Our Radical Politicians - Land to the Ruler!

Teshome Guebremariam, the recently departed former legal advisor to Emperor Haile Selassie’s government, once said something to the effect of ‘we said “land for the tiller,” but we ended up with land for the ruler (the government)’. Land to the tiller – a policy of giving tenant farmers land title to the land they rent from large landowners – although a morally, politically, and technically difficult policy, seemed a reasonable and moderate response to the land exploitation situation during the Emperor’s time. Land to the ruler – transferring ownership of all land to the government – nationalizing all land – was a radical and extreme response. Unfortunately, our political elite at the time chose the radical and extreme response. Indeed, at critical junctures during Ethiopia’s modern history, our political elite, especially ‘Haile Selassie’s children’ – those educated from the 1950’s onwards – have too often taken radical and extreme political decisions which have resulted in long term disaster for the nation. This has resulted in repeated disasters and unanticipated and unintended consequences for the nation.

In this article, let us consider that fateful decision to nationalize land, a decision that the Ethiopian people have paid for and continue to pay for dearly. In brief, this policy has resulted in:

1. Artificially high national population and birth rate
2. The recent explosion of rural-urban migration that is chocking our cities
3. Low levels of human capital in rural areas, particularly in the area of farming expertise
4. Low agricultural productivity
5. Extremely high food prices and inflation
6. Food insecurity

How did all this come about? First, the nationalization of land, which included forbidding farmers to sell and buy land, essentially imprisoned our rural population. It meant farmers and their families could no longer move to the city. Let me explain by an example – an example farmer – call him ‘Amde’. In 1975, Amde had seven hectares of land – quite a decent sized holding. If Amde wanted to move to the city, he would need some money – some ‘start-up money’ – to live on until he settled down, found a source of income, etc. Normally, this money would come from selling all or even part of his land – his biggest asset. After all, most Ethiopian farmers in the past and today do not have other assets of significant value. However, thanks to the nationalization of land, the farmer was no longer allowed to sell or trade his land, or even mortgage it. Moreover, if he moved to the city, he most cases he would forego all rights to his piece of land! So not only could he not sell his land for money to live on in the city, but if he moved to the city and then for some reason changed his mind after some time and wanted to return to the farm, he could not do so – his farm would have been taken. Knowing this, farmers in general did not move to the city in numbers that they otherwise would have done. Indeed, the statistics show (I discuss this below) that there was minimal rural to urban migration from 1975 until very recently.

So, what was life like for Amde on the farm? Well, like all rural dwellers, he had many children, let’s say seven children (6.5 was the rural average birth rate around 2007 – keep in mind the Addis Ababa average was 2.2 – a big difference). As his children grew older, he divided his seven hectares into seven pieces – his children got one hectare each. And then his children too had seven children each. His land started getting crowded. As the years went by, country-wide, the average plot size of farmers started approaching one hectare and rural areas started getting congested.

Note that at the time of the 1975 land proclamation, about 85% of Ethiopia’s population, about 28 million people, lived in rural areas. In 2015, 40 years later, about 80% of Ethiopia’s population, or about 80 million people, lived in rural areas! In 40 years, the rural share of the population changed only 5%, but given the naturally high rural birth rates, the absolute rural population skyrocketed. Why? Because for 40 years, farmers, not being allowed to sell their land, did not move to urban areas. If the natural, controlled, and steady rural to urban migration that has occurred and continues everywhere around the world were allowed to happen in Ethiopia, then perhaps by 2015 the percentage of population rural areas would have fallen to 70% or lower. This would have meant more people in urban areas where the birth rate is low, and less people in rural areas where the birth rate is high, and this would have resulted in the overall population in Ethiopia being somewhat lower as well. However, because this natural rural-urban migration was artificially restricted in Ethiopia, the population of the rural ‘prison’ grew and grew, in 40 years from 28 million to 80 million. So this continued high rural-urban population ratio is a major cause of the artificially high national population today.

So what happened to Amde’s family? Recall that his children have one hectare each and seven children each. They cannot divide that one hectare into seven pieces for each of their children – the resulting plots would be too small to sustain a household. So they leave their land to only one of their children, with the remaining six children, having received a high school education thanks to the massive increase in rural public education, forced to try and make their living in the city. This is what is happening today in Ethiopia. The inevitable land deficit that we all expected by that the government ignored is now occurring. Today, millions of farmers have only enough land for one child to inherit – the rest of their children are all migrating to the city.

Hence the explosion in rural to urban migration we see today. Plot sizes have shrunk so much so as to be unsustainable. Most rural children are no longer inheriting land from their parents the plot sizes are too small to be divided. And, even though food prices are extremely high and there has never been a better time to be a farmer, if you have enough land, young people are flooding into urban areas. What we are seeing today is 40 years’ worth of pent up, accumulated, and multiplied rural-urban migration happening virtually at once. And this great rural-urban migration explosion is just starting.

