THE ROOTS OF RURAL POVERTY
IN CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AFRICA
                   M. Hubbard
             (Dept. of Economics UBS)
           This book is the latest contribution of a
vigorous historical    school which has f,Town UP dud 01' thfJ
1970' s, inspired by the study of the 'deve1opmrmt of
underdevelopment',    begun in Latin America in the 1960's.
In Southern Africa this study was initiated by Arrir,hi's
seminal work (1970) on the proletarianization     of the
Rhodesian peasantry.     The research has gathered pace
ever since, ranginf, over a wide historical field - from
precolonial economic formations to the development of
secondary industry.     A unifying theme throughout has been
the course of underdevelopment    of African Precolonial
societies through their contact with international
capitalism.   It is this theme which the present work
addresses directly, and to Which it makes a major contri-
but ion _ not sO much in the originality of all the
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          since   several of them h~lve been published            before,
of t!H eountrif}S    of Central   a~}d ijout?lern  AfricaJ      Hnd in
the integration     of the sepgrate    studies    into  9.   \oJhole
throuvh careful edit.in,,,, "nl~ a detailed :i ::troQuction.
            Perh~ps   the ~reptest    vAlue   of  the  work     is in
exte'clin'~ orI'; co~ro})Orati!I~1from    the  experience       of  a
varj~ty of Precolonial      st~teB, th~ essential          pArt of the
earlier findin~s of ArriRhi (1970) and Bundy (1971) _
namely trHott1-te   process of un"erdeveloprnent of precolonial
societies, in t~e face of contact with capitalism,                 has
been uneven.      In general, the pattern suzgested by the
majority of the studies is one of an initial stimulus to
production or trade, caused by increased market opportu-
nities (particularly during the late 19th century, as
trade links became more established and colonial infra-
structure was built), followed by economic collapse
~rring the first quarter of the 20th century _ resulting
from conquest, or natural disasters (drought, disease,
floods), or loss of markets (to imports or protected
white settler production), or declining terms of trade _
leadine to ever greater reliance upon wage employment
for earning of taxes and increased subsistence              require-
ments, ancl to stagnation of rural production.
             The emphasis throughout the work is on agricul-
tural production and its frap,-ilityin pre-colonial
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societies.     Although the stimulus to increased produc~
tion/trade in the early phase was by no means always
agricultural     (for example, it took the form of hunting
and plunder in the case of the West Central African
ivory and slave trades), the decline usually became an
agricultural matter - owing in no small part to the
 corcatenation of natural disasters during the period.
 The failure of agriculture to recover is the issue on
 which the historical details contained in the nturlies
 throw most light.
              However, a further point of emphasis is not
  quite so fruitful.     Beach, who in his paper on the Shona
  economy mentions that "•••       the mode of production
  is •••     divisible into branches of production, and it is
  with these that we are concerned here, rather thnn with
  the relations of production" (p. 38), seems to speak for
   many of the contributors.     The stress is on the rise and
   fall of different types of production, and on the rela-
   tion of the state to the outside world, via trade.      But
   the interdependence    of the organization of production,
   the techniques of production and the type of production.
    indicntes the importance of taking changes in each into
    account in the explanation of anyone.      Those papers
    which do take account of changing relations of production
    within the precolonial state (Young on Mozambique,
    Van Horn on Barotseland) illustrate-hOW production
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relations do affect the development of types of produc-
tion.   Further research on relations of production in the
societies concerned might thus     complement well many of
the "Roots" studies.
           A question which two of the contributors
(Soremekun and Chanock) put in rlealing with the impAct of
Western penetration is whether the stimulus to production/
trade in the pre-colonial state was associated with the
 'mercantile period' while the decline was a product of
the 'colonial period'.    'fhe content of the p'lpers
 suggests th?t this was the case - with the exception of
Chanock's paper on Halawi, in ,,,hichhe claims (~iting
Alpers' work on ivory and slaves in East Central Africa)
 that "•••    the slave/ivory trade must have been mal-
 formatory 10n~ before the introduction of a cash economy
 oriented towards Britain and South Africa." (p. 397).
Leaving aside the issue of what 'malformatory' might
 mean, the evidence from other contributors indicates that
 the decline of these   Precolonial states (or their failure
 to recover from natural disasters) was relc.ted to their
 direct political subjection to another more powerful state
 (colonial, or settler-colonial) which demanded a conti-
 nuous cash flow from them, while limiting increasinE'ly
 their revenue-earning opportunities to wage labour (by
 removing their markets and worseninp. their terms of tradeJ
           "The Roots of Rural Povertyll is essential reading
 for students of underdevelopment in Central and Southern
 Africa.
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