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ASPEC'FS 3’? JAEWCJEN EfiONOh/HC DEVELOPMENT.
1830-1930

Dissertation for the Degree of Ph. D.
MECHIGAN STATE UNEVERSITY
MARIETTA MGRRISSEY
1977

 

LIBRARY

3 3 1293 10117 2900 Milne“ . 6
University

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

Aspects of Jamaican Economic Development 1830-1930

presented by

Marietta Mbrrissey

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph. D. degree in Sociology

 

   
 

Major professor

Date July 12, 1977

 

0-7639

ABSTRACT

ASPECTS OF JAMAICAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 1830-1930

By

Marietta Morrissey

Students of West Indian econonw and society have traditionally
failed to provide concepts for the study of three important phenom-
ena: 1) British capitalist development and its relationship to im-
perialism, 2) West Indian economic development, and 3) West Indian
stratification. The reasons for these inadequacies can be traced to
political.and corresponding epistemological biases. The Caribbean
structuralists, presently dominant in Caribbean studies, have not
challenged Third World capitalism. Nor have they moved beyond the
static analytical concept, the "system," expressed in terms of the
"plantation society" and "plantation economy."

Recent Marxian theories and research on imperialism and depen-
dency, hitherto ignored in Nest Indian studies, are particularly
strong in the three areas outlined above and suggest a promising
path in the reconceptualization of West Indian economy and society.
Marxian thought, of course, represents varying epistemological and
political viewpoints as well. Marxian methodology, as elaborated
by Ollman, Hobsbawm, and others, is relational, anddiffers from
structuralist and other Marxian approaches in its emphasis on the
variability of social phenomena and the changing nature of social
relations. Yet, common forms of social relations are recognized,

although as historical relations and not systemic laws.

Marietta Morrissey

Following this interpretation of Marxian theory, the study of
Nest Indian economy and society begins with an analysis of bourgeois
capitalist development and the British case. It is argued that Bri-
tain's economic history, elaborated in relational terms, provides a
set of limiting, conditioning factors within which West Indian economy
and society has evolved. For the period in question, lB30-l930,
several key relations in the development of British capitalism in-
fluenced West Indian history.

Britain seized the West Indies during the mercantile period of
her capitalist growth, subjecting the region to the consequences of
large-scale commodity export agricultural production, and monopolistic
and preferential trade policies. During the first half of the nine-
teenth century, European mercantilism gave way to competitive capital-
ism resulting in changes in the dynamic of capitalist growth and re-
lated modifications in modes of imperialism and in trade policies.
Britain, the premier metropole, adopted free-trade practices which
embOdied the primary means of imperialist expansion.

As a consequence of this movement, the West Indies experienced
changes in fundamental aspects of society and economy. The dominant
system of production, the plantation, declined. Class relations were
altered, as a national bourgeiosie displaced many planters and mer-
chants, and assumed a major role in landowning, petty manufacturing
and trade. The developmental process underwent transition; petty
production of agricultural crops and manufactures, much for the in-
ternal market, increased. The British state withdrew its formerly
rigid control over its colonies, allowing colonial legislatures to

assume increased political power in many areas. Similar changes

Marietta Morrissey

occurred in other metropolitan-satellite relationships.

At the turn of the century, metropolitan capitalism began the
transition to its present phase of development--mon0poly capitalism.
British industry and that of other bourgeois nations became centralized
and concentrated; concentration of capital grew. Bourgeois metropoles
returned to protectionist trade policies. Capital investment became
the predominant mode of imperialism. The metropolitan countries
challenged one another and countered international economic crisis by
joining a new round of colonial expansion into the economically back-
ward world.

British colonies and those of other metropoles experienced a
series of social and economic transformations; the prevailing system
of production, class relations, dependent development, and the state
changed. In the West Indies, the dominance of the plantation was
reestablished. The national bourgeoisie faced competition for land,
labor and capital from monopoly capitalist corporate owners of plan-
tations. Economic growth was again concentrated in the export sector.
The British state reasserted its authority in colonial affairs, re-

ducing local political power.

ASPECTS OF JAMAICAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 1830-1930

By

Marietta Morrissey

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Sociology
1977

® Copyright by
MARIETTA MORRISSEY
1977

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The time that I spent working on this dissertation has been
very pleasurable for me. I have always found scholarly work enjoyable
when I have felt the freedom to express my intellectual questions and
concerns. Kay Snyder, in her role as advisor, provided the space for
me to work independently and creatively. I appreciate her philosophy
of education, and I thank her for her thoughtful guidance in the pre-
paration of this dissertation.

I would like to thank Dr. James McKee for assuming the chairman—
ship of my committee when Kay left Michigan State. His comments on
the dissertation were helpful to me, as were those of other committee
members, Richard Hill and Marilyn Aronoff. Frederick Buttell read
parts of an early draft and suggested several major improvements.

I am grateful to Jeff Gamso for his support and confidence in
me. ‘He also provided editorial and other assistance in the production

of this dissertation.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
LIST OF TABLES .........................
CHAPTER
I A REVIEW OF THEORY ................... 1
Introduction ...................... 1
A Review of Theory ................... 9
II THE METHODOLOGY AND AN OVERVIEW OF THE DISSERTATION . . . 48

III

IV

The Methodology and Techniques of Research ....... 48
An Outline of Dissertation Chapters ........... 55
Future Research and Analysis .............. 74
Historical Research and Secondary Analaysis ....... 79
BRITAIN, THE TRANSITION FROM MERCANTILISM T0 COMPETITIVE
CAPITALISM ....................... 88
Introduction ...................... 88
A Review of Theory ................... 89
An Alternative Theoretical Approach .......... 91
Mercantile England ................... 96
The Bourgeois Revolution Completed ........... lOl
Competitive Capitalism and Free-Trade in Britain . . . . 105
Trade as Imperialism .................. 107
Capital Exports: Emergent Imperialism ......... 109
The Dominions and the Dependencies . .......... 112
Summary ......................... 119
THE WEST INDIES AND THE BRITISH TRANSITION FROM MERCAN-
TILE T0 COMPETITIVE CAPITALISM, PARTS I AND II ..... 124
Introduction ...................... 124
A Review of Theory ................... 125
Theoretical Alternatives ................ 138
Part I. Foundations .................. 151
West Indian Planting and British Mercantilism . . . . lSl
Mercantile Class Relations I: Britain ....... 159

Mercantile Class Relations II: The West Indies . . . 164
Reexamining the "Plantation Society": West Indian

Class Relations and Dependent Development . . . . 169
The West Indian Colonial State and British

Mercantilism .................. 173

iii

Page

Part II. Transition .................. 176
British Competitive Capitalism and the Decline of
West Indian Sugar Production .......... 176
British Competitive Capitalism and West Indian
Class Relations ................ 182
West Indian Dependent.Development in the Era of
British Competitive Capitalism ......... 190
The West Indian Colonial State and British Com-
petitive Capitalism .............. 198
Summary ......... . ............... 199
V BRITAIN, THE TRANSITION FROM COMPETITIVE T0 MONOPOLY
CAPTIALISM ....................... 206
Introduction ...................... 206
Theoretical Foundations ................ 208
International Depression and Monopoly Capitalism . . . . 214
Depression and the "New Imperialism" .......... 218
Monopoly Capitalism and Imperialism .......... 224
Free Trade or Protection? ............... 231
Summary ........................ 241
VI THE WEST INDIES AND THE BRITISH TRANSITION FROM
COMPETITIVE T0 MONOPOLY CAPITALISM ........... 247
Introduction ................... . . . 247
Theoretical Foundations ................ 249
British Monopoly Capitalism and Corporate Agriculture
in the West Indies ................. 259
Beet Sugar Competition ................. 265
Other Corporate Ventures ................ 274
British Monopoly Capitalism and West Indian Dependent
Development .................... 281
West Indian Class Relations and British Monopoly
Capitalism ..................... 288
British Monopoly Capitalism and the West Indian
Colonial State ................... 291
Summary ............. . . . ....... 296
VII SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS ............. 302
Further Research .................... 308

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................... 31 3

iv

CHAPTER I

A REVIEW OF THEORY

Introduction

 

The nations of the former British West Indies have been among
the most frequently studied in the world. Eighteenth century accounts
of these tropical islands are still available, in which they are de-
scribed as lush and beautiful, but suffering from economic distress.
Even in the bright days of eighteenth and nineteenth century Caribbean
sugar production, wealth was dramatically uneven in and among the
islands; and where sugar production was extensive, prosperity was
tragically short-lived. The principal cause of West Indian poverty
has been widely and accurately determined, colonially imposed monocul-
ture. The solutions are not as easily discernible.

Economic development of the West Indies is sure to be difficult
and to mean economic hardship for many. But the paucity of ideas
about how to relieve the extreme economic backwardness and imbalances
of the area may be related to the particular theoretical paradigm

adapted by Caribbean intellectuals,1

a more radical version of the
current view of world economic relations in terms of the historically
enduring conflict between developed and so-called underdeveloped soci-
eties. This conflict is quite real; its centrality in world economy
and politics may be doubted, however, given the reluctance of many

Third World countries to alter internal class relations that support

1

Table

10.

ll.
12.

13.

14.

LIST OF TABLES

Page
The Composition of Retained Jamaican Imports ....... 192
Jamaica: The Terms of Trade ............... 193
Number of Jamaicans Employed in Industry and
Construction ........................ 195
Numbers of Jamaicans in Commercial Employment ...... 197
Character of British Overseas Investment, 1913,1930,
and 1934 ......................... 229
Mean Annual Exports of British Produce from United
Kingdom to British Possession: Imports of Empire
Produce to Britain .................... 233
Geographical Distribution of British Overseas Trade
and Investment, 1860's - 1930’s ............. 245
Origins of Jamaican Imports (Total Imports) ....... 268
Destination of Total Jamaican Exports (Including Re-
Exports) ......................... 269
Total Banana Exports from Brazil, Mexico and Chief
Caribbean Areas Compared with Exports of United Fruit
Company and Standard Fruit and Steamship Corporation
(in Bunches) ....................... 280
Share of Jamaican Peasantry in Export Crops ....... 282
Shares of Major Jamaican Exports in Total Domestic
Exports ......................... 284
Ratio of Jamaican Exports, Retained Exports and Animal
Products to Ground Provisions .............. 287
Gross Jamaican Government Borrowing for All Purposes,
1860-1934 ........................ 295

CHAPTER I

A REVIEW OF THEORY

Introduction

 

The nations of the former British West Indies have been among
the most frequently studied in the world. Eighteenth century accounts
of these trepical islands are still available, in which they are de-
scribed as lush and beautiful, but suffering from economic distress.
Even in the bright days of eighteenth and nineteenth century Caribbean
sugar production, wealth was dramatically uneven in and among the
islands; and where sugar production was extensive, prosperity was
tragically short-lived. The principal cause of West Indian poverty
has been widely and accurately determined, colonially imposed monocul-
ture. The solutions are not as easily discernible.

Economic development of the West Indies is sure to be difficult
and to mean economic hardship for many. But the paucity of ideas
about how to relieve the extreme economic backwardness and imbalances
of the area may be related to the particular theoretical paradigm

1 a more radical version of the

adapted by Caribbean intellectuals,
current view of world economic relations in terms of the historically
enduring conflict between developed and so-called underdeveloped soci-
eties. This conflict is quite real; its centrality in world economy
and politics may be doubted, however, given the reluctance of many

Third World countries to alter internal class relations that support

1

the present international economic order.2

The emphasis on an international conflict between rich and poor
reflects three major problems in the current radical thinking of West
Indian nationalists. First, the study of the West Indies has tra-
ditionally lacked a coherent and consistent analysis of social class.
Race has been an important subject of academic research, and racial
differentiation of West Indian societies approximates class divisions.
But racial categories are sufficiently different in composition and
origins than those of social class that closer examination of class
and the relationship of race to class is warranted. Further, class
is central to an understanding of international linkages, as the West
Indian national bourgeoisie is closely allied to foreign investment
and financial interests.

Second, the theory of international inequality shared by Car-
ibbean structuralists and many other Third World nationalists lacks
a precise theoretical explanation of the origins of Western dominance.
The mercantile expansion of North Atlantic capitalism is an insuffic-
ient cause of imperialism, if it is not grounded in an historical
theory of bourgeois capitalist development, its typical stages, and
the likely constraints and opportunities of each stage. Moreover,
West Indian structuralists have not considered the history of capital-
ism within particular metropolitan countries, or the extent to which
this history is conditioned by international rivalry for hegemony
among metropoles. Modern capitalism has been a constant battle for
markets, for capital and for goods within nations and among advanced
capitalist neighbors. It is only in understanding metropolitan cap-

italist growth in general and specific national terms, and how it

creates and experiences international capitalist rivalries that we
can understand the history of West Indian societies.

Third, West Indian structuralists have not fully explained the
origins of dependent development in the extraction of economic surplus
by imperialist powers and resulting erection of new economic structures.
That is, these scholars have stressed the importance of inter and intra-
firm linkages in explaining dependent development, while ignoring
broader and more fundamental issues. Dependent development is best
understood in terms of the disruption of indigenous patterns of econ-
omic growth, and the superimposition of new institutional and class
forms advantageous to metropolitan capital and inhibitory of national
development. Implied in such a conceptualization is a theory of
national economic growth and the proposition that imperialism affects
Third World development primarily by depriving it of capital, not merely
through multinational vertical integration, but through numerous means
that are historically changing and form an entire complex of domination
and exploitation.

I will pr0pose an alternative conceptualization of world political

economy for the discussion of the West Indies.3

This approach involves
a more complete look at West Indian dependent development and class
relationships and the growth and eventual stagnation of British capit-
alism during the twentieth century. The issue of central concern is
the role of the West Indies as colonial dependencies in the British
international economy from the beginning of "free-trade imperialism" in
the mid-nineteenth century to the present period of British subordin-

ation to American economic strength. I will use Jamaica as a case

study of the British West Indies; it is the only one of these nations

which supplies full and seemingly dependable economic data to inter-
national agencies.

The period under consideration spans 1830 to the present. Dur-
ing this era, British industrial capitalism broke the bonds of mercan-
tilism and emerged as the major economic and political power of the
world. This industrial triumph undermined mercantile relationships
dominant during the preceding era of capitalist development; a pivotal
relation in the mercantile empire was that between West Indian sugar
producers and the refiners, shippers and traders of sugar and sugar
products in Britain. The coming of free-trade by 1850 opened a world of
possibilities to British industrialists and reduced West Indian plan-
ters to poverty in the "free" international competition for sugar
markets. Britain bought much of the sugar her citizens and refining
industries consumed, more cheaply, elsewhere. The West Indies lost
their usefulness to Britain. But why, then, over 150 years later are
the West Indies still linked to Britain, formally, or by means of the
sterling club? West Indian nationalists and historians in general
have argued that export crops of the West Indies were once again prof-
itably exploited by large, vertically integrated companies beginning
in the early years of the twentieth century, and thus the area regained
importance to British capital (Beckford,1972; McDonald, 1971; Mandle,
1973a). Continued political and monetary ties can be explained in terms
of the British state's long held commitment to private capital, par-
ticularly to financial interests linked to international trade and
investment. In my opinion, this reasoning, by itself, is insufficient.
In their extreme economic backwardness, the West Indies cost the British

state precious capital during the years when competing needs and

5

problems--the world wars, the decline of Britain's international
economic position, the erection of the welfare state--pressed. And,
the increasingly enlightened attitude of the British state towards
peoples of the dependencies, coupled with the refusal of the sugar
and fruit companies to contribute financially to the welfare of the
workers, meant that West Indian agriculture was not a cheap form of
exploitation. Students of the West Indies are mute on the provocative
question: why were the West Indies of continuing importance to Bri-
tain, even as she was forced to borrow heavily from other metropoles
and international agencies to honor her commitments to the remaining
colonies and members of the sterling area?

I would contend that the West Indian-British relationship,
since 1830, is explicable only in terms of a broad view of British
capitalist rise and decline. Imperialism,as an enduring and powerful
means of British economic growth and stability, reflects first the
mercantile accumulation of "primitive" capital through plunder,
trade and colonial raw material production. British industry then
yielded to the opportunity of the premier metropole to sell relatively
advanced and low priced manufacturers all over the world. This was
achieved only after a struggle of many decades between the industrial
forces of free-trade and mercantile traders and raw material producers.
Industrialists broke loose of mercantile restrictions of monopoly and
protection. But British trading interests, broad and powerful,adapted
to industrial needs for ships, intermediaries, insurance, etc. Thus,
the final stage of the British bourgeois revolution resulted in an
alliance of merchants and manufacturers which necessitated the aban-

donment of uncompetitive raw material producers, e.g., the West Indian

planters.

By the late 1900's Britain's manufactures were losing their
competitive edge; the early and revolutionary developments of Bri-
tish industry could not challenge the superiority of German and Amer-
cian oligarchical organization. And the efficiency of American and
German industry stemmed, in part, from their reorganization and con-
centration in the disastrous depression of the late nineteenth cen-
tury. The British met these downward turns, as well as the challenge
of rival metropoles, by searching for new markets. Eventually the
only viable outlets for manufactured exports were areas of British
political control, the Dominions--buyers of British capital goods,
and the dependencies--markets for light manufactures. With increased
political and economic autonomy of the Dominions, colonies of econ-
omic backwardness, like the West Indies, remained the last reserves
of British industrial power. At the same time, British overseas in-
dustry, like German and American, became more concentrated. Companies
engaged in raw material producing and trade were compelled by their
size and capital bases to secure raw materials, and they found new
uses for abandoned dependencies, e.g., the West Indies, with capital
intensive production of raw materials.

Dependent, unevenly developed, the dependencies have lacked
capital, manufacturing capacity, food production--all prerequisites of
the classic bourgeois capitalist growth they have sought to emulate.
Furthermore, as holders of sterling they have contributed to the value
of the currency, and thus to the power of British traders, investors
and export industries, while strapped themselves to money that has

lost strength with passing years.

7

From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, a na-
tional bourgeoisie, made up of farmers, merchants and petty crafts-
men, slowly emerged from the remnants of the planting class. Many
elements of this group lacked the progressive thrust of European
bourgeoisies, as they oriented production and trade to the export
market for cash crops. The economic misfortunes of early planters
allowed the rise of some progressive bourgeois elements, but mer-
chants,and some capitalist farmers and manufacturers shared an in-
terest in raw material production for export, particularly if it
did not monopolize land, labor, trade and ancillary production, as
mercantile plantations had done. Multinational corporate investors
in sugar and other export crops were welcomed in the early years of
the twentieth century.

From Emancipation to the present, peasants and workers have
sought land because they have been victimized by ever decreasing
labor needs on plantations, and later in mines and manufacturing.
Peasants producing export crops have occupied a significant propor-
tion of the cultivated land for over a century. Following World War
II, multinational corporationsand.a burgeoning dependent state appar-
atus created middle sector employment. But the twentieth century
has brought steep unemployment rates to the West Indies, especially
for blacks and Indians.

Reflecting these events and trends, I will examine the follow-
ing periods in the history of British—West Indian relations: 1) 1840-
1930, the rise and decline of British "free-trade imperialism" and
continuing stagnation of the West Indian sugar industry in the face

of international competition; 2) 1930-45, the emergence of British

8

monopoly capitalism and re-establishment of sugar plantations by
British corporations in the West Indies, against the backdrop of
rising German and American economic power; 3) l945-present, the estab-
lishment of the British welfare state and its effects on the course
of British decolonization of the West Indies and other dependencies,
as American political and economic interests emerge in the former
British empire, particularly in the Caribbean.

The issues described above will require much time to investigate
and explicate fully. This dissertation will be an analysis of only
the first of these historical eras, 1830 to 1930. My task is to re-
view three major aspects of Jamaican history for the one hundred
year period during which British economy developed from mercantilism
to the beginnings of monopoly capitalism. These three areas are:

l) the development of British capitalism--the internal contradictions
of the bourgeois capitalist mode of production and the peculiarly
British form; 2) the shifting class conflicts and alliances within
Jamaican society, arising out of changes in British capitalist devel-
opment, and British capitalist and state activities in the Caribbean
region; 3) the dynamic of development that characterizes economic
growth in the dependent West Indies. The formulation of a framework
for the discussion of these phenomena has depended upon the comple-
tion of research on their twentieth century forms. However, the
aanalysis of this complex and lengthy period of West Indian history--1930
‘to the present--will not be presented in this dissertation. I will
complete that part of this project at a later time.

Before stating in detail the content of each of these areas of '

iruquiry of this dissertation, I will indicate my criticisms of past

methods of study of the West Indies and explain the theoretical

framework and methodology I will use.

A Review of Theory

 

The study of West Indian economies and societies has been
criticized from a number of viewpoints, and in accordance with
changing epistemological and ideological perspectives. The most
often discussed and refuted conceptualizations are those arising
from the paradigms of liberal Western sociology, anthropology and
economics, and their more conservative application to dependent,
non-white societies (Greene, 1974; Best, 1971; Brown and Brewster,
1974). This trend mirrors a similar critical development in Latin
American social thought which occurred in the 1960's (Frank, 1969b,
Bodenheimer, 1970). These critiques have conditioned the develop-
ment of new theoretical frameworks in both Latin American and Car-
ibbean studies. As Girvan explains, contemporary scholars of these
regions have adopted a "structural/historicallinstitutional" method-
ology to study the roots of economic underdevelopment and to explain
its social and political consequences. Broadly called "structural
theory," its proponents have held two critical assumptions: 1) econ-
omic growth in the developed world has historically been related to
economic dependency of the Third World; industrialized countries
profit from non-industrialized ones by means of superior terms of
trade for manufactured goods, foreign economic investment, the terms
of multilateral and bilateral economic aid, etc.; 2) the dependence
of Third World countries on Western capital, technology and productive

organization contributes to a social-psychological dependency

lO

manifested in the adoption of Western styles of consumption, polit-
ical behavior and culture.

The evolution of dependency economics from its neo-classical
origins has spanned the post-War period. As Levitt and Wyeth (1974)
suggest, progress slowly followed the rejection (by Arthur Lewis,
Raul Prebisch, Gunnar Myrdal and others) of the assumption that the
international division of labor--Third World production of raw mater-
ials, industrial countries' production of manufactured goods--was
natural, if not always equitable. The recognition of the long run
deterioration of terms of trade for agricultural and raw mineral
products and rejection of this form of inequality between nations
by the United Nations and many Third World governments, encouraged
a closer examination of other means of metropolitan surplus accumu-
lation--overseas investment, international monetary exchange, tied
and high interest aid, etc.

The ways in which the economic and cultural mechanisms inter-
sect to form the "structure" of dependency have been studied both
historically, principally by Third World nationalists, and cross-
sectionally, largely by United Nations economists. The latter have
generated a massive amount of data, leading to major policy efforts
on the part of the U.N. and other international agencies to redis-

tribute international wealth.4

The principal "market intervention“
has been in the area of commodity price supports, but U.N. agencies
have encouraged increased Third World national control of foreign
investment and argued for more liberal terms for Third World countries
in bilateral and multilateral aid agreements. This diplomatic thrust

has moved sectors of the developed world to accept lowered tariffs

ll

fer agricultural goods, commodity quota agreements and price supports
of other kinds and the result has been an international redefinition
of trading relations, permitting, for the first time in history,
massive "market distortions“ in favor of the "developing" world.5
As later analysis will indicate, however, international welfare econ-
omics has been useful only to those countries willing to use redistri-
bution of wealth as a tool in the total transformation of their modes
of production.

The institutional analysis of metropolitan dominance has provided
historical and sociological explications of the economic relationships
examined by policy-makers. The "structuralists" have joined conven-
tional economic and materialist methodologies to study social relation-
ships within succeeding historical periods of metropolitan penetration.
These periods are characterized by varying forms of metropolitan in-
fluence; for example "Furtado distinguishes three broad historical
periods in Latin America: (1) the colonial period, (ii) the period
of 'externally-oriented development' and (iii) the period of substitute
industrialization or 'internally' oriented development. Each period
has characteristic economic institutions, and a characteristic econ-
omic process" (Girvan, 1973, p. 13). The resulting schema is a compel-
ling framework of analysis of post-eighteenth century Latin America,
which finds the primary explanation for present underdevelopment in
North Atlantic imperialism.

Thus, dependency theorists of the structuralist school contend
that the necessary conditions for economic development of Third World
societies will not be present until foreign economic interest and

influence are eradicated. In this sense, they go beyond their

12

ideological brethren at the United Nations and in liberal metropol-
itan circles in advocating almost complete withdrawal of Third World
societies from the international economy. However, on the question
of how these socieites are to achieve development following economic
isolation, the structuralists are vague. Beckford (1972), Girvan
(1973), and Best (1967) of the West Indian New World Group favor a
socialist alternative to underdeveloped capitalism. The ambiguity re-
mains, however, as these structuralists have noted both their hostil-
ity to Marxism, an imported ideology, and questioned the efficacy of
socialist transformations dependent upon extensive financial support
from Soviet bloc countries (Girvan, 1973; Best, 1971). These polit-
iCal concerns are valid ones; while Cuba, the prototypical plantation
economy, has greatly equalized and improved the quality of life of

its citizens since the revolution, it has been at the price of depen-
dence upon Soviet aid and continued economic reliance on export agri-
culture.6 With the benefit of seventeen years of quite deliberate
observation of Cuban economics, West Indians and other Third World
nationalists may legitimately fear the exigencies of export dependent
socialism. However, in keeping their development options undetermined,
the structuralists seem to reluctantly fall back on the capitalist
alternative; they are doomed by geography (limited market size) and
climate (uncertain prospects fer non-export agriculture) to retain the
structure imposed by invading foreign interests, and to nurture those
interests, as the structure may be untenable without their capital and
expertise. Yet, the refusal of Caribbean structuralists to risk
socialism in these small islands, seemingly unsuitable for agricul-

tural diversification, does not fully explain their inability to

l3

consider autonomous, indigenous socialism. Rather, the acceptance
of climatic and physical prohibitions against socialism interacts
with the reluctance of structuralists to transcend conventional econ-
omic and sociological concepts to reach a full understanding of the
consequences of international capitalist development.7

As I stated earlier, the structuralists define their task as
explicating the dominant economic relationships which characterize
successive stages of economic imperialism. The proposition of stages
may itself be tautological, as they are defined by the primary, for-
eign generated economic relationship of the era. But, more trenchant
criticisms are these: 1) that the stages or differentiation among
dominant economic dynamics are arbitrarily chosen, indicative of super-
ficial changes in the working of multinational corporations rather
than major alterations in dependent economic relationships; 2) they
are not related to structural changes in British capitalist develop-
ment or shifts in international metropolitan relationships; 3) the
structuralists have failed to propose a viable scheme for understanding
stratification within West Indian societies or the national partici-
pation in forms of metropolitan dominance.

For example, Levitt and Best have proposed an historical schema
for the study of the West Indies based on changes in the internal
organization of the sugar industry. The authors offer three stages in
the evolution of the Caribbean plantation economy: (i) Pure Plantation
(1600-1838); (ii) Plantation Economy Modified (1838-1939); and
(iii) Plantation Economy Further Modified (since 1939). The principal
difference between the first and second periods is that by the second

period slavery had been abolished and British mercantilism ended.

14

Levitt and Best argue that this resulted in a free peasant population,
but one still dependent upon the export sale of sugar and other "trop-
ical" crops, and linked to the plantation by the need for services
such as transportation, simple processing, etc. After 1938, a number
of other industries developed branches in the West Indies. However,
like the sugar and banana industries, bauxite, oil and tourism are
not vertically integrated at the West Indies sites of production.
The benefits of the total productive process accrue to the transna-
tional corporation operating in the metropoles, much as the profits
from low cost West Indian slave and bonded labor were absorbed by
mercantile houses of England during the glorious days of eighteenth
and nineteenth century sugar production. In fact, the central organ-
izational principle of metropolitan based industries in sugar, fruits.
mineral extraction and processing, and tourism--a high degree of "inter-
national" functional integration--has remained salient during several
hundred years of foreign economic dominance. And, as Beckford (1972)
suggests, modifications in the plantation system, e.g., the develop-
ment of a peasantry after Emancipation, have not deterred resources
away from production for export. (Beckford conceptualizes the "plan-
tation system" as a totality--the "plantation society," forms of which
have changed only superficially during the last three centuries.)
However, the periods differentiated in the analysis of Levitt
and Best do mark changes in international capitalist relationships
of both historical and theoretical significance, although their
effects on West Indian dependency and development are not of primary
immortance. The mid-1800's were a time of definitive change in Bri-

tish trade policy, away from the protectionist ideology of mercantilism

15

to "free trade"; the successful emergence of industrial capitalism

has everywhere required industrial emancipation from mercantile hege-
nony, or the industrial-mercantile-agricultural alliance (Moore,

1966). The ending of British preference for West Indian producers

was a dramatic step in the freeing of British industry to buy and

sell where prices were most advantageous. The economics of free-trade
were now beneficial to Britain, the country of such advanced commun-
ication and industry to exercise a natural supremacy against other
nations. While traders and refiners resisted the government capit-
ulation to the forces of industry that was indicated in the shift to
free-trade policies, many were sufficiently powerful in economic terms
to easily adapt to the purchase of raw materials from a cheaper source.
Throughout the early twentieth century, the Dominions and industries
threatened by the rise of foreign competition clamored for a return

to protectionist policies. The Depression exacerbated the distress

of industry in Britain and the Dominions, and crippled raw material
producers in the dependencies. The British state responded by erecting
protective barriers at home, establishing quotas and price supports
for raw materials, and initiating mutually beneficial preferences be-
tween herself and Dominions and among the countries of the Empire.

In this way, the decade of the 1930's was an important period in the
metropole, and indirectly, for the West Indies, as Levitt and Best

and Beckford all agree. However, the meaning for the West Indies does
not lie in an arbitrary set of historical events or business decisions;
nor are these changes peculiar to Britain's relationship to the West
Indies. Rather, Britain, the premier metropole experienced a series

of changes in internal and international economic relationships,

16

based on developments typical in some ways of Western bourgeois cap-
italist growth, and resulting in alterations in the metropole-
satellite relationships. The dependent development of the West Indies
and other dependencies changed during these stages, but only in form;
dependency implies a set of constraints against balanced economic
growth which has not generally broken down in the course of interna—
tional capitalist development, which has included depressions, wars,
and corporate reorganizations. Rather, dependent development has
taken shifting and highly variable institutional forms. And, depen-
dency has generally grown, as the ratio of imported to domestically
produced food, manufactured goods and capital has increased throughout
most of the Third World during the last two centuries.8

Beckford, in his excellent work, Persistent Poverty, begins to

 

move the discussion of the plantation economy to the metropolitan
stage, stressing the extent to which multinationals and their mercan-
tile and smaller corporate precursors have branched out to many sec-
tors of the developed and developing worlds, applying similar princi—
ples of organization to raw material and manufacturing plants wherever
they are located. And Beckford is sensitive to the expansionary, ex-
ploitive character of capitalism, linking the European domination of
the West Indies to the mercantile accumulation of primitive capital.
But Beckford fails to relate West Indian poverty and uneven develop-
ment to internal class relations or shifting forms of maturing Bri-
tish capitalism. His focus remains that proposed by Levitt and Best,
the structure of the firm (the plantation), its international integra-
tion and detachment from the national satellite economy.

We can trace the Caribbean structuralist interest in the

l7

plantation economy to two academic sources. The first is the work

of anthropologists of the cultural materialist school, including Mintz,
Wolf, and others. They have studied the plantation as one unit in the
model linking techno-environmentalvariables with cultural ones (Whitten
and Szwed, 1970). The Mintz and Wolf comparison of the hacienda and
plantation (1957) is a classic in the field and clear forerunner of
"structuralist" plantation theory in its recognition of foreign, cor-
porate sources of plantation capital, production of commodities con-
sumed in developed countries, its monopolistic structure, and access

to cheap and plentiful supplies of labor. Thus, the "plantation," as

a conceptual unit, was established in the 1950's and has received con-
siderable attention from non-economists (Mandle, 1972, 1976; Wolf,
1957; wag1ey, 1960).

A second source of this concept is in neo-classical economics.
During the 1960's, Caribbean economists indicated their dissatisfac-
tion with the theoretical foundations of metropolitan economics, but
their principal criticism was the inappropriate nature of some neo-
classical tenets to conditions of Third World development. The rejec-
tion of trade theories, in particular, comparative advantage, was
noted earlier. With the nationalist commitment to industrialize Third
World countries came the recognition of the irrelevancy of other prin-
ciples as well. The application of conventional economic prescriptions
for development through capital formation, particularly by foreign in-
vestors, was unsuccessful, leading to foreign exchange problems,
followed by a renewed emphasis on exports--a response counter to the
original intentions of the planners.9 The adoption of dependency

theory was a major intellectual challenge to developmental economics

In

18

and resulted in the abandonment of key "macro-economic" assumptions

based on the European development experience. However, many "micro"

processes could be studied within a new framework of Third World de-

pendence on the developed world for capital and technology and the

consequent inhibition of economic growth. For example, the study of

the "firm" survived, albeit in a form which stressed the failure of

intra-firm and inter-industry linkages to develop in the satellites.

As Brewster and Brown (1974) note, (writing from a perspective of

frustration with, but not rejection of neo-classical economics):

At the descriptive/accounting level, Caribbean economic struc-
tures have been dissected by means of the Leontief-type transac-
tions matrix, and a 'plantation economy' matrix, itself a
modified Leontief matrix.... The intertransactions matrix,
though highlighting structural deficiencies and thereby the
possibilities and priorities of inter-linked production, has
suffered from the limitations placed on disaggregation by un-
availability and unreliability of data.... The plantation econ-
omy matrix, identical as it is in construction to the earlier
Seers modified input-output matrix, focuses on the location and
identification of the flows in the economic system and thereby
highlights its institutional and dependent characteristics. To
the extent that these matrices represent Caribbean history and
economic reality more accurately, their dynamic potential is
diminished. But both the modified and plantation input-output
matrices are intended to serve as a framework for economic
description and as such provide no guidance to the rectification
of structural distortion or to policy-~priorities in the dynamics
of economic development (p. 52).

The study of industries active in the region and inter-industry

distortions and linkages has become the main interest of Caribbean

structuralists. Beckford has written extensively about the banana in-

dustry (1967, 1966); Best and Levitt, the sugar industry; Girvan has

broken new ground in depicting the fragmentation of the West Indian

bauxite industry. In so doing, the structuralists contend that econ-

omic methods and conceptualizations are neutral and adaptable to any

franework. The reliance on this methodology makes the development of

19

an historical view difficult and precludes an explication of metro-
politan capitalist development, satellite class relations, and depen-
dent development within the satellite. The stress on narrow units of
analysis, e.g., the firm, and the clearly unsuitable nature of the
closed system approach inherent to this perspective inhibits the con-
struction of a more internally consistent and instructive economics.
However, there is a sense among the structuralists and their sympa—
thizers that scholarship of a different kind is now needed:

Yet it is notable that the discussion of dependence has
remained essentially conservative. No alternative visions of
society have been put forward. There is as yet no understand-
ing of the dependence of the political structure itself on de-
pendence and the dynamics of its self-perpetuation. Moreover,
many of the principles of orthodox development theory have re-
mained unquestioned, for example, population control, factor-
proportioned technology, disequilibrium wage rates, exports,
foreign aid and so on (Brewster and Brown, 53).

The solution to this intellectual dilemma may be a "complete
theoretical framework in which [these] hypotheses might be related to
each other and to the whole." Girvan (1973) alludes to the same con-
cern, suggesting that the reform of dependency economics cannot be
effective until metropolitan economics is transformed. He applauds
the work of Latin American structuralists, Furtado and Sunkel, both
of whom have attempted to delineate the internal dynamics and conflicts
of groups and classes within the nation and the extent to which ar-
ticular classes form alliances with foreign economic interests. This
treatment of internal stratification and its links to international

‘0 It is indeed

capital is completely absent from New World writings.
a major failing of this school, and with the use of conventional econ-
omics, mitigates against the correction of other deficiencies noted

earlier. The lack of categories for discussing intra-society conflicts

ta.

 

1 .
-\I

 

4-!

n~\

~a~
’

20

and the methodology of neo-classical economics are highly related.
Nee-classical economics treats the economic "system" as a closed one,
and a "given" or natural phenomenon; structuralist economics extends
the system from the metropolitan country to include the satellite.
The basic conceptualization of a closed system remains, and, like
structural-functionalism, offers world view devoid of human intention-
ality or group interest. The structuralists accept a liberal version
of these frameworks, advocating reform of the system; they go as far
as suggesting the break-up of the larger world metropole-satellite
system into two independent ones. Unfortunately, once national sov-
ereignty in the satellite is achieved, the door is left Open for the
re-adoption of nee-classical, metropolitan theories of economics and
their practice.

The study of stratification in the West Indies has traditionally
reflected the strong correlation between racial and class division and
the political and epistemological background of sociological and anthro-
pological studies. The latter factor has reinforced the conservative
influences of nee-classical economics on the development of New World
thinking. Historically, the racial cleavages of West Indian society
have been extreme; white Europeans have formed the dominant, comprador
classes, lighter skinned Afro-Europeans have constituted the middle sec-
tors and are now employed largely in the state sector, and the masses
of blacks and East Indians have formed the lowest strata of workers
and peasants. In recent years, there has been greater mobility among
classes with the rise to political power of blacks, Indians and Afro-
Europeans. Nevertheless, these shifts involve small numbers (Lowen-

thal, 1972; Lewis, 1968; James, 1973).

21

While granting the strong parallel of race and class in the
West Indies, I would argue that the origins of racial stratification
have not been fully explained. Caribbean studies are replete with
descriptions of racial prejudice, and the differing economic and so-
cial conditions of people in each racial group. But the source of
racial divisions is obscure except in those few historical material-
ist attempts to conceptually separate race and class (Williams,
1966a, 1966b; Mintz, 1969b; Hall, 1959).“ Why is it that dark-
skinned people are the most severely exploited? The predominant
schools of sociological and anthropological thought in the region
have not offered a response to this question. Neither structural-
functionalism nor cultural materialism provides a framework for the
analysis of the origins of West Indian racism. It is not on the
agenda of the structural-functionalists to explain the foundations of
the social system. Cultural materialists have proposed a techno-
environmental source of the economic system--the plantation--but
have not offered categories for the consideration of social stratifi-
cation (Morrissey, 1976).

The apparent conversion of influential New World scholars to an
intellectual position favoring the study of power within Third World
nations is significant, but it must be remembered that this decision
is conditioned by a resistence to class analysis, particularly of a
Marxian variety. Structualists instead examine elites, and in an
unsystematic way that reflects their preoccupation with international
conflict (Girvan, 1973; Thomas, 1974); or, like Beckford, they
study inequality within the firm, and follow the traditional West

Indian scholarly treatment of classes or economic strata as one with

22

racial differentiation. I would argue that without a class analysis
which provides a category for the comprador tendencies of the West
Indian national bourgeoisie, the structuralists miss a critical ex-
planatory factor of dependency. It is simply against the interests
of the comprador bourgeosie to rid the country of foreign capital.
They are involved, directly or indirectly, in overseas investment,
aid, trade, and finance. The realization of immediate and sizeable
profits by collaboration with foreign capital is more rational to
the enterprising West Indian captialist than the uncertainties and
risks of indigenous entrepreneurship. Caribbean intellectuals are
nationalists; the dominant sector of the capitalist class is not.
For similar reasons, no country in the world has achieved full and
total decolonization and turned to capitalism. It is clear that
only a decisively socialist rationale for economic isolation has
brought about autonomous development.

Moreover, the lack of a tradition within West Indian social
science for the study of class conflict underlies a fundamental in-
adequacy in West Indian studies, and that is the failures of most
scholars to propose a dynamic that propels historical change. With-
out such a basic, defining category, one is left to a random selec-
tion of causal relations to explain particular historical develop-
ments. Structural-functionalism and ideographic historical studies
share a proclivity for the explanation of change by "empirical methods"
which prove to be not only subjective, but "petty" and unsystematic
(Mills, 1959). They do not rest on a theoretical organizing principle,
such as the Marxian category "class conflict" (Hobsbawm, 1973). From

a Marxian point of view, this weakness informs historical and cultural

23

materialist perspectives as well, for the cause of change is not_
economic in nature, but rather a political, economic or social phen-
omenon that has its origins in what is a social relationship, that
between classes of owners and producers (see, for example, Mandle,
1976; Sheridan, 1963, 1969).

Given these inadequacies of structuralist dependency theory,
let us turn to a review of the recent literature on dependency in
the Marxian tradition. These writings are the work of Frank, Dos
Santos, Cardosa, and others, many of whom are Latin American nation-
als. They have tried to reform orthodox Marxist thinking on the
Third World, which fostered alliances between the bourgeoisie and
proletariat in the interest of industrialization before social revol-
ution, sometimes with the aid of foreign capital (Frank, 1974). Nor
do these theorists support the "structural" dependency arguments ad-
vocating isolation from foreign influence followed by an unplanned
and undefined "socialist" transformation. Rather, they favor a
nationalist socialist revolution, engineered by a coalition of workers
and peasants, which will result in structural change and economic
autonomy at the same time.

The recent dependency adaptation of Marxian categories to Third
World societies has been based on numerous and varied readings of
Lenin's Imperialism. There, Lenin contended that European capitalist
countries had colonized now economically backward areas of the world
in order to create favorable investment climates for surplus capital
and thereby counteract the tendency for the domestic rate of profit
to fall. Although critics have questioned Lenin's thesis on both

factual and theoretical grounds (O'Connor, 1971), the drive to explain

24

the causes and consequences of imperialism for the metropoles and
satellites alike, has become a dominant theme in twentieth century
Marxist thought. Until the 1960's, the favored perspective was that
foreign investment and trade between developed and undeveloped soci—

12 This view was based on Marx's

eties were essentially positive.
own newspaper accounts of the building of an Indian infrastructure
by the British. Andre Gunder Frank's proposition, first presented
in 1965, that these societies most fully absorbed into the capital-
ist world are now the most "underdeveloped," was a major departure
from traditional Marxian analysis.13

Frank's work is well known and does not need elaboration here.
The principal organizing strategy of his writings is the thesis that
the history and fate of underdeveloped countries is best understood
in terms of worldwide capitalist relationships. This position is a
joining of the Leninist assumption that capitalist development has
now reached its final stage-~monopoly capitalism and imperialism,
and the Third World nationalist view of the metropolitan-satellite
relationships as a single system. Frank has gone further than either
traditionalMarxist-Leninist thought or structuralist economics,
however, in first, linking "underdevelopment" to imperialism, and
second, rejecting neo-classical economics as a method of analysis in
favor of Marxian categories.

Frank's most important contributions in terms of our discussion
are these: Frank has differentiated "classes" in the underdeveloped
society based on their relationship to local and international

means of production, and second, Frank bases his theory of underdevel-

<ument on the European mercantile, and then industrial captialist

25

drive to accumulate surplus capital that has continued for several
centuries.

Frank argues that European merchants used the present Third
World first as a source of plundered wealth, and then, as a means of
capital accumulation; systems of production were located in these
regions, utilizing cheap labor and land and bringing handsome returns
to European proprietors. In the process, traditional satellite
class relationships were altered; in areas such as the West Indies,
indigenous populations were eradicated and wholly new class relation-
ships were established. A general pattern of class relations appeared
throughout the Third World as a consequence of first, the European
extraction of surplus capital, and second, particular forms of produc-
tion that maximized surplus accumulation. The progressive national
bourgeoisie was displaced by entrepreneurs with strong comprador
linkages. This latter group lacked both the will and the capital for
productive activities that encouraged indigenous industralization.
Furthermore, metropole imposed systems of production channelled com-
plementary activities in directions supportive of foreign-owned enter-
prises and not of indigenous development. Throughout the last two
centuries, forms of exploitation of the Third World have changed,
but these countries continued to lack the capital or productive struc-
tures for industrialization or balanced economic growth. Their class
relations have indicated the dependence of Third World economies on
the developed world; small comprador classes have joined the metropoles
in disrupting the traditional labor patterns of underlying populations
and absorbing them in foreign-owned production and its various com-

plements (Frank,l969a, 1969b).

26

Frank has shared with the structuralists a tendency to view
the world as a single, closed system, one that can be divided between
developed and "underdeveloped" countries. His writings suffer from
the inclusion of law-like generalizations (e.g., satellites experience
their greatest economic development and especially their most class-
ically capitalist industrial development if and when their ties to
the metropolis are weakest (Frank, 1969b, p. 10), which encourage
the fbllowing misapprehensions: l) capitalist imperialism affects
all dependent societies in the same way, regardless of historical
eras or national characteristics, and 2) imperialism can be reduced
to a number of testable and predictable relationships.14 These
methodological and substantive thrusts lead Frank to present under-
development as a "structure," not unlike those created by interna-
tional firms and described in the studies of Caribbean structuralists.
The impact of metropolitan expansion as so total and decisive that it
transforms pre-capitalist institutional and class relationships into
a new social "structure," one which is incompatible with balanced
economic growth. And although economically backward societies are
bound by a multi-faceted, multi-leveled web of constraints against
balanced economic development, for Frank, the "structure of underde-
velopment" is more than the sum of its constituent parts.

The totality of "underdevelopment," its seeming irreversibility,
and the almost universal presence of certain salient social and econ-
omic characteristics (i.e., chronically low levels of indigenous cap-
ital formation, high levels of unemployment, increasing gaps in
inequality) are without dispute among Marxist students of dependency

theory. And, few would disagree that the arrangements of capitalist

27

metropoles and satellites in the world forms a kind of pattern,
whereby the developed countries have progressed further along almost
every index of economic growth and development than have the develop-
ing nations. But Frank goes further, in proposing that Third World
countries share a given set of internal patterns of economic growth
and class formation, and that the structure of underdevelopment is a
more viable conceptual unit for studying Third World countries than

15 His critics

is the traditional Marxian category "class relations."
charge further that while many sectors of the population of Third
World countries are "excluded“ from the benefits of industrialization
in these areas, economic growth, of a dependent character is occurr-
ing (Evans, 1975-6). ...[t]he assumption of a structural '1ack of
dynamism' in dependent economies because of imperialism misinterprets
the actual forms of economic imperialism and presents an imprecise
political understanding of the situation" (Cardoso, 1972, p. 94).
Cardoso argues that "dependent development" more precisely
describes Third World economic changes than does Frank's "development
of underdevelopment." Such growth is uneven, exacerbating some
forms of inequality within Third World societies and between the de-
veloped and developing worlds, and generating new forms of inequality.
Nevertheless, growth in some sectors is apparent, benefiting the
national bourgeoisie and landed classes. Dependency is reflected in
the concentration of means of production in the industrialized world.
The process of capital accumulation is most directly traced to
class exploitation; in interjecting the category of nation-state as

a superficial locus of surplus accumulation, we should not lose sight

of the relationship between expropriators and producers of surplus

28

value. Petras (forthcoming a) contends:

While of late some attention has been paid to income distribu-

tion and inequalities--the source of those inequalites, their

roots in social relations and state control, have been passed
over. The issue of exploitation, rooted in capitalist social
relations or in bureaucratic collectivistic forms of statism,
has hardly been analyzed; even less so have class relations
served as a point of departure within which to locate the prob-

lem of capital accumulation (p. 3).

Petras suggests that particular forms of class relations have
accompanied forms of dependent development. The first phases of imper-
ialist penetration of the Third World are termed by Petras as metro-
politan primitive accumulation and pirate colonialism of the satel-
lite (1500—1800), and early monopoly capitalism and extractive
colonialism (1800-1945). The first of these, pirate colonialism,
was characterized by the extraction of surplus in the form of gold,
spices, slave labor, trade agricultural products; extractive colon-
ialism involved export of surplus capital and the search for markets
for excess production. The class relations of satellite countries
during these two stages were relatively undifferentiated and "the
process of surplus extraction was therefore relatively direct, the
colonial official inside was the foreign officer outside" (p. 9).

In the neo-colonial stage, the diversity of forms of metropol-
itan capital investment in the periphery has led to more differentia-
tion in the internal class relations, and the emergence of a class of
propertyless bureaucrats between foreign and indigenous capital and
the workers and peasants. Furthermore, the comprador classes in-
creasingly became a national bourgeoisie as more of their capital

was joined with foreign capital in investment in production directed

from the metorpoles, or in investment in wholly local production that

29

complemented foreign investment (see, also, Evans, 1975-6). The
broad configurations that these neo-colonial class relations take

is one of three: 1) dependent nee-colonialism, in which the national
regime joins fOreign capital in the interest, first and foremost,

of foreign capital, 2) national developmentalism, whereby indigenous
capital increases its share of surplus accumulating at the top of

the class structure, 3) the national-popular strategy, whereby for-
eign capital investment is permitted, but under rules that subordinate
capital accumulation to the redistribution of income to peasants and
laborers.

Petras' schema of Third World capitalist class relations is
the most sophisticated to date, and strengthens the contention held
by some scholars of the Third World that satellite actors do deter—
mine the dynamic of development in their countries, although under
conditions established by their degree of receptivity to foreign
capital. Development is, as Cardoso claims, dependent, and takes a
variety of forms, some of which maximize the gains of particular
classes, in what remains a stunted and uneven form of growth.

Petras also introduces the state into the study of Third World
societies, describing the role of the state in capital accumulation
and production in the post-Independence period. Petras argues that
state capitalism has a major role in the independent satellite, par-
ticularly in the cases of "national developmentalism" and in those
countries where the "national-popular" strategy is adoped. In both
situtations, the state owns industries with the intention of redis-
tributing capital to the middle sectors of state bureaucrats, managers

and indigenous capital, or to workers and peasants.

30

Petras' theory is important for it is one of the many efforts
now taking place to determine the functions, the strength and the
autonomy of the dependent state. Alavi (1972) suggests that the
dependent state apparatus, made up of the bureaucratic-military
oligarchy, politicians and political parties, functions to preserve
the social order, "namely the institution of private property and
the capitalist mode as the dominant mode of production" (p. 62). In
this role, the neo-colonial state is relatively autonomous for it
must serve as a mediator among three classes--the metropolitan bour-
geoisie, the indigenous bourgeoisie and the landowning classes.16
It is an instrument of no one of these three groups, but, rather,
my§t_function autonomously in order to keep the class relations of
imperialist domination of the dependent country intact. "Neverthe-
less, the role of the bureaucratic-military oligarchy is relatively
autonomous because, once the controlling hand of the metropolitan
bourgeoisie is lifted at the moment of independence no single class
had control over it“ (p. 72). Furthermore, the role of the state in
pursuing economic development through the appropriation and productive
application of surplus, gives the dependent state an economic autonomy
not found in the classical bourgeois society (p. 62). Hamilton (1975)
and Goldfrank,(l975) make a similar argument in terms of the Mexican
state, suggesting that during periods of this century, the state
gained autonomy because of its role of mediator in an economic system
resting on a competitive and unstable arrangement of classes. The
capitalist function of the dependent state and the "structural“

17

basis of its autonomy suggest the strength of the dependent state,

and militate against explanations such as Wallerstein's (to be

n.

r.

