Professor Ogundowole's Magnum Opus

1. Acknowledgements
Special thanks to my wife, Zoya, and my children: Ifesanmi,
Olaboyede (Lekan), and Olamewadan (Oyin) – for encouragement
and peaceful home atmosphere which made the writing of this
book possible. There had been no much fun owing to time factor.
I admit this and I praise their patience and sense of understanding.
I am indebted to S.A Adelugba, Lending Officer, United
Bank of Africa, University of Lagos Branch, who made possible
the initial bank loan with which the work on this book took off;
and Dr. Adebowale Adefuye, History Department, University of
Lagos, for guaranteeing the loan.
I appreciate highly the co-operation and assistance rendered
me by His Excellency Ambassador Ramadan Mamalaku, the
Yugoslav envoy in Nigeria. Through his efforts I earned a grant
from the Yugoslav Institute for Scientific and Technical Co-
operation with Foreign Countries, to understudy the Socialist Self-
Management System operative in their country. The investigations
I carried out at the Belgrade University and other relevant
establishments broadened the scope of understanding I have of the
Yugoslav socio-economic system and the philosophy which
underlay it. His Excellency Ambassador Sokoya, Nigerian envoy
in Yugoslavia, is a name I must not forget to mention here. In
Belgrade, the kind of warmth with which he received us during
that cold winter period we were there made every member of my
family including my humble self feel there was someone around
who cares for our well-being. Like Ambassador Mamalaku, Mr.
Sokoya is simply a fine person. His co-operation and
encouragement at a time when certain errors committed by
Airways functionaries caused a hitch in the initial programme
arranged for me by the Yugoslav authorities, was vital for my
success in Belgrade.
Acknowledgement must be made of the co-operation of my
colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos,
who despite the shortage of staff situation allowed me to proceed
on sabbatical leave in order to complete the writing of this book.
Prof. John Tucker’s arrival was timely. His presence improved the
staff situation. I thank him for accepting the offer made him by
the Department. I appreciate the efforts of Prof. Nurudeen Alao,
Dean of Arts, and the entire members of the A and P Board of the
University of Lagos during the 1981/82 session for expediting
action on my request for the leave. Mrs. Ebun Oluwole and Mrs.
Adeniran, both Typists in the Philosophy Department, typed parts
of the manuscripts, I appreciate their efforts.
My sincere gratitude goes to the collective of the
Philosophy Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee for
extending an invitation to me to spend my sabbatical leave with
them and for offering me a post of Courtesy Professor in the
Department. In particular, I am grateful to Professor Alan Mabe,
Chair of the Department, and Professor Peter Dalton, Chairman,
Editorial Board of the Department’s Journal - Social Theory and
Practice, for their advice and critical remarks. They read the
typescripts of substantial part of the book. Though, we are poles
apart as far as orientation in philosophy is concerned. In addition,
I am grateful to Peter Dalton: he made adjustment to Tallahassee
life fast and almost unnoticed. He is a person who is ready to
share his spare time for the social benefit of others.
I thank Mrs. D. Card, Staff Assistant, and Mrs. J. Horland,
Clerk Typist in the Department they both took care of my
stationery requirements. Above all, they secured the technicians
1

2. who fixed the air-conditioning system in my office when it
suddenly went off. No work would otherwise have been possible
in an office without windows owing to its location – in the centre
of the old but aesthetically well designed Dodd Hall. I understand
the office was formerly used by the staff of the University
Television Station – WFSU TV; the almost absolute quietness that
prevailed in this almost sound-proved office in no small way
enhanced increased productivity. Florene, Typist, deserves my
thanks she made the initial typescripts of parts of the work.
Professor Donald C. Hodges and his wife not only met me
and my family at the Tallahassee Community Airport on arrival
and handled problems associated with our initial settling down, but
he made his personal library available to me including some of his
recent publications. The lectures I delivered to, and seminars
conducted with his graduate students provided the additional
avenue needed for preliminary discussion of certain problems and
ideas that developed into this book.
I should thank also Nigerian students at the Florida State
University, and the Florida Mechanical and Agricultural
University, both in Tallahassee, who in discussing their problems,
academic and social, with me helped to deepen my insight of the
U.S. society. Drs. Sola and Verian Lamikanra, spouses (both are
academic staff members at the Florida A & M University)
provided me and members of my family in particular with just the
social and cultural balance needed to make our stay in Tallahassee
a success. I am very much grateful to them. They are just nice
fellows.
I am grateful to Prof. George Chatalian who as the Head of
Philosophy Department, University of Lagos, and (1977-1978)
gave me some words of encouragement and stressed the need to
complete the work. He read the first full sketches of the
groundwork on the book. He was somehow upset when in 1979
we met at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, where he was
teaching then, I told him that I had not completed the work for lack
of adequate time owing to heavy teaching load. I have benefited
from his stern criticism of aspects of the work. Though I cannot
agree with his views on fundamental issues but his attitude to the
work has helped to sharpen and consolidate the position I adopted
right from the start. His verbal and written comments on the
teaching programme in the Department I have found useful in a
way.
A research work of this magnitude must have been on, no
doubt for several years. As such, parts of it had gone through
several fora. Thus, some of the materials that make up the work
have been read or presented at some conferences. Prominent are
the UNESCO- sponsored Conference on “Philosophy, Law and
Government” held at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in
December 1976; and of course the Biennial Conferences of the
Nigerian Philosophical Association both of March 1977 at the
University of Nigeria Nsukka, and at the University of Lagos in
February, 1982. In conclusion therefore, I thank all those from
whom I had benefited whether through observation, comments, the
raising of some questions, doubts or criticism, but whose names
cannot all possibly be printed here.
E.K.O.
Lagos, November, 1983
2

3. Introduction
We hold and have applied in this present work a dialectical
realistic view on the nature of philosophy as well as on its
function. To the language philosophers and the Analytic school,
philosophy deals with the “analysis of concept;”a definition from
which they derive its function as meaning a mere “clarification of
concepts.” Philosophy “examines how concepts, ideas are
related.” Whence, “grasping the relevant concepts right and clear
is almost half the battle won.” Thus, if, and when clarification of
concepts is attained human problem is fifty per cent solved, seems
to be the standpoint of these philosophers. The possible task and
function of philosophy in accordance to such a mode of reasoning
would be to seek and attain half solution to human societal
problems, to seek and win “half the battle” for truth. Such a view,
in our opinion, represents an inadequate comprehension of the
complex nature of philosophy.
If all that philosophy seeks is the clarification of concepts
and its preoccupation is the analysis of concepts and that’s all, then
the type of philosophy the proponents of the above stated view,
engaged themselves in must be dealing with, as Wittgenstein the
founder of the English analytic school, once declared, “pseudo
problems” bordering only on “linguistic puzzles.” To say the least
this is a perverted notion of philosophy whereby, presumably, it is
contended that philosophy is not a means of comprehending
empirical reality. Philosophy in our own understanding and
practice seeks not half truth, not half-knowledge and not half
solution to problems of societal or of other nature; rather
philosophy seeks a comprehensive reproduction in language form
objectively law governed processes in nature and society. In other
to reproduce in language form the objective processes occurring in
nature and those taking place in human society the philosopher
needs a comprehensive knowledge of the world and not half-
knowledge, not half- truth. What mankind requires are
comprehensive solutions of problems, not half-solutions. By
comprehensive solution we do not mean an absolute solution or
solution of an absolute nature. There is no such solution. For a
problem and the need for its solution inherently potentiate, or
necessitate a particular dimension or some directions for its
solution. Where a need is modified it may alter the nature of the
solution of the same and given problems and so rather than talk of
an absolute solution of a problem we better speak of a
comprehensive solution of a problem.
Since philosophy seeks and provides a comprehensive
objective knowledge of the world its method presupposes inter-
disciplinary approach, or else such resultant knowledge would be
essentially speculative not scientific. In this regard the
philosopher needs the cooperation and knowledge of other
branches of human knowledge. In fact philosophical system that is
worth its salt must as a rule be and should be seen to be an
ensemble of all forms of human knowledge. Whence then we are
at variance with Wittgenstein and others who try to reduce
philosophical enterprise and its concern merely to a game of
“linguistic puzzles,” or the analysis of concepts. In the contrary,
philosophy from the time of its inception has been concerned with
reality itself, it has been preoccupied with genuine problems of
nature and society, “problems that must not be left unsolved,”
problems that are most important to the life and well-being of the
human person. This is why philosophy is conceived by the radical
3

