In an essay on African socialism that he wrote in 1962, Nyerere gave an idyllic account of pre-colonial society. ‘Everybody was a worker… Not only was the capitalist, or the landed exploiter unknown… [but] capitalist exploitation was impossible. Loitering was an unthinkable disgrace.’ The advent of colonialism had changed all this. ‘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 had labourers 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 was nothing inherently wrong with that, said Nyerere, but it lead to exploitation. There was now a need for Africans to ‘re-educate’ themselves, to regain their former attitude of mind, their sense of community.
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