Mkuki Na Nyota Publishers

The Long Road to Socialism

Sh 9,000

Samir Amin

“The Second Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week took place on April 12th to 15th, 2010. Its theme was the Arusha Declaration, a great document produced in 1967 during the nationalist period of Tanzania’s history. The Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Professorial Chair in Pan-African Studies is pleased to publish the Nyerere Lectures, 2010. Installed as Distinguished Nyerere Lecturer, 2010, Professor Samir Amin delivered two lectures on the Long Walk to Socialism, which are fully reproduced in this publication. In placing them in the public domain, our aim is to raise the intellectual discourse beyond the mundane pinpricks of puny professors who question the practicality of socialism or fall back on the age-old theories of human nature – man is selfish, greedy by nature, etc. – to condemn it. Like the Arusha Declaration, Amin’s lectures spell out possibilities for the emancipation of the ordinary people of the world who, despite being thoroughly integrated into global capitalism, have ironically remained victims rather than beneficiaries of that integration. Professor Amin takes a broad sweep of the history of capitalist accumulation and shows us how vicious and barbaric has been the march of capitalism. He does not mince his words. He does not manifest any shyness of his method and Marxist theoretical framework, yet he is not dogmatic. Marxism for him is neither a mantra nor a dogma – it is a scientific method to understand our society; a method that is constantly enriched and modified by changing reality. He calls himself an ‘independent Marxist’, as opposed to a communist doctrinaire.

Born in Egypt, Professor Samir Amin has worked in the planning ministries in Egypt and Mali, led the Institute of Development Planning in Dakar from 1970 to 1980, and since then, has been the Director of the Third World Forum. As a militant Marxist scholar, Samir Amin has been consistent and passionate throughout his life in the advocacy and defence of human emancipation from the vicious capitalist and imperialist system, regardless of the changing intellectual fashions. He is uncompromising, and he has consciously done everything possible and seized every opportunity available to provide space, a forum, and a training ground for young African scholars.”

About the author
Samir Amin has written over 30 books and numerous articles, including Imperialism & Unequal Development, Specters of Capitalism: A Critique of Current Intellectual Fashions, Obsolescent Capitalism: Contemporary Politics and Global Disorder, and Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World.

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