wedekind 2011 msc dissertation
DESCRIPTION
okTRANSCRIPT
-
SREF: 206862School of Oriental and African Studies,
Department of Law and Social Sciences,MSc Development Studies
A Comparative Analysis of Paths to Industrialisation: The Functionality of Agrarian Transition -
Japan then and Ethiopia now
Jonah NM Wedekind
Image Source: http://users.ju.edu/jclarke/heruy.htm
This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MSc in Development Studies of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). London, 15 September 2011.
1
-
SREF: 206862
2
-
SREF: 206862
Declaration
I undertake that all material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other persons(s). I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination.
London, 15 September 2011
Word Count: 10,023
3
-
SREF: 206862
Contents
Title: A Comparative Analysis of Paths to Industrialisation: The Functionality of Agrarian Transition - Japan then and Ethiopia now
Research Question: Historically, has the Japanese (and East Asian) agrarian transition model been applicable to Ethiopia's attempts at industrialization; is the past model relevant for Ethiopia in the present and successful agrarian transition possible in the future?
Table of Contents:
Abstract.....................................................................................................................................p. 5
Introduction...............................................................................................................................p.6
Chapter 1.0 Critical Literature Review: Use and Abuse of Historical Models of Agrarian Transition............................................................................................................p.8
1.1 Misuse and Misreading of History: World Development Report 2008...............p.9
1.2 Squaring the Circle: Neo-Classical-Neo-Populism Selective Reading of History p.12
1.3 Neo-Populist Cases for Land Reform..................................................................p.13
Chapter 2.0 Comparative Analysis: The Functionality of Agrarian Transition........................p.20
2.1 Justification of Relevance for Comparison: Japan and Ethiopia.........................p.23
Chapter 3.0 Japan's Agrarian Transition Model.....................................................................p.27
Chapter 4.0 Ethiopia's Agrarian Transition Attempts.............................................................p.30
4.1 Contemporary 'Functionality' and 'Problematic' of an Agrarian Transition in Ethiopia...................................................................................................................p.32
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................p.36
Bibliography..............................................................................................................................p.384
-
SREF: 206862Abstract
Neo-classical and neo-populist policy advocacies for agriculture-based rural diversification have
resigned to a neglect of the potential synergies between agriculture and industry in late
developing countries. Theoretically driven by a comparative analysis of successful capitalist
agrarian transition, this paper compares the successful agrarian transition of Japan (after the
Meiji-restoration) and East Asia with the attempted agrarian transition of contemporary
Ethiopia. Indeed, there are indications that Ethiopia was and is emulating Japan's and East Asia's
past successful agrarian transition. Presently, Ethiopia's agrarian question remains unresolved
and industrialisation has thus far been delayed. This raises doubts about the 'functionality' of a
successful replication of past agrarian transitions models in the present, given the 'problematic'
of globalisation. This comparative analysis goes to the heart of the Bernstein-Byres debate; It
argues that functionality for agrarian transition is co-determined by the external uneven and
combined nature of capitalist development and the internal social stratification which ensues.
The analysis finds that strict replication of the Japanese and East Asian success models is
rendered unlikely, given the vast differences of the time-and-space contexts. This is most
evident in Ethiopia's very recent shift away from the strategy of Agriculture Development-led
Industrialisation (ADLI) to an increasingly fashionable and criticised strategy of Agriculture
Investment-led Export-oriented development (AILED). However, drawing lessons from Japan
and East Asia remain vital, as do synergies between agriculture and industry, in search for a
successful Ethiopian-path to industrialisation under current conditions of capitalist
globalisation.
5
-
SREF: 206862Introduction
The successful transformation of the agrarian sector and the contribution of its smallholders to
industrialisation in Japan (post-Meiji) and the former East Asian colonies Taiwan and South
Korea (post-1945) continues to inspire theoretical discourses within agrarian political economy
and practical policy approaches for late developing countries (LDC's). In most contemporary
LDC's and apart from leading emerging market economies like Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia,
China, and South Africa (BRIICS) any fundamental agrarian contribution to industrialisation in
the manner of Japan and East Asia (J&EA) is unrepeated under neo-liberal globalisation. Here,
Ethiopia fits the context. Since the imperial Abyssinian Empire and again under today's second
(capitalist) Ethiopian republic, attempts at industrialisation have especially focused on the
emulation of Japans (1868-1945) successful smallholder-based agrarian transition1. However,
fundamental agrarian transition (and industrialisation) in Ethiopia has thus far been delayed.
This poses the question: is J&EA's successful agrarian transition model applicable to Ethiopia's
contemporary attempts at industrialisation? And does the current 'problematic' of globalisation
disclose the 'functionality' of a similar path of agrarian transition, or inhibit industrialisation?
Within agrarian political economy, mainstream neo-classical and neo-populist approaches
generally do not ask such questions. Arguably, their often combined paradigms make selective
use of successful historical experiences where these conveniently fortify the legitimacy of their
policy discourse. This abstraction of history is accompanied by a disregard of the question
whether intersectoral linkages and synergies between agriculture and industry, which were
crucial in J&EA's experience, remain relevant for a successful agrarian transition under
globalisation today. Thus, while the neo-classical-neo-populist paradigm proposes blanket
advocacies for agriculture-based rural diversification, it does not seriously consider agricultural
stimulation of industrialisation. It is often forgotten, that capitalist industrialisation has been
1 The East Asian model was of course relevant only to the second, capitalist Ethiopian republic, constitutionally established in 1994, after the 1991 peasant revolution which overthrew the first, socialist Ethiopian republic (1974-1991).
6
-
SREF: 206862the means by which massive rural poverty has been eradicated in the past (Byres 2004: 41).
The mainstream discourse is concerned with 'rural equity first', 'rural efficiency first' and
'making markets work' for smallholders in LDC's. As we shall see with regards to Ethiopia,
however, it is questionable whether rural equity leads to increased efficiency (or vice versa) of
smallholder productivity, the creation of economic rural diversification, and poverty reduction.
Within heterodox agrarian political economy the question whether contemporary agrarian
transition is possible (based on synergies between agriculture and industry) given the problems
LDC's face under capitalist globalisation, is still seriously considered or at least debated. Here, it
is informative to undertake a comparative analysis between a past model of successful agrarian
transition and a present attempt at agrarian transition, based on the experience of the former.
Therefore, this paper looks specifically at the social relations which formed during capitalist
development in the countryside and contributed to or inhibited capitalist industrialisation.
Thereby a case is made to extend this framework to the contemporary context.
Ethiopia's contemporary approach of increasing smallholder productivity to feed
industrialisation indicates that emulation of J&EA's smallholder-based agrarian transition is
attempted in practice today. However, for one, it diverges from the Japanese and East Asian
experience. For another, the outcome remains unclear. The recent experience of Agriculture
Development-led Industrialisation (ADLI) undertaken by the Ethiopian government has been
problematic. Internally, rural equity and externally capitalist competition have hindered
smallholder peasantries to significantly increase agricultural surplus. Accordingly, stimulation of
industry and thus industrial growth have been slow. It is questionable whether the recent
attempt at, what can be called, Agriculture Investment-led Export-oriented development
(AILED) can complement ADLI - and ultimately make Ethiopia's agrarian transition a success.
While placing a new tractor next to the old oxen may be an economically dynamic approach to a
contemporary agrarian transition, it is questionable if this is socially and politically sustainable.
7
-
SREF: 2068621.0. Critical Literature Review: Use and Abuse of Historical Models of Agrarian Transition
What follows is a critical engagement with the mainstream agrarian political economy discourse
of neo-classical-neo-populism and its treatment of uneven capitalist development and the
question of the functionality of agrarian transitions in the past and the present. Alternatively, a
heterodox political economy approach is considered which comparatively traces diverging
histories of the development of capitalism and critically considers the contemporary
functionality of agrarian transition/industrialisation under the uneven and combined
developmental pressures of capitalist globalisation2. These debates inform the adoption of a
theoretical framework for comparative analysis and justify the case study choice of Japan (and
its former colonies South Korea and Taiwan) then (meaning their histories of agrarian transition,
from initiation to completion), and Ethiopia now (meaning Ethiopias history of abortive
agrarian transition) in order to consider the possibility/problematic of agrarian
transition/industrialisation in Ethiopia in the present (under globalisation), based on the
informative value of successful transition-models of the past.