4. thinkers – an effective instrument, weapon for a creative
transformation of the world.
From this view point, therefore, philosophy is not only nor
must it only be analytical, as many believe it to be, but is and must
equally be exhortatory. Herein lays its transformative and world
re-making strength. Philosophical ideas to be able to transform
and re-create the world, must possess material force and be
founded on realism.
Obviously, viewed in this way, philosophy is not and must
not be seen to be a simple arm-chair exercise. Truly world-
building or world re-building philosophical effort must depart
from real, genuine human experience and practice, and must be
oriented and redirected back to practice. Philosophical reasoning
would always be assessed in terms of its truth and inter-
disciplinary connections with other branches of human scientific
knowledge, and also its social applicability and usefulness for
specific human practical purposes. The nature of socio-political
matters in our days demands the unity of theory and practice. It is
here that socio-political philosophy becomes a mode of overt
action rather than mere arm-chair reflection. Whence, therefore
the centre task of philosophy as is philosophical endeavour itself
shifts from mere analysis of concepts and the practice of criticism
to criticism through practice .i.e. from the dissolution of concepts
to the dissolution of obsolete social and international institutions.
To this end, the social philosopher of a dialectical realistic
stance must combine the jobs of the formal analytic philosopher,
the inter-disciplinary social scientist, the social critic, and the
progress-seeking revolutionary of the world with respect to the
fundamental problems of contemporary epoch, which, as Donald
C. Hodges* aptly observes are highly “explosive and often life-
and-death questions that lie beyond the conventional scope and
properties of any one discipline.”
The opinion that there is a “universal philosophy, which
must have same meaning in all culture”** is not only fictional and
sophistry, but highly misleading in our own judgment. This is
because such a view seems to run into conflict with the process of
the development of philosophy, with the history of philosophy as a
definite branch of human knowledge. The idea, “philosophy is
philosophy”, “it is one and universal” tends to seek to undermine
or to erase outright the historical fact of the emergence,
development and spread of various and varying philosophical
systems and schools at different ages and periods of human
societal development. The German environment, for instance,
which bred the existentialism of Nietzche, also bred the idealist
dialectics of Hegel, and Marx’s materialist dialectics.
Contemporary Britain which houses positivist linguistic or
language philosophy also provides shed for neo-Thomism. The
poverty of the “universalist” view on philosophy, therefore, is the
poverty of a limited knowledge of, or the lack of knowledge of
history of philosophy and an adequate understanding of the nature
of philosophy itself.
We have employed the term “subjugationism” in place of
the very wide spread concept “imperialism.” This is because
although “imperialism” like “subjugationism” does imply, the
domination of a country by another, but historical experience
reveals that not every domination and subordination means direct
imperial possession. And in any case in our present era of
decolonization, domination has assumed a new and more
sophisticated indirect form - neocolonialism - a sort of “absentee”
imperial rule. The term “subjugationism” seems to convey both
these meanings of domination than the term “imperialism.”
4

5. Instead of the neocolonialist invented vague concepts
“developing” or “third world” we have chosen to employ in this
work the term “new state.” The reason for this is that the term new
state conveys information of historical and of future significance.
It expresses the changing characteristics and features of the once
subjugated human community of the world. “State” is used in this
work not in the sense of the administrative division of a country
into units. Rather it conveys a meaning corresponding to that of
“country.” Deliberately the term nation-state is not used because
most of the new states are of multi-national character.
In the first place, the concept ‘new state” hammers home to
everyone that there had existed independent sovereign states in
these communities before the advent of the external aggressors
who came into them and then usurped their sovereignty throughout
the period of direct colonial rule. In the second, it conveys the
message to the generations of the subjugated peoples the
emergence of a new era of re-awakening, restoration, recovery and
emancipation. This means the recovery, the regaining of lost
sovereignty and the re-emergence of new states in place of the old
ones. The present states of the once subjugated peoples have
another sense of newness – they are not at all or totally the same
states they had always been before foreign invasion and
destruction. Most are now some sorts of amalgamation of peoples
and cultures. Others had just lost part of their people and former
territories to neighbouring new states, etc. Thus the term “new
state” is much appropriate than the subjugationist-inspired
politically and historically neutral artificial concepts like
“developing” or “third world” now in wide use. The concepts
“subjugationist capitalism” and “capitalist subjugationsim” have
been used interchangeably in the work. This has been done with a
full awareness. Contemporary subjugationism is rooted in
capitalism and spreads together with the spread of the latter. Since
capitalism is inherent with exploitative and oppressive and
suppressive characteristics, they are therefore both one and the
same evil – that cordon which is containing the progress of the
new state. This act of controlling and the containment of the
efforts and activities of the new state, whether through
transnational corporations or through those specifically established
for this purpose, e.g. international institutions, or through much
direct commodity protectionism now produces inverse results in
the new state - the tendencies toward national affirmation, total
emancipation and recovery - whence the emergence and
development of the orientation, principle and ideology of
SELFRELIACISM.
E.K.O
Tallahassee, Florida
April, 1983
5

6. CHAPTER ONE
ROOTS OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND
CURRENT
DEVELOPMENTAL DEMANDS
Today, mankind is in a historical epoch in which the world
is virtually divided into two major distinct ideological blocs as a
result of the struggle between capitalism and socialism, first, as
socio-political philosophies, ideas; and second, as social and
political realities of the highest order. Both capitalism and
socialism exert immense influence on the trend of social,
economic and political development of the world and by so doing,
create artificial dilemma before the underdeveloped world - the
dilemma of choice of economic, social and political form and
mode of development.
Partly, as a result of this, scores of newly independent States
constituting the so-called underdeveloped world are facing
enormous and diverse problems of economic, social and political
development.
Some of the major problems of the world arise also from the
technological and scientific revolution. But in the main,
fundamental problems ensue from the ever-growing concentration
of capital in the hands of giant monopolies which bestride
continents, ignore frontiers and governments, dispose of resources
considerably greater than those of the entire national budgets of
most of the new states, and increasingly concentrate a
correspondingly immense political power in their hands thereby
making the possibility of independent development of the new
state very remote. The people of the advanced capitalist countries
themselves are not without their own share of the world problems.
A major problem of the advanced capitalist state is the steady
growth of unemployment. There, the daily rise in the number of
disillusioned youth across the sub-urban areas of big cities of the
advanced capitalist world popularly known and called hippies, but
whom A. Toffer called "new cavemen” is itself not an unweighty
problem. The "new cave men" as a social phenomenon signifies an
expression of protest against the all dehumanising forces of
capitalist socio-economic structure. Uncompromising, but seeming
powerless before the almighty power of the capitalist media of
propaganda which tend not only to ignore but in fact tries to
undermine the voice of protest of mankind's immediate future -
being the voice of the youth.
On a total world scale, millions are involved now in
economic and political struggle. They are awakened as never
before, and naturally, are in search of ideas as to what is wrong
with the world and what need be done to change both its economic
and political orders. The effectiveness and therefore success of this
struggle, however, we believe, depends largely on most adequately
objective cognition of the nature and the specific characteristics of
the basic tendencies operative within the present historical milieu.
The demand for a new world order sprang up, in part, from
the ever-growing tendency which has as its nuclei, in the first
instance, in the recognition of the danger of the struggle between
capitalism and socialism as political realities and the will on the
part of some countries to keep off the political cum military battle
zone of the two Super Powers. It is to be recalled that the process
which laid the foundation for the demand for a new world order
6

7. started gaining momentum with the emergence of the Organisation
of Non-Aligned Nations. The demand has its roots in the new
experience of the world socio-historical development, viz: the
advance from chains of dependent countries to newly independent
countries, from colonial epoch to the epoch of self-emancipation
of once degraded peoples of the world, epoch of mass movement
for total national liberation and self-affirmation, self-reliancism.
The struggle for supremacy of capitalist system or socialist
system and its associated problems are primarily problems of life
interest to Russia and its allies, on the one hand, and the United
States of America and its bloc, on the other. It therefore cannot
contribute adequately to the solution of the enormous problems of
development facing the new state: relying on import for the major
part of manufactured goods consumed locally and depending
heavily on export earnings from minerals raw materials and
agricultural raw products (essentially cash crops) for public
revenues; the chronic and acute inadequacy of infrastructure and
basic needs such as electricity, pipe borne water, public transport,
telephone and medical care etc., leading therefore to low life
expectancy, widespread illiteracy, poor health and high infant
mortality, mental laziness, widespread greed, indiscretion, and so
on. The struggle in the new state for prominence of either capitalist
or socialist ideology is, therefore, in our view, an, expression of
unfully developed, confused, mind, generating the illusion created
by the dilemma of choice of path and mode of development,
emanating from the struggle between capitalism and socialism.
The unpreparedness, or lack of awareness of the need, or inability
to adequately study and define, in most clear terms, the true nature
of the problems of underdevelopment or undevelopment, and as
well as the nature of what constitutes progress and the path leading
to It.
Whichever of the existing systems you opt for you will form
a part of that system fulfilling therefore a definite function
historically predetermined for you therein. In the world capitalist
system, for instance, we have been, and are still fulfilling the role
of raw materials supplier and large consumer market and as such
become a means for maintaining and sustaining economic growth
of its industrially advanced part and; by implication, holding down
the growth of the backward part of that system viz the new state,
without which the whole system could collapse.
There are enough evidences generating within the womb of
the world socialist system now to suggest the possibility that we, if
we so decide and become part of it, may be met with a similar,
though may be slightly different role. The point is that socialism
on the international plane in real political and economic practices
is fighting to overrun capitalism so it could triumph world wide.
The new state is putting up counter attack on neocolonialist forces
so it could survive and achieve complete recovery. The objectives
of both the socialist state and the new State to some extent are
similar.
They are so only in the sense that they both want to curb
and possibly eliminate the exploitative nature of the socio-
economic system that neocolonialist forces maintain. To that
extent only, but for different reasons socialism and selfreliancism
can be said to be natural allies, at least, in terms of objective, to
some extent.
It is disastrous, therefore, for any vigorous thinker of our
time not to recognize or to ignore the inadequacies of our inherited
political philosophies. Socialism, like capitalism, is a product of
definite period of human history that is ending; both are marred by
inadequate attention to leading facts and problems with which the
world historical, economic and political scenes now present us.
7

