Julius Kambarage Nyerere, Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism, April 1962

Julius Nyerere, 1922‐1999

Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism
Socialism – like democracy – is an attitude of mind. In a socialist society it is thesocialist attitude of mind, and not the rigid adherence to a standard political
pattern, which is needed to ensure that the people care for each other’s welfare.
The purpose of this paper is to examine that attitude. It is not intended to define
the institutions which may be required to embody it in a modern society.
In the individual, as in the society, it is an attitude. It is not intended to define theinstitutions which may be required to embody it in a modern society.
In the individual, as in the society, it is an attitude of mind which distinguishes thesocialist from the non‐socialist. It has nothing to do with the possession or non‐possession of wealth. Destitute people can be potential capitalists – exploiters of
their fellow human beings. A millionaire can equally well be a socialist; he may
value his wealth only because it can be used in the service of his fellow men. But
the man who uses wealth for the purpose of dominating any of his fellows is acapitalist. So is the man who would if he could!
I have said that a millionaire can be a good socialist. But a socialist millionaire is arare phenomenon. Indeed he is almost a contradiction in terms. The appearance of
millionaires in any society is no proof of its affluence; they can be produced by very
poor countries like Tanganyika just as well as by rich countries like the United Statesof America. For it is not efficiency of production, nor the amount of wealth in acountry, which make millionaires; it is the uneven distribution of what is produced.
The basic difference between a socialist society and a capitalist society does not lie
in their methods of producing wealth, but in the way that wealth is distributed.
While, therefore, a millionaire could be a good socialist, he could hardly be theproduct of a socialist society.

1
20‐10‐2a/4

Since the appearance of millionaires in a society does not depend on its affluence,sociologists may find it interesting to try and find out why our societies in Africa did
not, in fact, produce any millionaires – for we certainly had enough wealth to createa few. I think they would discover that it was because the organization of traditional
African society – its distribution of the wealth it produced – was such that there was
hardly any room for parasitism. They might also say, of course, that as a result of
this Africa could not produce a leisured class of landowners, and therefore there
was nobody to produce the works of art or science which capitalist societies canboast. But works of art and the achievements of science are products of theintellect – which, like land, is one of God’s gifts to man. And I cannot believe that
God is so careless as to have made the use of one of His gifts depend on the misuseof another!
Defenders of capitalism claim that the millionaire’s wealth is the just reward for his
ability or enterprise. But this claim is not borne out by the facts. The wealth of themillionaire depends as little on the enterprise or, abilities of the millionaire himself
as the power of a feudal monarch depended on his own efforts, enterprise or brain.
Both are users, exploiters, of the abilities and enterprise of other people. Even
when you have an exceptionally intelligent and hard‐working millionaire, thedifference between his intelligence, his enterprise, his hard work, and those ofother members of society, cannot possibly be proportionate to the difference
between their ‘rewards’. There must be something wrong in a society where one
man, however hard‐working or clever he may be, can acquire as great a ‘reward’ asa thousand of his fellows can acquire between them.
Acquisitiveness for the purpose of gaining power and prestige is unsocialist. In an
acquisitive society wealth tends to corrupt those who possess it. It tends to breed inthem a desire to live more comfortably than their fellows, to dress better, and inevery way to outdo them. They begin to feel they must climb as far above theirneighbours as they can. The visible contrast between their own comfort and thecomparative discomfort of the rest of society becomes almost essential to theenjoyment of their wealth, and this sets off the spiral of personal competition –which is then anti‐social.
Apart from the anti‐social effects of the accumulation of personal wealth, the very
desire to accumulate it must be interpreted as a vote of ‘no confidence’ in the social
system. For when a society is so organized that it cares about its individuals, then,provided he is willing to work, no individual, then within that society should worry
about what will happen to him tomorrow if he does not hoard wealth today. Society
itself should look after him, or his widow, or his orphans. This is exactly what
traditional African society succeeded in doing. Both the ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’
individual were completely secure in African society. Natural catastrophe brought
famine, but it brought famine to everybody – ‘poor’ or ‘rich’. Nobody starved, either2
20‐10‐2a/4