Before a critical literature review of the neo-classical World Development Report 2008
(WDR2008) by the World Bank (WB) and the neo-populist case for land redistribution by Griffin,
Khan, and Ickowitz (GKI), we should consider the following; The critical literature review will be
extensive, as it informs our theoretical debate. The theoretical debate will therefore not feature
any deeper treatment of the intellectual ancestors of the different strands of agrarian political
economy which continue to have their influence within neo-classical (Smith), neo-populist
(Chayanov), and historical materialist (Preobrazhensky) and related historical sociology
approaches to the uneven and combined development of capitalism, agrarian transition and
industrialisation3. Rather, emphasis is laid on those who build on them. By employing a
2 Globalisation, here, defined as the current phase of the restructuring of capital and its conditions of accumulation, manifested in new forms of the international centralisation and concentration, as well as mobility (and financialisation), of capital (Bernstein 2007a: 1).
3 For this, see Patnaik 1979; Martinez-Alier 1997; Bernstein 2009; 2002; Byres 20048
-
SREF: 206862heterodox approach, here, theory is based largely on the work and debates of Byres and
Bernstein (on the functionality of agrarian transition/industrialisation).
1.1. Misuse and Misreading of History: World Development Report 2008
The WDR2008 Agriculture for Development currently manifests the most influential policy
discourse in agrarian political economy. The report advocates a state-facilitated, yet market-led
productivity revolution in smallholder agriculture by means of attracting rural investments
through agricultural household liberalisation and increased global commodity market
integration, in order to stimulate parallel economic rural diversification and social outmigration
into other rural-based, non-agricultural economic sectors.4 Broadly, these policies are to serve
as the basis of 'transforming' poor, 'agrarian-based' economies while balancing-out rural
inequalities and decreasing poverty. Heterodox critiques have scrutinized the bi-polar nature
the WB's new Green Revolution approach (see Oya 2010: 85). In one breath it praises
'agriculture for development' and advocates 'moving beyond the farm' as key to diversifying
agrarian-based economies, but omits any consideration of the question of the functionality of
industrialisation and lacks any deeper investigation into inter-sectoral linkages between
agriculture and industry in contemporary LDC's (Kay 2009; Woodhouse 2009). Nonetheless, the
WB argues that its policies are empirically grounded in the successful experiences of Britain,
Western Europe, USA, and interesting for our case Japan and East Asia5 where agricultural
surplus production and subsequent agrarian taxation enabled industrial revolutions. Consistent
4 With rural diversification the WDR2008 envisions the diversification of agriculture (growing new crops, switching to higher-value products like horticulture, livestock, aquaculture) and the growth of a rural non-farm economy (export-oriented town and village based services). In theory, redistributive land reform, agrarian household liberalisation, and vertical integration of smallholders into global commodity chains/markets will attract rural investment and provide new farming-technologies which in return increase smallholder efficiency/productivity/output. Successful farmers and rural entrepreneurs could then invest their surplus/capital into rural vicinities to stimulate diversification. The new non-farm economy, moreover, should serve to ensure rural equity by employing/absorbing out-competed smallholders and surplus labourers, who would otherwise become landless or urbanise.
5 East Asia, here and henceforth, refers to Taiwan and South Korea. 9
-
SREF: 206862with the neo-classical analysis found in the report The East Asian Miracle (see WB 1993: 8-23),
the WDR2008 maintains that history shows that the catch-up development of post-War Japan
and East Asia was based on deriving a comparative advantage through increased economic
liberalisation, integration and improved agricultural productivity. The WB's very own critical
insights from these successful experiences (WB 2007: 26) then, legitimise continued, albeit
watered-down advocacy of further liberalisation of agricultural households to contemporary
LDC's as a means for rural diversification, balancing-out inequalities and poverty reduction
(ibid.: 35, 142, 226). Here, for one, one should question if past successful models of
industrialisation are actually indicative or applicable for advocacy of rural diversification in the
present. For another, one may assume that such contradictory advocacies by the WB (1993;
2007) are based on a misuse of successful experiences, derived from a misreading of history.
However, as economic historians argue, the agrarian transformation and industrialisation
models of J&EA, although informed by previous successful economic policies of 18 th century
Britain and 19th century USA, were not strictly orthodox emulations of these (Chang 2003). Also
different to each other, J&EA's policies were, to be historically accurate, predominantly based
on state-led, protectionist, calibrated and sequential approaches of agrarian structural
transformation, industrialisation and economic growth prior to gradual economic liberalisation
(Chang 2009: 478; Selwyn 2009; Wade 2004; Amsden 1989;).
The WDR2008 acknowledges that lessons from the past may not always apply to the future
and new challenges may invalidate old models and that therefore agendas need to be context
specific, reflecting both the broad country type and local conditions (WB 2007: 228-229).
However, the agenda proposed in the WDR2008 itself is limited to three generalised, Rostovian-
type categorical groups (agrarian-based, transforming and urbanized countries) and is narrowly
focused on successful experiences where land reform conveniently functioned to increase
smallholder agricultural productivity (Woodhouse 2009) as it did in J&EA. This shows a lack of
consideration for the socio-economic differences within and between different rural livelihoods
10
-
SREF: 206862at different times, in different places (Oya 2011). In agrarian political economy it is
differentiation which is analytically of importance in order to question the functionality of
agrarian transition under uneven and combined development or to explore the new
problematic in contemporary conditions of globalisation (Bernstein 2007b: 51). With regards to
further discussion, one should note that undifferentiated advocacies of redistributive land
reform and smallholder agriculture based on past successful models are problematic for
replication in the present. As we shall see, (not only) within the WB's neo-classical paradigm it is
the case that
Japan's post-war industrial reconstruction and its success, and especially the spectacular
industrialization of Taiwan and (South) Korea, have led to celebrations of the 'small farmer'
path of agrarian transition they are held to exemplify. Facile generalizations and
recommendation of their experience, however, ignores its special historical condition,
including highly (yield) productive irrigated rice cultivation, the investment in and close
regulation of agriculture by the Japanese colonial state, and the transfer of agricultural
surplus to 'feed' (literally and metaphorically) industrial accumulation, first in Japan from the
late nineteenth century and after 1945 in its former colonies (Bernstein 1994: 44-45).
Nonetheless, we bear in mind that
despite distinctive country-specific issues, agricultural policy challenges that confront
countries at earlier stages of economic development, today and in the past, are remarkably
similar across countries. This means that there is much that countries can learn from others
experiences, both historical and contemporary (Chang 2009: 479).
While the problematic of agrarian transition is an universal and inherent phase of rural catch-up
development, the functionality of it is always subject to differentiation across spaceand
time. This is most noteworthy when comparing past and present models of rural development.
11
-
SREF: 2068621.2. Squaring the Circle: Neo-Classical-Neo-Populism
We move on to introduce and critique recent popular neo-classical and neo-populist literature
on, and their approaches to, contemporary rural development. Critiques of the WDR2008 have
been numerous (see Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol.9 No.2) and will not be elaborated here.
With regards to the question of contemporary functionality of agrarian
transition/industrialisation in Ethiopia and comparisons to or lessons to be learned from J&EA,
the report has relatively little to offer. Despite claiming to represent a major shift in policy
thinking about agriculture, the report is not a decisive break from previous neo-classical
agrarian policies which have been relatively unfruitful for LDC's in practice in the past (Kay 2009:
125; Bryceson 2009; Chang 2009). This is curious since the WB's strategy to reduce inequality
and poverty remains its source of legitimacy for its neo-liberal policies (McMichael 2009: 235).
