Against Ubuntu Idealism: A Political Economy Critique and the Material Roots of Xenophobia

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness".^[1] Few statements better capture the divide between idealist and materialist approaches to politics than this observation by Karl Marx. Marx's critique of idealism was directed against philosophical traditions that treated ideas, values, and consciousness as the primary drivers of history. Against this view, Marx argued that material conditions—how societies produce, distribute, and organize resources—shape political consciousness and social life.

This position by Marx remains relevant to contemporary South Africa. Whenever xenophobic violence erupts, political leaders, civil society organizations, churches, and sections of the South African Left frequently respond by invoking Ubuntu. Ubuntu, usually summarized as "I am because we are," is presented as an indigenous African philosophy capable of restoring social cohesion and continental solidarity.^[2] The assumption is that xenophobia results from a moral failure: people have forgotten Ubuntu and must therefore be reminded of its ethical principles.

While such appeals are understandable, they are ultimately insufficient. They rest on an idealist assumption that changing ideas will change reality. What they fail to confront is the material environment within which xenophobia emerges. South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world^[3]. Millions face unemployment, precarious work, inadequate housing, unreliable public services, and growing economic insecurity. Under such conditions, competition for survival intensifies, and social tensions deepen.

This article emphasizes that the significance of Ubuntu in a society overshadowed by scarcity and poverty is crucial; however, I critique the shortcomings of some of the Left's political strategies and their use of Ubuntu as a means to mobilize against xenophobia. Rather than relying on Ubuntu as a philosophical framework for mobilization, I urge the Left to explore and embrace alternative political messaging strategies. This involves recognizing how capitalism has eroded our moral and social fabric and focusing instead on radical political economy to rebuild society on mutual aid and solidarity. To achieve this, we must devise political strategies that are not perceived as being removed from the material interests of the working people, but through strategies that confront the social relations that give birth to such deprivation.

In this critique of Left moralism, I argue that xenophobia cannot be understood primarily as a failure of values. It is rooted in the political economy of post-apartheid South Africa and forms part of a broader historical pattern visible across the African continent. Drawing on Marx, Frantz Fanon, and Walter Rodney, I argue that Ubuntu has become trapped within an idealist framework that overlooks the material foundations of social solidarity. Ubuntu is not irrelevant, but it cannot function independently of the economic conditions that enable solidarity. To achieve success, the left must break free from the trap of using Ubuntu as its default political mobilization strategy and separate itself from liberals who often deploy the language of Ubuntu for political expediency. 

To treat Ubuntu as a solution without addressing unemployment, inequality, and capitalist exploitation is to mistake symptoms for causes. Xenophobia is not simply a crisis of consciousness. It is a crisis produced by history, economics, and the unfinished legacy of colonialism and apartheid.

The Hijacking of Ubuntu and the Challenges of Idealism

Ubuntu occupies a unique place in South African political discourse. It has been celebrated as a distinctly African philosophy emphasizing mutual recognition, collective humanity, and social interdependence.^[4]In the transition from apartheid to democracy, Ubuntu was frequently invoked as a moral foundation for reconciliation and nation-building. As Justice Yvonne Mokgoro wrote in S v Makwanyane, Ubuntu "envelopes the key values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity".^[5] Yet the question confronting South Africa today is not whether these values are desirable, but whether they can flourish under conditions of mass unemployment, inequality, and economic exclusion.

However, Ubuntu is often discussed in a way that detaches it from the material conditions that originally gave it meaning. It becomes a universal ethical principle floating above history rather than a social practice embedded within particular economic and social relations.^[6] This idealist treatment of Ubuntu mirrors the broader tendency within South African political discourse to privilege moral explanations over material analysis.

A dialectical approach requires us to think differently. Ubuntu did not emerge in a vacuum. Like all systems of values, it developed within concrete historical communities. Its emphasis on reciprocity and collective responsibility reflected social relations that were materially reproduced through communal forms of life.^[7] In other words, Ubuntu was not merely an idea; it was connected to specific ways of organizing society.

Colonialism fundamentally disrupted these relations. Land dispossession, migrant labour systems, racial capitalism, and the destruction of indigenous economic structures transformed social life across Southern Africa.^[8]Apartheid deepened these processes through racial segregation and economic exclusion. The result was not only material dispossession but also the erosion of many of the social foundations upon which communal values depended.

