N ENDURING and usually unquestioned assumption underlying gen-A eral anthropological theory is that which suggests the "homogeneity" of very simple societies. For the purposes of the development of evolutionary theory, or for the generation of a descriptive ethnography, or for the discussion . of the validity of the "genetic" approach in historical linguistics, it is customarily assumed that "primitive,)' or "simple" or "folk" societies contain individuals who think, and act, and speak more or less alike.* Such a society is small, isolated, nonliterate, and homogeneous, with a strong sense of group solidarity. The ways of living are conventionalized into the coherent system which we call "a culture" (Redfield 1947:294). The concept of primitive or "tribal" culture is based on three fundamental aspects of the behavior of members of tribal societies. First, it is a construct that represents the ideal, norm, average, or expectable behavior of all members of a fairly small, simple, independent, self-contained, and homogeneous society (Steward 1955 :44).
This article addresses the fact that little is known about the performance of the Iraqi economy after the 1970s due to a number of reasons including great official secrecy, the impact of repeated wars and, most important of all, the system of disaggregated economic management put in
place by the Bathi regime in which many important parts of the system were managed, off-budget, as discrete units. While acknowledging the great difficulties in reconstructing the overall effect of such a system, Owen suggests ways by which we might begin to understand its logic as a preliminary
to the team effort needed to reconnect the economic history of the last thirty years with what went before. This, he argues, is vital not only for a proper study of Iraq's development effort but also as a benchmark against which to judge present efforts at economic reconstruction and recovery.
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