Admittedly, the WDR2008 acknowledges that the powers of agriculture for development
remain fallow (WB 2007: 7). Nonetheless, rather than critically address the discriminatory
external dynamic of WB, IMF, and WTO enforced openings of agrarian-markets in LDC's and the
parallel subsidised protection of agricultural households in DC's (McMichael 2009; Weis 2007),
rather than critically identify factors that inhibit internal flows of labour, capital, and agrarian
products between rural/agrarian and urban/industrial sectors of LDC economies (Woodhouse
2009; Kay 2009), the WB holds that land concentrationcontributes to the asset squeeze on
smallholders and landless households for which policies that excessively tax and underinvest
in agriculture are to blame, reflecting a political economy in which urban interests have the
upper hand (WB 2007: 85, 7). Such arguments smack neo-populist notions of urban/landlord-
biased policies which are supposedly endemic to the politics and socio-economic processes of
many agriculture-based countries. Neo-populists have long argued that urban/landlord-
biased policies inhibit the redistribution of land, discriminate against smallholders (held to be
more productive than large-landholders) and therefore fail to balance rural inequalities,
increase smallholder efficiency and productivity, achieve economic growth and diversification,
and decrease poverty (Griffin 1976; Lipton 1977). This means that there is, within the
12
-
SREF: 206862WDR2008, a specifically unacknowledged yet rhetorically/politically discernible incorporation of
the neo-populist discourse into the neo-classical WB paradigm. Indeed, the WB's ready
responsiveness to some NGO and neo-populist views on agriculture (Oya 2011: 148) reflects
an attempt to square the circle of a pro-(market) capitalist stance with a pro-small-farmer bias
(Oya 2009: 232). It is worth noting that the same holds true vice versa too; thus recent neo-
populist espousals of market-friendly, state-facilitated, pro-poor/smallholder redistributive land
reform and so on (in Griffin et al. 2003) essentially collapses their discourse into a neo-classical
WB position (Khan 2004) hence, neo-classical-neo-populism (Byres 2004: 17-18). Many
recent popular and NGO publications on changing agrarian dynamics in Ethiopia would fall into
this category (see Francesconi 2009; Cotula et al. 2009; The Oakland Institute 2011).
1.3. Selective Reading of History: Neo-Populist Cases for Land Reform
Moving on towards a critical treatment of neo-populism, one must be careful to distinguish the
'neo-classical' from the 'neo-populist' (Griffin et al. 2004). Indeed, for the WB the emphasis on
redistributive land reform and smallholder farming (in the interest of rural equity and pro-poor
growth) seems secondary. It functions, politically and ideologically, to legitimise the WB's
primary market-oriented (new) policy framework which remains truly (old) neo-classical (Byres
2003a; 2006). Accordingly, it (first) lays the foundations for efficient use of property rights by
establishing a level-playing-field in poor rural areas. And (second) thus enables further
liberalisation of agrarian households and integration of smallholders into globalised,
competitive 'willing buyerwilling seller' markets to unleash the full potential of smallholder-
entrepreneurs or, to call it by its name, free-market capitalism. Neo-populists however reject
conventional land privatisation as opposed to the commercialisation and protection of
customary tenure property rights systems. And they reject, not necessarily the integration of
smallholders into, but their initial subjection to free-markets. Arguably, one cannotsimply
give land to the peasants and then abandon them, and expect that all will be well, given that
13
-
SREF: 206862distorted markets inevitably will deprive one or more groups of people of their right to use a
productive asset (Griffin et al. 2003: 8, 18). Smallholder existence, efficiency and equity will
prevail only if agrarian markets were (firstly) not urban-biased, i.e. predisposed to policy failures
which discriminate against smallholders and (secondly) not landlord-biased, i.e. liable to create
monopsony conditions in competitive land, labour and capital markets ('one buyermany
sellers'). Necessary preconditions for successful land reform are accordingly the removal of the
urban/landlord-bias and the implementation of a strong state which can depress land
(transaction) prices, confiscate concentrated or unproductive land and redistribute rural assets
equally (to/between smallholders). The state should weaken social and institutional controls
that artificially channel resources away from agriculture (into industry) or obstruct rural public
investments for material and human development of the rural poor (rural diversification).
Subsequentlygiven that the agenda can be implemented in practiceeconomic growth needs
to be employment-intensive and income-equalising so that land reform and growth will
reinforce one another. GKI acknowledge that such an agenda is a painful nettle to grasp, but it
is unavoidable if there is to be any hope of success (ibid.: 45). Their primary concern is to
mitigate the uneven and uprooting social ills (inequality, poverty, labour exploitation and in-
formalisation, insecure tenure and landlessness) which accompany a development strategy
that neglects agriculture and the rural areas (ibid.:7). Their secondary concern is the emphasis
on a state-facilitated but nonetheless market-efficient (and hence neo-classical) rural
development strategy. Absent in GKI's approach is any deeper consideration of inter-sectoral
linkages between agriculture and industry (Karshenas 2004) or agricultural stimulation of
capitalist industrialisation (Byres 2004: 41).
GKIs publications on land reform have undergone theoretical and empirical critiques elsewhere
(see Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 4 No. 1-2). Limited by space, the following will remain a
brief treatment of their work which bears in mind our research question and case study. First
we take issue with the neo-populist conception of equitable development under capitalism.
14
-
SREF: 206862Second we treat the historical/empirical models which GKI use to support their case. The
increasingly popular neo-populist approach lays emphasis on decreasing land concentration and
rural-urban migration through rural redistribution and diversification. This points to genuine
(and important) concerns with the working poor6 and surplus labour7, or 'footloose labour'
(Breman 1996) waiting to be incorporated into the labour process in urban and rural
livelihoods of contemporary LDC's, but currently swelling to numbers of an excessive burden
that cannot be included now or in the future, in economy or society (Breman 2003: 136). GKI
attempt to offer a solution to this; the 'agrarian question of labour' as Bernstein calls it (2004;
2007b). Their approach reacts to meagre industrialisation and parallel absorption of surplus
labour in many contemporary LDC's. It primarily seeks to mitigate social ills associated with
(capitalist) development within the reality of the competitive world market by placing equity
next to efficiency or, in conventional terms, by making markets work for the poor. This however
is a core contradiction rooted in an analytical disregard of the development of capitalism (Byres
2004, Bernstein 2004, Sender and Smith 1986). The reality is that capitalist penetration of
competitive rural markets is inherently unequalising. The development of capitalism through
primitive accumulation,8 including its 'archetypal forms' such as land redistribution, constitutes
social relations which have a tendency to class differentiation among peasants (poor, middle,
rich peasants) (Byres 2005: 85). Moreover, GKI do not consider the political complexity of
patron-client-networks and social stratification involved in the reconfiguration of the state, the
removal of urban/landlord-biased policies, the confiscation of concentrated land and
transactions costs of land reform and the establishment of secure property rights (Khan 2004).
Even if an equitable land reform were implemented, the ensuing outcome of a permanent
process of churning of small parcels of land between...backward peasant farms that were only 6 Indications of the crisis of labour (worldwide): share of working poor living below US$ 2 a day is estimated
around 39%, i.e. 1.2 billion (ILO 2011).7 We use the terms 'footloose labour' and 'surplus humanity' interchangeably to refer to the heterodox
terminology of 'surplus labour', or the ILO-terminology of 'underemployment'. GKI use the latter two.8 Primitive accumulation here defined as the transfer of assets, most notably land, by non-market means, from
non-capitalists to potentially capitalist classes, and usually with state compliance or mediation: by force majeure, whether via theft, eviction, or purchase at a nominal price (Byres 2005: 83-84).
15
-
SREF: 206862marginally different from each other in terms of productivity would simply happen somewhat
more efficiently (ibid.: 96-99). Eventually however, this churning at the margins, driven by the
market will compel smallholders to economic differentiation as they become integrated into
different local, regional and global (up-stream and down-stream) commodity markets which
subject them to market competition and increasingly penetrate (commercialise, commodify and
capitalise on) their socio-economic relations and livelihoods. Thus redistributive land reform, if
successful, mightlay the basis for capitalism from below; might create structures within which
processes of differentiation flourished and a class of capitalist farmers emerged (Byres 2004:
30). If one accepts this, then the 'equal' and 'efficient' smallholder (or 'middle' peasantry), at
the core of the vision of agrarian populism, is itself one outcome of the processes of
differentiation in capitalism (Bernstein 2007b: 43). Thus, essentially the neo-populist vision
generates a development doctrine, which like the WB, advocates policies that attempt to re-
and-reconstruct rural social order in order to mitigate and manage the social ills, including the
swelling swathes of an urban 'surplus humanity' (see Davis 2006), which inherently grew and
will grow in the course of 'immanent' capitalist development (see Cowen and Shenton 1996).
GKI provide historical evidence of successful models and failed cases of redistributive land
reform. We briefly assess these, bearing in mind, that
permeating current debate of land reformare 'models' inspired by their particular
experience in their times and places. The potency in such models consists in how they are
generalised and applied, explicitly or implicitly; whether such applications facilitates or
hinders analysis of the dynamics of other times and other places, including what may be
changing before your very eyes today (Bernstein 2007b: 28).
