UTAFITI The intellectual and emotional ferment among East African intel1eotuals is on the point of producing some monumental works. That this particular book does not at present appear to be one of them is due to the inconsistency of the author's thought. His introduction does not prescribe the choice of questions or the way of dealing with them. He treats the Uganda stalte throughout as a goo-political unit, a structure ralther than an instrument, an umbrella under which loyalties ought to have been directed centrally but were not. What does not appear in the book is a consideration of changing modes of production, of the process of underdevelopment as the penetra- tion of capitalism in a dependent situation, and of the role of the state as a supportive instrument in all this. Finally, as the author himself once pointed out to me, historical analysis is not the same as causal analysis. I would like him to apply his adage to himself. To deal with a period of history before the event that requires explanation, and especially to omit detailed consideration of the thirty years before that event. is not necessarily to find causes. The book: appears to have the title "State Formation" because it deals with the early colonial period. but this period may not explain the continuities of Uganda's independence. If the author had studied the late ooJoniaI period he would then perhaps have seen the emerging kulaks in Bugandaand the educated bureaucrats with their ideologies of continuation. Nationalism, which the author sees as the politics of overthrowal. might then have been considered as that of men thrown upwards by the colonial process, who wish to go on ever upwards. B.D. BoWLES Justinian Rweyemamu. Underdevelopment and Industrialization in Tanzania. Oxford University Press. 1973, pp. xiv and 273, appendices, bibliography. J. F. Rweyemamu's book is a very comprehensive and penetrating an:aIysis of a dependent economy and draws the conclusions from it in terms of a strategy for the disengagement from this dependency relationship. Part I of the book deals with an historical analysis of the creation and consolida- tion of a dependent economy in Tanzania as a result of colonialism and the continuation thereof up to the Arusha declaration. In Part II the author starts from a more general analysis of the types of industrial development characteristic of ex-colonial economies and shows how this leads to lop- sided development. Subsequently, he continues by "testing" this model of perverse capitalist industrial development in the Tanzanian case and shows 121 that Tanzania did not constitute an exception to this type of perverse capita- list industrial development in the period before the Arusha declaration. UTAFITJ Finally. in Part nl the author outlines a strategy for Tanzania to build a socialist economy in line with her socialist goals. So much for the general structure of the book. Let us now turn to the analysis itself. Obviously in this review I cannot deal with all the arguments raised by the author and neither would I be competent to do so. Therefore, I will restrict myself to mainly two areas of disagreement I have with Pro- fessor Rweyemamu's analysis. Firstly. in his analysis of the model of perverse capitalist development there isa tendency to overstress the importance of an investment goods sector per se in the process of development, rather than centering on the necessary interaction between a mass consumption sector and the sectors producing the investment goods for the mass consumption sectors, i.e., concentrating on the development of the home market. Stated otherwise. perverse capita- list development is characterised by: "on the one hand the lack of an organic link. rooted in indigenous science and technology. between the pattern and growth of domestic resource use and the pattern and growth of domestic demand. and. on the other. the divergence between domestic demand and the needs of the broad mass of the populaJtion".l It is true that in the creation of this organic link between domestic resource use and domestic demand the investment goods sectors play a crucial and strategic role as Rweyemamu correctly points out, but for this to lead to a process of self-sustained development these investment goods sectors will have to interact with mass consumption sectors thereby raising labour productivity in the production for the needs of the broad mass of people. Thus. only if the investment sectors fuel the development of mass consumption sectors and hence are geared to the internal market will a genuine self-sustained economy come about. Indeed, for example, both in the Indian and Brazilian economies one has witnessed the development of well-established indigenous (especially in the case of India) investment goods sectors but these sectors in these countries interact both with the export-geared sectors on the one hand and the luxury goods producing sectors on the other. This phenomenon of well-establishedinvestment goods sectors in the above-mentioned countries did not lead to the liquidation of underdevelopment; rather it was possible only because of the sheer size of these economies which can support a large enough luxury consumption market (although only a minor proportion of the population participates in this demand) and because of the sub-imperia- list expansion of both economies in other smaller underdeveloped countries.2 It is true that Rweyemamu on several occasions points to this necessary interaction between mass consumption goods producing sectors and the investment goods producing sectors, but the elaborate discussion of the role of the investment goods sectors (in the chapter on the model of perverse capitalist development) in the development of productive forces. and in pointing out the lack of these sectors in underdeveloped countries. may 122 UTAFITJ easily lead to a lli'lSty conclusion which in terms of economic strategy merely equates basic industrialisation with the establishment of