8. In order to escape this dilemma, one needs to have a really
open mind, to explore what is happening, to be receptive to all new
phenomena and new effective ways of advancing instead of
adopting a rigid dogmatic attitude as if everything concerning
social, economic and political lives of man had long ago been
settled by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, or Marx and Lenin.
This approach is necessary so as to be able to locate within
the influx of multiple problems that are confronting the world
today, processes and trends that are taking place in it, those that
correspond to the inalienable rights and interests of the people of
the new state and those that are capable of enhancing and
guaranteeing its rapid development, and progress. Because
mankind and people in the new state, in particular, would not be
able to advance under the most favourable conditions without a
genuinely new objective research of most sympathetic and
understanding examination of the world's status quo with the aim
of creating and formulating a new path of societal motion, and
direction corresponding to particular interests and needs of the
long-suppressed majority people of the world and subsequently of
mankind as a whole.
The issues involved are of economic, social and political
nature. The problems here raise a fundamentally ideological
question, concerning the mode of human societal advancement, of
a new possible path of societal advancement, and of a new
possible path of societal motion. The spread of high aspirations to
the peoples whose conditions are now the least human on earth is a
great and irreversible drama of our times, but during our life times
the drama promises to be as tragic as it may ultimately be
ennobling. Whatever result there may be one thing is certain and
that is, the transition ahead may be ugly and difficult and that the
latent susceptibility to chronic economic recession in the world
and the political and economic selfreliancism in the new state will
exert tremendous and disturbing pressures on the subjugationist
world structure. The principal question is, recognising the
bipolarity between the bourgeois and the Marxist modes of
reasoning, thought-systems, and the socio-economic and political
institutions, praxes founded on them. Appreciating the enormous
problems confronting the underdeveloped world, the new state,
today could it be argued that capitalism and socialism are the only
possible ideological alternatives open to the new state to enhance
its development efforts?
The preliminary answer to that question is that
contemporary world is faced with so many new and acute
problems of national and international dimensions so that one
cannot afford to adopt a rigid, dogmatic attitude towards them as if
everything concerning human society had long ago been settled by
known leading European philosophers, bourgeois or Marxist.
Therefore, one has to have a curiously open mind, be alert at what
is happening, be receptive to the new problems as they occur and
seek new kind of solutions to them.
A very important current of world change, quite noticeable
today is the basic change in the economic orientation of the world.
It has to do with an increasing demand for an equitable New
International Economic Order.
Over the larger part of human history, mankind had faced a
world in which the capitalist form of economic organization was
the triumphant and dominant form of economic and social
organization in the world. The result of that is the establishment of
a lopsided economic structure of development. In reaction to that,
in the new state, today capitalism and the subjugationist tendencies
which it breeds is being questioned and challenged and is being
thrown on a defensive from which it is doubtful that it can ever
recover. As a system, capitalism is now riding against the current
of global tides of socio-historical process. It has become a
8

9. stumbling block on the path of mankind's progress, as it continues
to place obstacles on the road leading to progress of the new state,
with which it now finds itself in a zero-sum relationship. This
gives the current demand a significant meaning.
This is a transformation of contemporary history, which is at
one and the same time an indisputable reality of the recent past
and a bitterly contested prospect for the future.
The fact that human social relation differs considerably
from a particular type of society to other and from age to age does
not preclude us from distinguishing the ways in which it differs or
changes from the ways in which it does not. It does not prevent us
from acquiring ideas we can use to describe the respects in which
it is similar everywhere, or over large areas for long periods, and
the respects in which it is not. No doubt, the old ideas in everyday
use as well as philosophical ideas in our age are not well-adapted
to this purpose. If we want to widen our understanding of socio-
historical process, progress, if we want to think more clearly and
consistently about it, we have often to weaken the hold on us of
ideas of capitalist-socialist bipolarity as if they were the only
possible alternatives.
We find it difficult to think systematically, rigorously and
economically, difficult even to use the ideas we construct
ourselves to enable us to do so, because the hold on us of the old
modes of thinking is so strong. To guarantee upward thrust
therefore we must break with this obsolete mentality. We must
make bold to advance new concepts, new principles, new Ideals,
new criteria to guide both our thought and practice.
Every age presents certain tasks determined by inherent
processes connected by mankind’s general advance. Man's purpose
in a particular age is determined by the solution of these tasks, by
mankind's advance along the path of social, scientific and
technological as well as spiritual including moral progress. Hence
man's purpose is to devote his energy to the solution of the tasks
advanced by history to improve social life, increase mankind's
powers and well-being.
Man's purpose is also to overcome the opposition of those
who are trying to prevent him from rising higher and to extend
human happiness in a definite socio-historical period of societal
development. This approach, plus my study, both in the realm of
the history of human social relations and societal development,
and particularly of the colonial-decolonial-neocolonial period of
human history as a specific epoch, led me to the following
conclusions:
That the struggle between the two opposing socio-economic
and political organisations of society, capitalism and socialism,
created a definite illusion coupled with dilemma of choice of path
of societal development for the new states; in order to overcome
the illusion the theory of opposites current in Euro philosophical
tradition as well as the social political practices based on it must be
repudiated. Furthermore, myriad problems confronting mankind
today should be approached and studied with an open mind for no
philosopher in the past has succeeded in finding absolute solution
to the fundamental problems of human society. For if the bringing
about of New International Economic Order (NIEO) will require
the transformation of basic economic and political practices in the
world, it is imperative therefore that the philosophy on which the
theories and ideologies leading to these practices cannot be
immune to the current of change, and that the new expectations the
new inclinations cannot be transformed to fit into the old obsolete
philosophical tradition, In this respect, the fact must be admitted
and this is quite basic, that .we now live in a tripolarized world: of
capitalism, socialism, and the new state striving for self-
reliancism.
9

10. It is now a truism that life is in a state of constant
development. The past turns into the present, and the present into
the future. Any movement therefore, contains in addition to the
present, bits of the past and bits of the future.
No matter how mosaic-like an epoch, including the present
one, may be, it has to be understood as a specific entity although of
course, an extremely complex and contradictory entity.
How then do we define the present epoch? The present
historical epoch is an epoch of the breakdown of neocolonialism
and the abolition, once and for all time, all the remnants and
influences of past colonial systems; an epoch of national
liberation, self-realization; an epoch tensed of struggle between the
two opposing socio-economic systems - capitalism and socialism,
an epoch of transition of once degraded, suppressed and exploited
majority people of the world to the path of total and complete
national emancipation, of the triumph of reason over hypocrisy.
The major demand of our time the demand for new world
economic and political order confirms it all. What is the nature of
this demand, its source, development, prospects, and problems?
How are they to be studied, explained and interpreted, in what
context?
This protest against inequality, this generalised demand for
an order founded on justice - giving freedom and fair play to all -
characterizes the climate of our times. It is born out of the basic
contradiction between the decolonised but industrially, weak new
state and the industrially powerful neocolonialist capitalist state.
The struggle of neocolonialist to maintain the status quo and
continue to dominate and exploit the new but economically
subjugated weak state; and the ever-increasing, though slow,
struggle of the economically subjugated people directed against
neocolonialism; the struggle of national independence and self-
affirmation; the struggle against foreign domination and alienation,
of independence proper against what Kwame Nkrumah called
'fake-independence.'
The essence of the present epoch is expressed in the struggle
of the majority of people of the world to transform world societies
along a new line of societal development. We speak of world
societies because the emergence, consolidation and the practice of
the principle of self-reliance, of national self-affirmation, in
economic sense and in overall activities in the new state which
hitherto has been the major consumer-market for the commodities
of the advanced capitalist neocolonialist country and what has
been for ages unquestioning recipient of the Iatter's value, will
impel or impose a re-adjustment, restructuring of economic and
other activities in the neocolonialist capitalist state.
We will now examine the nature and characteristics of this
protest and demand.
First and foremost, it needs be stressed that the downfall of
colonialism and the struggle to prevent the recurrence of this awful
phenomenon of foreign domination in all its ramifications, be it in
form of neocolonialism, etc., makes the main process leading to
the current demand a real possibility. The main process is directed
not only at undermining but also at liquidating the remnants of
imperialism and the foundations of neocolonialism,
subjugationism, weakening its forces and safeguarding the new
state against any form of foreign domination, oppression and
exploitation.
The collapse of colonialism is therefore an essential
phenomenon in the epoch of the transition of human society from
systems based on hypocrisy, deceit and suppression rooted in
unjust international relationships, a process brought into being by
the general and main contradictions of the present epoch, namely
the struggle between the forces striving for total national
10

