(introductory text...)

Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua

The nature of the problem

In Africa, which has virtually only its agricultural commodities to export, agricultural products are increasingly insufficient to feed its inhabitants.

An agricultural crisis must not, however, be confused with famine, and this chapter does not focus on the problem of famine, but on the crisis of agriculture. In order to avoid the spread of famine agriculture must undergo three series of transformations: of its functions, techniques and the ways in which accumulation is controlled.

Transforming agriculture's functions involves a radical reconsideration of colonial agriculture. During the colonial period, the principal function of agriculture was to sustain the economy of the metropole. Independence may have led to minor changes: one consequence of a new policy may be to require local agriculture to sustain both the local economies and those of the developed capitalist countries. The primary function of agriculture is to feed a growing population, and other functions should be subordinated to that. But this prior function must not entail neglect of export agriculture which. I consider is by far the best means for most African countries to acquire foreign exchange today apart from their mineral riches.

Transformation of agricultural technique is essential. African agriculture must become technologically oriented, but this must not be confused with mechanization and the introduction of chemicals, both dominated from outside. Technical transformation must be compatible with the requirement of ensuring full employment at the earliest opportunity, since industrialization would be unable to rapidly absorb workers freed from agriculture by the agrarian reforms and capital-intensive techniques. In short. Iabour-intensive agriculture is essential in virtually all African countries. Extensive mechanized production could be justified only in cases where it proved to be the only way to deal with a real threat of famine.

According to Samir Amin, complete control of accumulation is defined as control by the local ruling class and the state over five essential conditions of the accumulation process: (1) local control of the reproduction of the labour force, which presupposes that at a first stage state policy ensures that agriculture develops in such a way as to be capable of producing sufficient food surpluses at prices compatible with the demands of accumulation; (2) local control of the centralization of the surplus, which supposes not only the formal existence of national financial institutions but also their relative autonomy from the flows of transnational capital, guaranteeing national capacity to determine how it is invested: (3) local control of the market (largely in fact reserved for national production, even in the absence of high tariff or other protection) and the complementary capacity to be competitive on the world market, at least selectively; (4) local control of natural resources, which supposes, beyond formal ownership, the nation-state having the capacity to exploit them or keep them in reserve: in that sense, the oil countries, which are not, in fact, free 'to turn off the tap' do not have this control: (5) finally, local control of technologies in the sense that, whether locally invented or imported, they can be rapidly reproduced without indefinitely relying on importing essential inputs.¹

The so-called economic and social development plans of the periphery are specific in that: they claim to lead from extroversion and poverty to control of accumulation, sustained rises in incomes and improved living conditions of the masses. Without the certainty that this transition would take place, the peoples' sacrifices in national liberation struggles would be meaningless. The experiences fall into two main categories.

First, there are the experiences guided by the Rostowian philosophy of development by stages. Priority is given to maximizing the GNP per capita growth rate: problems of controlling the conditions of accumulation and employment are deemed to be resolved if growth is maintained. The mode of integration into the capitalist system is set by the outside world and economic policy consists in taking advantage of this integration by realizing the maximum growth rate in the prevailing competitive situation. In Africa, that generally consists in only slightly modifying colonial agricultural practices without radically challenging them.

Secondly, are the experiences of countries where the objective of economic and particularly agricultural policies was to carry out the revolution without delinking, something which has not happened since the advent of contemporary imperialism in the last quarter of the 19th century. These experiences have sought to stress both growth and control of the conditions of accumulation in agriculture.

The results obtained in agriculture seem entirely independent of strategies adopted and implemented over successive plans. Taking the chief criterion of performance as the agricultural GDP growth rate, we find that in comparable conditions of climate and political stability, countries falling into the first category (for example, the Ivory Coast. Cameroun and Malawi) have often achieved the best results. The defenders of the status quo exemplify these countries as models to follow. In my opinion, however, if these countries' strategy aimed at gaining control of the conditions of accumulation does not replace current strategies, they too will ultimately suffer acute agricultural crises; that is the lesson of both historical experience and theory.

The future thus lies in autonomous agriculture that radically challenges colonial agriculture, even if short-term growth rates are lower and attempts at gaining control have aborted. That is why it is important to examine the specific conditions of this category of experiences. Tanzania and Algeria, whose agricultural policies have had considerable impact both at the social and political level, and in theoretical and empirical analysis, despite obvious differences of context, have been chosen here as examples.

Algeria

Algeria inherited an agriculture that was dualist in its objectives: first, to produce wine and wheat for export; and second, to produce foodstuffs for the majority of the population. It was also dualist at the technical level: alongside a sector with modern techniques producing for export, was another with archaic techniques producing for the people's subsistence. There was dependence at all levels, and the majority of the rapidly growing rural population lived in abject poverty. But these people had fought doggedly for independence and demanded development, meaning, relieving poverty. According to the FLN's (National Liberation Front) doctrine developed during the national liberation war decolonizing agriculture would contribute to the achievement of this objective. Its principal purpose would be to assure the reproduction of a growing labour force, through a much higher rate of growth of food crops than the rate of population growth. Next, it would be integrated into an upstream "industrial complex in order to avoid technological dependence. These objectives appeared to be realistic. The country is well endowed with natural resources to supply steel and engineering, as well as agro-chemical industries, with raw materials. Finally, intensification of production techniques and an appropriate redistribution of land and income would maintain a rate of rural out-migration compatible with the rate of economic, particularly industrial, growth and hence with the rate of job creation in those sectors. What is the balance-sheet?

When Algeria became independent, its agriculture was serving the French economy. The revolutionary character of the liberation struggle and the determination to industrialize rapidly led it to carry out a swift process of reallocating productive forces to sub-sectors producing for the domestic market. Colonization had specialized the country in the export of wines, produced on the best lands with the most skilled agricultural manpower and the most advanced management techniques.

The most spectacular reallocation affected the vineyards whose area fell from 500,000 hectares in 1962 to 233.000 hectares in 1975-76, a reduction of 53.4%. This reorientation, one of the most radical in the history of agricultural decolonization, is doubtless to be explained less by a Muslim country's aversion to wine, or the desire to reduce dependence, than by the difficulties of finding outlets (Bedrani) and, above all, the possibility of replacing export receipts from agricultural commodities in general by oil receipts. Thus between 1972 and 1977, the food, beverages and tobacco head fell in volume from 900.000 to 580.000 metric tons and in current value from 664 million dinars to 550.² In 1970, agricultural commodities contributed 20.5% and hydrocarbons 70.5% of export receipts, in 1978 the percentages were 2.45% and 96% respectively.³

Clearly, a drastic reduction in wine's place in the economy and exports was necessary; but why it was replaced by oil, is not clear.

