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ABSTRACT
This article reconstructs the discourse on economic inequality in the writings of Ghanaian lawyer, philosopher and politician J.B. Danquah. A focus on economic inequality (broadly defined to include not only the distribution of wealth and income, but also considerations of moral economy, class differentiation and land tenure) allows to challenge simplistic characterisations of Danquah as a champion of individualism and free markets, and provides an entry point into the entanglements of economic and political thought in colonial and early postcolonial Ghana. The article argues that Danquah’s reflection on economic inequality fulfilled three functions. Firstly, it indexed his attempts to theorise a social order characterised by a harmonious complementarity of individualism and communitarianism. Secondly, it shaped his critique of colonial and postcolonial state intervention in the cocoa industry. Finally, it underpinned Danquah’s commitment to disentangle Akan land tenure institutions from Eurocentric stadial histories. Through these discursive threads, Danquah contested colonial and postcolonial rulers, reappropriated notions of ‘socialism’ and ‘liberalism’, and mobilised indigenous cultures and institutions to imagine Ghana’s future.
Acknowledgments
Previous versions of this article were presented at the 1st History of Economic Thought Diversity Caucus Online Conference (May 2021), the conference ‘Toward a Global Intellectual History of an Unequal World, 1945 to Today’, for which this article was originally written, (Aarhus University and online, June 2021), the conference on ‘Liberalism and/or Socialism: Tensions, Exchanges and Convergences from the 19th Century to Today’ (University of Lorraine- Nancy and online, October 2021), and the 48th Meeting of the History of Economics Society (Universiteit Utrecht and online, December 2021). Besides the organisers and participants to these events, and this journal’s editors and anonymous reviewers, the author would like to thank James Cullis, Federico D'Onofrio, David Damtar, Patrick Doyle and Jacob Norris for their useful suggestions. All errors remain my responsibility.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Piketty, Le Capital. For a survey of inequality in the history of economic thought, and the reasons for this prolonged neglect, see Alacevich and Soci, Inequality (especially chapters 1–3); Cook, “Historicizing Piketty.”
2 On Ghana, see Aboagye and Bolt, “Long-term Trends in Income Inequality”; Galli, Theodoridis and Rönnbäck, “Economic Inequality in Latin America and Africa” provides a useful comparative survey.
3 See for examples Ramos Pinto and Paidipaty, The Measure of Inequality.
4 Piketty, Capital et Idéologie.
5 Tawney, Equality; Tribe, “Inequality”; Thompson, “The Moral Economy.”
6 Christiansen, “The Making of Global Inequality.”
7 Reid-Henry, The Political Origins of Inequality; Thompson, The Politics of Inequality.
8 This narrative, mobilised by the National Democratic Congress and New Patriotic Party (the two main parties in Ghana) hides many crucial ideological, economic and ethnic issues underpinning party presence and electoral performance in different parts of Ghana.
9 Other commentators stress that, in Ghanaian political discourse, two traditions were already visible by the 1920s, Adu Boahen, The Ghanaian Sphynx, 63.
10 Nkrumah, Ghana, Appendix A, 291 (my italics).
11 See especially Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite; Consciencism; Neocolonialism.
12 Adi, “The African Diaspora”; Biney, The Political and Social Thought; Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire (especially chapters 3 and 4).
13 Among Ghanaian political economists, the most prominent representative is George Ayittey. His work is discussed in Austin and Serra, “West Africa,” 253, and Guichon, “(Black) Neo-Colonialism”.
14 The Ghanaian press and online forums offer many instances of this dichotomy. Representative examples include, respectively, Amponsah-Bediako, “Relevance of J.B. Danquah” and Botwe-Asamoah, “The Fallacies of J.B. Danquah’s Heroic Legacy”. Danquah’s contested place in Ghana’s history is also reflected in the controversies over the identity of national founders and commemorative holidays, as discussed in Adotey, “A Matter of Apostrophe?”. A fascinating document on the ‘beatification’ of Danquah following his death is Danquah Funeral Committee, Danquah: An Immortal.
15 Relevant examples include Twumasi, “J.B. Danquah”; Edsman, Lawyers in Gold Coast Politics; Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. Dr. J.B. Danquah; Donkoh Fordwor, The Danquah-Busia Tradition.
16 Gyasi Obeng, “Grammatical Pragmatics,” 88.
17 Adu Boahen, The Ghanaian Sphynx, 4. Adu Boahen played an invaluable role in advancing the study of Danquah’s thought by gathering and editing the texts collected in Danquah, The Ghanaian Establishment.