But there’s more to this story – let’s go back to Amde. Amde was not a very productive farmer – he was just did not have the skills nor the desire to farm but farmed only to make a living. But his neighour Gemechu was an excellent farmer who made the most of his plot of land and wished to expand. He was, like any other business person, eager to expand is operations, could not. But, given the government land policy, he could not buy land. Amde would have been willing to sell his land to him and Gemechu would have bought it – they would have agreed on a price, but this was not allowed. So the best Gemechu could do was rent land from Amde on a seasonal basis. Gemechu wished to dig a well, plant trees, and make other long term investments, but he could not since the land was only his for a season and he could not know what would happen in the long term. He also dreamed of a time when he could buy other neighbours’ plots and expand to a level where he could learn mechanized farming, learn about growing fruit seedlings, etc. But his dreams never materialized.

Note that Gemechu was producing 20 quintals of teff per hectare, while the not very productive Amde was producing 10. If Gemechu had bought Amde’s seven hectares and planted teff, the seven hectares would have gone from producing 70 quintals to 140 quintals. Overall agricultural productivity would have increased significantly. Gemechu, with his increased income and taking advantage of economies of scale, would have gone on to greater agricultural exploits. Amde would have been able to buy cheaper teff.

What happened to Gemechu was a travesty that the government(s) of Ethiopia brought on the country’s farmers. By not allowing farmers to be entrepreneurial and to expand, the government stifled farmers’ human capital. This has had not only an economic but also psychological, political, and social impact on farmers. Unlike those in all other commercial sectors, farmers uniquely were restricted from freedom in their business – they were not allowed to expand. As a result, they were indirectly restricted from improving their agricultural skills and education and essentially forced to remain as they were, and to give up hope. Imagine if a mechanic was by law prevented from having a garage bigger than a one-car garage. He would not come close to achieving his potential. If a professor were told that he could never look for another job and he could never conduct research on anything but one subject, he too would never achieve his potential. In fact, he soon stop trying and just mindlessly do his job. Same for farmers. The system made it communism for the farmers, capitalism for the rest.

To add insult to injury, successive governments and NGO’s continued to regard farmers as almost daft – as ignorant and incapable and in need of all forms of paternalism and assistance. It is true that the agricultural sector – that farmers – have not been able to increase their human capital – their knowledge and capacity – but this was and is only because they have been restricted from being able to expand their business. In true communist fashion, the governments’ plan was to hold the most important factor – land – constant, and increase inputs such as improved seeds, fertilizer, agricultural education, etc., with the hope that this would result in greater productivity. Of course it has not worked.

Today, in Ethiopia, agricultural productivity per unit of land is low. Food prices are some of the highest in developing countries. Milk, eggs, butter, meat, and honey are more expensive in Ethiopia than in many Western countries! The agricultural sector has been unable respond to the even the high demand and high prices in today’s Ethiopia that should have resulted in greater investment and productivity. Hence the food inflation – the leading source of inflation in the country – something the government continues to battle.

Back to Amde… The once a decade drought arrived and Amde’s children suffered a tiny harvest. In the old days, when Amde had his seven hectares, he was able to withstand drought because the grain he harvested from his seven hectares was enough for more than one year. But today, Amde’s children have one hectare each with which to provide for their families, and the harvest from one hectare is barely enough for one year. So with this drought, Amde’s children’s families end up all receiving food aid for a year.

So there we have it: An artificially high national population and birth rate, an explosion of rural-urban migration that is chocking our cities, low agricultural human capital in rural areas, low agricultural productivity, high food prices and inflation, and food insecurity. All consequences of the radical land proclamation of 1975. This is one example of the dangers and risks of radical and untried policies being implemented by desperate and immature new political elites. Today’s rulers would do well to learn from this and reconsider the other radical and immoderate policy that is haunting Ethiopia – ethnic federalism.

Where the TPLF went wrong

2009/1/23 (Ethiopian calendar)

2016/10/3 (European calendar)

[Note: An Amharic version of this post will appear sometime!]

(pdf version)

A lot has been written about this over the past 25 years, but it doesn't hurt repeating, especially given today's political circumstances in Ethiopia. The TPLF's biggest historical mistake was interpreting its coming to power in 1991 as a full mandate from the vast majority of Ethiopians and assuming it meant a complete rejection of everything that preceded it. This mistaken assumption involved a typically modern Ethiopian exercise in black and white or zero sum thinking.

