Ezekiel Ngitoria

Very happy to share that from September 1, I will join Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and the Economic Policy Network, respectively, as a visiting fellow and principal advisor.

Tanzania's forced collectivization under Julius Nyerere killed more people per capita than Stalin's agricultural disasters, yet Western intellectuals still romanticize ujamaa as "African socialism." Between 1967 and 1975, Nyerere's government forcibly relocated over 13 million Tanzanians—roughly 80% of the rural population—into collective villages called ujamaa. The state promised modern amenities, shared prosperity, and liberation from "capitalist exploitation." Instead, they delivered mass starvation. Agricultural output collapsed by 50% within five years. Food imports skyrocketed from 50,000 tons in 1970 to 400,000 tons by 1974. Rural villagers who had fed themselves for generations suddenly couldn't grow enough grain to survive winter. The mechanics were predictably Austrian. When you destroy private property rights and eliminate price signals, you obliterate the knowledge that makes agriculture work. Farmers knew their local soil, rainfall patterns, and crop rotations. But central planners in Dar es Salaam decided that "scientific socialism" trumped centuries of accumulated farming wisdom. They forced communities to abandon fertile ancestral lands for designated plots that bureaucrats selected from maps. Villages that resisted faced military force—troops literally burned homes to drive families into the collectives. And the damn tragedy continues reverberating today. Tanzania remains one of Africa's poorest countries, importing food despite having some of the continent's best agricultural land. Per capita income in 2023 sits at $1,192—lower than Bangladesh. You can draw a straight line from ujamaa's destruction of property rights to Tanzania's persistent poverty. But mention this at any development economics conference and watch professors explain how Nyerere had "good intentions" and the real problem was "insufficient implementation." Lesson: Collectivism fails equally hard across race, language, geography, population size, education level, continent, or any other possible metric you can dream of.

It's a tricky thing because, I did a survey last year on why Maasai Boma's had persevered for this long, their material science, and what is sustainable for them. What Earth-based construction calls sustainability is not what "concrete-based construction" calls sustainability.

Warren Buffett: “Don’t sleepwalk through life. Find something that you really enjoy doing, if you can do it. Not everybody is lucky enough to be able to find that, but it ought to be your goal.”