For Algerian planners, the reallocation of productive forces was not to be done at the expense of the growth of production. But, during the 1970s, there was no upward trend of production- quite the reverse. Thus, on the base 1974-76= 100, the production index was 97 in 1982, after being 109 in 1980 and 102 in 1981. The per capita index went from 93 in 1978 to 80 in 1981 and 88 in 1982. The indices of foodstuff production moved even more negatively, the index for 1982 being 77.⁴

Nevertheless, physical accumulation, notably through mechanization was considerable. Between 1970 and 1978, the quantity of agricultural machinery increased considerably. Over these eight years, the quantity of tractors and harvesting, ploughing and transport equipment increased by 3.17, 2.76. 2.18 and 3.85 times respectively. In 1979-81, with 43.000 tractors. Algeria was the leading mechanized country in Africa (after South Africa) and well ahead of Tunisia (34,000) and Egypt (25.000).⁵

This divergent evolution between growing fixed agricultural capital accumulation and stagnation of production is not unconnected with a process of nationalization unaccompanied by any increase in the social and perhaps also technical capacity to ensure effective planning. At the time of independence, the French settlers owned over two million hectares of agricultural land in the country; 95% of their holdings averaged over 100 hectares. These lands were confiscated by the people and formed the socialist sector. In the early 1970s the Agrarian Revolution (the official expression) made it possible to take 400,000 hectares from Algerian private ownership. S. Bedrani⁶ shows convincingly that the workers in the self-managed sector, also called the socialist sector, as well as the 'agrarian revolution' sector, are really state employees, the allocation of the product and the means of production being carried out by the state and not by the workers. In other words, the vast agricultural sector owned by the state is dependent upon the state for the means of production. But, its demand for mechanized equipment is greater than the private sector's; in 1978, for example, the figures for the state sector were: tractors. 32.443: equipment for: harvesting. 29.594: for transport. 19.056, for other purposes. 22.997. Those for the private sector were: 10.053:54:20.135: 10.103: and 15, respectively.⁷

Since the USSR's experiences in the 1970s, the coexistence of a large quantity of agricultural machinery and low productivity on nationalized lands has been a common phenomenon in the agricultural history of the world: an experience shared by Algeria too.

The option in favour of intensification was, however, unavoidable in a country where each year erosion is responsible for a considerable loss of top soil, a 3% per annum population growth rate in 1960. (among the highest in the world) and where no model of industrialization makes it possible to foresee the rapid ending of unemployment. But neither was the objective of intensifying production reached. Between 1967 and 1977, cereal crops yields (which account for 30% of the weighting in the agricultural production index) fluctuated around six quintals per hectare, as in 1955. No sustained upward trend of yields of pulses emerged in the early 1980s; they were rather diminishing. It is only in the case of so-called industrial crops that, despite fluctuations, yields have increased considerably, rising from 38.8 quintals per hectare in 1967 to 86.5 in 1977.

These meagre results in the evolution of yields partly explain the instability of the demand for fertilizers and pesticides. In a country which has chosen the Western rather than the Chinese model of accumulation in agriculture, the consumption of commercial fertilizers is an important indicator of their effects on yields. But in Algeria, per capita consumption was unstable during the 1970s, with a very marked downward trend for phosphate and nitrogenous fertilizers. For the years 1972-74 the consumption, in metric tons per inhabitant was: Nitrogenous fertilizers. 7.82, phosphates. 6.75: potash, 5.53; and insecticides. 0.23. For the years 1979-81, consumption was: 8.10; 5.53: 3.01; and 0.25, respectively.⁸ It is also a feature of nationalized agriculture to consume agricultural equipment more easily than the components that combine to increase greater intensity of labour time (not to be confused with greater intensity of labour).

The failure of intensification led to the failure of employment. By 1977, the employed rural population represented only 53.5% of the total employed population, whereas in 1966 58.23% of male employment was in agriculture, a percentage that fell to 31% in 1977. In the rural areas, agricultural activity occupied only 50% of the population. Rural processing industry was still embryonic since it employed only 7% of this population as against 16% in construction and public works and 10% in administration and services. That is better than in many African countries. Nevertheless, here is an agriculture whose quest for accelerated growth through mechanization has led to a very rapid reduction in the rural agricultural population, but the growth of industrial employment has been insufficient to absorb all the working age population. Emigration remains one solution to the problem found by the ruling elite. According to the 1955 French census, the tote] economically active Algerian population in France was 308.575, representing 13% of the employed population in Algeria, this latter being estimated at 2.336,972 in 1977.⁹

The government also applied an incomes and prices policy, quite favourable to agriculture so as to limit the drift from the rural areas. Trade terms, unfavourable to agriculture before 1974, subsequently became favourable. Compared to 1969 = 100, the wearing apparel and footwear price indices (168.2) were decidedly lower than those of agricultural commodities, including the cereals (189.2). After 1974, the daily or monthly wage indices (134) for unskilled administration workers rose less rapidly than that of agricultural products (213.4).¹⁰ This incomes and prices policy failed to counter the effects of the rapid mechanization of agriculture and even faster industrialization.

One essential condition for controlling accumulation lies in achieving self-sufficiency and reducing the proportion of food imports and, particularly, by multiplying links upstream with engineering, agro-chemical and agro-biological industries.

On neither aspect is the balance-sheet satisfactory:

1. The rate of cover of food consumption by national production has continued to worsen.

2. The quality and quantity of statistical information provided by the Ministry of Planning and Regional Development are remarkable. Using those contained in the table of inter-industrial exchanges in 1974, it is possible to see the degree of agriculture's integration in industry in the mid-1970s. The year 1974, however, was exceptionally favourable to raw material prices. The effect of the quadrupling of the oil price suddenly overwhelmed the importance of other products in the national economy. Nevertheless' the orders of magnitude are respected.

We shall distinguish self-provisioning by the agricultural sector, intermediate industrial consumption and machinery, and finally the linkages with the foodstuff and other industries. Table 11.1 enables us to make the following observations. In value, agricultural self-provisioning is far ahead (41%), followed by the chemical industries 20% and engineering industries (11%). The modest share of hydrocarbons and water (8%) is largely explained by the fact that these products are delivered to agriculture at subsidized rates.

Table 11.1

Agricultural inputs by type (1974)

	Values (million AD)	%
Self-provisioning	489.8	41.2
Hydrocarbons and water	98.8	8.3
Chemical industries (fertilizers)	246.5	20.7
Transport and services supplied to enterprises	93.6	7.8
Food and agricultural industries	112.3	9.4
Steel, engineering and electrical industries	133.4	11.2
Various	12.8	100

Source: Algeria, Ministère du Planification, Annuaire Statistique de l'Algérie 1977-78.

What is the rate of self-sufficiency upstream? In 1974. Algeria imported some 2,181 million dinars of agricultural machinery and equipment, or 24% of the value of steel and engineering products imported, and over 16 times the value of amortization of the agricultural machinery used the same year. In short, the upstream linkages from agriculture to industry were stronger with foreign agro-industrial complexes than with Algerian industry: and that was the case despite steel industry growth rates of 17% between 1963 and 1973 and 8% between 1973 and 1981. While it did not result in financial dependence, because of the large volume of petroleum rent, it still remains the case that they involved a heavy technological dependence.

