Modern African societies are not traditional, even if backward, and they are clearly in a state of socio-economic disequilibrium. They are in this state because they are not anchored to a steadying ideology. The way out is certainly not to regurgitate all Islamic or Euro-colonial influences in a futile attempt to recreate a past that cannot be resurrected. They way out is only forward, forward to a higher and reconciled form of society, in which the quintessence of the human purposes of traditional African society reasserts itself in a modern context forward, in short, to socialism, through policies that are scientifically devised and correctly applied. . . . There is, to be sure, a connection between communalism and socialism.
Socialism stands to communalism as capitalism stands to slavery.
In socialism, the principles underlying communalism are given expression in modern circumstances. Thus, whereas communalism in a nontechnical society can be laissez-faire, in a technical society where sophisticated means of production are at hand, the situation is different, for if the underlying principles of communalism re not given corrected expression, class cleavages will arise, which are connected with economic disparities and thereby with political inequalities. Only under socialism can we reliably accumulate the capital we need for our development and also ensure that the gains of investment are applied for the general welfare. Socialism is not spontaneous It does not arise of itself. Socialist countries in Africa may differ in this or that detail of their policies, but such differences themselves ought not to be arbitrary or subject to vagaries of taste.