11. emancipation on the one hand, and the struggle between capitalism
and socialism, on the other.
The protest and demand seek to eliminate the lopsided
economic dependence of the new state on the advanced
neocolonialist capitalist state, so the new state can exercise full
control over its own economic activities and its natural resources.
The demand seeks to promote the accelerated development of the
new state as will enhance national self-affirmation and self-
realization. These are no empty slogans at all if we bear in mind
that colonial intervention of Europeans in the past always began
with the disruption of development, by forcibly integrating the
nation concerned into a world economic system of capitalism,
mostly in the clearly defined role of raw material supplier2
while
preserving for their self the right to manufacture. The
consequences of that colonial practice in our present epoch is a
"lopsided" world in which a small number of states, equaling some
twenty per cent of the planet's population, controls eighty per cent
of the wealth.3
It is against this background that the new state, the
victim of this lopsided development, proposes radical change in
the world economic system which will not only enable it to get a
better deal in terms of trade and development but will also involve
the advanced neocolonialist capitalist state in a radical re-appraisal
of the way in which industry is planned and organized.4
Hence,
rather than being an empty slogan, the demand for a New
International Economic Order is in truth the beginning of "an
economic revolution that will lead to a new liberation of
mankind."5
For it entail "Vision of the world in which all nations
can co-operate more effectively in the interest of humanity."6
The contradiction between neocolonialism, subjugationism
and national emancipation and recovery, selfreliancism is an
antagonistic contradiction. That is, a contradiction between two
absolutely opposing and hostile forces which cannot co-exist for
all time. One of them represents the past and the other, mankind's
objective future.
That the contradiction is antagonistic finds its concrete
practical expression in the fact that recent years have shown that
the economic situation of the world indicates that the
neocolonialist state is becoming richer and the new state, poorer. It
has been stated, elsewhere, 7
that if by sheer saturation, of goods
the neocolonialist advanced capitalist state should choose to slow
down its growth rate, the backward new state would loose all
capability for advancement.
What conclusion is to be drawn from the new conditions?
How can and how should the main contradiction of our time be
resolved? Peaceful competition between the present obsolete social
and international economic systems and the new system which
now is more and more coming into being, is the logical and natural
course of the new state's struggle against subjugationism and neo-
colonialism. Selfreliancism will, undoubtedly, triumph. The
question, however, is will it be able to do so without the countless
sacrifices that would be inevitable in a world economic war,
without mankind being thrown back many centuries, without
catastrophic consequences for the human race?
As the internal contradictions within the neocolonialist
advanced capitalist countries ripen and under the influence of the
new Movement for just international economic and political order,
the world Movement for selfreliancism will proceed through the
breaking away of separate or collective 'poor' weak new states of
the present economically subjugated world from the lopsided
neocolonialist economic and other relations, by actually initiating
and setting up a much more equitable multilateral, beneficial trade
and economic relations among themselves and other willing
countries from within the socialist world and the capitalist
11

12. countries those that uphold and exhibit corresponding
understanding.
It is a complex process, taking place in many states, in
which separate countries break away from the world neocolonialist
system. Since it is a process of separate countries breaking away
from the world neocolonialist relations, it is natural that the old
international economic system and the new order now coming into
being should co-exist for some period of time.
The policy of peaceful competition objectively follows from
the fact that the development of the selfreliancist consciousness, or
at least in its depth, is not a simultaneous process in our epoch.
That, we believe, is an objective law. It does not, of course,
exclude the tragic possibility of economic wars, because
subjugationism, neocolonialism, is not ready, not even willing, to
do away with the obnoxious system of relations, and of the
lopsided distribution of world’s wealth from which it continues to
benefit at the expense of the majority of the population of the
globe. That possibility exists. And it is real. But under present-day
conditions another real possibility has appeared, the possibility of
peaceful resolution of the main contradiction, of the peaceful
victory of just over unjust distribution of world's wealth. That is
what the new state must work for.
The conclusion that peaceful methods of transition are
possible is not the fruit of subjective wishes but follows a genuine
realistic analysis and generalization of the conditions of
development today, from a searching appraisal of the
contemporary historical and future situation, as called for by the
dialectical realistic method of study.
Thus, it is indeed the struggle that ensues from this main
contradiction that inevitably generates a new awareness,
consciousness, of a new type. Awareness destined to replace the
confused state of mind common among a large cross-section of the
people of the new state. This new awareness helps to form a
worldview with definite notions concerning the way and
‘whereabouts’ of the people of the new state in the natural scheme
of things of the world realities, and so helps to establish new path
of motion, direction corresponding to the particular interests and
needs of the majority of the world, and of the entire mankind in the
process.
The demand that a new world order be allowed to evolve is
one which can only be pursued within the framework of a unifying
ideology of a new type. The frequently dramatic disparities
between the respective conditions and means of existence of the
underdeveloped countries, the new states, coupled with national
and personal rivalries among leaders is owing to lack of such a
unifying political ideological platform which makes
representatives and leaders of some of the new states, erroneously
though to believe that they can effectively battle against and defeat
injustice in word relations by making use of the ideological system
that actually manifests and nourishes the unjust world orders with
which peoples of the new state are at war.
This, in effect, means that a total ideological reorientation of
the new state is what is most urgently needed. But there is need for
caution in developing ideology. We must refuse to copy blindly
our adversarial approach to economic, social and cultural
development. We must discard all sorts of 'manufactured’, finished
ideas and systems that conflict with the orientation and practices
now shaping itself out of the old system, old mode of reasoning
and ways of doing things. We should be original. To succeed, we
must do away with mental laziness for what is needed is a most
concrete and strictly objective, study of the problems with which
our countries are faced both at home, and at the international
plane. We must study the present of our past and the past in the
12

13. future of our generations to come. This is essential because it is no
longer sufficient for one to understand the past, not even the
present alone, for the 'here-and-now' status quo of the present
epoch is battling with inevitable change and will soon vanish. The
central task stemming from the main contradiction, therefore, is
the ability to anticipate the directions and rate of change of the
present epoch. To, catch up with the task we must all learn to make
increasingly long-range assumptions about the future.
Thus to create a selfreliancist society therefore, we need to
generate successive, alternative images of the future directions of
development of the present epoch - assumptions, based on the
most objective study of the past and present, about the kinds of
social and economic forms and modes that may be prevalent in the
future; assumptions about the kind of social and international
economic relationships that will be needed; the kinds of family and
human relationships, ethical and moral problems that will surround
us and the new socio-economic organizational structures with
which we must mesh.
It is only by generating such assumption, defining, debating,
systematizing and continually updating them that we can deduce
the nature of the cognitive and effective skills that our people need
to accomplish and maintain a selfreliancist society. We can no
longer afford to rely on others for our development, not only
because others won't do it for us but because they CANNOT truly
do it.
Selfreliancism calls for teams of men and women devoted
not only to studying the present socio-economic milieu, but also
devoted to probing the future in the interest of the present. By
projecting the willed futures, by defining coherent socio-economic
and political responses to them by opening these alternatives to
active philosophical debate the Selfreliancist Movement would
exert a powerful impact on the all-round development of our
people.
Since no particular social group holds a monopoly of insight
into tomorrow, the Movement for Selfreliancism must be truly
democratic. People from all sections of the society are vitally
needed in it. But the Movement will not succeed if it is captured
by middlemen who are only ready to be "part of the racket" or
unrepresentative traditionalist conservative elite. Thus, youth must
be in the fore-front from the very start.
The youth are needed in the movement not as co-opted
rubber stamps for adult notions. Young people of our present
epoch must help lead by initiations so that projected future can be
formulated and debated by those who will assiduously work for
the attainment, maintenance, and, in fact, man the selfreliancist
society.
Selfreliancism offers a way out of the impasse in socio-
economic maladies of our present epoch. Trapped in social and
international economic systems intent on turning it into living
anachronism, the present youth of the new state particularly the
politically educated stratum of it, is bound to, and must revolt. A
consciously formulated socio-political ideological orientation,
based on the philosophy of selfreliancism will revolutionize our
youth, place them on creative path. For those thinkers and radicals
who recognize the bankruptcy of the soico-economic and
ideological systems of the present epoch, but remain uncertain
about next steps, selfreliancism provides purpose as well as power,
through a welded alliance with and by the guidance of the youth.
It would be a mistake to assume that despite the pressures
put up and still being mounted by the new state, the old, but still
prevailing social and international economic systems, are
unchanging. On the contrary, the systems are undergoing rapid
13

14. changes. But much of this change is no more than an attempt by
the neocolonialist subjugationist interests to refine the existing
machinery, making it ever more efficient in pursuit of obsolete
goals of maintaining the status quo of the existing neo-colonialist
international economic and political orders. The rest is a kind of
‘motionless change', self-canceling, incoherent, directionless.
What have been lacking are a consistent direction and a logical
starting point.
A thorough examination of the basic contradictions of the
present epoch supplies both. The direction is selfreliancism. The
starting point, total departure, once and for all times, from
neocolonialist social, international economic organisational
structures.
14

15. NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Alvin Toffler Future Shock, London, Pan Books,
1970.
2. Erhard Eppler, Not Much Time for the Third World,
London, Oswald Wolff, 1972, p.15.
3. Barbara Ward, The Lopsided World. New York,
Norton, 1968.
4. Jack Jones "Forward” to Third World: Change or
Chaos? Nottingham. Russell. Peace Foundation, 1977, p. 7.
5. Fenner Brockway, "The Need for Change,” in Third
World: Change or Chaos? p. 11.
6. Richard Jolly "Restructuring the International
Economic System"- Third World: Change or Chaos? p. 13
7. E. Kola Ogundowole, “National Ideological
Orientation: A Methodological Approach” (A paper presented at a
UNESCO-sponsored Conference on Philosophy, Government and
Law, held at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, December 19 – 22,
1976) mimeo, p. 8.
15

