argued and powerful polemic against those who seek to locate the underdevelopment of the African peasantry in the predatory activities of a unitary and all-embracing imperialism. Like all polemicists he tends to overstate his case. For example, early on he makes the bold assertion that 'The problems of underdevelopment do not stem from an excessive penetration by world capitalism. Rather they stem from the inability of capitalism to produce the same dynamic transformation of the material base as it once did in Europe and America' . (pp.3-4). In actual fact his real target is not dependency or Marxist development theory per se, but their uncritical and naive employment in conceptualizing the rural political economy of Africa: 'While the social realities of Asia and Latin America are such that the Marxist paradigm can be used without any major modifications, the same can hardly be said of Africa' . (p.250). What does he suggest instead? |
