De herhaling van passieve revolutie in de geschiedenis van landhervormingen in Kenia - Kenia's landvraagstuk geanalyseerd door een Gramsciaans theoretisch kader

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The reoccurrence of passive revolution

in Kenya’s history of land reform

Kenya’s land Question analyzed through a Gramscian theoretical

framework

Word count: 21.336

Hanne Peeters

Student number: 01511117

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Brecht De Smet

A dissertation submitted to Ghent University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for

the degree of Master of Conflict and Development studies

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This page is not available because it contains personal information.

Ghent University, Library, 2021.

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Acknowledgements

In 2017, I spent a semester at the University of Nairobi, as an exchange student African Languages and Cultures. Although University was closed most of the time due to elections accompanied by student protests and police violence, I learned a lot more than books or classes in the University of Ghent could teach me. I did research on artivism in the urban setting of Nairobi, and so I already encountered various forms of resistance to the ruling powers. Getting to know artists and other citizens who actively strived for social change, made me realize the power of individuals working together, but also the power of people working against the common interest. This thesis is not only on urban resistance, but involves with the rural as well, since I understand now that these struggles are all connected. Most gratitude I feel for my friends in Kenya – Elvis, David, Edna, Jonas, Filii, Scooby, Lucy, J Blue, and all the other people I have met – for letting me be part of their lives during my exchange there. Their individual uniqueness showed me how many different realities there are being lived. And I thank them for all the laughs and tears we shared.

I want to thank my supervisor, prof. dr. Brecht De Smet, and fellow students for their insights and contribution to our clarifying discussions during the reading group of Gramsci’s Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Everyone present had a completely different starting point of analysis – climate movements, alt-right, philosophy, violence, etc. which made me realize from the outset the complexity and diversity of Gramsci’s work. A special thanks goes out to my brother, Tijs, for he encouraged me actively to think further, enjoy the writing, and to stay curious. I cannot forget my other family and friends, who had to deal with my ups and downs, and supported me either way. Eventually, I thank my housemate, Audrey, for her critical insights during my learning process and our long philosophical questionings in the evening on the foundations of power. Finally, a lot of gratitude goes out to my stepfather, Jef, who took the time to read my whole thesis and actively reflected on the content and grammar.

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Abstract

5% of the global population is indigenous – this makes around 370 million people, occupying an estimation of one quarter of the Earth’s surface (ECOSOC, 2019). Forced dispossession and displacement of their ancestral lands leads to a loss of the various indigenous cultures, languages, traditional knowledges, activities, and their natural environments. Since colonialism, state power and land have been intimately connected in Kenya. Therefore, a study of the relationship between subaltern groups, the state and land is necessary until today. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze Kenya’s land policies as a form of passive revolution. Furthermore, my political intention is to shame the ruling class and government of Kenya for its participation in the oppression and exploitation of the subaltern classes by countering radical land redistribution and absorbing resistance. Scholarship on Kenya’s land issues are plenty, but they mostly focus on law and other governmental processes. My study contributes in its involvement with subaltern pressure, political economy, post-colonial state-building and hegemony. I evaluate the different actors and their interests applying a Gramscian theoretical framework, supported by a neo-Marxian historical analysis.

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Dutch summary

5% van de wereldbevolking is inheems - dit zijn ongeveer 370 miljoen mensen, die naar schatting een kwart van het aardoppervlak bezetten (ECOSOC, 2019). Gedwongen onteigening en verplaatsing van hun voorouderlijk land leidt tot een verlies van de verschillende inheemse culturen, talen, traditionele kennis, activiteiten en hun natuurlijke omgeving. Sinds het kolonialisme is staatsmacht en land in Kenia nauw met elkaar verbonden. Net daarom is een onderzoek naar de relatie tussen subalterne groepen, de staat en het land tot op heden noodzakelijk. Deze thesis is bedoeld om het landbeleid van Kenia te analyseren als een vorm van passieve revolutie. Bovendien is mijn politiek doel, de heersende klasse en regering van Kenia te beschamen voor hun deelname aan de onderdrukking en uitbuiting van de subalterne klassen door radicale herverdeling van land tegen te gaan en verzet te coöpteren. Er is veel kennis over de landkwesties in Kenia, maar ze richten zich vooral op wetgeving en andere overheidsprocessen. Mijn studie, daarentegen, draagt hiertoe bij door haar betrokkenheid bij onderdrukking van subalterne groepen, politieke economie, postkoloniale staatsopbouw en hegemonie. Ik evalueer de verschillende actoren en hun belangen aan de hand van een Gramsciaans theoretisch kader, ondersteund door een neomarxistische historische analyse.

Sleutelwoorden: passieve revolutie, Gramsci, landhervormingen en tegenhervormingen, Kenya,

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List of abbreviations

NLC = National Land Commission KLA = Kenya Land Alliance

KANU = Kenya African National Union KADU = Kenya African Democratic Union

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1. Introduction

5% of the global population is indigenous – this makes around 370 million people, occupying an estimation of one quarter of the Earth’s surface (ECOSOC, 2019). Forced dispossession and displacement of their ancestral lands leads to a loss of the various indigenous cultures, languages, traditional knowledges, activities, and their natural environments. Since colonialism, state power and land have been intimately connected in Kenya. Land is a valuable resource in Kenya, and Kenya’s land governance has been a controversial subject. Colonization did away with the abundance and free access of land, that characterized pre-colonial times, and introduced land as a private property. The ‘Mau Mau’ peasant resistance movement in the 1950’s was the consequence of the discriminatory colonial laws that evicted African labourer-farmers of white-owned land (Klopp & Lumumba, 2017). At independence a continuity of colonial administration and policies – including those on land – was in the interest of the new dominant class. The president centralized power around him by controlling public services and other governmental institutions. The state is constantly used by an elite to dispossess peasants for their own benefit – patronage networks, clientelism, agrofuels, etc. Gramsci stresses the importance of transformations to be based in concrete historical struggle (Nash, 2013). Resistance of the subaltern classes from this exclusive system has been characterized by a long process of mobilizations and protests, demanding constitutional and more radical transformations. In 2007 and 2008 this reached its peak after post-election violence divided the country, in which more than a thousand lives were lost, hundreds of thousands of people were internally displaced, properties and land were destroyed, and livelihoods affected. At the same time this moment of political instability created a space for strengthening civil society organizations to form a counter-hegemony.

