Review The Role Of Government In The Industrialization Of Iraq 1950-1965

Jalal, Ferhang, The Role Of Government In The Industrialization Of Iraq 1950-1965, London and New York: Routledge, 1972

 

The Rise Of Government In The Industrialization Of Iraq 1950-1965 by Ferhang Jalal is an academic book about Iraq’s attempt to develop industry. He starts in the 1950s because that was when oil became the main revenue source for the government providing plenty of money for its plans. Jalal believes Baghdad largely failed however due to politics and an inefficient government.

 

The book is broken up into three main parts. First there is some background to Iraq’s economy. Under the Ottomans for instance there were few services and a complete lack of any type of development or infrastructure because the government was only present in the cities and spent little. Under the Iraqi monarchy Baghdad started issuing 4-5 year investment programs which focused upon agriculture because that was the main business and where most Iraqis worked. The populace was largely poor so there wasn’t much of a domestic market to sustain industry either. This is a short and concise part of the book which portrays Iraq as being like most new countries that started off with little and wanted to remedy that.

 

The majority of The Role Of Government In The Industrialization Of Iraq is about the different government offices that were created for development, their plans and the money spent. The three most important were the Development Board, The Planning Board, and the Industry Ministry. The Development Board was an independent body that was given 70% of oil revenues which greatly increased in the 1950s. It focused upon agriculture however which was the biggest business and where the vast majority of the populace worked. The Planning Board was created after the 1958 coup and was made up of ministers which meant it was subject to political interference. Finally the Industry Ministry took over the task of creating manufacturing but lacked resources most important enough staff members. The author has endless charts to break down where all the money was supposed to go. That’s matched by the commentary on the duties and functions of the various agencies that were created for development. It’s easy to get lost in all the details in this section.

 

The most important part of Jalal’s work is his conclusions. He believed Iraq failed to develop industry for a number of reasons. First there was constant political instability in the country. From 1921-50 the cabinet changed on average every 8 months. Each new government had its own plans and threw out the old ones. Even when the independent Development Board was set up within three years Baghdad attempted to assert its control over it. Second the bureaucracy was largely inefficient. There was a severe lack of qualified personnel, pay was low, morale was not high and promotions were based upon seniority not competence. The different agencies and ministries also didn’t coordinate their work. All together that meant the authorities weren’t able to spend their money well and targets were rarely reached. Third, banks only gave limited credit to manufacturers. Fourth, the government set up an array of protectionist measures meant to help domestic industry against the much larger foreign competition. Those mostly failed because of poor planning. This is by far the most interesting part of the book. The author creates a convincing argument that Baghdad was simply not up to the task of industrialization. Surprisingly these issues continue to the present day as Iraq is the most oil dependent country in the world, its private sector including manufacturing is very small and the government remains largely dysfunctional.

 

The Role Of Government In The Industrialization Of Iraq is not for the casual reader. Someone needs a background in economics or political economy to understand much of what Jalal writes. The endless charts can provide a distraction from the narrative. For those that have the prior knowledge however the book provides a very clear story of how Iraq had plenty of plans but couldn’t carry them out effectively. That was despite a huge amount of money provided by oil that other nation’s lacked. This is a very familiar story that happened to many other countries around the world.

 

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