The regrettably small body of literature on African labour concerning the issue of ‘consciousness’ has mostly focused on the particular issue of ‘class-consciousness’ in so preconceived a manner as to obscure a more basic and more open question. Have African workers (or particular groups) developed a distinct, radical political sub-culture (relative, that is, to the dominant culture of the national political elite), and, if so, what is its nature? By ‘radical political sub-culture’ I wish to denote a set of interdependent attitudes, norms and conceptions in which grievances giving rise to (or considered as justification for) protest action are intimately related to a view of elitist and authoritarian tendencies in the surrounding society as substantially illegitimate; in which, quite commonly at least, the aims and propellants of protest extend beyond narrow occupational grievances to a desire to effect radical alterations in the prevailing political and socio-economic order. On a loose usage of the term, any such culture which is the common property of a class-grouping might, of course, be considered a form of class-consciousness. It is suggested here, however, that it is important to ask just how any particular example approximates to (or deviates from) the model Marx envisaged as characterising the proletariat of developing capitalist societies.

It is clear from the foregoing historical analysis that the Sekondi-Takoradi railway strikes of 1950, 1961 and 1971 were all highly political in conception.