In this thesis I want to describe the problem of the reoccurrence of passive revolution in Kenya’s history of land reform. I start from the following research questions: What is the role of the state in the Kenyan land debate? And what are the concrete strategies used by the ruling class and elite of Kenya to (re)absorb control in times when the dominant hegemony is under threat because of subaltern pressure? Answering these questions, I (re)evaluate the different actors and their interests applying a Gramscian theoretical framework, supported by a neo-Marxian historical analysis, followed by a critical literature study. Scholarship on Kenya’s land issues are plenty, but they mostly focus on law and other governmental processes. My study contributes in its involvement with subaltern pressure, political economy, post-colonial state-building and hegemony. As Gramsci insisted on using his theory as a tool to translate abstract theoretical questions into concrete practice, I apply his theory to the Kenyan land debate. As I am the first one to describe the Kenyan historical events as a passive revolution, I see it as important to remember

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Gramsci’s emphasis on the ‘philosophy of praxis’. He strives for “a philosophy which is also politics, and a politics which is also philosophy” (395, Q16§9), in which the focus on concrete reality can be instrumentalized by subaltern groups in their struggle for power. Therefore, my political intention is to shame the ruling class and government of Kenya for its participation in the oppression and exploitation of the subaltern classes by countering radical land redistribution and absorbing resistance. I argue that my research is new and innovative because by analyzing the land reforms as a passive revolution, the power structures working against the common interest become visible. This knowledge can be used by the subaltern classes to demand true change.

A study of the relationship between subaltern groups, the Kenyan state and land is necessary until today. Therefore, I firstly describe Gramsci’s theory of subalterns, the state, intellectuals, hegemony, and passive revolution. Using this theoretical framework, I start my critical literature analysis of the Kenyan state and class formation, for which I study the role of the state, labour and the public sector. To look at the development of Kenya, I situate it shortly in the trajectory of the world economy and sketch the global context. My last chapter is on land reform and counter-reforms. I describe the exclusive history from colonialism to more recent developments of land grabbing, and the resistance to these oppressive actions. In Kenyan recent history, there have been liberal nationalist and radical revolutionary movements demanding land redistribution. Being a threat to the installed hegemony, the ruling class tries to neutralize and anticipate on popular pressure from below, resist Constitutional changes, and reabsorb control, resulting in a passive revolution. I therefore describe two of the strategies – countering constitutional change and internally dividing the subaltern classes – that are used by the elite to counteract these subaltern demands. Eventually, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze Kenya’s land policies as a form of passive revolution, and to expose how the ruling class enables to secure and maintain its economic, political and cultural hegemonic position.

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2. Methodology

2.1 Theoretical framework

In this thesis, I will use a Gramscian theoretical framework. Antonio Gramsci, an Italian revolutionary, has been the last decades reappreciated. His work focuses on ‘the essence of power’ (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019). His prison notebooks analyze and elaborate on influential concepts such as ‘hegemony’, ‘passive revolution’ and ‘intellectuals’. He contributed in many ways to different disciplines of the social science, as well as to nonacademic popular debates. As his analysis starts from subaltern resistance from hegemonic power structures, he further develops theories on state-civil society relations, statecraft, political strategy and struggles for alternatives. Gramsci’s relevance today lies in this recognition of the importance of historical struggles in structuring society and leadership (Nash, 2013). Gramsci urges to see the moments of political and economic transition as crucial in revealing strategies for radical social change. Subaltern groups are central in his analyses, for which his influence has spread at a global level from subaltern studies to analyses of geopolitical power constellations.

Gramsci’s (1971) radical approach to developing a ‘philosophy of praxis’1_{stresses the importance of a}

dialogue between philological perspectives and concrete expressions of reality. He strives for “a philosophy which is also politics, and a politics which is also philosophy” (395, Q16§9). By seeing the philosophy of praxis as absolute “historicism” and “the absolute secularisation and earthliness of thought”, a “whole new conception of the world” is formed (465, Q11§30). The point is thus to develop a higher form of critical awareness as to become conscious on the fact that the structure of society is not naturally determined, but human driven (Green, 2013). Gramsci emphasizes that every intellectual analysis involves a practical action, after which he concludes that a distinction between theory and practice is unnecessary (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019). All that eventually matters is the practice and action of philosophy. Without this focus on concrete reality, a philosophical contemplation has no meaning. Theory can thus be instrumentalized by subaltern groups in their struggle for power (De Smet, 2016; Green, 2013).

Grown up in Sardinia, an ‘underdeveloped’, agrarian region in the south of Italy, he saw a rural development dominated by large landowners and the Church. Moving for his studies to Turin, he got in contact with a

1_{Gramsci derives the concept from Antonio Labriola, an Italian Marxist that uses Marxism as a theory focused on}

practice. Gramsci revolutionizes this thought. He sees Marxism not just as a new philosophy or economic theory, but as a collective praxis that has to be organized as a mass philosophy transformed into a collective political will (Frosini, 2016).

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totally different context of urbanity and industrialization. Experiencing this “microcosm of capitalism”, helped shape his own critical conception of the world (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019: 29). Being a prisoner of Mussolini’s fascist regime, Gramsci was confronted with questions relating his direct environment such as: how can it be that one revolution succeeds and the other ‘fails’? How does a certain philosophy becomes dominant? And what is the specific role of intellectuals (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019)? This social role of intellectuals became central in his work, next to; the study of winners and losers in society; the causes and consequences of power in all its appearances; the explanation of power and its legitimation; political power in relation to economic power; the importance of cultural and social power; and eventually the strategies in obtaining and maintaining power.

For this reason, Gramsci is often cited by political parties of different ideological backgrounds. His strategies on developing alternative hegemonic structures are used across the whole political spectrum. As a result, his theory is conceived as being controversial in current debate, and open to many interpretations. Gramsci claims that the struggle over political, social and economic hegemony must be preceded by a struggle over culture. Institutions and activities like media, education, literature, and science play a central role in creating a counter ideology, social structures, relationships and values. Only then, hegemony can be installed, backed by legitimacy and consent of the masses without having to use coercion. Hegemony for him is not a top-down introduced political leadership. On the contrary, it is cultural, moral and intellectual control through bottom-up party formation (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019).

2.1.1 State and civil society

Gramsci's conception of Marxism is central for understanding his theory. Therefore, the next section will be a short introduction to Marx and Engels their theory on the state, for Engels (2010) underscores that the cleavage of society into classes went hand in hand with the rise of a state. Before making an analysis of Kenyan history, it is important to note that the ‘state’ is a relatively new phenomenon. Society has, before colonialism, managed with other power structures.