Basically, this is how the thought process worked... The Haile Selassie government fell, not because it failed to make some sensible reforms, but because it failed to make all the radical changes demanded of it by the students movement. The fall of the Dergue government had nothing to do with the Cold War, a failed Communist economy, or the war with Somalia, but because Ethiopia was a prison of nationalities that had to be liberated. The rise of the TPLF had nothing to do with the end of the Cold War and a bankrupt regime, but because the TPLF and its ethnic ideology best represented the interests of a majority of Ethiopians. The TPLF blinded itself to obvious facts in a bid to convince itself of its monopoly on truth and ability to rule Ethiopia.

Thus, after gaining power, the TPLF, in the form of the EPRDF, began a ruling style that involved continually trying to do the radical and the impossible, its hubris deluding it into believing that it was special enough to do anything politically.

This mindset is what emboldened the EPRDF to saddle Ethiopia (and itself) with perhaps the most radical ethnic based constitution in world history. With a little more maturity, it would have realized that this constitution was not only unpopular and fundamentally at odds with the interests of a large section of the population, but so radical, untested, and risky that there was a good chance it would in the future make governing impossible. For everyone except the EPRDF and other ethnic nationalists, it was clear that a more moderate constitution would have easily satisfied all constituencies, including ethnic nationalists and made governing far easier for the EPRDF.

Building on the constitution, the EPRDF embarked on an ethnic policy that can only be described as playing with fire. It engaged in policies (such as official identification by ethnicity) and rhetoric ('reactionaries' and 'narrow nationalists') that emphasized differences among Ethiopians and diminished commonalities. It thought that it could promote ethnic nationalism and at the same time control ethnic strife, knowing full well that its ethnic political base, Tigray, was composed of a small minority! An impossibly delicate formula if there ever was one. However, thanks to various factors, especially the sad state of the Ethiopian nationalist elite, the EPRDF has managed so far to survive on this knife's edge.

But the fundamentals remain wrong, and this explains today's smoldering dissent. It's a political reality that a people can tolerate far more oppression from their own ethnic group or in a non-ethnic context than they can from another ethnic group. The TPLF knows this quite well, having leveraged the political tool of ethnicity to its fullest during its liberation struggle. Yet, the EPRDF continued a policy of promoting ethnic nationalism while real power and perception of real power, remained in the hands of the TPLF. This has inevitably resulted in widespread resentment against the TPLF and Tigray. This was all predictable from the beginning; there have been ever increasing signs of it in the past two decades, yet hubris has prevented the EPRDF from changing course.

Note that this policy from the beginning was the antithesis of what is best for Tigray. A small minority can flourish in a multi-ethnic society, but not in a society where ethnic division and tension dominate, since the minority is dependent on migration and integration to prosper. The region of Tigray, like all the small ethnicities in Ethiopia, would do best in a country that is more united than divided. Yet, the ideology of the TPLF (and its big brother EPLF) was so ingrained that they basically ignored this danger and continued promoting ethnically divisive policies.

To be fair, the EPRDF did eventually realize the seriousness of the problem. Part of the reasons for the full mobilization of party resources towards the developmental state project ('lemat', for the masses) that begin during the mid part Prime Minister Meles' tenure was to mitigate ethnic division. The rhetoric of economic development was ramped up as a political tool to promote civic nationalism – to give all parts of the country something in common to unite around – and counter the obvious damage of ethnic nationalism. But of course the economy cannot by itself bring down ethnic boundaries and increase civic nationalism. Inter-ethnic integration, which the EPRDF's constitution essentially prevents, is the only way to do so.

The above is just a small list of the radical and reckless policies of the EPRDF over the past 25 years, which aros a consequence of the circumstances around its rise to power, including the absence of an opposing elite power to act as a moderating influence. Now, what does this history teach us about what is happening today? What is happening today?

Well, we continue to hear from hardline EPRDF leaders the same old rhetoric about reactionaries and narrow nationalists – the same old hubris. But there are moderates in the EPRDF and TPLF who have long ago come to realize the folly in their fundamental assumptions. These moderates and hardliners are discussing behind closed doors how to address the current revolt. The moderates are right and sensible, of course, but what has always handicapped them is external leverage. They need a strong Ethiopian nationalist movement and elite, the opposing elite power which I mentioned above, with power on the ground, that they can count on as a foil for the hardliners. They need a political partner on the other side, in other words, so that they can say to the hardliners, “Look, you've tried it your way, and now there is an opposition that your hardline policies cannot dislodge. It's time for you to step aside and let us negotiate a new system of governance.”

Unfortunately, this Ethiopian nationalist movement is not yet there. The soft and hard ethnic nationalists in Oromia who are against TPLF domination have been doing their part for years, but not the Ethiopian nationalists. Now we have the uprisings in Amhara Region, and this is a huge step in the right direction, but there is no organization yet. It is important that these uprisings soon coalesce into a tangible political movement so that it can work with the moderates in EPRDF to find a way out if its quagmire. Failing this, we have to count on the EPRDF reforming by itself. It's a tall order for any organization, especially on with the historical baggage of the TPLF.