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Bureaucracy and Rural Socialism in Zambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Stephen A. Quick
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Extract

It has become increasingly apparent over the last decade that rural development is one of the most significant, complex, and intractable problems facing the newly-independent states of Africa. Colonialism left a legacy of unbalanced and vulnerable economies in which the impoverishment of the rural areas made rational planning for growth and self-sufficiency difficult if not impossible. Rural poverty also exacerbated the problems of urban migration and political hostility between the privileged towns and the deprived rural areas. Many African leaders recognised the seriousness of these problems, and most governments announced a commitment to rural development soon after achieving independence.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 379 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

page 379 note 1 Arguments in support of this approach can be found in: DeWilde, John, Experiences with Agricultural Development in Africa, Vol. I (Baltimore, 1967)Google Scholar; Helleiner, Gerald, Peasant Agriculture, Government and Economic Growth in Nigeria (Homewood, Ill., 1966)Google Scholar; Helleiner, Gerald, ‘Socialism and Rural Development in Tanzania’, in The Journal of Development Studies (London), VIII, 2, 1972, pp. 183–204Google Scholar; and Lofchie, Michael, ‘Agrarian Socialism in the Third World: the Tanzanian case’, in Comparative Politics (Chicago), VIII, 4, 1976, pp. 474–99.Google Scholar

page 380 note 1 Sweezy, Paul and Bettelheim, Charles, On the Transition to Socialism (New York, 1971), pp. 40–2.Google Scholar

page 380 note 2 Hydén, Göran, ‘Can Co-ops Make it in Africa?’, in Africa Report (New York), XV, 12, 1970, pp. 12–15.Google Scholar

page 381 note 1 On the relationship between the Government and the European mining and farming communities, see: Barber, William, The Economy of British Central Africa (Stanford, 1961), chs. I and 2Google Scholar; Sklar, Richard, Corporate Power in an African State: the political impact of multinational mining companies in Zambia (Berkeley, 1975), pp. 96–133Google Scholar; and Quick, Stephen A., ‘Bureaucracy and Rural Socialism: the Zambian experience’, Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University, 1975, pp. 55–108.Google Scholar

page 381 note 2 Elliott, Charles, ‘Introduction’, in Elliott, (ed.), Constraints on the Economic Development of Zambia (Nairobi, 1971), p. 3.Google Scholar

page 381 note 3 Meebelo, Henry S., Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought (Lusaka, 1973), pp. 81–4Google Scholar; and Quick, op. cit. pp. 156–62.

page 382 note 1 In August 1963, Kaunda unsuccessfully pressed the U.N.I.P. National Council to launch a pilot programme of co-operative development;Melady, Thomas (ed.), Profiles of African Leaders (New York, 1961), p. 217.Google Scholar Later, in early 1964, Kaunda urged similar action by the party, and again this produced no response; Legum, Colin (ed.), Independence and Beyond: the speeches of Kenneth Kaunda (London, 1966), p. 158.Google Scholar

page 382 note 2 Tordoff, William and Scott, Ian, ‘Political Parties’, in Tordoff, (ed.), Politics in Zambia (Manchester and Berkeley, 1974), p. 132.Google Scholar

page 383 note 1 Wiffin, Paul, ‘The Staffing and Organization of the Department of Co-operative Societies’, mimeographed report by the Staff Inspection Unit of the Ministry of Finance, 1970, p. 17.Google Scholar

page 383 note 2 The Registrar of Co-operatives defined the approach of the Department to the problems of registration in his Circular Letter of 3 February 1965 to all Provincial Co-operative Officers: ‘We are not qualified to pass on technical advice…If a group of people, for example, wish to set up a co-operative poultry enterprise, the intending members may have no knowledge of keeping poultry but it is not for officers of this department to decide whether or not the society is likely to be a success. Members of a proposed co-operative may have no knowledge of the business they intend forming, but if they wish to form the society then it is their business, and we cannot refuse to register them for that reason.’ –File 24/12/1, Department of Co-operatives, Eastern Province, Chipata.

page 384 note 1 On the cost of stumping, see Northern Rhodesia, Department of Agriculture, ‘Peasant Farming in the Petauke and Katete Areas of the Eastern Province of Northern Rhodesia’, Lusaka, 1958, p. 5.Google Scholar On the per-acre productivity of average farmers, see Ranga-Rao, D. S. and Miller, R. M., ‘A Pilot Random Sample Survey on Maize Production in the Sala Reserve of Central Province, 1964–65’, Lusaka, 1966, p. 41.Google Scholar

page 386 note 1 The 700 Agricultural Assistants employed by the Department of Agriculture were engaged in the support of individual ‘progressive’ farmers, and the Projects Division of the same Ministry ran a number of settlement schemes, ranching, dairying projects, and other state-run forms of agricultural production. See Zambia, Ministry of Agriculture, Annual Report for 1965 (Lusaka, 1966), p. 19.Google Scholar

page 387 note 1 Dumont, René, ‘The Principal Problems of Agricultural Development in Independent Zambia’, Report to the Government of Zambia, April 1967.Google Scholar Cf. ‘Dr Dumont's Diagnosis’, in Business and Economy of East and Central Africa (Ndola), Mar. 1967, pp. 26–9.

page 387 note 2 Stephen Goodman, ‘The Foreign Exchange Constraint’, in Elliott (ed.), op. cit. p. 250; J. B. King, ‘Wages and Zambia's Economic Development’, in ibid. p. 102; and William Tordoff and Robert Molteno, ‘Government and Administration’, in Tordoff (ed.), op. cit. p. 24.