2.1.1.1 The Marxian theory of state

The state is, like capital, a relation instead of a material form consisting of particular institutions (Harvey, 2001). Getting it out of its abstraction makes it easier to understand concrete historical events. By analyzing the state’s concrete activity in society, it is not the mystical autonomous entity anymore exercising power from a small room above society. Instead, it is all the processes of exercising power together through different organs, going from the presidents’ cabinet, to the local governments, to the police on the streets, to the priest in the local church. Chiefly, it is more than a passive superstructure, depending on the

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economic structure. It is the dialectical interaction that structures society simultaneously. The state is, for example, providing physical and social mechanisms for concentration and accumulation of wealth, creating a work force through primitive accumulation, organizing sectors of production, and so on. Only if we recognize this, we can understand the active element of the state in the development of capitalist society.

Production and consumption have since colonial times been affected, directly or indirectly, by state policies. Over the years, the state became – through different forms and modes – central in the functioning of capitalist society (Harvey, 2001). On the one hand has the state been too long thought of as being ‘in’ capitalist society without being a crucial aspect itself in the relations of capital, and on the other hand have the inherent contradictions to the accumulation process been too long thought of as ‘economic laws’ independent from political class relations (Holloway & Picciotto, 1977). Subsequently, an understanding of the role of the state in capitalist societies is needed. The role of the state has been much debated in Marxian theory. There is a consensus that this role is created out of the necessity of the state to support the capitalist mode of production. Marx and Engels described the state as “the active, conscious and official expression [of] the present structure of society” (Marx & Engels, 1974: 199, cited in Harvey, 2001), in which the contradictions between the interests of individual and the community are independently ‘cared for’. The existence of these contradictions in interests give form to the state. These contradictions – or class antagonisms – are based in a social structure where one dominates others and are fought over in the locus of the state. Engels (2010: 209) describes it precisely:

“As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed classes. The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slaveowners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage-labour by capital.”

Marx and Engels (1970) thus see the state as an instrument of class domination. This creates a further contradiction by which the ruling class must maintain that its actions are for the good of all, while using its power for its own class interests. For this purpose, Gramsci’s notions of ideology and hegemony become important as a strategy to overcome the contradiction. If the specific interests of the ruling group are presented by them as the common interests, the ruling class can universalize its ideas as ‘the ruling ideas’ which leads to class domination. This universally ‘valid’ ideas are determined by an appearing independent

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and autonomous state. And exactly this relative autonomy is questioned among Marxists (Harvey, 2001). The institutions and officials of the state appear as being above society, expressing the interests of all members of society. In other words, the dominant class has to “rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch” (Marx & Engels, 1970: 38).

2.1.1.2 The state and capitalism

According to Johan Norberg (2005: 64; 2004: 27) “capitalism has given people both the liberty and the incentive to create, produce, and trade, thereby generating prosperity”, and simultaneously he claims that “the aim of our politics should be to give them that freedom”. His liberal mode of thought took root in the classical economy, of which Adam Smith was the founding father in the 18th_{century. Smith (2010) argues}

that the ‘division of labour’ and ‘free trade’ are the origin of the wealth of countries. His observations led to the conclusion that if the capitalist acts in his own private interests, this will eventually benefit the public good. Marx criticizes this theory by describing the paradox of the capitalist mode of production as being based in a system of freedom and equality and nevertheless resulting in inequality and unfreedom (Marx, 2005). In his three-volume book Capital, Marx reveals the economic patterns underlying the capitalist system. He assigns the inherent inequality and unfreedom resulting out of the capitalist mode of production to the class character of the capitalist relations of production (Mandel, 1976). The division of society in different classes arose “out of a long historical process in which labour power became divorced from control over the means of production which then became the exclusive preserve of the capitalist class” (Harvey, 2001: 273). The state uses its power to protect and support the stability of the relations of production and accumulation. The system of law guarantees private property rights, removes barriers to the mobility of capital and labour, regulates the exploitation of labour and competition on the market, and protects and provides mechanisms for accumulation. Examples run from the provision of physical infrastructure and determination of minimum wages, to ‘crisis management’ so business as usual can continue and profits are secured. As a result, the relation between capital and labour is sustained and class domination can proceed, by intervention of the state (Harvey, 2001).

2.1.1.3 Gramsci on the state and state power

Gramsci was revolutionary in describing the ‘state’ as something reflected in all social relations between members of society (Nash, 2013). Moreover, the state, being more than the apparatus of legal and political institutions, is not something ‘above’ society as a whole, it is society as a whole. He speaks of an ‘integral state’, in which civil and political society overlap (1971: 239, Q6§155). For the state is “the entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its

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dominance but manages to win the active consent of those over whom it rules” (1971: 244, Q15§10). Civil society is not something that is the opposite of the state. The distinction that is usually made is for Gramsci pure methodological. In contrast to the prevailing dogmatic within Marxist tradition that objective economic conditions determine historical developments, Gramsci argues that the superstructure of society is also decisive (1971: 165, Q13§18)2_{. He speaks of a ‘historical bloc of social forces’ that is formed by the}

concrete historical ensemble of structure and superstructure. He clarifies it as “the complex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of the superstructures is the reflection of the ensemble of the social relations of production” (1971: 366, Q10II§6i). According to him, the economic structure and ethic, political, cultural superstructure are in constant interaction with each other. The superstructure is thus the material, social and ideal form of the base, and the base is the economic content of society. Gramsci makes this distinction for its didactic value to conclude that there is no content without form. Therefore, political struggle should not focus only on economic reforms since every intellectual activity acts as a link between structure and superstructure, and philosophy is in its essence politics. The state is analyzed by Gramsci in relation to; the different classes; the formation of a dominant ideology; and the functioning of the capitalist mode of production.

Harvey emphasizes that “the connections between the formation of a dominant ideology, the definition of the ‘illusory common interest’ in the form of the state and the very specific interests of the ruling class or classes are as subtle as they are complex”, yet he says we can “reveal the basis of these relationships most easily by analyzing the relationship between the state and the functioning of a capitalist mode of production” (Harvey, 2001: 271-2). For obtaining governmental power and leadership over the state, civil society must be conquered, for it otherwise will resist and reject the power opposed on them. Likewise, mapping out strategies for change, it should be understood how the ones in power are ruling over the subordinated classes. Gramsci starts with making a distinction in the methods used for exercising leadership. A dominant class is ‘leading’ his allies and ‘dominating’ his enemies (Gramsci, 1971: 57, Q19§24).

The first is rule through ‘spontaneous’ consent, which is achieved when the majority of the population sees the form of power imposed on them as legitimate. The dominant group enjoys a historically caused prestige “because of its position and function in the world of production”, with hegemonic power as a result (1971: 12, Q12§1). The second one is domination over groups who resist – actively or passively – through “an apparatus of state coercive power” and direct force (12, Q12§1). One example of rule through direct force

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is czarist Russia, an empire overthrown by the February Revolution of 1917. A majority of the subordinated people were opposing their bourgeois regime that existed– by a lack of hegemony – only in the structure. Under these conditions the state could easily be attacked by revolutionaries, while the mass gathered round new leaders. This created a possibility for a change in existing power structures (Eyerman, 1981).