18 The classic study on Akyem remains Addo-Fening, Akyem Abuakwa. This section presents a very stylised biography of Danquah: for more detail, see the autobiographical essay that he wrote while he was detained by the British in 1948, Danquah, “‘Struggle’ – An Autobiography of J.B. My Apprehension, Removal, and Detention, and Reply to the Reasons so far Assigned by Government for such Action, April 9 1948” in Historic Speeches, 59–80.
19 See Rathbone, Murder and Politics, especially chapters 1–3.
20 These included Ebenezer Ako-Adjei, Edward Akufo-Addo, Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey, and William Ofori Atta.
21 In direct quotations from Twi texts, I have maintained the original orthography rather standardising it.
22 Thanks to David Damtar for clarifying this point.
23 The expression comes from Thompson’s classic “The Moral Economy of the Crowd.”
24 See Boni, Le Strutture della Diseguaglianza; Konadu, Our Own Way.
25 The most sophisticated study on the conceptual and linguistic history of ‘poverty’ in Africa in the long run is Stephens, “Bereft, Selfish, and Hungry.”
26 Iliffe, The African Poor, 7.
27 Quoted in Monga, “Principles of Economics,” 313.
28 Quoted in Iliffe, The African Poor, 59.
29 Quoted in Ibid., 85.
30 Appiah, Appiah, and Agyeman-Duah, Bu Me Bε, proverb no. 2684. The most exhaustive analysis of notions of poverty in Akan proverbs is Agyekum, “The Ethnosemantics and Proverbs of Ohia”.
31 Appiah, Appiah, and Agyeman-Duah, Bu Me Bε, proverb No. 2635.
32 Ibid., proverb No. 5670.
33 Ibid., proverb No. 5663.
34 Wilks, “The Golden Stool”; McCaskie, “Accumulation, Wealth and Belief.”
35 Arhin, “The Asante Praise Poems.”
36 Austin, “The Moral Economy of Accumulation.”
37 Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought, 160–162.
38 Thompson, The Politics of Inequality.
39 Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God, Appendix I, 188–197. Danquah drew these proverbs from the collection compiled by the missionary Johann Gottlieb Christaller in the late 19th century. Cf. Christaller, Twi Mmebuse̲m.
40 Danquah, Nyankonsεm, 3. Thanks to David Damtar for translating this passage.
41 Danquah, Obligation in Akan Society, 9.
42 Nyerere, “Ujamaa – The Basis of African Socialism”, in Freedom and Unity, 162–171.
43 Danquah, “Letter to Julius Nyerere, Esq., President, Tanganyika African Union, Dar-es-Salam, Dated 15th September 1962,” in The Ghanaian Establishment, 178-182.
44 Ibid., 181.
45 Danquah, Gold Coast: Akan Laws, 20.
46 Danquah, An Objectified History, 21.
47 Danquah, “The African Conference and the Convention, Letter to J.F. Duncan, Esq., 9th December, 1948,” 111, in Journey to Independence, vol. I, 110–112.
48 Danquah, “Letter to His Excellency the President Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Flagstaff House, Accra, dated 10th October 1962,” 175–176 in The Ghanaian Establishment, 168–176.
49 Danquah, “ ‘Struggle’ – An Autobiography of J.B. My Apprehension, Removal, and Detention, and Reply to the Reasons so far Assigned by Government for such Action, April 9 1948” 63; Danquah, “Individualism – Christ’s Great Message, 20 December 1959’, both in Historic Speeches, 59–80; 141–143.
50 Danquah, “Letter to the Rev. T.N.W. Bush of the Chathedral [sic] School, Wales, Great Britain. Dated 22 November, 1962,” 290, in The Ghanaian Establishment, 289–290.
51 After a few decades, most of cocoa output would come from Asante. On the differences in cocoa farming between Akyem and Asante, see Austin, Land, Labour and Capital, chapters 14 and 17.
52 The classic study on this, in which migrant cocoa farmers were conceptualised as ‘rural capitalists’ is Hill, The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers.
53 Danquah, Cases in Akan Law, xxx–xxxi.
54 Danquah, Gold Coast: Akan Laws, 212.
55 On land policies, and their impact on notions of citizenship in Akyem Abuakwa, see respectively Ofosu-Mensah, “The Politics of Property Rights”, and Rathbone “Defining Akyemfo”.
56 This distinction disappeared in later writings.
57 On the inter-generational aspects of Akan economic thought (but with reference to the Nzema of South-Western Ghana), see Pavanello, “The Work of the Ancestors”.
58 Hill, The Migrant Cocoa Farmers, 22; Kwarteng, “J.B. Danquah”.
59 Boele van Hensbroek, “Conceptualising ‘Land’ and ‘Nation’.”
60 See Alence, “The 1937–1938 Gold Coast Cocoa Crisis”. This was part of a longer history of cocoa hold ups, but certainly the most disruptive up to that point.
