Consolidation logic of the market economy in Angola, 1930-1974

Abstract

One has commonly supported the thesis that the Angolan economy, during the last forty years of its existence as a colonial economy, during the last forty years of its existence as a colonial economy, has not envolved according to a logical process but has done it as a result from a chain of facts more or less aleatory, mainly because the Portuguese economy and colonial policy, due to their weakness and dependence, were not able to follow a model of colonial exploitation. It seems indeed that such a thesis is contradicted by a certain distance in time, making possible to embrace all the evolution in that period in its main features, and
an analysis of the socio-economic data available, even if they are insufficient. This is the position sustained by the author of this article, who, taking for its grounding the analysis of the production factors (capital, land and labor) during the processus undergone by the Angolan economy from 1930 till 1974 and the way in which Portugal has always surpassed the dead ends that were appearing, reveals the existence of a logic that would at last guide the economic policy adopted in the colonies and would serve for the consolidation of a market economy in Angola.