31

discussed shortly) of the relative strengths and weaknesses of "core"
and "periphery" states. Skocpol (1973) comments that Wallerstein's
world systems approach is "flawed by its attempt to treat state

fbrms and 'strength' (e.g., cartelization and bureaucratization)

as simple functions of societies' class structures and positions in
the world-capitalist division of labor" (p. 31).

Marxist theory has been less explicit in describing the role,
functions and strength of the colonial state. Petras and Alavi agree
that the colonial state aids private accumulation. Alavi (p. 61)
points out that the colonial state also exercises dominion over all
indigenous social classes in the colony. These theories do not,
in my opinion, go far enough in explaining the varied functions of
the colonial state, or in indicating the differing degrees of control
exercised by the colonial state over the subject population. Nor,
finally, do they differentiate clearly between the metropolitan state
and the colonial state.

The colonial state varied in form from colony to colony of a
particular metropole and between areas of control of a metropole.

In some satellites, a governor appointed by the imperial center gov-
erned directly with the aid of expatriate and creole personnel;
elsewhere, colonial legislatures developed, formalizing the contri-
bution of indigenous and settler groups to governance. In both
cases, classes living in the colony had some input into the political
process; their political ideologies reflected grave conflicts in
class interests. Moreover, while the offices of metropolitan govern-
ments were part of the metropolitan state apparatus, they and their

representatives in the colonies often differed from officers of the

32

metropolitan state in regard to policies affecting the colony. Con-
ceptually there is a separation between the colonial and metropolitan
state. This distinction is not absolute. Colonial and metropolitan
states have both different and overlapping bases, as do the metropol-
itan and periphery economies, in both colonial and neo-colonial stages.
What is important to recognize is that the colonial or the neo-colonial
states, like the periphery economy, is not wholly determined by metro-
politan political or economic interests.

That the colonial state controlled all classes in the colony is
also an overstatement. Various groups within the periphery countries
gained considerable political power. This is especially true of set-
tlers from the metropoles.18 The history of early West Indian state
development is one of continual conflict among merchants, planters and
the colonial governors over issues of taxation, state expenditure, met-
ropolitan policies of protection, emancipation of slaves and treatment
of free labor, etc. Moreover, the degree of independent political
strength of both expatriate and creole groups was a function of the
changing metropolitan economy, shifting metropolitan policies towards
dependent colonies in general and the West Indies in particular. The
British ideology of anti-colonialism and fiscal responsibility during
the period of competitive capitalism and free-trade caused colonial
legislatures in the West Indies to increase in power. But, as West
Indian sugar became less competitive in the free world market, conflict
among indigenous West Indian classes grew more severe, leading to the
reimposition of direct British rule throughout the area.

Finally, what specifically was the role of the colonial state in

aiding capital accumulation by the metropolitan bourgeoisie, the

33

landholders, and the incipient national bourgeoisie of the colonies?
Murray (forthcoming a, p. 20-28), suggests that the “colonial state
promoted capitalist economic development in the colonies in a number
of ways." First, the colonial state modernized productive forces,
financing the development of the infrastructure through roads, ports,
land improvement, utilities, etc. Second, the colonial state became
a major investor. State corporationsincluded railways, telephone
and telegraph communications, local shipping, etc. These activities
were meant as incentives to private investment, however, and legal
sanctions prevented the accumulation of profit beyond that needed

to offset overhead costs. Third, the colonial state "facilitated

the extraction of economic surplus from the periphery" through its
jurisdication in matters of investment in the colony, regional pol-
itical authority and taxation. "The colonial state prevented the
self-contained economic development of the local economies" (p. 25).
Fourth, the colonial state tried to preserve foreign capital's monopoly
through the discouragement of local manufacturing. State fiscal sup-
ports were unavailable, the state restricted credit, and colonial
money and capital markets were badly developed. Tariff regulation
made by the colonial state favored metropolitan investors.

The refinements of Marxist dependency theory can now be most
effectively applied if scholars move beyond the Third World, to pre-
cisely and systematically locate the changing nature of dependent
development and internal class relations in the framework created by

metropolitan capitalist development.

The recent study of imperialism from the point of view of metro-

politan countries has resulted in many fine analyses and new Marxian

34

categories consistent with the incorporation of satellite countries
into the analysis of metropolitan capitalist development. The central
issue of the Marxist study of imperialism has been why monopoly cap—
ital has expanded dramatically and systematically outside of its
national borders. This is not a new theoretical concern among Marx-
ists, but has become the focal point of the neo-Marxian writings of
Baran, Sweezy, Magdoff, and others. Related to this issue is a
second one, receiving increasing attention from so-called "revisionist"
historians (most notably William A. Williams, Joyce and Gabriel Kolko),
--how the balance of imperial power has shifted in the twentieth cen-
tury and what events propelled the 0.5. into its current dominant
world position.

The first of these problems, the reason for modern imperialism,

has been approached through a reexamination of Imperialism (Lenin,

 

1966). Various writers have disagreed about the utility of the con-
cept of surplus absorption as used by Lenin to explain the primary
cause of late nineteenth century imperialism.19 And contemporary
theorists agree that colonialism is not necessary in monopoly capital-
ist imperialism. Nevertheless, Lenin's contention that monopoly cap-
italism produces a qualitatively different form of imperialist expan-
sion from those dominant during the era of competitive capitalism
and mercantalism is broadly shared.

Raw materials, labor and capital have been procured cheaply in
the Third World for several centuries (Jalee, 1969; Baran, 1957).
Beginning in the early 1900's, however, monopoly firms integrated the
stages of production within one corporate organization and broadened

their spheres of raw material extraction and production geographically.

35

Those entrepreneurs with sufficient capital sought to control the
world-wide supply of raw materials, as well as the means of proces-
sing, shipping, marketing, etc. The structure of vertically integra-
ted corporations, their scope, and the concentration of capital

on which they are based, assured factors and markets against the com-
petition of small, segmented firms. But to compete against other
oligopolies and ward against future downward economic trends, another
strategy was needed. The giant vertically integrated corporation
began a two pronged movement to assure stable organization and growth,
including, on the one hand, informal and formal producer agreements,
and on the other, influencing state policy at both the primarily
producing and consuming ends (Magdoff, 1969; Beckford, 1972; Dobb,
1963; Barratt-Brown, 1963, 1974).

It is, of course, true that the conditions of monopoly capitalism
have been found, at least in part, in other eras. During the mercan-
tile period, state chartering of companies was the rule and a degree
of integration of production, shipping and handling occurred, although
this was done on a contract basis and not within a single concern.
The halcyon days of British "free trade imperialism" gave Britain a
tremendous economic advantage vis-a-vis her European neighbors, yet
risky ventures, e.g., the economic exploitation of parts of Africa,
were undertaken by private companies with state economic support.
Nevertheless, the rise of monopolies in Britain, Germany and America
in the 1920's and '30's was unparalleled in the concentration of
capital, corporate control of separate economic and production func-
tions and manipulation of the political apparatus by private capital,

in both the metr0poles and satellites. And these three social

36

relationships-—capital concentration, state support and imperialism--
were central characteristics of monopoly capitalism emerging in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in parts of Europe and
America (Wallerstein, 1974a; Magdoff, 1969; Hobsbawm, 1969).

Magdoff (1969) calls this period of monopoly capitalist imper-
ialism the "new imperialism," a time marked by l) rivalry with England
for position of economic hegemony of the world; 2) the development
within each industrial nation of the concentration of economic power
in a small number of big industrial and financial firms. America
and Germany were Britain's chief rivals, beginning in the last decades
of the nineteenth century. From that era, through the 1930's, fan-
tastic technological developments were made in all three countries
which altered production in terms of unit size and capital require-
ments. These technological advances formed the framework for a rise
of capital concentration which was "a normal tendency within capital-
ism" (p. 31).

The emergence of vertically integrated, oligopolistic firms
increased the metropolitan need for raw materials. Industrial capital-
ists in Britain and America also feared a scarcity of markets, leading
to depression. As Jones (1971) points out, industrial countries
blamed the depression of the 1890's on the saturation of domestic
markets. Expansion beyond the American continental frontier was
viewed by politicians, businessmen and the public as the only means to
save American capitalism (W. Williams, 1972; Jones, 1971). As the
United States and Germany threatened to move ahead of Britain in
heavy industrial production, she joined the nineteenth century scramble

for colonies in Africa and the Pacific, which Lenin described, in order .

37

to safeguard raw material sources and markets. Increasingly corpor-
ations invested abroad in raw material production and preliminary
processing, and after World War II, in light manufacturing as a way

of penetrating protective trade barriers (O'Connor, 1970; Hymer, 1972).

The metropolitan state apparatus aided in stabilizing and encour-
aging capitalist development throughout its evolution, but the trend
became especially marked in the late nineteenth century as capitalist
nations struggled to escape depression. The state shouldered the
costs of market expansion through colonization. This political action
was especially useful to monopoly firms engaged in raw material pro-
duction in the Third World; monopoly firms in general benefited from
the increased role of the state in economic affairs at this time
(Dowd, 1974). The late nineteenth century retreat of metropolitan
domestic industry into protection and trade areas also required state
initiative.

The 1890-1930 period created a new world, one of monopoly dom-
ination of the Third World, and rivalry among giant corporations and
states. The monopoly phase of world capitalism has been one of con-
stant ferment because of the conflict between the developed and depen-
dent worlds; the rise of nationalism and socialism in the Third World
have threatened imperialism. And the struggle among metropoles has
continued to rage, although the political and economic tactics have
become more subtle in the poSt-War period.

The second world war interruptedoverseas expansion, and it
has been argued that the war was fought to stem German and Japanese
imperialism (Jones, 1971). When the fighting ended, America had

achieved international hegemony through military victory and her

38

financial hold over England. During the decades that followed,
American state and private financiers invested heavily in European
reconstruction, creating markets for American exports. Capital was
also exported to the Third World in the form of public and private
loans and private investment (O'Connor, 1971). Multinational corpor-
ations moved various parts of the manufacturing process to factories
of the Third World, where labor was cheap and tax incentives attrac-
tive (O'Conner, 1970; Galtung, 1971; Hymer, 1972). Goods produced

in the Third World by multinational companies were meant primarily
for export to the developed world; however, Third World markets were
tapped as well as indigenous middle classes swelled with those who
profited from working for multinationals and financial and productive
activities that contributed to the export economy (Cardoso, 1972-3).

American economic dominance meant the emergence of the dollar
as the "tap" international currency. Sterling remained a "negotiable"
currency, as London continued to hold a powerful position as an inter—
national financial capital.20 But the rise of the dollar has resulted
in significant advantages to U.S. corporations operating abroad, an
advantage supported by state maneuverings to hamper the currency
transactions of Third World countries and potential economic rivals,
as well.

The status of the leading metropole vis-a-vis other developed
countries affects the fate of Third World countries in directly polit-
ical ways. Historically, countries with great economic strength
have been willing and able to make considerable political and military
commitments to the preservation of an economic empire. This has had

the effect of creating sympathetic class arrangements in the satellite,

39

whether by the granting of economic aid and advantages or direct
military support (Strange, 1971). Colonial government employment
has been provided for sectors of the dependent population as well

as a degree of political influence, and powerful indigenous classes
have often been supported by metropolitan capitalists and the metro-
politan state. A metropolitan economy unable to sustain these kinds
of expenditures cannot provide the political climate needed by its
banks and corporations operating throughout the world. Since World
War 11, Britain has lowered its commitments of aid to the colonies,
and granted political independence to most of them. British corpor-
ations and financial interests still have sizeable investments over-
seas, but with frequent sterling devaluations, competing demands for
public funds from domestically oriented companies and the working
and middle classes, there are definite limits to further British
overseas expansion. The United States has moved into former British
colonies and other regions of the Third World, armed with weaponry,
economic aid, and the decisive voice in international economic organ-
izations and bilateral trade agreements; the effect has been the further
undermining of European political strength and clear establishment
of American worldwide political hegemony (McDonald, 1971).

I have argued that the proposed analysis of British imperial
dominance of the West Indies is best achieved within a perspective
which incorporates an understanding of dependent development, satellite
class relations and metropolitan expansion and inter-metropole rival-
ries. Wallerstein (1974a, 1974b, 1975) has attempted to constuct
such a framework and to codify major historical findings about inter-

metropole relations of monopoly capitalism. A brief examination of

53'

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40

some of his recent writings can shed light on a number of processes
which I will illustrate in the substative chapters of this disserta-

tion.

Wallerstein (1974a, 1974b, 1975) conceives of capitalism as a

worldwide totality.2]

He praises Frank's writings because they have
introduced to Marxian theory this powerful possibility. Wallerstein
suggests that we view a world capitalist system as a kind of three
tiered grid. At the top level are "core" societies, or metropoles,
which appropriate surplus from periphery and semi-periphery areas.
The periphery subsequently becomes "underdeveloped," the core,
highly industrialized; the semi-periphery is somewhere between the
two on a development continuum. Wallerstein claims that societies
move in and out of these positions. Within the care, the ultimate
hegemonic state changes. He also contends that core societies develop
strong state machineries initially (this is one of the factors,
along with particular class configurations, which allowed core soci-
eties to dominate periphery and semi-pheriphery areas); periphery and
semi-periphery countries have relatively weak state machineries.
Wallerstein's writings presentaiconceptual advancement over
previous Marxian analyses of imperialism because he has moved beyond
the relationship of metropole-satellite, to that between metropoles,
making the crucial observation that international economic hegemony
is an important but shifting advantage. Secondly, he articulates in
historical terms the differentiation in state power of societies at
various levels of the system; this introduces a political category
into the consideration of the international economy, clarifying the

high degree of integration between economic growth and political

41

power.

Wallerstein's "system," like Frank's, sometimes seems to be a
closed one. The totality of the world system and nation-state ob-
scures the activities of classes within the core, semi-periphery and
periphery. I find that the schema per se serves best as a heuristic
device rather than as a theoretical model. However, there are a
number of historical propositions made by Wallerstein which both
synthesize and augment the neo-Marxian writings on imperialism.

These are: 1) monopoly capitalism generates economic rivalry among
metropoles; 2) the state acts as a support structure to corporations
and capital seeking international hegemony, and state power is differ-
entially achieved among ecomdmically strong and weak nations; 3) his-
torically, international capitalism has resembled the schematic form
of a three-tiered grid of nations, with different degrees of economic
strength; 4) nations have passed in and out of these tiers, although
nations in the periphery and semi-periphery may not share structural
characteristcs (for example, if England shares a position of semi-
periphery status with Brazil, it will be because of capital stagnation
or disaccumulation in the case of England, and dependent development
in the case of Brazil); 5) no metropole can stay on top indefinitely,
and with a transition, the new hegemonic power will experience a dif-
ferent set of constraints and opportunities that reflect the long-run
inability of capitalism to grow.

I will utilize these propositions about international capitalist
rivalry and political aspects of imperialism along with other neo-
Marxian theories of imperialism, to discuss British capitalist devel-

opment. They will serve as a framework within which to apply Marxian

42

dependency categories for understanding West Indian development and

class formation.

:5

43

FOOTNOTES

1The study of West Indian societies has been dominated by
structural-functional and nee-classical economic paradigms; for anal-
yses and critiques of these perspectives, see Girvan, 1973; Greene,
1974; Whitten and Szwed, 1970; Morrissey, 1976. However, in the late
1960's, several nationalist scholars, forming the New World Group,
began to study West Indian societies from a point of view critical
of imperialism, linking West Indian underdevelopment with the his-
torical dominance of the United States and Britain. Their contribu-
tions to West Indian social science will be discussed more fully in
the pages that follow.

2As Wallerstein suggests: "The pundits note that 'the gap
is getting wider,‘ but thus far no-one has succeeded in doing much
about it, and it is not clear that there are very many in whose inter-
ests it would be to do so" (1974a, p. 414). Moreover, cracks in
Third World unity against the developed world have appeared in 1976.
They suggest that the national bourgeoisie and military in many de-
veloping countries welcome a "new world order" only if their class
positions can be retained.

3The former British West Indies include Jamaica, Trinidad and
Tobago, Barbados, Guyana. These countries are independent members
of the British Commonwealth. Antigua, Dominica, St. Christopher -
Nevis - Anguilla, St. Lucia and St. Vincent are Assodiated States,
or self-governing states in association with Britain who retains re-
sponsibility for foreign affairs and defense. The four largest
islands, all of which are now independent members of the Commonwealth,
have traditionally been most important to foreign capital. They are
the main foci of this dissertation, although much of what will be
said about the structure of dependency of these societies will apply
to the other eight as well.

4One of the first critics of the theory of comparative advan-
tage, Raul Prebisch, was "Secretary General and the major ideological
inspiration of the Economic Commission for Latin America (E.C.L.A.)
throughout the 1950's (Levitt and Wyeth, 1974). He later became the
first Secretary-General of UNCTAD, the U.N. agency most actively

engaged in improving Third World terms of trade and foreign invest-
ment.

5Japan and the European Economic Community have led the devel-
oped world in instituting generalized preferences for agricultural
and semi-manufactured imports from the Third World and in adopting
UNCTAD recommendations on commodity pricing, aid, and investment guide-
lines. The U.S. has been most conservative in regard to all of these
measures, resisting their acceptance as long as possible and then delay-
ing their implementation. Recent trends in international trade will
be discussed more fully in subsequent chapters.

44

6Girvan (1973) makes the following comment: "Again, the Cuban
experience suggests some useful lessons. Without depreciating the
numerous social advances made by the revolution, by all accounts it
took over ten years to find a development strategy which is appro-
priate and reasonably rational. Informed by a view which associated
underdevelopment with monoculture and lack of industry, the revolu-
tionary leaders have cut back on sugar production and invested heavily
in industry. This was found to reduce the capacity to import and
increase the demand for imports simultaneously. This induced a re-
versal and a huge effort in expanding sugar production. But this
was found to involve heavy opportunity costs, especially in the use
of labour. The strategy for the seventies is therefore to mechanize
sugar production and develop other exports in the effort to diversify.
This, it is argued, illustrates the need for specific analyses towards

precise formulation of appropriate development strategies for our
countries" (p. 29).

7There is a considerable amount of confusion in liberal social
science circles about the Cuban case. Hagelberg (1974) argues that
diversification of agriculture is impossible in the Caribbean and
that the failures of Cuban socialism in this area prove the point.
Girvan apparently agrees. However, in post-Revolutionary Cuba plan-
ners tried to diversify agriculture ang_industrialize,accepting a
variant of the Russian model. They have since turned to lighter
industry; nevertheless, the structure of dependency, which revolves
around the continued production of sugar cane to secure loans and
imports, has not been challenged. There seem to be no recent or
systematic agricultural studies which rule out diversification of
agriculture in the West Indies. Nor does the Demas argument, that
Caribbean societies are tied to the international or a regional mar-
ket by the economic imperative of size, receive the universal accep-
tance it once did (Best, 1967; Girvan, 1973). It is interesting to
note that to more conservative metropolitan observers, the New World
Group members appear to be radicals and socialists because they re-
ject imperialism and favor economic "planning."

8The continued intensification of dependency over time corre-
sponds with Frank's definition of underdevelopment. The latter will
be amplified in the pages which follow. Other dependency theorists
agree that foreign investment implies restrictions against develop-
ment, but not all see it as a constantly deepening process (see, for
example: Cardoso, 1972; Chilcote, 1974). In the case of British
imperialism, the Dominions were subjected to uneven development ex-
periences, although the restrictions against development were much
less severe than those imposed on the dependencies. Nevertheless,
they have left a mark on the development of these areas, in the sense
that none have achieved the spectacular, integrated industrial growth
of economically autonomous societies such as the U.S., Britain,
Western Europe and Japan.

9The "strangulation of the export sector" was not, in fact, a
consequence of West Indian "industrialization by invitation." "The
highly open and automatic monetary systems meant that conditions in

45

the foreign sector tended to affect domestic levels of demand,
output, and employment directly, rather than through a shortage of
foreign exchange receipts as such" (Girvan, 1973, p. 8).

10The Caribbean and Latin American structuralists do, of course,
recognize inequality in their societies. Beckford (1972) writes pas-
sionately of the poverty and economic differences between peoples of
various social groups and colors. Yet, inequality seems to be caus-
ally linked to the plantation economy, race is related to economic
function on the plantation; as Wolf (1959) contends, "the plantation
is by definition a class-structured system of organization." Beckford
has no theory of capitalist development in the metropole or satellite
and thus does not conceptually separate racial and class categories
from the "plantation" system of production. Beckford's analysis does
not capture the economic activities or the consciousness of the nation-
al bourgeoisie and middle sectors that have traditionally owned and
managed plantations or other forms of multinational firms, and will,
to some extent, survive changes in the fortunes of the firm. I have
not seen an adequate discussion of West Indian classes or bourgeois
complicity in imperialism in any New World writings.

1]There is a tradition of historical materialist writings about
West Indian societies which is excellent and significant. Prominent
figures in this school include Eric Williams, Gordon Lewis, Douglas
Hall, and the Marxist, C.L.R. James. I have consulted the research
of these scholars and found their accounts of West Indian society to
be extremely useful. However, much of the work of Caribbean mater-
ialists predates the development of dependency economics. All are, of
course, mindful of the disastrous and enduring effects of imperialism
on West Indian societies. But their presentation of these consequences
is not systematic in terms of building a larger theory of imperialism
and dependency. This problem is particularly troubling in discussions
of economic development and social class, as these phenomena are con-
sidered to be independent, on the whole, from imperialist penetration.
Franz Fanon's important work, Black Skin, White Masks, is an analysis
of the phenomenology of racial oppression in the French West Indies,
but is relevant to the former British West Indies as well. This
analysis has been unique in its Marxian treatment of the social psy-
chological consequences of racial differentiation hiThird World
societies.

leor analysis of traditional Marxist theories of imperialism,
see Fernandez and Ocampo, 1974; Wallerstein, 1974a; Syzmanski, 1974.

 

13The recent outpouring of dependency studies has included many
thoughtful critiques of Frank. See, for example, Chilcote (1974).
Frank (1974) answers some of these criticisms in his response to
Fernandez and Ocampo (1974). Wallerstein (1974a) offers a compelling
defense of Frank's use of the Marxian category "class."

14This is particularly true of Frank's contention that periods
of metropolitan detachment from the satellite produce development in
the satellite. These periods of separation in the case of the West

46

Indies correspond roughly with the stages proposed by the structural-
ists. Yet, it is quite clear that the depression in no way encour-
aged substitutive industrial development in the West Indies, nor did
World War II, as Frank contends (1969a). The real meaning of Latin
American import substitution during times of metropolitan absence is
subject to question given the extent of foreign investment in those
countries during the depression and war, British control of sterling
in some Latin American countries, and previously incurred private and
public debts to the metropolitan state and private capital. The
rapid reimposition of U.S. control over Latin America suggests that
these temporary lapses may be built into the system and result in a
series of new forms of dependency..

15Baran (1957) also questioned the prevailing Marxist and neo-
classical economist assumption that imperialism was a progressive
force in Third World development, arguing that primitive accumulation
was never possible in satellite countries because of the extraction
of capital by imperialist metropoles. Baran did not consider the
effects of capitalist investment in manufacturing, nor did he attempt
to explain the origins of Third World class formations, as Frank and
the dependency theoriests have done. However, Baran's The Political
Economy of Growth should be considered the precurser of Frank's
theory of underdevelopment.

 

16In reference to the West Indies and other areas of heavy
plantation influence, the metropolitan bourgeoisie and the landed
classes may be one and the same. The state, in this situation, med-
iates between metropolitan and indigenous bourgeosies. The laboring
population, particularly those sectors that are unionized, also make
demands upon the dependent state, but their power and influence in
no way approaches that of either propertied group.

17Alavi contends that the dependent state is qualitatively dif-
ferent from the bourgeois state, and, in fact, does not exercise the
autonomy of the Bonapartist state, as Marx described it. Alavi then
quotes Poulantzas to the effect that the state can best serve the
ruling class in a relatively autonomous role. I find Alavi's first
statement confusing for the dependent state seems to well exemplify
Poulantzas' contention that the structure rather than the ruling class
itself determines the state position (see, also, Poulantzas, 1973).
In fact, in my opinion, the dependent state more closely demonstrates
Poulantzas' theory than does the so-called bourgeois state. It is
relatively easy to see that foreign capital, indigenous capital and
landholders may have conflicting interests, but they cannot exist
within present "structures of dependecny without one another. The
degree to which contending factions within the capitalist class in
developed countries contribute to the stability of the present struc-
ture seems to be more highly variable.

18Murray (forthcomming a) notes this problem "What also must
not be overlooked is the fact that the metropolitan bourgeoisie had
to create a colonial state apparatus that could exercise hegemony
over those settler expatriates whose commitment to permanent settlement

47

necessarily involved particular political and economic interests in
the colonies" (p.17).

19Baran and Sweezy (1966) revived Lenin's theory of imperialism,
suggesting that investment abroad was one means of surplus absorption
in a monopoly capitalist economy. 0' Conner (1971) also accepts Lenin's
theory, but argues that the monopoly conditions Lenin found in the
late nineteenth century did not, in fact, develop until the post-
World War II period. Baran (1957) and Magdoff (1969) offer the alter-
native theory that monopoly capital is searching for raw materials,
cheap labor and capital in the interest of higher profits.

20Susan Strange (1971) defines these terms. A top currency is a
preferred currency for international transactions. A negotiated cur-
rency is one in decline, the currency of a state which has lost a
position of political or economic dominance. It is used in interna-
tional transactions but is characterized by the need of the issuing
state to bargain or negotiate diplomatically with the users about the
terms and conditions of its use.

2ISee, also, Samir Amin (1974) for discussion of some of the
theoretical bases of a "world system" approach and a critique of neo-
classical development economics.

CHAPTER II

THE METHODOLOGY AND AN OVERVIEW OF THE DISSERTATION

The Methodology and Technigues of Research

The study I have proposed assumes an historical perspective,
and the ways in which the subject of British relations with the West
Indies can be analyzed include the survey of historical documents
and longitudinal data. However, the enterprise I have engaged in is
more than simply an historical discussion of imperialism and depen-
dency, and the techniques of inquiry extend beyond standard histor-
ical methods.

The American tradition of sociological research has met recently
with considerable opposition from newer scholars in the field who
object to standard sociological conceptualization of problems and
the kinds of technical apparatus used to illuminate them.1 Their
critique has focused on two issues: 1) the search for universal
laws of social behavior, 2) the division of social relations into
discrete units which can be studied independently of other social
phenomena. The rejection of these sociological preoccupations was
reinforced by political concerns of these scholars; the combined
epistemological and ideological critique of "mainstream" sociology
resulted in two new developments, each of which counters one, but
not the other of the intellectual problems stated above. Some sociol-

ogists met the first objection by turning back to more holistic,

48

49

historical studies, typical of the earliest sociologists, including
Weber, Marx and Durkheim (Gerth and Landau, 1963, p. 26; Moore, 1963).
.However, the consideration of history or the soCial structure as a
whole has not guaranteed the rejection of "hypothesis testing“ re-
sulting from the second tendency of American sociological thought.2
Many of these scholars have utilized conventional research designs
and sophisticated research technology to study propositions concer-
ning some of the most pressing social conflicts of the day, and
often this has been carried out with an endorsement of radical
social solutions. This approach has not been entirely productive,
despite its contribution to "radical" or "critical" scholarship. In
failing to understand the interrelatedness of social phenomena, the
practitioners of this school of radical sociology have not always
grasped the complexity of class conflict and may defeat their own
purpose in failing to appreciate historical precedents and similar-
ities which rest on these nuances of social relations.

The second school of so-called radical sociology has repre-
sented the thrust towards reconceptualization of social life in
terms of human intentionality and interaction. This perspective,
however, has lacked the holistic view necessary to raise insights
beyond the level of small group and institutional analysis? The
researchers most able to utilize non-positivistic concepts and method-
ologies have contributed greatly to the field by sensitizing sociolo-
gists to the intricate web of forces influencing social life. Yet,
the similarities which underly institutional forms in particular

kinds of societies have not been discovered. Thus, neither of these

new approaches to sociology delivers the critical perspective

50

necessary to lift the discipline out of the positivistic, ahistorical
tradition developed in America (Gerth and Landau, 1963).

Similar strains have arisen in American historical studies since
the 1960's. An emphasis on the insights of sociological and econ-
omic categories in historical analysis has been accompanied by a coun-
tervailing interest in the research technology of other social
science disciplines. The latter trend has resulted in statistical
analyses of the sort often used by the first school of critics of
sociology, and is evidenced in the works of so-called cliometrics,

such as the controversial Time on the Cross. A more promising dir-

 

ection would seem to be the incorporation of broader sociological
and economic theories into the study of history. But here, histor-
ians suffer the same dilemma as do sociologists--how to preserve the
historically and socially unique and complex, and yet appreciate
similarities among forms and structures (Moore, 1963). As Moore
notes, the problem cannot be solved inductively; the "discoveries"
social scientists have heretofore made have been generally quite
trivia1.. Nor does the deductive method work, if the underlying assump-
tions are more often acts of faith than observable relationships
(Gouldner, 1970; Mills, 1959). Furthermore, the standard natural
science methods of induction and deduction require the vigorous stan-
dards of testing which assume hypothesis formation and the fragmen-
tation of social reality.

I would argue that the only viable intellectual framework avail-
able to social scientists which offers a sensible solution to the
seeming contradiction of constructing social theory while preserving

the integrity and relational qualities of social interaction is

51

Marxian thought. This tradition, of course, includes the many fine
historical studies loosely based on materialist and evolutionary
assumptions, and the crude over-schematized theory and research un-
dertaken in the name of Marx (Hobsbawm, 1973). But a Marxian frame-
work, as I understand it, implies more than either of these options
allows. It is a methodology which goes beyond our conventional cat-
egories for understanding scientific research; it is neither induc-
tive, nor deductive, outside of the labels 'nomothetic' and 'ideo-
graphic,‘ yet wholly commited to the building of a science of social
relations.

Ollman (1975) offers an extremely provocative view of Marx's
method, an interpretation which makes sense of the seemingly incom-
patible ends of Marx's work, to establish laws, and to understand
the social conflicts of the era. Ollman contends that the Marxian
"philosophy of internal relations" represents a philosophical tra-
dition unlike that of conventional scientific inquiry. Marx did not
attempt to establish universal or natural social rules or classifi-
catory schemes; rather, he viewed the world 'relationally.‘

The relation is the irreducible minimum for all units in

Marx's conception of social reality. This is really the nub

of our difficulty in understanding Marxism, whose subject

matter is not simply society but society conceived 'relation—
ally.‘ Capital, labor, value, commodity, etc., are all grasped
as relations, containing in themselves, as integral elements

of what they are, those parts with which we tend to see them

externally tied. Essentially, a change of focus has occurred
from viewing independent factors which are related in each
factor, to grasping this tie as part of the meaning conveyed

by its concept. This view does not rule out the existence of

a core notion for each factor, but treats this core notion

as a cluster of relations. (p. 15)

This methodology precludes the consideration of "factors as

logically independent of one another." Nor can natural social laws

52

be found. Ollman contends that instead Marx tried to discover
“tendencies" of capitalist development through the examination of
relations. "As regards deductive laws, Marx's laws also deal with
the nature of the world, but do so on the basis of evidence, and are
forever being modified by evidence." (p. 19) And what are the fun-
damental social tendencies or relations Marx proposed? Hobsbawm
(1973) suggests that the Marxian study of history is marked by three
basic relations: 1) the theory of 'basis and superstructure,‘
2) a social evolutionary schema, and 3) the category 'class conflict.l
That is, Marx conceptualized a social system composed of different
'levels' which interact-—basis and superstructure. Their composition
differs according to the degree to which man is emancipated from
nature and in control of it--social evolution. And it is class
conflict, based on the web of relations that is exploitation, that
moves human society from one stage of social evolution to the next.
Imperialism and dependent development in the world economy
are understood by grasping the essence of class relations--the basis
of growth or development--in both the metropole and periphery, during
succeeding historical periods. I propose that an appropriate place
to begin this difficult task is with the social evolutionary schema
of Marxism described by Hobsbawm. Capitalist development is based
on successive modes of production--pre-capita1ist to capitalist. With-
in each of these modes of production there have been stages in which
the growth dynamic of the system has changed. From the most basic
"category," modes of production, we procede to historically specific
stages of these modes of production. These, too, are relational.

Marxists have argued that capitalist development in the West evolved

53

from mercantilism to competitive capitalism to monopoly capitalism,
in the process, generating a new "world" system (Amin, 1974; Waller-
stein, 1974b).

The theoretical problem presented by "poor" countries in the
world system is how to extend the basic historical and theoretical
categories and epistemology of Marxism to study the economic and
social systems of developing countries. The periphery has not wholly
followed the succession of modes of production given by Marx; rather,
pre-capitalist and capitalist social formations co-exist (Cockcroft,
1975; Chilcote, 1974). Some dependency theorists have held that the
periphery, while in the process of capitalist development, enocuntered
metropolitan imperialism and was set on a path of economic growth
combining pre-capitalist and capitalist modes, but characterized
by social formations of each that differ in the extreme from those
experienced by the now industrialized countries of the North Atlantic
(Sternberg, 1974; Cardoso, 1972-3). This position suggests that
progressive stages of Western development were imperialist in varying
ways. Moreover, each stage of Western capitalist development offered,
by its very growth dynamic and peculiarly national form, limits on
the kind of social formations possible within periphery countries.

The possibilities of metropolitan forms of a particular mode or stage
of production are open, as are the forms of periphery capitalism,

but always within a limiting structure generated by the mode of pro-
duction or stage of production (Wallerstein, 1974b).

It is my contention that while the "world system" has been
dominated by the expansion of capital into pre-capitalist (and social-

ist) countries, to understand this process, we must begin with the

54
metropolitan nation-state, determining its relationship to other
capitalist metropoles and peripheries in terms of the path to econ-
omic development it has taken.5 For the West, we can begin with an
elaboration of captialist development from mercantilism through mon-
0poly capitalism. Each stage has had a dynamic, leading to charac-
teristic forms of expansion into the periphery. These forms of
expansion have, in turn, set broad terms which have altered the dir-
ection of periphery growth and development during each stage of
metropolitan capitalist growth.

In the preceding chapter I proposed that particular Marxian
theories of imperialism and dependency offer a way to overcome specific
deficiencies in West Indian studies. Again, these are: 1) the failure
of students of the area's history to understand British-West Indian re-
lations in terms of Western metropolitan capitalist development and its
peculiarly British form, 2) the lack of a theoretical basis for discus-
sing West Indian economic growth, 3) the general tendency of scholars
to ignore West Indian class relations, a necessary category for
understanding West Indian development and historical change. I
will begin the search for a new conceptual framework by looking crit-
ically at Marxian theories of imperialism, making adaptations based
on my reading of literature on capitalist development and the
British case, and on the demands imposed by my interpretation of
the Marxian method. Having outlined the general pattern of bourgeois
capitalist development, and the link between British imperialism
and the evolution of British capitalism, I will turn to the consider-
ation of the West Indies. I will examine West Indian dependent
development and class relations in terms of structures created by

succeeding stages of British capitalist growth. The theoretical

‘I

y',

 

:‘v
"d

55

approach to these phenomena is based on selected Marxian works on
dependency, West Indian and satellite histories, and on the Marxian
method itself. I will explore the assumption that periphery econ-
omies and societies have had shared characteristics reflecting similar
Western forms of capitalist growth and expansion. Common "relations"
will be investigated, bearing in mind that metropoles did not gener-
ate new stages of production concurrently and that intermetropole

rivalries influenced metropole-periphery relations.

An Outline of Dissertation Chapters

 

In the previous chapter, I noted that studies of the West
Indies and the British-West Indian relationship have consistently
failed to take into account the course of British capitalist develop-
ment, based on a more general historical theory of the dynamic of
bourgeois capitalist development. I will begin Chapter III by re-
viewing the major theories of British imperialism in the West In-
dies. I will suggest an alternative view based on Marxian theories
of imperialsim, altered in terms of further analysis of bourgeois
capitalist development and the British case, and in terms of Marxian
epistemology.

Students of the West Indian-British relationship have focused
on British colonialism as a political trend or a source of British
economic strength, without an understanding of how the exigencies
of capitalist growth vary in succeeding stages of development. I
suggest that a number of propositions be considered to order the
history of the British-West Indian relationship and West Indian
economic history, based on how bourgeois capitalist structures have

changed historically. The first substantive chapter of this

.
pens.

bof'k

itlu‘.‘

56

dissertation will cover the transition from mercantile to competitive
capitalism and the nature of the competitive stage, and will stress
the following points. First, that an underlying growth dynamic

has characterized mercantile, competitive capitalist and monopoly
capitalist development. The mercantile stage was a time of capital
accumulation that formed the basis of subsequent industrial develop-
ment. Competitive capitalism generated industrial growth because

the market rewarded low costs, low prices and useful innovations.
Second, each stage of Western capitalist development required a
particular trade policy, based on the relationship between the state
and capital, the dynamic of the system itself and the larger world
system of competing national capitalisms. Mercantilism was protec-
tionist; competitive capitalism was accompanied by free-trade policies
in England, the premier core state, but was protectionist elsewhere.
Free-trade was highly compatible with the general principles of
laisse-faire state—capitalist relations, but could not be extended

to international economic relations in a world where one country so
clearly dominated its neighbors in the production of sophisticated
goods at low prices. Third, the transition from mercantile to compe-
titive capitalism marked a change in characteristic forms of imper-
ialism from the acquisition of colonies and units for the production
of raw materials to an emphasis on trade. The gap in manufacturing
capacity between developed and economically backward areas was set

in the era of mercantile expansion. The active suppression of manu-
facturing through mercantile trade and fiscal policies and through
the establishment of raw material producing units set up a system

whereby colonies needed and bought metropolitan manufactures in

57

exchange for raw materials. Trade was not an exclusive form of
imperialism during this period, but for the first time, commodity
exchange was a widespread means of exploiting backward areas.
Fourth, within mercantilism lay the basis for its demise, for a

set of interrelated reasons deriving from the three points presented
above.

I will then look at the ways in which these phenomena unfolded
in Britain, and how they effected the British-West Indian relation-
ship. The following issues will be explored.

Britain was the first country in the world to experience the
full-scale transition from mercantilism to competitive capitalism.
She became the economic leader of the world, able to command supre-
macy in trading relations and adopt free-trade policies. The demise
of mercantilism and rise of free-trade was not an automatic or rapid
process, but involved at least thirty years of class struggle. The
advocates of continued protection of British goods and British col-
onial goods and other monopoly practices were those for whom the
rationale of mercantilism--quick and grand profits often accompanied
by high costs, particularly in the long run--made sense. These in-
cluded British farmers, shippers, WeSt Indian planters and traders.
They were opposed by the modern capitalist manufacturer seeking low-
priced raw materials and free markets and British consumers. The
competitive capitalist free-traders eventually won, ushering in a
dazzling era of British industrial preeminence. The new Britian of
the industrial revolution shunned colonialism as too costly. More
importantly, it was unnecessary. British industrial products were

welcomed all over the world. Trade was a new and potent form of

58

capital accumulation for the premier metropole.

And what of British colonies? British imperialism made an
ecomémic and political distinction between Dominions and dependen-
cies. Both served a function in the British empire, but the Euro-
pean presence in the Dominions allowed higher levels of economic
development, minimizing their role in mercantile accumulation. The
dependencies were the early prizes, areas of raw material extrac-
tion. Their value continued to be great during early years of com-
petitive capitalism when the dependencies served as a source of raw
materials and as a market for manufactures not found in the more
highly developed Dominions. But as time passed, problems with the
dependencies grew. First, mercantile methods of production favored
soil depletion and generally inefficient management, raising costs
and driving British buyers to other areas of the Empire or to non-
Empire countries. Second, British capital goods, the great advance
of the mid-nineteenth century, were in little demand in areas of
low industrial growth. The West Indies became burdens to the Bri-
tish, and while other areas experienced similar problems with long-
term high cost technology and organization (Mauritius, Ceylon, areas
of Africa), slavery, absenteeism and the abuse of rational cultivating
techniques in the West Indies were without parallel elsewhere. The
West Indies served no useful function to the British state or Bri-
tish capitalists during the period of competitive capitalism; they
tried from 1830 to 1865 to bring the West Indian planter to a recog-
nition of the impossibility of a return to a passed era. Other areas
of value as raw material producers shared a precarious position in

the Empire, competing in a world of free-trade and trapped within a

59

technology and system of productive organization that was generally
' less amenable to long-run stability, efficiency and innovative tech-
nology than was capitalism within the metropoles.

In Chapter IV I will turn to the consideration of West Indian
society and economy from the mid-1700's to 1846, within the frame-
work of the British transition from mercantile to competitive capi-
talism. Thus, I will take the propositions related to British cap-'
italist development discussed in Chapter III as a set of conditioning
and limiting factors in West Indian history. I contend that West
Indian economic and social relations have not been caused by Bri-
tish capitalist growth, but that imperialism has generated broad
and historically changing webs of international class relations within
which West Indian history has evolved. Moreover, West Indian socie-
ties ressembled other periphery countries in many respects, exper-
iencing similar obstacles to development and similar patterns of
class relations during progressive stages of metropolitan capitalist
growth. I will propose several general statements about periphery
economy and society in each stage of metropolitan development;
these propositions derive from Marxian theories of dependency, al-
tered by considerations of satellite and West Indian histories and
Marxian epistemology.

As noted above, Chapter IV, the first of two chapters on the
West Indies, covers the period from the mid-1700's to 1846. The
choice of historical time period reflects the first proposition to
be examined, that the metropolitan transition from mercantile to
competitive capitalism marked a decisive change in productive

activities in many periphery soCieties. Competitive capitalism

60

generally meant a victory of domestic industrialists over raw mater-
ial producers in the peripheries, manifested in changes in government
supports that hindered high cost production of raw materials. This
was especially true of Britain, where free-trade successfully under-
mined colonial monopolies of raw material production. Other metro-
poles, while protective of domestic industry against foreign compe-
tition, guaranteed the purchase and the price of raw materials from
some peripheral regions, but only if these areas were exceptionally
low—cost producers. The West Indies experienced a shift away from
production exclusively for the plantation, to a long period of
efforts by European settlers, Africans and Afro—Europeans to ini-
tiate bourgeois national development. The date, 1846, marks the
passage of the Sugar Duties Act in the British Parliament, repealing
sugar duties and ending mercantile supports to West Indian planters.

The second major proposition on which the discussion in Chapter
IV will be based is that, although the structure of production in per-
iphery societies nay reflect heavy foreign investment, there is a
process of development that occurs, albeit uneven and dependent.
During the period of metropolitan competitive capitalism, dependent,
uneven development resulted from the pattern of satellite production
for the international economy set during the mercantile era. Per-
iphery countries produced raw materials to be exchanged for food and
light manufactures from the metropoles and "semi-periphery" countries.
This process hindered economic development in the periphery primar-
ily by limiting domestic accumulation of capital. Periphery coun-
tries had 1) high degrees of foreign ownership of the means of

production, leading to the repatriation of profits, and 2) a naturally

1191151

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inelastic market for products of domestic producers and restricted
spin-off potential of these activities. Nevertheless, economic growth
in particular sectors occurred. In the West Indies, economic devel-
opment was oriented towards supplying the international market with
agricultural exports, particularly sugar; some indigenous entre-
preneurs produced simple goods and services for the plantation or
engaged in international or, the more limited, local trade. This
pattern changed during the period following the equalization of

sugar duties and the emancipation of slaves when the uncompetitive
prices of West Indian sugar led to the sale and abandonment of former
plantation lands. Peasants acquired land and produced food; petty
manufacturers and traders oriented their activities towards a rising
internal market. International exchange was not undermined by in-
digenous production of food and light manufactures, but development
of a classic form began to take shape alongside production for export.
This-shift in West Indian economic enterprises suggests again the
importance of viewing periphery economic activities as evidence of
dynamic (although dependent and uneven) growth rather than as a
static, given aspect of a "structure" such as underdevelopment or

the plantation.

Third, the mercantile transition to competitive capitalism in
the metropoles marked a significant change in Thrid World class re-
lations, particularly in those areas in which competitive capitalist
trade policies caused a decline in the periphery economy. The in-
creasingly uncompetitive nature of raw material production in some
areas (e.g., Barbados and Jamaica) and a humanitarian current in

metropolitan thinking discouraged labor-repressive systems of

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62

production. Wherever the soil and other conditions promised long-
term, highly profitable production, equally repressive systems were
soon erected (e.g., Guiana, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, the southern
United States). But even in these cases, labor repressive tech-
niques were incompatible with long-term profit making, and during
the course of development in these areas capital investment in
technology gradually released labor for other tasks. An incipient
national bourgeoisie could arise or be strengthened by these
events especially in regions like the West Indies where export agri-
culture suffered a period of decline. In the West Indies, a bour-
geois class of Afro-Europeans emerged, active in farming, trade and
crafts. settler Europeans engaged in some of these activities as
well. African ex-slaves were often peasant farmers of both food and
export crops, or wage laborers on remaining estates.

Fourth, the colonial state grew in both strength and the
scope of its functions from mercantilism to competitive capitalism,
particularly where the grip of raw material producers lessened.
Competitive capitalism was a stage of withdrawal from colonial ex-
pansion by all European metropoles. The metropolitan state encouraged
the autonomy of periphery governing bodies and allowed colonial leg-
islatures to evolve in many areas. Local colonial powers of taxa-
tion were widened. The range and rates of taxes levied within the
colonies increased, with the metropoles' lessening fiscal commitment
to "empi re . "

In the West Indies, the collapse of sugar production caused
the West Indian colonial legislatures to grow in power, giving the

incipient national bourgeoisie a political vehicle. Moreover, the

63

colonial state, with the authority to raise taxes in a number of
ways, built ports, roads, etc., largely without the aid of the metro-
politan state.

The fbllowing aspects of West Indian development and class re-
lations will be discussed.

Mercantile metropoles expanded 'hiU) the Caribbean in the seven-
teenth century. Spain, Britain and the Netherlands extended their
empires to the West Indies, seizing land for agricultural cultiva-
tion, precious minerals and indigenous labor. Britain first explored
the region in search of military positions from which to fight the
Spanish. Their ultimate goal, however, was settlement. Gradually
Dutch planting of sugar throughdut the region established the long-
enduring plantation as the principal system of production. Many
attempts to supply Indian and European labor on Caribbean plantations
failed, giving way to the use of African slaves. Small-scale farming
of tobacco fer export and food crops virtually disappeared; the number
of white settlers in relation to the number of African slaves dropped
sharply.

Sugar planting in the Caribbean was a grand success, particular-
ly fer British planters and merchats who, with the domestic farmers,
formed the backbone of British mercantilism. The consolidation of
British national wealth, deriving in large part from the production,
transport and sale of West Indian sugar, led to the failure of Dutch
trading in the area and established Britain as the premier metropole.
She tightened her political control of West Indian societies, and
encouraged further planting and British trade in the area through

mercantile policies which allowed British merchants and planters to

64

monopolize the supply, transport and sale of West Indian sugar, and
granted guarantees of quotas and prices to British merchants. The
West Indian production of sugar and the related trade of slaves con-
tributed greatly to the British industrial revolution. Profits de-
rived from these activities, as well as external economies promoted
by sugar and slavery, created the primitive capital for industrial-
ization and a demand for particular industrial products.

Yet mercantile methods of cultivation were notoriously inef-
ficient. Slavery and other repressive forms of labor required con-
stant cropping in order to acquire capital for the purchase and main-
tenance of slaves, and to contain a potentially rebellious popula-
tion. Capital investment beyond the purchase and care of slaves was
avoided. Fertilizers were seldom used; tools were of a most prim-
itive sort. The underlying rationale was one of "get-rich-quick,"
ignoring the long term costs of slavery and of inefficient technol-
ogy and organization. Planters often sold land after big profits
were made; the general pattern among planters of assimilation into
the upper levels of English society fostered absentee ownership--
another obstacle to rational management of sugar lands.

West Indian societies were rigidly stratified on the basis of
relations of production and race. Africans worked on the land as
slave cultivators, although some slaves did domestic work or crafts
work on the plantation. Slaves lived poorly, and rebelliously
fought white owners and managers. Other whites on the islands in-
cluded long-distance traders, physicians, attorneys, overseers,

plantation bookkeepers and craftsmen. Afro-Europeans formed a middle

1“.-

V

65

class between Europeans and African slaves. They often gained man-
umission and moved to towns to engage in local trade and crafts.

The development potential of West Indian societies at this
time was extremely low. Agricultural production was mostly of sugar;
slaves did have small provision plots where some food was grown.

But almost all materials needed fer sugar production and much food
were imported. Crafts work on the islands was directed primarily

to plantation production. There was little basis for capital accum-
ulation given.the heavy concentration of Europeans in the ownership
of plantation and in trade. These people tended to send profits
abroad. The small agricultural surpluses of slaves' provision
gardens were sold at local markets, but the profits often went to

the purchase of imported goods. Craftsmen and those producing services
for the plantations faced limited and, eventually, contracting demand.
Moreover, the potential for profitable reinvestment in related areas
was cut off by the tendency of planters to import cheaper manufac-
tured products from the metropole.

The political relations of this period reflected the Crown
colony status of the West Indies, and the heavy influence of plan-
ters in the local legislatures. The Crown's representatives, the
governors, worked to limit the costs of governing to the metropole;
the assembly members resisted taxation, holding up construction of
infrastructure components often of benefit primarily to themselves.
The local political officials resented Crown intrusion into their
affairs, except when financial assistance was forthcoming. Exclu-
sionary laws, voted by the assembly members, prevented African or

Afro—European participation.in governing bodies. The periphery

66

state grew in strength in relation to the metropolitan state during
the mid-nineteenth century.

The rise of industrial capitalism in Europe introduced consid-
erable tension in the relationship between planters and merchants.

The latter saw an opportunity to trade in industrial goods, recog-
nizing at the same time that the West Indian sugar trade could not
survive the end of mercantilism. During the early part of the cen-
tury, the West Indian lobby—-merchants and p1anters--fought free-trade
in alliance with English farmers; the emancipation of slaves in 1833
made clear the inevitable decline of the West Indian sugar planting,
and left the planters adrift and estranged from former allies. In
1846, English sugar duties were repealed and one of the last mer-
cantile impediments to a prosperous age of British competitive cap-
italism was dismantled.