On the other hand, Gramsci describes societies in which the state acts as a symbol for a ‘legitimate’ form of rule. The majority of a population supports the existing social order, and this unquestioned acceptance makes it hard or almost impossible to attack the essential structure of domination. Even if it comes to the point that a state falls, its power is so strong that it would be replaced by a similar construction (Eyerman, 1981). The example of the Italian Risorgimento, extensively described by Gramsci, describes the role of religion in legitimating the power of the Italian state. Myth and folklore help to create a false consciousness for establishing hegemonic rule. This false consciousness found upon the Catholic religion provides a framework for oppression and reconciles the real contradictions of life. Eyerman (1981: 47) describes that “the Church taught that dignity and poverty were identical concepts, and that poverty and political domination were part of a God-given natural order”. Colonial rule is another example of dominance through force, instead of rule through consent (Guha, 1997).

Following Marx and Lenin their interpretation and separation of the concepts ideology and false consciousness, Gramsci interpreted the distinctive concepts in a different way (Eyerman, 1981). False consciousness was not the identification of the individual’s interests with those of the ruling classes, rather it referred to the distorted forms of experience in society by all social groups and classes. An example is the limited and distorted experience of the origin of oppression by subordinated groups through the dominator's strategies such as ideology, religion, myth and folklore (Gramsci, 1971: 405, Q11§62). Whereas, ideology is not an illusion, but a real form of appearance (1971: 165, Q13§18). There is a difference between organic ideologies and arbitrary or rationalistic ones. The historically organic ideologies that “are necessary to a given structure”, Gramsci (1971: 376-7, Q7§19) argues, "‘organise’ human masses, and create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle, etc.”. This organic “system of ideas” as a superstructure has a concrete basis in societal and economic structures (1971: 376, Q7§19). The dialectical relationship between structure and superstructure is formed by ideologies with material forces as the content (377, Q7§19).

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2.1.2 Intellectuals

Gramsci’s starting point of analysis is the statement that the intellectual powers of each individual contribute to the struggle for power. Moreover, he argues that “all men are intellectuals (…), but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals” (1971: 9, Q12§1). This declaration is against our predominant feeling that the ability to think and philosophize is reserved only to that particular category of specialists, including journalists, writers, politicians or scientists. By destroying the myth of philosophy being “strange and difficult”, he argues that every person has this capacity unconsciously, and can work this out consciously and critically (Gramsci, 1971: 323, Q11§12). In his prison notebooks he discusses each step of the formation of intellectuals in detail (1971: 5-9, Q12§1). He starts from questions such as: How are intellectuals formed? What are their characteristics? How do they act and to which social group do they belong to?

According to Gramsci, every social group develops its own ‘organic’3_{intellectuals. They are not a separate}

or autonomous group but belong to a specific social formation and mode of production (Selenu, 2013). Organic intellectuals give the social group “homogeneity and awareness of its own function (…) and need to create the conditions most favourable to the expansion of their own class” (Gramsci, 1971: 5-6, Q12§1). Organic intellectuals fulfill a directive, technical and cultural role of a specific historical bloc. As specialists they exercise leadership, generate knowledge, and contribute to the creation of a certain world view. This specialized category of intellectuals has a specific role in the capitalist process and the formation of hegemony. They are different from the traditional intellectuals we immediately imagine – the philosophizers, academics, etc. – since they are everyone performing a specific function in a specific organizing system – officials, managers, teachers, priests, etc. (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019). In fact, Gramsci (1978) shows that the creation of a group of independent intellectuals representing a whole history of a certain cultural tradition requires a long, slow and difficult process. In case of the development of intellectuals of a subaltern social group is the fact that they are “deprived of historical initiative, in continuous but disorganic expansion, unable to go beyond a certain qualitative level, which still remains below the level of the possession of the State and of the real exercise of hegemony over the whole of society” absolutely necessary to create a certain organic equilibrium (1971: 396, Q16§9).

Gramsci’s contribution to the struggle of the subordinate classes lies in devising strategies for the revolution (Eyerman, 1981). According to him, the revolution starts with the relationship between the intellectuals

3_{The term ‘organic’ is not necessarily positive or negative. Some scholars interpret it as them being agents of}

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and the masses. Ideas belong to the workers, capitalists, landowners and peasants, as well as to the intellectuals, and these ideas form conceptions and beliefs about the social group’s place in society (Green, 2013). One of these strategies involves the transfer of knowledge and culture from intellectual to worker, but most importantly – and in this lies Gramsci’s strength – from worker to intellectual. The teaching and construction of a real mass political pedagogy should go in both directions (Alfano, 2020). As being more than an instrument of social struggle, the working class is to be the protagonist of the revolution. Consciousness is already present, but its possibility for change lies in the re-education to “ideological class consciousness” (Eyerman, 1981).

2.1.2.1 The Southern Question

After Gramsci’s death, one of his books that got published is on “the Southern Question”. In the 20th

century, Italy was divided in the industrialized North and ‘backward’, agrarian South. Gramsci (1978) developed his theory of intellectuals on the Italian case. This theory is now often extended to other historical cases, and frequently used in postcolonial theory (Green, 2013; Selenu, 2013). In the following section I grasp from his book some elements for explaining the different traditional and organic intellectuals.

To begin with, is the factual data that the development of capitalism radically changed the presence of intellectuals. The traditional type of intellectual is the organizing element in a dominant agrarian and peasant society. When societal structures changed – a whole new state apparatus, trade and commerce monetized, industry and formal education implemented – a new type of intellectual was introduced. The technical and specialized organizer and scientist are characterized by discipline, order, and technical leading activity. The old type of intellectual, still predominant in the villages and smaller towns, acts as the link between peasant and administration. The intellectual mainly comes from the rural (petty-) bourgeoisie, mostly landowners, who do not work on the land, or priests, clergy, officers or functionaries of the state. Gramsci (1978) emphasizes the negative attitude of these intellectuals towards the peasantry. The peasant masses are used as surplus-creating-machines and are conceived as less worthy. Often, they are in conflict over questions of rent, interests, faith and corruption. As a result, it is more difficult to create a network of alignments or organize mass movements.

