We now return to the general questions raised at the start of this study and consider them in a more systematic, theoretical manner than has been attempted hitherto. The foregoing chapters have demonstrated the importance of the railway workers as a group in the Ghanaian political arena. It is now appropriate to analyse the sources of this exceptional political strength and assess the significance of its being wielded with such relative consistency in opposition to post- as well as pre-Independence governments. One central question which must be considered here is how far a Marxist model of class conflict illuminates railway worker political behaviour. In more general (and less preconceived) terms, this section is primarily concerned with the interrelationship of socio-economic position, organisation, ideology and political action. What role, for example, should be attributed to ideological factors in determining railway worker political behaviour, and how does the railway workers' ideology (or ‘political culture’) reflect their socio-economic situation? It is clear that an assessment of the significance of railway worker political activity should in turn take into account its ‘class’ implications, though, as will be argued subsequently, this is not the only perspective from which it should be judged.

It is worth noting at the outset that a classical Marxist interpretation of the developing political role and orientation of industrial wage-earners in sub-Saharan Africa is far from generally accepted among latter-day Marxian theorists.