In Chapter V, I will return to the discussion of metropolitan
economic history and the British case. I will look at the ways in
which the British transition from competitive to monopoly capitalism
have influenced the West Indies. I will introduce and briefly explore
the fbllowing premises. First, there 'h; a dynamic growth principle
that underlies bourgeois monopoly capitalism and differentiates it
from competitive capitalism. In the competitive stage, the market
rewards low prices and innovation; in monopoly capitalism, a few
firms control the supply of goods, rendering the market less effec-
tive as a determinent of price and quality. Second, monopoly capital-
ism developed in response to downward trends in the cycle of develop-
ment. Those firms and financial institutions able to survive these

depressions developed concentrations<rfcapital and means of production.

0?.

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67

Imperialism and state supports to the oligopolistic sector became
other means by which depressions are avoided. Third, the terms~
“free-trade" and “protection" have been generally less meaningful
in the monopoly stage than in the competitive stage of capitalist
development, as firms with investment in production abroad have
been subject to other nations' trade policies. Only nations with
strong currency and considerable economic strength--generally the
premier "core" country—-have sought to liberalize trade barriers
and to increase the volume of world trade. Fourth, the transition
from competitive to monopoly capitalism introduced capital invest-
ment as a principal form of imperialism. Investment has been in
raw material production, banking, and later, manufacturing. Lending
by private capital and by metropolitan states have gained in impor-
tance. Trade has continued to be a major form of imperialism ex-
pansion, reinforced by declining terms of trade for raw materials,
but only with the development of monopoly capitalism has investment
in varied areas on a large scale been possible.

The depression of the last quarter of the nineteenth century
disturbed the'industrial surge of the British economy. Unlike Germany
and the U.S., harder hit by the Depression and inclined towards capital
and industrial concentration, Britain sought economic stability in a
renewed effort to control markets and sources of raw materials. With
other European states, she partitioned areas of Africa and the
Pacific. The new dependencies, non-European, like the old, were ex-
ploited commercially by corporations with the capital resources to
seek vertical integration in productionand achieve near monopolies

of many commodities. It was in this way that the West Indies and

68

other worn-out colonies were returned to the fold of dependencies.
Corporations, some of which had raw material producing units in many
other areas of the world, came to the West Indies with capital-
intensive technology and long-run planning and were able to regenerate
sugar-producing lands. In the case of the West Indies, planters

often gave plantation land to merchant firms as debt repayment;
merchants, shipbuilders and investors in trade and raw material pro-
duction had the capital to organize the large corporations of mon-
opoly capital and were the bases of financial circles as well.

Within the British ruling class, the press for colonization was
joined by industrialists, trading and financial interests by the late
1800's. The colonization of new dependenceis most favored raw mater-
ial producing corporations, traders and financial interests and
makers of light manufactures; capital goods producers would find
markets in the dependencies only for a short time. The capital
goods industries needed assured markets in more highly developed
economies and thus worked for a return to protection within the
Empire. These industrialists were joined in their demands by the
Dominions, which required assured markets for their own rapidly de-
veloping manufacturing industries. By the early 1930's imperial
preference was supported by the British state as the only means by
which to save British industry. Even its opponents, the financiers,
light manufacturing industries, and raw material producers, benefited
from Britain's world hegemonic position, especially in terms of
currency strength. The dependencies also favored imperial prefer-
ence, in so far as peasant production of export crops would benefit.

The economy of Britain was locked into inevitable decline by

69

the imperial adventures of the late nineteenth century. Imperialism
stopped systematic reorganization of industry and gave to the inter-
ests of finance, trade and raw materials the power to hold off the
capital-goods industries in many future confrontations for state in-
fluence. The victory of the capital-goods industries in the return

to protection was basically without risk to the free-traders, and, in
fact, very helpful. But a shift in the "core" was now inevitable.
British industry was completely dependent upon the markets of its
Empire: the Dominions must buy capital-goods; the dependencies,
light manufactures. Germany and the United States were industrially
superior and able to capture markets throughout the world.

In the succeeding chapter (VI) I will turn to the period, 1846
to 1930, analyzing several consequences for West Indian class rela-
tions and economic development of the transition from British compe-
titive to monopoly capitalism. The discussion will focus on these
propdsitions. First, the transition from competitive to monopoly
capitalism in the metropolitan economies brought about changes in
production in the colonies. As pointed out in Chapter V, monopoly
capitalism made possible new forms of imperialism that reflected
heavy concentrations of capital in metropolitan corporations and
financial institutions. British corporations invested in raw material
production in the dependencies. They set up mines, plantations and
other forms of export agriculture in the new colonies of Africa and
the Pacific, in the older dependencies, most notably the West Indies.
The consequence of this investment was to establish or strengthen
the dominance of agricultural exports (primarily from plantations)

and mines in areas where they had long been present. This meant

70

the buying up of land, directing new productive activities towards A
the plantation or mining operation. Yet, these enterprises did not
absorb the labor displaced from the land, nor were they likely to
reinforce indigenous manufacturing and agriculture that encouraged
classical patterns of economic development. Food production was
replaced by export agriculture, increasing the need for food imports
at a time when terms of trade were shifting to favor developed
nations.

Second, the class relations changed in line with new productive
activities in satellite regions affected by the metropolitan transi-
tion from competitive to monopoly capitalism. Where British export
agriculture failed with the advent of free-trade, increased produc-
tion of food and light manufactured goods was possible. In the West
Indies, a progressive national bourgeoisie did not emerge as a dom-
inant social class, but important movements in this direction occurred.
The advent of monopoly capitalist extraction of raw materials in the
British dependencies early in the twentieth century seriously hin-
dered the formation of consolidation of a progressive bourgeoisie.
The effect was much the same as that of mercantile raw material ex-
traction and production. Mines, plantations and export agriculture
in general displaced peasants from their land. But capital intensive
raw material production required even less labor. Unemployment be-
came an enduring feature of West Indian societies. Those peasants
able to keep land often engaged in export agriculture, using services
of corporations to ship and trade their goods. Other indigenous en-
trepreneurs, engaged in trade or simple manufacturing, redirected

their productive activities to the corporate presence. The national

71

bourgeoisie did not disappear but lost its reason for opposing early,
largely individual owners of raw material producing units; they no
longer threatened plantation owners and metropolitan capital, but
fully cooperated with the corporation.

Third, this transition from bourgeois activity along classical
lines to a return to trade and production for the international mar-
ket reinforced the general periphery development dynamic proposed
earlier: 1) limited capacity to accumulate a capital surplus because
of expatriation of capital earnings by foreign owners, 2) restricted
markets and spin-off potentials of domestically owned industries.

Fourth, the advent of oligopolies in raw material production
raised the stakes of economic imperialism. It required a concerted
metropolitan state effort to control the underlying colonial popula-
tion and raise revenues to build an infrastructure supportive to
metropolitan corporations. Where metropolitan state influence had
diminished during the anti-colonial period of competitive capitalism,
direct and close rule was reestablished. Colonial legislatures con-
tinued to exist in some areas, including the West Indies, but with
lessened power. It is interesting to note that these legislative
bodies now necessarily included members of the national bourgeoisie
as well as direct representatives of metropolitan capital and corpor-
ations, although the interests of these three groups were now com-
patible. The reimposition of Crown colony rule in the West Indies
reflected also the metropolitan concern about conflict between a
nascent progressive bourgeiosie made up largely of non-whites, and
the old planting class.

The period 1846 to 1930 will be explored, emphasizing these

72

events and relationships.

Following the equalization of sugar duties, West Indian planters
encountered a competitive world market in which their sugar had to
be sold cheaply. Costly production was impossible; those who could
not compete, or faced debts incurred from years of economic problems,
abandoned or sold land. Peasant farmers, former African slaves,
bought and seized land. Ownership or renting of small holdings be-
came an important feature of West Indian economies. Though never
wholly self-sufficient, peasants increased the level of West Indian
food production and sold their goods in an expanding internal mar-
ket. They also produced export crops and labored on remaining plan-
tations to gain additional sources of capital for the purchase of
the imported food and manufactures that still flowed into the area.

European settlers, Afro-Europeans, and even some Africans,
attempted entreprises that would have fostered classic bourgeois
industrialization. Manufacturing of products for the internal and
international markets was tried, as were various schemes to grow
new export crops. But credit and other difficulties undermined these
efforts. Moreover, the ready availability of imported goods and
well-established avenues for profit that long-distance trade, peasant
export production and plantation wage labor could offer, constantly
blocked indigenous economic growth that would lead to industrializa-
tion.

The planters, beleagured by the loss of mercantile favor,
fought for survival through schemes to establish new forms of repres-
sive labor. Indentured labor from India and the East Indies was

successfully imported, with British financial help, to those islands

73’

able to profit from cheap and plentiful forced labor. Eventually,
however, Trinidad and Guiana, too, experienced soil depletion and
attendant high costs of production that had earlier driven Jamaican
and Barbadian planters out of business.

Further problems plagued West Indian sugar producers during
the last decade of the nineteenth century when European metropoles
started to offer a bounty to beet sugar producers. This lessened
the cost of beet sugar relative 'UJ cane, and led West Indian pro-
ducers to beg the British Colonial Office for help. Eventually,'
the British government signed the Brussels Convention of 1903, abol-
ishing all bounty systems, but only after many years of debate with
free-trade opponents to the agreement.

Wherever sugar production suffered the downward trend caused
by overplanting and bad management, a few wealthy owners were able
to buy up and consolidate holdings. New owners were often merchant
houses and other sources of metropolitan corporate capital. American
and British companies entered banana production and trade, as well.
An American corporation led the development of tourism in the area.

Finally, in a concluding chapter (VII) I will summarize the
principal relationships examined in the dissertation. This chapter
will include an assessment of the value of my contention, hitherto
uninvestigated by other scholars, that a full understanding of West
Indian economy and society requires an analysis with three points of
' departure: '1) the study of the ways in which the exigencies of
Birtish and American capitalist growth and development have affected
West Indian development, 2) the nature of West Indian economic

growth during the course of its relationship with imperialist

:v

(n

I»

74'

metropoles, 3) the changing system of West Indian stratification and
its relation to foreign economic influence. Further, I will consider
some of the problems with the theoretical framework of dependency

and imperialism as I have intrepreted it, both in reference to inher-
ent conceptual and theoretical weaknesses, and its specific applica-
tion to the West Indies, for the 1830-1930 period.

Obviously, I have not analyzed each of these issues in a de-
finitive way, nor have I marshalled more than a small amount of orig-
inal data. Rather, I have tried to fully survey what has been written
about the West Indies in order to construct a conceptualization for
further research that will avoid some of the weaknesses of past
scholarship. I view this project primarily as a theoretical one--an
attempt, for the first time, to apply some of the extremely valuable
categories of Marxian theories of dependency and imperialism to this
region.. However, I have hypothesized several explanations of phen-
omena related to the West Indian process of economic development
that would, I think, withstand the test of further historical study.

Many of my suggestions for future research on the West Indies
reflect my interest in the application of the broad framework I
have proposed. They also indicate my belief, based on the process
of research for this dissertation, that secondary analysis of data
collected by others can be properly and fruitfully absorbed into

new frameworks.

Future Research and Analysis

 

As noted earlier, a discussion of British monopoly capitalism

and West Indian development and class relations during this period

sear:
the 1

BEGIN

75

will not be included in this dissertation. A review of salient themes
and issues to be explored in that work--the second half of the re-
search and analysis contained in the dissertation--may further clarify
the framework I am proposing for an understanding of West Indian
economic history.

The Depression of the 1930's, more disastrous for America and
Germany than for Britain, stalled the inevitable rise of these two
powers to positions of rivalry with Britain. But by the end of World
War 11, America was firmly in command of the international economy.
Britain remained in a position of considerable economic power in the
field of international finance, but at the cost of domestic unemploy-
ment, inflation, and frequent post-war pound devaluations which
marked the decline of sterling from the position of "top" interna-
tional currency.

The 1930's also brought the rise of British monopolies in‘raw
materials, most notably in minerals, sugar, cocoa, coffee and fruits;
the Ottawa Conference, convened in 1932, allowed Canada, Australia
and New Zealand to erect protective barriers against British manu-
factures; these Dominions were reaching moderate levels of economic
growth and British manufactured imports threatened their nascent
industries. The British also promised price supports and commodity
quotas to colonial raw material producers, which in effect meant a
major state concession to the vertically integrated corporations now
partitioning international sources of supply, and marked the increas-
ing comitment of both satellite and metropolitan governments to
oligopolies operating in the Third World.

Returning to the West Indies in 1930, we find that the

76

Depression has had extremely adverse effects on these export domin-
ated economies. British support of foreign corporations meant quite
limited gains for workers or peasants, and even with British state
assistance, raw material producers suffered from loss of sales to
America, Canada and Western Europe. During-the 1930's, riots and
strikes occurred in nearly all of the West Indian islands. The
result was an increased welfare allowance from Britain and the estab-
lishment of trade unions and political parties, the institutions

to be the bases of the struggle for political independence. The
development of unions in the sugar industry changed the position of
labor, creating a "labor aristocracy" of export industry workers

who have resisted anti-imperialist struggles and occasionally served
as bastions of anti-Communism as well.

The flight of West Indians from the islands to Britain, the
United States and Canada increased during this period, becoming an
important factor in the relationship between the West Indies and
these more developed countries. West Indians have served as part of
the pool of unskilled labor that has allowed industry in the metro-
poles to hold down wages. This is one more way in which West Indian
dependent development has contributed to metropolitan capitalist .
growth.

During World War II, Britain expoited the dominions and depen-
dencies during the war by using colonial troops (as she had in World
War I), but more impertantly, by borrowing heavily from colonial
sterling reserves kept in London. Development during the war in any
of the colonial territories was necessarily limited by their lack

of currency control. After the war, the Labour government persuaded

77

the colonies to further defer their development plans to the erec-
tion of the British welfare state. Britain slowly replenished col-
onial reserves, but resisted other acts of colonial autonomy,
particularly the independence struggles of the non-white dependencies.
The Labour government, with its origins in socialism, was extremely
hesitant to come to the defense of the dependencies. Where indepen-
dence was achieved in the 1950's and 1960's, nee-colonial administra-
tions were installed; where alternative systems were proposed, e.g.,
Guyana, the British responded with force. The major islands of the
West Indies were granted independence in the 1960's. Several of the
smaller islands remain associated states.

During the 1950's and 1960's, American oil and aluminum com-
panies developed extractive industries in Trinidad and Jamaica,
respectively. Tourism became a major industry throughout the islands.
During this period, West Indian economists, influenced by metropolitan
developmentalism, found hope for West Indian economic growth in the
tax revenues earned by West Indian governments from multinationals-
operating in the region. As recent structuralist and Marxist critics
have noted, however, these industries were very much in the mold of
earlier forms of foreign investment, although their source was Amer-
ican rather than British. There were and are highly integrated '
corporations that generate little growth potential in the West Indies.
Rather, much of their profits and positive economic spinoffs reach
the metropol es . D

But the structure of West Indian dependency has changed dramat-
ically from the initial stages of monopoly capitalism. Agricultural

domonance has given way to greater capital investment in mining and

78

manufacturing; and indigenous administrative class, made up largely
of Afro-Europeans hold positions in the government and in lower
levels of multinational management. Indigenous capitalists and the
state have sought greater shares in foreign investment, increasing
the capital accumulation of both. This has resulted in a greater
range of West Indian products, services and state administered social
welfare benefits. However, large sectors of the population have
been excluded from the benefits of this dependent development, and
much of the indigenous investment now taking place, by the state and
private capital, feeds the coffers of metropolitan capital, as the
West Indies have been unable to reverse their dependency on means

of production manufactured in the metropoles, or their economic re-
liance on the exportation of raw materials.

The Cuban Revolution reinforced the view formed during World
War II by the American military and foreign policymakers that the
British West Indies are an important strategic area. The United
States has kept bases in the area and considers leftist governments
there to be a most undesirable possibility. In the political sense
and increasingly in the economic realm as well, Britain has abdica-
ted control of this area to the United States.

The West Indian area remains important to London's continuing
efforts to remain an international money market that deals effectively
in sterling. The region is also significant to British multinationals
that own plantations, factories and banks and other enterprises there.
The West Indies remained in the sterling area after independence, a
move that is beneficial only as long as sterling can remain a strong

negotiated currency. The West Indies were repaid for this faith in

79

Britain by commodity agreements that guaranteed prices and markets
for West Indian agricultural goods. However, with the entry of Bri-
tain into the Common Market in 1972, these agreements were abandoned
in favor of the generalized commodity preferences the E.E.C. now
offered to all Of the Third World and special preferences offered

to the ex-colonies of E.E.C. members. The effects for the West In-
dies are potentially serious, although multinational-extractors and

processors of raw materials may profit from the new arrangements.

Historical Research and Secondary Analysis

 

In historical analysis of data already collected and inter-
preted by others, one encounters several critical problems. His-
torical debates and controversies appear throughout the literature
on Britain and the West Indies, reflecting l) differences in the re-
porting and interpretation of primary data, and 2) conflicts in the
political perspectives of those using data to test hypotheses and
explicate research propositions. Moreover, these two sources of
disagreement are not entirely separate; in examining original data,
particular relationships become salient because of the political and
epistemological biases of the researcher. Secondary analysis of
data, therefore, requires a considerable degree of trust in previous
scholars' selection and interpretation of data. This methodological
weakness can be overcome only by returning to original materials.
Because I have not, in general, had access to original materials, I
have been compelled to turn to a second, less reliable solution--to
follow the controversies surrounding the collection and interpretation

of various data, learning of areas of doubt and disagreement. This

131

191
1r

Alb

80

approach has several drawbacks, the most obvious of which are that
scholarly exchanges on methodology are sporatic, and found in many,
varied sources. Under these circumstances, some findings.must be
termed inconclusive, and are to be reassessed as new, related com-
mentary and data are gathered.

The second major difficulty I encountered was in assessing the
ideological perspectives of scholars whose work I have consulted,
and how they have utilized information to buttress their world
views. All of us perform such a task whenever we read the writings
of other students of a topic or area. But the problem is particular-
ly acute when surveying research conducted in other historical eras,
especially on subjects of political debate. For example, British
historical and social scientific treatments of the British Empire
undertaken during the period of decolonization of many former colon-
ies are almost universally defensive of Britain's anti-colonialism.
Even with a growing sense of the larger political milieu of the time
I was perplexed by such unanamous British resistence to decoloniza-
tion, especially by the Left. A proper understanding ofthis phenomenon
required a widening of the scope of inquiry to include the history
of the Labour Party's position on imperialism, and other related
issues. I have carried out a sociology of knowledge analysis for
the study of other social and economic relationships as well. As a
consequence, the volume of materials to be read and considered con-
stantly expanded; the limits to what could be examined were sometimes
Set by time shortage, or other equally arbitrary criteria. Some of

ttie conclusions that I have reached about world views are quite ten-

taltive. The problem is insoluble, and a perpetual source of

 

 

81

frustration in historical research. Nevertheless, in realizing the
obligation to continually recreate the ideological conflicts and
constraints of each historical period, this study has been strength-
ened. I have recounted my perceptions of why research has taken
particular forms or ideological positions wherever relevant.

And what is the nature of this historical evidence? I have
chosen an area of research which has gained the attention of many
excellent Social historians of both West Indian and British his-
tory. Studies by Curtin, Hall, Mintz, Hobsbawm, Dobb, and others
share a historical materialist perspective which clearly establishes
the major contours of intellectual debate in the study of both areas.
Thus, I began my research by examining the social history of both
Britain and the West Indies from the point of view of historians
.whose work is highly regarded and share a perspective I consider
informative.

For the study of England, economic data are widely available
and have been sensibly analyzed in the Marxian writings of numerous
British historians and leftist publications, e.g., Dobb, Hobsbawm,
New Left Review. The West Indian data were much less complete and
seldom fully exploited in works on West Indian social history, par-
ticularly for the post-1930 period. I made the decision, based on
this discovery, to limit my inquiry to Jamaican history, as a case
study. I will explain more fully my reasons for this, and the likely
consequences, in the pages that follow. 'Secondly, I began to look
'hodependently for sources of economic data on the West Indies, es-
pecially Jamaica. I gained access to a special, privately owned

Caribbean library (The Research Institute for the Study of Man in

I’ll

82

New York City) which holds one of the most extensive collections of
West Indian documents in the United States. (I had decided to try
to restrict myself to data available in America as past contact with
West Indian statistical agencies has been fruitless.) The informa-
tion at the Research Institute was of massive quantity, but generally
spotty; indices skipped important time periods and many documents
were studies of specific projects or social problems that were irrel-
evant to my research. I concluded that national account indices
available through the United Nations were probably the most consis-
tent and reliable information I would find for the period after l945.
Brewster and Brown (l974) confirm this impression in their inventory
of economic information on the West Indies. For the pre-l930 period,
I decided the best source was the National Accounts data constructed
by Gisela Eisner from what is, in many cases, a sketchy basis. How;
ever, the isolated indices available in historical work carried out
in the West Indies provides a kind of cross-check on accuracy.

.In the area of colonial relations, research became somewhat
more difficult. From the point of view of England, writings on the
colonies are extremely uneven. For the l880-l930 period, selected

articles from the Cambridge History of the British Empire are in-

 

valuable. After the l930's, writings on the British Empire take a
decidedly conservative turn, until the l960's, when more left-leaning
analyses are available. The conservative writings generally applaud
the lack of British commitment to colonial independence, attack
communist or militantly anti-imperialist administrations in the col-
onies, and praise the "multi-racial Commonwealth" as a progressive

organization. Unfortunately the Labour party held these opinions as

stnc
in t

and

36m:

‘ ‘.
Svlc

83

strongly as the Conservatives; with the emergence of the "new left"
in the l960's, articles supportive of Thrid World anti-imperialism
and opposed to Labour party complicity in British imperialism began

to appear. Through these, and a valuable volume, Gupta's Imperialism

 

and the British Labour Movement, I have been able to piece together

 

the post-1930's history of opinion of various classes on British
imperialism.

While the conservative works mentioned above did not help me
in the construction of a framework for the study of British imperial
history, they did document British opinion and action in regard to
trade, investment and aid to the Dominions and dependencies. The
West Indian side of the question was more difficult to establish.
Pre-l930's trade patterns have been discussed, as well as the decline
of individual sugar estates and re-establishment of corporate con-
cerns. The banana and tourist industries and aluminum have been well
studied historically. The investment climate, trade agreements and
amounts and types of aid can be learned only through an examination

of United Nations studies of Non-Self—Governing_Areas, Commodity Trade

 

Statistics from the U.N., U.S. government documents and some of the
writings on the ill-fated West Indies federation and replacement,

C.A.R.I.F.T.A. For the last few years, the Wall Street Journal is

 

an excellent source of information on West Indian dealings with
multinational corporations and lending agencies. Two West Indian
newspapers are held in M.S.U. microfilm collections, but lacking an
index, they are of limited use. Much of the data I have used has
not been previously analyzed, or has not been presented in analyzed

form in the United States. Using United Nations statistics, in

I.”

84

particular, I have updated much of the analysis of Jamaican trade
patterns, monetary relations with Britain, and some national.accounts.
I have compiled probably the most complete survey of the direction,
value and categories of Jamaican trade since l950.

The final research task, the study of Britain's rivalry and
cooperation with America is not covered in this dissertation, but its
compelling nature warrants comment here. First of all, it was the
factor that tied all of the other research on the post-l930's period
together. Secondly, because much of the information and analysis
are quite new, I found a sense of immediacy in this part of my re-
search. There are two major emphases here, both complex and highly
interactive with one another. The first was the decline of sterling
as a "top“ currency, and the rise of the dollar. Two works on inter-
national monetary relations helped me to establish a framework for

the study of this development, Cheryl Payer's The Debt Trap, and

 

Susan Strange's Sterling and British Policy. The former, dealing

 

with the International Monetary Fund, is only indirectly related to
the discussion of sterling, but the introductory section of the inter-
national politics of currency is very instructive. Strange's work
is excellent, bringing coherence to the complicated story of Britain's
ambivalent response to decolonization and the competing demands of
an empire and domestic democratic socialism. Recent works on Amer-
ican monetary policy have been helpful to placing the discussion of
British money in a historical context. (See, Barraclough, l975a, b,
c; Morris, l975).

The second relevant issue is the international commodity market

and how it has been affected by Britain's entry into the EEC. I was

85

able to sort out this question only through the use of recent magazine
and newspaper articles, as the events of l972 to 1975 have not yet
been analyzed in book form. The most useful source was the EEC's
European Community, which included several articles on the West In-
dies and other associated areas. U.N.C.T.A.D. studies, a U.S. Sentate

Report on International Commodity Agreements, and London Times reports

 

from the time of British entry into the E.E.C. were helpful as well.
It was my original intention to study the four main islands of
the former British West Indies--Jamaica, Trinidad,Barbados and Guyana,
comparing the effects of British imperialism among them. There are
interesting variations in the social structures of these islands.
Barbados has had a large settler class of small plantation and farm
owners since the emancipation of slaves; plantation owners and trading
companies brought East Indian bonded labor to Trinidad and Guyana
in the late nineteenth century, increasing sugar production on these
still fertile islands; Bookers, Ltd., the main sugar producer in
Guyana, has exercised control over ancillary industries that is un-
paralleled in the other islands. However, the data available in
U.N. and other international indices from Trinidad, Barbados and
Guyana are insufficient to do such a comparative study. Therefore,
I decided to concentrate on Jamaica, the nation which has most com-
pletely and fer the longest period supplied economic data. There are,
of course, limitations inherent in this strategy, related to the
unique qualities of the particular "case" which may be decisive in
differentiating it from other areas. I would argue that the Caribbean
islands do share a structure of dependency and important historical

similarities.. Nevertheless, there are variations in the forms of

86

dependency (in particular in Barbados), the degree of economic back-
wardness, and economic responses to dependency. These warrant com-
ment, and I will attempt to qualify the Jamaican example whenever
comparative differences are salient. I regard this as only a partial
solution, however; a comparative analysis of the type I have suggested
should be undertaken, and it is likely that access to documents held

in the islands would make this posSible.

155 c

‘M l

- VJ:
diSSs
Ben.
r'93i

138C!

87

FOOTNOTES

1The literature on the epistemology of American sociology is
now quite extensive. See, for example, the excellent collection,
Robin Blackburn (ed.), Ideology in Social Science.

2Typical of this trend are the studies of “peace research";
for example, Johan Galtung, “A Structural Theory of Imperialsm."
TWo cases of the use of sophisticated statistical techniques to ver-
ify radical hypotheses about historical and social structural rela-
tionships are, Christopher Jencks, Inequality, and Bowles and Gintis,
Schooling in Cepitalist America.

3Examples of this trend are recent "qualitative" studies that
involve observational and interviewing techniques, and are informed
by quasi-psychoanalytic, phenomenological and ethnomethodological
perspectives. '

4Here the word "structure" is used metaphorically to suggest a
web of class relations that is too complex to articulate fully, al-
though its scope and specific "parts" are related elsewhere in the
dissertation. The use of the world "structure" in this context,
then, is different from that of the Caribbean "structuralists" and
proponents of the "world system" approach. I have criticized these
theorists for their tendency to view structures as social "facts."

5As I indicated in Chapter I, the "world system" approach to
the study of inequality between developed and developing nations is
descriptive, and does not generate useful theoretical propositions
about the capitalist system. The history of capitalist growth and
development adds up to a world economy dominated by capitalism. But
this conclusion is insufficient to create a new unit of analysis, the
"world system" to replace nations or classes within nations as a
basis for theory. It is clear that many students of dependency theory
accept the notion of a world capitalist system, but are committed
to elucidating the processes leading to its formation through the
study of classes within nation-states, and relations among nation-
states. Wallerstein, Frank and Amin cross the boundary into an
endorsement of worldwide capitalism as a conceptual unit, and make
propositions about the structure and dynamic of that system which are
overly schematic, violate national and historical distinctions, and
are only indirectly related to the categories and epistemology of Marx.
Controversy over the models of the "world system" is important, as it
echoes an earlier debate between Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy over
defining the mode of production in terms of market or relations of
production. See Wallerstein (l974a) for a review of this enduring
discussion and a defense of his own position.

 

 

CHAPTER III

BRITAIN, THE TRANSISTION FROM MERCANTILISM
TO COMPETITIVE CAPITALISM

Introduction

 

West Indian studies have considered British imperialism and the
British-West Indian relationship only in an indirect way; the basis
of British imperialism in British capitalist development has not
been widely investigated. The major theoretical trends in the study
of British influences on the West Indies will be briefly reviewed and
criticized.

I will then examine four major historical propositions about
bourgeois capitalism and British capitalist development, derived
from Marxian theory and analysis of imperialism. The following rela-
tionships will be explored: the origins of growth in mercantile and
competitive capitalism; trade policies of each era; characteristic
forms of imperialism; the reasons for a transition from mercantilism
to competitive capitalism.

British mercantilism provided the capital foundation for the
Industrial Revolution and built a wealthy mercantile class involved
in long-distance trade and raw material production. As industrial-
ization commenced, a rival British bourgeois class challenged mercan-
tile political and economic hegemony, demanding cheap raw materials

and expanded markets through free-trade. The cost of industrialization

88

89

was the sacrifice of domestic farmers, merchants and raw material
producers. Many long-distance traders survived, however, yielding

to the lucrative opportunity to trade British industrial products

in a free-trade world of cheap raw materials and British industrial
superiority. Trade became a new form of British imperialist expan-
sion throughout the world; Britain's advances in industrial production
multiplied her markets and increaSed the technological gap between

manufacturing and raw material producing nations.

A Review of Theory

 

Students of the British West Indies for the period l830-l930
have generally recognized the need to consider British imperialism
as a variable in the region's development. The founding of the econom-
ic base of the West Indies--export agriculture--was clearly motivated
by the British drive dor aggrandizement. The problem with many of
the studies of West Indian societies, even those relating the signi-
ficant role of British imperialism in West Indian development, is
their general failure to link changes in the British-West Indian rela-
tionship to developments in British capitalism and the general exi€
gencies of bourgeois capitalist growth.

Those who have analyzed West Indian economies for this histor-
ical period fall into two broad groups: 1) those primarily interested
in West Indian development, who tend to view British influences on
the West Indies as episodic and peripheral, 2) those who have implic-
itly contended that West Indian dependency and development have played
a role in British capitalist growth, but do not specify how that role

is related to the historically changing opportunities and constraints

ofc

out
Eisn

soci

H

”1:"
V .

90

of capitalism in Britain.

The first group of scholars, including several cited through-
out this dissertation (e.g., Curtin [l955], Hall [l959, l972], "'
Eisner [l96l], Waddell [l967], Lowenthal [l972], Mandle [l973a]), are
social historians, generally of the historical materialist school.
Their insights are focused on West Indian economic relationships.
Although cognizant of British influences on West Indian history,
they do not systematically trace British actions to the needs and
demands of the capitalist system, particularly as it unfolded in Bri-
tain. The problem is, in one sense, a failure to understand capital-
ism or British capitalism. But, in another way, it is a failure to
comprehend the dynamics of West Indian societies. For in choosing
to focus on the West Indies as an appropriate unit of analysis, theor-
etical and ideological assumptions are revealed. Here, the economic
history of the region is only incidentally linked to the metropole.
Yet, examination of the West Indies within the framework of British
imperialism indicates that the West Indies has been economically de-
pendent upon Britain throughout her history. And during some stages
of British capitalist development, the West Indies have been vital
to metropolitan economic growth.

The second group of scholars have begun to formulate theories
of capitalist development that can explain aspects of West Indian
history. Sheridan (l963, l969) and Beckford (l972) tie West Indian
economic activities to similar events occurring throughout the region;
Mintz (l969a, l969b) and Williams (l966a, l966b) link West Indian
history for this period directly to mercantile accumulation and the

subsequent decline of mercantilism. Nevertheless, none of these

91

theoretical efforts is complete. These theorists have not formed
a general theory of capitalist development relating the English ex-
perience to dynamics inherent to various stages of bourgeois capital-
ist growth.l Nor do they offer British imperialism as an historical
framework for understanding this period of West Indian development.
The Caribbean structuralists, discussed at length in Chapter I,
fall categorically within this secdnd group. The structuralists pro-
pose a relationship between imperialism and periphery dependent devel-
opment. They regard capital expansion through the finm (the planta-
tion, for the era in question) as the source of metropolitan imperial-
ism and chief determinant of West Indian development patterns.
Going back to an early hypothesis of plantation influence, Wolf and
Mintz (l957) note the frequent foreign ownership of plantations, and
the heavy capital concentration involved in the late nineteenth
century plantation.1 Beckford (l972) points to the establishment of
the plantation in mercantile capital accumulation, and recognizes
the shifting character of the firm itself, although not of the stages
and forms of metropolitan capitalism. Best (l968) tries both to show
the worldwide character of mercantile imperialism, and how periphery
systems of production have changed. Yet, he, like other theorists
of this school, does not focus attention to the root of imeprialism--

metropolitan capitalist growth itself.

An Alternative Theoretical Approach
A more viable approach to the study of the West Indies, and
other colonies as well, is to investigate the metropole, relating

its history to the type of economic system it represents. Britain

92

is the most often cited and "classic? case of bourgeois capitalist
development.. It has been studied for decades as the first country
to achieve capitalist growth, and through a revolution of industrial
capitalists eager to break mercantile bonds.

The first proposition to be examined in investigating British
imperialist influences on the West Indies is that the mercantile
system itself laid the foundation for industrial capitalist develop-
ment in the West. Mercantilism was a system of rapid capital accum-
ulation. .Marx wrote of "primitive accumulation" as a garnering of
claims to wealth by a class capable of "transforming these hoarded
titles to wealth into actual means of production" (Dobb, l963, p. 79).

In the English case, one means of capital accumulation was fifteenth

and sixteenth century overseas trade and production of raw materials.2

This movement took the political form of colonization. Marx stated:

The colonial system ripened like a hot-house, trade and
navigation. The 'societies Monopolia' of Luther were powerful
levers for concentration of capital. The colonies secured a
market for budding manufactures, and, through the monopoly of
the market, an increased accumulation. The treasures captured
outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement and murder
floated back to the mother-country and were there turned into
capital. . . .

To—day industrial supremacy implies commercial supremacy.

In the period of manufacture properly so called, it is, on the
other hand, the commercial supremacy that gives industrial pre-
dominance. Hence the preponderant role that the colonial system
plays at that time. It was the 'strange God' who perched him-
self on the altar cheek by jowl with the old Gods of Europe,

and one day with a shove and a kick chucked them all of a heap.
It proclaimed surplus-value making as the sole end and aim of
humanity (Marx, l967, p. 754).

As Dobb (pp. l85-6) and others (Mandel, l970; Moore, l966)
attest, those accumulating wealth were not necessarily the entrepren-
eurs that introduced competitive capitalism. Examining the English

case, Dobb claims:

93

But while there were some compensating advantages for in-
dustries from the activities of foreign trading companies, it
was not from them that the initiative in industrial investment
was to come. Initiative in this direction. . . lay,xn0t with the
upper bourgeoisie~concerned with the export market, but with
the humbler provincial middle bourgeoisie, in the mean less
privileged and less wealthy but more broadly based.

Some members of the British mercantile bourgeoisie did invest in
domestic industry, but conditions did not favor this phenomenon during
most of the mercantile period.3 More attractive investment opportun-
ities were available in trade and speculation and the overseas pro-
duction of raw materials. Traders and artisans in the internal market
reaped the benefits of the increased supply of wealth, expanding over-
seas markets for manufactures and demand for products stimulated by
trade (Williams, l966b). Moreover, this nascent industrial bourgeoisie
had the incentive, in the increasing volume of world trade (created

by the mercantile bourgeoisie), to wage a political and economic
battle for hegemony. This relationship leads to the second proposi-
tion, that mercantilism held the seeds of its own demise by encouraging
a class of traders and craftsmen with much to gain from industrializa-
tion. Dobb puts it in this way:

In other words, the first phase of accumulation--the growth
of concentration of existing property and simultaneous dispos-
session--was an essential mechanism for creating conditions
favourable to the second; and since an interval had to elapse
before the former had performed its historical function, the
two phases have necessarily been regarded as separated in time
(p. 185).

This second moment of the "bourgeois revolution" was led in England
by petty manufacturers and traders, enriched by mercantile trade and
dedicated to a competitive capitalist economy and a "liberal“ laissez-
faire political regime.

The achievement of industrial capitalism altered mechanisms of

94

accumulation and dynamics of growth. Capital was now gathered by
means of competitive pricing in the market place. Capitalists
accumulated surplus-value through the hiring of wage-labor, but

were subject to the constraints of competition among industrialists.
It was this competition that produced growth, by rewarding lower
prices and innovations. As Marx charged, the working classes of
Europe and America bore the brunt of competition; but Marx recog-
nized also that competitive capitalism "would increase production and
productivity over time" (Dowd, p. 44).

As proposition 3 states, free trade replaced protectionist
trade policies, at least in Britain, the most industrially advanced
nation. The industrial capitalists, having completed the so-called
bourgeois revolution, went on to defeat mercantile policies of state
protection. The mercantile ideology was that the entire nation
benefited from overseas trade and expansion, legitimizing supports
to merchants by the absolutist state. The exploration of new areas,
the looting, trade and raw material production were unthinkable with-
out monopoly._ Individual capitalists feared the substantial risks
of overseas expansion; and given the high costs, accumulation of wealth
would have been quite difficult without mercantile monopolies, quotas
and tariffs. Free-trade was the inevitable consequence of the victory
of British industrial over mercantile capitalism. "Once British in-
dustry had been established as the 'workshop of the world,‘ free
trade would become the best way to perpetuate Britain's industrial
monopoly“ (Barratt-Brown,l974, p. l06). Hobsbawm comments: "British
industry could grow up, by and large, in a protected home market

until strong enough to demand entry into other people's markets, that

95

is 'Free Trade'" (Hobsbawm, 1969, p. 3l). Britain fostered free-
trade throughout the world, but it was clearly in the interest of
industrializing nations to institute tariff barriers protective of
their own nascent industries, making British trade with industrial-
izing nations a sizeable, but limited exchange. From l846 (the
abolition of the Corn Laws) to the outbreak of the Great Depression
in l873, both economically backward and industrializing countries

. shared a need for Britishgoods. After l873, Britain alone bene-
fited from free-trade.

Nevertheless, as stated in proposition 4, during the establish-
ment of competitive capitalism in Europe, trade emerged as a viable
strategy for capital accumulation for the premier metropole, Britain,
and other metropoles, as well. Britain exercised economic hegemony
over other advanced nations by her industrial achievements. But,
as noted above, the industrial nations enacted protective tariffs
to keep British goods out of domestic and empire markets and political
and fiscal measures to prevent the loss of cheap raw materials to
Britain. Within each ”empire," however, the metropole was industri-
ally dominant to an extreme; the previous era of imperialism had, by
the setting up of raw material production, in particular, created an
interdependence that was highly lucrative to the metropoles. '"The
British hegemony in the underdeveloped world was thus based on a per-
manent complementarity of economies; British hegemony in the indus-
trializing world on potential or actual competition. The one was
therefore likely to last, the other was in its nature temporary"
(Hobsbawm, l969, p. l38). The recognition of the utility of econom-

ically backward areas as markets was accompanied by a spirit of

anti
Poh‘

tion

none:

has I.

‘9
.54:

96

anti-colonialism in European metropoles during the nineteenth century.
Political control was unnecessary if, by means of economic penetra-

tion, permanent markets for manufactured goods could be erected.

Mercantile England

 

The eighteenth century was a time of war among rival European
powers seeking to dominate land outside of Europe that was rich in
‘precious minerals and other raw materials. Britain, France, Holland
and Spain battled in Europe, the New World and the Far East to pre-
serve the territorial gains made by settlers and adventurers during
the preceding century. The struggles of this period left Britain
the strongest military power, with the most territory and potential
at home and abroad for economic success.

The result of this century of intermittent warfare was the
greatest trimuph ever received by any state; the virtual mon-
opoly among European powers of overseas colonies, and the vir-
tual monopoly of world-wide naval power (Hobsbawm, l969, p. 50).

The domestic organization of European societies4 at this time

was that of a strong state authority managing the remaining feudal

 

estates, emerging capitalist agriculture, and rising urban centers
(see Wallerstein, l974b). The dominant ideology was "mercantile"--

to expand economically under the direction of the state in order to

 

achieve the general good. This policy included economic expansion
beyond the national boundaries into other areas of the world, some

of which were then controlled by rival mercantile states. In England,
mercantilists came to believe that "[t]he best--if not the only--way
to get wealth and welfare was to take it from somebody" (W. Williams,
l96l, p. 35). To achieve this end, strong military, particularly

naval, and economic organization were necessary. The latter took the

97

form of l) trade barriers as a form of protection against other na-
tions' goods, and 2) joint-stock companies, chartered by the state
to extract and transport raw materials to the metropoles for consump-
tion and processing. It was through these devices that nascent in-
dustry could sell more goods; capital would be accumulated for the
spread of industry.5 The early mercantilists viewed the expansion
of production and markets as a civilizing mission; thevaould impose
the Christian corporate ideal on those less capable of achieving
wealth and what they perceived to be higher cultural institutions

(W. Williams, l96l, pp. 28-54).

Britain, the leading maritime and economic power of the eigh-
teenth century, owned over 6,000 mercantile ships of perhaps a half-
million tons in the mid-l700's. Mercantile companies employed
l00,000 seamen, at this time almost the largest group of non-agricul-
tural workers in Britain. The state guaranteed the expenses and
monopoly status of mercantile joint-stock companies, which carried
goods from their own estates and mines overseas, and those of other
suppliers. These companies, including the famous East and West
India companies, carried on commerce under the economic protection
of the Crown and with the security of the British navy patrolling
the high seas. In the process of setting up plantations and other
means of production in overseas territories, they brought settlers
wmo assumed positions of management of production or political gov-
ernance, and formed the bases of white European enclaves that ruled
the political and economic lives 0f the inhabitants of these soci-
eties for several centuries. There were also areas of eighteenth

century British colonization that were settled by freeholders,

«i

98

cultivating a diversity of crops and laying the foundations for
wholly white, developed societies, later to achieve Dominion status
within the British Commonwealth of nations. These areas served to
draw off Britain's rising surplus population and became eventually
a more important market for British manufactures than could the
future dependencies, the plantation and mining regions character~
ized by racial divisions and extreme gaps in levels of income
(Barratt-Brown, p. 54).

The later-day Dominions, or settler colonies, reached their
true value to Britain during the nineteenth century, when their
developed markets for British manufactures and capital goods were
critical to British hegemony over rival capitalist powers, and even-
tually, to her economic survival. During the eighteenth century, it
was the dependencies, particularly the West Indies and the American
South, which were the great assets to Britain. They represented
sources of raw material wealth, the foundation for British light
manufactures which were sold in the Empire and in Europe. Eric
Williams (l966, p. 52) quotes an observer of the period who claimed
that British trade at the end of the seventeenth century brought in
a profit of f2,000,000. The plantation trade accounted for f600,000,
re-export of plantation goods fl20,000; European, American and Levant
(areas of the mid-East) trade f600,000; East India f500,000, re-export
of East Indian goods fl80,000. As further discussion will illuminate,
the West Indies were extremely important as a source of plantation
‘trade, and were truly, as Williams suggests, the "hub of the British
Empire . "

Monopoly control of Britain over her colonies was a severe

PM,

iv
.\v

f-

‘N

99

impediment to their growth. After the enactment of the Navigation
Laws, the colonies were obliged to sell their valuable products ggly_
to England; products were to be transported on English ships. Col-
onial traders could buy goods only from Britain; foreign commodities
were available solely from Britain. Indigenous manufacturing was

6 In the

discouraged, as it would compete with British industry.
West Indies, petty craftsmen and traders yielded readily to the al-
lures of high and immediate profits of raw material production and
trade.

The "keystone of the mercantilist arch" was the Navigation
Laws, first passed in l647 and aimed at the Dutch practice of
supplying credit to British colonies, delivering goods to them,
purchasing colonial produce and transporting it to Britain, all at
more attractive prices than Britain could offer on an open market.
The mercantile demand for monopoly was buttressed by a fear of Irish
and French attempts to set up an African Company and trade slaves for
sugar in the West Indies. The British policy of refusing to allow
colonial trade with other metropoles embodied in the Navigation Laws
undermined these challenges.

At home, British industry thrived under the protective bar-
riers erected against European manufactures. The domestic market
offered a stable and steadily increasing outlet for finished goods,
and foreign markets were extremely lucrative. Hobsbawm reports
that home industries increased output by 7% from l700 to l750, by
7% again from 1750 to l770; industries producing for export increased
(Jutput by 76% from l700 to l750, 80% from l750 to l770. It was, in

fact, from the export sector, in particular textiles, that the spark

100

for the IndustrialRevolution came. The strength of the export
market came from the commitment of the British state to aid private
accumulation of wealth through trade. And only by colonizing and
fighting wars against imperial rivals could Britain destroy compe-
tition in the form of indigenous industrialization in the colonies,
and capture the export markets of other metropoles (Hobsbawm, l969,
p. 48).

The fiercely aggressive foreign policy of the British was
extremely profitable. In l650, Britain had little in the way of
overseas possessions. Yet, by the end of the eighteenth century,
her empire was massive (as were those of her less successful rivals,
the Spanish, French and Dutch). In l700, colonial trade constituted
l5% of British commerce; by l775, it was as much as a third. There
had been European Empires before the eighteenth century; the tra-
ditional pattern of European expansion had been out from the Mediter-
ranean, by Italian, Spanish and Portugese merchants, or by German
city-states. The new imperialism represented a geographic shift to
North Atlantic states, and a structural one, characterized by new
kinds of relations between developed societies and their possessions
and a constant deepening and spreading of commerce. The changes,
according to Hobsbawm (l969, p. 52), rested on three factors; 1) the
rise in Europe of a large and extendable market for overseas products
for everyday use, 2) the overseas creation of economic systems for
producing such goods (e.g., slave operated plantations), 3) the con-
quest of colonies designed to serve the economic advantage of Euro-

pean owners.

Wallerstein regards European mercantilism as the beginning of

..uw
p$ -\ . P -
«in a .- .$ u

.101

a world economy. He comments:

For what Europe was to develop and sustain now was a new

form of surplus appropriation, a capitalist world-economy.

It was to be based not on direct appropriation of agricultural

surplus in the form either of tribute (as had been the case

for world-empires) or of feudal rents (as had been the system
of European feudalism). Instead wha‘twould develop now is

the appropriation of a surplus which was based on more effic-

ient and ex anded productivity (first in agriculture and later

in industry by means of a world market mechanism with the

"artificial" (that is, nonmarket) assist of state machineries,

none of which controlled the world market in its entirety

(l974b, p. 38).

In the increasing export trade, made possible by mercantilism,
lay the demise of mercantilism. As long as the basis of eighteenth
century imperialism was the acquisition of minerals and raw mater-
ials, mercantilism was advantageous to those dependent upon trade--
the state, ship builders, petty traders, long distance traders, and
manufacturers receiving primitive capital accumulated through long
distance trade. But as industry grew, manufacturers wanted to buy
raw materials more cheaply than those available from the colonies.
More importantly, they wanted the right to sell in markets protected
by mercantile barriers of rival metropoles. And in the British
battle between the interests of trade and industry, it was inevit-
able that the forces of manufacture prevail. ". . .[T]his industrial
develOpment, stimulated by mercantilism, later outgrew mercantilism

and destroyed it" (Williams, l966b, p. l06).

The Bourgeois Revolution Completed
The era of free-trade was ushered in by the Manchester School
of economists, who found a spokesperson in Adam Smith. The theorist
of capitalist development opposed monopoly because it restrained

the productive power of England, and the colonies. Smith wrongly

lOZ

claimed that England had progressed ecomomically despite, and not
because of monopoly. Smith was more accurate, however, in his view
that the economic development of the colonies was hampered by mon- A
opoly, as the United States had insisted in its fight for indepen-
dence from Britain. Industrialists agreed that mercantilism hurt
nascent manufacturing, and many among them also recognized the truth
of Smith's contention that colonies require a large commitment of
metropolitan state revenues. If industry could have the space to
grow and develop, it would exercise a natural monopoly in trading
relations, thereby obviating some of the costs of military aggres-
sion and colonization.

The free-trade ideology was one part of laissez-faire demands
of the incipient industrial bourgeoisie. They rejected state inter-
vention in production and trade. The rationale for this position
was the bourgeois contention that monopolies (in the form of price
supports, protective tariffs, or chartered joint-stock companies)
were driving up the costs of domestic and foreign raw materials and
the price of finished products. The market, national or inter-
national, served as a better arbiter of price and value than did
the state; industrial capitalism could prosper only by the competi-
tive search for low-cost factors of production and the competitive
pricing of finished goods. Resistance to colonialism was consistent
with the view that the use of state revenue to acquire economic re-
sources was wasteful when the market yielded them more cheaply.

The position favoring free-trade gained.acceptance through the
late l700's and early l800's, resulting in the gradual break-up of

monopolies and removal of trade barriers and preferences in the first

lO3

half of the nineteenth century. The political forces favoring con-
tinued protection were backed by British farmers, merchant companies,
(and owners of plantations and other means of raw material production
in the colonies. Industries producing for home and export markets,
the forces of indigenous development in the colonies, the British
consumer, petty shopkeeper and craftsman generally had good reasons
to favor free-trade. Mercantilism, by its very nature, was an expen-
sive form of production. The pursuit of rapid and grand profit-
making precluded attention to long-term costs and rational manage-
ment. Soil depletion, absenteeism, obsolete technology, etc.,char-
acteristics of farming at home or in the colonies, increased prices
of protected products. Industrialists, consumers and traders were
finding cheaper sources of raw materials in regions untouched by the
excesses ofmonopoly.

' The l820's were a time of economic depression as Britain, the
only industrial power, could not expand markets fast enough to satisfy
the expanding output of her manufacturers. Balance of payment figures
reveal import surpluses in trade and services. Real income per capita
fell for the first time since l700 (Hobsbawm, l969, pp. 73-7). .From
the l820's to the l840's, revolt and political restlessness marked
British life. The laboring classes joined together in various polit-
ical groups, including the Luddites, trade unionists, utopian social-
ists and Chartists, to protest their poverty and working conditions.
Middle class reformers campaigned for parliamentary rights; they
opposed the continued monopoly of political institutions by the aris-
tocracy, which held parliamentary majorities even after the abolition

of the Corn Laws. The industrialists of the period shared middle class

104

antipathy towards the land-based aristocracy and farmers, and recog-
nized that mercantile interests held the country back from indus-
,trial growth and expansion into new markets. Anti-mercantile or
free-trade sentiments included an opposition to colonization as

noted earlier; the liberal industrial and middle classes resented

the political costs of empire at a time when British industrial heg-
emony guaranteed markets in the developing and economically back-
ward regions of the world. The bulk of the bourgeoisie, most polit-
ically conscious sectors of the working class, and even some sections
of the old aristocracy, joined the Liberal Party which favored peace,
retrenchment and reform. The spirit of the times was strongly
against the acquisition of more colonies, although no one seriously
considered abandoning existing colonies, nor was there resistance

to the annexation of such highly lucrative possessions as India
(Barratt-Brown, l963, p. 54; Hobsbawm, 1969, p. l32). This coali-
tion of forces held a consistent and unified line until the l880's,
when the Liberal Party had a great debate within its ranks on an
issue that inspired the party's founding--further additions to the
Empire.