16. CHAPTER TWO
HISTORICAL METHODOLOGICAL PREMISE OF
SELF-RELIANCISM
In the realm of method as, indeed, in the history of human
thought in general, Hegel is broadly accepted as extraordinarily
pivotal. Marx described his doctrine of opposites, interpenetrating
and generating each other, as offering the next best thing to the
real fulfillment. Essential feature of Hegel's method is its being
non-eclectical, but outright dialectical. The myriad aspects of his
philosophical reasoning are carefully knitted into a coherent form.
All strands which go into it fuse and blend.
A very important aspect of his philosophical thinking is his
idea of progress. The Hegelian idea of progress contains some
important elements. These are the contrast between two rival
visions of world and self: the world as meaningful and the world
as eternal. From here we derive other opposites - the world as
static, and the world as developing, as growing. Furthermore,
change is not merely a natural process, perpetual and directed; it is
also self-generating and self-sufficient. It has a built-in tension,
force, and does not require external intervention, or manipulation,
it is, essentially, and wholly, a self-generating occurrence, thanks
to its built-in tension. Hegel's dialectical methodological approach
enabled him to visualize the unity and motionlessness of all things.
Such dialectical mode of reasoning as history of Philosophy shows
dates back (the Unity) to Parmenides and (the Flux) to Heraclitus
in ancient Greece. Spinoza revived and further developed them in
modern Europe.
The reality established by Spinoza was monistic, and the
complex plurality of the real world was basically its emanation.
Hegel took over this dialectical mode of reasoning. His views on
the development of the world and his dialectical logical mode of
establishing the world's unity complements each other. Hegelian
dialectics essentially though idealistic, nevertheless enabled him to
overcome Kantian inadequacy and shortcomings in human
approach to the solution of problems concerning human society.
Kant presented himself as the shrewdest commentator of the cold
disenchantment vision of man and his world which very much
provided Hegel with his problem and the inspiration to attempt to
solve it.
In Kant's conception, the self is totally alienated from the
natural world. Kant believed himself to be describing not the man
of his time, but man as such. Man who is self-sufficient, who owes
nothing to nature or the cosmos. According to Kant, man's own
morality, his key conceptions and belief emanate ultimately from
the structure of his mind. This dualism between man the cognizing
and moral subject and the external world constitutes Hegel's
problem situation, to use Karl Popper's terms - 'problem that must
not be left unsolved'. Following Kant's approach, man and nature
are so separate that it is impossible for both to ever meet.
In Hegel's system, the seemingly insurmountable bridge
between the real and the rational, between subject and object is
suspended, dissolved, eroded logically or conceptually overcome.
Unlike Kant's, in Hegel's view of the world, a blissful harmony
reigns. The world is a totality which is progressing; or conversely,
progress is of the very essence of the totality, not simply an
attribute of some part of it, or of some segment of its history.
Hegel's dialectical idealism is the attainment of global
togetherness, which places man and his culture in the centre of
things. In Hegel, culture is unitary, and it pervades the individuals
and parts that compose it. Culture is conceptual; it resides in the
living, active ideas of its carriers. It develops and progresses, too.
From the points raised above, it is easy to visualize how the
idea of development, progress is central to Hegel's philosophical
16

17. thought, thanks to his dialectical logical approach. But his
dialectics was basically idealistic, that is, abstracted from real
human life.
Much more concrete and closer to societal life is the
technique of research and mode of reasoning invented and
extensively applied himself, by Karl Marx. I have in mind the
principle of historical specificity, historicity, for short. As a
method of social enquiry and logical reflection, it demands that we
do not study "the general conditions of all social life but only the
specific historical form assumed by them in present-day…
society”. Unlike Kant, Marx discussed not man as such, not
society as such, but concrete historical man and concrete human
society with the particular material condition of its existence. As
opposed to Hegel's, Marx’s dialectics is materialistic. It is down to
earth, imbued with real concrete conditions of man, society and
history. His principle of historical specificity and the dialectical
materialist method he applied to the study of human society
enabled him to arrive at the notion of socio-economic formation,
which he used to pictorialize various stages of the process attained
by human societal development. Marx characterized the history of
humanity as that of a succession of socio-economic formations.
The concept of socio-economic formation has been so
interpreted or misinterpreted as a rigid and imposed regularity, i.e.
a sort of historical laws or historical inevitability which came close
to suggesting that the order of succession as mentioned by Marx
and Engels, first in The German Ideology and later in the
Communist Manifesto, and in Capital MUST be undergone by
every people or every nation in the process of socio-historical,
development. In other words, the misinterpretation implies that
there are no alternatives to social systems enunciated by Marx. We
shall come back to this issue later in the next chapter in a much
detailed discussion.
The fundamental issue involved here is how humanity
developed from the earliest tool-using primate to the present day
form of societal organization of production, distribution and
exchange. This implies the discovery of a mechanism for the
differentiation of various human social groups and the
transformation of one kind of society into another or the failure to
do so. There is no doubt about it, Marx did insist on a systematic
and necessary development of human society and such a fact as the
increase control of man over nature and his environment certainly
implies unidirectional change or progress. But does that imply too
a unilinear process covering stage by stage the Ancient, the
Asiatic, the Feudalistic, Capitalistic, and Socialistic/Communistic
socio-economic formations without possible alternative or
alternatives?
Before we come to answer this question there is the need to
elucidate one other aspect of the issue under discussion. This is
connected with two specific critiques of theories prevalent in the
social sciences today. The first has to do with the critique of the
mechanism which dominates so much of the social sciences,
especially in the advanced capitalist society where there is an on-
going conscious efforts to search for methods of achieving social
reform in a bid to avoid radical social transformation, social
revolution. Karl Popper is in the lead in formulating this theory of
‘social engineering'. Such theories are essentially aimed at some
sort of 'piece-meal' problem solving. The protagonist of the 'social
engineering' are theory wise, "extremely primitive, probably crude
than most corresponding theories in the nineteenth century”2
says
E.J. Hobsbawn. Many students of social life who adhere to such
methodological orientation today, wittingly or otherwise, reduce
the process of socio-historical development of mankind to a single
change from what they classify "traditional" to "modern",
"industrial" or "post-industrial" society. He conceives “modern" to
mean the advanced industrial capitalist countries of our time.
17

18. The 'social engineering' approach and the models it entails
tend to eliminate greater portion of the socio-historical process
"travelled" by mankind in order to uphold and propagate just one
small span of it, viz: the capitalist stage and by so doing, they not
only oversimplify the mechanism of socio-historical
transformation even with their chosen small span of times, but are
very close to eternalizing this small span of time, the capitalist
stage of the development of mankind. The immense strength of
Marx's dialectical historical materialist approach in the study of
social life has always lain in its insistence on both the existence of
social structure and its historicity; in other words, the internal
dynamics of change of the entire social structure. It is precisely
against this central thrust of the principle of historical specificity
or in other words, the changeability, or the possibility of a given
social structure to transform into another that the 'social
engineering' theorists aimed at denying3
.
The second critique of theories prevalent in contemporary
social science in advanced capitalist society is of structural-
functionalist theory which, seemed more sophisticated than the
first, but in certain respects, is even much more obsolete in the
sense that it tends to deny the principle of historical specificity or
transform it into something else altogether.
Most versions of structural-functionalism are synchronic,
and 'the more sophisticated and elaborate they are the more they
are confined to social static. M.J. Levy, 4
for instance, not only
denied the principle of historicity as a mode of study of societal
life, but went further to assert that only structural- functionalist
approach is adequate for the study and understanding of social
phenomena. According to him, the basic definitions of society are
its structural functional characteristics. Correspondingly, method
for the analysis of society must be structural-functionalistic,
defining function as the state or condition of things, which is the
result of the maintenance of structure in time, while viewing
structure as the observable constancy of the invariability of action.
Talcot Parsons on his part, recognizes that in the process of
'socio-cultural' evolution there exist different phases of the
existence of society. The basic stages of such societies he calls
primitive, intermediate, and modern5
. However, according to
Parsons, the important thing here is not to fix the process of
change itself, but rather to ascertain the presence of these different
phases of the structure, that is to say, certain results of change
mechanically assembled without essential intrinsic connation. This
position led Parsons to believing that all societal evolution is not a
process of development as such, but a succession of the existence
of different structures. Thus, Parsons explains all processes of
socio-historical development with an endless thread of functional
differentiation of greater and increasing stability of emerged
societies.
Robert Nisbet remarked in this regard that what Parsons
called change, is, in reality, "not change at all, but variation of
classificatory type"6
he earlier formulated.
The view that the same mode of analysis cannot be used to
explain both function and historic change seems widely accepted.
The point here is not that it is illegitimate to develop separate
analysis models for the static and dynamic but that the study of the
process of socio-historical development of mankind demands that
both models be connected and applied jointly. In other words,
structural-functionalism and the principle of historical specificity
or historicity do not conflict but complement each other. Radcliffe-
Brown, a structural-functionalist himself, made a similar
observation, while recognizing that the study of human society in
analogy to the study of organic life raises before a researcher the
question “by, what means do new types of social structures come
into existence?”
18

