It was a misfortune that Mozambique achieved its independence at a time of great economic and political instability, globally as well as regionally. These circumstances increased the risks associated with extensive state intervention into the economy, and intensified the negative political and economic consequences that confronted the regime when state farms, communal villages, and central planning largely failed. But many who try to explain the failure argue that Frelimo might have succeeded were it not for all of these external factors. Alternative explanations swing the pendulum to the other extreme: they argue that the principles and policies of state intervention were deeply flawed and they could never have succeeded regardless of the external factors.

The argument that the project of state intervention collapsed because of external factors usually takes the following form. It concedes that Frelimo's economic policies were not entirely workable nor always socially just in their consequences, but of greater significance was that the environment in which Frelimo launched the policies was unstable and unlucky.