But during this period of class conflict, mercantile founda-
tions fell, one by one, to the inevitability of Free Trade. In l825,
the Navigation Laws were modified to permit direct colonial trade
with any part of the world. The slave trade, the backbone of the
West Indian sugar monopoly, was abolished in l807; in l8l2, the East
India Company lost its monopoly in trade with the East Indies. In
1846, the "king” and "queen" of monopoly, sugar and corn, were left

to the forces of competition, with the abolition of the Corn Laws

105

and the British preference for West Indian sugar. With these events,
the bourgeois revolution started in fifteenth century Britain, was

7 the landed aristocracy and mercantilists, the pro-

at last complete;
gressive capitalist forces of the seventeenth century, had now to
yield to the industrial capitalists of the nineteenth century

(Williams. l966. p. 137).

Competitive Capitalism and Free-Trade in Britain

The engine of British industrial development was the manufac-
ture of cotton. Textile processing was Britain's major industry,
accounting for one-halfof all British exports in the years follow-
ing the Napoleonic Wars; cotton expanded at the rate of 6 to 7% per
annum in the 25 years following Waterloo, the height of British
industrial expansion. From l820 to l845, the net output of the
cotton industry grew 40% (in current values). Britain now could buy
raw cotton most cheaply wherever it was found; but more importantly,
free trade flooded the British market with foodstuffs and seriously
challenged British agriculture, forcing labor into the cities to
work in textile and other light manufacturing for low wages (Hobs-
bawm, l969, pp. 69-70).

Barratt-Brown suggests that within a few years of the aboli-
tion of various mercantile laws, all of Britain was celebrating her
industrial preeminence. Productivity in industry increased dramatic-
ally; output doubled from l850 to l870, though the number of industrial
workers increased by only one-half. British exports came to equal
abOut one-fifth of national income in value. The expansion of British

trade was one of the principle factors in the increase of world

106

trade during this period; world trade increased five times from l840
to l874, and in the latter year, British imports and exports probably
accounted for two-fifths of the volume of world trade, nearly as

much as the total of France, Germany and the United States combined
(Barratt-Brown, 1963, pp. 6l-63).

Free-trade also multiplied the number and range of goods
brought into Britain. Approximately one-third of the exports of
the rest of the world reached British ports in the l850's and l860's.
The total value of British imports was almost one-third of her na-
tional income. Britain's largest single trading partner was the
United States, accounting for nearly one-quarter of all imports
and exports (Barratt-Brown, pp. 6l-3). Raw materials were the main
category of imported goods; no other country could yet compete with
British manufactures. British agriculture maintained its competitive
edge over foreign producers for a generation after the introduction of
free-trade policies, but eventually the industry which supplied 90%
of the food consumed in the British Isles in l830 "collapsed" under
the pressure of cheaper foreign foodstuffs (Barratt-Brown, l963,
pp. 66-7).

The coming of free-trade made possible the most significant
development in the industrial age in Britain, the manufacture and
export of capital goods. The so-called textile age ended in the mid-
nineteenth century, paving the way for production of coal, iron and
steel. This development was made possible by advances in technology
and expanding markets for capital goods throughout the world. As
was noted earlier, the Dominions, the United States and Europe were

extremely important to England during this period, for the future

l07
dependencies could not support a market for capital goods. The rate
of expansion of British exports from l840 to l860 was higher than
ever before, and the increase was mostly in capital goods. The
latter constituted ll% of exports from lB40-l842, 22% from l857 to
l859, 22% from l882-l884 (Hobsbawm, l969, p. l09). Iron and steel
exports doubled from l850 to l863, reaching a level of 5 times that
of l859 in the l870's. The proportion of Britain's exports purchased
by Empire countries varied in the decades from l840 to l860, but

never rose above one-third of total exports

Trade as Inmerial ism

 

Trade had become inordinately important in British economic
development.8 Her early orientation towards exporting massive quan-
tities of consumer and capital goods set Britain on a course of indus-
trialization that was extremely dependent on international trade.

She needed raw materials, both to process and to supplement dwindling
domestic production of food. She also needed a constant expansion
of overseas markets. In 1870, British trade per capita (excluding
invisible items) was fl77 s.od., compared with f64 s.od. in France,
f56 s.od. in Germany and f49 s.od. in the United States. At the end
of the eighteenth century, domestic exports constituted l3% of na-
tional income; by the early l870's the figure had risen to 22%.
Until the 1890's, British exports normally grew faster than real
national income as a whole (Hobsbawm, l969, pp. l35-36). With
industrialization in the metropoles, trade itself had become

the major form of imperialist expansion, particularly in relation

to the economically backward areas of the world (Hobsbawm, l969;

Barratt-Brown, l974). Although capital goods were more frequently

108

exported to industrailizing countries, the non-industrialized world
steadily increased its consumption of British consumer goods.' And
when capital goods exporting was severely challenged by German and
American competition in the late nineteenth century, the market for
light manufactures in British colonies and other parts of the econ-
omically backward world continued to expand, propping up a sagging
British economy. Latin America "saved“ the British cotton industry
in the nineteenth century, when the countries of Latin America be-
came the largest single market for British cotton exports; 35% of
cotton exports from Britain went to Brazil in l840. The East Indies
took over the position of leading British cotton buyers after the
Latin American market had been saturated; in l873, this area accoun-
ted for 63% of British cotton exports. The potential for market
expansion in Asia was tremendous, and that is why in the early twen-
tieth century Britain supported America's Open Door policy in China,
and desperately held on to India in the latter's struggle for Inde-
pendence. The successful exploitation of markets in the non-indus-
trialized world by Britain was based on two interrelated factors.
First, Britain had acquired a considerable number of colonies by
l850, and in the ensuing free-trade era, gained numerous markets in
the Third World as well as colonies. Wherever her military strength
was unchallenged, the combination of new forms of production and
cheaper finished goods imported from Britain destroyed indigenous
manufacturing. India is the most well known example of this phen-
omenon (MOore, l966; Baran, l957). lhiother areas, where colonialism
and export agriculture had not retarded industrial development, pro-

tective political machinery was frequently absent and the tide of

109

British manufactures could be stopped. Colonization was unnecessary
for the British to secure markets. "The world's unappropriated re-
gions, it seemed, would remain open to British commerce without the
assumption of the unpopular liability of ruling them. . ." (Robinson,
1959, p. 127).9 The result was a perfect "complementarity of econ-
omies" between Britain and her markets in the dependent world. 'The
second point is that other areas trying to industrialize, for example,
the United States and Western Europe, were torn between their own
need to protect nascent industries and their urgeto take advantage
of British goods and technology. Thus, they exercised constraint in
buying British goods. Moreover, these Western nations did not have
the technology or productive organization to warrant the purchase of
sizeable quantities of raw materials from the undeveloped world.
Therefore, from the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846 to the Great
Depression in 1873, the non-industrialized world had no country to
which to sell raw materials except Britain. Even from 1881 to 1884,
Britain used almost half of all sugar consumed in Europe. By this
time, of course, political control of Third World markets for British
consumer goods was becoming crucial to Britain's continued economic

growth.

Capital Exports: Emergent Imperialism
As Lenin observed, the export of capital by the British state
and capitalist to both the developing and economically backward world
provided a rising share of British capital accumulation during the
second half of the nineteenth century (1966). Investment channels

opened which would secure a foothold for British finance when foreign

llO

investment became the dominant form of imperialist activity in the
age of monopoly capital (Barratt-Brown, 1974, p. 170; O'Connor, 1971;
Magdoff, 1969). By the 1830's there was a vast accumulation of cap-
ital among British financiars and rentiers, a growing class living

on the previous three generations' capital profits and savings. In

1840, approximately f60 million was available for investment.10

An
obvious channel for the profitable use of capital was in the con-
struction of an infrastructure and in raw material extraction abroad.
This meant l) lending to foreign governments, 2) lending to, insuring
and investing in companies shipping, producing and marketing raw
materials, 3) direct lending to and investing in companies carrying
out the construction of a Third World infrastructure. The state was
less of a financial force than was private capital, and acted pri-
marily in lending to foreign governments and lending to and in-
vesting in companies building colonial infrastructures.

Between 1840 and 1860, British capital investment abroad
reached the level of f700 million. Europe and the United States
absorbed over half of British overseas investment at this time, the
Empire about one-third. From 1860 to 1890, however, the proportion
for Europe fell drastically, from 25% to 8%; that of the United
States "sagged" until World War I, when it fell from 19% to 5.5%.
Narrowing investment opportunities in the United States and Europe,
caused by depression, economic nationalism, and a natural saturation
of certain capital markets, led to a striking increase in British
investment in the Dominions--Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South
Africa. The share of British investment in these four nations rose

from 12% of British foreign investment in the 1860's to almost 30%

111

in the 1880's. Following World War I, the level of British invest-
ment in the Dominions increased further (Hobsbawm, 1969, pp. 147-8).

This growth in the Dominions' share of British capital export
marked a rise in population in these areas, and increased sophistica-
tion in manufacturing industries. Sparsely settled until emigration
from Britain after the eighteenth century British population boom,
the Dominions received a large influx of immigrants from 1840 to
1890 following another rapid rise in British population growth.
During this period, the British people doubled in number. About
two-thirds of those leaving British rural areas, at this time,
went overseas.

The dependencies, too, drew British capital investment during
this period. Investmentsin raw material production were notable in
India, Ceylon and the West Indies, and later in Egypt, the East Indies
and Africa. Investment in the infrastructure in these societies
lowered the cost of raw materials to the consumer.refiner, and the
trader in the industrialized world, by reducing transport costs. Har-
bors and railroads were built in the dependencies and overseas trans-
port improved as well.

As Hobsbawm notes(p. 131), the industrial hegemony of Britain
brought an unprecedented fusion of economic and political rivalry
among the great powers, even in this age of "laissez-faire" capital-
isnL Increasingly business called upon the state to give it a free
hand, and yet to provide the capital and political policies to reduce

conmpetition. The military and political efforts of the Crown to
Sec ure markets for industry were an obvious manifestation of govern-

ment's yielding to private demands. The-state in both the metropole

112

and satellite acted in other ways to support export industries, as
noted in Chapter I. The governments of the imperial countries lent
money to governments abroad; this was the principal form of foreign
investment befbre 1840. The practice continued‘in the free-trade

era when the state was joined by private banks in lending to satellite
states. In the mid-nineteenth century, much borrowing by satellite
governments was directed to the construction of railroads and other
features of the infrastructure (Murray, forthcoming a). This was
extremely beneficial to Britain in terms of producing a demand for
capital goods, particularly iron and steel, and creating a means to
more cheaply procure food and raw materials. Following the great
surge of railway building in Britain in the 1840's, came a demand

for railways in Europe, America and Russia. The latter two countries
continued to borrow money from Britain and to buy railway parts from
her through the 1860's, when the demand shifted to India and the
Dominions, and later to the dependencies (Dobb, pp. 296-98). The
state policy of direct investment in construction and railways abroad
further enhanced the position of private financiers and raw material
producers interested in exploiting the productive potential of the
colonies and other overseas areas, and directly benefited exporters

of capital goods needed in establishing improved facilities.

The Dominions and the Dependencies
Before turning to the great debate surrounding the termination
(M’free-trade policies, let us examine the ideological position of
the time on the economic potential and cultural institutions of the

50-03? led "white" Dominions and the dependencies. As indicated

113

earlier, the Dominions were settled by people from Britain, and after
the late 1700's, they were viewed in a markedly different way from
the dependencies, peopled by dark-skinned inhabitants. The depen-
dencies served Britain as a source of raw materials, primarily agri-
cultural goods easily farmed in the tropics. But the racial corres-
pondence to type of colonial exploitation was not based on geography.
The British, Spanish, French and Dutch moved non-white labor to

areas they thought were more hospitable to the cultivation of export

.agriculture.n

They were willing to utilize lower class whites to
cultivate these crops; convicts, laborers, and even some settler fam-
ilies were brought to the West Indies, for example, but made a poor
adjustment to the tropics. The institution of African slavery was
the great facilitator of schemes to develop tr0pical agriculture,
through the actual use of Negro slaves in North and South America,
and by creating a strong association of repressive labor systems with
the exploitation of non-whites. .The ideological works of the nine-
teenth century, including those of Malthus, Spencer and Darwin,
supported the thesis that Africans and other people of dark skin

were biologically inferior to whites (Harris, 1968). Thus, the
Dominions, some climatically unsuited to export agriculture, peopled
by white settlers, increasingly diverged from the dependencies in
economic function and in the popular and official thought of the

British.

Britain found her earliest, most lucrative forms of accumula-

tion in the dependencies of the New World.12

The East Indies were
not as profitable as the plunder, goods and trade of the Americas.13

Heir- (iistance, the unfavorable balance of trade generated by exchange

114

with periphery countries not in need of British manufactures (prior
to the wholesale rise of British manufacturing and British efforts
to “monopolize the supply and marketing of native commodities"
[Sheridan, 1963, p. 7]), and the resistance of metropolitan firms to
Indian textile imports, discouraged trade with the East. The West
Indian planatation became the most important system of periphery
production in the British empire; after 1763, Britain had 11 sugar
islands in the West Indies, plus rice, indigo and tobacco colonies
on the mainland. The structural incapacity of most plantation
societies in the New World to produce food or manufactured goods
generated a demand for these products from the "temperate" zone col-
onies of North America. Sheridan (1969) tells us that Britain was
unique among metropoles in using temperate zone colonies to supply
goods to the "tropics" and absorb some exports of the tropical col-
onies.

By the early 1800's, "Britain, unable to maintain the compe-
titive position of her colonies in the American tropics, turned more
and more to her Asiatic dependencies for exotic products" (Sheridan,
1963, p. 11). She aCQuired Ceylon in 1796, Hyderabad (India) in
1801, Mauritius in 1810, Singapore in 1819, (North) Burma in 1826,
in addition to colonies elsewhere. British merchants organized trade,
plantations and other systems;of export agriculture in these regions,
and indigenous labor served as workers on British plantations outside
of Asia. Ceylon experienced rapid growth in plantation agriculture
hithe'nnd-nineteenth century, first with coffee, then cinchona, cacao,
tea, cardamas, and rubber. "This fertile island, supplied with

Plentiful cheap labor from India, took the place of the West Indies

115

as a field for the investment of British capital" (Sheridan, 1963,
p. 14). China was opened to "plantation culture" in 1833, although
its political status was that of a shared metropolitan sphere of
influence. The organized emigration of labor from Asia to non-
Asiatic British dependencies began from Bengal to Mauritius in 1838,
then to the West Indies, southern and eastern Africa, Madigascar,
Ceylon, Malaya and Fiji.

British state policy was that the Dominions be permitted to
develop industry, although they were not encouraged to do so until
after British free-trade policies were enacted. Developing ecOnomies
offered markets for a variety of light manufactures and eventually
for capital goods. Furthermore, the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
tury immigrants to the Dominions were white Eruopeans, and by virtue
of their prior economic activities and economic expectations upon
going abroad, they could not be severely repressed. Most were farmers
and agricultural workers seeking land and petty capitalist oppor-
tunities in the colonies. The first immigrants to the Dominions--
religious dissenters, convicts and members of other marginal
groups--may have lacked the support and inclination for entrepren-
eurship; but once the Opportunities of Dominion settlement became
clear, including in some areas, the use of non-white labbr, new immi-
grants were fervent developers.

The dependencies were viewed primarily as a source of raw
inaterials, although their markets came to serve as a last outpost for
increasingly uncompetitive British exports; the British government
liad no commitment to their economic growth until the late nineteenth

century, and efforts arising from Chamberlain's initiative were

116

limited to grants and loans to colonial governments. The British
government invested relatively little in these countries; their ex—
ploitation was left to private capital. And when they lost their
immediate economic usefulness, they were left to fend for themselves,
without the benefit of aid or loans from Britain (Benians, l959b,

p. 190).14 It is clear, however, that the potential for development
in the dependencies, even when abandoned, was extremely low. Where
plantations and other forms of labor repressive export agriculture
were the rule, indigenous entrepreneurship was either channelled
into the export sector, or suffered from the competition of cheap.
metropolitan imports. The demise of successful plantation agriclu-
ture rarely meant ecOnomic autonomy; the dependencies were still
inundated with British goods, and local farmers and craftsmen fre-
quently took over aspects of export production and trade, eking out
a living by selling high priced commodities in a competitive world
market. Moreover, during the 1930's, nearly all of the dependencies
were incorporated into multinational corporate agriculture schemes
which meant the reestablshement of plantations.

British attitudes towards colonial governmental organization
and sovereignty differed as well. It was here that white racial
dominance had its most direct consequence. The Dominions wanted high
degrees of self-government, and by the late nineteenth century were
insistent that they be allowed to formulate internal and commercial
policy independent of Britain. The most pressing concern of the
Donnnions during this period was the freedom to establish protective
trade barriers in order to nurture new industries. At each imperial

conference, the Dominions fought for economic autonomy through

117

independent trade policy, using threats of withdrawal from the Empire
and refusal to bear arms. In order to wage such an aggressive battle,
sophisticated means of self-government were necessary within the
Dominions and here Britain's racial proclivities were apparent. Be-
cause of the European character of the Dominions, British parlia-
mentary methods were thought to be appropriate, and by the mid-1800's,
the Dominions handled many domestic affairs by parliamentary means.
For the dependencies, self-government was unthinkable; both the
racial composition of the majority of the population in these regions
and the threat of local European and indigenous resistance to colonial
forms of economic exploitation precluded political sovereignty for
the dependencies. They were ruled directly by the British as Crown

colonies, trusteeships or protectorates, or established parliaments

‘5 Nor was self-

with large numbers of British government appointees.
government a likely prospect for the future; the dependencies were
permanent "millstones," as Disraeli suggested, around the neck of
Britain (Butler, 1959, p. 32; Benians, l959b).

The anti-colonial attitude of the free-trade period had been
directed, in particular, against the costs incurred in rule of the de-
pendencies. When people opposed further annexations, they meant no
Inore dependent colonies. The Dominions were fairly self-sufficient
and required little of Britain. The dependencies were more expensive,
laut.these costs were not direct and conferred little advantage upon
tflie colonies themselves. The British government provided no grants
tc> colonial governments for the improvement of the infrastructure or

levels of living; local government was paid for out of the earnings

01’ the governments of the dependencies from various forms of taxation.

118

The costs to Britain were in the form of maintenance of a military
apparatus and central colonial office. Military expenses increased
as a result of the wars that arose when conquering colonies meant
ventures into the spheres of influence of other metropoles. (From
1800-1850, Britain fought in the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812
in America, a series of wars to consolidate India, and she annexed
several territories as well.)16 Furthermore, internal conflict and
insurrections, e.g., slave revolts, rose in the colonies, demanding
British government attention and occasional military intervention.
Many of the expenses of governing the colonies, including construc-
ting roads, piers, etc.,lending to private interests, administration
and policing, were eventually taken over by both Dominion and depen-
dency states. But at this time, prevailing forms of exploitation
demanded central administration of the colonies.

Despite the strong public feeling against further coloniza-
tion that dominated British political life during the free-trade
era, in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Britain ex-
panded by means of colonization and acquired more dependencies. To
the already sizeable list of British colonies and trusteeships, which
inlcuded the West Indies, West African settlements, Mauritius, Ceylon,
India, Singapore, islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, were added
areas of Central and South Africa and other outposts in the Pacific.
Why were these conquests undertaken during a period in which public
and official opinion were hostile to colonization?

The answer lies in the increasing problems of trade as a dom-
inant means of imperialist capital accumulation. Other industrializ-'

ing countries had closed their door to British imports by 1870 and

119

emerged later with more sophisticated, lower priced manufactures.
Moreover, the non-industrialized world had found markets for raw
materials in other metropoles. Britain engaged in late nineteenth
century imperialism as a defensive reaction against German and Amer-
ican industrialization, as a way to politically safeguard markets
and raw materials in uncolonized areas of the Third World. But
underlying the British response to foreign competition were increas-
ing problems in capitalist development, manifested in periodic de-
pressions. From 1870 to the mid-1890's, economic depression plagued
the world, leading to major changes in class formation and dynamics

of growth in both the metropoles and satellites.

Summar

From 1830 to 1850, British capitalist development passed from
the final stages of mercantilism into the full realization of compe-
titive capitalism. A major and dramatic change in capitalist class
relations spurred this transition; bourgeois industrialists captured
political power and inaugurated a period of laissez-fair government
policies including free-trade designed to enhance the power of the
market at a time when British industry needed cheap factors of pro-
duction and could generate rising demand. The industrial strength
of Britain allowed her to dominate world-wide trade; her superiority
was marked in relation to undeveloped societies, both within and
outside the Empire.

The great success of British industry in the mid-nineteenth
century was followed by a long period of stagnation. British trade

as imperialism lost its effectiveness in relation to other industrial

120

countries and the Third World because of the competition of European
and American manufactured goods. The latter threat drove Britain

to a search for markets and raw material sources in the Third World.
Other capitalist metropoles joined in the scramble for political
control of markets in Africa and the Pacific.

But late nineteenth century colonialism was an inadequate
remedy for metrOpolitan economic problems and rivalries. Other,
more durable solutions were sought in industrial and capital concen-
tration, state supports, and new forms of imperialism. In Chapter V
I will explore the Western transition from competitive to monopoly
capitalism, focusing on British economic history from 1870 to 1930,
her relations with other metropoles and with her colonies. But, in
the following chapter (IV), I will turn to the discussion of West
Indian economy and society, examining the ways in which the British
transition from mercantile to competitive capitalism influenced West
Indian systems of production, development, class relations and the

state.

121
FOOTNOTES

1It is significant that Mintz has broadened his scope of anal-
ysis during the last two decades. His works are of consistently high
quality and are among the most far-reaching studies of the region.
Mintz (1969b) makes the important point that metropolitan industrial-
ization had a complex and ever-changing effect on periphery countries.
He suggests that mercantile capitalism was intrinsically self-destruc-
tive, and slavery, a mercantile necessity, shared this characteristic.
See Mintz (l969a) for a compelling treatment of Jamaican and Puerto
Rican histories of sugar production, based on class relations and
economic developments within the metropoles.

2Dobb (pp. 177-220) recounts the means of “primitive accumula-
tion” by mercantile capitalists. These included the transfer of land
from feudal lords to the bourgeoisie during the dying years of mercan-
tilism; price inflation in the sixteenth century, driving up bourgeois
incomes; internal trade and petty craft production, etc.

31h many countries of Europe, for example, the Netherlands and
France, mercantilism did not yield to industrial capitalism easily
or quickly. As Barrett-Brown remarks: "Other states pursued mercan-
tilist policies in the eighteenth century, but only in Britain did
industrialization take place. The Marxists would argue that the dif-
ference was that an industrial class emerged in Britain" (1974, p.
116 .

4Genovese (1969) argues that Spanish and Portugese expansion
into the New World and the setting up of raw material producing plan-
tations were extensions of the seigneuriel regime. "By building an
empire, arranging for colonial plunder, and establishing a huge bur-
eaucracy. . .[the monarchy] enabled the lower sections of the aristoc-
racy to survive despite their limited ability to squeeze excessive
rents out of the peasants in a period marked by a crisis of seigneur-
ial incomes. For Spain and Portugal colonialism in general and plan-
tation slavery in particular provided the economic surplus necessary
for the stability of a ruling class that remained essentially
seigneurial" (p. 51).

5Barratt-Brown (1963) notes that classical economists, includ-
ing Marx and Mill, wrote that all young industry needs protection.
But once established, capitalism requires free trade for its fullest
development.

6"Thus Cromwell's Navigation Acts of 1650-61 were followed by
Acts of Parliament to restrict industrial development in the colonies--
the Hatters Act, the Iron Act and later the Calico Act, as well as
by Corn Bounty Acts and Act of Limitation--forbidding the import of
Iri;h)cattle--to protect English agriculture" (Barratt-Brown, 1974,
p. 6 .

122

7Fred Block (1970) disagrees, arguing that the development of
free trade was only an accomodation to the industrial bourgeoisie. '
The old landed aristocracy was linked to mercantile and financial in-
terests in a coalition that spanned the nineteenth century. Finance,
concentrated in activities related to trade, foreign investment and
lending, remained dominant through the twentieth century, to the detri-
ment of British industry and the welfare state. Thus, the bourgeois
revolution was never really completed.

8"The essential peculiarity was that Britain turned outward
toward foreign economic involvement to a degree unequalled by those
countries that industrialized after her“ (Block, p. 139).

9Barratt-Brown (1963) contends that the British capital invested
abroad in the 1840's and 1850's was not accumulated by trade; there
was not a large trade surplus in this era. Rather it derived from
dividends and interest of previous investment. There developed a
rentier class, based on capital earned during the mercantile period--
inveStment in railroads, trade and plantations before 1830. Most
plantations required low levels of reinvestment, and earnings were
‘remitted to the home country, to investing companies, or with return-
ing planters (Barratt-Brown, p. 59).

loGallagher and Robinson (1953) suggest that writers about nine-
teenth century imperialism have too rigidly stressed a differentia-
tion between mercantile, free-trade and late nineteenth century views
on colonization and political suppOrt of an economic empire. They
contend that Britain did not resist economic gain at the cost of pol-
itical support at any time during the nineteenth century. On the con-
trary, when Britain's economic weapons were unsuccessful in subduing
a resisting area during the free-trade era, political and military
means were used, including colonization.

1]Some of the crops associated with tropical climates could be
grown in temperate ones. Sugar, fOr example, was cultivated as far
north as Cyprus and Syria in the 1200's. The assignment of particular
crops to tropical areas was, to a large degree, based on a socio-
economic calculus. Europeans cultivated crops in the tropics which
were found there, or which they brought with them. They farmed on a
large scale there. Many "tropical" crops could have been cultivated
in the metropoles, but under conditions of petty or smaller scale,
wage-based agriculture. The European structure of agriculture and
the control exercised by the cultivator on supply would have pre-
cluded the poor terms of trade of most tropical agricultural products
that developed after 1880 (Amin, 1974). A mythology has arisen con-
cerning the appropriate nature of particular climates for various
crops, justifying the socially determined worldwide division of labor.

leheridan (1963, 1969) considers European imperialism in general
when he contends that metropoles followed a path of plunder, trade and
colonization from the Americas eastward to the Orient, and then to
Africa. He remarks (1963, p. 19) that there were 140 dependencies
and protectorates in the world in 1900.

123

13See Wallerstein (l974b, p. 336) for a discussion of the dif-
ferences between Asian and American trade with Europe during the six-
teenth century. The Americas became part of the European world
economy as periphery countries, meaning "that geographical sector . . .
wherein production is primarily of lower-ranking goods (that is,
goods whose labor is less well rewarded) but which is an integral
part of the overall system of the division of labor, because the com-
modities involved are essential fOr daily use" (p. 302). The Asian
trade was of luxury goods, and thus Asia constituted an external area,
an other "world-system with which a given world economy has some kind
of trade relatgonship, based primarily on the exchange of preciosities
. . ." p. 302 .

14According to Benians (l959b, p. 183) official opinion held
that money going overseas was seeking immediate returns, not the long-
term profits that might result from welfare and development schemes
undertaken by the metropoles.

15Several of the West Indies had developed legislatures with
large numbers of elected participants. But in the late nineteenth
century, colonial political resistance to British policies, most
militantly expressed in the local European reaction to the Morant
Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865, caused Britain to suspend elected
political bodies and to rule the West Indies as Crown colonies. The
nature of the colonial state in the West Indies and its relation
with Britain will be more fully explored in Chapter V.

16Strange (1971, p. 180) says that Britain usually taxed the
vanquished colony or possession to recover the costs of military con-
quest, administration and the expenses entailed in military inter-
ventions.

CHAPTER IV

THE WEST INDIES AND THE BRITISH TRANSITION
FROM MERCANTILE TO COMPTEITIVE
CAPITALISM. PARTS I AND II

Introduction

Nineteenth century West Indian stratification and development
have been studied primarily from two perspectives, the "traditional
materialist" and the structuralist. The assumptions held by pro-
ponents of these theoretical frameworks, as they apply to the study
of stratification and development, will be examined in the opening
pages of this chapter. Marxian theories of imperialist and depen-
dency offer different theoretical directions from the traditional
materialist and the structuralist; the contributions of these Marx-
ian theories to the study of stratification and development will be
explored.

The British transitionlfrom mercantile to competitive capit-
alism forms the framework through which West Indian society and econ-
tnny can be studied. The British movement from the mercantile to
competitive stage of economic development influenced the West Indies
irl four related ways, as elucidated in dependency theories and re-
seanrch, and by analysis of satellite and West Indian histories.
Similar changes occurred in much of what is now called the Third

Wor-ld as a consequence of the development of European capitalism

124

125

from the mercantile to the competitive phase. 1) Mercantile systems
of production were inherently unstable and self-limiting; without
mercantile monopoly and preferential agreements, they became untenable
and gave way to new productive systems. 2) Dependent and uneven
development remained, but changed forms in areas affected by the de-
cline of mercantilism. 3) New classes appeared and sometimes became
dominant in these regions, reflecting major class realignments.
4) The colonial and dependent states were altered in many ways, in
accordance with modifications in internal class relations and metro-
politan political policies.

The discussion of these transformations in the West Indies will
be in two sections. In Part I, "Foundations," I will analyze the
West Indies in the British mercantile stage, examining class rela-
tions, development, and the colonial state. Part II, "Transition,"
will be an elaboration of shifts in each of these areas of West Indian
economy and society during the British movement to competitive capital-

ism.

A Review of Theory

The discussion in Chapter III illustrated my contention that
West Indian studies have been deficient in the theoretical treatment
of British imperialism. Here I will briefly examine scholarship on
West Indian class relations and economic development in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.

As I stated in Chapter 1, class relations have received little
attention from students of the West Indies; the few valuable descrip-
titans of class relations have lacked a complete theoretical framework

for~ the analysis of stratification. Although social scientists have

126

examined economic growth and, more recently, the influences of imper-
ialism on the domestic economy, they have failed to posit a dynamic
theory of West Indian development. Looking more closely at the anal-
yses of these crucial and interrelated phenomena, we find that West
Indian class relations and development have received their most ser-
ious treatment by historical materialists. Within the broad category
of historical materialism, we can differentiate two general tenden-
cies; traditional materialist interpretations and those of the Car-
ibbean structuralists.

Traditional materialist writings have lent much to our under-
standing of West Indian societies, especially in the areas of strati-
fication and economic growth. Eric Williams (l966a, l966b), Hall
(1959, 1972), Eisner (1961), Curtin (1955), H. Johnson (1972),
Lowenthal (1967) and others have clarified many aspects of social
hierarchy in West Indian societies and have specified the kinds of
productive activities engaged in by various sectors of the popula-
tion. Their empirical work has been particularly useful, often
based on primary materials held in Britain and the West Indies that
are inaccessible to an American audience. The findings of Hall,
Eisner, and others are extensively cited in the discussion that
follows.

Like many other students of the Third World, traditional mater-
‘halists studying West Indian societies have formed many hypotheses
abkaut social classes and economic development based on an implied
C0tnparison of Third World social formations with those of developed
COtantries. The model for the discussion of Third World social class

ancl economic growth has been the bourgeois-led revolution (Stavenhagen,

127

1968; Vital, 1968). There are several components of this model
which may be questioned when applied to the West Indies: a) that

the old order was "pre-capitalist," dominated by landholders producing
for use; b) entrepreneurs engaged first in trade, and then in manu-
facturing, breaking with the landholding class; c) this break from
landowners prompted the development of an internal market in which
food from the agricultural sector (taking on the characteristics

of capitalist production) was exchanged for light manufactured goods;
it was the internal market that provided a continuous stimulus for
industrialization and balanced economic growth. 1

Turning to the first of these propositions, that the bourgeois

revolution arises from a pre-capitalist mode of production, we find

a number of immediate difficulties in its use to analyze the history
of the West Indies and the Third World in general. As recent critics
of this approach have noted, since the sixteenth through nineteenth.
centuries, Third World societies have not had exclusively pre-capital-
ist histories, in which production was for use and limited exchange
(Frank, 1969b). This point is particularly significant in the consid-
eration of the West Indies, where foreign dominated plantation pro-
duction of commodities for the international market destroyed all
Dre-capitalist antecedents. Scholars of the West Indies of the tra-
ditional school have countered that the slave plantation was a pre-
cajaitalist system of production regardless of the crop grown or its
destination; the plantations were worked by slaves and not by the free
wasJe laborers of capitalist agriculture (Curtin, 1955). These scho-
lar~s have found support for this interpretation in the many pre-cap-

ita‘list societies where slave labor has been used, and in Marx's

128

theory that slavery was an important pre-capitalist social relation-
ship. Nevertheless, the equation of pre-captialist European agricul-
ture (feudalism) with the slave-based plantation, has revealed dif-
ferences between the histories of developed societies and that of
the West Indies--the production of use vs. production for exchange,
’and slave labor vs. serfdomr-that critics have considered significant.
In regard to the second proposition, concerning the bourgeois
separation from the landholding classes, the traditional material-
ists have regarded various West Indian entrepreneurs not directly
involved in plantation labor as carriers of the bourgeois tradition
(Curtin, 1955; Hall, 1959; Williams, l966a). Among peasant producers
(of food and export crops), a yeomanry has sometimes been found. Sec-
tors of the population producing food and manufactured goods may in-
deed constitute a progressive national bourgeoisie, although tra-
ditional materialists would agree that this group has lacked the
economic strength to achieve dominance over the planting class or
its corporate fbllowers. We nay wonder, however, if entrepreners
absorbed into the dominant agricultural system (the plantation),
through the production of export crops or goods and services for the
plantation, are a part of this "progressive" national bourgeoisie.
Their activities may threaten the plantation enterprise through
competition for land, labor, and, in recent years, capital, but pro-
duction of exports or export-related goods requires the continuation
of the current economic system. The tendency for corporate plantations
to provide processing and marketing facilities for peasant-grown ex-
ports has intensified the peasants' dependence upon planting inter-

ests. More importantly, the production of exports and export-related

129

goods and services inhibits industrialization, although petty producers
have lacked the political and economic power wielded by plantation
owners historically to resist development. Making a similar point,
students of Latin America have argued that Latin American entrepren-
eurs have not broken with traditional landowners; kinship ties with
members of the mercantile-landholding coalition and industrialists,
and the structure of agricultural and industrial production have pre-
vented a progressive bourgeois challenge to the old order (Petras,
1969; D. Johnson, 1972). At issue, then, is the economic foundation
of the national bourgeoisie--the volume and composition of food and
manufactured goods produced for use and local exchange, and whether
the production of exports and export—related goods by sectors of the
national bourgeoisie enhances the potential for the economic develop-
ment 0f the area.

The internal market of emergent European capitalism was based
on the exchange of light manufactured goods and food. The traditional
materialists have argued that, although local production of food and
light manufactured goods has not equalled the output of the early
EurOpean bourgeois farmers and manufacturers, the production of ex-
port crops and goods and services for export industries can take the
place in the development process of production for local exchange
(Eisner, 1961; H. Johnson, 1972). There are many facets to this con-
tention; a fundamental issue is whether the production of comnodi-
ties for international exchange (and ancillary industries) produce as
much domestically controlled capital as does the production of goods
and services for local exchange. Clearly, export-related production

does contribute to domestic capital accumulation to some degree

130

(Thomas, 1974). But, two major factors may tend to limit the domes-
tic accumulation of capital in developing societies which have an
emphasis on export production: the degree of foreign ownership of
the means of production, and the restricted spin-off potential of
most foreign-owned systems of production given their small and fixed
number and the fact that many phases of production are completed
abroad.

Along with Marxian dependency theorists, the Caribbean struc-
turalists have responded to these propositions by reexamining the
history of the West Indies. They have formed radically different
interpretations of class relations and development from those of
traditional materialists. Structuralists and Marxists alike have
argued that the slave-based plantation was a capitalist institution
(Beckford, 1972; Frank, l969b). Marxian theorists have claimed that
"relations of production" is not a sufficient indicator of mode of
production for Third World countries after the sixteenth through
nineteenth centuries (Mandle, 1972). The West Indies and other
Third World societies became extensions of the capitalist metropoles;
the production of commodities for international exchange by slaves in
the West Indies fueled the growth of capitalist industry in the
metropoles.

The structuralists have proposed that the plantation is the
fundamental capitalist unit of production in the West Indies. Taking
much from the cultural materialists, Wolf and Mintz, they have argued
that the relatively high capital content of plantation production,
corporate sources of capital, production for international exchange,

etc., distinguishes the plantation from other, pre-capitalist systems

131

of production (Wolf and Mintz, 1957; Best, 1968; Beckford, 1972).
They have also developed the conception of the West Indies as "plan-
tation societies" or “plantation economies," totalistic institutional
"structures" (Mandle, 1972; 1973a; Beckford, 1972; 1975; Best, 1968;
Best and Levitt, 1975). This ”structure" has dominated all aspects
of social and economic life in the region (Wagley, 1960). Relevant to
our discussion of trends in the study of West Indian class relations
and economic development, the structuralists have contended that
the plantation generates the social hierarchy of West Indian socie-
ties, and that it defines development in the area as well.

On the subject of class relations, Wolf (1959) writes: "The
plantation thus not only produces its own class structure, but it
has an inhibiting effect on the formation of any alternate class
structures within its area of control" (1959, p. 154). Before
EmanCipation, there was a direct functional relationship between
plantation production and class formation, as nearly everyone in the
society produced plantation goods and services. Since Emancipation,
those not employed on the plantation have produced goods and services
independently which have formed backward and forward linkages to the
plantation. Beckford argues (1972):

In these areas the plantation has been the dominant econ-
omic, social and political institution in the past, continues
to be in the present, and from all indications will continue
to be in the future. It was an instrument of political colon-
ization; it brought capital, enterprise and management to
create economic structures which have remained basically the
same; it brought together different races of people from
various parts of the world to labor in its service and thus
determined the population and social structures now existing

in these places (p. 3).

In the same vein, Best states: "The key to an understanding of

132

plantation economy lies precisely in the fact that it is from its
inception, an extension of the metropolitan capitalist economy. The
quasi-proletariat, the quasi-peasantry, and the quasi-bourgeoisie
are creatures of the plantation export sector" (1975, p. 45). Under
the terms of the "plantation economy" model, the bourgeois revolu-
tion is an impossibility, for a class of entrepreneurs separated
from the plantation structure cannot arise.

Similarly, the structuralists see the plantation as the only
vehicle for West Indian economic growth. Within its boundaries,
domestic capital accumulation is limited by the terms mentioned ear-
lier: foreign ownership of the means of production, and foreign
control of various stages of production, transport and marketing.
Moreover, the structuralists contend that no system of production
that can propel the development of the society--such as food agri-
culture or light manufacturing for the internal market--can emerge
beside the plantation. A contending sector of production cannot
evolve to challenge the hegemony of planting interests.

Essentially, Caribbean economy has undergone little struc-
tural change in the four hundred-odd years of its existence.

By this we mean that the character of the economic progress

in the region seems not to have been significantly altered

over the period. Neither the modifications which, through

time, have been made to the original institutions, nor the
new institutions which have from time to time been incorpor-
ated into the economy, have relieved its dependence on ex-
ternal development initiatives. The economy remains, as it
has always been, passively responsive to metropolitan demand

and metropolitan investment (Best and Levitt, 1975, p. 37).

The absence of a pre-capitalist mode of production in the West
Indies meant that the plantation encountered no initial institu-

tional rivalry. Before Emancipation, the breadth of the plantation

economy precluded industrial development, the structuralists claim;

133

a bourgeoisie could not arise out of mercantile or planting groups
as indigenous manufacturing was incompatible with their economic
interests. The laboring classes were, by and large, held coercively
to plantation production. After Emancipation, planters and merchants
continued to oppose industrialization. A middle sector of traders
and artisans became absorbed in the production of goods and services
fOr the plantation, activities which created few linkages in the
domestic economy. The plantation continued to lure workers with
occasionally high wages; many peasants were tied to the plantation
owners by the latter's control of marketing and processing facil-
ities for export crops.

The approaches of the traditional materialists and the struc-
turalists are obviously at odds. The structuralist theory of "plan—
tation economy" provides a remedy to the inadequate discussion of
the influences of imperialism on West Indian stratification and de-
velopment. However, there is a sense in which the structuralists
have gone too far in refuting traditional materialist conceptions.
The totalistic definition of the capitalist system and the planta-
tion, and the categorical exclusion of new classes and non-planta-
tion production from consideration, weaken the structuralist
response to traditional studies of the historical materialist school
(Benn, 1974).

As recent commentators have observed, the question of whether
Third World social formations are capitalist or pre-capitalist has
caused much debate among Marxists (Murray, forthcoming b; Wallerstein,
1974b; Mandle, 1972). The rejection of "relations or production" as

a definitional characteristic of capitalism is a serious challenge

134
to Marxism. The substitution of market relations for relations of
production does little to recapture the analytical power of the Marx-
ist method, nor does it lead to the full description of conditions
under which goods were produced in the Third World after imperialist
penetration (Sternberg, 1974). The resolution of this theoretical
problem is beyond the scope of this discussion. It is important, how-
ever, to point out the limitations of the category "market relations"
for explaining Third World social institutions. There are class re-
lations and systems of production which remain outside the nexus of
capitalist influence in Third World societies. Their growth and full
elaboration may be limited by the presence of capitalist systems of
production, but their origins and processes cannot be accurately de-
fined as capitalist.

The Caribbean structuralist contention that the West Indian
plantation is a capitalist institution is pp£_based on a new inter-
pretation of Marx, as is that of Frank and dependency theorists in-
fluenced by him. They, and the cultural materialists they have
followed, are more concerned with describing the specific unit of
production in the West Indies--the plantation--and in pointing out
its relationship to British and later, American, imperialism. They
have, however, like some Marxian dependency theorists, overestimated
the direct influence of the capitalist system, and have employed the
same conceptual device--the structure--to do so. The "plantation,“
like the "capitalist system," is considered to be a totality, one
which may include systems of production which resemble non-capitalist
ones in certain respects. This amounts to more than the misnaming
of systems of production, for in viewing them as only a part of a

larger structure (the plantation or capitalism), we lose sight of the

135

actual relations of production, their origins and the dynamics of
production.

More importantly, the consideration of West Indian class rela-
tions and development as a part of the plantation structure has led
to the statement of inaccurate propositions about West Indian his-
tory. A review of nineteenth century events, to be presented in
this and in Chapter VI, suggests that the structuralists have ser-
iously erred in their understanding of the relationship of various
classes to the plantation and the degree of separation of various
systems of production from the plantation. I will argue that the
“plantation economy" masks a fluid and conflict-ridden set of class
relations. A more direct link between producer and immediate means
of production reveals profound struggles among classes, as well as
the efforts of particular groups to separate themselves from the
demands of the plantation for labor, goods and services-~often the
cause of class conflict. This movement stopped far short of the
classic bourgeois revolution. Its origins in no way resembled
European feudalism; as the structuralists rightly argue, plantation

slavery was in no sense a pre-capitalist system of production. But

 

it could and did generate oppositional forces, some engaging in systems
of production incompatible politically and economically with planta-
tion agriculture.

Further, it is my contention that proponents of the "plantation
economy" theory have not accurately described the volume or range of
the West Indian production of food and light manufactured goods not
directed to the plantation or export-related enterprises. Again,

the traditional materialist model of the European internal market

136

development is not apt; the origins and the dimensions of the West
Indian market differ from those of European societies during the
transition to capitalism. Nevertheless, even during the height of
plantation influence, the slave era, there were groups in the West
Indies which did not engage in plantation work; their members opposed
the planting class and made efforts to initiate other (non-export
oriented) systems of production.

Some combination, then, of traditional materialist and structur-
alist conceptualizations is needed to comprehend the complex areas
of West Indian class relations and economic development in the nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries. Such a synthesis must start,
in my opinion, with the Marxian theories and research on imperialism
and dependency that were presented in the late 1960's and early
1970's. Proponents of these recent Marxian analyses have argued that
the building of a framework for the discussion of relations within
the satellite begins with metropolitan capitalist development itself;
class relations within the metropoles generate modes of imperialist
penetration. Dependency theorists agree that the economy and society
of the satellites are best understood in terms of metropolitan capi-
talism. Do they then agree with the structuralists that the satellite
mode of production is capitalist from the first point of contact
with metropolitan capitalism? Advocates of dependency theory differ
among themselves on this issue. Some, like Frank, contend that the
metropolitan mode of production defines the satellite mode of produc-
tion; others, like Carddso, suggest that metropolitan capitalism
may transform some satellite pre-capitalist relations of production

to capitalism, but other pre-capitalist relations of production may

137

remain untouched. I favor the second Marxian interpretation, agree-
ing that modes of production can coexist in a national setting,
although historically capitalism has been dominant in such situations
(Cockcroft, 1975).

Marxists have approached the issue of bourgeois revolution in
the satellites with similar differences of opinion. All claim that
producers attached to the export sector do not constitute a pro-
gressive national bourgeoisie; there is consensus that bourgeois
revolution has not been achieved in the satellites and probably will
not be achieved. Disagreement exists over the role of producers of
food and manufactured goods for use and local exchange in the national
economy and their relationship to the export sector. Frank, and
other proponents of the concept "underdevelopment," have failed to
recognize this class, lumping its members together with other indi-
genous producers who are oriented towards the international market.
Such producers would have no reason to oppose the landholding-mercan-
tile coalition, having shared economic interests. Theories of "depen-
dent development" allow for the consideration of non-export oriented
systems of production, recognizing that while the satellite economy
as a whole may be dependent upon metropolitan technology and capital,
economic growth has taken place in a variety of sectors historically;
this economic growth has not, however, eradicated economic dependency
or the uneven pattern of growth. Thus, some producers may indeed
have incompatible economic interests with export-oriented producers;
struggles among these classes have not resulted in a bourgeois revol-
ution because of the economic strength of the landholding and mercan-

tile classes.

138

The differing position of the theorists of underdevelopment
and dependent development on the revolutionary potential of producers
of food and light manufactured goods for use and local exchange im-
plies opposing viewpoints on the potential for the growth of an inter-
nal market. Again, "underdevelopment" precludes expansion of this
market. “Dependent development" allows for the existence of an inter-
nal market, one that may expand through time; however, metropolitan
capitalist development and penetration of the Third World has histor-
ically introduced mechanisms which hinder the growth of the internal

market.

Theoretical Alternatives

I began the examination of West Indian society and economy by
reviewing the history of British capitalist development from its
mercantile to competitive phase, as outlined in Chapter III. This
approach is suggested by Marxian theories of imperialism, and the
Marxian method itself; four propositions about bourgeois capitalist
development and British economic growth were examined, reflecting
previous work on British capitalism and imperialism,and my own reading
of the literature on these subjects. The four propositions are
these: 1) the seeds of the mercantile demise are found in the dynam-
ic of the mercantile phase of accumulation; 2) in competitive capital-
ism, the market determined the allocation of factors of production;
3) competitive capitalism made trade a new and dominant fOrm of
imperialist expansion; 4) free-trade was consistent with state-capital-
ist relations of the period and the dynamics of capitalist growth

during the competitive stage, although it was feasible as a broad

139

and long-lasting policy only in Britain, the premier metropole.
These relations form a framework for the study of the West
Indies from the eighteenth through early nineteenth centuries. With-
in this framework, I will specify major developments in Third World
societies, in particular, the West Indies. These relations are en-
capsulated in four propositions, reflecting analyses by Marxian de-
pendency theorists, my selective and critical application of the
theories of these writers, and my own knowledge of satellite and
West Indian economy and society. These propositions indicate the
history of satellites during the period from the eighteenth through
early nineteenth centuries along four dimensions: 1) the transition
from mercantile to competitive capitalism in the metropoles marked
a decisive change in productive systems in satellite nations;
2) dependent, uneven development of satellites changed in form in
the transition from metropolitan mercantile to competitive capital-
ism; 3) the mercantile movement to competitive capitalism in the met-
ropoles brought about change in class relations in the satellites,
particularly where competitive capitalist trade relations prompted
a decline in the system of production dominant during the mercantile
era; 4) the colonial state grew in both strength and the scope of
its functions and had shifts in its membership from mercantilism to
competitive capitalism, especially where foreign-owned systems of
raw material production lost economic ground. I will explore these
propositions in detai1,.commenting on the experiences of satellites
in general. I will then examine the history of the West Indies
during the period of transition from British mercantilism to compe-

titive capitalism, and the ways in which this change in metropolitan

140

economy influenced West Indian systems of production, class relations,
dependent development and the state.

The expansion of European capitalism into the present Third
World first took the form of plunder of minerals, agricultural raw
materials and labor; in the sixteenth century, Europeans organized
systems of production in the economically backward world that allowed
a regular trade in agricultural and mineral raw materials to evolve
(Petras, forthcoming a).2 These means of production were of varying
types. Mines and the establishment of trade in slaves and other unfree
laborers date from the mercantile era. In the case of export agricul-
ture, the plantation was common, although highly exploitive systems
of petty production of commodity exports could also be found.3 Re-
ferring to export agriculture, Stavenhagen (1975) remarks, the European
imperialism of the mercantile age introduced "private land ownership
and commercial monoculture"; "one of the most characteristic features
of the implantation of capitalism into underdeveloped countries is
the transformation of subsistence agriculture into commercial, export
agriculture“ (p. 55). The production of commodity exports spread from
South America to the Caribbean in the seventeenth century; metropoli-
tan controlled commercial agriculture was only rarely undertaken in
Asia and Africa at this time.

The transition of metropolitan mercantilisnru)competitive capital-
ism in the ninteenth century, through the shift from protectionist to
free-trade policies led to alterations in satellite systems of produc-
tion, as stated in proposition 1. There was a movement away from enter-
prises that utilized highly "irrational" techniques, and depended, in

the long run, on monopoly and preferential entry into metropolitan

141

markets. New means of production were now in order, enterprises
based on a higher ratio of fixed capital investment than mercantile
means of production had been. The development‘ of metro-
politan competitive capitalism out of mercantilism embodied a trend
towards higher capital-labor ratios in production and the eradica-
tion of enterprises that could not compete in the freer home and in-
ternational markets. However, production of raw materials in the
satellites employed forced labor and extremely simple technology
during the mercantile age--"irrational" methods without equal in

the rapidly industrializing metropoles.

