^{Page 129 note 1} ‘Many of the actions now criticised [in Africa] were advocated and financed by some of today's most confident critics’; Faber, Mike and Green, Reginald H., ‘Sub-Saharan Africa's Economic Malaise: some questions and answers’, in Tore, Rose (ed.), Crisis and Recovery in Sub-Saharan Africa (Paris, 1985), p. 25.Google Scholar

^{Page 129 note 2} George P. Schultz, United States Secretary of State, speaking of ‘privatization’, an important facet of laissez-faireism, at an American-sponsored international conference on privatization. According to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, ‘Privatization can be the right step at the right time to finally liberate developing countries' economies from slow growth or stagnation’. The New York Times, 20 02 1986.Google Scholar

^{Page 129 note 3} An important ‘lesson’ emphasised by the U.S. A.I.D. in bold-faced type is that ‘Import substitution is appropriate and efficient if it is not linked to special government policies distorting relative prices’ – in other words, if it has very little muscle behind it. Wolgin, Jerome et al. , The Private Sector and the Economic Development of Malawi (Washington, D.C., 1983), A.I.D. Evaluation Special Study No. 11, p. ix.Google Scholar

^{Page 129 note 4} A.U.S.A.I.D.study stresses Cameroon's strong overall economic performance, attributed to laissez-faireism, although ‘improvement in social indicators since independence was much smaller than clearly could have been possible ’, and although ‘health, social services, and considerations of personal income distribution’ may have been neglected. Schiavo-Campo, Salvatore et al. , The Tortoise Walk: public policy and private activity in the economic development of Cameroon (Washington, D.C., 1983), A.I.D. Evaluation Special Study No. 10, p. 51.Google Scholar

^{Page 129 note 5} Thus, the ‘most striking ’ factor explaining strong economic performance in Malawi has been ‘a significant reliance on market performance’. Weaknesses are explained by unwise deviations from free-market policies: ‘the country did diverge from its market-oriented approach to development and the [negative] consequences were far-reaching’. Wolgin et al. op.cit. pp. 45–6.

^{Page 130 note 1} In the words of the Director of the U.S. A.I.D.'s African Bureau, ‘If a country is moving in that direction [i.e. towards privatization], it would affect their funding levels. Conversely, if a country is moving away from that direction, it also would affect their funding levels.’ The New York Times, 20 02 1986.Google Scholar

^{Page 130 note 2} World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa: progress report on development prospects and programs (Washington, D.C., 1983), pp. 7 and 10.Google Scholar Also noted in World Bank, Toward Sustained Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: a joint program of action (Washington, D.C., 1984).Google Scholar

^{Page 131 note 1} According to an internal memorandum by the Central Bank of Nigeria in 1983, the output of the manufacturing sector was then estimated to be down to 23 per cent of capacity, primarily because of this factor.

^{Page 131 note 2} Sub-Saharan Africa: progress report, p. 10. The foreword of Toward Sustained Development, p. v, emphasises that ‘progress will be achieved only if the international community provides strong and consistent support to the reform efforts of the sub-Saharan nations…There needs to be increased international support for sub-Saharan development by the provision of both expertise and concessional funds.’

^{Page 131 note 3} Sub-Saharan Africa: progress report, p. 5.

^{Page 131 note 4} Faber and Green, loc. cit. p. 20.

^{Page 132 note 1} World Bank, World Development Report, 1979 (Washington, D.C., 1979), p. 17.Google Scholar

^{Page 132 note 2} Ibid.1985, (Washington, D.C., 1985), p. 138.

^{Page 132 note 3} A striking example is provided by the international Multi-Fibre Arrangement under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (G.A.T.T.). Two of the three stated goals have remained in the realm of rhetoric: to expand textile trade and reduce barriers to such trade, and to increase substantially the amount and the world-share of textile-export earnings going to developing countries. The actuality of the M-F Arrangement has been precisely the opposite: ‘The operative clauses’, which related only to a portion of a third goal (avoidance of disruptive effects), have been used almost exclusively to restrict imports by the more developed countries. World Bank, World Development Report, 1981 (Washington, D.C., 1981), p. 28.Google Scholar

^{Page 132 note 4} Sub-Saharan Africa: progress report, p. 3.

^{Page 132 note 5} For a number of reasons, African countries are more vulnerable to external shocks than most other less-developed countries. See, for example, Helleiner, Gerald K., ‘The IMF and Africa in the 1980s’, in Canadian Journal of African Studies (Ottawa), 17, 1, 1983, pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

^{Page 133 note 1} Rothchild, Donald and Gyimah-Boadi, E., ‘Ghana's Economic Decline and Development Strategies’, in John, Ravenhill (ed.), Africa in Economic Crisis (forthcoming), p. 353.Google Scholar

^{Page 133 note 2} See, for example, Raymond F. Hopkins, ‘Overburdened Government and Underfed Populace: the role of food subsidies in Africa's economic crisis’, Conference on the Crisis and Challenge of African Development, Philadelphia, 26–8 September 1985, p. 3.