of food or of human dignity, because he lacked personal wealth; he could dependon the wealth possessed by the community of which he was a member. That wassocialism. That is socialism. There can be no such thing as acquisitive socialism, forthat would be another contradiction in terms. Socialism is essentially distributive.
Its concern is to see that those who sow reap a fair share of what they sow.
The production of wealth, whether by primitive or modern methods, requires three
things. First, land. God has given us the land, and it is from the land that we get the
raw materials which we reshape to meet our needs. Secondly, tools. We have foundby simple experience that tools do help! So we make the hoe, the axe, or themodern factory or tractor, to help us to produce wealth – the goods we need. And,
thirdly, human exertion – or labour. We don’t need to read Karl Marx or Adam
Smith to find out that neither the land nor the hoe actually produces wealth. And
we don’t need to take degrees in Economics to know that neither the worker nor
the landlord produces land. Land is God’s gift to man – it is always there. But we doknow, still without degrees in Economics, that the axe and the plough were
produced by the labourer. Some of our more sophisticated friends apparently haveto undergo the most rigorous intellectual training simply in order to discover thatstone axes were produced by that ancient gentleman ‘Early Man’ to make it easierfor him to skin the impala he had just killed with a club, which he had also made forhimself!
In traditional African society everybody was a worker. There was no other way ofearning a living for the community. Even the Elder, who appeared to be enjoying
himself without doing any work and for whom everybody else appeared to beworking, had, in fact, worked hard all his younger days. The wealth he now
appeared to possess was not his, personally; it was only ‘his’ as the Elder of thegroup which had produced it. He was its guardian. The wealth itself gave himneither power nor prestige. The respect paid to him by the young was his because
he was older than they, and had served his community longer; and the ‘poor’ Elderenjoyed as much respect in our society as the ‘rich’ Elder.
When I say that in traditional African society everybody was a worker, I do not use
the word ‘worker’ simply as opposed to ‘employer’ but also as opposed to ‘loiterer’or ‘idler’. One of the most socialistic achievements of our society was the sense of
security it gave to its members, and the universal hospitality on which they could
rely. But it is too often forgotten, nowadays, that the basis of this great socialistic
achievement was this: that it was taken for granted that every member of society –barring only the children and the infirm – contributed his fair share of effort
towards the production of its wealth. Not only was the capitalist, or the landed
exploiter, unknown to traditional African society, but we did not have that otherform of modern parasite – the loiterer, or idler, who accepts the hospitality of3
20‐10‐2a/4

society as his ‘right’ but gives nothing in return! Capitalistic exploitation was
impossible. Loitering was an unthinkable disgrace.
Those of us who talk about the African way of life and, quite rightly, take a pride inmaintaining the tradition of hospitality which is so great a part of it, might do well
to remember the Swahili saying: ‘Mgeni siku mbili; siku ya tatu mpe jembe’ – or in
English, ‘Treat your guest as a guest for two days; on the third day give him a hoe!’
In actual fact, the guest was likely to ask for the hoe even before his host had togive him one – for he knew what was expected of him, and would have beenashamed to remain idle any longer. Thus, working was part and parcel, was indeed
the very basis and justification of this socialist achievement of which we are sojustly proud.
There is no such thing as socialism without work. A society which fails to give its
individuals the means to work, or, having given them the means to work, prevents
them from getting a fair share of the products of their own sweat and toil, needs
putting right. Similarly, an individual who can work – and is provided by society withthe means to work – but does not do so, is equally wrong. He has no right to expect
anything from society because he contributes nothing to society.
The other use of the word ‘worker’, in its specialized sense of ‘employee; as
opposed to ‘employer’, reflects a capitalist attitude of mind which was introduced
into Africa with the coming of colonialism and is totally foreign to our own way of
thinking. In the old days the African had never aspired to the possession of personal
wealth for the purpose of dominating any of his fellows. He had never hadlabourers or ‘factory hands’ to do his work for him. But then came the foreign
capitalists. They were wealthy. They were powerful. And the African naturally
started wanting to be wealthy too. There is nothing wrong in our wanting to be
wealthy; nor is it a bad thing for us to want to acquire the power which wealthbrings with it. But it most certainly is wrong if we want the wealth and the power sothat we can dominate somebody else. Unfortunately there are some of us who
have already learnt to covet wealth for that purpose – and who would like to use
the methods which the capitalist uses in acquiring it. That is to say, some of us
would like to use, or exploit, our brothers for the purpose of building up our own
personal power and prestige. This is completely foreign to us, and it is incompatible
with the socialist society we want to build here.
Our first step, therefore, must be to re‐educate ourselves; to regain our former
attitude of mind. In our traditional African society we were individuals within acommunity. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us.
We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellow men.
And in rejecting the capitalist attitude of mind which colonialism brought into
Africa, we must reject also the capitalist methods which go with it. One of these is4
20‐10‐2a/4

