Central planning and local reality: The case of a producers' cooperative in Ethiopia. Eva Poluha Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology No 3, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, 1989, 208 + xvi pp.
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230120211 |
| Author | Simon Maxwell |
| Date | 01 May 1992 |
| Published date | 01 May 1992 |
Book
reviews
219
relevant to many of the discussions flirted with in this volume. Perhaps this avoidance of
other literature can be put down to a form of myopia which appears to act some economists,
which leads them to believe that only economics can provide
us
with rigorous and worthwhile
insights into the real world. Something of this world view is charmingly betrayed in this
volume by Stiglitz, when he comments that:
More generally, while peasants may, in many respects, be rational, responding
to market forces, they are not fully informed about the consequences of their
actions,
or
of the institutions through which they operate. Indeed, how could
we expect them to
be,
when we, who have devoted our lives to studying these
questions, are ourselves uncertain? (p.
23).
In the context of this weakness, Bardhan’s warning to his fellow contributors, that they
should not lose sight of the ‘often ugly power relations’ which surround the issues being
studied in this book, becomes especially important. It should be clearly recognized by new-
institutional economists that ‘game-players’ should not, and cannot
be,
located in an apolitical
ether. In short, it is vital that poverty be recognized as a political
as
well
as
an economic
phenomenon.
To
conclude,
in
the study of change in developing societies the obstacles to cross-disciplinary
communication have often been more epistemological than about the terminologies used or
the techniques employed. As the new-institutional economics moves beyond the abstract of
the market and towards a more interactionist perspective, economics as a whole may be
brought epistemologically closer to contemporary debates in the other social sciences. This
volume should be welcomed as a refreshing and valuable starting point for renewed cross-
disciplinary debate
in
development studies, for which all the contributors are to
be
congratu-
lated.
J.
ALLI~TER
MCGR~GOR
University
of
Bath
CENTRAL PLANNING AND LOCAL REALITY: THE CASE OF A PRODUCERS’
COOPERATIVE IN ETHIOPIA
Eva
Poluha
Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology
No
3,
Department of Social Anthropology, Univer-
sity
of
Stockholm, 1989,208
+
xvi pp.
Time, you might be tempted to think, is not on the side of those who research rural problems
in Ethiopia. Here is a little gem of a book, describing the completely ham-fisted attempt
by Ethiopia’s rulers to impose so-called socialist forms of production on one small village
in Gojam. It is based on PhD research in 1980-81 and contains statistical and bibliographical
material running up to 1988; and no sooner is it published, in 1989, than the Government
declares a volte face in economic policy and pretty well
affirms
its belief in the status quo
ante. Producers’ cooperatives? Rigid and over-centralized! Forced procurement by the Agricul-
tural Marketing Corporation? Unfair taxation of peasants! Reallocation of land within Peasant
Associations? Structural disincentive to production! And to make matters worse, the Govern-
ment has the effrontery to lose control of most of Gojam to the anti-Government forces,
so
that even its residual policies no longer apply.
So
much, you might think, for policy-relevant
research.
In fact, it would be wrong to dismiss Eva Poluha’s book, and it is valuable for two reasons.
First, because it provides graphic illustration of what went wrong with Ethiopia’s rural develop-
ment policies in the 1980s. Second,
because
the analytical ethnography it provides is exactly
the kind of building block on which the next phase of policy must be built. The book is
written with
a
light touch, but it is scholarly in content and covers the ethnographic ground:
there are chapters on production and social reproduction
in
the household, on social relations
and institutions, on political change, and on the experience of the producers’ cooperative.
The book is easy to read, but the story it tells about the complexity and diversity
of
village
life in Ethiopia is important.
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