Table 11.2

Fertilizer production as % of consumption, 1972-74 and 1979-81

	Algeria	Cameroun	Ivory Coast	Tanzania
1972-74:
Nitrogenous	26 8	2.2	8.8	4.5
Phosphate	48 5	65.4	63.2	Nil
Potash	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
Pesticides	18.3	-2.3	52.6	-
1979-81:
Nitrogenous	8.5	2.8	20.3	9.5
Phosphate	35.6	24,1	69.7	Nil
Potash	Nil	Nil	-	-
Pesticides	18	0.01	24.9	-

Source: UN I DO. Handbook of Industrial Statistics, 1984 (adapted).

The objective of circulating constant capital was rapidly to raise the level of self-sufficiency, through the manufacture of chemical fertilizers from the plentiful raw materials available within Algeria. Table 11.2 clearly shows that the objective of improving the level of fertilizer self-sufficiency receded whereas in the Ivory Coast it improved. But self-sufficiency must not be confused with an adequate level, and rate of self-sufficiency and 'rate of control' of accumulation The self-sufficiency rate seems higher in the Ivory Coast, but it must not be forgotten that production there is directly under the control of multinational companies and that, compared to Algeria, the level of use per capita is also lower. Nevertheless, it is clear that Algeria is far from being self-sufficient in fertilizers.

In the last analysis, then, the decolonization of Algerian agriculture has failed either to achieve high growth rates to deal in the short-term at least with population growth, urbanization and rising incomes, nor to make any appreciable move towards controlling accumulation. We have suggested that the nationalization of agriculture without effective planning has a major share of responsibility for this situation. Another factor that may be even more important is the existence of oil rent, a source of wealth not arising from labour Without it, the ruling class fraction and the state would, in order to satisfy popular aspirations born of the national liberation struggle, have been obliged to adopt a more autonomous path of accumulation and a more labour-intensive strategy, or failing that, give way to other fractions which might do so. This approach would have consisted, first, in aiming at full employment, including employment of women, and simultaneously financing imports principally by exporting products produced by national labour. The importance of this last point will be considered later.

Tanzania

Tanzania became independent in conditions quite different from those in Algeria. In particular, it had not had to wage an armed struggle nor to mobilize the poorest strata of the population. Nevertheless, by 1967, important events had led the ruling strata and the state to formulate a development strategy that was rather unusual in the region. In 1967, when the dominant development theory reigned unchallenged over Africa, and before the publication (or wide diffusion on the continent) of works that were subsequently to become dependency theory and autocentred development classics, the Arusha Declaration proclaimed the need for self-reliance and African socialism. The ruling Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) noted the failure of the planning strategies implemented during the early years of independence and declared its determination to ensure that Tanzania controlled its process of accumulation, and became a socialist country simultaneously realizing high economic growth rates and a fairer distribution of access to wealth. Agriculture and the rural areas were chosen for the application of the new policy as well as for their relations with the rest of the economy and society. In what are known as the 'Dar es Salaam debates'.¹¹ there was no debate on control of accumulation in the context of the strategy and specific economic policy of African states. The debate on the economic plan remained at a very general level and concerned the nature of capital and its transformations. Tandon distinguishes three phases, not combined but successive: the first saw a debate between progressives and reactionaries which ended in the elimination of structured reactionary thought in the University: the second saw a debate between advocates of dependency theory and supporters of bourgeois political economy, which ended in the latter's defeat; and the third, a debate within the left, ended in the return of classical Marxist thought, dependency theory advocates being classified among the neo-Marxists. In criticizing these debates, an Indian scholar saw them as taking place purely between intellectuals without concrete practice. My own opinion is that above all the debates missed a good opportunity to draw up a balance sheet of the experience from the viewpoint of the left, not only at the general but also at the sectoral level and, specifically, the level of agriculture.

That the left critique did not bear directly on the Tanzanian development strategy left the field open to international big capital to make its own diagnosis of the crisis and propose solutions to its own advantage. That is the meaning of the critique of the right which, although it had left the University, as Tandon stresses, is still very active in practice: through pressure on the government from institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank; in theory: by making new proposals to maximize growth rates, especially by giving priority to export crops.¹²

In so far as this domination by the interests of capital both in theory and practice hampers the development of struggles for a more autonomous and popular type of development, the left critique must show the real limits of the endeavours of TANU and its state. This was an invitation to the protagonists in the 'Dar es Salaam debates' to engage in a more detailed but theoretically oriented examination of the balance sheet and prospects of the Tanzanian experience. Noted here, are simply the results of these attempts: a) to reduce the extent to which agriculture simply acts as a provider of foreign exchange; b) to gain control of the segments of the process of accumulation: c) to change production relations in agriculture in the direction of nationalization

Attempts to reduce the role of the export sector: Since in Africa, specialization in the export of raw agricultural produce had been established by the colonialists, with all the disadvantages that involved, it seems relevant to decolonize agriculture by giving priority to those functions, linked to expansion of the domestic market and consumption Tanzania had specialized particularly in sisal and coffee production, accumulation giving pride of place to this largely settler-controlled sector. The sub-sector producing for mass consumption, in both urban and rural areas, comprised first, cereals, accounting for 30% (primarily maize, followed by sorghum and millet consumed mainly in the rural areas) and pulses; second, roots and tubers (mainly consumed in the rural areas). Fresh vegetables, fruit and meat consumed in the towns can be classified as luxury items, although the size of the livestock population in Tanzania makes meat less scarce than in many other African countries.

Once the leaders had decided to reorient agricultural activities towards these latter two sectors, what happened to the evolution of production?

During the first decade of independence, that is, before the decisions arising from the Arusha Declaration had been implemented' the overall product increased regularly, while agriculture GDP and food agriculture GDP stagnated. During the second decade, the product fell by 1.9% per annum on average: per capita agriculture GDP and food agriculture GDP collapsed. On the whole, the crisis in production for the domestic market was less acute than that for export crops. In use value, production of everyday consumer goods increased remarkably.

Among cereals, production fell only for sorghum and millet despite the fact that they are the best adapted to the difficult climatic conditions. The difficulty of increasing supplies is not the cause of the decline in production, but inadequate outlets: urban dwellers do not like them. In my opinion, as I have recommended for Senegal,¹³ rehabilitation of these relatively easy to produce cereals (compared to others) is vital.

In common with virtually all African countries, there have been high growth-rates in the import-substituting foodstuffs group (fruits and vegetables, sugar, meat, and so on). Conversely, the export sector's production has totally collapsed, with the exception of cotton and tea (see Table 11.3).

Differences in growth rates primarily result from the redirection of means of production. Despite declarations in favour of a highly labour-intensive agriculture, in reality the agricultural labour force has been reallocated over wider areas. Thus, the areas devoted to cereals, roots, tubers and pulses increased by 61% (from 2.75 to 4.46 million hectares) between 1975 and 1980; the area under cereals alone accounted for 1.2 million hectares (43%) and 2.5 million hectares (56%).¹⁴ This extension took place with a marked shift in the deployment of labour from the externally oriented, to the domestic consumer goods sector. In 197-76 export crops covered 647.000 hectares, but in 1983 only 602,000 hectares, a 7% reduction in five years. This shift owed more to the peasants' determination to meet their own food needs than to the authorities' determination to reduce the proportion of exports.