^{Page 133 note 3} Elliot Berg, ‘The World Bank's Strategy’, in Ravenhill (ed.), op.cit. p. 69. He continues: ‘It is the same with changes in agricultural prices paid to producers. In many, probably most cases, the impact on farmer income and incentives has been lost because prices of the things farmers buy have risen by as much or more’. See also Sub-Saharan Africa: progress report, p. 8.

^{Page 133 note 4} Kaldor, Nicholas, ‘Devaluation and Adjustment in Developing Countries’, in Finance and Development (Washington, D.C.), 06 1983, p. 35.Google Scholar

^{Page 133 note 5} Sub-Saharan Africa: progress report, p. 10. See also Toward Sustained Development, p. 1: ‘Making the most of investment requires not only appropriate pricing policies, but also adequate management capacity in government.’

^{Page 133 note 6} Ruth Schachter Morgenthau has made the point forcefully that effective measures are more likely to be chosen if farmers could be brought into the decision-making process through the formation of a well-organised farmers’ lobby. ‘There must be ways that the rural population can participate in the exercise of decision-making power over matters that affect them’. ‘Agriculture and State Formation in African States’, Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Boston, 7 December 1983, pp. 45 and 49.

^{Page 134 note 1} Bond, Marian E., ‘Agricultural Response to Prices in Sub-Saharan African Countries’, in IMF Staff Papers (Washington, D.C.), 30, 4, 12 1983, pp. 716–25. In her study of nine African countries, she calculates that the mean supply elasticity is 0·18, but since this is greatly affected by the extreme of 0·54 for Senegal, I have used the median figure. The long-run elasticity over a period of years would be a little higher; the mean is 0·21 and the median is 0·15. Inelasticity of agricultural supply is simply one manifestation of a broader economy-wide inelasticity of aggregate supply.Google Scholar See Schatz, Sayre P., ‘Pirate Capitalism and the Inert Economy of Nigeria’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 22, 1, 03 1984, p. 57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{Page 134 note 2} The increases might be somewhat smaller if it were possible to raise farmgate prices to some degree by lowering the taxation of agricultural products.

^{Page 134 note 3} This follows directly from the fact already noted, that domestic price rises in Africa have typically counterbalanced the effect of devaluation. It is actually a conservative estimate of required farm-price increases. If charges for things bought by farmers completely offset agricultural price increases, then no boost in the latter, no matter how large, would suffice.

^{Page 135 note 1} Hopkins, op. cit. p. 17.

^{Page 135 note 2} According to World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: an agenda for action (Washington, D.C., 1981), p. 55: ‘The literature and common observation indicate that farmers respond strongly to changes in relative prices. The question of aggregate supply is more nuanced. In the short term, farmers’ possibilities are indeed sharply constrained, and they respond to changed incentive Structures by switching to the more profitable crops…In the longer run, a more congenial set of marketing conditions [which includes higher prices] will motivate them to invest in equipment, to hire labor, to work harder, and to find other ways of breaking those “constraints” which derive from inadequate motivation rather than from inadequate technology.’Google Scholar

^{Page 136 note 1} See Schatz, Sayre P., Nigerian Capitalism (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1977), ch. 5 for the positive attributes of Nigerian entrepreneurs, as well as their shortcomings in attempting to negotiate the leap, and ch. 6 on the economic environment.Google Scholar

^{Page 136 note 2} Ibid.

^{Page 136 note 3} I have dealt with this issue elsewhere, including a chapter meant for non-economists in Nigerian Capitalism.

^{Page 136 note 4} Socialists, incidentally, can be just as critical of such mal-intervention as the advocates of laissec-faireism. On the consequences of misconceived price controls in various L.D.C.s, see, for example, Nove, Alec, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London, 1983), pp. 193–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{Page 137 note 1} Wortman, Sterling and Cummings, Ralph W. Jr, To Feed the World: the challenge and the strategy (Baltimore and London, 1978), p. 23,Google Scholar cited in Gillis, Malcolm et al. , Economics of Development (New York, 1983), p. 243.Google Scholar

^{Page 137 note 2} See Berg, Alan, The Nutrition Factor: its role in national development (Washington, D.C., 1973), p. 5, cited in Gillis et al. op. cit. p. 244.Google Scholar

^{Page 137 note 3} Sub-Saharan Africa: progress report, pp. 7 and 10. See also Toward Sustained Development, pp. 39–40: ‘There are definite signs of greater willingness of African governments to consider policy reforms… However, actual progress in reform and in performance has been very limited.’

^{Page 138 note 1} Among other sticky reasons, ‘it is hard to assemble a reliable index for measuring the degree of market orientation’. Thus, ‘we cannot even make a convincing case that Korea was more or less a price guided economy than Mexico or India or other semi-developed comprador countries’.Google ScholarYusuf, Shahid and Peters, R. Kyle, Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth: the Korean paradigm (Washington, D.C., 1985), World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 712, p. 47.Google Scholar

² Ibid. pp. 1, 19–28, and 47–9.