BOOK REVIEWS 207One of the outcomes of the violent disturbances was the decision ofthe two brothers Š Stanlake and Sketchley Š to pull out of politicalleadership.One thing that students and other researchers will find irritatingabout the book is its omission of a section on sources and bibliography.Frankly the otherwise excellent discussion in the introduction of the mainarchives used is not a substitute for the traditional bibliography.The omission, however, is minor compared to the importance of thebook. Written by one of the few accomplished and devoted scholars ofmodern Zimbabwean history, who has the further advantage of havingbeen an active participant in some of the events that are dealt with in AreWe Not Also Men?, this book will for a long time remain important readingfor both the general reader and history students in the study of the rise ofthe African middle class and of mass nationalism in Zimbabwe.University of Zimbabwe PROFESSOR NGWABI BHEBELabour Export Policy in the Development of Southern Africa By BillPaton. Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications; London, MacmillanPress Ltd., 1995, xii, 397 pp., ISBN 0-908-307-41-1, Z$100.In this book, Paton seeks to contribute to an understanding of the originsand functions of cross-border migration, and of states in the labourexporting countries of Southern Africa. The study is motivated by theneed to explicate two major propositions. The first one is that 'the evolutionof the power to control labour flows among the jurisdictions of differentterritorial administrations in Southern Africa was of major importance inthe formation of a regional system of states' (p. 3). The second one is that'the overall importance of the policies of labour-exporting administrationshas been seriously downplayed' (p. 15) in past studies of the phenomenonof labour migration in Southern Africa, hence the need for an elaborationof the various policies undertaken by the different states in managing andcontrolling labour flows in the sub-region.That the countries of Southern Africa have historically been intertwinedin a web of cheap labour circulation centred around the sub-centre of theSouth African economy (which itself is a periphery in the global economy)is a well-known fact to lay-persons and academics alike. On the politicalplane the emergence of groups such as the Southern Africa DevelopmentCommunity (SADC), the Frontline States, and the Southern Africa LabourCommission (SALC) is either directly or indirectly motivated by the needto reduce the dependency of labour exporting countries on South Africa.The belief that Southern Africa represents a unique configuration ofstates is one of the reasons there is the current paralysis in the attempt to208 BOOK REVIEWSharmonise the two regional organisations of SADC (the former SADCC ŠSouthern African Development Coordinating Conference), and COMESA(the former Preferential Trade AreaŠencompassing countries in Southern,Central and Eastern Africa).Paton is well aware of the obviousness of the issue he has decided totackle, but insists that he has something new and unique to say by way ofa contribution to an understanding of the political economy of SouthernAfrica. Paton's point of departure is the bold assertion that the majorfactor in the formation and evolution of the concept of the state among thelabour exporting countries of Southern Africa, and of the notion that thesestates together comprise a unique constellation, was the preoccupationwith controlling and managing labour flows between their countries andSouth Africa. In this regard, he criticises approaches of neo-classicaleconomics to labour migration for over-emphasising individualisticwelfare maximisation theories that more-or-less take the migrant as afree individual; and anthropological approaches that emphasise'push' and 'pull' factors in microscopic detail while losing sight ofthe larger structural environment that conditions the whole migratoryprocess.Paton locates himself within what he refers to as the historical/structural school which relates migration theory to historical explicationsof unequal development, dependency, centre-periphery relations and worldsystems approaches. Paton, however, contends that this school has alsofailed to account adequately for the manner in which the labour-exportingstates have evolved as a consequence of the migrant labour phenomenon,even if the interaction between capital and the state has been thoroughlydiscussed by this school. Paton's main reservation with regard to thehistorical/structural school, especially as reflected in the writings ofanalysts on Southern Africa, is that they have tended to see the state as aninstrument of, or as the referee between, dominant factions of capital,thereby failing to appreciate that the state may actually develop a relativedegree of autonomy in economic and labour policies quite independent ofthe needs of individual capitals per se.In reviewing the role and functions of the labour-exporting states inSouthern Africa, Paton identifies as the most interesting aspect, 'the radicalgain in state autonomy with regard to labour export, over time' (p. 19),and it is the explication of this phenomenon that preoccupies himthroughout the book, covering a century or so of the history of eightlabour-exporting countries in Southern Africa. Paton notes that while theeight countries are different, 'they are complementary, for all are part of asingle regional economy and state system'. He proceeds to observe thatthe evolution of these states is paralleled by an apparently linearprogression in labour export policy from that preoccupied by the need toBOOK REVIEWS 209satisfy the interests of metropolitan capital, to that of meeting the needsof internal capital, and eventually, to that of addressing the particularneeds of the states themselves. The bulk of the book consists of anaccount of the see-saw type oscillations in the labour export policies ofthe individual eight countries of Southern Africa covered, namely, Malawi,Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania, Lesotho, Swaziland, andBotswana, in that order.Paton argues that the major consideration in the management oflabour flows by each of the states was the need to maximise the economicreturns accruing to the state in the context of the cyclical oscillations ofinternal labour supplies induced by labour surpluses and shortages. Inthis respect, he notes that the individual labour exporting countries werenot altogether powerless with respect to influencing the nature of theresulting labour flows, but increasingly became autonomous in assertingtheir independent interests as well. Accordingly, the rest of the bookreviews the labour management policies of the individual eight countriesover a century or so of their colonial and post-colonial