61 Quoted in Hill, The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers, 22.
62 Danquah, Liberty of the Subject, 54. Danquah cited Hitler saying that “The right to personal freedom comes second to the duty of maintaining the race”, and added “the duty of allowing the general will to prevail”, Ibid., 52. The surprising and counterintuitive history of Nazi Germany as a discursive repertoire for African anti-colonialism in the interwar period remains to be written. Jean Allman explored the role of Nazi pilot Hannah Reitsch in Nkrumah's Ghana, Allman, “Phantoms of the Archive.”
63 Danquah, Liberty of the Subject, 57-58.
64 Ibid., 58.
65 Ibid., 17-18.
66 On the political economy underpinning the institution of the Cocoa Marketing Board see Alence, “Colonial Government, Social Conflict and State Involvement.”
67 On this, see Allman, The Quills of the Porcupine.
68 Danquah, “The Poor Cocoa Farmer, Letter to the Editor, Ashanti Times, Obuasi, Gold Coast, 8th October 1954,” 71, in Journey to Independence, vol. III, 69–75.
69 Ibid., 72–73.
70 Ibid., 73.
71 Danquah, “Petition to the Clerk of the National Assembly, Parliament House, Accra, Ghana. Written at ‘B’ Hall of Ussher Fort Prison, Accra, Ghana. 27 April, 1962,” 121; Danquah, “Letter to Harry Nimbus, ‘Life Gets Tedious’, Ghanaian Times, Accra. Dated 1st August 1963,” both in The Ghanaian Establishment, 110–129; 186–189.
72 Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa.
73 Fabian, Time and the Other, 31.
74 Rattray, Ashanti Law and Constitution, 75–76.
75 Nkrumah, Ghana, 220.
76 Danquah, “The People of Ghana are not Slaves, The Editor, Daily Graphic, Accra, 27th December, 1957,” 139, in Journey to Independence, vol. III, 138–139.
77 Ibid., 138–139. See also Danquah, Gold Coast: Akan Laws, 5: ‘his [Rattray’s] remarks on Akan land tenure, whereby he attempts to draw a comparison of resemblance between the English (Anglo-Saxon) feudal tenure and the Akan system of land control and ownership, seem to betray an incomplete grasp of the real nature of our non-religious institutions.’
78 Gold Coast, Report by Sir Cecil Trevor, paragraph 34. On the early history of the bank, see the celebratory Ghana Commercial Bank, Ghana Commercial Bank.
79 Uche, “Credit for Africans” 79.
80 Cited in Uche, “Credit for Africans,” 78.
81 Danquah, “National Bank- A Speech to the Legislative Council, December 9, 1949,” 99, in Historic Speeches, 95–100.
82 Ibid., 97.
83 Ibid., 99.
84 Danquah, “Origins of the Ghana Hypothesis,” 109, in Historic Speeches, 108–22.
85 Danquah, An Objectified History, 5.
86 Ibid.
87 Danquah, “Lecture on the Culture and Social Institutions of the Akan People, A Talk to the Labadi Young People’s Guild of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, on 29th August, 1962,” 295, in The Ghanaian Establishment, 292-307. On the history and legacies of these debates see McCaskie, “Asante Origins.”
88 Goody, “The Myth of a State,” 473.
89 Danquah, An Objectified History, 23.
90 Danquah, “Lecture on the Culture and Social Institutions of the Akan People, A Talk to the Labadi Young People’s Guild of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, on 29th August, 1962,” 304, in The Ghanaian Establishment, 292–307.
91 This expression was used by C. W. Welman, the Secretary for Native Affairs who penned the foreword to Reverend T.W. Balmer’s A History of the Akan Peoples of the Gold Coast, one of the earliest texts to advance the hypothesis of the Egyptian origins of the Akan, quoted in Goody, “The Myth of a State,” 464.
92 Moyn and Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History,” 5.
93 Danquah, “Letter to His Excellency the President Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Flagstaff House, Accra, dated 4th July, 1962,” 138, in The Ghanaian Establishment, 136–140.
94 Slobodian, Globalists; Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire.
95 See Diouf and Prais, ‘“Casting the Badge of Inferiority.”
96 Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. Dr. J.B. Danquah, 8.
97 On Danquah's view of economic inequality within the British Empire, see Danquah, Friendship and Empire, 13–16. Cooper, “How Global Do We Want our Global Intellectual History to Be?.”
98 For example, see Wilder, Freedom Time.
99 Moyn and Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History,” 5.
100 Ibid.
101 This approach can complement works such as Decker and McMahon, The Idea of Development.
102 Hartog, Regimes of Historicity.