It has already been shown, in the past and present, that peasants also can create mass movements and thus develop their own organic intellectuals (Chandra et al., 2016; Scott, 2008). A relatively recent example is La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement that brings together millions of peasants or civil

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society organizations, demanding social justice and food sovereignty4_{. I take this as a criticism on Gramsci’s}

assumption that the peasantry cannot develop its own ‘organic’ intellectuals. According to him, if the peasantry develops intellectuals, they are being assimilated by other social groups (1971: 6, Q12§1). Nonetheless, I follow his argument that for the struggle of power change, an alliance must be formed between different subaltern groups, and all their demands must be represented. The workers, peasants and other subaltern groups are the essential social forces in changing the future (Gramsci, 1978). Further study is needed on this topic, deepened by historical analyses and more recent case studies.

2.1.3 Hegemony

Gramsci (1971: 52-4, Q25§5) introduced and further explored the concepts of and relationship between hegemonic and subaltern classes, which refer to the ones in power and the ones subjected to this power. Hegemony is the “intellectual and moral leadership” the dominant class has due to its “position and function in the world of production” (Gramsci, 1971: 12, Q12§1; 57, Q19§24). As the outcome of the balance of class forces, hegemony is reached through projects of mobilization behind political programs that are to serve the common interests, but eventually improve the objectives of the hegemonic class (Hesketh, 2010). The more a civil society accepts this power and experiences it as legitimate, without using force and coercion, the more its hegemony is insured. As mentioned before, hegemony is organized – internally and externally – through consent and state coercive power (1971: 12, Q12§1).

There are various factors that help to create this hegemony. The main purpose is the standardization of broad masses of the population. Directing civil society and creating a collective will happens via the state’s legal – executive, parliamentary and judiciary – organs, and via a more molecular process of the state in civil society through ‘morality police’5_{, media, education, culture, religion, and so on (Gramsci, 1971:}

192-4, Q13§30). Gramsci stresses the importance of homogeneity and continuity, as both important for determining the organization of hegemony through social conformism. He speaks of the ‘juridical problem’, for which an entire group must be assimilated to its most ‘advanced’ fraction for the goal of the ruling group to be achieved. In line of the ruling group’s line of development, Gramsci adverts the function of ‘law’ as creating a social conformism where the masses should adapt to (Gramsci, 1971: 195-6, Q6§84).

4_{The Kenyan Peasants League (KPL) is a member of La Via Campesina (2019) and fights for example against the}

legislation and criminalization of the peasants way of life. An example is the growing of crops alongside the road, which is common in Nairobi for sustaining life.

5_{This is my own interpretation of Gramsci’s (1971: 195, Q6§84) section: “wider than purely State and governmental}

activity and also includes the activity involved in directing civil society, in those zones which the technicians of law call legally neutral-i.e. in morality and in custom generally”, which can then be practiced by anyone who has internalized these morals.

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Gramsci (1971: 195-6, Q6§84) argues that the mechanisms of domination of one class over the other are more subtle since the state appears to be neutral. Moreover, power is decentralized in separate institutions – executive, legislature and judiciary – as to make it more difficult to gain control over all instruments of domination. Consequently, the ruling class must take control over the state indirectly, through exercising hegemony in as many layers of social and political society. This will make it possible to rule over the subordinate classes with their consent, while at the same time not serving their class interests. To overcome this contradiction, the state has an active role in gaining the consent of the majority. The flow of ideas has to be influenced and controlled by means of ideology and education, for the accumulation of capital to continue (1971: 245, Q6§81), while the status quo must be preserved and conflict avoided.

And so, finally, we arrive at the concept of passive revolution. When the subordinate classes rebel against the power exercised on them and get notice of the contradiction inherent to their situation, the ruling class can make decisions against their own immediate6_{economic interests, to keep their hegemonic position}

safe. An example of such a policy, is the guarantee of certain benefits to working conditions such as high wages (Gramsci, 1971: 310, Q22§13). Hence, in its search for loyalty and support to the dominant ideology, the struggles in society between capital and labour are reflected in the state.

2.1.4 Passive revolution

There is not one single definition or use of the concept ‘passive revolution’. As I will explain further down in my methodology, the concept is best to be used as a tool for generating knowledge on specific historical events. Capitalism survives its own crises by absorbing oppositional and subaltern struggle. Gramsci (1971: 58, Q19§24) called this transformismo, referring to class rule through fragmentation and cooptation of oppositional forces rather than through hegemony. Passive revolution is not a type of revolution. Instead, it can be used to understand the history of capitalism (De Smet, 2016). In the next section I will clarify (both elements included in) the concept and summarize its different uses.

2.1.4.1 Revolution

I will start by discussing the second part of the concept: revolution. The concept probably brings up pictures of people on the barriers, masses on squares, police repression, flags up in the sky and sweeping aside the traditional elements in society. That popular image represents one specific event – the uprising – of a relatively long process – a revolution. There are two main approaches on revolutions: the consequentialist

6_{In the long run, David Harvey (2001) notes that these economic concessions can even be to the material advantage}

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and substantivist approach (De Smet, 2016). Sharing the focus on change, the first one distinguishes oneself by focusing on the outcome of the revolutionary process, and the second one on the actors’ interpretation and experience of the process. A lot of critique has been expressed against the objectivist perspective that a revolution is only a revolution when a real transformation of society takes place. As Gramsci realized, not many social and political mobilizations of the masses can then be called revolutions. I, therefore, prefer the subjectivist approach. This perspective makes room for the experience of the people involved in the process itself. De Smet (2016: 74) agrees on the real substance of a revolution, being “a developmental process of ‘class-based revolts from below’ that may or may not lead to the conquest of state power and the transformation of society”.

2.1.4.2 Passive revolution

Passive revolution is understood as “the state-led reorganisation of social relations that seeks to maintain or restore class domination” (Hesketh, 2010: 383). This state-led reorganization secures the control of the dominant class in times of a ‘crisis of authority’ (Gramsci, 1971: 275-6, Q3§34). The traditional ruling class changes its composition and programs for reabsorbing control, faster than the subordinate classes can reorganize. Both, the state and subaltern pressure, play a leading role in this revolution/restoration (Moton, 2010). The revolution is the fundamental change of social relations, and the restoration is the neutralization of the popular initiatives from below to continue the class domination (Hesketh, 2010). Tactics of the state include; the oppression, diffusion, and selectively meeting of subaltern demands, re-establishing legitimacy of the rule, concealing the capital relation, and break class consciousness through the atomization of classes into a mass of individual citizens (Hesketh, 2010; Nash, 2013). The players in politics can be replaced but the prevailing structures and frameworks of society remain intact. What could be a potential for revolutionary change is coopted by the ruling class and hereby defused (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019). Gramsci describes, for example, fascism as a passive revolution. It exposes a crisis of liberal capitalist society, but is not able to form a counter hegemony, and so, capitalism is restored.