Table 11.3

Tanzania: Main export crop production - target and actual -1969-74 and 1976-81 (% growth per annum)

	First five-year plan (1969-74)		Second five-year plan (1976-81)
	Target	Actual	Target	Actual
Coffee	6	-3.1	7.5	2.5
Cotton	16	-2	14.4	-0.1
Sisal	0.2	-6	17.5	-0.7
Cashewnut	10	7	14.2	-6.9
Tea	9	5.8	12.1	4
Tobacco	25	10	18.8	0.1
Pyrethrum	4	1.6	25.2	-4.4

Source: Ellen Hanack.

In fact, as Table 11.3 shows, if the government's export sector target, set in the two five-year plans had been reached, clearly, the declines we have noted would not have occurred. Industrialization, too, through the creation of agricultural processing industries was a priority targetted in the 1976-81 five-year plan.

The fall in export production was not as a result of a political choice made possible by, for example, oil rent, as in Algeria. In Tanzania, the peasants' choice of producing for the domestic market resulted from their determination to give priority to their own subsistence needs, and the government's difficulties in easily importing cereals. Consequently, between 1974-76 and 1983, yields per hectare increased in the production of mass consumer goods and some vegetables, but export crop yields fell. This fall was accompanied by the reallocation of the most fertile land at the expense of export crops.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that increased yields in food crops were due less to intensive techniques and manpower than to the fact that, as a result of the villagization policy, mechanization was being applied to relatively virgin lands. The collectivization policy of the years 1969-73 and the villagization policy moved toward mechanization, at least for land clearing and ploughing. First, because mechanization was intended as an incentive for people to join the ujamaa collective farms; and secondly, because villagization would have led to the adoption of intensive techniques only if resettlement had been carried out on irrigated lands, and this was not possible on a significant scale.

Therefore despite the decline in the quantity of imports (partly because of the balance of payments crisis) the number of tractors increased by more than 1,000 between 1970 and 1980, keeping Tanzanian agriculture among the most highly mechanized on the continent. In 1980, there were 18,600 mechanized units in Tanzania, almost as many as in Zimbabwe (20,000 units) and nearly four times those in the Ivory Coast (3.001) units), Malawi (1.200 units) and Cameroun (572 units) combined.

As a result of the very large quantity of arable land available per inhabitant in Tanzania, the adoption of low-intensive land-use techniques can, in the long run, be beneficial. For an African government to increase agricultural production within a reasonable time-span, without involvement with transnationals that dominate the fertilizer and high yield seed markets, it cannot avoid temporarily adopting such land-use techniques.

The fall in agricultural and food production during the second decade of independence meant of course that food dependence increased. In 1970, Tanzania was largely self-sufficient in food and food imports represented only 9.5% of exports by value of agricultural produce. The situation deteriorated seriously between 1975 and 1980, and by 1980 the ratio had fallen to 37%, with more and more imports of cereals. At the same time, the capacity to finance these imports fell sharply: in 1982, the grant element in the quantity of imported cereals was 70% as against 34% in 1974-75.

Attempt to control segments of accumulation: If the growth of products and yields was not very strong, it can be argued that this was not the most important objective. According to Y. Rweyemamu, the Arusha Declaration and Mwongozo saw development not simply as a process of accumulation, that is as increasing the Tanzanian economy's capacity to produce, but as a process of realizing an overall project with self-reliance and socialism as its twin pillars.¹⁵ What happened to self-reliance? In a young agriculture self-reliance can be applied either at the level of self-sufficiency in what is produced or at the level of self-sufficiency in the conditions of production. Thus, export receipts were diminishing, dependence on food imports was continuing: this was associated with a dependence in the process of accumulation. To understand this, it must be recalled that the model of industrialization envisaged in the Arusha Declaration is very close to the Algerian model.

The launching of the Second Five-year Plan 1976-81 was preceded by major debates within TANU, in which supporters of a strategy guided by the concept of 'industrializing industries'¹⁶ (as in Algeria at the time) were pitted against advocates of a strategy based on processing raw materials (an alternative never seriously contemplated in Algeria). Analysis of the available statistics indicates that the advocates constructing 'industrializing industries" won out, without the policy of processing for export being abandoned or even considered as non-priority.

The fact that between 1967 and 1979 the proportion of fixed capital (other than transport equipment) in imports rose from 23.7% to 46%, while the proportion of final consumption fell from 35.6% to 13,8%,¹⁷ not only shows the development of the first stage of an import-substitution industry but also reflects the desire to build up basic industry.

Yet in no sense was this an industry in the service of agriculture: the most one can note is a small chemical fertilizer industry. Both consumption and production of chemical fertilizers remain very limited, which explains why the rate of cover of consumption by national production (40-50%) may appear comparable to Algeria's, while the absolute figures are very different. This industry's crisis is particularly serious: 3.000 metric tons in 1982-83 as against 65,000 metric tons in 1981-82.¹⁸

Generally speaking, the foreign exchange cost of agricultural inputs rose from five million in 1970 to 32.5 million in 1981. The country's energy bill, even taking re-exports into account, remains very high, accounting for 21% of imports in 1981; due to mechanization agriculture was a significant imported-oil consumer. But moving from inputs to equipment, it can be noted that no policy of an optimal combination of mechanization and full employment of the labour force existed. The reduction in the rate of mechanization after the 1973 collectivization policy was abandoned did not lead to a reduction in the value of imported tractors, which rose from $4.7 million in 1970 to $17 million in 1981, thus increasing by a factor of 3.6 in eleven years whereas it was 2.5 in Malawi and four in Cameroun that initially, had been far less mechanized.¹⁹ In short, it cannot be said that even a beginning had been made in gaining control of the technological conditions of accumulation.

The Arusha Declaration laid great stress on the need to gain control of the financing of accumulation by emphasizing the dangers of dependence in these terms: 'Independence cannot be real if a nation depends upon gifts and loans from another for its development... It is true that loans are better than "free gifts".'

But Tanzania is one of the Third World countries most dependent on external financial flows and technical assistance on favourable terms. UNCTAD points out that 'over the last decade. 40% of Tanzania's public expenditures have been covered by external resources'.²⁰ In 1982, it received 10% of all aid for the 36 'least developed countries' (LDCs). In the same year, external aid represented 75% of imports as against 43% for LDCs as a whole. Even on a per capita basis. Tanzania came first that year with US$ 44 as against 36 for Mali and 24 for Malawi.²¹

External debt service figures for 1970 compared to those for 1982, looked modest with a not too rapid increase compared to that of underdeveloped countries as a whole and even less than that of the LDCs (Table 11.4).

Unlike debt servicing, compared to 1970, the balance of payments had considerably deteriorated. The main reason for this was the particularly favourable terms of the financial flows into Tanzania. This 'generosity' in aid had three harmful consequences: 1) it allowed Tanzania to pursue an investment policy not necessarily in accordance with the imperative of full employment: 2) it enabled the avoidance of proper integration of debt service into planning: and 3) with this external aid diminishing, the country had to accept its creditors' conditions, which demanded that the socialist features in the agricultural policy must be abandoned.

