ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some of the economic and political implications of the basic technological differences between Africa and Eurasia, as well as within Africa itself. The analysis of a political system needs to be related to its economic possibilities and these in turn are linked to the technology. These differences had important consequences on the political and economic level, so that many terms originating in the analysis of pre-industrial Europe, such as 'feudal', are inappropriate for the examination of the traditional state in Africa. The economic rights of the African rulers over land meant less than those of their European counterparts. The emergent system of stratification in Africa has less to contend with in the shape of traditional authorities, anyhow in the economic sphere. There are equally important implications for the economic development of the African continent. In Africa the small-scale technology of Eurasia is lacking; at the village level there were wood-carvers.
