Abstract:
Tanzania celebrated 50 years of mainland independence. In the past half a century, cooperatives
were denied the opportunity to promote economic empowerment because of the state’s anti
capitalist policies and practices. When malpractices were observed, the state used government
officials to replace leaders instead of strengthening the legal framework. After the Arusha
Declaration, the state began molding cooperatives into socialist institutions. Alongside this the
cooperative sector was made into an arm of the ruling party to control farmers, and
in the end they were abolished altogether. In this paper we argue that cooperatives are
institutions of the capitalist economic system designed to function as agencies for ameliorating
the problems of capitalist progress, and that a lack of this understanding was responsible for
their destruction in Tanzania.