Table 11.4

Tanzania: Current account balance and external public debt service in comparative perspective: 1970 and 1982

	Current account balance (US$ millions)		Debt service
			% GNP		% Export receipts
	1970	1982	1970	1982	1970	1982
Tanzania	-36	-268	1.2	1.1	4.9	5.1
LDCs' average less China & India		1.5	1.6	5.7	9.9
Middle income oil importing countries' average		1.5	3.8	9.2	15.9

Source: World Bank, World Development Report 1984.

Attempts to nationalize agriculture: The socialist doctrine of TANU, is one aimed at exploitation- against private capital and for state capitalism. This doctrine does not imply peasants' end workers' political control of the state apparatus. During an interview some months after the adoption of the Arusha Declaration. Julius Nyerere said: 'for us nationalization means socialism.'²³ Socialism would thus exist with the surplus contributed directly to the state, or foreign private capital in the form of transnational corporations, and sees itself as incompatible only with the formation of a stratum of nationals living off the surplus in the form of rent (from land or other property) or profit. The concept of rentier employed to bar nationals from business is indeed very close to the narrow meaning given it by Joan Robinson: that shareholders who are not managers of companies are in fact rentiers, just like the holders of bonds and the owners of immovable property. It is thus natural to say that 'e genuine TANU leader must not live off the sweat of another man, nor commit any feudalistic or capitalistic actions'.²³

According to Nyerere's doctrine, it is not necessary to be a rentier or a capitalist to exploit other men or women; some inequalities may be the same as exploitation.

There are two possible ways of dividing the people in our country. We can put the capitalists and feudalists on one side, and the farmers and workers on the other. But we can also divide the people into urban dwellers on one side and [rural dwellers] on the other. If we are not careful we might get to the position where the real exploitation in Tanzania is that of the town dwellers exploiting the peasants.²⁴

The principal means of eliminating the three possible forms of exploitation (capitalist, feudal, and exploitation of the countryside by the towns) is the formation of a dominant state sector, with nationalization being synonymous with socialization. To what extent principles been was this effected, and what have been the results in agriculture?

In 1958, three years before independence, on the subject of private ownership of land Nyerere wrote: 'if we allow land to be sold like a robe, within a short period there would only be a few Africans possessing land in Tanganyika and all the others would be tenants.'²⁵ At that time, the most fertile African lands had been appropriated by foreigners. In 1959, European and Asian settlers, who formed barely 1.3% of the total population, owned 1,270,000 hectares and the Africans 1,800,000. And, 'since the most fertile lands went to the Europeans, the Africans were driven back to the areas least suited to crops',²⁶ as in the settler colonies.

At the same time, African agrarian capitalism was developing in regions where commercial crops were widely grown. In the Imani region, for example, where this movement began in the early 1950s, Awiti has demonstrated the existence of three quite distinct social classes: capitalists' petty capitalists and poor peasants. He showed how, in this region, where maize is the principal cash crop' the big kulaks (9% of the 349 households counted) took 53% of the 7,230 cultivated acres, all the 24 working tractors in 1970, employed 99% of the 1,175 paid labourers and took 76% of the monetary income estimated at 2,740,000 Tanzanian shillings.²⁷ According to Awiti this capitalist class also had ideological power and was 'opposed to socialism for both material and ideological reasons'.

Private capitalists (Arabs and Indians) who controlled the marketing networks for agricultural products as well as big international capital did not favour the abolition of exploitation. Forces in favour of state capitalism (African socialism, according to TANU) had' however, successfully procured the adoption of the 14 February 1962 law abolishing private ownership of land: in short, ground rent and land dealings were prohibited. But the great period of Tanzanian socialism was from 1967 to 1973, marked by the formation of ujamaa villages, with a strong trend towards voluntary collectivization. The state promoted collective farms by indirect means: priority in securing credit, state assistance, provision of technical services, tractors on credit, and so on.²⁷ Prior to the Arusha Declaration, the first priority was to state farms, followed by private capitalism. Moreover, before the implementation of the Arusha Declaration's principles, the World Bank played a leading role in the country's development strategy by drawing up basic development texts.

The ujamaa village is one in which the community spirit prevails and villagers participate in economic and political decision-making. Collectivization of the means of production was voluntary, obviously therefore it was the poor peasants who were most interested in its extension and expanded reproduction. This presupposed that the class struggle would be intensified and lead to a great social upheaval, and also that the means of production would be mainly of national origin. Finally' it presupposed that the law of value did not operate in all relations with other sectors of the economy, notably in marketing and supplies. In short, the success of the experiment presupposed delinking and a decisive intervention in political life by the poor in the framework of an autocentred development strategy. But, the leaders did not choose this alternative option. Perhaps conditions were not ripe for it. Whatever the case, the question that arose was, what agrarian system should follow that of the ujamaa villages system? A return to the pre-Arusha model? Or further nationalization?

The official objective of villagization was, as has already been noted, to regroup an excessively scattered population in order to reduce the costs of providing basic communication services, drinking water, education and health services. The idea of collectivizing production in the framework of these villages was rejected. Stress was put on the need to increase production through agricultural policies typical of developed capitalism, prices and exchange rate policies. In short, in future there would be no further basic questioning of the principle of capitalist agricultural production: advocates of ujamaa socialism were thus beaten on this front too.

What about the problem of the capitalist middlemen with whom the state had no desire to share the agricultural surplus? The state could have won its gamble only if production had increased considerably, and this did not happen. In a situation of shortage, the parallel market developed - particularly in the marketing of food crops -and became if not legal at least legitimate. As Table 11.5 shows, the proportion of food crops delivered to the official marketing channels continued to fall as people turned to private channels.

Table 11.5
Tanzania: Food product deliveries to official marketing channels
('000 metric tons)

	1978-79	1979-80	1980-81
Maize	223	160	105
Rice	52	30	5
Wheat	28	26	26
Millet	40	17
Sorghum	58	21

Source. H. Mapulo. Imperialism the State and the Peasantry in Tanzania UNITAR. Dakar 1984.

In the last analysis, if the development of private capitalism is synonymous with the development of exploitation, it can be said that according to TANU's own criteria, the policy of reducing exploitation has failed, However, it must be noted that there is no unanimous agreement on the notion of a proletariat. Mapulo's opinion that the trend is towards turning peasants into de facto wage-labourers in the development villages, must be further qualified. Is this a de facto state wage-labour force or private capital (both local capital and transnationals) labour-force? More fundamentally, as Tanzania remains in the capitalist system, is it right to allow kulakization to develop? In my opinion, even when delinking is achieved, a limited and controlled kulakization must not be condemned on a priori grounds, as it is not necessarily opposed to a well-managed process of socialization.

Failing the development of socialist relations of production, is there at least a tendency towards socialism in distribution? Since' overall, labour productivity has not risen and yields have only marginally increased, the objective of raising the monetary incomes of the peasantry has not been attained' indeed quite the reverse. The fact is that trade terms were very unfavourable to small producers during the 1970s (23% between 1969-70 and 1978-79).

