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The Transition from Primitive Communism: The Wolof Social Formation of West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Rolf Jensen
Rolf Jensen
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut 06320.
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Abstract

The transition from a classless to a class society has been a major dilemma to Marxist economic historians. Using the Wolof social formation of West Africa as its historical example, this paper produces a class theoretic analysis of primitive communism. From this analysis, it is then able to show how such a transition could take place.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-First Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 69 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1982

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References

1 My understanding of the Wolof is based largely on an alternative reading of existing texts. These include Wolof oral histories such as Letyi, Oumar N'Diaye, “le Djoloff et ses Bourbas,” Bulletin de l'Institut Fundamental d'Afrique Noire, 28 ser. B (1966), pp. 966–1008;Google ScholarRousseau, Raymond, “le Sénégal d'Autrefois. Étude sur le Oualo, Cahiers de Yoro Dyao,” Bulletin du Comité Études Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française, 12 (1929), pp. 133–211;Google ScholarWade, Amadou, “Chronique du Walo Sénégalais,” Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, 26 ser. B (1964), pp. 440–98.Google Scholar Some of the important early European accounts include Hakluyt Society, The Voyages of Cadamosto (London, 1937);Google ScholarDapper, d'O., Déscription de l'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686).Google Scholar In addition, I have found Mauny, Raymond, Tableau Géographique de l'Ouest Africain au Moyen Age (Amsterdam, 1967);Google ScholarPélissier, Paul, Les Paysans du Sénégal (St. Yrieix, 1966);Google ScholarBarry, Boubacar, le Royaume du Waalo (Paris, 1972);Google ScholarDiagne, Pathé, Pouvoir Politique en Afrique Occidentale (Paris, 1967);Google Scholar“Contribution à l'Analyse des Régimes et Systèmes Politiques Traditionnels en Afrique de l'Ouest,” Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental D'Afrique Noire, 32 ser. B (1979), pp. 845–87Google Scholar to be especially useful texts on the various political, cultural, and economic aspects of Wolof society. For a theoretical elaboration of our class theoretic approach to the study of history and of its relation to alternative approaches, see Resnick, Stephen and Wolff, Richard, “The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Western Europe,” Review of Radical Political Economy, 11 (Fall, 1979), 3–22.Google Scholar

2 For a much more detailed analysis of the contradictory articulation of class and nonclass processes within the Wolof social formation, see Jensen, Rolf, “Development and Change in the Wolof Social Formation: A Study of Primitive Communism” (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 1981). I also refer readers to that text for an analysis of the sometimes sharp differences that exist between my understanding of the Wolof as primitive communist and traditional understandings of the society.Google Scholar

3 Of course the existence or nonexistence of a primitive communist fundamental class process did not depend upon whether or not lamen occupied a fundamental class position of performers of surplus labor. The performance of any economic or noneconomic condition of existence of the fundamental class process forces us to examine the possibility that such a condition of existence may have existed as a subsumed class process. While lamen may therefore have occupied a subsumed class position in addition to their primitive communist fundamental class position, we do not currently have enough evidence to determine whether or not they were entitled to a cut of primitive communist surplus labor because of their performance of the distribution of the means of production.Google Scholar

4 If we assume only two types of use values, food and iron, then (I) F = FNL + FSL where the total amount of food produced (F) can be conceptualized as the amount of food resulting from the expenditure of necessary labor (FNL) and the amount of food resulting from the expenditure of surplus labor (FSL). Similarly, the total amount of iron goods (T) can be expressed by (2) T = TNL + TSL. Let sgf and sgft represent the amounts of food and iron goods respectively that were necessary to reproduce the food producers. Also let sgt and sgtf represent the amounts of iron and food goods necessary to reproduce the iron producers. Then, (3) FNL = sgf + sgtf and (4) TNL = sgt + sgft. Finally, the realization of necessary labor by the food producers can be represented by (5) nlf = (FNL - sgt) + sgft = sgf + sgf + sgft. Also, (6) nlt = (TNL - sgft) + sgtf = sgt + sgtf.Google Scholar

5 Prior to the social distribution of surplus labor to primitive communist subsumed classes, representatives of these classes generally participated on the advisory councils of the appropriate Wolof chiefs. This had the effect of securing the representation of each class in the determination of its own needs as well as the needs of all other classes. Such representation, however, in no way produced any inherent tendency toward the mitigation of class conflict over the extraction and distribution of surplus labor within this social formation. Indeed, as I point out below, the very forms of participation in the planning process became the object of intense political conflicts, thereby affecting the outcomes of class conflicts as well.Google Scholar