19. The most serious methodological inconsistency in the
doctrine of the structural-functionalists as represented in the work
of Talcot Parsons, concerning the nature of social phenomena and
societal life in general is that it transfers attention from
unidirectional natural-historical process as an ascending
development to a sort of systemity of society, viewed outside
history. An essential feature of the principle of historicity is that
what is being considered here is not series of temporary successive
events of the process but the irreversible conditionality of states of
the process, the causal-determining factor of transition from one
state to the other to be rising, ascending unidirectional
development, progress.
The anti-historicity or anti-dialectical approach of most
structural-functionalists in the study of the nature of human society
as is well represented in the works by Talcot Parsons has its
theoretical root in the views of the founder of positivist trend in
philosophy and social thought. It should be remembered that
having made evolution of the intellect as the basis of his law of
three phases of the development of human societies - theological,
metaphysical, and positive - Comte tried to prove that the positive
period is the concluding stage of the entire socio-historical process
of human development. Once socio-historical process had been
conceived as having concluded its development, it is not difficult
to find one sharing the illusion that social institutions only perfect
themselves through differentiation of functions of their basic
components. Note the division by Parsons of human societies into
three phases is not much different from Comte's.
The conception of socio-economic formation in Marxism
suggests that separate changes should be explained in both the
constituent of existent functioning or existed social system and in
the irreversible process of societal development. With such a
standpoint, the student of social life is concerned with processes in
which each phase is conditioned by the preceding and existing
circumstances. In these processes, the succession (sequence) of
phases gives the picture not of a line as such, but a kind of periodic
structure, resembling the chemical periodic table. Such an
impression of socio-historical process is attainable only with the
combination of structural-functional analysis and historicity,
employed in a dialectical realistic perspective.
Just as the multiplicity of properties of chemicals elements
received its explanation in the complexity of their intrinsic multi-
level structure periodicity of elements, so also is possible, a
scientific explanation, thanks to the analysis of multi-leveliness of
complex process of the development of human societies. Precisely,
it is this type of explanation that Karl Marx expounded in Capital,
and which is being consciously left out in the orientation guide of
structural-functionalism as well as in the doctrine of 'social
engineering', whose primary objective is to attain some piece-meal
reforms in society while preserving its essential characteristic
feature, together with all consequential implication that are
inherent in same.
The development of every historic epoch is complex, many-
sided and contradictory. This may be said especially of the present
one. By simply collecting and studying facts one will not be able
to understand the peculiarities of the contemporary epoch or throw
light on all its complexities. One has to find the inner relationship
between events and facts, put them in order to establish the system
they follow, and lay bare their trends. That is the main and most
difficult problem. And it is here that the problem of method comes
into play. Since Hegel and particularly Marx dialectics has become
a vital method of philosophical investigation.
Dialectics, we conceive, a body of propositions concerning
laws of development that are applicable to all sphere of objective
reality - nature, society and human thinking - which if properly,
19

20. that is, objectively applied-enables one to arrive at correspondingly
correct viewpoint of this reality. The power and tremendous
importance of dialectics lies, it seems, in the fact that it allows a
researcher to find a new approach to reality each time, this way,
avoiding stereotyped thinking, dogma. In other words, dialectics
derives its power from the fact that it permits human thought to be
just as versatile and flexible as reality itself, as the objective nature
of things. Hence, dialectics may be considered a teaching with
myriad shades of approach and approximation to reality.
The approach, methodology envisaged in order to penetrate
and understand the problems of our contemporary epoch we call
dialectical realism. There is difference between this method and
dialectical materialism which is the basic method that suggests
socialism/communism via historical materialism. Historical
materialism is a further reification of the principle of dialectical
materialism. Dialectical materialism is the underlying
methodology of Marxian scientific socialism. In fact, it constitutes
the theoretical base of contemporary socialist/communist theory of
societal development, which suggests communism as the final
termination of societal development and proclaims same as the
next stage of history. The method and conclusion is not acceptable
to us. In truth, it would amount to self-contradiction to adopt same
as the basic method of our current investigation. This is so, since
any method employed in inquiry is known to have definite
influence on the possible outcome of such inquiry. Our objection
here is to dialectical materialism and not to dialectics in general.
Dialectical materialism imposes a peculiar direction on
dialectics. Whereas, dialectical method’ is universal and versatile.
It can assume idealistic direction, or what have you, depending on
researcher’s aims and objectives. What is important, however, is
that dialectical method is a theory of development. It demands that
everything be examined in the process of its development and
change. Since our objective is a genuinely new objective research
of most sympathetic and understanding examination of the realities
of our contemporary world from the position of the new state,
dialectical realism is our chosen method. Only such approach will
enable one to see every object and every phenomenon as it really
is, and not as an arbitrary construction of the human mind or
dogmatic repetition of what was. An approach of such purpose
must be objective, dialectical and realistic. That is particularly
important when it is a matter of getting at the essence of a
historical epoch. A new epoch arises as a result of the development
of the preceding one, and it can be understood only if studied as a
result of that development. Although it arose out of the previous
epoch its entire dominant characteristics and specific features are
of a new quality, different fundamentally from those of the epochs
that went before it.
The importance of this approach is that it makes it possible
to avoid confusing a new stage in mankind's progress with
previous stages. An essential moment of this methodological
position making for sound scientific approach in determining the
essence of our epoch, we believe, is a combination of two forms of
theoretical examination of the problem, viz: analysis and synthesis.
Every phenomenon, even the very simplest, has many
aspects and is at the same time a definite entity. The point of
analysis, as is well known, is to provide an understanding of the
different aspects of the different processes and movements.
Dialectical realist analysis, however, is not a mere division of a
whole into its parts. In breaking down a complex whole into
separate units, dialectical realist analysis singles out the aspect or
side that constitutes the basis, the root source of the phenomenon,
of the entity, the essence of the object.
With the present complex historical epoch broken into its
parts and the most important one, the one that characterizes the
20

21. essence of the epoch, singled out, we hope to rebuild the epoch as
a whole, this time as a whole, the understanding of which is based
on its most essential feature.
To begin with, we may wish to know what are the motive
forces in the contemporary epoch, what is the central factor in the
struggle between the opposing socio-historical forces and trends
that determine the epoch's meaning. Proceeding from the
dialectical mode of reasoning, it is not difficult to perceive that the
contradictions of an epoch are the source of its development. Much
more difficult is to give a realistic objective analysis of the
concrete contradictions as such an analysis demands a most
thorough study of the peculiarities of modern development.
This brings us to the very important question of the main
and subsidiary contradictions. If an epoch is a sum total of
different processes and movements it stands to reason that the
contradictions are different as well. An epoch is a complex web of
different contradictions: main and subsidiary, more important and
less important, though also significant.
The point, however, is to single out the main, decisive,
fundamental contradiction, the one that determines the
development of our time. But that is not all. It is equally important
to grasp the relationship and interaction between the main and
subsidiary contradiction, to understand the complex dialectics of
their interdependency. Contradictions are not isolated from one
another. Movement is determined by the total action of all the
main and subsidiary contradictions.
Firstly, what are the contradictions in our time? There are
many of them. The contradictions between the world socialist and
the world capitalist system, the contradiction between the two
political cum military blocs and the non-aligned movement, the
contradictions between countries within each of the two blocs, on
one hand, and between countries within the non-aligned movement
itself, on the other; the contradictions between the industrially
advanced neocolonialist subjugationist capitalist state and the
economically subjugated and so backward new state of the world;
the contradictions between different countries and groups of
countries inside the capitalist camp and as well as inside the
socialist bloc; the contradictions in relations between the
bourgeoisie and the peasantry, and between the peasantry and
working class, the working class and the unemployed; between the
youth and the old stratum of contemporary societies; the
contradictions between the national liberation movement and
imperialism, the contradictions within the national liberation
movement itself; the contradiction between the nationalization
policy of the new independent state and the suck-dry exploitative
policy and practice of the transnational corporations - an essential
arm of neo-colonialism and the springboard of subjugationism; the
contradictions within the new state between the forces of radical
transformation of the society along the line of total and complete
emancipation, at national self-affirmation and recovery and the
forces of reaction, conservatism and traditionalism - another
dangerous arm of neo-colonialism, etc.
Each of these contradictions expresses definite relations
between nations and different social groups in contemporary
society. In real life, all these contradictions are interwoven,
creating an extremely complex picture of reality.
It is absolutely clear that to ignore a single one of these
contradictions is impermissible. The struggle to resolve them is the
motive force of the contemporary human society.
Which contradiction is the main one, however? There is no
doubt that the only way to arrive at a correct answer is to start
from the main trend of the epoch, viz: the breakdown of the
colonial system and the rise of scores of new independent
21

22. sovereign states with their problems of social, economic and
cultural development which have been further complicated by the
artificial dilemma created by the struggling with one another, for
supremacy, of the socialist and capitalist modes of development.
Complications arise from the fact that whereas these two modes of
socio-economic organization of society served in their respective
epoch in Europe just as definite means: capitalism, a means of
achieving the economic objectives of the bourgeois class over
feudal interests; socialism, for attaining the proletariat's economic
and social ideals. In the new state, socialism and capitalism have
been virtually transformed into ends in themselves whose
realization various groups are striving to accomplish irrespective
of the nature of problems that are, de facto, confronting the new
state.
What are the main signs enabling us to single out the basic
contradiction from the many others?
Firstly, the main contradiction expresses the main trend of
present day development. It is the main source of movement in our
time, and the struggle to resolve it sets the course of historical and
future development. The fact that the theme of a new international
order, still blurred few years ago, has suddenly become a concrete
political reality, a subject of study in universities, and bilateral
exchanges between governments, and even in the private sector,
stands to confirm this point. The issue of New International
Economic Order (NIEO) was discussed at the UN in special
sessions of the General Assembly and of course at meetings of
ECOSOC, in the OECD, at the meeting of UNEP, FAO and WHO,
It is the underlying theme of the Paris Conference of 27 on the
Distribution of energy and raw materials, at the Meeting of some
Heads of State and government in Maryland, Washington and then
Jamaica, Tokyo and Cancum. On it, special conferences have been
held in several countries.
Secondly, the fundamental contradiction is a permanent,
stable one that exists throughout the historical epoch. The main
contradiction of the present epoch is the contradiction between the
national nature of the ownership of raw materials and other sorts of
natural resources and the foreign nature of their exploration,
exploitation and appropriation. This contradiction is constant and
stable throughout the existence of imperialism and the emergence
of neocolonialism. The contradiction between the national nature
of the ownership of raw materials and the foreign nature of their
exploration, exploitation and appropriation can be resolved only if
the present unjust, inequitable international economic and political
praxes are done away with.
Finally, there is another sign pointing to the main
contradiction. Namely, that this contradiction exerts a decisive
influence on all the others on their development, on the course of
the struggle between them, and on their resolution. As we examine
the present epoch from this point of view, we see that the
fundamental contradiction is the one between the forces of
selfreliancism and national recovery, and the forces of
imperialism, neo-colonialism and subjugation. This is the
contradiction that expresses the main direction of development,
and dictates a new path of societal motion in the present epoch, the
one of the breakdown of colonialism and the rise of new
independent state striving for a total and complete emancipation in
all spheres of human activity, for national self-realization, through
selfreliancism.
Can the contradiction between the world socialist system
and the world capitalist system be regarded as the fundamental
contradiction of our time? No, it cannot, despite its importance and
the tremendous role it plays in our times. The point is that this
contradiction does not and can no longer determine the main
direction of development. Historically no doubt, the political
22