This regression of rural incomes was not necessarily accompanied by any relative deterioration in living conditions in the countryside. Thus compared to some African countries with comparable income levels. Tanzania led in achievements such as literacy, primary school enrolment, access to drinking water, calorie consumption per diem, relatively low infant mortality rates.²⁸

The villagization policy obviously played a stabilizing role by reducing the costs of delivering certain services. Mapulo²⁹ considers this to be the most ambitious programme ever carried out in Africa. It has no equivalent in Africa and few countries in the world have succeeded in carrying out such an operation so rapidly. If, however, it may be considered that the villagization policy reduced the relative gap between the rural areas and Dar es Salaam achievements remain fragile, with the decline in external aid, combined with the stagnation or even regression of economic activity as serious threats. Privatization might well accelerate the process of deterioration.

To conclude, in both Tanzania and Algeria even if the effort accomplished on the social level is very significant and must be preserved' the achievement of self-reliance and socialism has barely begun.

Experiences of Algeria and Tanzania: Lessons to be drawn

Could these experiences, that failed to achieve the objectives the countries set for themselves, have succeeded?

Both countries' experiences were conditioned by two basic factors: 1) staying within the capitalist system such as it functions worldwide with no hope of seriously altering its basic laws. Even between 1974 and 1976, the high point of the struggle for the new international economic order (NIEO), to believe that North-South relations could be modified by the replacement of links of dependence by links of interdependence suggested either naively or delusion. But the dominant fractions of the ruling classes that drew up the agricultural policies analysed here acted as if they could remove agriculture from the logic of the global functioning of the system into which their economies and their agricultures were integrated. They made two fundamental mistakes: they overestimated the capacity of the state to centralize the surplus: and they underestimated the role of property relations in agriculture during the transition period.

For these elites, the state could centralize the surplus and devote it to accumulation without arousing insurmountable contradictions in the global system where such a use necessarily involved capital owned by businesses competing with one another. They believed that the state's legal ownership of the means of production was enough to give it a sufficient social and technical capacity to ensure the transition from the position of peripheral economic formation to one of central formation. This was to forget that this happens only when nationalization is a part of the processes necessary for this transition (which requires delinking) and in itself is not a sufficient condition.

The second erroneous conception concerns the place of private ownership and even petty agricultural capitalism during the transition period, when three models are conceivable: large-scale state ownership, co-operative ownership of labour and hence of the land, small-scale private ownership which may include limited kulakization, the state having the means to direct production towards the realization of national and popular objectives. The essential question is: what model is best adapted to the imperative of controlling the process of accumulation? Obviously, there is no single answer, especially as in reality the three models can co-exist. In each concrete case, the problematic of the dominant model must be resolved.

If the first model is dominant in a typical African country (that is non-industrialized and with a low and unadapted technological capacity) it will have great difficulty in ensuring technical and financial control of its agriculture. Moreover, to turn the peasants into wage workers prematurely involves costs that the economy cannot sustain.

If the collectivization of property encounters a great deal of resistance, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the main reason is, that outside Ethiopia, communal appropriation of the land without the labour has been the rule in the history of the peoples of these areas. There has thus been no expropriation which would prepare the 'Landless' to accept collective ownership in preference to private ownership.

Integration into the world capitalist system has only modified mentalities and behaviour in this respect in a few areas of southern Africa. In relation to the problem of gaining control of the process of accumulation, one advantage of collective ownership is that it facilitates mobilization of the labour force for large-scale public works, as in the people's communes in China. This model may, however, be enduringly dominant only if the whole of the social formation delinks from the dominant system. If it fails to do so, the effects may be paralysing.

While the dominant model is communal ownership and limited kulakization (with no commercial alienation of agricultural land), the fact that accumulation occurs in small plots makes rapid mechanization and mobilization of the labour force for large-scale public works rather difficult. Conversely, family ownership of the land is a powerful stimulus to the adoption of land- and labour-intensive techniques. Generally, states fear the predominance of this model because of the autonomy it allows to peasants. But it has advantages, the most important of which is that it avoids the emergence of a gap between urban and rural incomes, if the peasants enjoy ample freedom to organize. It can, of course, co-exist with service co-operatives.

Whatever the dominant agricultural model chosen, remaining in the capitalist system whose basic laws cannot be modified, when it those very laws that block the process of an accumulation controlled in the periphery, constitutes an insurmountable obstacle.

If Algeria and Tanzania were, despite everything, able to attempt developing an autonomous agriculture in economies that were not autonomous, it is because of special circumstances: the possibility of having financial means of accumulation that did not result from national labour, whether agricultural or industrial. Algeria had oil rent, and Tanzania, as we have seen, had access to particularly large-scale external 'aid'. From this point of view, the availability of these un-produced riches led the elites to adopt development strategies in general and agricultural strategies in particular that may have postponed, rather than hastened, the objective of the transition to development.

Financing accumulation in agriculture with receipts from mineral or energy resources exports can lead only to the breakdown of agriculture. The centralized character of the rent automatically reinforces those fractions within the ruling classes that want to spend it on prestige activities, at the expense of those who want to use it as a scarce resource. In Algeria, Bedrani has distinguished two groups: within the state, an industrialist fraction, advocates of decentralizing decision-making and efficiency, and an 'agricultural' fraction (in the sense that it prepares and executes agricultural policy, not that it represents the interests of agriculture) that advocates waste. He considers that the struggle between the two fractions for control of profits or the surplus 'wins out over the logic of increasing production, which is the aim of development strategy.³⁰

In my opinion, this happens because, by its nature, oil rent strengthens the position of the fractions in favour of expenditure, since it accumulates by itself without really resulting from labour. Going beyond most Algerian researchers. I would claim that the proposal to finance accumulation by oil receipts bore within it the seeds of the subsequent crisis of Algerian agriculture. The existence of this rent made possible the political marginalization of that fraction of the population - the landless peasantry and the small-holders which had fought most for national liberation.

It made possible the formation of the important stabilizing stratum of permanent wage-workers and co-operative members in the state agricultural sector. But, according to Bedrani, these wage-earners are not sufficiently productive since the management system established 'enables them to develop a greater range of capacities to resist the exploitation of their labour than under the lash of the settler'.³¹

Tanzania had the possibility of obtaining massive aid from abroad, this aid also acted as a rent. It strengthened the power of the class fraction that advocated ignoring both the objective of full employment of the labour force and the development of export crops. In the initial phase of the transition, Tanzania could finance its purchases abroad only by exporting agricultural commodities; that was simple common sense. This effort is perhaps all the more vital in countries that have chosen to give priority to the food sector than in those that have chosen to place the main stress on export commodities.

For a progressive African country that does not want to take the Algerian or Tanzanian path, a gradual delinking is essential. Delinking will make it possible to draw up a model for income distribution and a model for controlling consumption; it will make it possible to envisage full employment of the labour force and gradually to create new production capacities. In such a model, and in a first stage, most vital imports will be paid for by export receipts from agricultural commodities, in the broad sense, and craft products. In so doing' the country will naturally be a victim of unequal exchange, but unequal exchange causes the reproduction of underdevelopment only for countries that have not delinked. In the problematic of delinking, the use value of imported items plays a more important role than the exchange value.