investment goods sectors. i.e., iron and steel. chemicals. machine tool producing industries, etc. The aspect of the convergence of domestic demand with the needs of the broad mass of the population, which is intril1Slicallylinked with the question of who controls the state, then gets easily overlooked. And indeed, it is surprising that in the preparation of the third five-year plan 'the stategy which was defined as basic industrialisation merely boiled down to making allowance for establishing such industries as listed above. And this brings me to the second area of disagreement which relates to what is meant by the transition to socialism. Rweyemamu correctly points out that "politically, socialism implies power to the working class (Le., industrial workers and peasants) and economically socialist development necessitates collective ownership of the means of production, that is, the end of exploitation" (p. 176). 111is is defined as being the ultimate relations of production which do not as yet exist, and consequently the author proceeds to discuss the immediate objectives, i.e., those of the period of transition. in order to achieve the ultimate aim. In this respect the proximate goals of Tanzanian socialism during the transition period "reduce to the acquisition of colleotive ownership of the major means of production and the ability to pl'an 'in such a way as to liquidate underdevelopment" (p. 177). The author then goes on to state that this interpretation implies "an initial bias towards concentrating on measures expanding productive forces as well as altering the structure of the economy rather than concentrating on a proc.ess of creat- ing new production relations and new norms of distribution" (p. 177). This, to say the least, is puzzling, since I fail to see how the one can be separated from the other. Firstly, restructuring the economy guided by the ultimate aim basically implies that the norms of distribution are changed (since pro- duction and distribution are only two sides of the same coin and jointly determined by the nature of the social formations). Secondly, collective ownership of the means of production constitutes new production relations. The latter confusion. however. beconles clear when the author states that "once one of the basic foundations of socialism has been laid (i.e., nationalisation) as it has in the case of Tanzania, the major concern turns to the nature of soCialist planning" (p. 178). Thus, this in fact means that the author equates nationalisation of the major means of production with their collective ownership, and thus in Part III he avoids tackling the issue which is raised in Part I; "however, nationatisation and state ownership do not imply a movement towards socialism since the character at the state itself does not necessarily undergo any qmrlitative change. In particular, state ownerslrip may lead to the creation of a wealthy bureaucratic class which would exploit the masses under the pretext of being guardians of public propel1ty" (p. 65), (my italics). From this it follows that the very pre-condition of a transition 123 to socialism is the existence of a proletarian state, which is necessary to enable workers and peasants to achieve control over the means of proouc- UTAFITI tilOn and 'to restructure the economy so as .to converge the pattern of resource use with their needs. If this is taken for granted then it is very difficult to see the logic of a subsequent statement by the author which argues that "the right to manage the enterprise in which he works is one thing for the worker: the etJective exercise of this right is something else. The latter is often obstructed by sun1ivals of the past. as for example a lack of skills. a lack of consciousness and the socio-economic reality of the transi- tional period with its attendant paucity of information and scarcity of man- power. It is at the present moment in Tanzania also blocked by a lack of a sense of responsibilty on the part of the majority of workers: the failure to realise that rights go with duties and responsibiiities" (Part m. p. 194). One may wonder. however. as the author himself does at the end of Part I. whether these so-called "survivals of the past" are nothing else but a reflection of class antagonisms between the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and .the working masses? To sum up; I believe that Rweyemamu's book is extremely useful to acquire a better understanding about the structure of dependent economies in general and Tanzania in particular. With regard to Part III which tackles the question of the transition to socialism. I believe that the author basically adopts a techrwcratic view of the problem without raising the central issue as to who controls the state and thereby contradicts himself with some of the questions thrown up but left unanswered in the first part. To conclude. I think that the great value of Professor Rweyemamu's book lies in the fact that he derives a strategy of socialist industrialisation within the framework of an historical analysis of the mechanisms of under- development. As in C.Y. Thomas' writings. he pOints to the fundamental issue of the transition to socialism which at the economic plane boils down to the necessity to guide production by an expanding home market based on the needs of the broad masses of the population. As such it is .to be hoped that the debate on the transformation of the economy will be carried forward starting from the level set in this book. rather than to fall back on a superficial analysis which has become so much the "trade mark" of present day development experts and theorists. MARC WUYTS FOOTNOlES 1. Thomas. C.Y., Dependence and Transformation (Monthly Press, 1974), p. 59. 2. This argument has been worked out by S. Amin in much detail. A short but excellent summary of his main arguments can be found in "Accumulation and Development" Review of African Political Economy, August-November 1974. Merlin Press, London. 124