ABSTRACT
Over the last sixty to seventy years tropical Africa has undergone an economic revolution. Its 140 million inhabitants, who for centuries had been producing nothing more than the necessities for subsistence, have now begun living and producing with an eye to the outside world. In other words a market economy has taken the place of the subsistence economy. This change was essential for progress. In the absence of any currency some medium of exchange had to be found for the purposes of education, the treatment and cure of endemic and epidemic sickness, the opening of communications and the acquisition of a minimum of industrial equipment or simply for the purchase of goods from Western traders. Africa, however, had no other medium of exchange to offer than its own farm produce or the labour of its people. While the resulting exchange has taken place partly through the sale of produce and partly through the hire of labour, 'there is a marked tendency in most territories for one or the other of these two forms of commercialisation to dominate. Thus, for example, production for market plays by far the more important part in money earning in the indigenous agricultural economies in the Gold Coast, French West Africa, Nigeria and Uganda, while in Kenya, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia wage employment completely overshadows cash cropping.'l
Thus a market economy made its appearance in Africa. The process was and still is extremely slow. Even now, in tropical Africa as a whole, the major proportion (approximately 70 per cent) of the resources of cultivated land and of labour (approxi-·Reprinted by permission from the International Labour Review, Vol. 72, 1955. (Supplement.)
mately 60 per cent) of the indigenous agricultural economies is still engaged in subsistence production. 2 Yet the development of a market economy is essential for any improvement in the standard of living of the people. In view of the rising population and the progressive erosion of the soil, to quote only the most obvious factors, there is a need to expand resources and acquire equipment, and this would be difficult in a subsistence economy. At the present stage of development the need for fresh changes is becoming evident. It is clear that transport facilities will have to be improved if there is to be any increase in the export trade. Productivity will also have to be raised to ensure a flow of goods to foreign markets, meet the needs of workers employed in non-indigenous undertakings, and maintain the standard of living of the producers themselves. New sources of production will also have to be discovered, and the reserves of labour must be used more effectively than in the past. possibly by finding work for them in industry instead of on the land.
