The economic rationality in the culture of Gamo wealth redistribution, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many of the studies on the moral economy of pre-capitalist African societies have singularly asserted that wealth redistribution in these societies was made only for the moral satisfaction of the redistributors. However, since the late 1960s this notion has been increasingly criticised with the claim that pre-capitalist societies were also economically rational. This paper presents the political economy of the pre-capitalist society of Gamo in Southern Ethiopia, where wealth redistribution can be interpreted as having been made not only for moral satisfaction but also for economic and political gains. The Gamo have a redistribution culture embedded in an institution known as haleqa in which economically better-off individuals redistribute wealth to the ordinary community members to get elected as clan leaders, a position that will give them opportunities to accrue economic benefits. The paper argues that cultures of wealth redistribution which are often daubed entirely ‘moral’ in fact significantly mix rational political and economic behaviours.