Why Nations Fail

T
HE
 C
HILDREN OF
 S
AMAALE
Absolutist political institutions around the world impeded
industrialization either indirectly, in the way they organized
the economy, or directly, as we have seen in Austria-
Hungary and Russia. But absolutism was not the only
barrier to the emergence of inclusive economic institutions.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, many parts of the
world, especially in Africa, lacked a state that could provide
even a minimal degree of law and order, which is a
prerequisite for having a modern economy. There was not
the equivalent of Peter the Great in Russia starting the
process of political centralization and then forging Russian
absolutism, let alone that of the Tudors in England
centralizing the state without fully destroying—or, more
appropriately, without fully being able to destroy—the
Parliament and other constraints on their power. Without
some degree of political centralization, even if the elites of
these African polities had wished to greet industrialization
with open arms, there wouldn’t have been much they could
have done.
Somalia, situated in the Horn of Africa, illustrates the
devastating effects of lack of political centralization.
Somalia has been dominated historically by people
organized into six clan families. The four largest of these,
the Dir, Darod, Isaq, and Hawiye, all trace their ancestry
back to a mythical ancestor, Samaale. These clan families
originated in the north of Somalia and gradually spread
south and east, and are even today primarily pastoral
people who migrate with their flocks of goats, sheep, and

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camels. In the south, the Digil and the Rahanweyn,
sedentary agriculturalists, make up the last two of the clan
families. The territories of these clans are depicted on 
Map
12
.
Somalis identify first with their clan family, but these are
very large and contain many subgroups. First among these
are clans that trace their descent back to one of the larger
clan families. More significant are the groupings within
clans called 
diya-
paying groups, which consist of closely
related kinspeople who pay and collect 
diya
, or “blood
wealth,” compensation against the murder of one of their
members. Somali clans and 
diya
-paying groups were
historically locked in to almost continual conflict over the
scarce resources at their disposal, particularly water
sources and good grazing land for their animals. They also
constantly raided the herds of neighboring clans and
diya-
paying groups. Though clans had leaders called
sultans, and also elders, these people had no real power.
Political power was very widely dispersed, with every
Somali adult man being able to have his say on decisions
that might affect the clan or group. This was achieved
through an informal council made up of all adult males.
There was no written law, no police, and no legal system to
speak of, except that Sharia law was used as a framework
within which informal laws were embedded. These informal
laws for a 
diya
-paying group would be encoded in what
was called a 
heer
, a body of explicitly formulated
obligations, rights, and duties the group demanded others
obey in their interactions with the group. With the advent of
colonial rule, these 
heers
began to be written down. For
example, the Hassan Ugaas lineage formed a 
diya-
paying
group of about fifteen hundred men and was a subclan of
the Dir clan family in British Somaliland. On March 8, 1950,
t h e i r 
heer
was recorded by the British district
commissioner, the first three clauses of which read
1. When a man of the Hassan Ugaas is murdered by
an external group twenty camels of his blood wealth
(100) will be taken by his next of kin and the remaining
eighty camels shared amongst all the Hassan Ugaas.
2. If a man of the Hassan Ugaas is wounded by an

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outsider and his injuries are valued at thirty-three-and-
a-third camels, ten camels must be given to him and
the remained to his jiffo-group (a sub-group of the 
diya
group).
3. Homicide amongst members of the Hassan Ugaas
is subject to compensation at the rate of thirty-three-
and-a-third camels, payable only to the deceased’s
next of kin. If the culprit is unable to pay all or part, he
will be assisted by his lineage.
The heavy focus of the 
heer
on killing and wounding
reflects the almost constant state of warfare between diya-
paying groups and clans. Central to this was blood wealth
and blood feuding. A crime against a particular person was
a crime against the whole diya-paying group, and
necessitated collective compensation, blood wealth. If such
blood wealth was not paid, the 
diya
-paying group of the
person who had committed the crime faced the collective
retribution of the victim. When modern transportation
reached Somalia, blood wealth was extended to people
who were killed or injured in motor accidents. The Hassan
Ugaas’s 
heer
didn’t refer only to murder; clause 6 was “If
one man of the Hassan Ugaas insults another at a Hassan
Ugaas council he shall pay 150 shillings to the offended