2.1.4.3 Capitalism as a hegemonic project

This restoration of the capitalist system is referred to as the ‘stubbornness of capitalism’ (De Smet, 2016). In order for capitalism to continue to exist and grow, an accumulation strategy and economic “growth model”, together with a general strategy, is necessary for its hegemonic project to be realized (Hesketh, 2010). Intervention of the state and corporative organizations lead to relatively serious changes in the economic structure of the country without the destination of the profit to change (Morton, 2010).

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Capitalism as a system has inherent contradictions which lead inevitable to organic and periodic crises. These crises go together with periods of social, political, and economic instability (Harvey, 2018). The dialectical process of the passive revolution consists of the fact that “the thesis alone develops to the full its potential for struggle, up to the point where it absorbs even the so-called representatives of the antithesis” (Gramsci, 1971: 110, 15§11). Passive revolution as a concept is useful, because it analyses how capitalism as a system survives its crises. These crises – as the thesis – are critical moments to alter power structures and produce societal transformations. However, it is in favor of the hegemonic class to restructure – as the antithesis – society, as for the individual and collective surpluses to remain with the same class (Morton, 2010). Consequently, these conflicting class interests and strategies within state-civil society relations powered by the expansion of capital lead to class struggle. The paradoxes of capitalist development encourage the recurrence of passive revolution (Hesketh, 2010).

Society is thus received by Gramsci (1971) as a coherent whole of structure and superstructures – relations of production, the productive forces, capital accumulation, class alliances and opposition, ideologies and cultural forms, international and geopolitical relations, and the spatial formation of capitalism. As mentioned before, capitalism changes its form in times of a crisis. On the one hand he speaks of organic crises, which are marked by its necessary and transitionary character. The historical bloc finds itself in a systemic crisis, in which an opportunity for both capitalist and revolutionary is created. On the other hand, he describes conjunctural crises. These have less historical significance because of its superficial, periodic, accidental and unexpected character (Harvey, 2001; De Smet, 2016).

The intellectuals play a protagonist role in creating awareness for the subaltern groups. Passive revolution is possible “when (a particular fraction of) the ruling class has a deeper self-awareness of its historical role than its antagonists” (De Smet, 2014: 17). Gramsci (1971: 116, Q10II§61) notes that “for the fundamental productive classes (capitalist bourgeoisie and modern proletariat) the State is only conceivable as the concrete form of a specific economic world, of a specific system of production”. Consequently, the conquest over power and the realization of a new productive world must go together.

2.1.4.4 Contradictions in the state-led development processes

Another form of passive revolution, described extensively by Nash (2013), is a more applied form. The neoliberal state fully engages and invests in development programs, making use of the now popular ‘democratization’ discourse. However, critical voices recognize that these forms of participation, driven by

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the state, do not lead to the expected outcomes. The state-led developmentary processes are therefore inadequate.

When subaltern groups demand economic, social or political change, dominant groups fear of unbalancing the status-quo. In order to avoid instability, the ruling classes strategies include meeting (part of) the demands of the masses (Nash, 2013). Eventually, it is not the social groups leading the revolution ‘from below’. Instead, it is the bureaucratic state absorbing subaltern demands to develop a revolution ‘from above’. Making use of a revolutionary rhetoric – ‘people-driven’, ‘participatory’, ‘engaging with civil society’, ‘collaborating’, ‘tackling inequalities’, ‘horizontal’ – the state appears to be neutral, and even in favor of the demanding classes (Nash, 2013). On the outside, this may seem positive and progressive, but still it must be critically approached. Due to these underlying interests, the question of who is really benefiting and participating should be asked. For this, we can use Gramsci’s theory on passive revolution. As we can see that in the end, the historical bloc survives by reorganizing society on the surface, while the essential power structures stay in place. Passive revolution is used here as a “technique for statecraft” (Nash, 2013: 104).

Especially now that neoliberal practices are common, the ‘good governance’ and developmental ‘catch-up’ – again a linear, Eurocentric, normative approach linked to Rostow’s economic stages theory – programs win in popularity and authority. Liberalization, financialization, decentralization, deregulation, and privatization are proposed to be the best options for the ‘free’ market to flourish. I will come back to this in my analysis on the ‘democratizing’ land reforms in Kenya.

2.1.4.5 The Global South

The developments in what is now called the Global South evidently vary in every region. Some similar developments can be observed but be aware that accepting them as iron laws is essentializing and oversimplifying the complex reality. In the next section I briefly outline some similar developments that took place in the Global South places in the past century.

During colonialism, a dependent capitalist mode of production has been installed in a top-down manner (De Smet, 2016). The colonial state had a leading role in this process, and an alliance between the colonial authorities and local elites was created. After major uprisings and revolts across the globe, due to various problems – loss of sovereignty, a lack of development (of productive factors,…), the oppression of and violence against indigenous people, centralization of power and capital with foreign forces, etc. – colonial rule ended. The struggles for independence led to the construction of a ‘developmental state’. The post-colonial state – distinguished by its interventionist, controlling, and leading character – extensively plans

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and regulates the economy. From patronage and clientelist systems, alliances are formed. Problems – corruption, authoritarianism, employment gaps, debts and trade deficits, etc. – provoke again subaltern demands for change, which in turn generates neoliberal reform. New alliances between foreign and local actors are formed and transnational capital penetrates the postcolonial states. Once more, negative consequences of these policies arise – Authoritarianism continues, ‘crony capitalism’ rises, and national sovereignty is compromised.

It is important to note that it rarely happens – in North and South, West and East – that subaltern classes succeed in forming a hegemonic force and replace the dominant classes. Gramsci’s theory was developed in Italy, so is it appropriate to extend his theory on a global scale? I want to argue of yes, since passive revolution is not a geographically bound phenomenon. Everywhere where there is power at play and social inequalities are profitable, theories that help to analyze these conservative strategies7_{are of great}

importance.

In this thesis I will make a historical analysis of the development trajectory of the land question in Kenya. For this I will go back to the colonial period with the introduction of capitalist elements in society – such as division of labour, capital, industrial (means of) production – and the beginning of modern state formation. Combined with a philosophical reflection on Gramscian concepts, I will examine the class struggle for land and the state-led ‘participatory’ development answer to this. My contribution lies in the reflection on the foundations, problems and consequences of current power structures in modern-day Kenya.

