ABSTRACT Writing decades ago about Africa’s experience of “international” trade during the 16th to 20th centuries, the great African historian, Kenneth Onwuka Dike (1917–1983), made a sociologically poignant remark about what he termed the “ingrained instincts of piracy” – instincts he believed were the constant amidst the mutating contents, contours and stratagems of capitalist enterprise. Dike made two grim interrelated diagnoses about capitalism on account of these instincts. One, it is these instincts that ultimately frustrated all efforts by governments and society in crafting a code of conduct to regulate commerce. Two, every regulation designed to imbue capitalism with a modicum of humaneness has ultimately been rendered unworkable because of these same instincts. In this article, “pirate capitalism” is put forward not only as a didactic tool for dissecting the antinomical impulses of historical capitalism, but also as a distinct social form whose present-day pathological character in Africa is amply displayed in a hideous balance of benevolence and brigandage. The article submits that with pirate capitalism now a dominant index of business-government and business-society relations, Africa remains ambushed, with much of capitalism's claimed benevolence being, at best, a tragedy of good intentions, and at worst, a debilitating series of phoney gestures.

中文翻译：

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非洲伏击：资本主义仁慈和强盗的社会学意象

摘要 几十年前，伟大的非洲历史学家 Kenneth Onwuka Dike（1917-1983）在撰写关于 16 至 20 世纪非洲“国际”贸易的经历时，对他所谓的“根深蒂固的海盗本能”发表了具有社会学意义的尖锐评论——他认为，在资本主义企业不断变化的内容、轮廓和策略中，本能是不变的。由于这些本能，迪克对资本主义做出了两个相互关联的严峻诊断。第一，正是这些本能最终挫败了政府和社会制定商业行为准则的所有努力。第二，由于这些相同的本能，旨在赋予资本主义一点人性的每一项法规最终都变得行不通了。在本文中，“海盗资本主义”不仅被提出来作为剖析历史资本主义反动主义冲动的一种说教工具，而且作为一种独特的社会形式，其当今非洲的病态特征在仁爱与强盗的可怕平衡中得到充分体现。文章提出，由于海盗资本主义现在是商业-政府和商业-社会关系的主要指标，非洲仍然受到伏击，资本主义声称的大部分仁慈充其量只是善意的悲剧，最坏的情况是一系列令人衰弱的虚假的手势。