experiences.Paton's book is welcome and valuable for at least three reasons. First,it has brought together in one place the various historical experiences ofthe Southern African labour exporting countries for easy reference andcomparison. Second, the book has been bold enough to make explicit avery fundamental aspect of the economic intertwinement of the countriesof the sub-region as rooted in labour flows which, to a large degree, areseen to be at the heart of the unequal development among the differentcountries in the sub-region. It may be noted here that there is a tendencyby governments officially and publicly to underplay the importance ofillegal and legal labour migration as the de facto all-preponderant andpervasive mode of economic interaction among the countries of the sub-region in preference to emphasising cross-border trade and investment asthe more economically and politically correct concerns, even if this labourmigration is not only increasing but also becoming increasinglydifferentiated as well to include the intelligentsia of some countries. Aninteresting aspect of this bold assertion of the importance of labourmigration in the political economy of the countries of Southern Africa isthe demonstration of the manner in which it has been linked to unequaldevelopment among the different countries, an aspect that should be foodfor thought for those attempting to promote regional economic cooperationrather uncritically.The third contribution the book makes is that it provides a goodbackground to the re-emergence of the labour issue in Southern Africafollowing the advent of majority rule in South Africa. The issue has nowbecome more complex in that it relates to cross-border flows of both low-skilled and high-skilled or educated labour. For the former type of labour210 BOOK REVIEWSflows, the deduction from the book's analysis is that there might be a needfor states to counter-balance the maximisation of revenue from suchlabour exports with measures to ameliorate the negative repercussionsresulting from such exports as reflected in the inadvertent rural under-development that has accompanied such labour out-flows within labourexporting countries, quite apart from attempting to ensure ample suppliesof cheap labour for domestic entrepreneurs. For the latter type of labourflows which have not been addressed in the book, the emerging issueconcerns the need to recoup foregone human resource investmentsrepresented by the brain drain afflicting many of the countries. Thus thebook is quite timely in that it usefully informs on the manner in which theharmonisation of labour flows might be approached and pursued inSouthern Africa as part of the quest for mutually beneficial regionaleconomic cooperation in both the short and long runs.The book, however, has some major shortcomings. The first onerelates to the attempt to validate his first thesis, namely, the assertion thatthe development of the countries as states and as a constellation of statesis primarily related to their preoccupation with the management of labourflows within and between countries of the sub-region. In attempting todemonstrate this thesis, Paton has seized on a very simplistic and functionaldefinition of the state and its role, quite irrespective of the substantialliterature pertaining to this debate both in its generality and as related tothe African context and in its specificity with respect to particular countriesin Southern Africa.In over-emphasising the importance of labour migration in theemergence of the countries of the sub-region from colonies to states, andfrom states to nations, he has of necessity ignored the complex internaland external factors, and their dynamics, that have been at the heart ofthis evolution. More importantly, in this respect, is the fact that Paton hascompletely neglected to discuss the reactions of the Africans themselvesto the emerging domestic and sub-regional economic developments forwhich labour migration was a key facilitating factor.The evolution from colonial status to state-hood, and on to nation-hood, was characterised by the complex interplay of struggles andadaptations by the African masses, with associated reactions by therespective representatives of the state which continuously redefined bothstate-hood and nation-hood quite irrespective of the phenomenon of labourmigration, even if this may have acted as one of the major backdrops. Thiscomplex interplay of factors and forces at the social, political and economiclevels is completely ignored by the book, such that Africans are seen to bemere passive objects of the manipulations of capital and the variousstates, both colonial and post-colonial. In this respect, the book does littlejustice to the nature and content of the emergence of African nationalismBOOK REVIEWS 211and its consequent contradictions related to the unending, and seeminglyunachievable, quest for the consolidation of both state-hood and nation-hood.A second shortcoming relates to the fact that the book neglects togive the background to the issue being discussed particularly in form ofthe structure of the economies both within the context of the sub-regionaland the international division of labour. This background is taken forgranted, even if it is constantly referred to as the backdrop to the labourflows. An exposition of the economic background to the individual countriesand how they fitted into the sub-regional and international division oflabour or pattern of specialisation would have helped the reader to assessthe relative importance of the labour issue in the development of the statein each of the individual countries. This would have been important sincein some of the countries such as Zimbabwe, internal economicdevelopments were significant enough to redefine the role of the statesomewhat independently of a preoccupation with the management oflabour exports and imports per se, even if the management of internallabour supplies was nonetheless always a crucial consideration in theapartheid-type economies of Zimbabwe and South Africa and theirimmediate peripheries. In this respect also, it might be pointed out thatlabour flows were only one aspect of an emerging sub-regional economicsystem dominated by South Africa that increasingly included regionalflows of goods and services and investments primarily from the lattercountry to the other countries.In conclusion, this book is highly recommended for those wishing tohave a clearer picture of the intertwinement of the labour needs of thevarious countries of the sub-region and of their possible implications forregional cooperation and the formulation of equitable developmentstrategies within and between countries, even if the major thesis of thebook is inadequately validated and appears rather unconvincing.UNDP/ILO Lesotho GUY C. Z. MHONE