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Born One Hundred Years Ago: Hosea Jaffe, South African Economist and Historian

Hosea Jaffe, the South African economist and historian, was born one hundred years ago in Cape Town.

The son of Lithuanian immigrants to South Africa, Jaffe grew up in a society overwrought with racism and witnessed the injustices perpetrated in the name of apartheid. He was an activist for anti-racism all his life and was critical of Marx and Engels’ Euro-racism theory. Jaffe believed colonialism was the source, the true lifeblood of capitalism/imperialism, and not just a side effect. His autobiography is written from the point of view of the left-wing in South Africa and more. Samir Amin writes,

The memoirs Hosea Jaffe leaves us are precious.
They are those of a South African communist activist who had understood that apartheid served capitalism in that part of the world with perfect efficiency. His analyses point out the disastrous consequences of the abandon of internationalist prospects – inevitably anti-imperialist – by the people of the United States, Europe and Japan.”

Economist and writer, Jaffe taught in South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, England and Luxembourg. He was a member and theorist of the Non-European Unity Movement of South Africa. All his major works have been published in Italy by Jaca Book. Including: Marx e il colonialismo (1977); Storia del Sudafrica (1980); Progresso e nazione: economia ed ecologia (1990);  Germania.  Verso  il  nuovo  disordine mondiale (1994, ult. ed. 2012); Sudafrica. Storia politica (1997, ult. ed. 2010);Davanti al colonialismo: Engels, Marx e il marxismo (2007); Abbandonare l’imperialismo (2008); Era necessario il capitalismo? (2010);L’apartheid intorno a me. Autobiografia (2018).

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