and this, not good institutions, led to subsequent economic growth? Others
have supported this alternative explanation with in-depth case studies. For
example, the difference between the export structure of Uganda (primary prod-
ucts) and Zimbabwe (manufactures) is explained by the skills, capital and
experience brought by European settlers and by the pro-industry policies that
this facilitated from the 1920s onwards (Wood and Jordan, 2000). Another
problem is that the distinction between settler and extractive colonies is too
crude. Alternative distinctions could be between plantation economies in
which land was operated by foreign companies and settler colonies where
farming was conducted by European settlers; or between ‘poor peasant
colonies’, such as French Sudan (now Mali) or Tanganyika (now Tanzania),
where poor soil quality prevented the profitable production of export crops,
and fertile agricultural exporters such as Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and
Uganda, where output was in the hands of small-scale African rural capitalists
(Austin, 2008). Finally, if the colonial experience was the key determinant of
subsequent economic growth,how can we account for the variation in income
levels among countries that were never colonized? The dispersion of incomes
within the colonized sample (103 countries colonized by the major western
European powers before the twentieth century) is little different from the non-
colonized sample (the 60 countries not colonized, such as Finland, Ethiopia
and Mongolia) (Rodrik et al.,2002).
The extractive state: the Belgian Congo
The colonial experience formed extractive institutions which persisted after
independence and led to continued arbitrary dictatorial rule and ultimate
economic disaster. The most extreme case was the Belgian Congo, which
closely fits the model of Acemoglu et al. The country had existed for a century
before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1491, with a chief chosen by an assem-
bly of clan leaders,and an elaborate civil service (Hochschild, 1999:8). Full
sovereignty over the core of the state was gained in 1884 in exchange for one
piece of cloth per month to the two main chiefs. The Belgian Congo was the
personal ‘property’ and dictatorship of King Leopold II (1835–1909), and its
control by Belgium was ratified at the 1884 Berlin conference without the
involvement of any Congolese. It was abundant in natural resources including
ivory, palm oil, timber and copper. In a brutal extractive process, the colonial
state compelled the cultivation of cash crops through forced labour; the harvest
was sold and distributed by the government at fixed prices. ‘Congo state offi-
cials (1890s) and their African auxiliaries swept through the country on ivory
raids, shooting elephants, buying tusks from villagers for a pittance, or simply
confiscating them.’ (Hochschild, 1999:118)
Villagers failing to meet production and procurement quotas risked flog-
ging or mutilation. Exports of rubber increased from 100 tonnes in 1890 to
6,000 tonnes in 1901 and ten million people are estimated to have died in that
export effort. The Congolese had no rights to own land, no political voice, and
186 Patterns and Determinants of Economic Growth