Full text of lecture delivered by Chief Obafemi Awolowo at the First Lecture in the University of Lagos Annual
Lecture Series on Friday, 15th March, 1968.
CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK
Like cause always produces like effect. In kind, we always reap what we sow; but quantitatively, we always reap much more than we sow, One good seed always produces its kind ‘a hundred fold.’ Ditto for one evil seed. But whilst the good seed, in spite of even the stiffest obstruction and opposition, proliferates, flourishes, and transcends itself in quality, through aeons of time, the bad seed, in spite of the most generous encouragement, tends, through time, though sometimes imperceptibly, to diminish in quantity and degenerate in quality until suddenly it suffers total extinction. This in my opinion is the statement of the concrete manifestation of the true dialectic.
As it was with slavery, feudalism, and other evil customs and systems in history, so it will be with any extant and prevailing evil system. We can only temporarily delay the full fructification of any good idea, we cannot permanently prevent it. Conversely, we can only temporarily accelerate the fruition of any evil idea, we can never succeed in perpetuating it. Good shall surely, though sometimes slowly, grow and manifest itself; but evil shall also surely, though oftentimes slowly and imperceptibly, wane in strength and finally perish.
The touchstone of what is good, be it in thought, or word or action, is love. We are to love our neighbours as ourselves. ‘That is the law and the prophets.’ Anything therefore – any thought or word or action – which falls short of love is evil, and holds within itself the germ of its own eventual and inevitable destruction.
The inference now becomes irresistible that as long as greed or naked self-interest remains the prime and main motivation of any social system, that system must always of a necessity generate countervailing greed and naked self-interest in everyone whom its operations affect, and in the process of time it will degenerate and perish. This is why I feel confident in predicting that capitalism is doomed to perish, and that whilst it lasts it will continue to be a fruitful source of injustice, discontent, strife, moral weakness and degeneracy, and widespread relative poverty and distress.
So much for the capitalist system. We now turn to the socialist system. We must begin a consideration of this system by asking a pertinent question: What is socialism?
Socialism is a normative social science. It is in the same category as ethics. But whilst the latter seeks to set the standards for human conduct, socialism seeks to establish the standards for economic behaviour and social objectives. It is, in a very important respect, unlike the science of economics which studies the forces at work in any society and in the world at large in man’s efforts to satisfy infinite ends with limited and scarce means which have alternative uses.
Socialism, as a normative science, also studies these forces, but goes much further. It sets the standards of human ends which economic forces must serve, and prescribes the methods by which these forces may be controlled, directed, and channelled for attainment of the ends in view.
Socialism is also to be distinguished from and contrasted with communism, and the Marxist concept of socialism. Communism is a state of social perfection in which the principle ‘from each according to his ability and to each according to his need’ shall apply. On its advent, the dictatorship of the proletariat would come to an end, the ‘State’ everywhere would be replaced by ‘community’, and the talents of each citizen would be so highly developed, that in his skills he would far transcend the capitalist technology of micro-division of labour and acquire the all-embracing communist technology which would make it possible for him ‘to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic’.
As far as Marx and Engels are concerned, socialism is an intermediate stage between the era of catalism and that of communism. The principle of socialism is ‘from each according to his ability and to each according to his deed’, and its high-water mark is the dictatorship of the proletariat under which the bourgeoisie—that is the capitalists—are Suppressed and finally exterminated.
My own concept of socialism is entirely different from communism and the Marxian concept of socialism. In my view, the economic forces at work, in any country and in the world at large must be brought under complete control, coordinated, tamed, and humanised for the benefit of all. Any system, therefore, under which either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat oppress or suppress the other offends against my Own concept of the dialectic and is bound to fail, because, since it is grounded in mutual hatred, it of a necessity contains within it the germ of its own eventual dissolution.
The principle of socialism can, therefore, be restated thus: From each according to his ability, and to each according to his deed or need as the case may be. The cardinal virtue of socialism is that it is grounded firmly and immovably in mutual love among men in this connection, it is necessary to emphasise that from the examples of socialist countries, it is obvious that the only known vices of socialism are purely external and procedural, not intrinsic. They are therefore curable.
In general terms, the aims of socialism are social justice and equality, and a state of affairs in which the resources provided by nature belong to all the citizens equally, and the products of the union of land and labour are appropriated to labour of all gradations and skills through the media of good wages, respectable standards of living, abolition of unemployment, free provision of basic social amenities such as education, health, etc.
CONTINUES NEXT WEEK
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