"The periphery . . . used forced labor (slavery and coerced
cash-crop labor). The core . . . increasingly used free labor"
(Wallerstein, l974b, p. 103). "Repressive" relations between capital
and labor, common on mercantile plantations, mines, etc., were costly
and the root of many of the crude methods of production used in the
satellites. Slave labor was too expensive for the production of com-
modities that did not have market guarantees. Other labor repres-
sive systems (e.g. indentured servitude, the politically sanctioned
seizure of peasant-grown crops, etc.) were viable only as long as
soil was fertile. These were short-term regimens at best.

Citing Weber, Genovese (l969) explains why slavery became an
"irrational“ labor system. His comments can be extended to other
repressive relations between owner and worker, in which labor has
no legally allowed physical mobility and wages are not paid.

Slave economies normally manifest irrational tendencies
that inhibit economic development and endanger social stabil-
ity. Max Weber, among the many scholars who have discussed

the problem, has noted four important irrational features.
First, the master cannot adjust the size of his labor force

142

in accordance with business fluctuations. In particular,
efficiency cannot readily be attained through the manipula-
tion of the labor force if sentiment, custom or community
pressure makes separation of families difficult. Second,
the capital outlay is much greater and riskier for slave
labor than for free. Third, the domination of society by a
planter class increases the risk of political influences in
the market. Fourth, the sources of cheap labor usually dry
up rather quickly, and beyond a certain point costs become
excessively burdensome. Weber's remarks could be extended.
Planters, for example, have little opportunity to select
specifically trained workers.for tasks that arise (p. 16).

All of these conditions obtained, to some degree, in the West
Indies during the mercantile era when slave labor was utilized on
plantations. The initial costs of purchase and indenture were high;
recovering these costs, and those of maintaining the labor force,
necessitated constant planting and crude methods of cultivation.
Reproduction of the labor force required improved standards of health
and general living conditions, also costly. It was often cheaper
for planters to import new workers than to encourage their natural
reproduction. In the West Indies, even with metropolitan protection-
ism, the pressure of planting under these labor conditions resulted
in the movement to more fertile lands. The effect was similar in
Latin America.

The colonial economy was subjected to strong cyclical var-
iations. In Brazil, one after another of the major industries
grew and then declined. This was true for the primitive extrac-
tion of wood, sugar production on the great slave plantation
of the Northeast, mining in the central part of the country,
the extraction of rubber in the Amazon. . . . Each one of
these cycles brought an epoch of growth and prosperity in the
area in which it occurred. And each one left, in the end, a
stagnant, underdeveloped economy, and an archaic social struc-
ture (Stavenhagen, 1968, p. 17).

Regional expansion was necessary in the slave South of the United
States as well. “. . . economics, politics, social life, ideology,

and psychology converged to thrust the system outward and [that]

143

beneath each factor lay the exigencies of the slaveholding class.
Each dictated expansion if the men who made up the ruling class of
the South were to continue to rule" (Genovese, 1969, p. 243).4

The adoption of liberalized trade policies by the metropoles
during the competitive period of metropolitan capitalist development
made necessary the rapid transition to new forms of production in
economically backward regions that could not compete in the free
world market; migration to new areas was no longer a suitable re-
sponse to soil exhaustion, as the free market would reward only the
cheapest production. Low production costs could not be attained
with labor-repressive techniques. Only sophisticated, labor-saving
technology was appropriate to the liberalized trading relations of
the world of competitive capitalism. "[T]he prerequisite for effi-
cient large-scale commodity production is a level of industrial tech-
nology as is only now being attained even in most advanced countries"
(Genovese, 1969, p. 51). Those regions that were highly productive
benefited from liberalized trade, even when labor was provided by
slave or other unfree workers--but only for a while. The future of
export agriculture lay in a combination of free labor and capital
investment in technology.

However, in many areas, like the older West Indies, where the
soil was severely deficient in nutrients, neither capital nor free
labor could be attracted to the plantation. There, petty production
of food and export crops became widespread. In the American South,
share-cropping.and other forms of tenant farming took the place of
the plantation; Southern planters had more capital than did West

Indian planters and were therefore able to exercise more control

144

over land and labor in the metropolitan competitive capitalist period.
Similar labor-capital arrangements developed in areas of Brazil (see
-Beckford, 1972, pp. 90-102).

The growth of new systems of production in the economically
backward world during the stage of metropolitan competitive capital-
ist development did not, by and large, reverse the dependency of sat-
ellites on the metropoles for capital and goods, although it was some-
times lessened. The dependency of satellites on capital and goods
from the metropoles persisted, to varying degrees, as metropolitan
capitalism evolved. I have argued that development in the present
Third World has been dependent and uneven, although its forms have
changed in each stage of metropolitan development. In proposition
2, I contend that dependent, uneven development changed in form in
satellites in the metropolitan transition from mercantile to competi-
tive capitalism.

Metropolitan capitalism has, in each stage of growth, introduced
mechanisms that have hindered the accumulation of capital in econom-
ically backward societies (Baran, 1957). Metropolitan capitalists
have directly seized capital produced in these societies, often
through the expropriation of profits from foreign-owned systems Of
production. Moreover, the control by foreign industrial and commer-
cial interests of land, labor and capital stifles the production of
food and manufactured goods for use and exchange in the internal
market. Imperialism has also introduced systems of production which
have encouraged national investment in sectors which have a relatively
limited capacity for domestic capital accumulation (Thomas, 1974).5

The mercantile investment in raw material production yielded

145

little local capital, as profits went abroad. Craftsmen and pro-
fessionals often reoriented production to the provision of resources
for producers of export crops, as payment was sizable, rapid and often
in foreign currency; cash earnings in the society were generally lim-
ited to these producers of goods and services for the export sectors.
The potential for expansion in industries related to export production
was constrained by the relatively small and inelastic market for

such goods and services; in the West Indies, the number of plantations
was low and generally fixed, planters imported much equipment and the
production process itself was completed abroad. Peasant farming,
which spread widely in the period of British competitive capitalism,
earned capital. But export crop farming, always a large share of
peasant agriculture, was dependent upon local estates and farms for
preliminary refining, marketing and transport facilities (Genovese,
l969; Beckford, 1972). After 1880, international terms of trade
moved in favor of manufactured goods and foods produced in industrial-
ized nations (Amin, 1974).

The restricted capacity for domestic capital accumulation in de-
pendent societies has encouraged reliance on foreign capital (Staven-
hagen, 1968). The emphasis on the production of exports and export-
related goods and services, a cause of the low levels of domestic
capital accumulation, has enlarged the need for imported foods and
manufactured goods. The internal market for locally produced goods
has been small and undeveloped in dependent societies; production and

consumption are oriented towards the international market.6

D. John-
son (1972) offers this description of Latin American dependency,

appropriate for other satellites as well:

146

Latin American economies became oriented to the export of
primary products, normally under control of foreign capital,
and constituted as markets for imported manufactures. Foreign
capital developed transportation facilities and utilities com-
plementary to the export sector. The combined economic and
military power of the imperial countries became instrumental
in keeping Latin American nations as de facto colonies. Given
this conditioning situation there has always been a weak im-
pulse in Latin America toward economic growth in general and
industrialization in particular (p. 73).

Dependent development has been uneven, as economic growth has
been concentrated in particular sectors in each stage of metropolitan
capitalist development (Cardoso, 1972-3; Evans, 1975-6).7 During the
mercantile era, economic growth was primarily in the export sector
in many areas of the Third World. The decline of labor repressive
systems of commodity export production at the rise of metropolitan
competitive capitalism redirected economic growth to other sectors.
The plantation was the locus of export production and the major
vehicle for capital accumulation in the West Indies during the period
of mercantile capitalism. Following the transformation of the Bri-
tish economy to its competitive phase, the plantation lost its
position of economic dominance, giving way to export and food agri—
culture, and trade and light manufacturing, oriented both to the
national and international markets. The growing strength of the dom-
estic economy held promise of balanced growth, but the predilection
of West Indian producers for export and export-related activities
and the organization of metropolitan monopoly corporate agriculture
in the last decades of the nineteenth century, stalled this progres-
sion.

As I have stated in proposition 3, the transition from mer-

cantilism to competitive capitalism introduced changes in satellite I

147

class relations, especially Where systems of production dominant
during mercantilism fell into disarray. The rise of competitive cap-
"italism in the metropoles resulted in modifications in systems of
' production in the satellites which had fostered mercantilism, as elu-
cidated in proposition 1. The cause of decline of mercantile systems
of production was the irrationality of mercantile methods in a lib-
eralized world market, particularly labor repressive techniques.
Changes in satellite class relations rested on the rise of new types
of production compatible with "free trade," and were of two major
types. Where free labor and capital could be mixed to modernize
productive methods, a new class of owners of large-scale means of pro-
duction became dominant. The old planting class could not make
such a recovery itself, being debt-ridden and short of liquid capital--
as always under the mercantile arrangements of international trade.
These planters were often creolized Europeans but were occasionally
members of a national bourgeoisie now engaged in production of export
crops. In nineteenth century Cuba, a new class of planters emerged
shortly before the dismantling of the old plantation system. These
planters used slave labor, in fact, but only as a short-term tool in
the erection of plantation production with a high capital content.
In sum: the rise of the sugar ingenio in nineteenth century
Cuba represented the rise of a new class of capitalist slave-
holders for whom slavery was an economic expedient. Foreign
capital made its appearance, and the already well-developed
creole bourgeoisie intruded itself. As a result, we may postu-
late the coexistence of two radically different slave regimes.
In this setting, the movement of many of the creole sugar plan—
ters towards free labor, internal reform and independence from
Spain may be explained as a single process, albeit one well on
its way to a comprador status of junior partnership with Amer-
ican capitalism (p. 71).

In circumstances such as the Cuban, the new plantation did not

148

require as much labor as did the slave plantation of the mercantile
age. Before Abolition, surplus slaves could be sold, assuming there
was a market for them. If land was available, freed laborers might
become peasant farmers, but the tendency fOr the plantation to absorb
much of the surrounding land retarded peasant development. Without
local food production, the growth of an internal market was stifled.
Tenancy and migration to cities were often other alternatives for
ex-slaves.

The West Indies were the site of quite different developments.
The decline of the old, mercantile planting class led to the expan-
sion of the peasantry, and its assumption of many progressive national
bourgeois characteristics. With little capital available to reform
plantation production, many planters allowed their lands to pass into
the hands of their creditors, the long-distance merchants. Much
former plantation land was seized or purchased by ex-slaves, who be-
gan farming on small plots, growing food as well as export crops.
Manufacturing and local trade expanded too.

Where land of whatever quality was available, the (ex-
slaves) established subsistence plots which eventually were
able to produce marketable surpluses. A considerable degree
of diversification of the economies was the result. In addi-
tion to production of foodstuffs for sale in the domestic market,
the ex-slaves also introduced new export crops, such as ban-
anas. The money economy expanded, an infrastructure of foot-
paths (rudimentary roads) developed in the mountainous inter-
iors, an internal system of marketing emerged, a rudimentary
domestic banking and credit system gradually took form, and
linkages between the different production and service sectors
were established (Beckford, 1972, p. 47).

The economic power of planters, merchants and others associated with
the mercantile system of export agriculture further ebbed with the

challenge of indigenous producers of agricultural products and

149

manufactured goods. Some of these entrepreneurs formed an uneasy
coalition with mercantile forces, dependent upon them for the capital
and facilities for export and export-related production; other pea-
sants, craftsmen and traders embodied a truly progressive bourgeois
threat to export activities in general, in their contributions to
the building of an internal market.

The satellite state was altered in several respects with the
development of competitive capitalism in Europe. Of particular in-
terest here, are the effects of transformations of metropolitan and
satellite systems of production on the relative autonomy of the depen-
dent state, the composition of dependent and colonial state bodies,
and the functions of the colonial and dependent satellite states.

In colonial countries, the declining export economy that brought
class realignments caused a metropolitan retrenchment from the colon-
ies. Metropoles pulled away from the responsibilities of political
control and resisted the acquisition of more colonies; anti-colonial
feelings accompanied the acceptance of Free Trade as a means of
private accumulation that was less costly for the state than was
colonialism (Murray, forthcoming a; Gallagher and Robinson, 1953).

The metropolitan state continued to be "the locus of power"; "it re-
cruited labor, transferred capitalists and distributed the means of
production (land, mines)” (Petras, forthcoming b, p. 5). Where phys-
ical characteristics of the satellite precluded accumulation of a form
and quantity attractive to metropolitan capitalists or the metropol-
itan state itself, the metropolitan governments abdicated political
power and many expenditures to the satellite state. This allowed

the latter to assume more military and governmental functions, and

150

to grow in strength relative to the metropolitan state. The West
Indian states exercised increased power to raise and allocate funds
in the mid-nineteenth century. Because of the changing composition
of the legislatures with the departure from the islands of many of
the former estate owners and their representatives, revenues were
distributed in sectors that encouraged the development of an internal
market.

In colonies where sophisticated technology could be applied,
along with free labor, to better productivity on the plantation,
metropolitan political control did not abate, despite the free-trade
ideology of developed capitalist countries. The same can be said
about satellites that retained high levels of productivity after the
rise of free-trade. The metropoles withdrew when production of raw
materials in dependent nations was not profitable.

In the satellite countries of Latin America, the situation dif-
fered from that of colonies. As independent nations, these societies
were less directly influenced politically by shifts in metropolitan
trade policies. However, the rise of new classes to counter the econ-
omic hegemony of mercantile producers contributed to the long-term
change in membership in state bodies and the heightened tendency for
the state to serve as mediator among the metropolitan bourgeoisie,
the indigenous bourgeoisie and the landowning classes (Alavi, 1972).

The history of the West Indies in relation to the four proposi-
tions explored above is the subject of the pages that follow. These
four propositions are about the transition from British mercantile
to competitive capitalism and its consequences for the West Indies.

However, to understand changes in systems of production, class

151

relations, dependent development, and the state, we must comprehend
their forms in both the mercantile and competitive periods of Bri-
tish capitalism. The elaboration of this transition, then, is a
lengthy task. I have, therefore, divided the substantive part of
this chapter into two sections-~Foundations and Transition. In
“Foundations," I will describe the system of production dominant in
the West Indies during the British stage of mercantile capitalism,
characteristic patterns of class relations and dependent development,
and the form of the state. In "Transition," I will explain how and
why each of these four relations changed .‘during the period of British

competitive capitalism.

Part I. Foundations

West Indian Planting and British Mercantile Accumulation

Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados were discovered by Christopher
Columbus, and became areas of Spanish occupation for the exploitation
of precious metals and labor. However, they were not as useful for
these purposes as Cuba, Hispaniola or the mainland regions of South
and Central America. These islands became important, primarily, as
defensive strongholds from which the wealthier Spanish possessions
could be protected. In the process of Spanish conquest, the indig-
enous Arawaks and Caribs of the West Indies were wiped out. Guiana
and the Lesser Antilles were seized by the British, along with main-
land North America, in her fifteenth century mercantile explorations
of the New World. The decline of Spanish power in Europe lessened
her hold in the Americas, allowing Dutch shipping to dominate the

sea-lanes of the Caribbean.. The Dutch were more hospitable to

152

colonization by foreign nations in the area than the Spanish had

been; in a move of anti-Spanish expansion, the British captured
Jamaica in 1655. Britain's principal activity in the area was settle-
ment. Throughout the early seventeenth century, indentured servants
joined free settlers in the establishment of small farms on which they
raised food crops, and tobacco for export. By 1620, St. Kitts had
become the first successful settlement of the British in the Carib-
bean; Barbados became the most valued of all British colonies by
1640, with 30,000 settlers (Waddell, 1967, p. 40).

The tobacco cultivation in the non-Hispanic Caribbean could
not compete with Virginian tobacco, in quantity or quality. The
Dutch offered an alternative in sugar production, which they had
learned in Brazil. (Sugar had grown in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
previously, but failed to develop because of a lack of labor and
capital.) The Dutch supplied the capital and plants throughout the
West Indies and the European demand grew rapidly due largely to the
introduction there of coffee and tea (Waddell, 1967, p. 41).

Sugar is a crop that requires relatively high levels of vertical
integration at the site of cultivation; milling, boiling and crys-
tallizing must.be done immediately after the cane is cut. It is a
crop suitable to large-scale production, and, indeed, it was the
plantation that became the locus of sugar cultivation and rudimentary
refining done on the islands. Early plantations consisted of 200-

300 acres of cane field, feeding a single factory; tobacco cultiva-
tion, in contrast, involved units of under 30 acres. Thus, the "sugar
revolution" brought about a dramatic redistribution of land, and with

it, a demand for cheap labor (Waddell, 1967, p. 41).

153

The Spanish, British and French all tried to use Indian labor
in New World colonies on sugar and tobacco plantations and farms.

In the British areas, these efforts were neither extensive nor suc-
cessful. The British next brought poor white Europeans to the Amer-
icas under various systems of repressive labor, a policy consistent
with the mercantile concern that the poor be productively employed
and not dependent upon the state. 'In the early seventeenth century,
these European settlers came to farm tobacco as small holders, but
increasingly their labor was needed on sugar plantations. A regular
traffic in indentured servants developed between 1654 and 1685;
Williams (l966b, p. 10) claims that 10,000 sailed from Bristol alone
during those years. From 1640 to 1740, the growing numbers of Bri-
tish religious and political dissenters were punished by forced exile
to the New World, mostly to the West Indies. Williams suggests that
one of the most important tasks of the Colonial Board, instituted in
1661, was the regulation of trade in indentured servants (1966b,

p. 14). ‘

The exploitation of surplus labor from England in the New World
eventually gave way to the mercantile contention that the best way to
keep the costs of labor low at home was to have a large surplus labor-
ing population. By the mid-1600's, a drive for population growth was
developing in England. The Royal Africa Company was trading slaves,
and it became clear to the British state and capitalists that African
slavery offered several advantages over European indentured servants.
African slaves were better workers, seemingly more accustomed to the

8

tropical climate than Europeans; their children would be slaves while

those of indentured servants were free and often tried to become small

154

farmers, competing for land and labor with sugar plantation owners.

And the institution of African slavery solved the problem of how to

keep labor costs low at home. Moreover, the subjugation of Africans
to slavery was completely compatible with already developing notions
of white racial superiority.

Sugar in the Caribbean, cotton and tobacco on the North Amer-
ican mainland, provided the bases of African slavery in the New World.
In the Caribbean, the introduction of slaves gave the plantation
system strength and drove away the small farmers; in Barbados, in
1645, there were 11,500 small white farmers and 5,680 black slaves,
and by 1667, 745 owners had large plantations in Barbados, and 82,023
slaves (E. Williams, p. 23). The poor whites travelled throughout
the. Caribbean, looking for land on which to farm tobacco and other
crops on a small scale, but were displaced everywhere, eventually,
by sugar production and slavery. From 1682 to 1708, the number of
white men in Nevis decreased by more than three-fifths, and the black
population more than doubled; between 1672 and 1727, the white male
population of Montserrat declined by more than two-thirds while the
black population increased more than eleven times (Williams, l966b,
p. 24).

Sugar planting was a tremendous success for the planters of
the West Indies. The wealth of white plantation owners increased
enormously; Williams reports that over twenty months from 1649 to
1650, the Barbadian sugar crop was worth over 3 million pounds, which
is about 15 million pounds in post-World War II British sterling.

In 1666, Barbados was calculated to be about seventeen times richer

than before sugar was planted there. Land prices skyrocketed; in

155

1640, a plantation of 500 acres sold for f400, while in 1648, a half-
share in a plantation was worth about f7000 (Williams, 1966b, p. 25).
The increasing wealth of the West Indies led to greater polit-
ical and economic control of these colonies by Britain. Until the
1650's, leading settlers of the colonies had determined internal
policies, with little supervision from the home government. More-
over, Dutch mercantile supremacy throughout the seventeenth century
made Dutch buyers of sugar and sellers of simple manufactures from
Europe the most significant international traders for the British
West Indies. In 1651, the Commonwealth government in England restric-
ted the trade of British colonies to British Ships. Other mercantilist
policies were enacted; effectively, all trade between colonies had
to pass through England. The consequence was the creation of "an
exclusive, self-sufficient imperial system, designed to be conducive
both to the security of the mother country, by stimulating its mari-
time power, and to its prosperity, by expanding its trade" (Williams,
1966b, p. 45). A defiant Barbados, which remained Royalist after
the English Civil.War, continued to trade with the Dutch, and incurred
Commonwealth military intervention. By 1660, the British monarchy
was restored and all the colonies were brought under direct control
of the Crown. Local assemblies of settlers, which had developed to
initiate localpolicies, were confirmed, but their power was checked.
The Dutch were eliminated from the area's trade by Britain's
mercantile policies. A bankrupt Dutch West Indian Company fell in
1674. The Spanish strength in the region was challenged by the French
and British, and the Spanish were finally driven from the Caribbean.

As Williams explains:

156

England's victory over Holland left her face to face with

France. Anglo-French warfare, colonial and commercial is the

dominant theme in the history of the eighteenth century. .Lp

was a conflict of rival mercantilisms (emphasis mine). The'
struggle was faight out in the Caribbean, Africa, India, Can-
ada and on the banks of the Mississippi, for the privilege of
looting India and for the control of certain vital and strate-
gic commodities--Negroes;-sugar and tobacco; fish; furs and
naval stores. Of these, the most important were the Caribbean
and Africa; of the commodities, the most important were Negroes

and sugar (1966b, p. 40).

The eighteenth century establishment of British mercantile heg-
emony over her European rivals made possible the rapid and revolu-
tionary industrialization of England. The West Indies were crucial
to the accumulation of wealth that allowed this industrial surge,
and they created a demand for many manufactured goods needed for the
production and trade of sugar. And slaves, the basis of West Indian
sugar production "made these the most precious colonies recorded in
the whole anals of imperialism" (Williams, p. 52). Williams notes
that an observer of the period wrote that every family in the West
Indies gave employment to five seamen and many more artificers,
manufacturers and tradesmen, and that every white person in the is-
lands brought in flO annual clear profit to England, twenty times
as much as a similar person in England (p. 53).

The West Indies, then, were tremendously profitable to British
merchants and planters. The initial outlay of capital for the pur-
chase of plantations and slaves by individual planters came generally
from merchants. Further investment capital was derived from sugar
profits, or from loans from refining factories in England. Waddell
notes that in the late 1700's, much of the profit from sugar cultiva-
tion was finding its way into the pockets of factory owners, not the

planter (p. 54). For the planter, the achievement of perpetually

157

high profit levels ran counter to the exigencies of sugar production.
First, the constant cropping of sugar, necessitated by the use of
slave labor, caused severe soil depletion. The planters had to race
against the exhaustion of soil; by the early 1700's, the small Bri-
tish islands, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, had reached the limits
of economic production and costs steadily rose. Sugar was planted in
Jamaica to secure the benefits of new, fresh land, but the West Indies
still could not satisfy rising levels of European demand for sugar.
The merchants opposed further colonization, fearing that competition
among British islands would drive down prices; the mercantile commit-
ment to the restriction of growing areas was one of several issues
on which the planters and merchants necessarily disagreed. The plan-
ters enjoyed a guaranteed quota of the British market as long as
they could sell their sugar to merchants at attractive prices, but
this required room to expand once the land in a given area had ceased
to be sufficiently productive. Because of merchant opposition, Bri-
tish competitive capitalist anti-colonialism, and economic difficul-
ties, the British West Indian planters could not extend sugar produc-
tion far enough or fast enough to escape the destruction of sugar
lands. The economic decline of the British West Indies in the mid-
1800's came as a result of the merchants' winning of the right to
buy sugar from non-British sources when the British West Indies could
produce only inferior quality, expensive sugar.

The planters also suffered from fluctuations in the price of
sugar and slaves. Furthermore, mercantile policy dictated the purchase
of foodstuffs and simple manufactures from Britain or British colonies.

These goods were not produced locally because planters controlled most

158

land, labor and capital in the region, and provided an attractive,
though limited market for goods and services. The importation of
relatively cheap British (and North American) fOod and manufactured
goods further discouraged indigenous economic development. More-
over, the exchange of raw materials for food and finished goods be-
tween Britain and her colonies became a struCtural basis for Britain's
great wealth, and long-distance merchants, domestic farmers and man-
ufacturers used whatever political means available to resist devia-
tion from this pattern. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth cen-
turies, the British North American colonies supplied the British West
Indies with food in exchange for the sugar by-products, rum and mol-
asses. After the American War of Independence (caused, in part, by
the British government's insistence that the U.S. observe mercantile
policy and purchase only British West Indian sugar and molasses),

the West Indies were bound to trade with England; moreover, the Ameri-
cans refused to ship their exports to the West Indies in British

9 The British West Indian planters had seen the American Revol-

ships.
ution coming and had opposed the Stamp Act in an effort to forestall
it; nothing could make up for the loss of the American colonies to
the West Indies. Their worst fears were realized when the break
actually came; from 1780 to 1787, 15,000 Jamaican slaves died of
famine as a result of the inability of planters to afford British
foodstuffs.10
Thus, the termination of West Indian-U.S. trade was another
problem for the never stable British West Indian sugar industry, and
the first step in the "uninterrupted decline" of the area (Williams,

1966, p. 120). The future was now complicated by the high price of

159

British imports, the American sale of cheaper goods to the competi-
tors of the French sugar islands, along with the American purchase

of non-British sugar and sugar by-products. As Williams suggests,

the emergence of the United States as an autonomous economic buyer and
seller destroyed the mercantile system in the Americas and discre-

dited the old regime (p. 120).

Mercantile Class Relations I: Britain

Yet, even with the intrinsic problems of sugar production in
the West Indies, fortunes were made from sugar production, transport
and marketing, fortunes that became an important foundation of Bri-
tish industrializaion. There were two major groups that benefited
directly from sugar production—-merchants and planters. The merchants
accumulated wealth by several means: 1) loans to planters to initiate
production and buy slaves, 2) sustainingloans that frequently reached
such levels that merchants assumed the mortgages of plantations,
3) purchase of sugar from planters and its sale to refiners in England,
4) purchase of manufactured goods and food in England and sale to West
Indian planters, 5) other investments and services, including shipping,
marketing, etc.

Because of the merchants' access to capital they were in a dom-
. inant position vis a vis the planters in all respects. Curtin (1955)
explains that each estate had a close credit connection in England,
usually with a merchant house in London, Liverpool, Bristol or Glasgow.
In the fall of each year, the planter sent an order fbr supplies
needed during the coming season; the mortgage for the estate, held

by the merchant house, secured payment for these goods. The granting

160

of credit in this way bound the planter to the merchant for his goods,
their shipment, and the purchase and transport of his sugar. To

his other debts were added the merchant's commission for handling
each of these transactions. Curtin suggests that by the end of a
few years the mortgage might equal the property value of an estate,
and by 1830, a general fall in property values made some mortgages
higher than property values. The merchants continued to receive in-
terest on the original loan, had a monopoly of the estate's business
and, thus, the opportunity to charge non-competitive prices for com~
missions. Curtin notes that it was frequently more profitable for
the merchant to avoid foreclosing on the property, allowing the debt
to mount11 (p. 12).

The planters themselves often became holders of rentier capital,
the basis of future overseas British investment. The sugar planter
was one of the most prosperous capitalists of mercantile England. It
was the goal of most to return to England, with a fortune, and to be
accepted into the lower echelons of the aristocracy. There were many
cases in the eighteenth century of individuals rising from humble
origins to amass great wealth as West Indian sugar estate owners.
Through attorneys and managers, estate proprietors could direct
their enterprises in the West Indies from the comfort of Britain;
by 1800, absentee ownership was the norm in the West Indies. In 1830,
approximately two-thirds of all Jamaican estates were owned by propri-
etors not in residence on the island. Curtin (1955, p. 15) insists
that the failure of planters to attend directly to sugar production,
adopting modern technology and increasing efficienty, was one of the

principal reasons fbr the mid-nineteenth century decline of the West

161

Indies.

In England, the planters, merchants and colonial agents consti-
tuted the West Indies lobby. Ten or fifteen members of the Society
of Planters and Merchants held seats in Parliament and Williams
suggests that they could be fOund throughout England in positions of
power, as members of the House of Lords, as aldermen, mayors, council-
lors, etc. (pp. 94-5). They were allied with the dominant eighteenth
century mercantile interests, including the landed aristocracy and
commercial bourgeoisie of the seaport towns (p. 96). Willimas calls
these representatives of West Indian sugar production the "enfants
terribles" of England, sharing in the mercantile domination of English
politics and economy, demanding favors and perquisites in a race
against the consequences of inefficient sugar production and other
contradictions and weaknesses of the mercantile system (Williams,
1966, p. 97).

Despite the tensions built into their alliance, British merchants
and planters shared an early interest in increasing the immense volume
of mercantile trade. As noted earlier, the two major consequences of
this trade fbr British industry were in the accumulation of mercantile
wealth as the basis for capital investment in manufacturing, and the
demand fbr goods and services complementary to sugar production and
slave trading. To appreciate the role of the West Indies in British
mercantile trade, we can note observations from the period, presented
by Williams (1966, p. 53). In 1775, British West Indian plantations
represented a value of f50 million and sugar planters themselves put
the figure at f70 million in 1788. In 1798, Pitt assessed the annual

British income from West Indian plantations at f4 million compared

162

with British earnings of fl million from trade in the rest of the
world. In 1776, Charles Whitsworth made a complete compilation from
offical records of import and export trade of Great Britain from
1697 to 1773. For 1697, the West Indian colonies supplied 9% of
British imports, the mainland supplied 8%; 4% of British exports
went to the West Indies, slightly less than 4% of British exports
went to the American mainland; the West Indies accounted fbr 7% of
Britain's total trade, the American mainland accounted for 6%. In
1773, the West Indies bought fewer British goods than did the Amer-
ican mainland, but their superiority to the mainland as suppliers

to Britain is striking. In 1773, nearly 1/4 of British imports came
from all the Caribbean area, one-eighth from the entire American
mainland; the Caribbean purchased more than 8% of British exports in
that year, the mainland 16%. In 1773, 15% of Britain's total trade
was with the West Indies, 14% of Britain's total trade was with the
American mainland.

The great seaport towns, Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, grew
out of the West Indian mercantile boom. The slave trade was the basis
of Bristol's rise in the eighteenth century. The value of slave
trading in Liverpool eventually surpassed that of Bristol, and the
latter city turned to the direct sugar trade. The sugar refining
industry of Bristol was the most important manufacturing industry in
the Empire in the late eighteenth century. In 1799, 20 refiners
operated in Bristol, and 120 refiners could be found in all of England.
Glasgow, too, was the site of sugar refineries, dating back to about
1650 (Williams, 1966b, pp. 73-4).

The interests of refiners were those of an incipient manufacturing

163

class. They transformed the crude sugar processed on the plantation,
into white sugar that could be stored. In the 1700's, duties on
imported brown sugar were four times higher than those on white sugar.
This policy underscored mercantile hegemony over planters; merchant
houses strove to keep prices high, in opposition to refiners and
owners of manufacturing and service industries related to sugar
refining. The refiners of WestminSter, Southwark and Bristol com-
plained to Parliament about the prohibitive prices of West Indian
sugar and the resulting competitive prices of British refined sugar
on the world market. Eventually refiners would protest mercantile
exclusiveness, demanding the right to buy French raw sugar. But,
throughout the eighteenth century, mercantilism--West.Indian planters
and traders--prevailed, and the British government did little more
than propose more English settlement in the West Indies to increase
the supply of sugar and drive down the price of raw sugar imports.

Other industries developed in Britain in response to the needs
of sugar producers and traders, and, in some cases, from capital earned
directly from sugar planting, trading and refining. Williams notes
that capital from "triangular trade" connecting British manufacturers,
African slavers and West Indian sugar producers financed James Watt's
development and manufacture of the steamship. The manufacture of
ships, transport materials, even slave chains, grew out of the needs
of West Indian sugar production; Lloyd's insurance company dates from
this period and was established in response to the needs of mercantil-
ists and financiers to protect their investments in trade.

These enterprises--sugar refining, ships, tools--were among

the first of Britain's coming industrial revolution. But English

164

industry was, in 1783, "like Gulliver, tied down by the Lilliputian
restrictions of mercantilism" (Williams, 1966, p. 107). Industry

had to break out of the bonds of mercantilism; the price of West .
Indian raw sugar to British refiners was only one mark of the conse-
quences of mercantilism for budding British industry. The heightened
contradictions of mercantilism were manifested in the deterioration
of relations between planters of West Indian sugar and merchants;
theirs was an unstable coalition, tenable through their mutual strug-

gle against the forces of competitive, free-trade capitalism.

Mercantile Class Relations 11: The West Indies

The growing absence of the planting class in the West Indies
left a system of class relations in exile from the metropolitan seat
of power and influence. In the place of proprietors, representatives
with the power of attorney directed the individual plantations and
held political power within West Indian societies. Curtin (p. 16)
states that "planting attorneys" formed a group of professional rep—
resentatives; an attorney often managed more than one estate, some-
times as many as ten to fifteen. The attorneys received about 5%
or 6% of the sale price of each crop shipped from the West Indies,
the use of the plantation "Great House" and servants, in addition
to the profit made from a variety of illegal and semi-legal practices
they could easily adopt. Curtin suggests that the hiring of attorneys
to manage plantation affairs was still another drain on the profits
of plantations. These surrogates were among the most wealthy men
in Jamaica, owning and earning less than the proprietor, but guar-

anteed a constant and sizable annual income (p. 16).

165

The overseer managed the day to day needs of the plantation;
Curtin claims that attorneys might not visit the plantations more
often than twice during a year. Also a white man, the overseer en-
joyed power on the plantation, a steady, sizable income, and social
status within the society dominated by sugar planting. The over-
seers earned about f200 annually, in contrast to an attorney's pos-
sible annual earnings of f8-10,000. Nevertheless, the overseer's
income was more than adequate, with servants and housing provided on
the plantation and a scarcity of consumer goods available on the
island.

Other whites worked on the estates, mostly performing the tasks
of bookkeeping and skilled crafts. Curtin tells us that whites
generally came from England, seeking to make their fortunes with
neither skill nor experience. Wages were high, relative to the costs
of living on the plantation, and white skin insured status in island
society and steady employment. A quota of whites was required on the
sugar islands by the Deficiency Laws, lest rebellious blacks easily
overcome the white population.

The political institutions of the islands were almost exclusively
in the hands of whites. The executive government was managed by royal
officials sent from England. The legislative assembly was restricted
to property owners; property ownership was restricted to whites. 'The
relationship between the legislative and executive branches of island
governments mirrored the conflicting interests of planters and mer-
chants. The planting class struggled to survive the physical exigen-
cies of sugar planting; despite the number of his estates or thier

location within the Caribbean region, the inevitability of soil

166

depletion stalked the planter. His interest was maximum profit from

sugar production, thus maximum prices from British sugar merchants.

And for these merchants, sugar was only one of many possible sources

of profit, some of which conflicted with sugar planting and the

sugar planter's demands for high prices. Similarly, the British

Crown had many colonial responsibilities, and from each she wanted

to derive maximum profits with minimal costs. The colonial governor

had the responsibility to uphold the Crown's rights and ministry's

policies, in particular to raise adequate revenues to support colonial

expenses. The latter task led to inevitable conflict with the assembly,

the members of which were reluctant to tax themselves. The assemblies

generally resisted colonial intrusion into local affairs, and used

various methods to restrain imperial power on the islands, including

the refusal to vote the money for necessary expenditures until pol-

icies favorable to them were initiated by the governor. In fact, the

eighteenth century was a period of increased assembly power in opposi-

tion to the royal executive.12
The towns of the West Indies were not well developed. Long-

distance trade dominated the port towns, and these areas were peopled

by merchants and other whites involved in international trade.13

The
increasing numbers of manumitted slaves, particularly those of colored
or Afro-European descent, populated seaport and inland towns, acting
as petty traders and craftsmen. Hall (1972) claims that while pub-
lished accounts about Jamaican society for the pre-Emancipation period
are diffuse and imprecise (although numerous), they indicate clearly

that the free Afro-Europeans constituted an important social class

in the British Caribbean, and were members of the only racial category

167

to replace itself through natural increase. A large percentage of
the free non-white population in Jamaica was of mixed descent, the
progency of white and free colored, white and slave, free colored and
free colored, or free colored and slave.14

The free colored population had the right to property ownership,
and-thus political office, until the mid-1700's, when whites enacted
laws to prevent colored ownership of property or ascent to positions
of power and influence. In 1711, the Jamaican legislature excluded
free Afro-Europeans from employment in political or public office;
in 1713, the right to vote was abrogated; in 1761, Afro-Europeans
were fOrbidden from buying or inheriting (from a white person) pro-
perty of value in excess of a particular value (f2000). Other civil
rights were annulled throughout the eighteenth century.

Hall (1972, pp. 193-213) asserts that the opposition to civil
and political liberties for the colored population was often racial;
the white assembly members believed that racial equality was immoral.
Others defended white social exclusivity because they feared an
erosion of their own status. All shared a fear of slave revolts.

The free colored group petitioned for a return of their rights on

the basis of their past privilege, says Hall, and not for reason of
the principle of racial equality. In 1830, all men were declared
equal in civil and political rights, without regard to racial origins.
It is interesting to note, however, that free Afro-Eruopeans migrated
to towns, unwilling to directly support the plantation system. Those
that stayed in the agricultural sector did not serve as laborers

on plantations, but became proprietors of land and slaves, or shop-

. keepers; townsmen became skilled in many areas, including carpentry,

168

masonry, as apprentices to long-distance traders, even lawyers and
schoolteachers. It is clear that the goods and services provided
by this colored group were often determined by the exigencies of
the plantation system.

Nonetheless, this middle strata of colored West Indians may
have constituted a serious economic threat to the shaky mercantile
plantation system. The free Afro-Europeans did not comprise a large
or cohesive national bourgeoisie, but they challenged the traditional
holders of land, capital and labor and made efforts to enlarge the
domestic market for food, manufactured goods and services. The col-
lapse of the mercantile system would thrust them in the position of
a national bourgeois class with strengthened progressive elements.
This may explain further the great antipathy of the white population
of the West Indies towards the colored.

The mass of inhabitants of the West Indies were black slaves.
Their work was primarily on the plantations, ranging from the higher
status domestic and managerial tasks to labor in the fields. They
lived in "villages" on the plantations and farmed small plots and
uncultivated land, for food and a small surplus that could be sold in
the towns. The West Indian slave population could never replace
itself through natural increase; malnutrition, poor working condi-
tions, etc., depleted the number of slaves. It was less costly to
planters to buy new slaves than to provide the conditions necessary
for natural replenishment. The slaves exhibited extremely low levels
of individual productivity. Waddell (p. 52) suggests that the sugar
planter had to own one slave per plantation acre to assure prosperity.

The value of slaves increased as the sugar lands grew less fertile.

169

For many years, stronger and more productive slaves were sold to

North American plantation owners after a sojourn in the West Indies.
After the British abolition of the slave trade in the early nine-
teenth century, slaves were scarce and their value fOr sale to planters
in North America and the Caribbean increased even more.

Reexaminin the "Plantation Societyfz West Indian
Class Relations and Dependent Development

 

I have contended that the plantation structure is not an appro-
priate conceptual alternative to class analysis based on the relation-
ship of particular groups to the means of production. In Chapter I,

I examined the conceptual weakness of the plantation thesis, including
the following: 1) the focus on the organization of the plantation
precludes an understanding of the class relations of those associated
with the plantation, either at the site of production, or in the pro-
vision of captial, or labor in the form of peasant production along-
side the plantation; 2) because of this emphasis on organization
rather than social groups, we do not have a sense of how the inter-
action and conflicts of social groups constitute a dynamic of develop-
ment in the metrople, 3) nor is the dynamic of development delineated
for the satellite.

These problems with the plantation thesis are most clearly man-
ifested empirically in the consideration of the roles of two groups
in the "plantation economy"--long-distance traders and manumitted
slaves-~and in the discussion of the contribution to West Indian
development of non-export or export-related enterprises.

In the mid-nineteenth century, international mercantile inter-

ests generally recognized the limitations of successful plantation

170

production in the West Indies, and sought more lucrative sources of
wealth elsewhere. Although advocates of the plantation thesis recog-
nize the abdication of mercantile capital from the fortunes of the
plantation system at the beginnings of British competitive capitalism,
they have tended to ignore the long history of conflict between plan-
ters and merchants that accompanied the establishment and maintenance
of plantation sugar production. Although theirs was a necessary I
alliance, conflict over credit, prices, expansion, etc., was constant
and, to a large degree, inherent to the relationship. Merchants and
planters alike were driven out of the sugar business.

Merchants were equally likely to differ among themselves, with
shippers and with local traders, all part of the plantation "society"
according to the structuralists. Clearly, there is a likelihood of
misrepresenting the cohesion of classes in conceptualizations which
associate the source of capital, the means of marketing and the unit
of production itself when they are not formally part of a "firm."

The most serious empirical problemswith the conceptual joining
of British merchants to the plantation "society" derive from the in-
stability of the merchant's attachment to a particular sugar planta-
tion or to the plantation system itself. As noted, sugar planting
and trade was only one source of wealth for most merchant houses.

The latter invested money in the most immediately highly profitable;
enterprise, abandoning failing industries or regions. But plantation
sugar production required constant expansion to keep prices attrac-
tively low to merchants. The planter who could not move, or move
fast enough, faced a drying up of credit and supplies and possible

foreclosure. The financing of sugar planting by merchant houses

171

meant a constant shift from one source of low priced sugar to ano-
ther; in speaking of a merchant-planter coalition, we mean a union
of particular, often prominent merchant houses, with a general class
of planters, the members of which frequently changed.

Manumitted slavesand free born Afro-Europeans were not wanted
on the plantations as wage laborers, and preferred the autonomy of
peasant agriculture, and petty trade and manufacture in the cities.
Douglas Hall (1972) reports on the occupations of free Afro-Europeans
in Jamaica in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He contends
that some Afro-Europeans engaged in agriculture, frequently as small
plantation owners, buying slaves to work the land. But most went to
towns, where they worked in a variety of positions. Free colored
men were found in trade, as "hucksters" and "higglers," as shopkeepers.
Some acquired skills and tools, as carpenters, masons, wheelrights,
plumbers and other artisans. Others worked for white merchants and
professionals. Hall notes that there were free Afro-Europeans who,
with the privilege of education or financial resources, worked as
journalists, lawyers,school<teachars, innkeepers and merchants in
their own account. Some of the merchants became creditors to estates
to which they supplied goods and, through accumulated capital and
credit, they assumed ownership of plantations.

Theories of the plantation economy and society do not accurately
represent the number of non-plantation producers in the society during
the mercantile era. The townspeople and peasants constituted a small
national bourgeoisie that would expand after Emancipation. Their
interests were not synonymous with those of planters or long distance

merchants. Conflicts were based on racial differences, as well as

172

varying degrees of competition for economic and political resources.
Moreover, their roles in economic development should not be ignored,
as local crafts, trade and non-plantation agriculture were the only
means of domestic capital accumulation at this time.

Non-export or export-related production in the West Indies
during the mercantile era was, of course, narrow in range and low in
volume. Nevertheless, there was a small internal market for the
trade and barter of food (much of which was grown by slaves) and simple
crafts. The free non-whites, many of whom were Afro-European, acted
as producers of these types of goods and as traders in the internal
market. Not all of these productive enterprises yielded cash; barter-
ing was a common practice. It is true, however, that production for
use and barter was a basis for expansion of food and manufacturing,
as occurred following the transition to competitive capitalism by
the British and the attendant shift in West Indian class relations
and systems of production.

The dominant pattern of West Indian development during the Bri-
tish mercantile period, however, points to both dependency and uneven
economic growth in the region. These societies were, of course,
dominated by foreign capital and technology. Importation of these
factors of production contributed to what I have defined as the basis
of dependent development--low levels of domestic capital accumulation.
Considerably less wealth could be accumulated in the West Indies than,
for example, in the early capitalist countries of Europe, because of
the foreign ownership of the plantation and marketing, transport and
refining facilities. Enterprises serving the plantation, and export

agriculture generally--the principal types of production undertaken

173

by those not directly employed on the plantation--did not have pro-
fitable spin-offs. Other businesses--local trade and crafts--found
a small market in the plantation for goods and services, and one
that would not expand easily given the constraints against erecting
new estates (capital costs and the generally high price and scarcity
of land), and the tendency for parts of the production process to be
carried out abroad. Furthermore, much of the equipment and other
goods needed on the plantation were imported.

Uneven development is exemplified both in the dominance of the
plantation in the West Indies of the mercantile age, and in the fact
that domestic entrepreneurship was often directed to the provision
of goods and services for the plantation system or to the growing of
export crops itself. The internal market for the exchange of locally
produced crafts and foodstuffs was extremely small, and suggests the
limited potential for balanced economic growth in the region at the

time.

The West Indian Colonial State and British Mercantilism

The development of the state in the satellites of Western
Europe varied from the patterns set in the metropoles themselves.15
The history of government and other political institutions in the
West Indies is even more divergent from metropolitan developments,
as the West Indies lacked a pre-capitalist foundation.

Most present Third World countries share a pre-capitalist tra-
dition of joint religious-political-economic control, characteristic

of medieval Europe (Dowd, p. 246); the West Indies' first political

institutions were those of direct and absolute colonial control that

174

was typical of European mercantilist expansion (Alavi, 1972; Petras,
forthcoming b). As the absolutist governments of mercantile Europe
relinquished control of the economy of competitive capitalism to

the market, pluralist and increasing democratic political institutions
arose at home and in many of the colonies. For the West Indies and
some other colonies, the ever more powerful parliaments and assem-
blies of the nineteenth century were the first real "state" organs,
and marked the first indigenous attempts to channel capital accumula-
tion to social groups not directly representative of metropolitan
interests. The role of the state in class societies has been the
"preservation and rationalization of a given socio-economic order,
particularly the system of production and the class relations it
embodies" (Hamilton, 1975, p. 82). In the mercantile period, the
strong state apparatus of the metropoles extended to the hinterland,
”preserving and rationalizing" the system of production of the metro-
poles that included industries located in the satellites (Murray,
forthcoming a). During the period of competitive capitalism, new
classes emerged in Europe, as the capitalist mode of production fully
evolved, displacing the mercantile-agricultural coalition. Likewise,
new classes arose in some satellite societies, seeking to encourage
new systems and techniques of capitalist production that could succeed
those of mercantile capitalism. In the British Empire, the colonies
in which these developments occurred were of two general types:

a) the Dominions, for which industrial capitalism was necessary to

insure markets for British capital goods,16

and b) the dependences,
such as the West Indies, where mercantile systems of production could

not survive the abolition of trade preferences. Many lands conquered

175

by Britain during the period of competitive capitalism (e.g., Southern
Burma, parts of India and Africa), and others able to survive the end
of mercantile supports, were characterized by direct colonial rule
and the labor repressive, inefficient mercantile systems of production
designed for short-run, immense profits. The discussion of West In-
dian dependent development suggested the limited nature of West In-
dian economic development from 1846 to 1930; nevertheless, non-plan-
tation agriculture for export and of a more diversified nature devel-
oped, as did crafts and expanded internal and long-distance trade.
The farmers, traders and entrepreneurs engaged in these activities
sought representation in political bodies and experienced conflict
with traditional planting interests over many issues, including rep-
resentation itself.

Turning to the case of the West Indies, the process of metro-
politan political retreat can be traced. From the seventeenth
through early nineteenth centuries, the British ruled the West Indies
through colonial governors who directed colonial activities in the
shared interests of the British merchants and planters represented
in the weak legislatures. The British government itself recognized
its citizens there, and their economic activities, but was unmindful
of the exploited slaves or others with potentially divergent interests,
i.e., free Afro-Europeans in the towns. Little funding was allocated
by the Crown for the building of an infrastructure or the welfare of
the underlying population. Political favors were frequently granted
to mercantile and planting groups, which occasionally took the form
of economic benefits (e.g., tariff preferences), but the West Indies

received little direct aid.

176

Prior to the decline of West Indian sugar production, colonial
planters held secure positions in the island legislatures. The two
legislative bodies of the Jamaican government, the Assembly and
Legislative Council, were kept under the control of planting inter-
ests by policies restricting voting and office holding to land owners
(Hall, 1959, p. 3). While colonial governors held ultimate power in
West Indian societies, the legislatures could influence the governor
by refusing to vote revenues for necessary expenditures, and they
influenced the choice of governor. As noted earlier, the Crown,
through its representative, the governor, often disagreed with
members of the legislature on matters of fiscal policy; the legis-
latures resisted taxation, the rates and scope of which increased as
the mercantile government of England sought to spend as little as
possible on maintaining the colonies. The single category of expense
the planting class found justifiable was that which made cheaper the
transport of sugar to the port towns and across the seas, and the

transport of imports to the plantations.

Part II. Transition

British Cgmpetitive Capitalism and the Decline
of West Indian Sugar Production

 

Adam Smith recognized the long-term folly of slave labor, and
of the continued application of mercantile relations when British
industry was attempting to establish itself. In Britain, industrial-
ists became increasingly aware of the impossibility of development
within the confines of mercantilism, and struggled throughout the
eighteenth century against mercantile hegemony, as outlined in Chap-

ter 111.. Sugar planters of the West Indies were well aware of the

177

steady erosion of plantation land under the joint pressure of sugar
monoculture and slave labor, but were powerless to fight a natural
development that neither movement to another island nor political
influence in England could forever stall.

The British mercantilists and West Indian planters were allied
in their opposition to British industrialization through the first
half of the nineteenth century, together resisting, in the British
Parliament and elsewhere, industrial threats to the monopoly agree-
ments for British farmers, sugar planters, shippers, etc. Through
the end of the eighteenth century, Parliament remained loyal to
"King sugar"; the Molasses Act of 1733 favored sugar planters by pro-
hibiting American exports to foreign islands and imposing high duties
on foreign sugar and molasses, and was reinforced by the Sugar
Duties Act of 1764, the enforcement of which was one of the causes
of the American revolution. However, even at this time of strong
merchant-planter alliance and political power, the increasing cost
of West Indian sugar was driving British merchants away from West
Indian sugar planters and other casualties of mercantilism, into the
ranks of the industrialists of England.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the greatest cause of con-
cern to West Indian planters was the threat of French competition
with their own sugar. The French sugar islands were settled later
than the British, and, thus, were more fertile. 'In the late eigh-
‘teenth century, French West Indian sugar cost one-fifth less than
British West Indian; the average yield of St. Dominique sugar plan-
tations was five times greater than those of Jamaica (Williams,

1966, p. 122). Williams offers some other interesting statistics

178

comparing French and British West Indian sugar production. From
1771 to 1781, the plantations of the Long family in Jamaica earned
an average profit of 9 1/2%, and in 1774, the profit rate was 16%.
In 1788, the average net profit of Jamaican sugar plantations was

4% compared to the average net profit of 8 to 12% in St. Dominique.
In 1775, Jamaica had 775 plantations; by 1791, of every 123 sold for
debt, 12 were in the hands of receivers, 7 had been abandoned. In
1788, St. Dominique's exports were twice those of Jamaica; in 1789,
the exports of St. Dominique were valued at one-third more than
those of all the British West Indies combined.