Post-apartheid South Africa inherited this legacy. Yet rather than fundamentally restructuring the economy, the democratic transition largely integrated the country into a neoliberal global order.^[9] Political liberation was achieved without a corresponding transformation of economic power. As a result, inequality remained entrenched while unemployment and poverty persisted on a mass scale.^[10]

In this context, Ubuntu increasingly functions as a moral appeal directed at populations experiencing profound economic hardship. Citizens are told to embrace solidarity while facing shrinking opportunities and deteriorating living conditions. The contradiction is obvious. Ubuntu asks people to act collectively in a system that rewards competition and produces scarcity. This is why Ubuntu alone cannot explain or resolve xenophobia. It addresses the level of moral consciousness without adequately addressing the material conditions shaping that consciousness.

Historical Materialism and the Production of Xenophobia

Marx's concept of historical materialism offers a useful framework for understanding this problem. Historical materialism does not claim that ideas are irrelevant. Rather, it argues that ideas emerge within and are constrained by broader material realities. ^[11]As Marx argued, "The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life."^[12]

In South Africa, those realities include chronic unemployment, extreme inequality, housing shortages, failing infrastructure, and widespread poverty. These conditions create intense competition among working-class and poor communities.^[13]

When jobs are scarce, access to employment becomes a source of conflict. When housing is limited, access to shelter becomes a source of conflict. When public services are inadequate, access to those services becomes a source of conflict. Under these circumstances, migrants often become visible targets for frustration and anger.^[14]

The crucial point is that migrants do not create these conditions. They enter conditions that already exist. Yet because structural causes are often obscured and difficult to identify or challenge, blame is redirected toward those perceived as outsiders. This scapegoating dynamic has been extensively documented in South African research.^[15]

This process is neither unique to South Africa nor unique to Africa. Throughout history, economic crises have frequently generated forms of scapegoating directed at migrants, minorities, and marginalized groups. Xenophobia functions as a distorted response to material insecurity.^[16]

A purely moral critique, therefore, misses the deeper issue. Telling people to be more tolerant without making clear or changing the conditions that generate insecurity is unlikely to succeed. Moral appeals can influence behaviour, but they cannot eliminate the structural pressures that continually reproduce xenophobic sentiments.^[17]

This does not mean that xenophobia is justified. It means that understanding its causes requires moving beyond moral explanations toward an analysis of political economy. An obvious analytical framework, I am of the view that anyone on the Left in South Africa knows of; however, the challenge is: why do we want to mobilize people and diffuse xenophobia by using the ideal of ubuntu as our mobilizing point and as a public messaging point?

Fanon and the Fragmentation of the Oppressed

Frantz Fanon's work provides an important bridge between material conditions and political consciousness. Writing in the context of colonialism, Fanon argued that oppression leaves deep psychological and social scars. Colonial rule systematically divides populations, destroys collective institutions, and encourages forms of identification based on hierarchy and exclusion.^[18] Even after formal independence, these divisions often persist.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon warned that political liberation without economic transformation would produce profound disappointment. The masses would discover that independence had changed political symbols without significantly altering their everyday conditions. In such circumstances, frustration could be redirected away from ruling elites and toward other vulnerable groups.

Fanon's thoughts and postulations remain as relevant as ever for contemporary xenophobia in South Africa. When communities experience unemployment, poverty, and social exclusion, their anger does not automatically target the structures responsible for those conditions. Instead, it may be displaced onto migrants who are more visible and more accessible targets.^[19]

Fanon described this tendency as violence turning inward.^[20] Rather than confronting systems of domination, the oppressed are encouraged to fight among themselves. Xenophobia, therefore, represents not simply prejudice but a symptom of political and social fragmentation.

