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History, Politics, and Economic Development in Liberia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

George Dalton
George Dalton
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

American and European economists who work in the least developed countries of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East sometimes come away with the feeling of having learned more than they imparted. Nor is this surprising: the minds of economists are often more receptive to development than are the exotic economies in which they now work. In considering problems of underdevelopment and processes of development we learn—inadvertently, as it were—new things about conventional fields of economics and about the developed economies of Europe and America. These feedbacks have been particularly valuable to economic historians who have given us fresh insights into European, Russian, Japanese, and American development as a direct consequence of the present concern with developing the backward countries. Economic history is now wedded to economic development.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 569 - 591
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1965

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References

1 “Social Structure and Economic Progress,” American Economic Review, XLI (1951), 321–29Google Scholar.

2 “Social Attitudes, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development,” International Social Science Journal, VI (1954), 256Google Scholar.

3 “Pilkington and the Theory of Value,” Economic Journal, LXXIII (1963), 195Google Scholar.

4 Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge [Engl.]: Cambridge University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Supple, Barry E., ed., The Experience of Economic Growth (New York: Random House, 1963)Google Scholar; Nove, Alec, “Assessment,” in The Soviet Economy (New York: Praeger, 1961)Google Scholar.

5 For example, Bohannan, Paul, “The Impact of Money on an African Subsistence Economy,” Journal ofEconomicHistory, XIX (1959), 491–503Google Scholar; Moore, Wilbert E., “Labor Attitudes toward Industrialization in Underdeveloped Countries,” American Economic Review, XXXXV (1955), 156–65Google Scholar.

6 For example, Samuels, L. H., ed., African Studies in Income and Wealth (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1963)Google Scholar. Chenery, H. B., “Comparative Advantage and Development Policy,” American Economic Review, LI (1961)Google Scholar.

7 Myrdal, Gunnar, Rich Lands and Poor (New York: Harper, 1957)Google Scholar.

8 Hagen, Everett E., On the Theory of Social Change (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

9 Lewis, W. Arthur, “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labor,” The Manchester School, XXII (1954), 139–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Under Liberian law, only citizens may own land or commercial transport facilities, and only people of African descent may become citizens.

11 It is almost certain that Firestone does not exercise its monopsonistic power for several reasons, the most important of which is that the largest Liberian producers Firestone buys rubber from are the president, vice president, cabinet members, etc. Firestone pays the price prevailing in New York the previous month, minus several cents per pound for processing and transportation costs. In 1960, Liberians produced 15 per cent and Firestone 85 per cent of all rubber exported.

12 Myrdal, ch. ii.

13 Yudelman, M., “Some Aspects of African Agricultural Development,” in Robinson, E. A. G., ed., Economic Development for Africa South of the Sahara (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Fogg, C. Davis, “Economic and Social Factors Affecting the Development of Smallholder Agriculture,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, XIII (1965), 278–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Charles A. Myers, “Human Resources for Economic Development,” and Fogg, C. Davis, “Manpower Planning,” both in Hausman, W. H., ed., Managing Economic Development in Africa (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

15 Lewis, W. Arthur, Report on the Industrialization of the Gold Coast (Accra: Government Printer's Office, 1953)Google Scholar.

16 Hirschman, A. O., The Strategy of Economic Development (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Tinbergen, Jan, The Design of Development (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1958)Google Scholar; W. Stolper, “The Contribution of Economic Research to African Development,” in Robinson (ed.); Clower, Robert, Dalton, George, and Walters, A. A., “Statistics and Development Policy Decisions,” Development Research Review, I (1962)Google Scholar.

17 Two persistent themes in Liberian history are carried into the present scheme of things. The one we have emphasized is the Americo-Liberian community's defense of its autonomy in the face of tribal and European hostility. The other theme is fiscal irresponsibility. European loans in 1871 and 1906 were defaulted, as was an American loan in 1912. A $5 million loan made by Firestone to the Government of Liberia in 1927 as part of its original concession agreement was finally repaid in 1952 but left a history of bitterness and recrimination toward Firestone. As recently as 1963, the Government of Liberia had to get emergency loans from the United States because of its inability to meet external debt.

18 As far as one can judge in these amorphous matters, the notion commonly believed in Africa and Europe that the U. S. Government and large American firms such as Firestone have real political control in Liberia, is utterly unfounded. The Government of Liberia is at least as jealous of its political autonomy as are its newly independent African neighbors. The ironic result—and, as with Cuba, the potentially costly result to the U. S.—is that while neither the U. S. Government nor American business controls the country, the U. S. is held responsible for events in Liberia.

19 For example, election returns for the Presidency in 1955 and 1959, were as follows:

See Liebenow's writings cited in n. 1.

20 In Liberia, the phrase “a man of tribal background” applies to two very different kinds of persons. Children born out of wedlock to tribal women and Americo-Liberian men are frequently reared in the man's “official household” in Monrovia and so grow up speaking English and acquiring the cultural attributes of Americo-Liberians. Such children have no connection with tribal life other than the accident of their mother. They are Americo-Liberians without any cultural or psychological roots in the tribes. Charles Sherman, the urbane former Secretary of Treasury is such a person. Persons born of tribal parents, reared in a tribal milieu, and without Americo-Liberian connections, very rarely rise to high office. (Three cabinet members “of tribal background” were fired from office between 1959 and 1963.)