GKI's most prominently employ empirical models in their work, where land redistribution was
successful. These are Japan, Taiwan and South Korea (Griffin et al. 2003: 27-31). An unsuccessful
16
-
SREF: 206862example they point out is Ethiopia (ibid.: 16-17, 26, 39). While the Ethiopian case is not treated
at length, we can infer more information from Griffin's previous work on Ethiopia (Griffin and
Hay 1985; Griffin 1992). Let us consider the successful cases first: The redistributive land
reforms in Japan (1946-1950), South Korea (1945-1954), and Taiwan (1949-1953) were initiated
(in the latter two cases by the U.S.-military government) on the basis of 'land to the tiller', not
on market-principles. The strong, dirigiste states either redistributed previously state-owned or
Japanese-occupied land and purchased, forced the sale of or confiscated concentrated land.
Land was then equally redistributed among tenants and landless households at a low price or
on credit. Once reform was completed J&EA had egalitarian agrarian systems of cultivator-
owned smallholder farming. GKI argue that the land reforms were successful (in the neo-
populist sense). Accordingly, reforms contributed directly to increased smallholder productivity,
accelerated agricultural growth and reduced poverty because state policies were not subject to
an urban-bias or dependent on landholders (Griffin et al. 2003: 31-33). However, it is
questionable whether GKI can make a direct correlation between equity and efficiency, in other
words, argue that land redistribution facilitated agricultural growth, without considering
intersectoral resource linkages and flows between agriculture and industry. One must consider
that and question how the agricultural growth of J&EA in recent decades was sustained through
agricultural-subsidies, derived from non-agricultural sectors of their economies, especially
industry (Karshenas 2004). It is possible, that policies which GKI label as urban-bias actually
made possible the creation of the buoyant non-agricultural economy, and manufacturing
industries that can afford the massive subsidies in question in the first place (ibid.: 173-174).
Therefore a look at Japan's first (post-Meiji restoration) land reform (1888-1937) is actually
more indicative to contemporary developing countries than the second (post-War) land reform
(1946-1950) because in the post-Meiji period taxation and surplus extraction of agriculture
contributed to create an industry which in turn could subsidise agriculture. Moreover, in the
case of Taiwan the dirigiste state so tightly directed prices and resource flows, that smallholder
decision making was hardly independent, as GKI would suggest (Byres 2004). Therefore, not
17
-
SREF: 206862only does GKI's selective reading of history (firstly) cast doubt over the correlation between
equitable land reform and agricultural growth, it also (secondly) contests the assumed superior
productivity of small-scale farming over large-scale farming. Karshenas (2004: 174) argues, if,
indeed, the postulated inverse relationship between land productivity and size of holding turns
out not to existthen, in the extreme, redistribution might even be followed by a fall in total
agricultural output, worse yet redistributive land reform[s], which are not well designed and
do damage to economic growth, can condemn such countries to perpetual poverty. Let us
assess the last two points with regards to Ethiopia.
Redistributive land reform, likewise in the name of 'land to the tiller', followed a
fundamental social revolution in Ethiopia (1974). The radical land reforms (1975), initiated by
the Derg-regime were part-and-parcel of replacing a feudal aristocracy which rested on landlord
tenancy. Land was nationalised, wage labour abandoned, private farms confiscated and Peasant
Associations oversaw the radical collectivisation of land. Land was redistributed to the landless
and previous smallholders-tenants at an upper-limit size of 10 ha, sufficient for family
subsistence. Three main production systems emerged in Ethiopia: peasant farming (2 ha
average, 90% of cultivated land), co-operative farms (high divergence in ha, 0.2-0.4% of
cultivated land), state-farms (5,000 ha average, 0.4-0.5% of cultivated land)9. Although reliant
data was lacking to calculate exactly to what extent land reform benefited Ethiopia's rural poor,
Griffin (1992: 3-4) held that it not only changed cultivation patterns but contributed favourably
to abolish landlord rent and tax10, improve standards of living of the rural-poor (of 65% of
Ethiopia's population)11, and create an egalitarian rural sector12. However it was stressed, that
benefits of the land reform...represent merely a short breathing space in which to reverse the 9 Data inferred from Griffin (1992: 25-34); AK Ghose (1985).10 Landlords had previously appropriated, a maximum estimate, of 30% of net rural output (Griffin 1992: 3)11 Griffin (ibid.: 4) estimated, that at a maximum the rise in income per head of the average poor peasant may
have been...50 to 55 per cent. 12 Estimated in Gini coefficient, the land redistribution of Ethiopia (0.47) was amongst the perhaps most
comprehensive ever implemented, at a level with Japan (0.38), Taiwan (0.47) and South Korea (0.30) (Griffin et al. 2003: 26).
18
-
SREF: 206862process of underdevelopment (Griffin & Hay 1985: 61). Thus while reforms in agrarian relations
fulfilled the basic (neo-populist) conditions for agricultural growth, these seemed insufficient for
a buoyant sector. Indeed, agriculture's growth [was] less than satisfactory and after land
redistribution agricultural growth in fact declined13 (ibid.: 37; Ghose 1985). The main reasons for
this were, according to Griffin (1992), regional concentration and market fragmentation due to
an input-bias toward latifundio-type state-farms (which absorbed most investment into
agriculture but performed badly) and an import substitution-bias toward capital intensive
industrialisation which burdened peasant farmers and ignored the superior potential for capital
accumulation held by co-operatives. However, this is a bold claim to make considering that up
to 90% of production was undertaken by (relatively undifferentiated) smallholders. Given that
growth was stagnant in all three forms of production, we can assume that it is uninformative to
test the inverse-relationship based on farm-scale and output during the Derg-period (Dessalegn
2008) as Griffin does (1992: 32-34). In their criticism of GKI's attachment to smallholder
agriculture Sender and Johnston (2004) mention that the abolishment of wage-labour
frustrated agricultural growth in Ethiopia. Instead they call for employment-intensive contract
farms in sub-Saharan African as weapons for mass production and poverty reduction.
Nonetheless, here it is perhaps more informative to analyse agrarian social relations of
production rather than agricultural factors of production (Bernstein 2007b: 48). Thus, one can
argue that under the Derg egalitarian land redistribution was detrimental to efficient
smallholder marketable surplus production, or capital accumulation and hence agricultural
growth. Redistributive land reform, although granting usufruct-rights to smallholder and
drastically reducing landlessness, inhibited the emergence of, what Byres (1996) calls,
'capitalism from below' where enterprising peasants, or 'capitalist roaders' could separate from
the peasantry and emerge as rich peasants, kulaks or rural bourgeoisie (Dessalegn 1984: 60). In
other words, since the uniform right to land was static, i.e. used by the peasant but owned by
the state, no major peasant differentiation (nor landlessness) could occur. Rural society was 'de-
13 From 1972/73 to 1975/76 overall cereal production decreased by 31% (IFPRI 2011: 9).19
-
SREF: 206862stratified'. In equity and lack of smallholder efficiency, then, lay the reasons for stagnant
agricultural growth;
The impact of Ethiopia's agrarian reformhas beenthe creation of small cultivators,
undifferentiated, therefore uncompetitive, insecure in terms of meeting their basic needs,
and unable to be involved in initiatives towards improvement and modernisation of their
farms[and]in the general exchange process, in accumulation in innovative endeavour
(ibid.: 61-62).
Moreover, the lack of agricultural growth aggravated famine (1984), forced the resettlement,
villagisation and collectivisation of millions of peasants and stirred an ethnic-coalition of a
peasant rebellion which overthrew the Derg in 1991 (Young 1997). The fact that GKI (2003: 26,
39) hold forced villagisation and collectivisation and discrimination against agriculture
accountable for failure of redistributive land reform in Ethiopia is therefore contradictory and
testimony to their analytical abstraction from rural social relations and politics on the ground.
Dyed-in-the-wool seems GKI's blind-faith that egalitarian redistributive land reform stimulates
agricultural growth, when in practice, as Karshenas (2004: 174) shows with reference to Taiwan
and Japan, there can be no guarantee that this will be so. We thus turn to an alternative
approach of comparative analysis of agrarian transitions.