23. philosophies underlying both capitalism and socialism have
provided grand views of the nature of the social world of their
respective epoch, designated the agencies of historic change, and
suggested programmes for achieving these goals. Both capitalism
and socialism have been insurgent creeds: in their several varieties,
they have been the rhetoric of movements, parties, and classes on
the road to power - as political utopia, capitalism has been specific
to the rising middle classes of the then industrial booming epoch in
Europe- it was the underlying factor of, first, the Dutch, then the
English, the French and the American revolutions.
Socialism, the proclaimed creed of working-class
movements and parties, was the grand view which served as
inspiration for the Russian revolution of 1917, the Chinese
revolution, and the Cuban revolution of 1959, etc. But in each
case, as power is achieved and in reaction to the consolidation of
these revolutions within each of these countries, and within the
two blocs that emerged there from afterwards, both systems have
confronted each other, differing about what their ideologues
consider to be facts and differing about what means they believe
necessary to realize their proclaimed ideals, goals. In the process,
they both came to actualize, diplomatise, legalise and
constitutionalise these differences, thereby forming the basis for
the struggle between the two systems - capitalism and socialism.
The struggle between the two systems continues to have meaning,
historical significance today to the extent that majority of world
countries continue to languish in abject poverty, most or many of
the new states remain in position of weakness and are unable to
determine and control their people’s destiny. Until otherwise,
major powers of the two struggling systems would always be
tempted to increase their spheres of influence at the expense and
over the new state, exploiting its weakness. In this way, the
struggle would continue between the two systems.
Further, the political philosophies of capitalism and
communism have become fully established political and economic
systems and invariably became conservative creeds of the two
most powerful states in the world today - USA and USSR –
forming therefore sorts of official ideologies, that have become, in
many and differing ways engulfed by some sort of nationalism – a
remarkable development, no doubt, of capitalism and socialism, as
systems of ideology.
Accordingly, the contradiction here can no longer be said to
exert a decisive influence on the development and overcoming of
all the other contradictions. Actually, it is the contradiction
between the politically decolonised but industrially weak new state
and neo-colonialism that exerts decisive influence on the
development and surmounting of all the other contradictions. It is
this that gives life and meaning to the contradiction which
underlay the struggle between capitalism and communism.
Consequently, the claims by the ideologues of socialism that
the main contradiction of the present epoch is the contradiction
between the world socialist system and the world capitalist system,
and that the entire mankind is at the verge of transition from
capitalism to socialism lack scientific substance, at least in the
light of new stubborn facts of present world realities. As such, the
view is not acceptable. At best, it is an attempt to maintain the
status quo of the socialist reality. At worst, it is aimed at
undermining the new factors, new trends, new path of motion
which are now more and more coming into their own play and
which are of vital importance for the complete social, political and
economic emancipation and recovery of the weak new state of our
time.
The convergence theory is another attempt, from the
capitalist standpoint to eternalise capitalism. On the surface, the
convergence theory (especially to the extent that it intended to
23

24. establish that both the capitalist and the socialist systems are
equal) seems to suggest by implication, that both systems are the
last stage and therefore, the only alternative modes of development
for mankind; that they eclectically are engaged in mutual
borrowing. By this last point the convergence theorists are in a
way guaranteeing, though logically only, the existence of the two
systems in perpetuity with all the social, economic and political
consequences that intrinsically follow there from.
A close study of several of the variants of convergence
theory as is represented in the "humanistic psychoanalysis of E.
Fromm, the existentialistic philosophy of ‘human freedom', the
psychosomatic humanism of R. Aron, from the 'harmonious
humanism' of the American economist J. K. Galbraith and also of
the 'rationalistic humanism' of the American Sovietologist Z.
Brzeznski, etc., regardless of the diversity in conception and
approach, and in spite of their criticism of the capitalist system, in
the final analysis they are all directed toward the defense of the
system that give birth to their orientation, capitalism. Their basic
and common task is how to 'reform' or rather how to 'humanize'
the inhuman obsolete capitalism. So, ultimately, they aim at
justifying capitalism, and seek to undermine socialism and any
other possible mode of socio-economic organization of society.
It is, however, the resolution of the fundamental
contradiction that is capable of ushering in a new epoch, the epoch
of new social and international economic systems, the epoch of
self-reliancism.
New socio-economic system, because in striving to achieve
total and complete national emancipation and self-reliancism, a
total mobilisation of natural and human resources is called for.
This also means the mobilisation and rescheduling of all social and
economic structures, too. In such a situation, neither a total
socialization nor a total individualization of the means of
production and distribution would be adequate.
By that, we are not in any way advocating eclecticism, a
theory which urges the borrowing of the 'good' in capitalism and
the 'good' in socialism with the intent of merging them to give a
sort of 'mixed system'. We are not unaware of the danger which
such an eclectic approach entails. It is just like the case when a
glass of milk is mixed with another glass of lime juice. The result
is obvious - incompatibility. 'Mixed social-economic system will
invariably advance to a stage where the whole system becomes
frustrated, collapse and destroyed. Eventually especially in a
situation where most economic activists as is the case in the new
state are no captains of industry, not inventors but businessmen of
intermediary type, who are only ready to be 'part of the racket'
(Frantz Fanon).
Experience has shown, for any meaningful step taken by
any weak nation to consolidate its economic and political position,
neo-colonialism is usually ready to make ten counter-moves to
frustrate it. Neo-colonialist interests regularly organize economic
sabotage, internal disaffection, and campaign of calumny, like
using mass media against unwilling-to-be misguided national
leaders of the new state. Neo-colonialism is also prone to using
elements within the new state owing to diverse social group
interests, which quite often, conflict with one another.
Argentina, after the return of Peron in the 1970s typifies this
example. Thus, individual capitalist ties with international,
transnational monopolies can openly, or otherwise, cause the
collapse of the system based on eclectic methodology. For with
this context of eclectical approach, the psychological effects of the
artificial dilemma created by the two opposing socio-economic
systems, coupled with lack of available ready paved alternative
path, of societal motion, pose a serious problem of socio-political
24

25. philosophical orientation and direction. The general mobilisation
of the natural and human resources of the new state therefore,
demands a solid fundamental criterion.
"Mixed Systems” based on an eclectic methodological
approach can never lead to the attainment of self-realization
because, like the mixture of water with oil, both the 'good' from
capitalism and the 'good' from socialism will never blend. They,
obeying simple Aristotelian logic, will always co-exist side by side
together with all the problems that logically follow there from.
They will never, on the basis of that eclecticism, form a
harmonious, workable system. Because in accordance with that
methodology the 'good elements' from both systems are, it matters
not whether we consciously cognize this to be so or otherwise,
meant to serve a sort of compromise between the two systems.
This attempt to work out a sort of compromise between the two
systems is, on the theoretical plane, a not fully realized growing
awareness of the inadequacy of each of the two systems, their
incapacity to cope with fundamental problems of the modern
epoch. It symbolises too, the degree of mental enslavement of
peoples in the new state by the struggling opposite socio-economic
systems of contemporary world.
On political practical plane, it is a glaring awareness of the
fact and unpronounced fear that each of the major countries where
these creeds are primarily seated, in its desperate efforts to assume
a dominant role in world affairs, is all out to force its system on the
weak state at convenience. This unpronounced fear leads to
confusion. In an attempt to escape subversion from either side, the
confused mind breeds the folklore of 'mixed economy' - a sort of
economic, political and ideological 'balancing'; what an evidence
of mental laziness! An easy submission to frustration caused by
the artificial dilemma invented by the ideologies of the two
systems dilemma of choice of mode of development: socialism or
capitalism, no third alternative is possible it all seems!
This attempt, to sustain ‘balance sheet' is futile from the
outset. It is not even only futile, it is a self-destructive compromise
which is highly disastrous because in an effort to continue to
maintain this 'balancing', the major problems of our epoch are
altered: a subsidiary contradiction is substituted for the major,
decisive contradiction; obsolete social and international economic
systems are substituted for mankind's objective future; the dying
systems continue to be nourished in the attempt to keep up such
'balancing' and by so doing, unconsciously though, the ideologist
of mixed economy enhances the preservation of these obsolete
systems, gives them eternal outlook, and by implication, accepts
the dying systems as the only possible alternative modes of
development. Since in this process of trying to maintain a 'balance
sheet' between the two systems, wittingly or unwittingly, the agent
of this theory of Mixed System turns the act of 'balancing', a
means, into an aim in itself: for the balance must be strictly
adhered to otherwise the mixed-system would be disrupted. As a
result, the initial aim of attaining and maintaining a self-reliancist
society is suppressed, negated, defeated and made to transform in
that process, unconsciously though, from a highest aim into a mere
means of sustaining obsolete system. Subsequently the new state is
back at square one: it resumes once again, the role of an essential
instrument for protecting subjugationist interests, of guaranteeing
in particular the continuous growth of neo-colonialism. What a
total self-negation, vivid evidence of a confused mind. And the
main contradiction is left unresolved.
The sum total of the contradictions is a dialectical total, a
connection between, and unity of contradictions and not an
arithmetical total. Therefore, the dialectics of the relations between
the contradictions, the connection between the main and subsidiary
25

