This paper is a revision and update of an earlier article on the economic consequences of the I987 military coups d'etat in Fiji (Knapman I988a). Its purpose is to explain what has happened against a background analysis of postindependence development, and to predict what is likely to happen. It is not prescriptive, but it does comment on the universalist, promarket, antistate analysis and policy recommendations in two recent books on the Fiji economy (Cole and Hughes I988; Kasper, Bennett, and Blandy I988).
The conclusion is that Fiji probably faces a future of economic stagnation.