This study brilliantly demonstrates how the complete centralization of power in Zaïre has not led to more effective governance but to the total exploitation of most of the population, and has created a virtually universal adversary relationship between elites and masses. The description of the effects of the 1973 "Zaïrianization" of the country's entire commercial sector, greatly enlarging the gap between haves and have-nots and increasing the economic insecurity of the latter, is particularly compelling.