2.0 Comparative Analysis: The Functionality of Agrarian Transition
Let us restate the research question; Is Japan's and East Asia's successful agrarian transition
model applicable to Ethiopia's contemporary attempts at industrialisation? And does the
current problematic of globalisation disclose the functionality of a similar path of agrarian
transition, or inhibit industrialisation? Overarching our research question is the agrarian
question. It is categorised into AQ1) social struggles over power and politics in countries (still)
20
-
SREF: 206862dominated by poor, rural society; AQ2) different formations of the development of capitalism in
the countrysides and its effect on agricultural development/production there; and AQ3)
agriculture's linkages and contributions to capitalist industrialisation/accumulation (see Byres
1986; Bernstein 1996). The central feature of our research question is focused on the agrarian
transition concerned with the resolution of the agrarian question. An agrarian transition is
successful once agriculture (whether fully capitalist or not) contributed to the development of
capitalist industry as the dominant sector of the economy (ibid.), in the process of which the
size of rural/agricultural peasantries diminished and that of urban/ industrial workers increased
significantly (Byres 2003b). An agrarian transition is abortive, or delayed, when capitalist
industrialisation is still in its infancy and agriculture remains dominant (ibid.). In Capitalism from
Above and Capitalism from Below, Byres (1996) identifies six notable historical examples of
diverging agrarian transition: in England (where capitalism first emerged and industrialisation
advanced14), Prussia and the USA15, France, Japan, and Taiwan/South Korea16. These models, or
paths, reveal that historical experiences of agrarian transitions are diverse; that the
development of 'capitalism from above' or 'capitalism from below' has different starting points
and different outcomes. These paths could potentially act as reference points for comparative
analysis of agrarian transition elsewhere in the past and where the possibility exists of
resolving, or attempting to resolve the agrarian question in the present (Byres 1996: 26-27). To
undertake such a comparison, here, we adopt Byres (1986; 1996) framework for comparative
analysis of successful capitalist agrarian transition. For both cases, J&EA and Ethiopia, we
analyse
(a) their pre-capitalist agrarian structures; (b) the class character of transition and the social
forms of agricultural production it generated; (c) how agricultural productivity increased
(investment in farming); and (d) how [if] agricultural development contributed to
14 See Brenner (1977); Byres (1996); Wood (2009).15 on which Byres (1996) focuses in depth. 16 Taiwan/South Korea are taken as one path.
21
-
SREF: 206862industrialization (intersectoral links), which is the criterion of successful transition (Bernstein
1994: 44).
This framework will drive the comparative study of Japan's agrarian transition in the past and
Ethiopia's present attempts to resolve the agrarian question by emulating the transition-path of
the former. However, we must consider the following:
First, within political economy (including neo-classical-neo-populism) agrarian questions in
contemporary developing countries are analysed in a constricted and analytically
impoverishing way because contemporary prospects for agrarian transition are considered on
the basis of very few, often 'narrow and stereotyped' success models from the past (Byres 1995:
509). Therefore, to avoid analytical closures before we commit ourselves to comparison and
preclude whether or not variants of a particular path are being followed, or may be followed,
we need to be sure that we do not proceed from a caricature (Byres 1986: 19).
Second, the historical applicability of successful agrarian transition 'then' to attempts 'now',
across time and space is contested. Even though historically capitalist industrialisation was the
means by which the peasantry diminished and poverty was eradicated (Byres 2004), in the
present phase of capitalist globalisation we face the 'problematic' of the elimination of any
prospects of agrarian transition as a route to comprehensive industrialisation in contemporary
poor countries (Bernstein 1996: 50). This does not mean that industrialisation is not possible
but questions whether the transition to capitalism in agriculture (AQ2) and agrarian transition
via agriculture's contribution to capitalist industrialisation (AQ3) still functions in the classical
sense under contemporary conditions of globalisation. This is because of the uneven and
combined development of capitalism, now intensified by globalisation (ibid.). For one,
globalisation pressures LDC's to attempt to industrialise by developing their home market but
confronts them with a competitive world market dominated by industrially advanced countries.
For another, capitalism is so dominant a mode of production on a world scale that, even if it
does not penetrate, it combines with the pre-capitalist social formation of rural livelihoods in
22
-
SREF: 206862LDC's and links its commodity producers (willingly or unwillingly) directly into the world market.
This uneven and combined expansion of the circuits of global capital transcends the links
between agriculture and industry. Thus, the functionality of industrialisation in the present is
not dependent on agricultural contributions from the home market but (unevenly) conditioned
by circuits of international capital. Perhaps a developmental state could mediate between the
home market and the world market and thus facilitate industrialisation but under neo-liberal
globalisation prospects seem bleak (Bernstein 2006; 2007b).
The second point is debatable. Do (different) paths to agrarian transition remain viable
in the contemporary context, as Byres (2002) argues? To assess this in our case-study,
Byres comparative investigationneeds to be complemented by the location of agrarian
transition in the context of uneven and combined development on a world scale and its
timing, which brings another angle of vision to bear on issues of then and now (Bernstein
1996: 41-42).
Beyond the comparative analysis of J&EA and Ethiopia, we need to look at their social formation
in its (a) location within capitalist world economy and its effects, (b) patterns of agrarian
structure and change, (c) forms and degrees of industrialisation (ibid.: 51). To look at the
'functionality' and the 'problematic' of agrarian transition under uneven and combined
development in contemporary Ethiopia by means of comparing it to the historical experience of
Japan, really puts the 'BernsteinByres debate' to a test. The following makes a case for the
relevance of comparing Japan and Ethiopia17.
2.1 Justification of Relevance for Comparison: Japan and Ethiopia
The relevance of comparing Japan and Ethiopia is a means to test the functionality of an 17 South Korea and Taiwan will not be included in this comparison as this would complicate the analytical focus on
transition differentiation. 23
-
SREF: 206862agrarian transition today on the basis of a transition path in the past. By doing so we squeeze-
out more information about whether 'the problematic' of globalisation really (a) marginalises
the stress on capitalist development in the countryside, (b) erodes the dynamic linkages
between agriculture and industry, and (c) makes the industrialisation process dysfunctional, i.e.
dismisses the agrarian question. To avoid that comparative analysis proceeds from caricature,
let us justify the specific choice of Japan and Ethiopia.
First, historically both shared a common impetus to modernise and initiate industrial take-off
(Bahru 2002; Levine 2001). The development of capitalism in home markets of early
industrialisers in the 16th and 17th centuries, had by mid-19th century expanded through
imperialism into a dynamic capitalist world market which was rapidly penetrating and
transforming pre-capitalist agrarian areas (Hobsbawm 1962). The British colonisation of India
and the Opium Wars in China (1838-1842) and the direct confrontation with European
imperialist powers 1850s-1860s, led in Japan to a call for 'national defence' by reformist
intellectuals and an understanding by the ruling classes (before and after the Meiji-restoration)
that the transition to capitalism and the need to industrialise was inevitable as a means to
remain sovereign and emulate imperialist development (Allinson and Anievas 2010). Similarly,
Ethiopias impetus for defensive modernisation was ignited by the first Italian attempt at
colonisation 1883 (fought-off at the 'Battle of Adwa' 1896) and the colonialist ventures of
Britain and France in East Africa. In response the intellectual advisers of Emperor Menilik II
advocated the emulation of the Japanese development model for economic progress (Bahru
2002; Clapham 2006). Only the second colonial intermezzo (1935-1941) externally necessitated
Emperor Selassie I to attempt capitalist development (ibid.) and internally forced the feudal
monarchy to address the pre-capitalist agrarian question (Iliffe 1983; Sender and Smith 1986).
Thus, Japan and Ethiopia shared a similar experience of integration into the capitalist world
market, free from colonialism but externally pressured to address the agrarian question and
industrialise. However, internally the social structures of Japan and Ethiopia were conditioned
divergently, due to the uneven and combined development of capitalism.
24
-
SREF: 206862Second, in the 19th and 20th centuries the ruling classes of pre-and-post Meiji Japan and Ethiopia
before-and-after revolution, both states sought to learn from and emulate foreign models of
modernisation (Levine 2001). Moreover, it is notable that
those who link a thesis about parallels between Ethiopia and Japan to the fevered
imagination of a comparative sociologist might pause before this fact: earlier in their present
century, writers in both countries expressed acute awareness of their mutual affinities. (ibid.:
1)
There is empirical diplomatic evidence for this. In 1931 Ethiopia's foreign minister Heruy visited
Japan to learn about its progressive development. In return in 1934 a Japanese diplomatic
mission under Tsuchida Yutaka set sail to Ethiopia. Their relations were less commercial, more
focused on learning from each other and aligning against European imperialism. Ethiopia's
monarchical-constitution (1930) was even modelled on the Meiji-constitution (1889) (Clarke
2004; 2007). Nonetheless, the history of uneven and combined development would have it so,
that Japan's agrarian transition was successful (discussed in Chapter 3.0), while Ethiopia's
agrarian transition is (as yet) delayed (discussed in Chapter 4.0).