Other new areas of sugar production, both inside and outside
the British Empire (Cuba, Brazil, the East Indies), tempted merchants
with their lower priced sugar. The British West Indies might have
withstood the competition, had they emphasized efficient management,
advanced technology, sophisticated farming methods and wage labor,
but all of this was antithetical to the logic of mercantile accumula-

tion.17

Both planters and merchants preferred the rapid, cheap
scheme of slave-based plantation production of sugar, as it allowed
both to amass fortunes, and then move on to the rentier status the
planters sought, or other quick means of commercial wealth for the
trader. Moreover, European countries were increasingly able to
produce their own sugar, through beet cultivation. During the time
of the Napoleonic Wars, the governments of continental Europe

stimulated beet sugar production by subsidizing costs of production.
By the 1830's, continental Europe produced one-third of domestic

sugar consumed. Ragatz (p. 338) claims that West Indian sugar

reached its lowest price in history in the 1820's; during 1821 and

179

1822, West Indian raw sugar frequently sold at an acutal loss to
the planter.

These misfortunes of the West Indian planters intersected with
the general movement among British industrialists demanding cheaper
raw materials and expanding markets for manufactured goods. In
July, 1783, an Order in Council decreed free trade between Britain and
the United States; from 1784 to 1790, the volume of British imports
from the United States rose by 50% above the level of the years
immediately preceding this period, and, following the invention of
the cotton gin, British imports from the United States increased
from the value of $9 million in 1792 to about $31 million in 1801
(p. 131).

From 1820 to 1830, the United States took about one-sixth of
British exports. Following Spanish losses of territory in the New
World, Britain was free to trade in Central and South America. There,
too, British exports penetrated the area, with the support of both
manufacturers and traders at home. The value of British exports
to the world increased from f43 million in 1821, to f65 million in
1832. During the same period, the British West Indies' share of
British exports declined by one-fifth, Jamaica's by one-third; in
1821, the British West Indies took one-ninth of total British exports
and, in 1833, only one-seventeenth. In 1825, the Navigation Laws
were modified and colonies were given permission to trade directly
with any part of the world. A major mercantile convention had been
rejected by increasingly powerful British manufacturers, joined by
merchants eager to sell manufactures throughout the world and to

sell raw materials without the required intervention of British

180

shippers. In the same year, the sugar of Mauritius (acquired by
Britain in 1815) was admitted to Britain on the same basis as Bri-
tish West Indian sugar. The British West Indies thus suffered a
fundamental threat to its existence, forced to share the British
market with East Indian sugar. Planters became convinced of the
eventual repeal of preferences for British West Indian sugar, an
action that would take place in 1846 (Williams, 1966b, p. 132).

In 1783, Prime Minister Pitt had begun to take a considerable
interest in the East Indies and its potential for wealth, and four
years later encouraged the British abolitionist and statesman, Wil-
berforce, to sponsor the abolition of the slave trade. Independent
of the abolitionists' moral cries, politicians saw an economic rela-
tionship between the continuation of the slave trade and the contin-
ued costly monopoly of West Indian sugar. The islands of the West
Indies, including the older sugar islands, such as Jamaica and Bar-
bados, and the newer, like British Guiana, produced in excess of 25%
of the British West Indian sugar quota, even as Britain purchased
sugar from other countries. Overproduction of expensive West Indian
sugar demanded abolition of the slave trade in 1807; continued over-
production required the emancipation of British West Indian slaves
in 1833 (Williams, p. 152). Slavery was a form of repressive labor
well suited to mercantilism, making possible rapid capital accumula-
tion; but industrial capitalism in Britain demanded a more rational
form of raw material production that would not result in the soil
depletion and inefficient management that quickly destroyed slave-
based plantations.

The consequences of these two events, the abolition of the slave

181

trade, and of slavery, were profound in the West Indies. As noted,
West Indian sugar reached its lowest price in history in the 1820's
(Ragatz, p. 338). From 1813 to 1833, Jamaica's sugar production de—
clined by about one-sixth; exports of sugar from Antigua, Nevis

and Tobago dropped by more than one-quarter. The newer sugar islands
in the West Indies and elsewhere still prospered, but for each, it
was a race against time; in 1820, the sugar exports of Maurtius to
Britain were less than those of Antigua, but by 1833, Maurtius expor-
ted four times more sugar to Britain than did Antigua.

The West Indian sugar planters of the older islands favored
Abolition and emancipation, as they were most severely hurt by over-
production. Yet, as the above figures indicate, the ending of the
use of slave labor was only a stopgap measure in relieving the mis-
eries of West Indian sugar producers. The older islands continued
to suffer from the competitive advantage of the more fertile, newer
sugar islands. Moreover, in all of the region, wage labor became
scarce as freed slaves no longer wished to work on the plantations.
As long as the West Indies monopolized British imports of sugar, the
fresher areas could lure labor with high wages; in fact, the high
levels of emigration from the hard-hit islands, Dominica, St. Vin-
cent and St. Lucia, further hindered production in these areas.

In 1846, sugar duties on all sugar imported into Britain were re-
pealed. At that, comments Williams, "[T]he British West Indian
colonies were thereafter forgotten, until the Panama Canal reminded
the world of their existence and revolts of their underpaid free

workers made them front-page news" (p. 153).

182

British Competitive Capitalism and West
Indian Class Relations

There were three groups which challenged the continuing hege-
mony of the plantation in the West Indies during the period 1846
to 1880--British merchants, West Indian peasants, petty artisans
and traders. The latter two groups may be divided into classes en-
gaged in the productionirfbasic goods for use and local trade, and
classes producing exports or export-related goods and services. All
achieved access to land, labor or capital by means of struggle with
West Indian planters.

During the period in question, British merchants, the source
of capital for mercantile plantation enterprises, disengaged them-
selves from.West Indian planting, hastening the financial ruin of
the planting class. More directly related to the discussion of West
Indian development are the following two groups that grew in number
during the era of British competitive capitalism. Peasants producing
exports, and manufacturers and traders serving the export sector,
developed quite different economic interests than those of owners of
sugar plantations, although their livelihoods ultimately depended upon
the survival of the plantation. This group may be properly termed
a national bourgeoisie, one uninclined, because of the structure
of export production, to initiate revolutionary struggle with plan-
tation owners. Other peasants, craftsmen and traders succeeded in
separating themselves from the demands of the plantation for labor,
goods and services, an expression of class interest incompatible
with the continued national emphasis on export commodity production.

This group is accurately called the progressive national bourgeoisie,

183’

destined by system of production and choice of goods and services
produced to clash with plantation owners, although it never won
dominance over them.

After the period of mercantile-planter cohesion in the early
nineteenth century, a split developed between those merchants able
to profitably participate in other types of trade, and intrasigent
planters, convinced that British political institutions would save
them from the feared equalization and repeal of sugar duties. Pre-
ferences for West Indian sugar were preserved, through the influence
of the sugar hobby and the demands of other protectionist interests,
for example, corn farmers. But, after 1846, the landed aristocracy
abandoned West Indian planters. Williams (l966b, p. 138) states
that in 1828 it was estimated that the cost to the British people
of the West Indian monopoly was over fl 1/2 million annually, and
2 1/2 million lbs. of British exports to the West Indies in 1838
were said to purchase less than half as much sugar and coffee than
if carried to Cuba and Brazil. As consumers and sellers of food,
British farmers could no longer afford low, preferential duties on
West Indian sugar. The once powerful Society of West Indian Plan-
ters and Merchants lost much of its strength; it became a club of
those merchants and planters unable to leave the sinking ship of
West Indian sugar production.

It has been argued that Britain never really achieved a bour-
geois revolution (Block, 1970). The mercantilists of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries adapted to industrial growth by trading in;
creasingly sophisticated finished British goods for raw materials

throughout the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

184

They were able to make this transition, and in fact, dominate indus-
trial capitalism, because of their immense stores of capital and the
voracious appetites of British industrialists for overseas markets.
Indeed, the merchants, wherever possible, threw over the planters
and other owners of outmoded means of production, in favor of indus-
trial capitalists of Britain and raw material producers in the non-
industrialized world able to adapt to a free market through more
rational systems of production with high capital contents. Williams
notes that the assemblies of Jamaica and British Guiana went on strike
in 1838 and 1840 because of the"epidemic" trend on the part of Bri-
tain and British capital to abandon the West Indies (p. 144).

Every important vested interest--the cotton manufacturers,
the shipowners, the sugar refiners; every important industrial
and commercial town--London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham,
Sheffield, the West Riding of Yorkshire, joined in the attack
on West Indian slavery and West Indian monopoly (p. 154).
However, there can be no doubt that the decline of the West

Indian planters brought down sectors of the merchant class, and others
with investments in the West Indies or in trade. Following the Sugar
Duties Act of 1846, eighteen West Indian merchant houses in England
failed, as well as the West Indian Bank, located in Barbados (Hall,
1959, p. 91). As Ragatz notes, commercial relations based on the
plantation system were sound only as long as the colonial products
were high-priced. Credit for imports was based upon the anticipated
income from the next crop; even in the best of times, it was not un-
usual for the planter to owe f5000. When, in the late 1700's, returns
permanently declined, obligations of the planters could not be met,

credit closed and properties passed into the hands of mortgage holders

(p. 10). Credit prices were 30 to 40% higher than cash prices of

185

plantation stores (Ragatz, p. 17). Absentee proprietors commonly
borrowed in England against their properties; London, Liverpool and
Glasgow merchants, in particular, made heavy advances to planters.
By the mid-nineteenth century, the estates passing into the hands
of merchants were worthless, and the money debts of planters over
and above the value of the plantations could never be recovered.

It is impossible to determine the loss of value to merchants and
planters because of the crisis in the West Indies, but we know that
from 1836 to 1846, 157 Jamaican sugar estates were abandoned, and,
from 1846 to 1852, another 86 Jamaican estates were left (Eisner,
p. 199). Total agricultural output in Jamaica fell from a value of
f2,986,900 in 1832, by over one-third, to f1,917,200 in 1850, and
with it, exports declined from nearly three-quarters to less than
one-half of total agricultural output.

By the time that Jamaican planters faced free-trade, the most
uneconomical plantations had been eliminated. Most estates were
now managed by owners residing in the West Indies. The Sugar Duties
Act caused a credit crisis; after Emancipation, long-term financing
dried up. Sophisticated agricultural methods were not entirely
suitable in Jamaica now, since long years of soil depletion had
ruined the land; as subsequent discussion will indicate, labor was
'extremely hard to entice awayfrom newly available peasant lands.
And sugar prices steadily plummeted in the depression of the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. The salvation of remaining West
Indian planters was British monopoly corporate agriculture, frequently
under the direction of merchant houses trying to make a lucrative

venture out of the depleted plantations they had accepted as payment

186

from bankrupt planters.

Even before the passage of the Sugar Duties Act, a peasantry
started to emerge in the West Indies, comprised of manumitted and
emancipated slaves who bought or seized small plots of former plan-
tation land. By 1838, Jamaica had 2,114 freeholders, with less than
40 acres each; by 1845, 19,397 peasants, owning less than 10 acres
each, resided in Jamaica. A Baptist minister,Rev. William Knibb,
established the "free village" system, buying up land on which to
settle the freed slaves. The Methodists and Scottish missionaries
became involved in similar schemes of resettlement, and joined other
churches in seeking improved wage and worker benefits on the remain-
ing plantations. By 1842, Knibb had settled 150 to 200 free vill-’
ages, totaling an acreage of 100,000; 3,000 cottages were erected,
at a total cost of about f100,000. Knibb and the Jamaica Bapist
Union held an ideal of a "noble free peasantry" out of which could
arise a yeoman class, but many of the freeholders living in Jamaica
by 1865 were not self-supporting and had to supplement their farming
with plantation work.

Hall (1959) suggests that peasants and laborers grew mostly
provisions, and not export crops; small farmers grew more varied
agricultural crops, including one or more export crops, and by the
late 1850's, they hired laborers.’ Hall adds (p. 154) that the Jam-
aican producer or laborer (slave or free) was never a completely
self-sufficient producer. Apart from imports of building materials
and metal goods, clothing and various household items were imported
from the United States mainland and Canada after the Sugar Duties

Act. The peasants produced vegetables, some meat and poultry; they

187

continued to buy corn-meal bread, flour, some kinds of meat, fish,
oil, and soap. The peasants supplied essential food to their fam-
ilies and workers, and used currency earned in plantation work,
exchange with urban markets (though relatively limited), and export
of sugar,coffee and fruits, to buy imported goods.

‘lhe number of small holders tripled from 1860 to 1930, and the
British government increasingly took the position that the develop-
ment potential of the islands was embodied in the peasantry and
small farmers. The official British attitude towards the peasantry
diverged somewhat from that of the remaining planters and merchants,
who disapproved of church schemes to distribute land to peasants.
However, in the 1860's, the sugar industry could provide employment
for no more than 5% of the population. Planter resentment stemmed
from an attachment to the long held systems of West Indian stratifi-
cation, which included racial hostility to non-whites, as well as
virtual monopoly of land, of political power, and of access to non-
white labor (Curtin, 1955). The conflict between planters, and
peasants and laborers, came to a head in the Morant Bay rebellion
of black Jamaicans, bloodily suppressed by Jamaican Governor Eyre.
The repression of the African and Afro-European population that
followed the rebellion resulted in the reversion of Jamaica to Crown
colony status; a similar transitiOn soon took place in other West
Indian islands. The removal of the assembly meant there was no voice
fOr the peasants, laborers, small farmers and townspeople; the non-
whites, generally, lost an avenue for political influence and polit-
ical and occupational experience. Despite the increasingly enligh-

tened attitude of the British government towards the laboring

188

population of Jamaica, the Colonial Office still viewed Jamaica as
a source of plantation produced tropical commodities, siding with
the planters and merchants in their resistence to shared economic
and political rights.

The efforts of benevolent governors after 1865 to fOllow the
initiative of the Colonial Office in providing social services for
the people of the West Indies were always limited by the resistence
of the European sector of the population. The Crown colony government
supported some peasant expansion and settlement programs and credit
cooperatives; a Royal West Indian Commission of 1897 recommended
land settlement and diversification of agriculture.- But, many. more
successful government policies encouraged corporate penetration of
the peasant areas, e.g., road building to ports, construction of
warfs, etc. In terms of peasant development, state support of cor-
porate agriculture had two consequences. First, peasants continued
to supplement their incomes from petty trade of farm products with
work on the sugar estates, and later, on banana plantations and
coffee farms. Secondly, the distinction sharpened between small
farmers, growing commodities for export, and the peasant, engaged
in agricultural production fOr use or local exchange. While sugar
production now required capitalization to succeed, coffee production
was still feasible with labor intensive methods, and, in fact, re-
quired less care than sugar. Some of the more prosperous farmers
also became involved in the production of sugar, generally of poorer
quality than the. estate crop, but exportable. According to Hall
(1959), the number of these small farmers living in Jamaica in the

1850's is difficult to discern, but available evidence suggests that

189

they were fairly numerous and relatively prosperous.

In the towns, Europeans stayed on, assuming positions in trade
and shopkeeping that had previously been in the hands of long dis-
tance traders; they also continued to act as doctors, teachers, and
lawyers. There were divisions based on ethnicity, and wealth and
income among Europeans, notably among Jews, French and English, and
between the creole and expatriate English living in Jamaica. French
from St. Dominique, Jews, and creolized British sought positions as
intermediaries between foreign capital and the 10cal population;
they wanted areas of capital accumulation not directly related to
the developing British monopoly capitalist schemes intended to re-
new the vigor of West Indian sugar production. Some of these people
also tried to institute manufacturing and service industries inde-
pendent of plantation sugar production. Their efforts were not
very successful for a variety of reasons, but it should be noted
that they favored some forms of production not oriented towards
the international market.

A significant proportion of the colored population and sectors
of the black were also concentrated in the towns of Jamaica in the
British competitive capitalist stage. During the mercantile period,
the Jamaican coastal towns had been long distance trade depots; the
inland towns were small centers of internal trade in provisions,
handicrafts and other commodities produced by the slaves, or “post-
ing“ places, where travellers could spend the night. FOllowing the
demise of the mercantile planting class, there was a rapid rise in
the number of inland towns and villages. There were four principal

categories of occupation for the working population in the towns:

masc
seel
cra‘
grol
cip
cell

iii

if

ornl'

Cour.

190

l) skilled crafts, 2) petty trade, 3) unskilled labor, and 4) various
ancillary skills and services. Some manufacturing and trade were
oriented exclusively to the domestic market, other activities of
this sort to the international market. The skilled crafts, trades
and services were largely what they had been before Emancipation--
masonry, carpentry, bricklaying, tailoring, etc., but the numbers
seeking work in these areas greatly expanded. Those who failed at
crafts became involved in petty trade and shopkeeping, which were
growing professions with the larger cash economy created by Eman-
cipation. In rural towns, people sometimes supplemented their in-
come from farming with craftsmaking, leading to the creation of a
limited and rudimentary manufacturing industry in the countryside.
West Indian Dependent Development in the Era
of British Competitive Capitalism

Were there substantial levels of economic growth in sectors
unrelated to Jamaican export agriculture during the historical era
in question? Let us look more closely at two particular industries
that have everwhere preceded full economic development, food produc-
tion and light manufacturing. These enterprises have traditionally
encouraged the creation of a large internal market and balanced
economic growth by l) promoting domestic capital accumulation and
2) building forward and backward linkages among domestic industries.

The degree of agricultural diversification in the West Indies
after the equalization and repeal of sugar duties is probably the
most important indicator of the reconstruction of West Indian econ-
omics away from export agriculture. The histories of Third World

countries have repeatedly shown that a society unable to produce its

own ‘
1961
in e
clai
rose
cult
and
the'
9rd
I111

in

th
la

f1

C0
1r

11h

191

own food cannot generate rapid and balanced economic growth (Wolf,
1967; Barraclough, 1975). There are several points to be considered
in evaluating the extent of diversification. First, Eisner (p. 100)
claims that the volume of ground provisions produced in Jamaica

rose steadily after the Sugar Duties Act, reaching 55% of total agri-
cultural output in 1890. Yet, documentary evidence studied by Eisner
and Hall leads both to suggest that most farmers had to supplement
their incomes from farming with wage labor on the plantations, or the
growing of cash crops for export. In fact, truly prosperous peasants
turned to export crap production--sugar and coffee--as a means of
agricultural expansion.

The cash earnings of peasants went for food, suggesting again
that self-sufficiency in food production was not attained. Moreover,
Table 1 indicates that the percentage of food imports into Jamaica
fluctuated, but displayed no significant increase or decrease. In
1832, of the total value of retained imports, 32.5% was for food;
in 1850, the percentage rose to 36.1%, rising again in 1870 to 37.1%,
and falling to 34.3% in 1890. The consequence for Jamaica of the
importation of food, in the most superficial terms, is indicated in
terms of trade, which reveal a tendency for a continuing deterior-
ation in the Jamaicanposition, as export prices tended to remain the a
same and import prices rose (see Table 2). This increase in the
price of imported manufactured goods and certain foods (meat, wheat,
etc.) relative to raw materials is a long-term trend, which has be-
come an increasingly serious problem for raw material producing coun-
tries that are not self-sufficient in food and basic manufacture

production (Barraclough, 1975; Galtung, 1971). However, the more

r-‘KC

inlwinhi

192

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Room .g .eocm_mv mucousH snowesea umcweuom we cowupmoasou one .— mpnop

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193

Table 2. Jamaica: The Terms of Trade (Eisner, p. 257)

 

 

1910 = 100
Year Export Prices Import Prices Terms of Trade
1832 116 9'8 118
1850 115 84 137
1870 119 A 121 98
1890 126 92 137
1910 100 100 100
1930 111 132 84

 

critical problem with Jamaican agriculture is in the pattern of
entrepreneurship itself. Why did the peasant not strive for self-
sufficienty, producing food for consumption in the towns? I would
assume the answer lay in both the ready availability of imports,
and the highly profitable possibilities of farming for export and
plantation work.

Immediately after Emancipation, wages were very high on the
plantations. By the 1850's, wages fell with the introduction of
capital intensive technologyintolsugar production. But, as Hall
(p. 171) notes, peasants could make up for the decline in wages by
turning to the production of at least some cash crops. Eisner
(p. 229) indicates that figures for peasant per capita gross profits
increased considerably from 1850 to 1930, mainly as a result of
their growing share in export production. As noted, peasant cul-

tivation of export crops was possible by adaptation to small scale

194

production and techniques, rather than by improvements in the methods
or organization of production. Furthermore, when plantation wages
fell, wages throughout the West Indian economies fell, reducing

the prices obtained for peasant-grown provisions. When the market
for locally grown food was constricting, farmers were not inclined
to experiment in further crop diversification, but to turn to the
production of cash crops for export. In reference to Trinidad's
cane farmers, H. Johnson comments: "The main attractions of growing
cane were that it needed little skill, land was available, the cane
had an assured market, but most importantly the farmer was guaran-
teed returns" (p. 67).

It can be concluded from this discussion of Jamaican food
agriculture that a level of production sufficient to feed the pop-
ulation and establish a constant and expanding base of capital extrac-
tion for investment in manufacturing was never reached. The output
and range of products grown were substantial, however, and suggest a
strength to pure peasant agriculture (as opposed to peasant produc-
tion oerxport crops) that rivaled export agriculture during this
period. The plantation itself was weak at this time in Jamaica
and Barbados and by the 1870's, in Trinidad and British Guiana.

But export agriculture, the real foreign dominated challenge to
food production, had considerable strength in the West Indian
economy in the British competitive capitalist era.

Turning to light manufacturing in Jamaica from 1846 to 1880,
we find evidence that the development of petty crafts and trade
also went beyond the level of the mercantile period. Increasing

numbers of people were employed in carpentry, tailoring, etc.,

195

and given the large numbers of services formerly provided by the
plantation, both a cash economy and the variety of marketable goods
and services inevitably expanded. Further, it appears from Eisner's
figures that crafts oriented to individual consumers were more fre-
quently taken up than those of service to the plantation or other
enterprises, e.g., bricklaying, carpentry, etc. (Table 3). This
trend reflects the demise of the plantation and other large export-
oriented systems of production.

Table 3. Number of Jamaicans Employed in Industry and Construction
(Eisner, p. 175)

 

1844 1861 1871 1881 1891 1911 1921

 

1. Dressmakers,

tailors, etc. N.S. 9715 13550 17507 22331 25139 28355
2. Shoemakers --- 808 1710 1803 1768 3147 3015
3. Butchers --- 151 368 403 511 1033 1038
4. Carpenters, etc. --- 5793 7922 10852 9181 9253‘ 8226
5. Blacksmiths --- 818 1432 1377 1185 1122 1051
5. Bricklayers, etc. --- 1757 2417 2527 2502 2850 2042
7. Other --- 12941 9073' 7339 9542 18153 17393

Total 18485 31992 35572 41952 47220 50727 51131

I .‘

Hall (1959) suggests that overall, the advances in manufacturing
made during this period were not great. Furthermore, the towns were
frequently rife with unemployment, as urban industry could not support
a growing non-agricultural population. After 1850, a number of

skilled laborers and crafstmen emigrated to Panama, and did not return.

196

The major problem that the emerging industrial bourgeoisie
encountered in the West Indies during the British competitive cap-
italist period was the inavailability of credit. Financiers and
government in Britain would not support long-term projects in the
dependent colonies outside of the category of public services and
public works. Saving banks, holding the hoardings of laborers,
small farmers, craftsmen, etc., made funds available to the Jamai-
can Treasury, but not to private capitalists. Companies in the
United States were not yet interested in investment in Jamaica,
assuming that their capital could have been channeled into manufac--
turing with substantial domestic linkages. Inexperience and lack
of political influence compounded the problem of capital scarcity
(Hall, 1959, p. 154); schemes to grow tea, tobacco, cotton, and to
manufacture silk, to mine copper, and to market Jamaican timber,
all ended in disastrous or disappointing results. By the 1860's,
the interest of local investors in attempts to establish new enter-
prises in Jamaica had ebbed. A favorite investment became public
works, for which Jamaican government loans were available.

The most successful urban economic activity was long-distance
trade-~the buying of sugar and other export crops from'West Indian
farmers in exchange for imports of food and manufactured goods. The
introduction of wage labor and extensive peasant agriculture both
increased the volume of imports sold and the number of intermediate
positions between buyer and seller. These trading establishments
could also benefit fr0m the extension of corporate agriculture into
rural Jamaica; Hall tells us that some of the new long-distance

traders were also involved in sugar-planting (p. 223). He adds

197

(p. 228) that merchants were apparently among the highest income
groups in Jamaica, based on accounts of a Jamaican of the period
who was trying to change the tax laws. Their prosperity increased
after 1846, probably because of lending to troubled estate owners.
As Eisner's figures show (Table 4), however, the number of

Jamaicans involved in commercial employment was never great.

Table 4. Nunbers of Jamaicans in Conmercial Employment (Esiner,

 

 

p. 165)
1844 1861 1871 1881 1891 1911 1921
l. Merchants 433 150 203 216 239 322 376
2. Shopkeepers * 1166 1774 2339 3131 3649 3587
} 2216
3. Petty Traders 437 1594 1175 1667 3573 4164
4. Clerks 1555 636 1132 1812 2242 3212 3694
5. Transport work 687 1105 1263 1282 2074 4193 3792
6. Other --- 620 342 565 1587 4795 5013

Total 4891 4114 6308 7389 10940 19754 20626

 

*
Includes itinerant traders

The number of long-distance traders never rose above 376, although
these figures are deceptive, as they obscure the overseas participa-
tion of British merchant houses in trade and production in Jamaica.
‘The numbers of petty traders and shopkeepers grew more rapidly, out-
pacing population growth from 1861 to 1891. Tabel 3 reveals high
rates of increase for those engaged in some areas of manufacturing

and service, for example, dressmakers, tailors, shoemakers and

198

butchers. Yet, the number of carpenters, blacksmiths, and brick-
layers grew less quickly and less extensively from 1861 to 1891,
indicating the relatively low levels of development of manufactur-
ing actually achieved in Jamaica of the British competitive capital-
ist period. I
The West Indian Colonial State and.British
Competitive Capitalism

During the period of competitive, free-trade British capitalism,
the British loosened political contr01 of the colonized world, most
notably in the Dominions, where the needs of British capitalism for
capital goods markets, and the economic and political expectations of
their immigrant populations, combined to make political autonomy
necessary. In some of the dependencies, legislatures also gained
greater powers, but with less approval from the Crown. The British
government continued its resistance to colonial grants for development
and welfare, in accordance with the competitive capitalist period's
mood of anti-colonialism. In the West Indies, colonial legislatures
grew in power, but no longer represented planter interests in the sin-
gular way they had in earlier years. New social groups, including pri-
marily Afro-European professionals, farmers, merchants and craftsmen,
gained entry into legislatures andlbegan to make demands on the rev-
enues of the central government, dsmands which competed with those
of planters. These were chiefly in the areas of development of roads,
warfs, ports and other facilities that aided non-plantation enter-
prises and generally contributed to the rise of internal marketing.
The planters mightily resisted these efforts, but figures from the

period indicate an increased commitment on the part of the central

199

political authority to the construction of an infrastructure. The
government also provided some poor relief and made a small contribu-
tion to education (Eisner, p. 326). The revenues for these expen-
ditures were taken from property taxes and custom, excise and tax
duties. Towards the mid-years of the British competitive capitalist
period, the West Indies reached a position of economic desperation.
The world was in economic depression, and beet and other cane pro-
ducers offered stiff competition to petty and large-scale producers
of sugar in the West Indies. West Indian governments took loans from
the British state; owing Britain about f.9 million in 1870 (Benians,
1959b, p. 197). From 1869-1878, the negative Jamaican balance of
payments is accounted for, in part, by Jamaican government borrowing
from numerous sources, with the backing of the Imperial government
(Eisner, p. 283). In the 1870's, the Jamaican government also inves-
ted abroad through the Government Savings Banks; Jamaica and British

Guiana owned stocks in railways.

Summary

In this chapter, I have had three objectives. The first was
to discuss differing approaches of Caribbean structuralists and tra-
ditional materialists to the study of West Indian stratification and
deve10pment: in particular, the definition of modes of production,
the possibility of bourgeois revolution in satellite nations, and the
expansion of an internal market. Alternative Marxian theories and
analyses of these phenomena based on recent Marxian studies of imper-
ialism and dependency were also examined.

Second, I presented four propositions derived from specific

200

Marxian theories of dependency about satellite economy and society
that describe changes in satellite systems of production, class rela-
tions, dependent development, and the state, that occurred with the
transition from metropolitan mercantile to competitive capitalism.
Third, I have detailed these transitions in the West Indies,
looking first at the systems of production, forms of class relations,
dependent development, and the state as they were established in the
British mercantile era, and as they changed with the British transi-
tion to competitive capitalism. I maintained that the West Indies
of the mercantile era were dominated by slavery and the sugar planta-
tion, a combination of production and labor use that had “irrational“
features. British planters and merchants formed the most wealthy
sectdr of the society, although planters were often not in residence
there; lawyers, doctors and a few white plantation employees also
held political and economic power over the mass of African and Afro-
European slaves; a number of Afro-Europeans and other manumitted and
free-born West Indians moved to the towns or engaged in other types
of non-plantation production. Development was concentrated in the
plantation sector, although slaves traded provisions in a small inter-
nal market, and ex-slaves engaged in production of export crops and
goods and services for the plantation. The colonial state controlled
tightly the allocation of financial resources and held broad political
powers in the area, in keeping with the mercantile view of colonies.
With the adoption of liberalized trade policies by the British,
West Indian plantations were sold, abandoned, or passed into receiver-
ship. Production was too costly f0r competition in a market that

lacked guarantees. Many planters and long-distance merchants left,

201

allowing a peasantry, local traders and manufacturers access to re-
maining resources. These groups struggled with well-used land and
little credit to institute small-scale f00d and commodity export
production, and the manufacture of various simple goods. The inter-
nal market grew. With the virtual collapse of large-scale planting,
class relations changed. Remaining white planters, long distance
traders, and professionals still had the greatest wealth and income,
but nany in the national bourgeoisie became prosperous. In the
competitive capitalist period, Britain grew tired of the political
and financial commitment to her colonies and to colonialism in
general. She allowed the West Indian legislatures more power in
many spheres, power which fell into the hands of representatives of
the national bourgeoisie as well as to white planters, lawyers,

merchants, etc.

 

202
FOOTNOTES

1Petty producers of exports and goods and services directed to
the export sector do not have the same class interests as large-scale
producers, domestic or foreign. The struggles of these small-scale
farmers and manufacturers against giant exporters introduce many
changes in the course of capitalist development and may create condi-
tions that encourage the rise of a progressive national bourgeoisie.
However, conflict between export-oriented petty producers and large-
scale producers have not been based on demands by the former for a
total transformation of the system.

2The discussion here does not include regions, such as the Bri- F
tish Dominions, that received European settlers who often produced f
food and intermediary products to be sold to the regions of commodity
export production. Wallerstein (1974b) categorizes these as semi-
periphery societies. Sheridan (1969, p. 16) states that Britain was
relatively unique in her use of "temperate zone" colonies to supply
"tropical" ones and to absorb some of the latters' products. But, to
some extent, the haciendas of Latin America played the same role as
did the British Dominions. This form of large-scale agriculture was
the basis of the production of meat and wheat to satisfy "the demand
for agricultural products generated by the colonial mining or urban
economy subordinated to the metropolis" (Frank, 1972, p. 26).

Vilma"-

 

3Geert2(1971)recounts how the Dutch, through the East India
Company, established both sugar estates and smaller units of raw
material production in Indoesia. The small-scale systems of produc-
tion were often regulated through restriction, quotas and fixed
prices f0r products grown, and forced labor.

4Genovese (1969) argues that in the ante bellum South, labor was
not very productive because of the carelessness and wastefulness of the
slaves, and "limitation imposed on the free work force, on technologic-
al development, and on the division of labor." These factors con-
strained the planter however, only at the moment when his commodities
were no longer competitively priced on the free world market. At this
point, the lack of adaptability of slave plantations to improved
technology--because of capital scarcity, the low levels of skill among
slaves, a surplus of slaves for increasingly sophisticated technology--
marked the downfall of the planting class. At an earlier time, when
soil was fertile, the low productivity of the slave was irrelevant;
the aim of planters commencing production of commodity exports under
conditions of mercantile preference and monopoly was to produce as much,
as quickly, as possible. Costs could be high because profits were
enormous, given the control over the market exercised by the mercan-
tile state. Labor repressive systems were irrational only when polit-
ical manipulation of the market could not be absolute, as was the case
in the competitive and monopoly stages of capitalist development.

5Thomas' qualification that domestic capital accumulation is
relatively limited in satellite nations is important, for some accumu-
lation has been possible. In fact, as many scholars have demonstrated,

203

metropolitan investment in the Third World in the post-World War II
period has often been joined with local capital (O'Connor, 1971;
Evans, 1975-6). Cardoso goes on to contend that the dependence of
some Third World countries, e.g. Brazil and Argentina, is no longer
on capital, but only on technology. The fact remains, however, that
the dependent country does not profit as it would if it had full con-
trol over production; indeed, autonomous satellite development would
involve different, more profitable types of industries than are now
found in dependent societies.

6Since World War II, dependent nations have received high levels
of foreign investment in manufacturing for the domestic market. Local
capitalists have participated in this investment, reducing the satel-
lite's dependence on foreign capital to some extent. This new invest-
ment has not reduced satellite dependence upon imported food, capital
goods and light manufactures. The growth of the internal market has
been stimulated only to the extent that new investment in goods and
services has been channelled to the foreign-national owned enterprise.
This type of investment has all of the disadvantages of the provision
of resources for raw material producing plants; the market is small
and inelastic, further restricted by the tendency for multinationals
to carry out parts of the production process abroad (Hymer, 1972;
O'Connor, 1970).

7Theorists of "underdevelopment," following Frank, have empha-
sized foreign control of production in Third World countries, studying
the links between imperialism and "underdevelopment“ (see, for example,
0. Johnson, 1972). Yet, growth in foreign controlled sectors, and
resulting inequality--the essence of underdevelopment--seem more simply
to be examples of uneven development. Moreover, "dependent" and "un-
even" development are categories that do not suggest totality, as
does the structure "underdevelopment," and do allow for greater
accuracy and precision in discussing the complexity of satellite
economic trends in accordance with the history of metropolitan captial-
lsm.

8 The interpretation of African slave labor as better suited to
the tropics than European labor has been questioned. Williams (1966b,
p. 20) argues that whites could and did adapt to the high temperatures
of the tropics. The problem was that the expanding market for sugar,
combined with the drop in productivity as land was stripped of its
nutrients, necessitated ever higher levels of repression of the labor
force. Indentured servitude was approaching the status and conditions
of slavery. However, because of the developing ideology of white
biological supremacy, whites could not be so completely subjugated
as black slaves, particularly when the alternative of plentiful,
cheap African labor was available. Waddell (1967) argues that the'
climate was not a deciding factor in the rejection of white, European
labor in favor of black African; the mortality rate for both Euro-
peans and Africans was extremely high. He suggests that the prefer-
ences of the planters were not really at issue; rather, the slave
trade developing under the auspices of Spanish, British and Dutch
merchant companies, made plentiful a f0rm of cheap labor. The African

204

slave trade took on a life of its own as a potentially enormous source
of profit for the mercantile houses; the state relegation of conflicts
and non-conformists to labor in the New World was simply not competi-
tive with the aggressive tactics of private merchant capital (p. 44).

QDespite British prohibitions, American supplies continued to
penetrate the British West Indies, although the indirect routes and
other problems encountered in this surreptitious method of trade in-
creased the price of goods. The outbreak of war between the British
and French caused the British to permit more American goods to reach
the British West Indies. Williams estimates that in 1796, American
exports to the British West Indies were three times the figure f0r
1793; during this time, British exports declined by half. In 1801,
American exports to the British West Indies were nearly five times
what they were in 1792 (Williams, 1966b, p. 122).

10Waddell (1967, p. 65) suggests that the French West Indies al-
ways produced more food locally than did the British West Indies. The
interruption of American exports to the latter resulted in more domes-
tic production of food, although it never grew to levels sufficient to
feed the laboring population, even after Emancipation.

HWilliams (1966b, p. 92) adds that the planters threatened to
increase the price of sugar to counter merchant threats of fore-
closure.

12The absence of many planters from the islands added another
dimension to the conflict between the Crown's representatives and the
members of the assemblies. The absent planters sometimes had inter-
ests in opposition to those of resident planters. Williams notes
that when the Deficiency Laws failed to counteract absenteeism, local
assemblies tried to confiscate large tracts of idle land owned by
absentees and to redistribute them among small farmers. At the insis-
tence of planters living in England, the British government opposed
the assemblies' plans (p. 85). Waddell adds that since many planters
found it cheaper to pay the fines that resulted from non-compliance
with Deficiency Laws, the Laws became a revenue generating device for
the local assemblies (p. 54).

13As noted earlier, for most of the eighteenth century, the North
American colonies were important markets for West Indian goods and
exported food and manufactures there. After the American War of In-
dependence, this trade declined in importance, as the United States
refused to ship goods in British vessels.

14A child was free if his/her father was free apg_legally claimed
paternity. A person was considered 1e ally to be white after four gen-
erations of intermarriage with whites Curtin, 1955, p. 43).

15I know of no attempts by dependency theorists or structuralists
to explain West Indian state development. Best simply attributes the
differences between mercantile political control of "hinterlands of
settlement“ (Dominions) and "hinterlands of exploitation" (one type of

205

dependency) in this way. In hinterlands of settlement, "[t]he ethos
is democratic and egalitarian.. .“ In hinterlands of exploitation
"[m]ilitary government is provided by the metropolis" (1968, pp.
283-288). Beckford (1972) argues that state control in the West In-
dies, and in plantation societies in general, has consistently resided
"with the superordinate group (individual and then corporate planters)
among whom economic and social power is concentrated.“ He adds that
West Indian societies have historically had highly centralized govern-
ment administrations (pp. 73-79). The history of politics in the
West Indies is far more complex and needs to be studied fully. Scho-
lars of the historical materialist school, most notably Eric Williams
(1966 a,b) and Douglas Hall (1959, 1972) have tried to show the ways
that class conflict was manifested in olitics during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries; Eisner (1961 offers useful figures on the
income and expenditures of the Jamaican central authority f0r the

same period. These works do not rest on a coherent theory of imper-
ialism that relates satellite state development to economic and polit-
ical changes in metropoles. I have asserted that Marxian theories

of the colonial and dependent state offer a broad treatment of the
functions, autonomy and personnel of the satellite state, but are
also weak on the relation of the satellite state to economic develop—
ment in the metropole. The following discussion suggests possible
theoretical directions such study might take.

16See Best (1968), for a useful discussion of the differing and
shifting economic conditions of the dependencies (hinterlands of con-
quest and hinterlands of exploitation) and Dominions (hinterlands of
settlement).

17An example of the crude methods and inefficiency of British
West Indian agriculture was the non-use of irrigation, long practised
by the French in St. Dominique. Moreover, in 1832, less than 7% of
plantation grofits were reinvested in Jamaican plantations (Ragatz,
1963, p. 59 .

 

CHAPTER V

BRITAIN, THE TRANSITION FROM COMPETITIVE
TO MONOPOLY CAPITALISM

Introduction

 

In this chapter (V), I will discuss four historica1.proposi-
tions about bourgeois capitalism in its competitive state, and Bri-
tain's history of capitalist development. These propositions are
based on Marxian theories of imperialism, and modified in terms of
the history of bourgeois capitalist development and the Marxian method.
The propositions relate to the causes of the transition from compet-
itive to monopoly capitalism; the latter's characteristics; shifting
trade policies; the predominant mode of monopoly imperialist expan-
sion.

By 1870, the capitalist world faced a new period of economic
development and a quarter century of slow growth and crisis. The con-
centration of production and capital in large corporations marked the
transition to this new stage, with the consequences of monopolistic
control of markets and resources by one or a few firms, and the ver-
tical integration of phases of production. Corporations developed
out of the earlier form of joint-stock investment, everywhere domin-
ated by finance capital. Eventually capital accumulation within the
firm brought about industrial and commercial independence from fin-

ance capital.

206

k

/—h
.I.1

207

Britain, the premier metropole, encountered German and American
competition in the world sale of capital goods at this time. These
rivals to Britain had initiated the "new imperialism" of the late
nineteenth century in order to politically safeguard sources of raw
materials and labor and markets in the Third World, where Britain
had long been dominant. Faced with depression and challenges to
hegemony in the industrial and noneindustrialized worlds, Britain "i
joined the imperialist drive, colonizing territories of Africa and

the Pacific. The colonial solution to economic decline slowed the

If
9

evolution of British monopoly capitalism.

In the capitalist metropoles, the growing concentration of cap-
ital led to new forms of imperialism. Capital investment--lending,
investment in shipping, trade and overseas production-~displaced
trade as a dominant channel for imperialist expansion. Capital in-
vestment reinforced the burgeoning movement among the industrial pow-
ers '0) control raw materials and markets in the economically back-
ward areas of the world. In Britain, raw material producing corpor-
ations were among the first to experience concentration of capital,
the centralization of production and vertical integration. British
(and American companies) invested in several West Indian industries;
the economic vigor of worn-out and abandoned regions could be renewed
because of the capital intensive methods employed by multinational cor-
porations.

During the transition from British competitive to monopoly cap-
italism, the free trade of British goods was supplanted by protec-
tionism. Industrial manufacturers recognized the comparatively high

prices of British capital goods. The Dominions and dependencies

 

208

favored market guarantees for their own products and supported a sys-
tem of mutual preferences within the Empire. Finance capital and
sectors of British industry resisted the policy change from free-
trade to protectionism, but eventually came to agree that the loss

of British international industrial hegemony necessitated new trading
practices.

The shifting ideology of trade in Britain marked the transfor-
mation of world capitalism, for no nation would again have the broad
industrial superiority necessary to gain from a policy of complete
free-trade. The high capital content of investment in industry and
commerce encouraged national policies of protection; monopolies and
overseas capital investment substantially altered the terms of trade

in many industries.

Theoretical Foundations

The long depression of the late 1800's introduced new possibil-
ities and constraints into the history of Western capitalism. The
principal relation which developed was that of monopoly control of
markets by some firms.

Monopoly capitalism grew out of the dynamic of competition.
"The concentration and centralization of capital that is character-
istic of all industrial capitalist societies today arises out of,
not despite competitive capitalism. It is the way the system moves
through time" (Dowd, 1974, p. 45). As Adam Smith contended, compe-
tition had a socially useful and humane result; the drive to cut
costs and lower prices among producers would push out the ineffic-

ient and make the concentration of capital and the centralization of

209

production difficult. But, this formulation worked only in the
decentralized structure of early capitalism. And, even at that time,
inequality of wealth among producers (and other sectors of the popula-
tion) was marked, allowing some businesses to withstand and counter
competition more effectively than others. The ability of the wealthy
industrialist to enlarge the scale of production enhanced the firm's
competitive strength. "Some of the smaller capitals disappear,
others pass into the hands of the more efficient concerns which in
this way grow in size. Thus the competitive struggle itself is an
agent of centralization" (Sweezy, 1970, p. 255).

Periodic downturns in demand furthered the concentration of
capital and production.

Those who survive capitalist rivalry do so by absorbing

or by destroying the lesser firms. Capitalism is a predatory

form of economic organization.. For Smith's optimism to have

been well-founded, limits would have to have been set on the

size of the bigger fish. Set by whom, the bigger fish? In

the absence of any explicit institutions designed to control

such a process--and Smith's laissez-faire capitalism excluded

any such--the bigger fish became more and more immune to any

constraints on their behavior or further growth. They are best

able to respond effectively to technology, and are best able

to survive intermittent blasts of depression (Dowd, p. 45).
Within the framework of late nineteenth century capitalist development,
technological changes hastened industrial centralization, vertical
integration, and capital concentration. Developments in steel, elec-
tricity, industrial chemistry and oil made the segmented, decentralized
business structures of the industrializing economies obsolete. Large
amounts of capital and a broad scale of production were necessary to
exploit these scientific advances (Magdoff, 1969).

From 1874 to 1896 Eur0pe was in the throws of depression. Fifty

years of nearly uninterrupted boom gave way to twenty years of

210

'continuously falling prices and profits (Barratt-Brown, 1974, p. 171).
The process of capital concentration grew rapidly in the 1870's in
the industrial countries among financial houses, as Lenin had described.
In England, the City of London dominated political affairs and invested
heavily in the dynamic overseas sector of the economy. In the United
States, "the great majority of industrial capitalists became tempor-
arily dependent upon finance capital like that represented by the
house of Morgan. Banks, like Rockefeller and Morgan, were able to
control vast capital assets tied up in life insurance companies as well
as security and profits derived from industrial plants such as Standard
Oil and U.S. Steel" (Jones, 1971, p.288). Throughout the century that
followed, economic power shifted from financial houses to industrial
corporations, as Marx had forseen many years earlier (Marx, 1967,
Barratt-Brown, 1974, p. 202). The transfer was quite rapid after
World War II, helped along by the state's rising economic commitment
to industry, and the great industrial profits made from several
decades of militarism in the West (Barratt-Brown, 1974 p. 203; Mandel,
1968).

Finally, agreements among industrialists and other capitalists
to "protect, maintain or increase their rates of profits" furthered
the centralization of production, its vertical integration, and capital
concentration, by blocking competition from newer or smaller firms
(Mandel, 1968, p. 401). These arrangements were varied in form, in-
cluding those in which firms retained their independent identities
but joined in price fixing, market allocation, etc., and mergers and
trust formation, whereby firms grouped into a single corporation.

Mergers and trusts have been vertical and horizontal, leading both

211

to the monopoly control of markets and factors of production by a

few firms and the integration of many productive functions within one
corporation. "Horizontal mergers lead to concentration of power in

a given industry and to oligopoly; a few dominant sellers in an indus-
try. Vertical mergers strengthen the hand of already large firms,
while also creating higher barriers to entry by new firms" (Dowd,

p. 68).

Monopoly was the principal means of responding to economic de-
pression, but other measures for protecting industry arose during the
period of competitive capitalism. From the late nineteenth century,
the state became more intimately involved in production by increas-
ing its commitment to insure markets and prices for suffering indus-
tries, a practice officially opposed during the height of industrial
success. Protective and preferential trade agreements reappeared
at this time as well, partially as a result of a downward cycle in
the evolution of Western capitalism. Imperialism presented another
means of expanding markets, one which Britain, long oriented towards
international trade, readily embraced. The hegemony of capitalists
involved in overseas trading, lending, and shipping, over other sec-
tors of the capitalist class, influenced the British turn to imper-
ialist expansion. The British state aided capital by politically
securing economic rights to markets and factors of production through
colonization. German and American capitalists, expressing a similar
concern for market scarcity in view of British initiatives in seizing
world markets, stepped up their attempts to end British economic
hegemony in the non-industrialized regions through political means.

Monopoly capitalism made possible new forms of imperialist

212

expansion. Trade between the industrial and non-industrial countries
continues, even now, to be a major source of capital accumulation for
metropolitan capitalists. But protection and mutual preferences
within empires and trading areas reduced opportunities for unequal

exchange, and, without substantial development in the satellites,

 

their markets for all manufactured goods were limited (Mandel, 1968).
Most nineteenth century capital export was in the form of portfolio i

investment in companies involved in trade and raw material production

 

overseas and government loans carrying government guarantees. About
half of British overseas capital investment was in loans to governments
or mixed public and private enterprises. Almost all French and German
capital exports were in the form of government to government loans.

The main incentive for investment of this type, contends Barratt-
Brown, was the guarantee against loss of the original investment cap-
italist by metropolitan (and some satellite) governments that was
associated with most (1974, pp. 176-7).

Other forms of direct and indirect capital investment--in raw
material production, banks, overseas trade, and eventually in manu-
facturing--grew in significance throughout this century. It was,
however, direct corporate investment which embodied the thrust of
monopoly capital development towards the concentration of capital and
centralization of production within“ one industrial or comercial firm.
For the period under consideration in this chapter, 1870 to 1930,
British corporate development was in its beginning stages. Lenin saw
the role of the "monopolies" in the imperialism of the 1880's and
1890's, although he incorrectly explained their financial basis and

1

the reasons f0r the "new imperialism." The oligopolies. in search

 

213

of markets and raw materials, gradually wrested control of capital
from financial interests, thereby gaining hegemony in the interna-
tional economy and elevating the importance of commerce and industry
in relation to finance. In the last quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury

[S]ome companies, like Royal Shell and Unilever, developed
into multinational controllaswell as trans-national corporations.
Others, like Standard Oil, General Motors, ICI or Imperial To-
bacco, were owned by one group of nationals, but established
subsidiaries in many countries: some wholly owned, some with
only a majority shareholding by the parent company. These trans-
national companies took advantage of the economics of vertical
integration or exploited a monopoly in some product, patent or
know-how (Barratt-Brown, 1974, p. 219).

Monopoly capitalism broughtalmajor realignment in trade policies
among metropoles and between metropoles and satellites. In general,
the relationship between industrial strength and the seeking of lib-
eral trading terms became less sure; no country, including the United
States, has enjoyed or wanted the freedom to trade internationally
that Britain had in the mid-nineteenty century.

Free trade and the doctrine of the free circulation of
goods and capital were thus routed at the very moment when this
circulation had reached its highest point, through a universal
system of convertible currencies. Monopoly capitalism has to
protect its own internal markets from invasion by foreign
goods; the basis of monopoly super-profits must be defended.
It has at the same time to safeguard the monopoly of its col-
onial markets from invasion by f0reign capital and foreign goods,
for this is the basis of its colonial super-profits. The policy
of free trade was first called in question in relation to agri-
cultural products, when competition from cheap agricultural pro-
ducts from overseas began to be felt. Gradually, protection-
ism spread to industry as well (Mandel, 1968, p. 452).

Industrial countries have adopted protective policies in trade
with both developed and developing nations. Capitalist metropoles have
tried to assure both raw materials and markets in Third World nations

through mutual trade agreements. Many such preferential arrangements

214

were initiated in the depression of the last century, but the motiva-
tion has more often been the need of raw material producing oligop-
olies to control supply. The satellites have been equally eager

to establish preferred status in industrial nations, given the numer-
ous problems of raw material production and marketing. In trade
among industrial countries, protectionism has been strengthened by
the high cost of investment and production in the monopoly phase of
capitalism, making the security of national markets essential. The
need for products from the premier industrial country is less common
than during Britain's rise, when she was the sole, efficient producer
of many manufactured goods. Furthermore, tariff barriers have become
irrelevent because of the capacity of large corporations to invest
abroad in branch plants and subsidiaries. The dominant international
metropole, the United States, has pressed for liberalized world trade
off and on during the twentieth century, but she has retreated to
protective policies at times of crisis and support f0r liberalization
has not extended to all industries (Kolko, G., 1968; Kolko, J.,
1974).