page 387 note 3 On the ‘productivity drive’ see the remarks of the Minister of Finance in Zambia National Hansard (Lusaka), 25 01 1968, p. 42.Google Scholar See also Zambia Information Services, Press Background No. 6/68, 13 January 1968, and Press Releases Nos. 485/68 and 493/68, 15 March 1968.

page 388 note 1 Frequently, successful private farmers could even get their fields ploughed before those belonging to a co-operative by the tractor which belonged to the co-operative. They were able to do so because they could pay cash, and this enabled the society to purchase fuel for their own ploughing. This approach often worked because most co-operatives could not get fuel or supplies from the Government when they needed them and were therefore forced to rely on the market.

page 389 note 1 ‘Record of the Ad-Hoc Meeting Held in the Credit Organization of Zambia Conference Room, 5 September 1969’, File 2/392, Department of Co-operatives, Lusaka.

page 390 note 1 The Department's reasons for preferring contract employees were spelled out in the ‘Letter from the Director of Co-operative Societies to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, 3 December 1969’; File 2/392/2/2, ibid.

page 390 note 2 The Provincial Co-operative Officer for Luapula pointedly told all union members in January 1970: ‘You are requested to learn from the managers as much as you can and not to give directions or complain against the farm manager’; File 2/392/2/6, ibid.

page 390 note 3 Zambia, Department of Co-operatives, ‘Policy Paper on Co-operative Development for the Second National Development Plan’, Lusaka, 1971, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

page 391 note 1 Schaffer, B. B., ‘The Deadlock of Development Administration’, in Leys, Colin (ed.), Politics and Change in Developing Countries (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 190–4.Google Scholar

page 392 note 1 Crozier, Michael, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chicago, 1964), pp. 156–8.Google Scholar

page 393 note 1 Bienen, Henry, ‘Political Parties and Political Machines in Africa’, in Lofchie, Michael (ed.), The State of the Nations: constraints on development in independent Africa (Berkeley, 1971), pp. 195–213Google Scholar; and Tordoff and Scott, loc. cit. p. 110.

page 393 note 2 Schurmann, Franz, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley, 1970), pp. 446–7.Google Scholar

page 394 note 1 Rothchild, Donald, ‘Rural–Urban Inequities and Resource Allocation in Zambia’, in Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies (Leicester), X, I, 1972, pp. 222–42.Google Scholar

page 394 note 2 Pettman, Jan, ‘Zambia's Second Republic – the Establishment of a One-Party State’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, XII, 2, 06 1974, pp. 231–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Robert Molteno and Ian Scott, ‘The 1968 General Election and the Political System’, in Tordoff (ed.), op. cit. pp. 177–8.

page 394 note 3 For a general analysis of the evolution of the parastatal sector, see Johns, Sheridan, ‘State Capitalism in Zambia: the evolution of the parastatal Sector’, African Studies Association, San Francisco, 29 October-1 November 1975.Google Scholar

page 395 note 1 On the effects of the market, see Long, Norman, Social Change and the Individual (Manchester, 1968), pp. 80–98.Google Scholar For one example of administrative destruction of indigenous co-operative institutions, see Rangley, W. H., ‘Notes on Chewa Tribal Law’, in The Nyasaland Journal (Blantyre), 1, 3, 1948, p. 53.Google Scholar

page 395 note 2 Jones, William I., ‘The Mise and Demise of Socialist Institutions in Rural Mali’, in Genève-Afrique (Geneva), XI, 2, 1972, p. 43Google Scholar; Migot-Adholla, S. E., ‘Traditional Society and Co-operatives’, in Widstrand, Carl Gösta (ed.), Co-operatives and Rural Development in East Africa (Uppsala and New York, 1970), pp. 20–32Google Scholar; Dore, R. F., ‘Modern Co-operatives in Traditional Communities’, in Worsley, Peter (ed.), Two Blades of Grass (Manchester, 1971), p. 54Google Scholar; Lionel Cliffe, ‘Traditional Ujamaa and Modern Producer Co-operatives in Tanzania’, in Widstrand (ed.), op. cit. p. 54; and Kopytoff, Igor, ‘Socialism and Traditional African Societies’, in Friedland, William H. and Rosberg, Carl G. Jr. (eds.), African Socialism (Stanford, 1964), pp. 53–62.Google Scholar

page 396 note 1 Saul, John, ‘On African Populism’, in Arrighi, Giovanni and Saul, John, Essays on the Political Economy of Africa (New York, 1973), pp. 152–4Google Scholar; Fallers, Lloyd, ‘Populism and Nationalism’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History (Cambridge), 4, 1964, pp. 445–8Google Scholar; and Mazrui, Ali and Engholm, G. F., ‘Rousseau and Intellectualized Populism in Africa’, in Review of Politics (Notre-Dame, Ind.), XXX, 1, 1968, pp. 19–32.Google Scholar

page 397 note 1 William Tordoff and Robert Molteno, ‘Introduction’, in Tordoff (ed.), op. cit. p. 29.

page 397 note 2 Ibid. p. 32; and Pettman, loc. cit. p. 242.

page 398 note 1 Tordoff and Molteno, ‘Government and Administration’, in Tordoff (ed.), op. cit. p. 249.

page 399 note 1 Ake, Claude, ‘Explanatory Notes on the Political Economy of Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, XIV, 1, 03 1976, p. 13.Google Scholar

page 399 note 2 Molteno and Scott, ‘The 1968 General Election’, in Tordoff (ed.), op. cit. pp. 169–78; and Pettman, loc. cit. pp. 238–9.

page 399 note 3 Pettman, ibid. p. 243.