Third, both nations shared a similar pre-capitalist feudal mode of production (Levine 2001). In
Tokugawa Japan and Selassie's Ethiopia centralized authority (of the absolutist state) was linked
to regional landholders and military classes who controlled land and extracted surplus tributes
from the labour of peasants on their land. The development of capitalism under landlord-
tenancy, however, effected diverging social changes. As aforementioned (Chapter 1.3) the Meiji-
restoration in Japan was followed by two redistributive land reforms. Likewise, the 1974
revolution in Ethiopia was followed by radical land reform. In the post-Meiji/WWII era in Japan
and in the post-Imperial era in Ethiopia, tenancy and wage labour were abolished by a strong
state. Thus in both cases smallholders with a restricted tendency towards differentiation
(Byres 1986: 47) thence tilled the land.
25
-
SREF: 206862Fourth, Ethiopia's contemporary political elites remain focused on the Japanese (and East Asian)
success-model of agrarian transition and industrialisation (Fourie 2011). The structural
transformation programme, Agriculture Development-led Industrialisation (ADLI), draws on the
experiences of J&EA's smallholder-path to industrialisation and makes smallholder-agriculture
the motor of industrialisation (Getnet 2009). Indeed, the Ethiopian government (EPRDF) is
assisted closely by Japanese development economists who argue that Japans experience of
agricultural contribution to, and development of, industry are both consistent with the policy
context of Ethiopia (Ohno 2009: 4). Moreover, Ethiopia's recent industrial development (to the
extent that it proceeds) bears similarity to the experience of successful industrial development
patterns in Japan and Taiwan (Sonobe et al 2006).
These are clear indications that a comparison is justifiable. Nonetheless, most comparative
literature on Japan and Ethiopia lacks deeper analysis of their respective social structures and
critical time-and-space periodisation and contextualisation of their (successful or delayed)
agrarian transition processes. Therefore it is necessary to compare the differential development
of capitalism in both countries and analyse the social stratification which ensued and facilitated
(or delayed) successful agrarian transition. In this manner we can seriously assess the
'problematic' and the 'functionality' of agrarian transition in contemporary LDC's like Ethiopia.
This can have profound implications for development practice, if one agrees that
[s]trategies and practices from past cases are only part of the puzzle; the other part depends
to a large degree on the social (class) structures prevailing in any given society on the eve of
their catch-up attemptnecessary policies for late development, induced from the past, are
not, therefore, sufficient. And what are sufficient are the institutional innovations that, by
definition, cannot be predicted in advance. If this argument is accepted, then development
policy enters an altogether new and much less coherent realm of understanding and action,
which is probably why such arguments are steadfastly ignored by most of those engaged in the
development industry (Selwyn 2011: 444)26
-
SREF: 206862
Therefore any assessment of 'functionality' and 'problematic' of agrarian transition based on
comparative analysis must remain nuanced and embedded within an understanding of external
conjuncture and internal social structure. This is all the more reason not to close book on the
BernsteinByres debate.
3.0 Japan's Agrarian Transition Model
The pre-capitalist structure of Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) was a mode of production that on
one hand dynamically developed and commercialised Japan's home market but on the other
lead to social stratification, laying the internal foundations for feudal demise and capitalism's
rise. Here, Allinson and Anievas (2010: 477-479) accounts are insightful: The Tokugawa
shogunate (Japan's ruling family) asserted its political power and economic apparatus by means
of hierarchical links to, and funding of, intermediate daimyo (absentee landholders). Residing in
urban areas the daimyo in turn relied on provincial samurai (military class) to control their land.
The samurai extracted surpluses in form of tributes (like rice) from the peasants who cultivated,
worked on, and lived off the land. This feudal system was institutionally upheld on the basis
that tributes were then transferred upward from peasant, to samurai, to daimyo, to shogunate.
By the mid-19th century the system had accelerated uneven economic development and parallel
social stratification, stirring social crisis. The economically exploited peasantry rebelled (Bix
1992) and the samurai, who had becamome marginalised from control over land and means of
production transformed into a revolutionary bureaucratic-class that became inclined to
promote a capitalist mode of production through state reformation (Trimberger 1977). This
social crisis was further intensified by the external threat of European capitalist imperialism,
which made Japan's relative backwardness to colonial powers acute and the need for industrial
progress apparent. Unable to respond to the combination of internal samurai-struggle for
ascendancy and external capitalist threat, the old ruling class (shogunate) and landowners
27
-
SREF: 206862(daimyo) were overthrown and the old mode of production subsequently reformed under the
Meiji-restoration (1868) (Allinson and Anievas 2010).
The need to industrialise was a pressing issue for the Meiji-leaders. Indeed, the need for speed
to catch-up was of essence if agriculture was to contribute to industry and avoid colonisation
(ibid.). To set the conditions for capital accumulation from agriculture, the strong Meiji state
implemented land and tax reforms and commercially yielded tenancy powers to landlords (Dore
1959a). These landlords resided on the land they rented-out to farmers and personally oversaw
peasant agricultural production, without themselves becoming capitalist farmers or employing
wage-labour (Dore 1959b). Landlord attempts at capitalist farming with wage-labour mostly
failed (Byres 2003b). This subjected the large class of smallholders to excessive rent-taxation
and generated high surpluses, subsequently shifted into industry. As Byres (1986) notes, the
coercive nature of 'non-absentee landlords' inhibited any social differentiation of smallholders
in the countryside and hampered, within agriculture, the development of 'capitalism from
below'. Meiji Japan's agrarian transition thus ironically functioned in the manner of a non-
capitalist transition which enabled the general development of capitalism to proceed a
uniquely effective yet exploitative and proletarianising experience of state-led primitive
accumulation indeed (ibid.: 46; Byres 2005). The biased-interventions of Meiji's coercive state
and landlord class increased agricultural output, stimulated industrialisation and agrarian
transition succeeded via 'capitalism from above'.
One indication for successful agrarian transition is population employment-changes in
agriculture and industry over time. In 1872, Japans workforce in agriculture was 85 per cent,
and in industry 6 per cent. As Agrarian transition proceeded until 1942, the workforce in
agriculture decreased to 43 per cent, and in industry increased to 34 per cent (Byres 2003b:
179-181). Initially, the particular rapid pace of Japan's transition to capitalism was indeed a
conscious decision taken by Meiji leaders (Allinson and Anievas 2010: 483) in order to
28
-
SREF: 206862industrialise in the capitalist world economy at a time when Qing China and British India were
subjected to drastic decline[s] in state capacity and popular welfare that seemed to follow in
lockstep withthe forced 'openings' to modernity and the making of the Third World,
accompanied by famines of holocaust-like proportions (Davis 2002: 9). It was tragically
fortunate for Japan that under British colonialism China and India succumbed to geopolitical
buffer-zones, shielding Japan's agrarian transition from colonialist interference.
In the post-WWII period, the U.S.-military government pushed for a second
redistributive land reform (1945). This did indeed (as neo-populists like to point out)
reinvigorate state-led agricultural contributions to industry, alleviated landlord-exploitation of
the peasantry and finally allowed 'capitalism from below' to develop in the countryside.
However, the social roots and institutional innovations of agrarian transition (landlord-bias,
industry-bias and tenancy-squeeze) are found in the pre-WWII era (Byres 1986). To reiterate,
Karshenas (2004) makes the case that by the time of Japan's second land reform, the stagnant
agricultural sector had to be sustained by subsidies derived from industrial surpluses. Therefore,
as afore-argued, Japan's pre-WWII industrialisation period is perhaps more indicative to
contemporary LDC's than the post-WWII period when engaging in comparative studies.
Furthermore, a deeper analysis of the development of capitalism, consequent social
stratification, and successful agrarian transition of Japan reveals that
...the Japanese landlord class was, nevertheless, most unusual, if not unique. Without such a
landlord class, with both its positive and negative features, a transition similar to the Japanese
is inconceivable. No such landlord class exists in any contemporary poor country. (Byres
1968: 50).
This emphasises the point that agrarian transitions are subject to differentiation and indicates
that a comparison is likely to raise questions regarding the contemporary viability to emulate
the Japanese path in practice. Let us bear this in mind for the following treatment of Ethiopia.
29
-
SREF: 2068624.0 Ethiopia's Agrarian Transition Attempts
The pre-capitalist structure of Ethiopia is not easily generalised into one tenure system.