International Depression and Monopoly Capitalism

 

In the mid-1800's, Britain produced about two-thirds of the
world's coal, about one-half of.the iron, one-half of the cotton, 40%
in value of its hardware. However, even by the 1840's, Britain pos-
sessed only about one-third of the world's steam power and produced
even less than one-third of the world's total manufactures. Its
chief rival was the United States. Britain was able to maintain its

position in the production of cotton through the century, but by

215

1870, Britain had only about one-quarter to one-fifth of the world's

steam power and less than one-half of the steel. By the early

l890's, the U.S. and Germany had both surpassed Britain in produc-

tion of steel. As a result, Britain feared losing markets to these

competitors and sensed that the industrial giants of these nations

might more easily secure raw materials and markets for capital goods,

competitively or with state support. Thus, the battle for markets,

raw materials and cheap labor taking shape between industries in

metropolitan countries, was reproduced in relationships between indus-

trial states. The U.S. and Germany joined in the scramble for colonies

and markets, and favored high protective trade barriers for their own

countries and preferential relationships with raw material sellers

and buyers of their finished goods. British industry suffered from

high protective tariffs in industrialized countries and needed an

open door in uncolonized, undeveloped countries, particularly Africa.
Underlying the British anxiety over the security of markets

and supplies was the depression crippling the industrialized world in

the 1870's and continuing through the mid-l890's. Maurice Dobb

(1963) suggests that this period of economic crisis was a watershed

in the development of capitalism. Before this time, capitalism had

been vigorous and prosperous, subject to periodic depression, but

sustained by tremendous technological innovation and business optimism;

following this crisis, capitalism lost its competitive buoyancy and

solved the immediate dilemma of underconsumption by the combination

of monopoly, imperialism and political intervention. In America and

Germany, the crisis was more serious. And as corporations folded, they

were brought up by more prosperous competitors and financial powers.

216

In the U.S. in the 1870's, the rise of trusts was marked, leading

to anti-trust legislation in the 1880's; in Germany, associations of
producers in iron and coal industries were formed in the '70's with
the support of the state, and proliferated to an estimated 400 in
l905 (Dobb, p. 310; Jones, l97l). British industry became somewhat
more concentrated than previously, and the state enacted price-output
agreements.2 The Salt Union, United Alkali, Breinner Mond, J. and

P. Coats, Lever Brothers all date from the Depression. But most
firms remained small and highly specialized until after 19l9, when
Britain began to exhibit more and more of the monopoly concentration
and domination of finance capital that Germany and the United States
had displayed late in the nineteenth century (Barratt-Brown, l963,

p. 121).3 The form that the Depression took in Britain, its immediate
causes there, and the structure of British industry led to a response
based on imperial expansion.

Dobb states that the depression in Britain was triggered by a
curtailment of foreign investment and exchange opportunities. Prior
to 1873, fbreign investment served as a safety valve against any
tendency fbr the process of accumulation to outdistance the possibil-
ity of profitable employment at home. From l867 to 1873, the safety
valve was cut off when Egypt, Russia, Hungary, Peru, Chile and Brazil
defaulted on a series of loans.. Capital was rechanneled to the home
market, which collapsed in 1877. The result was an unemployment rate
of l0%, continuing overproduction, and declining profit margins. Ex~
port demand also contracted, as did railway production orders. In
the years 1867—l873, British foreign trade had increased by more than
one-third; by l873, total exports had been 80% larger than they were

217

in 1860. But by 1876, British exports shrank (in value) by 25% com-
pared with the peak figures of l872. Exports to the United States
alone were halved. Despite recoveries in export figures in 1880
and again in 1890, it was not until the turn of the century that the
peak figure (in value) of 1872-3 was surpassed. The decline of ex-
ports was accompanied by a marked increase in the surplus of visible
imports over exports (Dobb, pp. 300-313).

As Hobsbawm contends, Britain could have launched a major re-
organization of industry towards production for an internal market,
a shift which did occur after the depression of the 1930's, that would
have shielded her against cyclical declines and the effects of the
competition from rival metropoles. Yet the success of British indus-
try to this point had very much rested on exports, and it was this
means of fending off the crisis which appeared most reasonable and
cheapest to those British industries active overseas, the financial
empire and the state. This renewed push towards overseas markets
took the fOrm of colonization precisely because it was a defensive
action. Since the rise of competitive capitalism, the most econom-
ically powerful country has sought liberal terms of trade in order
to increase the total volume of world trade; America does so today.
Colonialism is a means of politically securing markets and raw mater-
ials when natural economic advantage is working against an imperial
power. Britain scurried to colonize in order to guarantee factors
of production and markets against competition, but primarily for the
longer term, as the rise of rival imperialisms meant a possible end
to British hegemony that would not become absolute for several decades.

It was in the area of capital goods exports that Britain most feared

218

American and German industrial power, and here the dependencies were
of little value. However, in both the sale of capital goods and in-
vestment they provided a kind of cushion for faltering British finan-
cial and industrial interests. Moreover, they were great buyers of
textiles, still Britain's chief industry, and could be counted on to
purchase large quantities of British light manufactures in the time
fbllowing colonization and in the uncertain future.

And this fact underscores the most significant aspect of British
economic problems during the last quarter of the nineteenth century--
that Britain had begun an economic decline which was to extend over
a seventy year period. She had the productive organization and tech-
nical facility of an older, less flexible capitalism; and in being
forced to exchange an informal empire over most of the underdeveloped
world fbr a formal empire over one-quarter of it, she had backed her-
self into a corner--continued emphasis on export industry, increas-
ingly of consumer goods, with a limited number of markets, and re-
stricted ones at that. The depression of 1873-1896 ended with a
major rearrangement of international economic power; during the de-
pression Britain had ceased to be the 'workshop of the world.‘ She
was now one of three great industrial powers, and in some crucial

respects the weakest (Hobsbawm, 1969, p. 127).

Depression and the "New Imperialism"

 

Britain did not begin the great search for colonies, but she
was compelled to join in the recent surge of growth of American and

German capitalism indicated by their booming export sales and their

4

own drives for colonies. Both Germany and the United States had

219

initiated industrial capitalism, like Britain, behind the screen of
protective tariffs. As they reached the state of establishing in-
dustries dependent upon raw materials, they naturally sought colon-
ies, in defense of one another and Britain. The development of oli-
gopolies increased inter-firm competition and drew the state in to
secure and protect markets and sources of raw materials through pol-
itical means. For the United States this represented a departure
from contemporary thinking about colonization; the United States had
long expanded within its borders, controlling a massive frontier ripe
with resources and potential markets. Americans sensed that Euro-
pean empires fell, in part, from the costs of supporting a military
machine to keep colonies in order, and the dangers inherent in the
existence of a standing army, subject to persuasion from competing
political groups. Public opinion opposed colonies. But the Depres-
sion of the late nineteenth century convinced politicians, business-
men and the American public that continued capitalist expansion re-
quired movement beyond the frontier. To a considerable extent, the
United States acquired fbreign markets and factors of production in
the 1890's through political and military maneuvers that fell short of
formal colonization. Her economic and political weapons were made
more potent by the lack of metropolitan competition in the Hestern
hemisphere. Her unparalleled economic self-sufficiency largely
obviated the need for fareign raw materials, at least fOr the time
being; her real interest lay in markets fOr her commodities. And

in her natural spheres of influence, Latin America and the Eastern
Pacific, she acquired numerous markets during the nineties and early

part of this century (Jones, 1971. pp. 228-237).

220

Germany, France and Italy all competed with Britain directly
for influence in Africa and the Western Pacific. The consequence was
the partition of these areas by the metropoles, and "balkanization"
of Africa that has so disrupted traditional African economic and
social patterns. By agreement with other European forces, Britain was
granted areas of east, west and south Africa, close to the regions
in which she already had interests, and serving as a door to the in-
terior. Four charter companies were organized to penetrate these
areas politically and economically. Gradually, plantations and
other private and public means of exploiting their mineral and agri-
cultural wealth were institutionalized, and the territories became
Crown colonies (Benians, l959a, p. 6). In Asia, Britain annexed
Burma and subjected to her control the Malay peninsula and Baluchis-
tan.

The public support necessary to carry out this imperial expan-
sion developed slowly in Britain as people began to associate econ-
omic recovery with imperialism. As Benians asserts, "To have assumed
control of immense areas of tropical Africa and groups of islands in
the Pacific would have been repugnant to mid-Victorian statesmen
anxious to be rid of the responsibility and the cost of governing
distant colonies and primitive (sic) peoples" (p. 6). The Liberal
Party, led by Gladstone, dominated British politics through the
1880's and their policy continued to be an opposition to further colon-
ization and the economic and military self-reliance of the nations
already under British rule. They wanted to remain "little England"
without the responsibilities of Empire. The Conservative Party, led
to power by Disreali in 1874, also rejected the expansion of the formal

221

Empire, with its attendant costs. But he recognized the source of'
international, economic and political power embodied in the Empire
and disliked the increasing efforts of the Dominions to achieve
fuller self-government despite the liberal commitment to colonial
(Dominion) self-rule. From 1880-85, the Liberals, under Gladstone,
ruled with a policy of "consolidation," "inspired partly by a doc-
trinal objection to domination over foreign races," but mainly by a
conservative fiscal policy. Gladstone condemned adventures abroad
as "gratuitous, dangerous, ambiguous, impracticable" (Robinson, 1959,
p. 127). Thus, Liberals and Conservatives agreed that to increase
imperial commitments defied sound fiscal policy, and courted finan-
cial collapse and political unrest.

The "forward" school began to gain power in parliament during
the 1880's. The proponents of this position held that existing imper-
ial commitments could be protected from foreign encroachment only
by formal extensions of British power. Forwardism cut across party
lines, but tended to draw more conservatives than liberals. Hhen,
during the 1880's, the continental powers challenged Britain mili-
tarily, commercially and financially, a struggle took shape between
the Gladstone upholders of anti-expansionism and leaders of the for-
ward and expansionist positions. In the early stages of this con-
flict, the fonwardists were known for their opposition to foreign
annexations and to the acquisition of more than a small number of
dependencies. But, by the late 1880's, the forwardists, federationists,
export industry and financial interests, and humanitarians joined to
press for the seizure of new tropical colonies for future commercial

and philanthropic development. "If in the eighties British imperialism

222

was the product of chance and the devious opportunism of a few strong
personalities, it became progressively during the decade a popular
nostrum for curing depression and unemployment, for easing national
insecurity and ensuring future greatness" (Robinson, p. 180).

Support for the new imperialism eventually spread across all
social classes. Barratt-Brown suggests that the working class dis-
played imperialist sentiment even in the 1870's; Disreali was the
first politician to see that the Liberal Party's appeal to trade
unionists was best countered by a mixture of social reform and im-
perialism (Barrett-Brown, 1963, p. 92). Indeed this relationship
became one of the underpinnings of Labour ideology in the twentieth
century. Social Darwinist ideas, then gaining currency in Europe,
encouraged a humanitarian rationale for imperialism, which became
the primary reason for intellectuals' support of colonization. Pro-
ponents of this position favored the establishment of government
bureaucracies in the new dependencies and missionary expeditions to
civilize and Christianize the benighted masses. They fostered a
progressive turn in British foreign policy towards the dependencies,
and, for the first time in imperial history, the government made
efforts to improve the quality of life of people in the dependencies.
Rather than leaving the fate of these areas to the whims of private
capital, the British state advocated the betterment of health and
educational facilities in the nominal interest of the inhabitants
of these colonies. There can be no question that this British policy
greatly benefited those sectors of industry and the financial com-
munity committed to overseas expansion, for it allowed a small mar—

ket for capital goods to develop. But the original thrust for this

223

approach came from a "liberal" reading of Darwinian thought by the
intellectuals and humanitarians of the day.

The assumption of responsibility for economically less advanced
peoples in the colonies was seemingly incompatible with the dominant
ideology of the free-trade period. The disastrous British foray into
southern Africa in the Boer War in the late 1890's renewed skeptic-
ism about the ultimate benefits of costly and troublesome colonies.
But, having just annexed large areas of the Pacific and Africa,
where people were poor, and were not likely to industrialize, Bri-
tons seized upon the humanitarian impulse to better the lives of
non-white inhabitants of the dependencies. The idea received its
most important reinforcement in the efforts of Joseph Chamberlain
at the newly constituted Colonial Office. He persuaded the British
public that aid was necessary for the development of the dependencies,
the West Indies in particular. He argued that imperialism was
potentially beneficial to a Britain in search of markets, and to
the dependencies. He initiated a program to encourage economic
growth in the colonies, through better terms of trade for the
dependencies, promoting the investment of private British capital in
colonial development, and securing British grants-in-aid to establish
colonial bureaucracies and minor improvements in the health, welfare
and the infrastructures of the colonies. He also tried to make more
efficient the colonial bureaucracies at home and in the colonies;
and, through the Colonial Loans Act of 1899, Chamberlain facilitated
the issuing of advances from the British treasury for colonial rail-
ways, irrigation and public works. The Colonial Stock Act of 1900

enabled colonies to borrow on favourable terms at the London Stock

224

Exchange.

Although British policies in the dependencies in the late
Victorian age marked considerable advances in official thinking about
this sector of the empire, they did not result in a significant change
in living conditions in the dependencies, nor could one think, even
then, that these programs would turn these areas into industrialized
nations. As Madden (p. 383) contends: "...to Chamberlain and his
generation, the paramountcy of native interests appeared an absurd
doctrine. Civilization itself was an acknowledged good, a trust for
the whole world." Chamberlain's policies towards the dependencies,
in fact, seemed to make more distinct a contradiction of imperialist
relations, by creating an indigenous intermediary class of bureau-
crats and administrators that were among the leading sectors demand-
ing colonial political and economic rights during the first half of

the twentieth century.

Monopoly Capitalism and Imperialism

 

The "new" imperialism of the 1890's brought prosperity to Eng-
land until the first Norld War. The growth of the economy at this
time renewed people's faith in capitalism and free-trade principles.5
Foreign capital investment showed renewed strength in the 1880's
under the impulse of the recent-colonization, although, ironically,
the investment market shifted from EurOpe and America to South Amer-

ica and India.6

This surge was fbllowed by a decline in the 1890's
and expansion again after 1896, with a great boom in the three years
preceding the outbreak of the war. After 1900, British capital went

primarily to Canada, Argentina, the U.S.A., Brazil, Chile and Mexico,

225

and in smaller amounts to Egypt, East and West Africa, India and
China. Much of this investment was in mining, plantations, and infra-
structure. And, as Lenin observed, financial institutions were coming
to dominate private foreign investment, through loans to colonial
states and the finance of trading companies, shipping and raw mater-
ial extraction. In 1906, Hobson saw a new development in investment
in manufacturing and industry abroad: in textiles, iron and steel
and paper in Canada, in jute in India, in Russian iron and textiles.
The latter remained, however, a relatively minor part of total Bri-
tish capital investment abroad until after World War II. In 1906,
capital export had surpassed (in relative terms) the previously high
levels reached in 1872 and 1890. In 1911 and 1912, up to 30% more
capital was exported than during the whole decade 1890-1901; private
- overseas capital exported in 1913 reached the level of f225 million.
On the eve of World War I, one-half of British capital abroad was in
colonies and possessions and of the remainder, a very high propor-
tion was in North and South America (Dobb, p. 313). Hobsbawm esti-
mates that by l913, Britain (the state and private capital) owned
perhaps f4,000 million worth of property and productive capacity
abroad; France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and the U.S.A. combined
held only f5,000 abroad (Hobsbawm, 1969, p. 152).

The major source of Britishqoverseas investment capital was
banks which financed joint stock and limited liability companies
operating abroad. This hierarchy of capital control would change as
the large corporations accumulated capital themselves. "With these
international sources of additional capital at their disposal, cor-

porate managements are to a greater or less degree freed from their

226

dependence on the market for new securities as a source of capital,
and by the same token they are freed from their dependence on bankers"
(Sweezy, 1970, p. 267). But in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century in Britain finance capital dominated industry.

Foreign investment in joint-stock companies in the 1850's and
1860's contributed to growth in the number and holdings of London
banks. The number increased from 60 or 70 in the 1850's, to more than
120 in 1870, mainly through the arrival of some 40 imperial or over-
seas companies. The Companies Act allowed the incorporation of
banks and limited liability of branches of British banks being set
up in the colonies fbr transactions of British companies operating
there. The Bank of England was the only reserve bank in the Empire,
and held the reserve sterling of many of the branch banks wanting
easy access to gold. In 1866, there were 28 colonial joint-stock
banks with London offices (Benians, 1959a, pp. 196-199).

The degree of centralization of production and vertical inte-
gration of companies operating abroad remained limited in Britain of
the late 1800's. At this time, many small companies collected the
individual savings for investment abroad (Benians, 1959b, p. 183). In
the 1880's, the sale of issues from joint-stock companies increased
quickly; plantation and mining companies financed by companies floated
in England were playing an increasing part in the deve10pment of
Empire (Benains, 1959b, p. 196). The West Indian sugar industry was
controlled by managing agencies of metropolitan firms in the late
nineteenth century. During the same period, United States and British
firms, growing out of shipping companies, became involved in banana

production in the Caribbean and Central America. In Ceylon, tea

227

lands fell to managing agencies rapidly from 1890 onward. The giant
corporations, fully integrated horizontally and vertically in one
firm, and possessing internal stores of capital, generally emerged

in the early part of the century. The Australian based Colonial

Sugar Refining Company began producing raw sugar in Fiji at this time.
In 1910, Dunlop established its first rubber plantation, and by 1915
it had formed Dunlop Plantation, Ltd. In the 1930's, Tate and Lyle
established itself in the West Indies (Beckford, 1972). Other cor-
porations that operated overseas arose through mergers in the 1920's
and the takeover of bankrupt finms in the 1930's: Unilever's,. Brooke
Bond Tea, Consolidated Zinc, United Molasses, Londin Zinc Corporation,
Cadbury Distellers.

British investment in shipping also increased during this per-
iod; in the later 1850's, British ships carried about 30% of the cargo
entering France and the U.S., and by 1900, they carried 45% of French
cargo and 55% of American cargo. From 1880-95, Britain had a greater
share of traffic of the high seas than at any other time in her his-
tory (Benians, 1959, b, p. 204). Shipbuilding and shipping became a
part of the complex of interests--banks, trading companies, mining and
agricultural concerns--firmly committed to the British Empire.

The recognition of metropolitan responsibility for the welfare
of the dependencies had the inevitable and, perhaps, intended conse-
quence of drawing the British state even further into the affairs of

private capital operating abroad.7

The government, through the Crown
agents of the Colonial Office, sought the services of private compan-
ies to develop the commitments made by the Crown in establishing a

colonial infrastructure and hugely profitable schemes, such as mining.

228

The exploitation of the colonies, which had been recently performed
by merchant companies, was now carried out by the Colonial Office.
Landowning, agriculture and mining fell increasingly under the do-
main of the state, rather than private stock companies. In both
cases, however, the state stood as a kind of agent for private cap-
ital, assuming the costs of exploration, construction and adminis-
tration, even production itself, and allowing many of the more pro-
fitable related means for capital accumulation--shipping, trade,
insurance--to fall to private companies (Barratt-Brown, 1960, p. 43).
In particular, the building of railroads, docks, steamships, water-
works, etc., all necessary to the successful exploitation of export
crops and minerals, was deemed too expensive by private capital.
Even in India, then the most profitable single colony, the state had
to make a financial commitment to construction to lure industry,
merchants and financiers.

Britain was also becoming a creditor on a large scale for the
44 colonies and protectorates, most of which were now permitted, for
the first time, to borrow from Britain. What they borrowed was gen-
erally used for the infrastructural components necessary to success-
ful production on plantations and in mining. The British government
also had holdings abroad in the form of railroad securties, and now,
with the profits from mines and plantations and with the interest
from lending, earned considerable revenue in the period 1900-1915.
Tables indicates the various types of British overseas investment from
1913 to 1934, and reveals the rising proportion of British investment
in government stocks from 1913-1934, as increase from 30% to 44%. Of

these, an increasing percentage of the total was lent to or invested

229

Table 5. Character of British Overseas Investment, 1913, 1930

 

 

and 1934

Types of Stock 1913 (%) 1930 (%) 1934 (%)
Government stock 30 42 44
of which Empire 21 32 34
Foreign 9 10 10
Railways 41 24 24
of which Indian 4 3 3
Other Empire 8 7 7
U.S.A. 16 l 1
Other Foreign 12 13 13

Public Utilities and

Shipping, etc. 5 6 6
Commerce and Industry 6 7 6
Mines 7 4 5
Other Raw Materials 3 9 8
Banks and Finance __8_ __Z_ ___Z

100 100 100
Total in Millions of
Pounds 3763 3425 3414

 

Note: Total includes only quoted securities, leaving another
f3OO million unquoted. (Barratt-Brown, 1963, p. 153).

230

in countries of the Empire; foreign countries received substantially
less. This geographical shift of British government overseas invest-
ment is consistent with the withdrawal of all forms of British imper-
ialist exploitation into the politically secure Empire. Of all forms
of British overseas investment, government stocks grew most rapidly
from 1913 to 1934, and constituted the largest percentage of British
overseas investment by 1930. As the world great creditor, the Bri-
tish state (along with private finance capital) helped to stabilize
Britain's balance of payments when, after the 1870's, the balance of
trade suffered a constant deficit.

From 1870 to 1914, commodity exports also rose (in absolute
terms), slowly in the first years of recovery after 1896. The Empire
took a slightly higher percentage than previously; from 1871 to 1895,
British possessions took the following percentage of total exports:

1871-5 22.7%

1987-80 24.6%

1881-5 26.3%

1886-90 25.8%

1891-5 25.2%

The percentage remained steadily at about one-quarter of total exports
until the eve of World War I. The composition and destination of
British exports reflects the narrow market for capital goods in the
dependencies. The Empire took about 4/5 of apparel and shoes, a

small part of the coal, about 1/4 cotton twist and yarn, 1/3 of the
iron and steel, 1/3 of the hardware and cutlery. The Empire purchased
about 1/3 in Value of steam engines and about the same percentage of

machinery. Many of the commodities related to industrial production

231

were exported to the Dominions.

Britain's chief imports were food, raw materials for industry
and manufactured articles. The Empire contributed almost nothing
towards the last category. Wheat was purchased from the U.S., India,
Russia, Australia and Canada; bacon, ham, beef and preserved meats
from the U.S.; butter and margarine chiefly from Denmark, Holland,
France and Sweden; cheese from Canada, U.S.; India and Ceylon pro-
vided about three-quarters of Britain's tea; India sold her rice;
sugar came mostly from Europe and some was purchased from the West
Indies and Mauritius; raw cotton was exported from the U.S. and Egypt;
dye and jute were sold to Britain by India; jute was purchased also
from the U.S. and Australia. British South Africa, Australia, Spain
and U.S. sold copper to Britain; Australia exported lead, silver, ore
and some tin; Europe sold wood and timber to Britain; Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa exported wool to Britain.

Britain's most important trading partner during the last quarter
of the nineteenth century (based on import and export figures together,
but excluding bullion and specia) was still the United States, fOllowed,.
in order, by France, India, Germany,Australia, Holland, Belgium, Russia,
British North America, Sweden, Norway, Spain, China, British South
Africa (Benians, l959b, pp. 204-5).

Free-Trade or Protection?

 

In 1896, Chamberlain instituted an inquiry into the progress
of foreign competition with British exports in countries of the Empire.
Apart from India, which still bought primarily from Britain, foreign

competitors had made inroads into British colonies and possessions.

232

Competitive imports rose from 26% of imports purchased by Empire
countries in 1884 to 32% in 1892, confirming the fear of British
overseas business interests that other industrial countries threatened
British hegemony. It also revealed the paradoxical position Britain
fbund herself in during the period following the acquisition of the
African and Pacific dependencies. Her original purpose in these con-
quests was the protectionirfsources of raw materials and markets. In
terms of raw material imports, the dependencies were useful and a
guarantee for the future, but were relatively limited in terms of in-
vestment and market potential. Their utility in both of these realms
increased over time, but in the late 1890's, in the face of increas-
ing overseas competition, Britain needed greater market guarantees,
particularly from purchases of British capital goods, i.e., the
Dominions. The contrasting positions of Dominions and dependencies in
terms of the purchase of British exports is revealed in Table 6.
Canada (British North America), and Australia and New Zealand together,
purchased more goods from Britain in 1870-4 than any singlg_country
except India, always an exception among dependencies because of its
large market. The percentages changed somewhat between 1870 and 1894,
however, indicating the increasing role of the Cape and Natal in the
British Empire; the latter purchased a greater percentage of goods
from Britain than did Canada. Australia and New Zealand continued
to be large purchasers of British goods, and, like India, increased
the percentage of goods bought from Britain between 1870 and 1894.

The concern of British officials and industries producing for
overseas markets over the sale of British goods, accompanied a growing

conflict within the higher circles of the Birtish state and financial-

233

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234

industrial complex. While industrial interests had held thier own
during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, London, the fin-
ancial center of the world, triumphed from 1870 to 1915. Investment
in trade, lending and insurance had become the pivots of the Empire.
Domestic and overseas production was increasingly vulnerable to compe-
tition from Other industrial powers in the British and in the inter-
national market. The new Empire of the 1890's provided raw materials
and markets for a long period of time, and indeed, forestalled the
inevitable. But the forces of the financial empire achieved a new
supremacy, both as a result of investment and trade with the new
dependencies,and, perhaps more significantly for future British devel-
opment, in the Dominions and South America, areas in need of capital
for their nascent industrialization.

The emergence of finance capital during this period is extremely
important, fbr it foretold the future, dominant conflict in the Bri-
tish economy--that between industry, particularly industry producing
for the home market, and financial capital (Block, 1971; Barratt-
Brown, 1960). This conflict took the form of competition for state
influence that was first evidenced in the early twentieth century
debate between those favoring free-trade principles and those endors-
ing trade barriers and imperial preferences.

The home market had suffered in the imperial battles waged by
the British state for industry and finance, and against foreign compe-
tition. Gross investment income rose from 4.5% of national income
in the 1870's to about 9% in 1910-13. But foreign investment con-
tinued to exceed domestic investment; in the great boom of 1911-13,

8

twice as much capital was invested abroad as at home. By 1913,

235

investment abroad was almost one-third of all holdings of British
investors (Barratt-Brown, p. 93). Industry in general suffered from
a desperate need for reorganization and modernization. After 1875, a
new industrial technology had emerged based on new sources of power
and new materials; as Magdoff (1969) notes, chemistry, electricity,
steel and oil were the products of a scientific revolution in indus-
try. Britain's structure of small and mediumesized, specialized
productive centers militated against the successful adoption of these
innovations, particularly at a time of depression when little capital
was available for experimentation and change. Industry in America
and Germany was centralized, and benefited from state support in the
form of high protective tarrifs in America and cartelization in Ger-
many.9 British markets were not protected by tariffs or other econ-
omic safeguards, and British firms faced duties on exports of 10 to
30% ad valorem.

In the 1880's, Britain's chief exports were machinery, ships
and rails, made from her iron and steel, and textile manufactures
from imported cotton and wool. These industries provided employment
for half of her population and gave her worldwide supremacy in exports.
But the British economy had come to rely on these few staple indus-
tries which were dependent on foreign markets, and her superiority
in these markets was steadily disappearing. While rails were made
of iron, until the late 1870's, Britain enjoyed a monopoly of the
world export trade. But she suffered a rapid fall after 1877 with
the extension of steel making to the United States, Germany, France
and Belgium. By 1896, Germany and the U.S. surpassed Britain in

steel production, and the U.S. was the greatest exporter of iron

236

and steel. Both Germany and the United States were developing mer-
cantile marines and considerable sea power, forcing a decline in

British merchant shipping.10

Britain retained her superior position
in cotton trading, although that too was declining. Furthermore,
cotton was not a growth industry; its survival depended on the long
term inability of some countries to produce their own textiles.

The refusal of Britain to reorganize industrially meant that cer-
tain societies, i.e., the dependencies, had to remain undeveloped

if they were to serve British industrial needs. At this point,
Britain still wielded the political power to prop up its capital
goods industries by forcing exports upon the Dominions. And, Bri-
tish industry became increasingly convinced, by German experience

in particular, that a more direct relationship between the state and
capital, expressed in an imperial customs union, would save British
industry.

Those seeking protection at home and preference abroad joined
to demand modifications in free-trade policy. The reform interests
included the great landlords (seeking protection against American
imports) and leaders of heavy industry, in particular, steel, who
were faced with German "dumping" and severe American competition.
They were led by Joseph Chamberlain, champion of the “Empire,"
against the Liberals, cotton industry, coal miners, shipbuilders,
engineering employers (who favored cheaper German steel), and the
Trade Union Congress (which feared the high cost of preferred con-
sumer goods). In the elections of 1906 and 1910, the free-traders
commanded parliamentary majorities. Barratt-Brown contends that

Chamberlain was defeated by the City of London, which dominated

237

the British economy, no longer by financing manufacturing, but by
the issue and promotion and management of foreign loans from broker-
age and insurance, and from the issue of bills to finance trade
throughout the world (pp. 104-6). Free-grade benefited them, as it
kept the level of international trade high. The retreat of Britain
into an imperial preference scheme would increase the already marked
tendency of metropoles to operate within formal and informal customs
unions. Furthermore, the shifting of state concerns inward meant a
loss of influence to finance capital and a general move away from
the maintenance of Empire. Such a change was particularly serious
for British bankers and traders, because domestic industry was so
underdeveloped it would need extensive, long-term state help. On
the other hand, trade was now so overdeveloped, that it too re-
quired constant support to survive. Domestic industry eventually
scoreda victory in this battle, inevitably, as the trade and finance
rejection of tariff reform was based on the perception that British
state efforts in favor of trade could secure Britain's international
economic superiority indefinitely. In fact, tariff reform, like
recent colonization and the supression of home industry, was an action
that could achieve continued British hegemony, although it was ana-
thema to those who benefited most from it. Tariff reform was exactly
what trading interests needed, and it proved useful, as they continued
to dominate the British economy. Nevertheless; it was a stop-gap
measure, serving only to maintain existing markets, and did not pro-
duce dynamic expansion.

At the same time, the Dominions were seeking greater political

autonomy and preferential treatment by Britain for their goods. These

238

nations had been forced, for years, to buy British imports because
of the latter's natural competitive advantage. As early as 1853,
Canada questioned this unequal relationship and pressed for prefer-
ences. Britain gradually permitted the Dominions to institute their
own commercial policy with other nations, on the condition that
such agreements did not harm other members of the Empire. The
Dominions began to institute tariffs, first as a means to collect
revenue, as Britain did, and then, increasingly, to protect domes-
tic industry. British policymakers were willing to consider the
application of preferences for Dominion imports, but insisted on
mutual preferences, which were bound to hurt Dominion industry.

The second half of the nineteenth century was a time of public
hostility to the suspension of free-trade principles and opposition
to policies primarily advantageous to the colonies; free-trade meant
continued expansion of then hegemonic British industry and cheaper
comnodities for the British consumer. Even in the late '90's, as
the inevitable retreat of Britain into her colonies took shape,
most people were “free traders," and there seemed to be not the slight-
est chance of a reversion to protection. Canada, Australia and New
Zealand continued to demand preferences; in fact, Canada adopted
preferences for British goods, but Britain would not reciprocate,
despite entreaties by Joseph Chamberlain. In 1910, a Royal Commission
recomnended that the colonies be permitted to establish preferences
among themselves. Thus, the 1900-1915 period marked 1) the British
refusal to adopt any form of Imperial preference, even with the
relative contraction of the export trade and expanding markets in the

Dominions and colonies, and 2) the gradual separation of self-governing

239

Dominions from the imperial treaty system and the development of
independent commercial relations with foreign countries based on
protective tariffs, even when detrimental to Britain.n

World War I exacerbated Britain's economic crisis, and by the
1932 Ottawa Conference, British industries and the public were fully
committed to imperial preference, whatever the costs to the consumer.
It became ever more eVident that imperial policy, in particular the
British conversion to a pro-imperial stance in the 1880's and 1890's,
was inseparable from tariff reform. Many trading activities, in-
cluding some aspects of finance, shipping and marketing, were ab-
sorbed into the integrated monopolies which proliferated after the
war. Some of these corporations, remaining trade, and financial
interests continued to oppose tariff reform, and exercised increas-
ing independence from industrial capital, maintaining its interna4
tional position long after British industry lost its hegemonic status
in world markets. Finance capital dominated the British state during
the post-World War I efforts to reorganize industry, by pulling state
resources away from domestic problems to the emphasis on trade, over-
seas investment and the propping up of sterling as the preferred
world currency.

During the early 1900's, British military primacy was challenged
by the Continental powers and the U.S. British no longer ruled the
seas or had the kind of infantry needed to win in confrontations with
rivals. Early in the second half of the nineteenth century, Britain
fostered an Anglo-American alliance by abdicating political control
of the Western hemisphere to America. It was in the British interest
that the U.S. police and Western hemisphere, protecting British

240

investment, even when the magnitude of America's industrial potential
became clear.

If the U.S. could be relied on to preserve the uti passi-
getj§_in the New World, together with the maintenance of order
and financial integrity among the less stable Latin American
republics, Britain might be free to withdraw her forces to
deal with other and more pressing dangers in the remaining
half of the world, for the 'back—door of the British Empire'
could be secured (Steel, 1959, p. 310).

In recognition of the Monroe Doctrine, Britain had dismantled
naval stations in the West Indies, at Halifax, Esquimalt, and British
Columbia, by 1905, and British garrisons were reduced to nominal
strength in such key positions as Bermuda and Jamaica. By this time,
America was challenging the British position in Latin America, but
Britain had to suffer in silence, as she clearly needed an ally
against the hostile forces developing on the Continent. Steele sug-
gests that the U.S. did not see World War I coming; Britain saw it
and from 1900 to 1910 pursued American influence, willingly sacri-
ficing most of her economic interest in the Western hemisphere in
return for American good will (pp. 330-333). It is doubtful, however,
that Britain recognized the price that the U.S. would exact in return
for assistance in the first and second World Wars. Crippled by
these and other costs of war and by the depression of the 1930's,
Britain struggled through the middle years of century to reorganize
industry and maintain strength in international trade and finance.
But the transition to monopoly capitalism had begun an era in which

Britain's economy was formed by the rivalry among industrial countries

and by the rise of America to the status of premier metropole.

241

ml

The years 1870 to 1930 marked new and major developments in
Western economic history. Britain, too, experienced changes eman-
ating from the growth of monopoly capitalism. The first major propo-
sition examined in this chapter was that conpetitive capitalism gave
way to monopoly in bourgeois nations; the dynamic of competition
encouraged both concentration of capital and the centralization of
production. These processes and major advances in techniques of
production fostered vertical integration within the firm. Corpora-
tions monopolized markets and factors of production through central-
ization or by joining in agreements with other capitalists. As in-
dicated in proposition 2, oli90polies--capital concentration in com-
merCial and industrial corporations, centralization or production and
vertical integration-~and the monopoly of markets and resources by
small groups of oligopolies characterized monopoly capitalism.

Britain departed from the pattern of industrial capitalist coun-
tries in her emphasis on world trade and investment, which allowed
her entrepreneurs to seek markets and cheaper factors of production
throughout the world and thus forestall the concentration and cen-
tralization that resulted from competition elsewhere.

Imperialism began to take new forms, consistent with capital
concentration and the organization and reach of the firm; as stated
in proposition 3, fbreign capital investment replaced trade as the
dominant form of imperialism during the monopoly capital stage of
development. Capital investment abroad by giant corporations became
the most valuable and significant type of capital export. Corpora-

tions of Britain and other capitalist metropoles invested heavily

242

in now Third World countries, many of which were absorbed into
political "empires“ during the imperialsis takeovers of the late
Victorian era.

In proposition 4, I contended that monopoly capitalism rein-
troduced protectionism as the principal trade policy, even in those
countries achieving economy hegemony over other industrial powers.
The costs of monopoly capitalism necessitated protection of home
markets and "empire" markets and resources. The transition to pro-
tection and preferences in Britain was a subject of long debate be—
tween industrialists, who favored shelter against the products of
German and American large scale organization and modern technology,
and finance capital, which benefited from continued high volumes
of international trade and the "top" currency status of British

sterling.

243
FOOTNOTES

1O'Connor (1971) systematically recounts arguments against
Lenin's theory of imperialism. He remarks that industrial central-
ization and capital concentration in all of the industrial countries
may have developed in the early twentieth century, not the late nine-
teenth. Moreover, the investments of the BritiSh in the African de-
pendencies were often made by small investors joining together, and
not by the great financial or industrial fOrces. On both counts
O'Connor presents convincing evidence. Nevertheless, some companies,
particularly in the United States and Germany, had reached unpre-
cedented size, centralization of production and concentration of
capital by the late 1800's. Clearly, a major change in capitalist
development was beginning, if slowly. Second, in the West Indies,
investment in raw material production, which was so important to
their reincorporation into the world economy in the late nineteenth
century, was made by large firms, e.g., United Fruit and Elder Demp-
ster and Company.

2The expansion of the British state role in business after the
"Great Depression" is indicated by Hobsbawm (1969. PP. 226-239). Dur—
ing the age of competitive capitalism, government in Britain was
limited in function and cost in comparison to that of other nations.
Except for the minting of money, some armament construction, and some
building the government was not involved in direct production. Bri-
tain was the only industrial country at the time which refused fiscal
protection to its industries and did not contribute in any way to the
building of the railway system. The "administrative and above all
the financial burdens of flag--and sabre-rattling" altered government
costs and functions (p. 239). Naval expenditures rose from an annual
average of about flO million from 1875 to 1884 to more than f20
million per year in the second half of the 1890's and more than f4O
million in the years before World War I. Government loans for private
enterprises largely connected with commerce and armaments began during
the last thirty years of the century, reaching a level of more than
f50 million immediately before World War I. By the pre-war years,
the Labour Party had moved the state to enlarge its commitment to
the poor and working population, leading to greater government action
for social welfare and to the influencing and regulation of wage rates.

3Although centralization of production moved relatively slowly
in Britain, there is still much evidence of this phenomenon from the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dobb tells us that
in Britain, the 'typical' size of the spinning firm more than doubled
from 1884 to 1911; in 1926, 12 large groups were responsible for nearly
one-half of pig-iron output and nearly two-thirds of steel production,
and in 1939, 39% of iron and steel were produced by the three largest
firms. In 1935, in British industry at large, about one-half of the
output and nearly one-half of the employment were provided by large
business units employing more than 1,000 persons each (Dobb, p. 343).
By 1930, single British firms controlled more than 80% of industrial
capacity in salt, chemicals, dyes, fertilisers and other products
(Barratt—Brown, 1963, p. 125). Before 1914, Hobsbawm claims, products

244

produced by oligopolies included sewing cotton, Portland cement,
wallpaper and some others, but by 1935, an "absolute minimum" of
170 products were produced substantially by l, 2, or 3 firms (p. 125).
Capital concentration in financial firms is indicated in the growth
of London banks, which expanded in number from 60 or 70 in 1850 to
more than 120 in 1870 (Benians, l959b, p. 197). From 1914 to 1924,
38 joint-stock banks became 12, of which 5 dominated the field
(Hobsbawm, p. 215). In terms of the monopolization of markets and
factors of production, Britain had about fifty trade associations in
1914, mainly in iron and steel. Their number grew by 1925, when the
Federation of British Industries alone had registered 250 such
associations. .

4Barratt-Brown (1963) stresses that the issue in the coloniza-
tion of the 1880's and 1890's was the defense of Britain's world-
wide freedom to trade. When Britain's monopoly was challenged, ter-
ritorial control was important, in order to anticipate her rivals'
moves. This interpretation is shared by Hobsbawm, Dobb, and others,
and is crucial, as it undermines both the Lenin and Hobson theses
that colonization was a means fdr investment. Markets and raw mater-
ials were the issue, and even then, the new dependencies did not pro-
vide large markets for British goods, as further discussion will make
clear.

5Although various sectors of the British population despaired
at the periodic crises of capitalism, there was little formal resis-
tance to the system itself at this time. Dobb (p. 314) notes that
socialism was heard as a sort of street gospel in the 1890's and
early 1900's; the Labor Party grew as a political force after 1906.

6Hobsbawm (1969) contends that Britain's largest comnodity and
capital markets during the last quarter of the nineteenth century re-
mained beyond her political control, e.g., South America. However,
the Empire was becoming an increasingly vital part of Britain's over-
seas economy. The dependencies provided raw materials and purchased
a growing volume of British consumer goods; the Dominions purchased
British capital goods and borrowed increasing amounts of capital for
their own economic development. As the following figures indicate,
the Empire as a whole absorbed a large percentage of British over-
seas investment in the 1860's, greater even than Latin America, al-
though the latter probably provided more immediately profitable chan-
nels for investment. By 1927-9, the Empire absorbed 59% of British
overseas investment, indicating Britain's need for her colonies and
the limited British potential in non-Empire markets

Year Empire (%) Latin America (%) Total (%)

1860's 36 10.5 46.5
1880's 47 20 67
1900-13 46 22 68
1927-9 59 22 81

Table 7 indicates in greater detail the geographic distribution of
British trade and investment, 1860-1935. (See also, Benians, l959b,
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246

7As noted previously, until this time the British state had
indirectly paved the way for private capital in the Empire. But with
the exception of the great chartered companies of the 1880's (con-
sidered to be an economic and political failure), the state had not
worked as extensively or directly to facilitate the exploitation of
the Empire by private capital until the late nineteenth century. As
British capitalism became more heavily concentrated and exhibited
other monopoly characteristics, the government activities in the
Dominions and dependencies took the fbrm of direct investment and
massive lending to foreign governments, increasing its own capital
stocks.

8Barratt-Brown (1963, p. 97) disputes Lenin's proposition that
surplus capital sought overseas markets to counteract the declining
domestic rate of profit. He claims that capital was invested abroad
because, given the long-term emphasis of British finance and industry
on overseas sales, it was simply less risky. He notes more frequent
failures of businesses at home; more than one-third of the domestic
businesses formed annually after 1859 folded.

9During the 23 years of depression, the U.S. and Canadian pop-
ulations and standards of living increased, and U.S. exports grew
very rapidly, much faster than those of Britain.

loAlready, in the late 1800's, the United States was forced to
develop a military machine to support its commercial interests, de-
spite its fears of the dangers inherent in the institution of a standing

army.

11During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Dominions
began to adopt protectionist policies, offering preferences to sel-
ected sellers. Australia and New Zealand allowed lower duties on
Empire goods than on foreign ones and New Zealand prepared to make
reciprocal treaties outside the Empire. Both South Africa and Canada
offered substantial preferences on most imports, but Canada increased
the list of "free" goods, and negotiated reciprocally with foreign
countries.

CHAPTER VI

THE WEST INDIES AND THE BRITISH TRANSITION
FROM COMPETITIVE T0 MONOPOLY CAPITALISM

Introduction

In this, Chapter VI, I have two principal tasks. First, I
will analyze four propositions about satellite society and economy
in relation to the metropolitan transition from competitive to mon-
opoly capitalism. These propositions entail the consequences of
this development in metropolitan economies on satellite systems of
production, class relations, dependent development and the state.
They are derived from Marxian theories and analyses of dependency,
and my interpretation of satellite and West Indian histories.

The propositions are as follows. First, raw material producing
corporations, like monopoly capitalist firms in structure and degree
of concentration and centralization of capital, invested in satel-
lite nations. The host countries were those previously unaffected
by Western imperialism, and ones, like the West Indies, that were
formerly sites of commodity export production. Second, development
became concentrated in export sectors, indicating dependency on
foreign capital and technology, and a lack of sectoral balance in
economic growth. Relatively low levels of domestic capital accumu-
lation were possible. Third, class relations changed in accordance

with the introduction of metropolitan monopoly capital to the

247

248

satellites; corporate representatives joined in alliance with former
landowners and international traders, as small-scale producers of
agricultural and manufactured products faced increased difficulty in
countering the economic power of large-scale commodity export pro-
ducers, and a class of landless, unemployed became prominent in the
cities. Fourth, the rising power of monopoly capitalist corporate
producers introduced changes in the dependent state. In politically
independent societies, indirect influence of the metropolitan state
grew, and the composition of national state bodies changed. In
colonial societies, the metropolitan state took over or resumed many
government functions, and governed largely in the interests of metro-
politan monopoly captialists. Colonial legislatures lacked power,
but metropolitan monopolies and their allies assumed positions there,
replacing some of the national bourgeois representatives that held
office during the metropolitan competitive capitalist era.

My second task is to examine the unfolding of these four rela-
tions in the West Indies. Thus, I will duscuss West Indian systems
of production, class relations, dependent development and the state
as they were affected by the British transition to monopoly capital-
ism., Other important developments in the West Indies during this
period that I will explore include the following. The world-wide
turn to protectionism in trade enabled the West Indies to fight the
competitionof European bounty-fed beet sugar production. The
United States' industrial competition with Britain was mirrored in
United States political and economic expansion, indicated in the mon-
opoly corporate investment of fruit producers and the organizers of

the tourist industry in the British West Indies.

249

Theoretical Foundations

I have argued that the examination 6f West Indian economy and
society, and its relationship to British imperialism, must begin with
the analysis of British capitalist development itself. I did so in
Chapter III and V, looking first at bourgeois capitalist development
in general, and its peculiarly British representation. In Chapter V,
I proposed four relations regarding the bourgeois transition from
competitive to monopoly capitalism. First, monopoly capitalism grew
out of the competition for factors of production, the dynamic of
the competitive phase of capital accumulation.. Second, monopoly cap-
italism was characterized by the centralization and concentration of
capital, the centralization of industrial production, and vertical
integration within the oligopoly. Third, new forms of imperialism
based on capital investment abroad developed within monopoly capital-
ism. Fourth, metropolitan trade policies shifted from the generally
liberal approach of the competitive capitalist era to protectionism.
both between metropolitan nations and within "empire."

Satellite societies during the second half Of the nineteenth
century are best understood in terms of the relations outlined
above. The West Indies were dramatically influenced by the British
transition from competitive to monopoly capitalism. Before examin-
ing the West Indian experience, I will briefly explain the consequences
of the metropolitan transition from competitive to monopoly capitalism
for satellites in general. These consequences take the form of four
propositions about satellite economy and society which are based on
Marxian analyses of dependency and the histories of satellites and

the West Indies. I will then turn to the West Indies, exploring the

250

effects of the British shift from competitive to monopoly capitalism
on West Indian systems of production, class relations, dependent de-
velopment, and the state.

Proposition 1 is that the metropolitan transition from competi-
tive to monopoly capitalism brought about changes in the dominant
satellite system of production in the direction of oligopoly owned,
large-scale raw material production. Existing raw material produc-
tion was expanded and made more productive with the capital available
to the oligopolies now investing in these industries. Long stagnant
regions were fully reincorporated into metropolitan "empire"; pre-
viously isolated regions, like areas of Africa and the Pacific, were
invaded by the developing oligopolies of the late nineteenth century.1
Raw material producing oligopolies invested heavily in the West In-
dies, reviving large-scale raw material production that lay dormant
since the rise of British competitive capitalism. Wholly new crops
were introduced on plantations owned by British monopoly capitalist
corporations. Tourism also developed at this time, under the direc-
tion of British and American oligopolies.

The formation of oligopolies in the metropoles began with the
dominance of finance capital over industries, themselves undergoing
capital concentration and centralization. This process was in evidence
in the dealings of finance capital, merchant houses and industralists
in the satellites. Some British merchant houses actually owned
land in areas important during the mercantile era, having acquired
it in lieu of debt payment from bankrupt planters; this was the case
in the British West Indies. In other regions, banks provided the

capital for investment by joint-stock companies, but production,

251

financing, trade and marketing eventually fell under the auspices
of one firm.

Looking first at areas where export agriculture and mining de-
veloped during the metropolitan mercantile and competitive capitalist
stages, we see raw material production forced into decline by labor
repressive technology, and situations in which commodity production
survived as a result of successful mixes of capital and free labor.
In the first of these cases, oligopolistic production caused a re-
vitalization of large-scale export production; in the second, capital
from metropolitan monopoly capitalists steadily replaced labor in
the production process. Oligopolies spread in both circumstances.
The metropolitan firm, with high degrees of capital concentration
and centralization, industrial centralization and vertical integra-
tion, had the capital and organization to produce raw materials
cheaply. Neither small-scale producers nor national and expatriate
large scale competitors could counter the oligOpolies, which turned
to market sharing, price fixing, etc. to safeguard their enormous
profits.

Beckford discusses the invasion of oligopolies in areas where
mercantile systems of production faltered with the rise of metropol-
itan competitive capitalism. "Corporate ownership of West Indian
sugar plantations began to develop in the late nineteenth century
and was further reinforced in more recent decades as metropolitan re-
fining interests sought to establish their own sources of raw sugar
supplies" (1972, p. 104). In the United States, the pattern was
similar, although individual planters survived somewhat longer be-

cause of share-cropping; during the 1930's corporate ownership

252

increased, and intensified after World War II (p. 105; see, also,
Mintz, 1969). Elsewhere, capital had been more extensively applied
than in the mercantile slave societies of the West Indies and the
southern United States, but Beckford tells us that individual plan-
ters everywhere eventually faced metropolitan monopoly capitalist
corporations. "In general, ownership by individual proprietors lasted
only one generation, after which the planter would become associated
with the agency house that managed several plantations incorporated
into the firm structure of the managing agency" (Beckford, 1972,

p. 108).

In many countries of the present Third World, monopoly capital-
ist corporations introduced commodity export production. This was
the case with the rubber industry in Malaya, Ceylon and Indonesia,
sugar in the Phillipines and Hawaii, and the banana industry in Cen-
tral America. The colonies and spheres of influence established by
Britain and other metropoles at the end of the nineteenth century
were often the sites of just such forms of imperialism, uniting geo-
graphical expansion and the formation of oligopolies as solutions to
the depression of the latter years of Western competitive capitalism.
In these areas, traditional class relations and developmental ten-
dencies were undermined by the coming of monopoly capitalist corpor-
ations. Stavenhagen describes the consequences of the eStablishment
of large-scale commodity export production in western Africa during
the early years of the twentieth century:

While the same immediate factors did not operate in the

Ndenie areas, in Ghana, or in the forest region of Nigeria,

nevertheless, the same general evolution from subsistence to

commercial agriculture took place. And today, throughout the
region of western Africa, the cultivation of cocoa and coffee

253

forms the basis of the national economy of various countries.
With the establishment of these crops, the subsistence cul-
tivator was transformed into a comnercial farmer or planteur.