26. contradictions is a question of paramount importance.
Unwillingness or inability to single out the main contradiction
namely, the struggle between the new state and the neocolonialist,
subjugationist state would lead to a glossing over of the
distinctions between the Self-reliancist Movement of the
contemporary world and the pro-imperialist and neocolonialist,
movements, to a blurring of the main content of our epoch, an
epoch of the transition from neocolonialism to self-reliancism.
Eclecticism a fear of dialectical concreteness is the
characteristic feature of confusionism. The present-day
confustonists are represented by those who merely enumerate the
various contradictions of our epoch and put their stamp on the
main direction of development. These are politicians and
intellectuals in the new state who talk about the contradictions
between progress and regression in the world of today without
making relevant efforts at concrete analysis but quickly jump to
'solution'. They often find their 'solution' in mixed economy, etc.
Yet only a concrete analysis of relations between the factors that
constitute the forces of contemporary progress and contemporary
reaction can bring out the main contradiction of our time, the
contradiction between the neocolonialist advanced capitalist state
and the economically subjugated new state, and by so doing,
render it a lasting solution.
At the same time, however, realistic dialectics does not raise
the main contradiction to the category of an absolute. It does not
regard it separately from other contradictions of the epoch, outside
of its connections and interaction with them. Thus, though, the
struggle of the two mutually exclusive, social systems do not bear
an immediate relevance to the movement toward self-reliancism, it
by implication, helps prepare the ground and conditions for its
realization. The process of the struggle helps to expose the
hypocritical aspects of the two systems the thirst for supremacy
and the inclination to dominate over others. The point is that in
striving for supremacy each side tries to expose the nature of the
other's activities - real or fictitious - its hidden manifest function;
as well as the other's sinister design for the new state, in order to
secure the latter's admiration. Such claims, and counter claims help
increase the awareness, political awareness, of peoples in the new
state. This, no doubt, contributes in no small way to the capacity of
the new state to undermine the forces of imperialism and
neocolonialism and by so doing, enhances the development and
resolution of the basic contradiction of our epoch.
The weakening of imperialism offers the peoples of the new
state the prospect of a national renaissance, of ending age-long
backwardness and poverty brought about by the political and
economic subjugation, and of achieving economic independence
and complete recovery. With the division of the world into the two
opposing social systems it would be impossible today to imagine
the steady collapse of the colonial system and the steady increase
in the number of new states. It is a common knowledge attested to
by huge records of historical evidence that in the colonial era,
colonial peoples seeking self-determination and political
independence world over enjoyed unrelenting material political
and spiritual support, essentially from the socialist states.
It may be argued, undoubtedly, that it is self-enlightened
interest, ensuing from the contradiction between the two opposing
systems that motivates the socialist bloc to render assistance to
national liberation movements at different places and times. But it
is similarly true that the aids meet the interests of these liberation
organisations. The aids received from the socialist bloc, no doubt,
served the national interests and aspirations of the colonial peoples
of Algeria, of Vietnam, of Angola, etc. The Namibian question is
another testimony to this truth.
26

27. It is equally a common knowledge that the leading advanced
capitalist states support colonial and neocolonial interests against
the aspirations, expectations and interests of the colonized people
in an effort to undermine their will to self-determination and
genuine sovereign independence. The NATO countries for many
years, gave military, economic, political and spiritual assistance to
Portugal to help it maintain its colonial interest in Africa. The
Congo tragedy, in which US neocolonialism organized the murder
of Patrice Lumumba in order to establish neocolonialist interest in
that country (now Zaire), has a permanent place in the record of
historian which no one can erase. Now the neocolonialist
conspiracy against the Namibian people's struggle to liberate their
territory from colonial oppression and domination is quite obvious.
The position and attitude of the socialist state and the
advanced capitalist state on the question of a New International
Economic Order conform to the orientations both sides depict
since the very beginning of the colonial peoples' struggle for the
repossession of political sovereignty. There is nothing accidental
in the fact that the socialist states support the demand by the new
state for a new equitable world trade and economic relations. It is a
reflection of the consistent support they have for many years
rendered the new state. That the advanced capitalist state not only
opposes the demand but is doing everything possible to play down
the significance of the demand and to place obstacles on the path
leading to its possible realization is equally consistent with its age-
long practice: to keep the new state under a perpetual domination.
It is only in this sense, however, could the battle for
supremacy between capitalism and socialism be regarded as being,
and only in a subsidiary manner, part of the battle for total and
complete emancipation of the new state - the basic and decisive
contradiction of our epoch.
However, the development of all the contradictions of
modern epoch will inevitably lead to the downfall of the outmoded
social and international economic systems, and the establishment
and triumph of self-reliancism. There is no other historical and
future prospect, nor can there be, judging from the available
evidence of the present epoch.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Karl Korsch, Karl Marx New York, Russell &
Russell, 1963, p.38.
2. For a full analysis of Popper's view, see E.K.
Ogundowole "The Ideological Overtone of Karl Popper's Anti-
historicism "- The Nigerian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 1, No.2,
1981, pp. 61 - 69.
3. E.J. Hobsbawn "Karl Marx's Contribution to
Historiography," in Ideology in Social Science ed., by R.
Blackburm, Fontana Books, 1976 p. 274.
4. See, for instance, Karl Popper, The Poverty of
Historicism, London Boston, Beacon Press, 1967. The Open
Society and Its Enemies Vol. II London, C. Rutledge & Sons,
1949.
5. M.J. Levy The Structure of Society, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1952, p. 5.
6. Talcot Parsons Societies. An Evolutionary Historical
Analysis and Comparative Perspectives, Englewood Cliffs,
Prentice-Hal/1966, p.3.
27

28. 7. Robert Nisbet Social Change and History. Aspects
of the Western Theory of Development. New York, Oxford
University Press 1969. p. 265.
8. A.R. Radcliffe-Brown Structure and Function in
Primitive Society, New York, The Free Press, 1965, pp. 180 and
186.
9. W.C.
28

29. CHAPTER THREE
FUNDAMENTAL THEORETICAL PRINCIPLE OF
SELFRELIANCISM
Within contemporary political philosophical enterprise in
the new state, two basic trends are noticeable. These are:
1. The group that represents the view that people in the
new state need a better understanding of present day domineering
European philosophical heritage, hereinafter called Euro
philosophy, as an intellectual basis for their struggle against
poverty; and
2. Those thinkers who call for, or who suppose
themselves, to be constructing the alternative of some sort of local
indigenous philosophy.
In the first beginnings, at least, this second school or group
has shown but very few signs of any genuine cultural
independence both from Euro cultural heritage in general and from
Euro philosophical heritage in particular on which the former is
built. Departing from our dialectical realistic stance as it is we find
it difficult to believe that intellectual innovations are possible
merely by talking about them and wishing for them, independently
of the factual social life a people live, as well as the definite
concrete historical situation with which they mesh. Thus taking
cognizance of the reality of European influences, both in materials
as well as, and in fact more in cultural kinds, in the life of the new
state today, the endeavor to establish an autonomous truly local
indigenous philosophy can be but only illusion.
Even granting that the proponents of this view hope to
realize their ambition by the means of a sort of cultural-
philosophical autarky, they will still have to face an impossible
task of purging their minds and bodies cleansing themselves of all
what is European. A task which, in our judgment, is not only
impossible: but unnecessary at this stage of the development of
mankind. The view under consideration is explicitly and, in some
cases, implicitly expressed in the works of Leopold Sedar Senghor,
Aime Ce saire, Leon Damas, and Julius Nyerere. It is pertinent to
note that some philosophers of this school who try to establish this
sort of conscious particularity at the same time lay claim to an
imaginary universality of their thought system - Senghor's
Negritude, Nyerere’s Ujamaa, Kaduna's Humanism, are concrete
examples. Our judgment is that such philosophical outlook is less
true to the actual fact of the new state predicaments and of current
needs of the mankind.
We agree with the view represented by the first group who
argue for a better understanding of the European philosophical
heritage as an intellectual basis for the struggle against poverty and
backwardness in the new state, though in a sense rather different to
that in which it is usually advocated. The position we hold is that
the people of the new state need only such an understanding of
Europhilosphical heritage as may help them to free their society
from economic backwardness, and from oppressive external
influence, an influence which extends far beyond old
governmental, social and state apparatus set up by the colonialists
and goes right into the new state today. Simply put most of what
the mainstream of Euro philosophical heritage has to offer should
be rejected. Most must be rejected, in truth, not only by peoples of
the new state in Asia, Latin America and Africa, we believe, but
also by Europeans themselves. This is so because the early notion
that philosophy is an enterprise concerned with the whole of
existence, the whole of humanity and the whole of human nature
are fast being abandoned by contemporary Euro philosophical
tradition.
29