Different feudal modes of production took different forms in different areas (Smidt 2005). Here,
we limit our treatment to North (rist system) and South (gult system) as is common practice
(Dessalegn 1984). In the Northern provinces, the rist mode of production and governance was
kinship based. Regional nobility granted smallholder peasants usufruct-rights to land in return
for tributes to the state. Traditionally, the rist was communal in character, landlessness and
tenancy were scarce; the rist was effective in allocating land to people and people to land
(ibid.: 18). This was so, until in the mid-20 th century, Haile Selassie's increasingly centralised
system of monarchical governance, imposed higher taxes on peasants in the North and thus
frustrated the development of capitalism, both 'from above' or 'from below'. This stirred
disputes amongst tenants over land rights (ibid.) and arguably sowed the seeds for the
rebellious fervour of Tigray's notorious peasantry, which would later wage revolution against
the anti-capitalist Derg-regime 1975-1991 (Young 1997).
Agrarian relations in the South prevailed on the basis of the gult tenure system, worked or
owned by peasants, chiefs and clergy. In the mid-20th century 'capitalism from above' developed
in the South, albeit slowly and through vicious forms of, what we can call, imperialist primitive
accumulation (Wedekind 2011). The imperial state appropriated common peasant lands by
means of neftannya forces (armed landlords), who excessively squeezed the peasants that were
now tenants on the very land they once owned. This was not private property in the capitalist
sense. Neftannya landlords were obliged to transfer tributes upwards to state authorities
(Dessalegn 1984). The slow transition to capitalism in the South was accelerated when state
farms and private investors competed for cash crop land in the South. What followed, was that
the introductionof pretty commodity production and the gradual development of
domestic and international markets further modified the prevailing pattern of feudal
30
-
SREF: 206862patron-client relationsand the conversion of gabbar into rent-paying tenants, and later
into wage-earners, marked the start of the gradual transition from a feudal mode of
production to agrarian capitalism (Fernyhough 2010: 296).
In the South, the uneven and combined development of imperialist primitive accumulation
effected insecurity of tenure and subsistence and proletarianisation of the peasantry
(Pausewang 2009), thus increasing the numbers of footloose labourers in urban and rural areas
who could not sell their labour to an underdeveloped industry. Landlessness stirred rural
reactions in form of banditry and peasant resistance (Fernyhough 2010).
Predominantly capitalist, by 1960-74, the urban capitalist/industrial sector lacked contributions
from agricultural output, which was stagnant (Griffin 1992). The fact, that manufacturing firms
were predominantly run by foreign capitalists (Markakis and Nega 2006) highlighted Ethiopia's
backwardness to other capitalist power in the post-colonial era of developmentalism. With an
agrarian crisis and infant industrial in stagnation, the Imperial attempt at agrarian transition,
based on inapplicable foreign models was a failure (Clapham 2006). Parts of the disaffected and
powerless urban petit-bourgeoisie and military classes waged revolution against Haile Selassie
(1974) and after a period of political struggle, the Derg-regime took control of the Ethiopian
state apparatus. In Chapter 1.3 we have already touched upon the Derg-regime's history of
redistributive land reform. Given that the Derg was an an anti-capitalist modernisation project,
based on the Soviet model (Clapham 2006) and given that agriculture and industrial
development remained stagnant after land reform, we can safely say that agrarian transition in
Ethiopia remained a failure.
To compare, the Japanese Meiji-restoration, which brought forth a unique landlord class that
effected rural capitalist accumulation and produced a successful, albeit labour-coercive,
agrarian transition. However, in Ethiopia a political elite developed from above which enforced
31
-
SREF: 206862a collectivised mode of production that tied the peasant to the land. This form of socialist
primitive accumulation inhibited any development of capitalism from above or below and
moreover failed to stimulate rural accumulation, agricultural growth and industrialisation
(Kebedde 1987). The Derg-regime was, partly due to a failed agrarian transition, overthrown by
rural peasant insurgencies in 1991 and replaced by the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 1994 (Young 1997).
4.1 Contemporary 'functionality' and 'problematic' of an agrarian transition in Ethiopia
The leaders of the peasant revolution which overthrew the Derg in 1991 now hold political
power in Ethiopia under the dominant EPRDF party. The vestiges of the Derg were effectively
removed. What remains incorporated in the 1995 constitution is the egalitarian land law which
the Derg initially implemented. It states, that all land belongs to the state, but grants each
citizen a right to land. In sociological terms, land does not belong to the farmer, rather the
farmer belongs to the land (Smidt 2005: 273) and therefore all land belongs to the state. Land
is not private nor for sale. The state holds the option to lease land, for redistributive purposes,
to citizens who have a right to land and in case agrarian households come under pressure
through droughts, resource shortages, crop failure and conflict (ibid.). Indeed, the EPRDF has
made massively use of this right, not only to redistribute land where peasant differentiation or
resource shortfalls occurred but also to lease land to attract export-oriented agribusiness
investors (which we shall discuss below) (Dessalegn 2008; 2011). Smidt (2005) argues that the
existing land law is vested in customary communal land rights which were, and until recently
remain, highly egalitarian. This policy indicated that the EPRDF state initially favoured a rural-
biased development strategy, characterised by a populist concern that excessive landlessness
and urbanisation would ensue if land were privatised and peasants subjected to neo-liberal
market competition (Devereux et al 2005). Approximately 80 per cent of Ethiopia's labour force
remains engaged in rural smallholder agriculture. Until recently, in its attempt to keep the
32
-
SREF: 206862agrarian smallholders tied to the land as an undifferentiated homogenous groupin the neo-
populist sensethe strong Ethiopian state sought to avoid peasant differentiation from below
(Dessalegn 2008) and thus peasant autonomy from below (Pausewang 2009). Rather, the
developmentalist state attempts to drive the development of capitalism from above. Here, the
unique land law is moreover crucial to Ethiopia's policy approach of agriculture development-
led industrialisation (ADLI). ADLI aims to make the rural smallholder the motor for
industrialisation. In the 1990's and early 2000's ADLI was the primary development strategy to
reap the benefits of the back-and-forth resource flows and synergies between smallholder
agriculture and industry. The state heavily invested in technological inputs to upgrade
smallholder means of production (fertilisers, high-yield crops, etc.) with the aim to increase
productivity, accumulate capital, and shift surplus into the industrial sector. Indeed, there is
evidence that the ADLI development strategy is modelled to the successful Japanese and East
Asian experience of smallholder-led industrialisation (Ohno 2009). While some J&EA-emulated
industrial policies and collaborations (with J&EA business partners and economists) have lead to
a few handful successful industrial upgrades (Sonobe et al. 2006), these were not significantly
stimulated by agricultural surpluses (Dercon and Zeitlin 2009).
As afore-argued, rural equity does not necessarily lead to smallholder efficiency. Indeed, some
agricultural economists argue that high rural equity fails to stimulate rural market competition
and innovation and in fact causes the Ethiopian agricultural sector to stagnate (Devereux et al
2005). State-led inter-sectoral linkages between agriculture an industry in Ethiopia remain
meagre and need to promote other sectors of the economy (transport & manufacture) more
effectively in order stimulate the transformation process (Dercon and Zeitlin 2009). Under neo-
liberal globalisation, the strong EPRDF state has failed to make ADLI an effective motor for
growth and the agrarian transition seems to remain slow18 in a national context where
18 This is evident if we look at the indication for successful agrarian transition in terms of population employment-changes in agriculture and industry over time. 1) In 1980, 89.5 per cent of the work force was in agriculture and 2 per cent in industry. 2) Between 1992-97, 88.5 per cent of the work force was in agriculture and 2 per cent in industry. 3) In 2005, 80.2 per cent of the
33
-
SREF: 206862questions of land ownership become a Gordian knot of rivaling political and economic
interests. This is the case of Ethiopia where the challenge to transform the agricultural
sector and make it an engine of growth must take into account at every turn the very
political nature of land ownership in the country (Ginthinji and Mersha 2007: 310).