the individual ownership of land. To us in Africa land was always recognized as
belonging to the community. Each individual within our society had a right to theuse of land, because otherwise he could not earn his living and one cannot have theright to life without also having the right to some means of maintaining life. But theAfrican’s right to land was simply the right to use it; he had no other right to it, nor
did it occur to him to try and claim one.
The foreigner introduced a completely different concept–the concept of land as amarketable commodity. According to this system, a person could claim a piece ofland as his own private property whether he intended to use it or not. I could take a
few square miles of land, call them ‘mine’, and then go off to the moon. All I had to
do to gain a living from ‘my’ land was to charge a rent to the people who wanted touse it. If this piece of land was in an urban area I had no need to develop it at all; I
could leave it to the fools who were prepared to develop all the other pieces of landsurrounding ‘My’ piece, and in doing so automatically to raise the market value ofmine.
Then I could come down from the moon and demand that these fools pay me
through their noses for the high value of ‘my’ land – a value which they themselves
had created for me while I was enjoying myself on the moon! Such a system is not
only foreign to us, it is completely wrong. Landlords, in a society which recognizes
individual ownership of land, can be, and usually are, in the same class as theloiterers I was talking about: the class of parasites.
We must not allow the growth of parasites here in Tanganyika. The TANU
Government must go back to the traditional African custom of land‐holding. That is
to say a member of society will be entitled to a piece of land on condition that heuses it. Unconditional, or ‘freehold’, ownership of land (which leads to speculationand parasitism) must be abolished. We must, as I have said, regain our former
attitude of mind – our traditional African socialism – and apply it to the newsocieties we are building today. TANU has pledged itself to make socialism the basisof its policy in every field. The people of Tanganyika have given us their mandate tocarry out that policy, by electing a TANU Government to lead them. So theGovernment can be relied upon to introduce only legislation which is in harmony
with socialist principles.
But, as I said at the beginning, true socialism is an attitude of mind. It is therefore
up to the people of Tanganyika – the peasants, the wage‐earners, the students, theleaders, all of us – to make sure that this socialist attitude of mind is not lost
through the temptations to personal gain (or to the abuse of positions of authority)
which may come our way as individuals, or through the temptation to look on thegood of the whole community as of secondary importance to the interests of ourown particular group.

5
20‐10‐2a/4

Just as the Elder, in our former society, was respected for his age and his service tothe community, so, in our modern society, this respect for age and service will bepreserved. And in the same way as the ‘rich’ Elder’s apparent wealth was really only
held by him in trust for his people, so, today, the apparent extra wealth which
certain positions of leadership may bring to the individuals who fill them, can betheirs only in so far as it is a necessary aim to them carrying out of their duties. It isa ‘tool’ entrusted to them for the benefit of the people they serve. It is not ‘theirs’
personally; and they may not use any part of it as a means of accumulating more for
their own benefit, nor as an ‘insurance’ against the day when they no longer holdthe same positions. That would be to betray the people who entrusted it to them. Ifthey serve the community while they can, the community must look after themwhen they are no longer able to do so.
In tribal society, the individuals or the families within a tribe were ‘rich’ or ‘poor’according to whether the whole tribe was rich or poor. If the tribe prospered all themembers of the tribe shared in its prosperity. Tanganyika, today, is a poor country.
The standard of living of the masses of our people is shamefully low. But if every
man and woman in the country takes up the challenge and works to the limit of hisor her ability for the good of the whole society, Tanganyika will prosper; and thatprosperity will be shared by all her people.
But it must be shared. The true socialist may not exploit his fellows. So that if themembers of any group within our society are going to argue that, because they
happen to be contributing more to the national income than some other groups,
they must therefore take for themselves a greater share of the profits of their own
industry than they actually need; and if they insist on this in spite of the fact that it
would mean reducing their group’s contribution to the general income and thus
slowing down the rate at which the whole community can benefit, then that groupis exploiting (or trying to exploit) its fellow human beings. It is displaying a capitalist
attitude of mind.
There are bound to be certain groups which, by virtue of the ‘market value’ of their
particular industry’s products, will contribute more to the nation’s income thanothers. But the others may actually be producing goods or services which are ofequal, or greater, intrinsic value although they do not happen to command such ahigh artificial value. For example, the food produced by the peasant farmer is ofgreater social value than the diamonds mined at Mwadui. But the mine‐workers of
Mwadui could claim, quite correctly, that their labour was yielding greater financial
profits to the community than that of the farmers. If, however, they went on to
demand that they should therefore be given most of that extra profit forthemselves, and that no share of it should be spent on helping the farmers, theywould be potential capitalists!

