PRODUCTION AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN PRE-COLONIAL AFRICA
Pre-colonial African societies interacted with one another in various ways. The interactions enabled them to produce the basic needs and other necessities of their life.
The interactions and production of their necessities influenced social and economic development. In this chapter, you will learn about the concepts used in social organisation and economic production.
Concepts of social organisation and economic production
In order to explain the socio-economic development that Africa attained before colonialism, it is essential to understand some key concepts. Such concepts are:
i. Social Organisation
Social organisation, which is about how people and groups in the society interact in the process of material production. In this kind of organisation, people are assigned duties according to their positions in the society.
ii. Economic Production
Economic production refers to the process of producing goods and services to meet human needs. It also includes the creation of economic value from raw products. Examples of activities related to economic production are crop cultivation and cloth-making. Thus, with economic production, social organisation is how people are organised and related to each other in the process of producing goods or services.
iii. Instruments of Labour
Instruments of labour mean all tools used by human beings in the production process. The tools range from simple to complex, depending on the level of technology a particular society attains. These instruments extend human’s natural organs, such as hands, legs, eyes and the brain.
Means of labour help human beings to simplify work. Without them, work becomes difficult. Instruments of labour are organised around human labour.
iv. Human Labour
Human labour is people’s physical and mental energy to produce what they want. Physical labour refers to the energy people use to produce what they want. Mental labour is to do with the knowledge and skills that people utilise during production.
v. Productive Forces
When labour and instruments of labour have been combined, they are called productive forces. In production, productive forces act upon resources such as land and forests, These resources are called objects of labour.
vi. Object of Labour
An object of labour refers to anything on which human labour is applied in order to produce goods. Such resources are primarily found in natural environments, such as land, rivers and forests. That means human beings need objects of labour to work. Otherwise, work becomes impossible.
For example, one may have a good fishing instrument, but one will not fish unless there is a river, an ocean, a lake or a water pond in which fish are found. When human labour, instruments of labour and objects of labour have been combined, they are called means of production.
vii. Means of Production
Means of production comprises the combination of means of labour, human labour and objects of labour. They are necessary for the production of goods and services. They are capital and labour. When left alone, the means of labour have no value in life. Therefore, human labour must act on objects of labour to produce goods and services.
viii. Relations Of Production
People enter into certain kinds of relations in order to produce goods and services. Relations are either exploitative or non-exploitative, Relation is exploitive when the producers of goods and services are not paid accordingly and the vice versa.
ix. Mode of Production
A combination of productive forces and relations of production constitutes a mode of production. A mode of production of a particular society is meant to meet people’s needs.