2.2 Methods

In a conversation between Brecht De Smet (2014) and Joel Beinin (2014), the former criticizes De Smet’s use of Gramsci’s concepts for the analysis Egyptian revolution and counter-revolution for being “obscurantist” and “over-theorizing”. De Smet defends his argument and its relevance by pointing to the utility of a specific concept in historical analysis. The purpose of historical analysis is not “checking boxes to see if processes A and B ‘possess’ enough attributes to label them as either a passive or genuine revolution, coup or revolution, and so on” (De Smet, 2014). On the contrary, concepts are a tool for generating knowledge on specific historical processes (Mellino, 2016). Moreover, Gramsci (1971: 108-9, Q15§11) himself encouraged applying his theory to different historical cases for the comprehension of theoretical questions into concrete practice, but at the same time to remember that the concept “remains a dialectical one—in other words, presupposes, indeed postulates as necessary, a vigorous antithesis which can present

7_{These strategies may look progressive – as Nash (2013) explained above, but in the essence they are conservative.}

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intransigently all the potentialities for development” (1971: 114, Q15§62). History is open-ended, and every case needs to be studied on its own (Morton, 2010).

In this paper I will mobilize my power of thought in a critical literature study to apply concepts and theory on concrete events and actions. The critical literature study exists of a combination of primary, secondary and mixed sources. Following this, Gramsci’s theory, described in the previous section, will not only be formulated in abstraction. It is important for research to get to a ‘philosophy of praxis’, in which the philosophy touches concrete reality of a historical situation. Subsequently, I come to what Barak Kalir (2019: 32) calls the “politics of shame” – the task of “activist citizens” in Western states to speak out against those groups, individuals, companies, and governments who participate in the further oppression of subordinate groups. My thesis is to uncover the interests behind the land issues in Kenya and to advance the real transformation urged for by all the ‘losers’ of the system.

The first critical and complete Italian edition of Gramsci’s prison notebooks has been published by Valentino Gerratana in 1975. This work has been translated and used since as the standard edition. Additionally, Gerratana created a critical reference apparatus for creating a correct overview of the different publications (Green, 2019). A distinction is made between the notebooks (Q) and various sections (§), for example: Gramsci 1971: 55, Q25§2 indicates Notebook 25, section 2, on page 55. Thus, similar to current literature, I will employ this referring method together with Antonio Gramsci’s Selections from the Prison Notebooks, translated and edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith in 1971.

On top of my own interpretations of the prison notebooks, I engage with secondary literature existing on the subject, and other author’s interpretations of Gramsci’s theory. Their interpretation has been contested since his writings were unfinished before his death partially because of ill health and the inaccessibility of books in prison. The notebooks have a fragmentary character, and his theory has been criticized for not being complete8_{(Anderson, 2017), while other authors indicate the importance for using his theory as a}

coherent whole (Green, 2013; Nash, 2013; Thomas, 2009). Today, his work is regarded as a full-fledged theoretical analysis on the crucial theme that Gramsci had delved into since his student days, and especially after the seizure of power of fascism: the foundation of power (Gramsci & Weststeijn, 2019).

Due to the topical and sensitive subject of the case study, trustworthy data on the Kenyan case is limited. Gramsci knew it already that misinformation and manipulation are strategies of the ruling class to install

8_{His prison inspector described his notes as “vague”, full of “incoherent concepts” and outright “nonsense” (Gramsci}

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hegemony. However, the New Constitution in 2010 made policies more transparent for the public. Land issues were openly discussed, which generated an information flow (Klopp & Lumumba, 2017). Media, academics, commissions, activists and others have since participated in a public debate. Although, until today there is still a huge lack of statistical data on patronage systems, clientelism, land grabbing, etc. they are being analysed in academic circles. On this information flow I found my critical literature study.

2.2.1 Criticism

Since I, a Belgian student, apply concepts studied by an Italian revolutionary in the first half of the 20th century, on a Kenyan case study with a totally different context and history, question marks must be made. As is the same with Marxist concepts such as ‘bourgeoisie’ or ‘proletariat’, the concepts are generalized as to use them for different historical realities and therefore need concrete clarifications. Western academic thought has for many years been – and still is – largely dominated and influenced by Western scholars and concepts (Aziz, 2017). As a result, this limited view came to dominate our conception of the world, while repressing others. As history has shown, there lies a danger in using concepts as a blueprint on another case. An illustration is the projection of the Western concept ‘nation state’ on colonized countries as being superior to alternative power structures. A more recent example is the promotion of democracy as a foreign policy to spread this political system around the world (Aziz, 2017). Although it is essential to take into account this discriminatory history, Brecht De Smet (2016: 7-8) clarifies that:

“[t]he universalist concepts that are deployed by Marx and Gramsci to criticize capitalism are not transcendental categories or products of free-floating thought, but they express the material generalization of capital in spatial and social sense. (…) [T]heir critique does not presume some universalist human essence, modelled on Western premises, but the violent construction of the universal life world of capitalism.”

Globalization and the spread of the capitalist mode of production doesn’t necessarily mean the universalization and homogenization of social, cultural, political and economic society. Conversely, it makes it even more crucial to form a conception of the world history under a shared capitalist system, inevitably associated with its inherent contradictions and consequences of uneven development (De Smet, 2016).

It is important to note that “subaltern groups are always subject to the activity of ruling groups, even when they rebel and rise up: only “permanent” victory breaks their subordination” (Gramsci, 1971: 55, Q25§2). As Hesketh (2010) adds in his example, the Mexican Revolution can best be seen as a “new order for capitalist control” instead of an emancipation (390). This can be a controversial statement, since for the

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revolutionaries, its victory – even if it doesn’t change power structures entirely – may experience it as emancipatory and revolutionary. It is a common critique on Gramsci’s theory that his concepts are open for translation, and therefore, arbitrarily or wrong used in other historical settings (Morton, 2010).

Chakrabarty’s (2008) critique on Marxism portraying peripheral development in a historical formula of ‘stageism’, is shared by Gramsci. In line with postcolonial studies, Gramsci rejects historiography reducing societies to a certain developmental schema. Instead he talks about disjunct temporalities. Chakrabarty (2008: 14) points out the danger of this historicism that:

“We in India—and our political and intellectual leaders before us—used this Europe to resolve our debates about tensions arising from everyday inequalities and oppressions in India. For long many years, we waited in India for a return of this Europe in the shape of “democracy,” “bourgeois civilization,” “citizenship,” “capital,” and “socialism” in the same way as Gramsci once waited for the “first bourgeois revolution” of 1789 to reenact itself in his country.”

Gramsci (1977: 36) asked himself: “Why should [Russians] wait for the history of England to be repeated in Russia?”. He argues that class consciousness can be already there through experience in thought, instead of going through all the different phases England went through.

