Industrial Growth and the Subsistence Economy

Abstract

It goes without saying that, in any country, advance in one sector of the national economy will benefit the nation as a whole and may well have profound effects upon other sectors, and the purpose in presenting this paper is to examine the inter-relation of the subsistence or traditional sector and industrial growth in Rhodesia. At the outset, it is important to look at the present position in the traditional sector and consider the developmental possibilities that may exist, taking due account of the many difficulties that, doubtless, will be encountered in attempts to change the economic tempo and, thereby, the very lives of three-quarters of the total Rhodesian African population, who live in what is known as Tribal Trust Land, covering an area of some 40 million acres. The economy of our traditional sector is a rural one, families relying for their subsistence primarily on simple cultivation of the soil or on animal husbandry. In some cases, the income thus derived is supplemented by remittances from adult male members of the family who have found employment in the modern sector, but it will be appreciated that the modern sector cannot absorb more than a small fraction of the expanding population of the traditional sector and, obviously, this limits the extent to which incomes of families can be supplemented by such remittances.