Afghanistan Under the Rule of the Musahiban Family

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After the fall of Amanullah Khan, Habibullah Khan Kalakani ruled for a short term and then the Musahiban family ruled over Afghanistan from 1929-1978. The Musahiban family halted the social changes that Amanullah Khan wanted to make which moved it away from developing the economy, state building and modernization. The economy was the same as it was at the turn of the century. The Musahiban family followed the policy of encapsulated modernization. They only focused on the centers the countryside areas remained untouched because of the fear of rising revolts. Under the Musahbian family they did not impose any changes or taxes, especially no taxes in cash which means they made the rural economy remain untouched. This means that there was no surplus to invest in the state, the state did not do that because they had no money and the private owners didn’t do that was because everyone was a small landowner and did not have money to invest into factories. Although, today the period from 1929-78 has been marked as a period of relatively political, social and economical stability, infrastructure development, and positive neutralism, this period also experienced some domestic and foreign policy failure like royal family fractions, political stagnation, political unstable reforms and Pashtunistan foreign policy failure. However, If Amanullah Khans reforms had continued we might have been able to modernize Afghanistan. Railroads, central bank, currency, modern bureaucracy, direct taxes, capitalist development, state land was given to people, private property, constitution, established one of the first factories for producing consumer goods (these changes would have transformed Afghanistan if they had continued under Musahiban, abolished slaver...

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...ot want to modernize the rural areas – and only followed encapsulation. Musahiban family wasted great opportunity they needed to modernize gradually – but PDPA started radically. Again, Afghanistan failed to build a strong independent state and remained reinter state. Reinter state is bad because the state cannot collect tax from the people and is dependent on the foreign states for resources. One the foreign aid is ban the state will collapse.
VI. Conclusion:
The major change that has happened under the Musahiban was the encapsulated modernization, not touching the rural areas, to improve education and infrastructure, establishing bureaucracy – established a new class and society. These educated masses in the cities were needed because they needed to be the base of the government – to govern the country, to rule, and to stand up against the revolts of the country.

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