From the preceding discussion, it follows that planning cannot be reduced to a global exercise and sectoral planning cannot be considered principally from a technical angle. A planning process is characterized first by the dominant mode of production and the socio-economic system of which it is part, and second by the socio-economic or even political content of its objectives: its techniques, which often change rapidly with information and the trade cycle, come only in third place.

a) Let us take the experiences of the central capitalist countries. Since the Second World War, economic policies to promote or diminish growth have been remarkably effective at the national level and even in the regional framework, as the example of the EEC shows. They enabled decolonization to succeed, and avoided an economic Bandung after 1973 by considerably reducing the growing elasticity of raw materials and energy sources. In short, those countries succeeded in overcoming the contradictions between growing socialization and maintaining decentralized decision-making over the allocation of productive forces, between the world scope of accumulation and the national dimension of political struggles. Even when they were taken by surprise by the countries in the periphery, they succeeded in turning the situation round in their favour. The same happened when the social upheavals of 1968 almost demolished capitalism in some countries, such as France. It is in this context that the effectiveness of techniques and even the relevance of theoretical analyses must be situated.

During each phase, the objective of economic policy was to maintain the mode of production and the capitalist system. The concrete objective was to ensure the local domination of a capitalist class. During the long phase of growth which ended in 1975, the tools used were above all Keynesian, and they were applied essentially nationally; the forecasts bore only on a single alternative, as if the future was known (in fact, comparable growth rates and a great expansion of trade justified this hypothesis as regards the future). Since the beginning of the present crisis, techniques have been changing. Instead of stressing those that legitimize the maximization of demand (Fordism), stress is put on those that minimize the costs of production (supply-side economics).

In planning, the fact that the laws of capitalism have a worldwide character is increasingly taken into account: an approach inaugurated by the Club of Rome. The technique of the choice of the single alternative was replaced by the technique of the simulation of several scenarios, of which one is desirable. It is an error to deduce, as does Jacquemot.³² from these technical changes the conclusion that there is a crisis of planning of accumulation in the centre, since we may observe that even during the current crisis the central countries continue to control the process of accumulation at the level of the system and to produce techniques adapted to circumstances: that is the main point.

To return to agriculture. Following the Second World War, this sub-sector experienced unprecedented advances in productivity. The result was a fall in the value of the labour force, a fall favourable to accumulation. Conversely, spontaneous evolution led to the emergence of a gap between urban and rural incomes, leading to an excessively large drift from the rural areas. The solution was found in the expansion of demand through. 1) the development of an industry capable of endlessly diversifying how food was packaged; and. 2) the quest for external outlets. These policies succeeded so well that they created a phase marked by surpluses of food products, which could only be absorbed by the periphery. This new situation was one of the key causes of the crisis of agriculture in the periphery, particularly in Africa.³³

Where does this capacity for self-regulation of accumulation, even through crises, come from? Apologists of the system put forward theoretical or technical arguments. For them, better knowledge of the workings of economies made possible by Keynesianis, for example, and more abundant and better processed statistical information played vital roles. In reality, the theories concerned and the tools that they make it possible to use, derive their effectiveness above all from the autocentred character of the economies to which they are applied. Proof of this is that technical forms of planning vary greatly from country to country. France adopted a highly formalized approach, both in the technical preparation and in the political co-operation between state, employers and trade unions. Japan has no formal plan but undeniably it is perhaps one of the most planned countries in the world, thanks to its Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).³⁴ In the United States there is apparently neither global nor sectoral economic planning, but the press tells US every day that the level of cereal and dairy production there is determined to a large degree by the government's political decisions. The examples show, a plan need be neither formal nor public. Alongside these often informal, but effective, planning systems, are the sometimes very formal but ineffective plans of African countries.

The content of the planning system in Africa is provided by the extraverted character of the economies, and the social and technical weakness of the ruling classes in matters of accumulation. The continent specialized in the export of agricultural, mineral or energy products in the framework of very small nations. Impoverishment and the tendency towards a structural imbalance of payments and even of public finances are the result.³⁵ It follows that the objectives of planning are not necessarily given by a structure to be reproduced. Two alternatives are possible: to accept this subordinate specialization and impoverishment of peoples, or to challenge them root and branch.

When new leaders accept the colonial model of accumulation the technical exercises of planning at the macro-economic and sectoral level are of no interest. Absence of control of the conditions of accumulation means that the use of neither Keynesian nor neo-classical tools is legitimized. That is why the big international institutions that have become the de facto planners in Africa (so weak are the local social classes) propose only analytical techniques for projects that have their own logical relationship with other units of production, usually situated in the centre.

When, on the other hand, the local ruling classes want to challenge the existing status quo, their intention is not to make global planning simply an efficient exercise for creating an autonomous economic base: at the same time, however, they reject delinking. The result is confusion, for the political will for radical transformation runs up against the capitalist laws that govern the system as a whole.

Since the crisis, and above all since the worsening of the external debt situation in the early 1980s, the principal problem seems to be debt repayment. Now, there are 'structural adjustment plans', officially aimed at restoring the continent to the growth rates of the 1960s, but whose most important objective is to oblige African countries to deal with their debt by making up for the deterioration in the trade terms by increasing production. The differences between the two categories we have just distinguished are becoming blurred. The grand world-wide scenarios slot them in indifferently.

For agriculture. African planning in those countries that have chosen to continue the colonial model, has consisted in setting growth rates and seeking the means to achieve them. These rates are often irrelevant because the priorities are set by the evolution of external demand. Achievement of the rate does not necessarily mean that it results from the changes desired. 'The advantage' in this case is that the approach does not go against the underlying logic of the global system of which it is part. If it happens that the local ruling class opportunistically exploits a peak of strong external demand, success may then be wrongly attributed to the application of 'planning techniques'.

Agricultural planning in countries that have opted for 'autocentred development without delinking', like Algeria and Tanzania, also gives excessive importance to the technical exercise. In fact these regimes are more likely to accumulate productively in industry than in agriculture, which sector is the most difficult to transform for historical, sociological and psychological reasons.

The lesson on this point is clear: planning that is technically weak but is part of the framework of an autocentred development with delinking is more valuable than technically successful planning that enhances extraversion and the risks of impoverishment of the people in the long run.

We can generalize socio-economic or simply social revolutions have been attempted in the periphery of the capitalist system from Mohamed Ali's Egypt in the early 19th century to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua today, by way of Japan, the Soviet Union and China, not to mention Cuba or Vietnam. Some have been successful, others have failed. On the whole, projects whose realization required recourse to a surplus originating 'outside' local agriculture and industry- mining or petroleum rent, financial reserves accumulated over an earlier period, transit taxes or dues, external loans sometimes in the form of 'aid' to finance accumulation - have failed. In the same way, experiences that counted on capitalist markets to realize their products in the framework of the international division of labour have also failed. Without the illusion that 'the outside world' had a positive role to play, these experiences would not have been attempted. The Algerian project that we have examined rested on oil rent; so did the imperial Iranian project in the 1970s. Tanzania obviously counted on massive external aid. Looking at Nkrumah's Ghana shows that the external reserves accumulated by the country during and after the Second World War played an essential role in the Ghanaian import-substitution industrialization strategy and in the role assigned to the world market. The Nasserite project in Egypt would not have been attempted without the hopes based on receipts from the Suez Canal and Soviet aid.

