Page 81 - CONSCIENCISM By Kwame Nkrumah_Neat

74 CONSCIENCISM SOCIETY AND IDEOLOGY 75
may be initiated by the necessities of preserving identical funda­ duce, and another section batten thereon, or that all sections
mental principles. Reform is a tactic of self-preservation. should produce and all sections should be fulfilled by the value
Revolution is thus an indispensable avenue to socialism, where created by labour.
the antecedent social-political structure is animated by principles In the same way, there are two real philosophical alternatives.
which are a negation of those of socialism, as in a These alternatives coincide with idealism and materialism. In the
ture (and therefore also in a colonialist structure, for a cOJomanst preceding chapter, I explained how idealism was connected with a
structure is essentially ancillary to capitalism). Indeed, I dis­ tiered society, how through its mode of explaining nature and
tinguish between two colonialisms, between a domestic one, and social phenomena by reference to spirit, idealism favoured a class
an external one. Capitalism at home is domestic colonialism. structure ofa horizontal sort, in which one class sat upon the neck of
But because the spirit of communalism still exists to some another.
extent in societies with a communalist past, socialism and com­ I also explained there how materialism, on the other hand, was
munism are not in the strict sense of the word 'revolutionary' connected with a humanist organization, how through its being
creeds. They may be described as restatements in contemporary monistic, and its referring all natural processes to matter and
idiom of the principles underlying communalism. On the other its laws, it inspired an egalitarian organization of society. The
hand, in societies with no history of communalism, the creeds of unity and fundamental identity of nature suggests the unity and
socialism and communism are fully revolutionary, and the pas­ fundamental identity of man in society. Idealism favours an
sage to socialism must be guided by the principles of scientific oligarchy, materialism favours an egalitarianism.
socialism. Individuals have both idealist and materialist tendencies in them.
The nature and cause of the conflict between the ruling class So have societies both idealist and materialist streaks. But these
and the exploited class is influenced by the development of streaks do not exist in equipoise. They are connected by a conflict in
productive forces, that is, changes in technology; the economic which now one streak predominates, now the other.
relations which these forces condition; and the ideologies that By reason of the connection with an oligarchy and
reflect the properties and psychology of the people living in that of materialism with an egalitarianism, the opposition of idealism
society. The basis of a socialist revolution is created when the and materialism in the same society is paralleled by the opposition
ofconservative and progressive forces on the social level. When in
struggle within a given society has resulted in mass consent
the dialectical opposition ofcapitalism to socialism, the former for a
and mass desire for positive action to change or transform that
society. It is then that the foundation is laid for the highest form time becomes triumphant, social progress is not thereby altogether
of political action - when a revolution attains its excellence, arrested, though it is seriously attenuated. But since it is not
arrested, it is hardly cause for wonder that the workers oftoday in
workers and peasants succeed in overthrowing all other classes.
I have explained how society's desire to transform nature respects enjoy better circumstances oflife than even a good
reflects itself in different social-political theories. I wish now to many feudal lords ofthe past. To confess to this degree ofprogress
suggest how the same desire reflects itself in philosophy. Just as is not to say, however, that capitalism has been without its shanty
social-political theories, to the extent that they deploy forces for towns and slums, its captive workers languishing and finally dying
the harnessing and development ofnature, fall into two lots, so do in public squares, victims ofhunger, cold and disease.
philosophies. From this standpoint, the two real social-political The question is not whether there has been discernible progress
alternatives facing society are either that one section should pro- under capitalism, but rather whether what progress is admitted