African anti-capitalisms

The epoch of neoliberal economic policy, stretching from about 1980 to the present, has engendered resistance of a systemic character. From 2000 on, demonstrations against global-scale power blocs became commonplace. Yet Africa seemed marginalised from the politics of ‘anti-capitalism’ which became more forceful across the Third World. Similar engagement on the continent was restrained by the immature character of most African democracies and residual oppression in most of the continent, the nature of social relations, the underdevelopment of industry and small size of the formal-sector working class, the lack of information and the difficulty of forging an ideology that could contest neoliberalism from the standpoint of grassroots resistance. Nevertheless, Africans did riot against IMF-imposed austerity measures, and evidence from sites such as the African Social Forum suggests the emergence of coherent analyses, strategies and tactics.