Media as Ends: Money and the Underdevelopment of Tanganyika to 1940

Scholarship on African “underdevelopment,†its antecedents, manifestations, and consequences, is now limited in focus and method. This article suggests a broader approach and emphasizes insights that might come from combining aspects of economic anthropology with analysis of institutions. A modest case study then sketches some monetary perceptions and policies of Tanganyika's colonial bureaucracies (German and British) and their reception by Tanganyika's diverse population. Indigenous reaction to alien media was rational within a neo-classical tripartite demand-for-money framework. The combined consequences of all parties'actions for both the territory's “underdevelopment†and “under-growth†receive final but not definitive scrutiny in the last section.