Continuity and Discontinuity in Zimbabwe's Development History

The government of Zimbabwe has publicly committed itself to a development strategy which it terms “Growth With Equity.” At least two official policy documents articulate the strategy: Growth With Equity (1981) and The Transitional National Development Plan: 1982/83-1984/85 (1982; hereafter TNDP). The theme appears frequently as well in the semi-official press and in Zimbabwe News, a publication of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) party. In each, the government claims that Growth With Equity will move the country away from the capitalist socio-economic system it inherited to a socialist order better able to redress the extreme racial and class inequities which were Rhodesia. Transformation is the watchword. The degree to which the strategy will transform Zimbabwe-indeed, the degree to which it is even intended to do so-draws increasingly skeptical commentary. From the ranks of neoclassical economists comes the critique that Growth With Equity sets over-high standards and is technically unfeasible (EIU Special Report, 1981). Mainstream development theorists call attention to the moderate-reformist aspects of the strategy which predict a Fabian socialist future (Bratton, 1981). Radicals, once quite willing to give the Mugabe government the benefit of doubt, are becoming disillusioned; the most promising aspect of Growth With Equity, some say, is its Gramscian logic (Saul, 1980; The Review of African Political Economy, 1980; Bush and Cliff, 1984). There is no dearth of Zimbabwe-watching and no shortage of opinion on the country's development prospects.