introducing no constraints on the exercise of this power.
Though these were different extractive institutions in form,
they had similar effects on the livelihoods of the people as
the extractive institutions in Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone.
K ING C OTTON
Cotton accounts for about 45 percent of the exports of
Uzbekistan, making it the most important crop since the
country established independence at the breakup of the
Soviet Union in 1991. Under Soviet communism all
farmland in Uzbekistan was under the control of 2,048
state-owned farms. These were broken up and the land
distributed after 1991. But that didn’t mean farmers could
act independently. Cotton was too valuable to the new
government of Uzbekistan’s first, and so far only, president,
Ismail Karimov. Instead, regulations were introduced that
determined what farmers could plant and exactly how much
they could sell it for. Cotton was a valuable export, and
farmers were paid a small fraction of world market prices
for their crop, with the government taking the rest. Nobody
would have grown cotton at the prices paid, so the
government forced them. Every farmer now has to allocate
35 percent of his land to cotton. This caused many
problems, difficulties with machinery being one. At the time
of independence, about 40 percent of the harvest was
picked by combine harvesters. After 1991, not surprisingly,
given the incentives that President Karimov’s regime
created for farmers, they were not willing to buy these or
maintain them. Recognizing the problem, Karimov came up
with a solution, in fact, a cheaper option than combine
harvesters: schoolchildren.
The cotton bolls start to ripen and are ready to be picked
in early September, at about the same time that children
return to school. Karimov issued orders to local governors
to send cotton delivery quotas to schools. In early
September the schools are emptied of 2.7 million children
(2006 figures). Teachers, instead of being instructors,
became l