The significance of Fanon's analysis is that it helps explain why economic hardship does not automatically generate class solidarity. Material deprivation can produce solidarity, but it can also produce division. The outcome depends on political organization, social consciousness, and the ability to identify the true sources of oppression.^[21]

This is precisely where Ubuntu becomes important—but only if understood dialectically rather than idealistically. Ubuntu can contribute to solidarity, but it cannot overcome the conditions producing fragmentation on its own. As Fanon argued, "The basic confrontation which seemed to be that between colonialism and anti-colonialism, indeed between colonized and colonizer, today exists between, on the one hand, the neo-colonialist regimes and, on the other, the masses who are trying to achieve a national and social revolution."^[22]

Historical Patterns Across Africa

South Africa's xenophobic violence is often treated as an exceptional moral failure, but the historical records suggest otherwise. Across Africa, periods of economic crisis have repeatedly produced anti-migrant politics and expulsions. In 1969, Ghana's government under Kofi Busia implemented the Aliens Compliance Order, resulting in the expulsion of between 900,000 and 1.2 million migrants, many of them West Africans accused of taking jobs from citizens.^[23] In 1972, Uganda expelled approximately 60,000 Asians, seizing businesses and property amid economic decline and nationalist rhetoric.^[24] Nigeria followed a similar path during its economic crisis of the 1980s, expelling more than two million migrants in 1983 and hundreds of thousands more in 1985.^[25] In Côte d'Ivoire, the politics of Ivoirité in the late 1990s linked citizenship and national identity to economic access, contributing to the exclusion and expulsion of migrant communities.^[26]

The pattern continued into the twenty-first century. Equatorial Guinea expelled migrants in 2004 and again in 2007, while Angola expelled hundreds of thousands of Congolese migrants between 2004 and 2009 amid tensions over resources and informal mining. ^[27] These expulsions triggered retaliatory actions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2009.^[28] The same year, Burundi expelled around 1,200 migrants, while Tanzania deported nearly 11,000 migrants in 2013 as part of anti-crime campaigns.^[29] Chad carried out expulsions following security concerns in 2015. South Africa itself experienced major outbreaks of anti-migrant violence in 2008, 2015, and 2019, resulting in deaths, displacement, and the destruction of businesses.^[30]The lesson from these cases is clear: when economic insecurity deepens, migrants are repeatedly transformed into convenient scapegoats. The targets change from country to country, but the underlying dynamic remains remarkably consistent. Xenophobia emerges not from a sudden collapse of morality, but from unresolved economic crises and political failures that redirect popular anger away from structural causes and toward vulnerable outsiders.

Capitalism as the Core Problem

If xenophobia is not simply a failure of morality, then what is driving it? The answer lies in the political economy of South Africa and Africa, more broadly, in the structure of global capitalism. As Rodney argued, "The development of underdevelopment in Africa was the result of the exploitation of African labour and resources by European capitalism."^[31]

The dominant narrative suggests that scarcity exists because there are too many people competing for too few resources. Yet this obscures a more important reality: scarcity is often politically and economically produced. South Africa is not a poor country in terms of wealth and productive capacity. It is a country marked by extreme inequality. Vast wealth exists alongside mass poverty. Luxury estates stand next to informal settlements. Corporate profits grow while unemployment remains stubbornly high. The problem is not the absence of resources but the unequal distribution of those resources.

Under these conditions, capitalism generates competition among those at the bottom while concentrating wealth at the top. Poor South Africans and African migrants are forced to compete for jobs, housing, public services, and opportunities in the informal economy^[32]. Instead of questioning why these necessities remain scarce in one of Africa's most developed economies, political discourse often encourages people to blame one another. Migrants become convenient targets because they are visible, vulnerable, and politically expendable.

This dynamic is not accidental. Throughout history, ruling classes have benefited when social anger is directed sideways rather than upward. Workers fighting workers, citizens fighting migrants, and communities fighting one another pose far less of a threat than a united movement challenging concentrated wealth and political power.^[33] Xenophobia, therefore, performs an ideological function: it obscures the structural causes of economic hardship and redirects attention toward those who are themselves marginalized.

The state frequently reinforces this process. Faced with rising unemployment, deteriorating services, corruption, and public frustration, governments often find it easier to intensify immigration enforcement than to confront the deeper economic problems facing society^[34]. Migrants become symbols onto which broader anxieties are projected. Border control becomes a substitute for economic transformation.

This is precisely the danger Frantz Fanon warned about. Writing in the aftermath of colonialism, Fanon argued that independence often produced a national elite that inherited the structures of colonial rule rather than dismantling them.^[35] Instead of transforming the economy in the interests of the majority, the postcolonial bourgeoisie frequently became a manager of the existing system. Political power changed hands, but economic power remained concentrated. The result was widespread disappointment among those who expected liberation to deliver material improvements in their lives.