Dessalegn (2008: 349) argues that the EPRDF-state nonetheless seeks to remain a
developmental state and retain dirigiste autonomy in order to stimulate linkages between
agriculture and industry in the home market. However the legacy of half a century of state
directed rural development has been in large measure grinding poverty, famine and pandemics
and did not bring forth a distinct social element, or a particular class that first takes up a new
form of production, or tries out new innovations or invests in new opportunities to create a
diverse social landscape and competing classes as an indispensable condition for a successfully
agrarian transition from in Ethiopia. In other words the development of capitalism from above
in Ethiopia has (to date) failed to ignite an agrarian transition from below. While the internal
social structure is tied-up and hinders the full unleashing of the rural potential for growth,
capital circuits of neo-liberal globalisation are further affecting Ethiopias rural markets. With
regards to the comparative analysis, it seems clear that the Japanese and the Ethiopian social
structure after reform/revolution took on different shapes across space-and-time and allowed
for different forms of institutional set-ups to drive smallholder-led agrarian transition. And
consequently the outcomesthe social struggles over power and politics, the development of
rural capitalism, and the contribution of agriculture to industrialisationwere different too. A
defining feature of these differences is time. Indeed, Ethiopia is attempting to transforming its
agricultural sector in an different period of globalisation. While the development strategy of
ADLI in Ethiopia is problematic and has not produced results similar to that of its J&EA model,
recent global trends in rural investment in LDC's push for a new strategy to attempt the agrarian
work force was in agriculture and 7 per cent in industry. 4) In 2009, 80 per cent of the work force was in agriculture and 6.5 per cent in industry (WB Development Indicators, 2000; 2005; 2007; 2009). Thus, if there is any agrarian transition, given the approximate increase 4.5 per cent of work force in industry between 1992-97 and 2009, then it is slow.
34
-
SREF: 206862transition.
Since 2008 there has been an institutional shift in Ethiopia's development strategy (ADLI) to a
strategy of agriculture investment-led export-oriented development (AILED). This change was
recently underscored and facilitated by the institutional shift of agricultural resource/land
governance from the local to the federal level. The arguably slow transition which proceeded
with ADLI is part-and-parcel of the reasons for a strategy shift towards AILED (Lavers 2011). This
shift is significant as it aims to attract investment from foreign agribusiness in order to maximise
foreign exchange and job creation through large-scale contract farming (Oya 2012). By the end
of 2008 an estimated 3.5 million acres of leased, and supposedly unused, land have significantly
altered Ethiopia's rural landscape. Arguably so to the socio-ecological detriment of pastoralism,
communal smallholders and environmental biodiversity (Dessalegn 2011). While AILED may be
an approach which attempts to overcome the 'problematic' of globalisation, i.e. reap the
benefits of global capital investments to co-stimulate an agrarian transition with foreign capital,
it is indeed questionable if this approach is socially and politically sustainable (Dessalegn 2011).
What is interesting nonetheless, is that indicates that a strict emulation of the smallholder-led
agrarian transition model is not entirely abandoned. But foreign agricultural investments are
now sought to be integrated into and complement agricultureindustry linkages (Oya 2012).
For our comparative study, this further emphasises that
the 'agrarian question now' is very different from the 'agrarian question then', because of
globalisation... These changes, moreover, will most certainly be influence by global capital
in pursuit of its interests: in this instance, by what one might term global agrarian capital,
in the shape of agribusiness corporations. But those changes will not be uniform, will not
proceed independently of the agency of local capital but via the interaction of global
capital and local capitals ... Awareness of the historical experience of agrarian transition
in the pre-1945 experiencealerts us to the substantive variety in the past ...[and]...
illuminate trajectories being followed in the present (Byres 2002: 65). 35
-
SREF: 206862
Conclusion
As afore-quoted, Selwyn (2011: 444) argues that while development strategies induced from
the past are indeed part of the puzzle to generate viable development strategy in the present,
the successful outcome of these new development strategies depend (a) on the social structure
that historically developed within an LDC's society and (b) on the new institutional innovations
which the given social structure makes possible. With this is mind, it remains to be seen
whether Ethiopia can internally untie the gordian knot (Ginthinji and Mersha 2007) and
externally make use of global agrarian capital (Byres 2002) to complement its smallholder-
based agrarian transition. To what extent this new attempt to accelerate Ethiopia's agrarian
transition is associated with difficult social and political implications remains speculative. While
Ethiopia's agrarian market (still) retains its egalitarian structure under current condition of
globalisation, it does not seem to contribute to an agrarian transition (yet). Here, we cannot
disclose, as Bernstein does, the 'functionality' of an agrarian transition under the contemporary
'problematic' of globalisation, given the new institutional set-up of agriculture development-led
industrialisation and agriculture investment-led export-oriented development which attempts a
new path towards industrialisation. Without wanting to employ neo-populist rhetoric here, it is
questionable if the current development strategy which invites foreign agribusiness investments
and fosters smallholder-led agricultureindustry linkages, by placing the old oxen next to the
new tractor, is socially, politically and ecologically sustainable. Further research should pay
attention to Ethiopia's contemporary institutional shifts in development strategy and related
socio-ecological issues.
With regards to the comparative study of agrarian transition; this dissertation has shown that
the past Japanese (and East Asian) agrarian transition model has been emulated in Ethiopia's
attempts at industrialisation. However, in Ethiopia three attempts at agrarian transition (under
imperialism until 1974, socialism until 1991, and under developmentalism until recently) have
36
-
SREF: 206862merely produced slow (at times even failed) agrarian transition. Heavy reliance, therefore, on
the J&EA model of smallholder-led development would ignore the differences in internal social
structure and external flows of capital across space-and-time. Indeed, the slow agrarian
transition and the infiltration of global capital have pushed Ethiopia's EPRDF-state to undertake
an institutional shift towards a new development strategy. This strategy is not to abandon the
J&EA inspired model of smallholder agriculture development-led industrialisation, but to
complement the agrarian transition with a strategy of foreign investment-led export-oriented
development. Therefore, J&EA past model is merely indicative, not blue-print, for Ethiopia's
present attempts to accelerate its agrarian transition. Whether foreign agribusiness investments
will stimulate an acceleration of the agrarian transition in LDC's in the future is a question for
further research.
37
-
SREF: 206862Bibliography
Allinson, J. and Anievas, A. (2010) The Uneven and Combined Development of the Meiji Restoration: A passive revolutionary road to capitalist modernity. In: Morton, A.D. (ed.), Capital & Class. London: Sage, 469-490.
Amsden, A. (1989) Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zewde, B. (2002) Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of Twentieth Century. Oxford: James Currey
Bernstein, H. (1994) Agrarian Classes in Capitalist Development. In: Sklair, L. (ed.), Capitalism & Development. London: Routledge.
Bernstein, H. (1996) Agrarian Questions Then and Now. In: Bernstein, H. and Brass, T. (eds.), Agrarian Questions: Essays in Appreciation of T.J. Byres. London: Frank Cass, 22-59.
Bernstein, H. (2004) Changing Before Our Very Eyes: Agrarian Questions and the Politics of Land in Capitalism Today. Journal of Agrarian Change, 4 (1-2), 191-226.
Bernstein, H. (2006) From Transition to Globalization: Agrarian Questions of Capital and Labour. In: International Conference on Land, Poverty, Social Justice and Development, Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, 9-14 January.
Bernstein, H. (2007a) Capital and Labour from Centre to Margins. In: Living on the Margins Conference, Stellenbosch, 26-28 March.
Bernstein, H. (2007b) Agrarian Questions of Capital and Labour: Some Theory about Land Reform (and a periodisation). In: Ntsebaza, L. and Hall, R. (eds.), The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenge of Tural Transformation and Redistribution, Cape Town: Human Research Council Press, 27-59.
Bix, H.P. (1992) Peasant Protest in Japan: 1884-1950. London: Yale University Press.
Breman, J. (1996) Footlose Labour: Working in India's Informal Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brenner, R. (1977) The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism. New Left Review, 1 (104), 25-92.
Bryceson, D.F. (2009) Sub-Saharan Africa's Vanishing Peasantries and the Specter of a Global Food Crisis. Monthly Review, 62, (3).
Byres, T.J. (1986) The Agrarian Question, Forms of Capitalist Agrarian Transition and the State: An Essay 38
-
SREF: 206862with Reference to Asia. Social Scientist, 14 (11/12), 3-67.
Byres, T.J. (1996) Capitalism from Above and Capitalism from Below. London: Macmillan.
Byres, T.J. (2002) Paths of Capitalist Agrarian Transition in the Past and in the Contemporary World. In: Ramachandran, V.K. and Swaminathan, M. (eds.), Agrarian Studies: Essays on Agrarian Relations in Less-Developed Countries. Lonon: Zed Books, 54-83.
Byres, T. (2003a) Agriculture and D