A Cultural Analysis of the Economy of Affection and the Uncaptured Peasantry in Tanzania

Is the ‘economy of affection’, as suggested by Goran Hyden, the key factor determining social relations in East Africa and elsewhere? According to this thesis, both villagers and city-dwellers are tied together in webs of kinship and tribal obligation that mitigate against the accumulation of wealth or capital necessary for the formation of either industrial modes of production or class-based societies. Hyden claims that the high values placed on personal relationships are dependent upon ‘a peasant mode of production’, and that, in the case of Tanzania, their persistence and perseverance has been the most significant factor inhibiting economic development. In short, the ‘smallness’ of the peasantry is a source of power.