Walter Rodney's analysis takes this argument further. Africa's persistent crises cannot be understood apart from the continent's incorporation into a global capitalist system that historically extracted wealth while inhibiting independent development.^[36] Colonialism formally ended, but many of the economic relationships it created remained intact. African economies continue to export raw materials, depend on foreign capital, and operate within global structures that reproduce inequality^[37]. In this context, unemployment, underdevelopment, and social instability are not accidental failures. They are outcomes of a system that generates immense wealth for a few while producing insecurity for many.

Through these analytical lenses, xenophobia appears not as the cause of social crisis but as one of its symptoms. The real issue is not the presence of migrants. The real issue is an economic order that creates scarcity, inequality, and competition among people who share the same fundamental struggles.

Resolving the Crisis Beyond Ubuntu's Idealism

Recognizing the material roots of xenophobia requires moving beyond purely moral responses. Ubuntu remains a valuable ethical principle, but it cannot by itself overcome the conditions that produce division. The challenge is not simply to persuade people to be more compassionate. The challenge is to build a society in which solidarity becomes materially possible.

This means confronting the economic structures that generate insecurity in the first place. As long as millions remain unemployed, housing remains inadequate, public services continue to decline, and wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a small elite, xenophobia will continue to find fertile ground. Moral appeals may temporarily reduce tensions, but they cannot eliminate the conditions that reproduce those tensions.

A genuine alternative requires a different vision of development. Rather than organizing society around private profit, economic activity must be directed toward meeting social needs. This means prioritizing employment, housing, healthcare, education, and public infrastructure over the accumulation of wealth by a narrow elite. Whether one calls this socialism, democratic planning, or people-centred development, the underlying principle remains the same: the economy should serve society, not the other way around.^[38]

It also requires moving beyond a purely symbolic understanding of Pan-Africanism. Too often, African unity is reduced to slogans and ceremonial declarations. Yet meaningful solidarity must have a material foundation. Cooperation between African states should focus on industrial development, regional integration, infrastructure, labour rights, and collective economic self-reliance. If African unity remains merely a moral aspiration, it will continue to collapse under the pressures of economic competition.

At the level of everyday politics, this means building forms of class solidarity that transcend nationality. South African workers and migrant workers face many of the same problems: low wages, insecure employment, rising living costs, and exploitation by employers.^[39] The more these groups are divided, the easier it becomes for capital to maintain its power. The more they recognize their shared interests, the harder it becomes to sustain narratives that pit one vulnerable group against another.

Fanon understood that liberation involves more than changing political institutions. It requires transforming both material conditions and social consciousness. People think differently when they live differently. Likewise, argued that development must be measured not by elite wealth or foreign investment but by improvements in the lives of ordinary people.^[40] Development that enriches a minority while leaving the majority trapped in insecurity is not development at all.

The lesson is straightforward. Ubuntu cannot be realized through moral appeals alone. It requires material foundations: decent work, secure housing, functioning public services, and an economy organized around human need rather than private accumulation. Without these conditions, calls for unity will continue to collide with the realities of poverty and exclusion.

With them, Ubuntu can become more than an ideal. It can become a lived social reality. These are the lessons that the Left should learn before embarking on a campaign to push back and organize against xenophobia. Although the comments^[41] made by the leader of South Africa’s March and March Movement earlier this month regarding the suspension of Ubuntu were uncomfortable, they contain a kernel of truth.^[42] The economic conditions we face have eroded the social and moral fabric that once held our societies together, leading to an inward fratricide among working-class people. While her remarks may be blunt, they lack a dialectical analysis, which is essential for us to understand and address the root causes of this situation.

The implication for the South African Left is clear: Ubuntu must be rescued from idealism. Rather than appealing to moral consciousness alone, the Left must organize around material demands—employment, housing, public services, and economic justice. Only by transforming the conditions that produce insecurity can solidarity become more than an abstraction.

As Marx insisted, consciousness is determined by social being. If we want a society guided by Ubuntu, we must build an economy that makes Ubuntu possible. Anything less is not radical politics but moral consolation.

Phethani Madzivhandila is a Pan-Africanist Marxist labour historian at the Walter Rodney People's Library in Pretoria. He is currently based in Germany, where he is pursuing a master’s degree in labour studies and Sociology at the University of Kassel. His research focuses on migrant labour regimes and their mechanisms of exploitation under contemporary capitalism.

Endnotes