My personal position is that I am not opposed to Marxism in theory, but I do recognize that the challenge with Marxism has been implementation.

Isn't implementation - a dictatorship of the proletariat - part of the theory? How can you not be "opposed to" that notion "in theory" when history has shown that there can be no such thing? None of us is "opposed to" perpetual motion in theory - it would be great if it were possible - but nature says it's impossible to "implement."

Marxist analysis is a very useful tool for designing a capitalist economy. Marx tells us where capitalism goes off the rails, pointing to steps that can prevent it from doing so. Marxist demands for revolution result in tweaks to capitalism that make it better. That the Marxists themselves are chasing a mail truck that they won't know what to do with if they catch doesn't matter.

What this means for Africa isn't clear, because there are no capitalist excesses where there is no capitalism. And it remains to be seen whether the brakes rightly applied to capitalism in developed countries would completely stop its development if applied too early. Can you imagine a nation of start-ups where EU labor laws applied?

Early capitalist development is messy. Communism promises something better. But communism cannot deliver. So now what?