A REVIEW OF KWAME NKRUMAH'S CONSCIENCISM

Abstract

As suggested in the title, this work reviews Kwame Nkrumah’s major political work, Consciencism, with a view to playing up the major elements contained therein. There are two major parts of the work. The first part is the exposition of the entire book - chapter by chapter, while the second part is a critique of it. Part 1 has an introduction and the elucidation of the five chapters of the book. Chapter one is ‘Philosophy in retrospect’, Chapter two is ‘Philosophy and Society’, Chapter three is ‘Society and Ideology’ Chapter four is ‘Consciencism’ and Chapter five is ‘Set theoretic terms’. The conclusion of this work is that the book is written in high intellectual language and has a praise-worthy mission as a work centred on the philosophy and ideology for the decolonization of Africa; however, the reviewer disagrees with Nkrumah’s outright rejection of capitalism, despite the fact that capitalism engenders competition which is essential for progress. It is akin to throwing away the baby with the bathwater.