These experiences bore within them the seeds of failure. First, recourse to an 'external' surplus, in the sense defined above, produces, or maintains, relations between classes, and nations, that exclude the popular classes from the exercise and control of power. The state is not obliged to organize labour nationally in order to make possible the production of a surplus. In particular, national production of food staples, which can only follow from the agricultural revolution, is not imposed as an inflexible necessity; and an accumulation that excludes the peasantry, and thus has a very narrow social base, is fragile and impossible to carry through.

Then, the allocation of this 'surplus' necessarily pays special attention to the needs of social strata that want a model of accumulation involving either a model of social organization imposed from outside (large-scale external aid), or a model of technical articulation that encourages the import of technological packages (equipment, organizers, management models). This simply means that this allocation 'marginalizes' rural activity. The concentration of incomes, and of the power of access to services and goods as well as political power, resulting from this deepens instead of reducing the inequalities of productivity and incomes.

Worse, the more a project for transition counting on an unproduced source of financing (Nasser's Egypt. Boumédienne's Algeria, or the Shah's Iran) is consistent, the more its implementation involves the formation of an arrogant bureaucracy or even technocracy, incapable of satisfying the popular cultural demand. The cultural content of these experiences is in general very poor, oscillating between out and out Westernization and withdrawal into the past. The people's impression may then be that not only are they failing to materially en joy the fruits of transformations (which may indeed be very rapid), but also that they are losing their cultural identity. They may equally become a mass to be manipulated by groups with an objective interest in the perpetuation of underdevelopment, and also for the fundamentalist ideologues of all persuasions. The upshot then is that for two or three decades the state once again becomes a comprador state and the people wait for a 'strong' man to come and restore the situation.

In short, if one of the factors that we have listed as 'external' intervenes significantly in the conception of the transition strategy, the delinking will not be embarked upon.

In my view, it is thus possible to know whether a country is embarked on the path to transition out of the periphery. To do so, it is enough to observe how it expects to finance the increase in agricultural productivity, how its industrialization drive is oriented in relation to agriculture and what is its technological policy. If the increase in agricultural and industrial productivity, based on massive recourse to domestic know-how combined with selective importation of technology, is financed by the agricultural and industrial surplus, there may be reason to assume that the transition is underway. Both Japan³⁶ and China or North Korea did this. Is it still possible?

The principal non-social constraint lies in the size of the country. For military as well reasons of economies of scale some authors consider that a population of at least 50 million is needed. In Africa, in that case, only a few countries are in a position to delink: Nigeria. Egypt, Ethiopia. Zaire. South Africa. Tanzania and, soon. Morocco and Algeria. In reality, this constraint is not absolute. Given certain conditions, countries with smaller populations can embark on the transition: the size of the population constitutes an absolute constraint only for countries with fewer than one million inhabitants. Whatever the case, political regroupings in Africa would make it possible to remove this constraint. For this reason, pan-Africanism remains an ideology of the future, conditional upon it becoming purged of its purely demagogic aspect.

The basic constraint is, of course, socio-political. To count only on the values produced through the full employment of the national labour force is possible only if the state becomes a national one, because it rests on a broad consensus that itself results from popular participation in the exercise of power, l his consensus, obtained on concrete questions touching on austerity, cultural orientation, distribution of the power of access to goods and services, is essential. Can it emerge only from a popular movement or can it be generated from the top? Because of the often repressive character of most present-day states and their subordination to the international system that sustains them, what characteristics will popular struggles, purged of all trace of fundamentalism, take on? These are questions to which it would be presumptuous to provide answers with assurance in a situation marked by the fact that, officially and with great fanfare, imperialist states are financing movements designed to destabilize progressive governments and, unofficially, wars between countries in the South and civil wars, the objective being in some cases the dismemberment of nations. But the forces favourable to delinking and an agricultural revolution conceived in a perspective of global development are at work on the continent.

Notes

1. Samir Amin. 'Questions posées par l'analyse de l'expansion mondiale du capitalisme'. UNU. Dakar. September 19X5, pp. 15-16.

2. Algeria. Ministère du Planification. Annuaire statistique de l'Algérie, 1977-78, p. 292.

3. UNCTAD. Handbook of Trade, 1980.

4. FAO. World Food Situation, 1983, annexes.

5. FAO. Production Yearbook, 1982.

6. S. Bedrani. L'Agriculture algérienne depuis 1966. Algiers. OPU.

7. Ministère de la Planification et de l'Aménagement du Territoire, Annuaire statistique de l'Algérie, 1977-78p. 171.

8. FAO. Fertilizer Yearbook, 1983.

9. Algeria. Ministère du Plan. Annuaire statistique. 1978.

10. Ibid.

11. Yash Tandon. 'Arguments within African Marxism: the Dar es Salaam debates'. Journal of African Marxists. 5. February 1984.

12. E. Hanack has applied the World Bank/lMF scenario to Tanzania in 'The Tanzanian balance of payments crisis: causes, consequences and lessons for a survival strategy', ERB paper 81-1.

13. B. Founou-Tchuigoua. 'Stratégie d'autosuffisance alimentaire et choix d'une cérále prioritaire au Sénégal'. World Congress of Sociology. Mexico. 1980.

14. FAO. Production Yearbook. 1983.

15. Y. Rweyamamu summarized this thesis in 'A neglected relation between agriculture and industry'. IDEP, 1975.

16. Ibid.

17. Ellen Hanack. l 8. FAO. Fertilizer Yearbook. 1983.

19. FAO. Trade Yearbook, 1975 and Trade Yearbook, 1982.

20. UNCTAD. The Least Developed Countries, Report. 1984.

21. Ibid.

22. Interview with Jeune Afrique, 326.9 April 1967, p. 21.

23. Arusha Declaration. Part two.

24. Ibid.. Part three.

25. J. Nyerere. 'National property', in Freedom and Unity, OUP 1966, as cited in A. Coulson. 1974, p. 79.

26. Sylvain Uffer. Ujamaa, espoir du socialisme africain en Tanzanie. Aubier, p 45.

27. Adhu Awiti. 'Luttes des classes dans la société rurale en Tanzanie, une étude de cas de Ismani-lringa', in Agriculture africaine et capitalisme, Anthropos 1975, p. 28.

28. René Dumont, interview with Demain l'Afrique, 45, 28 January 1980.

29. Henry Mapulo. 'Imperialism, the State and the peasantry in Tanzania'. UNU.. Dakar. January 1984. This paper is now Chapter 8 of this book.

30. Ibid.

31. Bedrani, op, cit.

32. Ibid.. p. 267.

33. Jacquemot, 'Crise et renouveau de la planification', Le Soleil. 20 August 1985, previously published in Revue Tiers Monde.

34. Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua, 'Crise agro-alimentaire africaine', IRES, Kinshasa, Lettre mensuelle, 8-9, 1983.

35. Samir Amin. Unequal Development.

36. Japan applied delinking between 1608 and 1945. China after 1945.