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3. Analysis

3.1 Historical context and analysis of Kenyan class formation

Before coming to the land question, I will make an historical analysis of differentiation and stratification in Kenya, using a neo-Marxian theoretical framework. Before I can start to make a class-based analysis, I will take a close look at the historical modes and mechanisms of the creation and appropriation of a surplus product. Where is the capitalist class getting their capital from, and how expands this class their capital? Is there even such a thing as a capitalist class in Kenya, and if, when did this class differentiation started? It is not my intention to make a full analysis of these questions in this paper. Still, it is important to touch them so we can better understand the origins of current societal divisions and connect it to power structures in the present. I base my further knowledge on the book ‘class and economic change in Kenya’ by Gavin N. Kitching (1980), which talks about the making of an African petite bourgeoisie in the period between 1905 and 1970. Afterwards, we will look at more recent developments in Kenyan history to better understand the reoccurring passive revolutions concerning the Land Question.

3.1.1 Colonialism and differentiation

Historically, societies vary in their economic structure; subsistence methods, division of labour, distribution of wealth, trade and production methods. There have been historical events that were determinative for changing societal structures radically. In pre-colonial Kenya, labour time and labour power were both qualitative and quantitative underutilized (Kitching, 1980). During colonial times an intensification and redistribution of this labour power and time emerged. From 1905 until 1918, there was a formal and informal subjection to a colonial administration and educational system – exclusively for men. There had to be recruited a labour force working in this colonial administration, schools, service, and in manual labour – the colonial economy had to develop its own organic intellectuals. Agricultural land became (violently) occupied by European colonizers. Kenyans became the labour force maintaining this land and producing the surplus product. Various economic activities and new dependency relations arose regarding new property rights. At last, the trading and business labour force expanded and became subjected to a monetary system, imposed from outside.

During the first decades of the 20th_{century, the number of traders grew, since the surplus product per unit}

of labour time and land increased (Kitching, 1980). The state intervened to reorganize trade in some geographical areas where the market was not big enough for the locally obtained surplus product. From 1929 until 1940 – during the worldwide depression – the Department of Agriculture intervened together

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with the colonial administration in the commercialization of agriculture. The cropped areas expanded. Cash crops and subsistence crops started to exist next to each other. Productivity of labour rose together with a rise in efficiency of means of production. Until then, Kenyan agricultural production had been penetrated very limited by international capital and there was no link between the fall and rise of food crop prices in the reserves and the world prices. Kenyan society was not yet ‘fully grown capitalist’, but cultivators did become dependent on international actors for purchasing instruments for production. It was the purpose of the colonial administration to subordinate pre-capitalist forms of production to capitalist ones9

(Akram-Lodhi & Kay, 2016). The universalization of monetary means for exchange transactions also meant the expansion of commodity production. This meant the beginning of stratification since a distinction could be made between people who possessed – resources, land, means of production, and capital – and those who did not. Businessmen became involved with the commercialization of agriculture and obtained a share of the surplus product at the expense of the cultivator. Colonialism introduced several new values such as cotton clothing, cheap consumer commodities, modern money, and formal education. Mostly, Kenya was still involved with merchant capital and subordinated to Asian and European merchant capital. No involvement in the process of production meant that industrial capital was hardly present up to 1952 (Kitching, 1980).

3.1.2 What is the role of the state in this history?

Local native councils (LNC’s) were set up by the colonial administration in 1925 (Atieno-Odhiambo, 2002). They served as a limited type of African governments until 1952. As nominated bodies they existed of government chiefs and headmen accompanied by educated young businessmen. Next to deciding over the local exchange rate of agricultural products, they had an administrative agency. To belong to, actively participate in, and borrow from the LNC’s you had to possess a large amount of initial capital. The council was a source for capital and flowed on to a selected group of people in the area in the form of wages and salaries. This was accompanied with political purposes and served the power structure of the colonial government. The LNC’s were an ideological instrument of the colonial administration to supervise the developments in the different reserves. By implementing the colonial policy, the executives served as the organic intellectuals, needed by the European ruling class to install their hegemonic system. The LNC’s mostly consisted of progressive, educated Kenyans who strived for individual material advancement and used the funds for own purposes. This state institution thus plays a role in the creation of a petite

9_{This ‘agrarian question’ has been explained by Kautsky (1899) as, “whether, and how, capital is seizing hold of}

agriculture, revolutionising it, making old forms of production and of property untenable and creating the necessity for new ones” (12, cited in Akram-Lodhi & Kay 2016: 71).

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bourgeoisie and gaining credits for their businesses or relatives. Here Kitching (1980) indicates an important comment that “the post-independence state in Kenya can be seen to be little more than the LNC’s of old writ large” (p198).

This petite bourgeoisie had all the facilities monopolized, such as education, agriculture, medicine, etc. Which leads to the expansion of the stratification and the spread of the hegemonic colonial ideology. There are two complementary processes arising here; raising the general level of productivity and income in a society leads to social stratification in a commodity producing society. First, there is a rise in the level of general labour productivity. This leads to the production of a surplus product that is appropriated by a part of the population. This part, which we call here the petite bourgeoisie, can invest a part of this appropriated surplus product into the means of production or labour power, which again leads to the accumulation of an increased surplus product. A consequence is the ever-growing capital compiled with few people, who had next to economic power, most of the political power as well (Kitching, 1980).

For the most part, the goal of the British settlers was to set up an ‘administrative state’. While drawing its boundaries, the colonial state subjected existing forms of power structures. Through indirect rule, the state established own procedures for communication, administration and tax revenue. Conditioning further economic developments, state-building formed social relations at the local level which was further build on after independence (Bernstein, 1981). Correspondingly to the limited development of a national economy, Bernstein (1981: 53) argues that “class formation was similarly limited, and the articulation of class interests ‘overdetermined’ by the characteristically racial division of labour of colonialism”. The agricultural industry developed, and the nationalist movement’s members were mostly recruited from official administration or allied corporations and organizations - including teachers, civil servants, trade unions, and businessmen. A connection to the state was a condition for belonging to the governing class. In addition, control over the economy was practiced through the political means the state structures offered. For this reason, state structures and properties had to be expanded, as well as “satisfying the political and ideological conditions of its authority and legitimacy” (Bernstein, 1981: 54). Its legitimacy comes from the support of the urban and rural masses. Therefore, the state must provide the basic and essential (infra)structures in society, such as water supply, education, and health care. Along with the states growing capacity of functions and employees, a gap is created between the state’s revenue and its expenditures. Legitimacy and a creation of a social base – the organic intellectuals - comes with a price.

To summarize, the organization of the colonial administration is after independence taken over by a new government, who, other than the colonial predecessors, should build their power in a legitimizing