6
20‐10‐2a/4

This is exactly where the attitude of mind comes in. It is one of the purposes oftrade unions to ensure for the workers a fair share of the profits of their labour. Buta ‘fair’ share must be fair in relation to the whole society. If it is greater than the
country can afford without having to penalize some other section of society, then it
is not a fair share. Trade union leaders and their followers, and long as they are truesocialists, will not need to be coerced by the Government into keeping theirdemands within the limits imposed by the needs of society as a whole. Only if there
are potential capitalists amongst them will the socialist government have to step inand prevent them from putting their capitalist ideas into practice!
As with groups, so with individuals. There are certain skills, certain qualifications,which, for good reasons, command a higher rate of salary for their possessors thanothers. But, here again, the true socialist will demand only that return for his skilled
work which he knows to be a fair one in proportion to the wealth or poverty of thewhole society to which he belongs. He will not, unless he is a would‐be capitalist,
attempt to blackmail the community by demanding a salary equal to that paid to his
counterpart in some far wealthier society.
European socialism was born of the Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial
Revolution which followed it. The former created the ‘landed’ and the ‘landless’classes in society; the latter produced the modern capitalist and the industrial
proletariat.
These two revolutions planted the seeds of conflict within society, and not only was
European socialism born of that conflict, but its apostles sanctified the conflict itself
into a philosophy. Civil war was no longer looked upon as something evil, or
something unfortunate, but as something good and necessary.
As prayer is to Christianity or to Islam, so civil war (which they call ‘class war’) is to
the European version of socialism – a means inseparable from the end. Eachbecomes the basis of a whole way of life. The European socialist cannot think of his
socialism without its father – capitalism!
Brought up in tribal socialism, I must say I find this contradiction quite intolerable. It
gives capitalism a philosophical status which capitalism neither claims nor deserves.
For it virtually says, ‘Without capitalism, and the conflict which capitalism creates
within society, there can be no socialism’! This glorification of capitalism by thedoctrinaire European socialists, I repeat, I find intolerable.
African socialism, on the other hand, did not have the ‘benefit’ of the Agrarian
Revolution or the Industrial Revolution. It did not start from the existence of
conflicting ‘classes’ in society. Indeed I doubt if the equivalent for the word ‘class’
exists in any indigenous African language; for language describes the ideas of those
who speak it, and the idea of ‘class’ or ‘caste’ was nonexistent in African society.
7
20‐10‐2a/4

The foundation, and the objective, of African socialism is the extended family. The
true African socialist does not look on one class of men as his brethren and anotheras his natural enemies. He does not form an alliance with the ‘brethren’ for theextermination of the ‘non‐brethren’.
He rather regards all men as his brethren – as members of his ever extending
family. That is why the first article of TANU’S Creed is: ‘Binadamu wote ni ndugu
zangu, na Afrika ni moja’. If this had been originally put in English, it could havebeen: ‘I believe in Human Brotherhood and the Unity of Africa’.
‘Ujamaa’, then, or ‘Familyhood’, describes our socialism. It is opposed to capitalism,
which seeks to build a happy society on the basis of the exploitation of man by man;and it is equally opposed to doctrinaire socialism which seeks to build its happysociety on a philosophy of inevitable conflict between man and man.
We, in Africa, have no more need of being ‘converted’ to socialism than we have of
being ‘taught’ democracy. Both are rooted in our own past – in the traditionalsociety which produced us. Modern African socialism can draw from its traditional
heritage the recognition of ‘society’ as an extension of the basic family within thelimits of the tribe, nor, indeed, of the nation. For no true African socialist can look ata line drawn on a map and say. ‘The people on this side of that line are my brothers,
but those who happen to live on the other side of it can have no claim on me’;every individual on this continent is his brother.
It was in the struggle to break the grip of colonialism that we learnt the need forunity. We came to recognize that the same socialist attitude of mind which, in thetribal days, gave to every individual the security that comes of belonging to a widelyextended family, must be preserved within the still wider society of the nation. But
we should not stop there. Our recognition of the family to which we all belong must
be extended yet further – beyond the tribe, the community, the nation, or even thecontinent – to embrace the whole society of mankind. This is the only logicalconclusion for true socialism.
From: http://www.nathanielturner.com/ujamaanyerere.htm
And: http://www.jpanafrican.com/edocs/e‐DocUjamma3.5.pdf
And: http://www.juliusnyerere.info/images/uploads/ujamaa_1962.pdf

Course: African Revolutionary Writing
20102a, Julius Nyerere, Ujamaa ‐ The Basis of African Socialism, 1962
3969 words

8
20‐10‐2a/4