Essay
State & Economy of Early 20th Century Ethiopia
Mengistna Yehizb Astedader
Gebre Hiwot Baykedagn · 1925
Synopsis
The essay asks how Ethiopia can transform itself quickly and lastingly. It makes a strong and efficient state the instrument of development and the guarantor of sovereignty, places knowledge, skills and technique at the heart of wealth, and warns against dependence on the industrial countries: it denounces an exchange in which the country sells raw products and buys manufactured goods, and argues for exports.
Context
Left in manuscript, the essay appeared in Addis Ababa, from the Täfäri Mäkonnen press, in 1925 according to Shiferaw Bekele, in 1924 according to Alemayehu Geda. Written in Amharic, it long remained little known outside Ethiopia. Tenkir Bonger translated it into English in 1995, and it has since been reread as a theory of dependency before its time, by Messay Kebede in 2006 or by Zinabu Samaro Rekiso, who places it in 2019 within the economics of late development. The author's works have been collected by Addis Ababa University Press.
Who it is for
For discovering, in English translation, an Ethiopian thinking on development written at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Prizes and reception
Shiferaw Bekele sees in him the first true development thinker of his country.
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