ABSTRACT
The chapter on the consequences of economic dualism centres on the interdependent relations in the economic structure working to lower the standards of living or per capita incomes of the country’s majority, while raising the living standards of the colonial white minority. The imperfections in the land and other factor markets, as well as outright discrimination, had the effect of increasing the likelihood that if an innovation did occur, it would be the large white farmers who adopted it. On the other hand, relatively higher prices of capital in relation to labour prevented African peasant farmers from adopting new technologies, thus leading to the latter adopting inferior and less productive technologies. This situation is heightened by lack of property rights anywhere outside the modern capitalist sector, which Hernando De Soto refers to as the disastrous economic effects of the legal apartheid which are most strikingly visible in the lack of formal property rights over real estate. These disparities set the tone for the likely continued and unabated economic dualism from colonial Rhodesia to post independence, a situation that will only change with the obliteration of the dualistic structure of the economy.