This process cannot be understood in isolation. Certain prior

conditions were necessary to bring about the metamorphosis of

the traditional society. These conditions were: 1) the open-
ing of the country to the outside world, through the establish-
ment of commercial enterprises by the colonial metropolis and
the extension of trading activities, 2) the weakening of tra-
ditional political organization...; and 3) the imposition of

a monetary economy, which stimulated the extension of commer-

cial crops.... This process of change has produced profound

alterations, not only in the economy itself, but also in the
forms of work, the organization of the family, and the system

of values (1975, p. 130).

Proposition 2 is that dependent development changed in form as
metropolitan capitalist development moved from the competitive to
monopoly stage. Development in Third World societies in which metro-
politan monopoly capitalist corporations invested was stifled by the
tendency for these firms to control capital accumulation within the
society (Baran, 1957). Land, often the best available, was purchased
or taken by metropolitan corporations. This robbed indigenous pro-
ducers of one means of capital savings. Labor was sometimes enticed
away from production for the internal market. Much of the capital
made in large-scale commodity export production was expatriated abroad;
wages, tax money, and payment for goods and services provided by do-
mestic producer, were the principal means of channeling corporate
earnings back into the society, and all were limited. Domestic pro-
ductive activities were increasingly oriented towards the export sec-
tor. Local farmers turned to export commodity production. Artisans
produced goods to be traded by local merchants to the export sector.
Dependency on metropoles for capital and technology increased; uneven
development was evidenced in the renewed emphasis on large-scale ex-

port commodity production, and the changes in production in other

254

sectors of the society that this brought (Murray, forthcoming a).

In areas previously untouched by imperialist penetration, these
changes were startling, often interrupting dynamic domestic develop-
ment processes. Where foreign-owned export commodity production was
instituted in satellites during the mercantile and competitive capital-
ist periods, changes in recently initiated development patterns
occurred with the coming of monopoly corporate enterprises. The set-
ting up of large-scale planting by indigenous capitalists who employed
free labor and sophisticated technology fell to the challenge from
foreign-owned raw material producing oligopolies. The establishment
of peasant and other forms of petty agriculture (food and export) in
some regions after the decline of mercantile planting was also halted
or reversed by monopoly captialist corporate penetration. Small
gains in food production, manufacturing and the building of an inter-
nal market were lost, or stalled. For the West Indies, the develop-
ment of British monopoly capitalism meant that economic growth inde-
pendent of the export sector was effectively locked into the relatively
small internal market constructed during the competitive capitalist
phase of British economic history. Beckfbrd writes:

Emancipation came in 1838. And the ex-slaves subsequently
managed to establish a peasant sector wherever land was avail-
able. The new sector produced foodstuffs for internal consump-
tion and new export crops (e.g., bananas). This activity by
peasants led to a significant diversification of the economy
and the structure became increasingly modified over time.
Peasant activity generated internal linkages with distribution,
transportation, etc.; and laid the foundation for the growth
and diffusion of national income. Thus a measure of indepen-
dent development was achieved. But this development has been
severely restricted by_the continued monopoly of resourcespby
the plantation sector (emphasis mine; Beckford, 1975, p. 81).

In Proposition 3, I argue that class relations were altered in

255

satellite societies as a result of the monopoly intrusion. Again,
these changes differed in societies newly open to imperialism and
those resurrecting contacts with the West. Generally, we can trace

a pattern of emergent class relations based on the establishment of
capital-intensive, large-scale commodity export production. First,
the displacement of landowners, rich and poor, occurred (Stavenhagen,
1975; Wolfe, 1967). Work was not necessarily provided on the monopoly
corporate enterprise, as techniques were capital-intensive. Managers
and technicians associated with large-scale commodity agriculture
and mining often resided in the satellite society. In regions

newly influenced by foreign enterprises, sectors of the landowning
and commercial classes joined in alliance with metropolitan monopoly
interests (Chilcote, 1974). They often altered their own activities
to gain from the foreign corporate presence. The tendency for far-
mers to join in export commodity production muted another source of
serious challenge to monopoly capitalist corporations. Workers on
metropolitan corporate forms and in mines often made high wages rel-
ative to those of workers in domestically-owned enterprises. A

class of unemployed, exiled from rural communities by metropolitan
corporations became permanent inhabitants of the cities (0. Johnson,
1972). Those producers and traders still involved in internal mar-
keting lost many mechanisms for expansion to the oligopolies; the
latter had greater access to land, labor and capital. Corresponding
shifts in the direction of growth in many domestic sectors also hin-
dered the growth of the internal market. This progressive national
bourgeoisie has remained the last hope for indigenous, balanced

economic growth. There are, of course, areas of the Third World

256

where monopoly capitalist corporate penetration, combined with other
forms of metropolitan capitalist investment, and, occasionally, the
vestiges of earlier periods of Western imperialism, have influenced
every national economic sector.

The effects of monopoly corporate capitalism on class relations
in areas previously influenced by metropolitan imperialism have been
basically the same as those in newly invaded territories, but have
taken slightly different forms; existing class relations reflected
the demise or transformation of earlier mercantile systems of produc-
tion. Where an indigenous class of owners survived, they could
easily find a lucrative role in the foreign-owned sector, even if
it meant giving up their land; the members of this class were
accustomed to dealing in commodity exports on the international mar-
ket and often had the expertise and commercial ties to adapt to a
new system. Lewis describes this process in Puerto Rico in the early
twentieth century with the arrival of American monopoly capitalist
corporations.

The characteristic social type of the fbrmer economy--the
individual and independent hacendado working his family farm--
gave way to the managerial hierarchy of the corporate sugar
factory. Statistics showed the change. In 1894, 205 sugar
haciendas had marketed the island crops; by 1948, they had
been reduced to 35 central stations, twelve of which were in
the hands of the four leading corporations and concentrating,
in their production, some 39% of the total output. The statis-
tics dramatized the decline . . . of an entire social class,
for as the criollo estate owner was forced to sell out to the
expatriate corporations he either became the raw material of
a decaying gentility or that of a new rentier class, becoming,
in the latter case, a land agent or a company manager for the
new owners (1963, p. 93).

Wage laborers in raw material production were not as lucky; their

labor was not needed in the new enterprises and many migrated to the

257

cities. Peasant producers of export crops and others serving the
export sector faced numerous changes that only some withstood; mon-
opoly capitalist corporations provided many more of their own goods
and services than had raw material producers of the competitive cap-
italist era. Peasants and farmers producing exports now often met
the monopoly prices and practices of a single shipping and marketing
service in the area (Beckford, 1972).

In societies where small-scale farming replaced mercantile sys-
tems of raw material production, peasants and farmers encountered
the problems of dealing with monopoly capitalist enterprises enumer-
ated above. They were also, on the whole, reluctant to sell their
land to monopoly capitalist corporate producers, and were equally re-
sistant to providing labor. Unfortunately, they were unable to endure
monopoly corporate competition for land, and surrendered much of it
to the invaders of the late nineteenth century. Food producers and
manufacturers have continued production through these developments
with considerable difficulty, given the attractions of export produc-
tion and the trend towards the importation of many goods that came
with monopoly capitalist corporations and other forms of monopoly
capitalist investment. Peasants and small-scale farmers lost much
of their capacity to counter large-scale commodity export producers,
as monopoly corporate capitalists have had disproportionate economic and
political power. Nevertheless, those not engaged in export production,
in particular, those involved in the provision of goods and services
for the local market, are the only actors in the society capable of
initiating growth of a more balanced nature. More importantly,

should a challenge to metropolitan monopoly capital come, it will be

258

in large part from them, and they will most certainly gain the respon-
sibility of reorienting the production in the society in new direc-
tions.

Proposition 4 is that the satellite state underwent modifications
with the emergence of metropolitan monopoly capitalism, both in col-
onies and politically independent societies. In politically auton-
omous nations, foreign corporate representatives and their allies,
generally from the national landowning and mercantile classes, sought
representation in satellite bodies. Over time, the dependent state
grew to resemble Alavi's (1972) characterization of a “fairly auto-
omous" mediator of the interests of mercantile-landowning classes,
the military and foreign capital. In colonial societies, the metro-
politan state asserted itself strongly with metropolitan investment
in commodity export production. The "new imperialism" of the late
nineteenth century indicated an obvious reversal of anti-colonial
ideology in the metropoles (Murray, forthcoming a). The new areas in
which monopoly capital invested heavily, particularly in raw material
production, generally became colonies, and ones controlled fairly
directly and fully by the metropoles. Formerly colonized societies
were again subjected to heavy metropolitan political control. The
British, for example, made many of the old dependencies Crown colonies,
like the new dependencies. In both situations, colonial legislatures
had little power, although they were often dominated by monopoly
capitalist corporations, representatives and allies they made of
former landowners (including fbrmer large-scale raw material produc-
ers) and international trading interests. The influence of foreign

monopoly capital was not complete, however. In areas where smaller

259

scale producers of various goods had a degree of economic strength,
they had some representation on legislative bodies and occasionally
received support from sectors of the metropolitan state. The Bri-
tish and other metropolitan governments assumed most government func-
tions and ruled largely in the interest of monopoly capitalist raw

material producers and their national associates.2

British Monopoly Capitalism and Corporate
Agriculture in the West Indies

The Sugar Duties Act of 1846 devastated the industry already
beleaguered by the emancipation of slaves; through sales and consol-
idations the number of sugar estates in Jamaica declined from 755 in
1772, to 330 in 1854 (Hall, 1959, p. 82). For some, the sugar indus-
try had no further attraction, as they lacked the will or the capital
to carry out fundamental readjustments necessary to continuing pro-
duction, e.g., mechanization and the introduction of free labor.

Immediately following Emancipation, West Indian planters had
the benefit of a contract labor system implemented by colonial assem-
blies to prolong the slaves' transition to freedom. During this
post-Emancipation apprenticeship, the slaves worked fbr three-quarters
of the week on the plantation. The planting class failed to extend
the apprenticeship period, and turned to various schemes to secure
cheap labor elsewhere. In London, West Indian interests pressed
for British government action; in 1842, a Select Committee of the
House of Commons studied the West Indies. In 1843, the West Indies
sent a deputation to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies,
complaining that efforts to induce free African migration to the West

Indies was not yielding sufficient labor to satisfy the West Indies'

260

needs. The West Indian delegation requested emigration of inden-

tured labor from India and the East Indies. Indentured servants

from Europe, the West Indies themselves, China and Africa had all

been tried, but without success. After a few false starts, the

Indian government began to regulate Indian migration of indentured

servants in 1850, with the approval of the British government. Over

500,000 laborers came to the West Indies as indentured laborers until

1917, when the Indian government stopped the practice. Most went

to Trinidad and Guiana, where the sugar industry still had a chance

to grow; few entered Jamaica whose sugar production problems eluded

solution with cheap, abundant labor. The indentured laborers contrac—

ted fbr five years and return passage, or ten years, with partial pay-

ment for return passage to India. In each West Indian society, an

agent made arrangements with the Indian government for laborers, with

the approval of the West Indian government in question. The costs

of an Immigration Department in each West Indian polity, of maintain-

ing agents abroad, and shipping, were met by a direct tax of f20 on.

employers for each immigrant employed, and by annual assembly votes

from general revenues. In the case of Guiana, the British govern-

ment gave a loan to the colony to finance immigration. Mandle

(l973a,p. 28) estimates that in Guiana, only about two-thirds of the

costs of immigration were paid by the planters during the immigration

period, the remaining one-third was paid with colonial revenues.

This support of both the British and colonial state was one example

of their burgeoning efforts to keep the sugar industry alive.3
The immigration of indentured servants did produce a temporary

improvement in sugar production in British Guiana and Trinidad,

261

although these islands were to repeat the Jamaican experience twenty
years later, when they discovered that cheap labor could not replace
reorganization and greater capital investment. Britain continued to
offer a preference to Guiana's sugar until 1875, when the European
depression and the overextension of Guianese land and labor eroded
its competitive edge in the international sugar market. Barbados,
on the other hand, had lost its productive superiority in the early
1800's. With no land surplus far ex-slaves, she fought the tendency
for emancipated laborers to flee to other British areas and to Cen-
tral America. But, like Jamaica, Barbados could not utilize cheap
labor to improve productivity.

The problem of capital saving for investment was equally de-
manding. By the time that Jamaican planters faced free trade in 1854,
the most uneconomic estates had been eliminated and the survival of
the rest depended on the ability of owners to keep abreast of tech-
nical improvements. This required reorganization, as the greatest
losses of sugar estates since 1850 had been on small estates, although
the average estate size remained small. .Even in 1890, the average
Jamaican plantation was only 187 acres in cane land; factories had
an average output level of about 149 tons. Planters thought it
rational to expand the size of plantations and factories, both activ-
ities requiring investment capital. Most Jamaican plantations, at
this time. were owned by individuals whose principal source of capital

was lenders in England.4

A large part of the capital earned thnough
compensation for slaves by the British government (totaling more than
f6,000,000) was applied to debts. The capital requirements for cen-

tral factories went beyond what was available from this source,

262

necessitating various forms of monopoly capitalist corporate finance,
a movement converging with increased ownership of West Indian planta-
tions as a result of merchant company foreclosures of debt-ridden
estates. These merchant houses were consolidating capital and tech-
nology and taking on the characteristics of monopoly capitalist oli-
gopolies, as described in Chapter IV. A similar sequence of events
took place in Trinidad in the 1870's, and in British Guiana in the
late 1800's. Barbados, with a tradition of independent resident
family estates resisted amalgamation, delaying the introduction of
the central factory system and metropolitan monopoly capitalist cor-
porate control of agriculture.

The first step in the eventual metropolitan monopoly capitalist
corporate invasion of the Jamaican sugar industry was the amalgama-
tion of adjacent estates into larger units, probable starting in the
1850's. This consolidation increased the supply of cane to one
factory. Amalgamation was achieved through seizure of abandoned
lands and purchase from the less successful small estate owners.
Throughout the British West Indies, the number of separately operated
estates declined from 2,200 at Emancipation, to under 800 in 1900.
Plantation owners and emerging foreign oligopolies operated central
factories, which, with more readily available capital, could adopt
complex designs, driven by steam or water in place of cattle or wind
power, and able to extract more cane juice. Moreover, such relatively
simple labor saving devices as the plough were adopted.

Beachey (1957, p. 118) comments that the latter half of the
nineteenth century marked a noticeable shift in most British West

Indian colonies towards a purely commercial or speculative attitude

263

towards sugar production, and away from the traditional aristocratic,
sentimental view of the old family estates that characterized the pre-
Emancipation period. It is interesting to note that a planter ideol-
ogy of aristOcratic stability, wealth and permanence accompanied the
risk-filled and ruthless mercantile plantation system in the West
Indies, as it had in the southern United States (Curtin, 1955; Gen-
ovese, 1969, 1976). This was forCed to give way, of course, to a
monopoly capitalist corporate system of ownership, the directors of
which would be more secure and able to predict and control long-run
trends in supply, prices and markets, as well as to introduce more
efficient systems of production.5
Beachey notes that amalgamation proceeded furthest in British
Guiana, followed by Jamaica, and least in Barbados. In Jamaica, the
installation of modern technology (e.g., centrifugals and open steam
pans) was most effectively carried out by merchant firms which had
acquired holdings through the Encumbered Estates Courts (pp. 118-123).
The actual metropolitan monopoly capitalist incorporation of
West Indian sugar estates varied in method and origins. In Jamaica,
British merchant firms held relatively few plantations. Unitl 1929,
nearly all reequipment of sugar factories was financed by local enter-
prise, individuals or small companies, by combining sugar and banana
planting or rotating the two crops. British monopoly capitalist
corporate argiculture made its greatest inroads in the 1930's,
stalled, in part, by the worldwide depression of the late nineteenth
century, and the related decline in world sugar prices. Eisner in-
dicates that in 1930, only 6 out of 40 factories were owned by com-

panies of any kind, local or foreign. But, the groundwork for

264

monopoly capitalist corporate sugar production in the West Indies

was laid before World War I, when amalgamation and central factory
construction proceeded unabated. In 1920, the average estate size

in Jamaica was 368 acres, rising to 661 acres in the decade from 1920
to 1930 (Eisner, p. 207).

In Guiana, the process of British monopoly capitalist corporate
penetration was both more rapid and extensive than it had been in
Jamaica. In 1871, only about 14 or 15 of the approximately 135
Guianese estates were owned by residents. About one-third of the re-
mainder were owned by West Indian merchant houses with a base in Bri-
tain. The rest were held by individual or incorporated absentees.

The merchant firms acquired these estates cheaply in the years fbl-
lowing Emancipation and the financial crisis of 1847-8, when financial
confidence in the older islands was completely lost. The use of
immigrant indentured labor in Guiana gave new life to the sugar in-
dustry there, and slowed down the rate of rationalization of the sugar
industry. Repressive systems of labor, a characteristic of mercantile
forms of production, were retained by corporate and individual owners
wherever they enhanced the competitive position of the seller in the
new free world market for raw materials. In fact, repressive systems
of labor were often found in competitive capitalism (Asian and Mexe
ican labor entered the United States under coercion during the Amer-
ican period of competitive capitalist development) (Blauner, 1972).6
However, these capital-labor relations could survive only fbr a time,
as long-term costs were high. Monopoly capitalist corporate agricul-
ture, with more capital and other sources of profit, could operate

more successfully under the natural constraints of large-scale

265

monoculture than could individual owners. The metropolitan oligop-
olies had the capital for highly sophisticated equipment and advanced
methods of cultivation, including the capacity to allow land to re-
main unproductive and thus to regain naturally its nutrients. When
the Guianese sugar planters began to eXperience the inevitable costs
of highly labor intensive sugar production, amalgamations increased
and more British raw material producing corporations appeared at the
scene, with capital to buy out bankrupt planters and to make the
transition to monopoly capitalist forms of raw material production.
Following the adoption of the Sugar Duties Act, the price of
sugar on the world market remained high. In Jamaica, sugar exports
recovered some degree of importance lost in the post-Emancipation
slump; in the early 1850's estate production kept a steady level. An
increase in the price paid to Jamaican sugar producers in the 1850's
restored the credit worthiness of Jamaican planters, and long-dis-
tance merchants were a source of funds. But in the 1870's, the export
trade suffered from the fall in commodity prices caused by the world
depression of the 1870's and the competition of beet sugar imported
by Britain from 1850 to 1904. The price of sugar fell in 1873 and
continued to fall until 1900, leading to a drop in West Indian sugar
production. Jamaican sugar exports declined by 43% from 1870 to

1900 (Eisner, p. 236).

Beet Sugar Competition
The West Indies survived the deterioration of the British mar-
ket far sugar by selling to the United States, which had instituted

countervailing duties against bounty fed sugar in order to support its

266

own refining industry. Moreover, freight charges from the West Indies
to the United States were lower. The export of West Indian sugar to
the United States rose from a yearly average of 14,523 tons in 1865
to 38,119 tons in 1872-4. By 1887, 194,920 tons of sugar were exported
to the United States out of total British West Indian production of
336,016 tons, and by 1900, more than two-thirds of British West Indian
sugar exports were purchased by the United States (Beachey, p. 128).
The combined problems of the British West Indian sugar producers,
other commodity producers, and British manufacturers suffering from
the depression led to the appointment of the Royal Commission on De-
pression by the British government. The planters and British sugar
refiners went before this body and demanded economic protection. The
British proponents of free-trade disapproved of the appointment of
this commission, and they opposed the imposition of countervailing
duties on bounty-fed sugar. The West Indian Sugar Commission, also
a representative of the British government, fbund the British West
Indian sugar industry in great distress, and recommended a minimum
guaranteed British price to West Indian producers. Again, the Sec-
retary of the Colonial Office, Chamberlain, long sympathetic to the
colonial wish to return to a system of preferential trading relations,
was forced by the dominant free-traders to acquiesce to the Commis-
sion's recommendation. The British government adopted a policy of
direct aid to sugar producers, although little was actually channelled
to the West Indies directly. The main provision for aid to the West
Indian sugar producers was part of an allocation for general improve-
ments in colonial agriculture, annually approved by Parliament and

not exceeding fl million per annum, a sum inadequate far all of the

267

colonies (Gordon, 1957, p. 13).

The consequence of British inaction was an ever greater West
Indian shift to trade with the United States. Eisner (p. 271) re-
ports that by 1850, after the abolition of mercantile restrictions,
the United States traded heavily with the British West Indies, and
was practically the sole supplier of West Indian fbod imports. In
Jamaica, the United States had made significant inroads in the market
for footwear, iron, agricultural tools, glassware, hardware and fur-
niture, all previously supplied by Britain (Saul, 1958, p. 11). The
Civil War increased duties on imports to the United States for a time,
but by the 1890's, many products were freely traded again. Tables
8 and 9 reveal the erosion of the British market fOr Jamaican goods,
and the Jamaican turning away from Britain during the period, 1832
to 1930. The percentage of Jamaican imports from Britain fell from
77.7% of total Jamaican imports in 1832 to 28.4% in 1930. Similarly,
Jamaican exports to Britain declined from 78.1% of total Jamaican ex-
ports in 1832 to only 28.4% in 1930. On the other hand, the United
States increased its role in Jamaican trade from 1832 to 1930.

Jamaica imported a mere 8.2% of her total imports from the United
States in 1832, but 31.6% of total imports in 1930. Jamaican exports
to the United States increased from only 3.0% of total Jamaican exports
in 1832 to 32.9% of total exports in 1930. Moreover, the 1930 figures
reveal trade patterns in the midst of an international depression,

when levels of trade between most countries had plunged. In 1910,
Jamaica imported 44.1% of its total imports from the United States,

and exported 59.3% of its total exports to the United States. Jamaica.
Trinidad and Barbados had all abandoned the British market for exports

268

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270

and had import surpluses from Britain. Jamaica and Trinidad had ex-
port surpluses with the United States. British Guiana alone had an
export surplus with Britain because of her gold exports. In the mid-
1890's, together, Jamaica, Trinidad, Guiana and Barbados had an import
surplus of f800,000 with Britain, and an export surplus of f400,000
with the United States (Saul, l958, p. ll).

Trade relations between the British West Indies and the U.S.
were not consistently smooth, reflecting both the competition between
the United States and Britain for raw materials and markets, and the
poverty of the West Indies sugar industry and the islands in general.
The McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 removed U.S. duties on imports of
British West Indian sugar, but established a new policy of recipro-
city. Countries which did not reciprocate with preferential treatment
of United States products were subject to import duties on their goods
sold to the United States. Britain objected to this sort of treaty,
as she had in 1884 negotiations between the British West Indies and
the United States which gave an advantage to United States imports to
the West Indies. Even if Britain had approved, Jamaica was in no
position to offer the United States preferential treatment. Such
preferences were unrealistic for a poor, raw material producing coun-
try in need of so many goods, and Britain required that Jamaica give
to Britain, her colonies, and Britain's "most-favored" trading part9 ~
ners, the concessions enjoyed by the United States in the Jamaican
market. Britain did not, in fact, benefit much from this policy as
applied to her West Indian colonies, since prices of British exports
had been rising intermittently since l892, and could not compete with

American exports in West Indian markets, even without import duties.

27]

Jamaica did sign an agreement in lBBl, granting costly concessions to
the United States, but it lasted only two years. In l894 raw sugar
was again subjected to an import tax by the United States; in 190l,
sugar from Puerto Rico (an island within the United States sphere of
influence) was admitted to the United States free of duty. In 1902
and l903, two more countries within the American sphere, the Philli-
pines and Cuba, exported sugar to the United States under special
terms.

After the failure of the West Indies in l884 to reach terms
with the United States satisfactory to the British, the British govern-
ment became sufficiently wary of American inroads into trade with the
West Indies to call a special conference on bounties. In l89l an
agreement was drawn under which the signatories (France, Germany,
Austria, Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain) would
not buy bounty-fed sugar. France refused to sign, reinforcing the
hesitation of Britain and others to ratify the treaty. From lBBl,
bounty-fed sugar from the Continent flooded England, all but squeez-
ing out British West Indian sugar. Increasingly bounty-fed sugar
reached American, lowering the price of sugar imports there (Beachey,
pp. 143-5).

Chamberlain and others were sympathetic to the West Indian posi-
tion and feared the transformation of the islands into "an imperial
slum" (Madden, p. 343). The Norman Commission, sent to investigate,
recommended peasant cultivation and crop diversification. Chamberlain
responded with a "five year plan for West Indian reconstruction“ to
improve methods of cultivation and increase loans to the Jamaican

government. A pilot scheme for peasant proprietorShip was initiated

272

in the small islands of St. Vincent and Dominica, but this, like the
British scheme to subsidize steamer services between Jamaica and Great
Britain, aided export agriculture, in both its peasant and plantation
form.

Finally, with the collapse of a number of British and West In-
dian merchant houses involved with West Indian sugar producers through
lending or buying and selling, the British government committed it-
self firmly to the ratification of an anti-bounty agreement. The
West Indian interests were further strengthened by the growing hostil-
ity of British industrialists and other countries of the Empire to
free-trade principles. The Brussels Convention of 1903 abolished all_
bounty systems.

The Brussels Convention restored confidence to the cane sugar
industry throughout the world. Following the abolition of bounties.
the world production of cane sugar increased more rapidly than that
of beet sugar. World War I further reduced the exports of sugar
from Europe, leading to an increase in the world price of cane sugar.
The price of Jamaican sugar increased from a pre-Depression low of
7.25 shillings/cwt. in 1902, to a level of 58 shillings/cwt. in
1920 (Eisner, p. 260); Jamaican sugar exports increased from 406,000
cwt. in 1902 '03 733,000 in l902. British Guiana's sugar also rose
in price, from an average 9 shillings/cwt. in the period 1900-4, to
an average of 26 shillings/cwt. in the l920-24 period (Mandle, 1973,
p. 39).

But the West Indian opportunities to share in this prosperity
were cut short with the post-World War I peace. European beet pro—

ducers quickly reached pre-war levels of output (Eisner, p. 251).

273

In the late 1920's the cane sugar boom broke, and was made worse by
the tightening of free world sugar market as more countries estab-
lished preferential treaties with cane sugar producers. West Indian
sugar prices and levels of production again plummeted, a decline
exacerbated by the international depression of the l930's. The West
Indies survived through a combination of assistance from Britain,
improved British preferences for West Indian raw material exports, and
international agreements to restrict the world output of sugar.

With the repeal of bounties on beet sugar and U.S. agreements
abolishing duties on Puerto Rican, Cuban and Phillipine sugar imports,
Jamaican sugar exports fell from 50% of the sugar bought by the United
States in l890 to 1.9% in 1910. Canadian purchases of West Indian
sugar increased substantially following the repeal of bounties. Bri-
tish imports of West Indian sugar did not rise much until after World
War I. In 1912, West Indian countries established reciprocal prefer-
ential agreements with Canada--except for Jamaica, which waited until
l919 to do so. In l919, Britain began to admit Empire products at
preferential rates particularly favorable to Empire sugar producers.
The Empire Conference of l932 produced an agreement calling for mu-
tual preferences among all British Empire nations, increasing the
volume of trade within the Empire. This agreement increased West
Indian trade with many Empire nations, but forced the dependencies
to grant preferences to highly priced British, Canadian and Austral-
ian food and manufactured goods. These products of the more devel-
oped members of the Empire were often too expensive to be sold on the
open world market, were frequently unnecessary for poor, developing

economies, and competed with indigenous efforts to manufacture and

274

diversify agriculture.

Other Corporate Ventures

A number of alternative activities to sugar production devel-
oped in the West Indies during the latter half of the nineteenth
century and the pre-Depression twentieth century. Most of these en-
terprises were a sort of export substitution--raw materials sold in
addition to or in place of sugar in order to acquire the currency to
purchase food and manufactured goods. Of these, one major new area
of production--banana cultivation and export--invited the invasion
of metropolitan monopoly capitalist corporate interests before large
scale individual ownership could develop. The banana trade provided
the ships and capital to support a: second new West Indian industry,
tourism, which also had its origins in foreign corporate investment.

Many agricultural crops exported from the West Indies after
1850, including bananas, coffee, rice, spices, had been grown on a
small scale, for use and local exchange, by slaves, peasants and
plantation workers at various times prior to this in eighteenth and
nineteenth century West Indies. Of these, bananas were a relatively
new crop, introduced to Jamaica in 1830. Banana and rice cultivation
became the most important industries, aside from sugar, in the West
Indies during the 1850 to 1930 period. Rice was introduced by Indian
immigrants to British Guiana and became the favored crop of the vil-
lagers and estate owners alike after the decline of Guianese sugar
production in the l870's. However, when external marketing conditions
for sugar improved with the Brussels Convention, estate owners returned

to the cultivation of sugar. The banana, grown primarily in Jamaica,

275

was fostered as an export crop by the early founders of the United
Fruit Company. The banana had been known as a food crop, but its
highly perishable nature had long precluded its exportation. It had
been grown primarily by small farmers and peasants; Waddell suggests
that older Jamaican estate owners looked askance at banana production,
associating it with the Negro peasantry, although many estate owners
were to turn to banana production at the turn of the century (p. 96).

In l870, Lorenzo Dow Baker, an American trader, discovered the
rich peasant banana lands in Jamaica, and returned to New York with
a quantity of bananas quickly sold on the American market. He began
a regular trade back and forth from Jamaica to New York or Boston, and
encouraged peasant cultivators to contract to sell him bananas. In
l876, he joined a shipping and trading company, the Standard Naviga-
tion Company. The latter handled the banana trade in Boston, while
Baker directed operations in Jamaica, which eventually included
planting by his own company, Boston Fruit Company. In l877 Baker
initiated a run between Jamaica and New Orleans, becoming the agent
for the Atlas Steamship line.

Other traders, shipping companies and planters became involved
in banana production. In St. Mary's parish, the Pringle family owned
more than 5,000 acres devoted to banana cultivation. In Spanish
Town, the price of land increased fromaihigh of f2 to 5/acre for
fifty years after Emancipation, to f40/acre in 1912, because of the
success of banana cultivation. The cultivation of bananas and their
shipping and sale increasingly came under single ownership. The
Pringle family lands, located in several parishes and amounting to

more than 15,000 acres by l912, were purchased by an American rival

276

of the Boston Fruit Company, the Atlantic Fruit Company, and later,
by Standard Fruit Company. Still another corporation, Lindo Company,
owned by a Jamaican, held banana plantations in Jamaica and through-
out Central America.

By l900, the banana industry in Jamaica had three major and con-
tending groups. First, there were those producers, mainly American,
who began as traders and shippers, and, through the process of vertical
integration (purchase of banana plantations, trading operations in
the United States and Jamaica, and steamships) were able to buy up
the services, land, and ships of rivals rocked by periodic price de-
clines, plant disease, hurricanes, etc. As Hart (p. 2l8) notes, new
banana dealers came and went; there were seventeen lines of steamers
(in addition to the coastal services) operating from Jamaica for var-
ious purposes in the l880's. Yet some, like Boston Fruit, survived,
by virtue of developing size and capital. Boston Fruit had capital
of $20,000,000 when it became United Fruit Company in 1898.

In l901, Elder Dempster and Company had introduced three refrig-
erated ships into the Jamaica-England line, followed by Elders and
Fyffes, Ltd. Tropical Fruit Steamship Company, Ltd., a subsidiary
of United Fruit Company, adopted refrigerated carriers travelling
from Britain to Jamaica, and undercut the cost of shipping by way
of English ships. In this way, United Fruit developed general trade
between Britain and the West Indies and eventually took over the
British corporation, Elder and Fyffes, Ltd. Hart states:

During the first and second decades of the twentieth cen-
tury the United Fruit Company illustrated in Jamaica the mani-
fold benefits and dangers of a largely benevolent monopoly.

The English trade was exclusively in their hands. Competition
spearheaded by Charlie Johnson and his associates had access

277

only to the American market. In the banana trade, access to

Europe as well as America was an essential lubricant to the

free movement of the market" (p. 2l9).

The holdings of United Fruit in Jamaica were extensive. In
1913, United Fruit leased and cultivated land in the parishes of St.
Thomas (230 acres), Portland (500 acres), St. Mary's (l,100 acres),
and irrigated over 2,200 acres in St. Catherine's; the corporation
owned and cultivated 839 acres in St. Thomas, 1,244 acres in Portland,
l,llS in St. Catherine's. By 1920, United Fruit owned land in Jamaica
totalling 7,500 acres; most was for banana cultivation but holdings
included lands in citrus, grazing, and sugar cane, and the manufac-
ture of sugar.

The second group of banana producers was based on individual
and foreign corporate estate owners who switched from sugar to banana
cultivation in the late nineteenth century when sugar exports and
prices faltered. Waddell (p. 96) suggests that many banana estate
owners were former merchants or merchant companies that acquired sugar
estates from planters unable to pay their debts to these traders.
These people knew that competition with United Fruit was impossible
without the aid of a larger, corporate rival to United Fruit, or the
Jamaican government itself. Several prominent planters, including
the Pringles, joined with DiGiorgio agents and the Atlantic Fruit
Company, to form a profit-sharing company of banana growers, traders
and shippers, the Jamaica Fruit and Shipping Company, Ltd.

Other large-scale planters and the many small-holding banana
growers formed a primary producers' association, called the Jamaican
Imperial Association. Later it became the Jamaica Banana Producers'

Association, Ltd., as a "focus for the aspirations of large planters

278

and merchants and their legal advisers" (Hart, p. 220). DiGiorgio's
services were acquired for transportation to and marketing in New
York; the aid of the Jamaican governor secured a loan fbr the purchase
and reconditioning of refrigerated ships for the British market. The
Association guaranteed a uniform price to growers.

The Jamaican banana trade, after the formation of the Associa-
tion, pivoted around the rivalry between the United Fruit Company and
the Association, each fearing expansion of the other at its expense.
However, the fortunes of United Fruit were intrinsically more secure
and stable than those of the Association, as future problems demon—
strated. By 1933, the Association had 15,000 members, representing
66,000 acrea of bananas. It owned refrigerated steamers, and had
paid most of its debt. The prices it received for bananas compared
favorably to those of United Fruit. In l936, a commission from the
United Kingdom recommended that the Jamaica Banana Producers' Associa-
tion, Ltd. be reorganized as a trading company, and turn from its
cooperative status to shareholding among members.7

However, from l940 on, disease, disasters and the second World
War combined to seriously hinder cultivation of bananas in the West
Indies. The British and Jamaican governments became committed to
paying subsidies to United Fruit, the Jamaica Banana Producers'
Association, individual owners, shippers and traders. United Fruit
cut back banana production in Jamaica; the members of the Banana Pro-
ducer's Association did not have the worldwide sources of banana
production or the variety of profit-making operations of United Fruit

to withstand the crisis. The Association was forced to seek higher

levels of government aid to keep their banana cultivation in Jamaica

279

afloat.8

During World War II, arrangements made between the banana
industry and the British government established a pattern of British
West Indian state aid to commodity producers, in the form of subsi-
dies to raise the prices paid to growers of bananas in the West Indies
to that of producers elsewhere. By means of this assistance,inter-
national banana agreements, and British preferences, the independent
and small growers of bananas in Jamaica survived, but they have never
again experienced the rapid and dynamic growth that characterized
Jamaican banana production in.the early twentieth century. Corpora-
tions such as Tate and Lyle, United Fruit, Standard Fruit, Elders and
Fyffes, struck a profitable balance in the West Indies between limit-
ing production in this naturally uncompetitive banana area, and re-
ceiving benefits from the metropolitan and satellite states.

Metropolitan monopoly capitalist corporations were involved in
the tourist industry in the West Indies almost from its inception.
Less information is available on tourism than on banana cultivation
and trade, but we know a number of important facts. First, from
1891 to l925, tourism brought at least f3 l/2 million to Jamaica, de-
veloping as a source of income independent of agriculture. In 1922,
the Tourist Trade Development Board was instituted by the Jamaican
government and functioned until l956, when it was replaced by the
Jamaican Tourist Board. In 1924, the tourist trade held fourth place
among island industries in terms of domestic income (f15,000), behind
fruit (f2,l3l,555), sugar (f9ll,812) and coffee (f203,883) (Taylor,
l973, pp. 205-208).

Before l9l4, much of the investment in and operation of ships

and hotels was by fereign corporations. Two of the principal

280

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281

Jamaican hotels were owned and operated by United Fruit Company;
before World War I, United Fruit, Royal Mail Line and Hamburg Amer-
ican shared traffic from Jamaica to New York, and after the war,
United Fruit Company had a monopoly of shipping transport.

Tourism grew rapidly in Jamaica, exceeding only bananas and
sugar in export value in 1939. The number of visitors remaining in
Jamaica over three days grew from 1,872 annually in 1922 to 4,319 in
1940; the number of cruise tourists increased from 7,951 in 1926 to
10,828 in l940 (Taylor, p. 310).

British Monopoly Capitalism and West
Indian Dependent Development

The consequences of the expansion of British monopoly capital-
ist corporate agriculture on West Indian development are somewhat
difficult to discern for the period from 1880 to 1930, in part be-
cause they were modified by other international phenomena. That is,
the spread of the monopoly capitalist plantation, consuming land
held by peasants and farmers during the era of British competitive
capitalism, is obscured by the general fluctuations in the market for
commodity exports caused by the depression, World War I, and problems
particular to sugar and to banana production and trade. Nevertheless,
there are some data which can be examined in relation to the proposi-
tion that West Indian economic growth was concentrated primarily in
the export sector with the advancement of British and American monopoly
capitalist corporations into the West Indies from about 1880. A re-
lated proposition is that development of food agriculture and light
manufacturing grew less rapidly than did the export sector. I am

interested first, then, in the output and land holding of large-scale

282

export agricultural producers, that of peasants and small farmers
producing exports, and fOOd producing peasants and farmers. Second,
I will present data pertaining to trends in manufacturing deriving
from monopoly capitalist corporate penetration of the West Indies, in
particular, Jamaica.

The total value of Jamaican export crops rose from 1850 to
1910, as recorded in Table 11. In 1850, Jamaican export crops were
valued at f1,089,000, rising in value to f2,048,300 in 1890, and to
f4,691,600 by 1930. But only after 1890 did exports increase faster
than total agricultural output, primarily because of expanding banana
production. Also, the quantities of exports grew more slowly than
did their values from 1870 to 1890, and more quickly after 1890. The
volume of Jamaican exports fell steeply during World War I, but recov-
ered with the return to peace; sugar exports also recovered in the

post-war period (Eisner, p. 171).

Table 11. Share of Jamaican Peasantry in Export Crops

 

l l

 

Year Total Value 2 Value of Share of Peasantry
Export Crops Peasant Exports in Exports
f'000 f'000 %
1850 1,089.3 113.5 10.4
1890 2,048.3 798.8 39.0
1930 4,691.6 1,940.8 41.4

 

Source: Eisner, p. 234

1Includes value of export crops retained for domestic
consumption.

2Value in absolute terms

283

Cane and banana farming by peasants and farmers seems to have
accounted for much of the growth in export production in the West
Indies in the late nineteenth century, when economic crisis depressed
the world price of sugar and European bounty-fed beet sugar offered
stiff competition to West Indian cane sugar producers. Estate culti-
vation stood still or contracted during the last years of the cen-
tury, and began to grow early in the twentieth century. The stagna-
tion of the plantation is explained largely by the sugar crisis of
the 1880's and 1890's; H. Johnson (1972) states that muscavado sugar,
which sold at a profit in 1880, sold at a price equal to or below
production costs on many estates in the British West Indies in 1884.
Bankruptcy and abandonment by estate owners was common from 1880 to
1890. The price of sugar fell from 1870 to the turn of the century;
the number of Jamaican estates declined from 266 in 1879 to 146 in
1896.

In 1897, most cane farmers in Trinidad cultivated plots of
1/20 acre to 3 acres and few farmed more than 5 to 6 acres; by 1904,
most cane farmers probably cultivated 3 to 5 acres (H. Johnson, 1972,
p. 59). By 1905, cane farmers occupied more than 10,000 of the 62,000
acres under cultivation in Trinidad, supplying one-third of the cane
grown to the colony's factories (H. Johnson, 1972, p. 61). In Jam-
aica, the situation was similar. In 1890, peasants produced 39% of
Jamaican exports (mainly sugar and bananas), rising from only 10.4%
in 1850 (see Table 11). In Jamaica, much of this increase in com-
modity export production by peasants was in banana cultivation, as
sugar dropped from a high level of 59.5% of total domestic exports

in 1832 to 44.5% in 1870, to a mere 8.1% in 1910; bananas grew from

284

.1% of total domestic exports in 1870, to 57.3% in 1930 (see Table 12).

Table 12. Shares of Major Jamaican Exports in Total Domestic Exports

 

1832 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930

 

% % % % % %
Sugar 59.5 58.2 ' 44.5 14.7 8.1 12.2
Coffee 18.4 10.3 15.1 18.2 5.8 5.0
Rum 13.7 20.9 19.3 12.5 6.0 1.8
Bananas -- -- 0.1 19.1 52.0 57.3

Miscellaneous 8.4 10.6 21.0 35.5 28.1 23.7

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

 

Source: Eisner, p. 238

Estate production physically expanded in the first decade of
this century and proceeded rapidly from 1910 to 1930. This was pri-
marily the result of growth in banana production. The amalgamation
of estates and erection of central sugar processing factories, which
paved the way for monopoly capitalist corporate agriculture, had
begun during the last years of the nineteenth century. From 1880 to
1930, factory capacity increased tenfold; Jamaica had 74 operating
estates in 1909-10, of a mean size of 294 cultivated acres. From
1880 to 1909, estate size increased by more than half. This process
had, indeed, spurred the development of peasant farming, particularly
of cane. H. Johnson tells us that in Trinidad, estate owners rented
land to cane farmers to provide labor for their own plantation pro-

duction; they advanced labor and capital to their tenants as well.

285

But more importantly, during the years of international crisis, small-
scale export commodity producers could farm more cheaply than estate
owners, because they did not have the "overhead" costs of sophis-
ticated technology and skilled labor that large-scale commodity agri-
culture now required.. However, the estate owner could utilize the
equipment in the sugar factory, for example, by processing cane grown
by surrounding cane farmers. Similarly, small-scale banana cultiva-
tors used the shipping and marketing services of the banana companies,
producing bananas fairly cheaply, (although large-scale banana pro-
ducers had fewer difficulties during this period than did sugar plan-
tation owners). For the estate owner, this arrangement was not with-
out problems. In the case of sugar production in Trinidad, cane
farmers could not supply a steady input of raw sugar to the factory;
moreover, the cane farmer became a serious competitor with the estate
owner for land and labor, and refused to work on nearby plantations.
Peasants faced grave difficulties with this system, often encounter-
ing the high prices of the single processor or trader; in the 1890's,
United Fruit Company was the only buyer of fruit in Jamaica. Some
planters selling to United Fruit at this time actually received less
than the f.o.b. price.

The actual encroachment of large-scale planting--metropolitan
corporate and nationa1--into peasant land, is suggested by the growth
in the number of banana and sugar estates from 1890 to 1930, a time
when land was unavailable to Jamaicans for small-scale cultivation
(Eisner, p. 164). The number of sugar estates declined from 162 in
1890, to 74 in 1910, and to 39 in 1910; but, their sizes enlarged,
from an average 187 acres in 1890, to 294 in 1910, to 661 in 1930.

286

These figures indicate a dr0p in sugar estate lands from 1890 to 1910,
a period of expansion in banana production, and a resurgence of estate
sugar landholding from 1910 to 1920, when over 5,000 more acres were
given over to cane. Banana estates grew in number from 1893 to 1930,
and they grew in size. In 1893, there were 113 banana estates in
Jamaica, of about 75 acres each; in 1910, the number of estates had
risen to 435, with a mean size of 105 acres; 505 banana estates were
found in Jamaica in 1930, with a mean 103 acres. Much less consolida-
tion is apparent in indicators of banana estate size, particularly
from 1910 to 1930 when the average size of banana estates dropped by
2 acres; this may reflect the fact that by 1930, the banana boom had
ebbed because of disease and bad weather. The combined figures for
sugar and banana estate size and number for the period 1890 to 1930
reveal that sugar production on estates dropped by nearly 10,000
acres from 1890 to 1910, while banana production increased by 37,000
acres from 1893 to 1910. The result was a net gain of 27,000 acres
in lands given to large-scale planting. The acreage increased even
further from 1910 to 1930.

Although the physical expansion of food production was halted
by a shortage of land after 1880, the pr0portion of ground provisions
grown relative to commodities actually exported fell until 1890,
after which it began to rise slightly. Table 13 indicates that the
ratio of exports to ground provisions ("chiefly yams, cocoes, and
sweet potatoes, which formed the staple diet" Eisner, p. 9), dropped
dramatically from a ratio of 259 in 1832, to 108 in 1850, to 69 in
1870. The ratio was lower still in 1890, at 64, but then rose again

to 81 in 1910; in 1930, the ratio of exports to ground provisions

287

was 80. Thus, despite the limitations on expansion of lands under
petty cultivation, output of ground provisions increased, suggesting
productivity gains.

Table 13. Ratio of Jamaican Exports, Retained Exports and Animal
Products to Ground Provisions

g

1832 1850 1370 1890 1910 1930

 

1. Exports 259 108 69 64 81 80
2. Retained exports 5 17 12 10 11 20
3. Animal products 2 5 5 8 9 7

Total 1-3 266 130 86 82 101 107

 

Source: Eisner, p. 170

The number of men engaged in the production of ground provisions
grew from 1890 to 1821, from 90,615 to 112,567, despite restrictions
on physical expansion during this period. These new producers of
ground provisions probably joined family members who already owned
or rented land, contributing to increases in productivity. It should
be noted that productivity increases were restricted by relatively
crude methods of cultivation and a diminishing access to capital for
improvements in technique.

Trends in manufacturing included a major increase in raw mater-
ial processing factories, although some products for local consump-
tion were also made. From 1890 to 1910, factories manufacturing
beer, matches and tobacco were expanding and increasing in number.

Over the next 20 years, new factories producing goods for the internal

288

market appeared, and there is evidence of amalgamations and increases
in scale over time (Eisner, p. 174). On the other hand, the numbers
of craftsmen, artisans and local traders did not expand much after
1890, and in many categories of non-agricultural employment, growth
did not keep pace with population increases. Manufacturing in general
comprised a smaller percentage of output after the early years of

the British competitive capitalist period. The revitalization of
export agriculture in the early twentieth century, particularly large-
scale planting, seems to have led to the retardation or stagnation

of manufacturing and local trade in general; even the provision of
goods and services for the plantation was discouraged, as monopoly
capitalist corporate agriculture provided most of its own resources.
Long distance trade prospered, although trade to and from the plan-
tation itself was handled by the corporation and not by independent
agents. The single category of employment that reveals substantial
growth relative to other industries and services is domestic service,
which expanded steadily from 1860 (Eisner, p. 163).

West Indian Class Relations and
British Monopoly_Capitalism

 

 

The class relations of the West Indies during the time of tran-
sition from British competitive to monopoly capitalism reveals changes
related to the growth of export agriculture, particularly large-scale
enterprises, in the region. Generally, monopoly capitalist agricul-
ture expanded early in this century, invading land formerly held by
small-scale producers. Export agriculture by peasants and farmers grew
at the end of the nineteenth century, although physical limits on

expansion were reached about 1880. The number of West Indians

289

employed on estates fell; labor requirements in agriculture in general
nearly halved from 1871 to 1911, although the total area under culti-
vation increased nearly 2 1/2 times during this period (Eisner, p. 348).
The increase in the number of people employed in domestic service and
provision producing probably reflects the declining labor needs of the
estate. There are no unemployment figures for the period, but levels
of migrationto the city are high and it is doubtful that employment
could have been secured for such large numbers of migrants. From

1921 to 1936, the population of Kingston increased by 73%, and that of
St. Andrew (which included much of suburban Kingston) by 135%, both
figures far in excess of Jamaica's population increase of 44% for the
period (Eisner, p. 355).

Conflicts among classes focused on the expansion of monopoly
corporate agriculture, and were expressed in struggle over marketing,
transport and processing agreements between monopoly capitalist cor-
porations and petty producers of commodity exports; and in struggle
over the direction of future West Indian economic growth between cor-
porate planters and proponents of development of food and light man-
ufactured goods for the internal market.

With the rise of British competitive capitalism, particularly
during the years of economic depression and severe beet sugar compe-
tition, sectors of the British state, and some merchants and planters
in the colonies, doubted the wisdom of continued commodity export pro-
duction on the plantation. The demise of mercantile sugar planting
produced a class of unemployed and propertyless people of color, an
undesirable social problem from the point of view of Britain and the

wealthy whites in the West Indies. Some favored the building of a

290

middle class of cane farmers, although these producers would not

have escaped the pressures on cultivation that drove estate owners to
technology with an increasing capital content. Others favored food
agriculture. A Royal West Indian Commission of 1897 encouraged land
settlement and diversification of agriculture, claiming that the "ex-
istence of a class of small proprietors among the population is a
source of both economic and political strength" (quoted in Eisner,

p. 219). The Norman Commission, discussed in a previous section,
held the same view. The food producing peasantry and farmers could
express agreement only through individual attempts to purchase land,
as they lost much of their political influence in the reversion of
Jamaica to Crown colony government in 1865.

The British state and progressive sectors of the planting class
were generally more enthusiastic in their support of small-scale pro-
duction of export craps. One particularly supportive governor of
Jamaica, Sir Henry Blake, encouraged a land settlement scheme and
fOunded the Jamaica Agricultural Society. He also sponsored the
building of roads and bridges, to the fruit growing areas. In Trin-
idad, businessmen, including long distance traders, favored cane
farming as an alternative to the plantation because cane farmers had
money to spend, something the unemployed obviously lacked. This also
meant an opposition to the indenture of Indian laborers, who angered
traders and manufacturers with their tendency to send earnings back
to India.

The petty producers of export crops themselves sought means to
counter the influence of owners of large-scale enterprises, partic-

ularly the metropolitan oligopolies. Farmers in Trinidad organized

291

the Cane Farmers' Association to challenge the practices of landlords
and owners of central factories. The history of the Jamaica Banana
Producers' Association, Ltd. was recounted in a previous section. This
group paved the way for the establishment of cooperative marketing
ventures by producers of other export commodities. Such mechanisms
have allowed the continuation of small-scale production of export
crops, but only as a consequence of metropolitan subsidies and prefér-
ences, and satellite state financial and political support. Moreover,
they have often contracted with oligopolies for transportation and
marketing in the metropoles, thus encountering monopolistic practices.
The existence of producer cooperatives for marketing does indicate
that the economic power of monopoly capitalist corporations, and in-
dividual planters and merchants, was not monolithic; nor was their
influence in colonial state bodies or on metropolitan government ab-
solute.

British Monopoly Capitalism and the
West Indian Colonial State

 

The weakness of British capitalism at the time of the develop-
ment of monopoly capital served to encourage further political inde-
pendence on the part of the Dominions, meaning the development of
Dominion industrial capitalism and increasing strength for indigenous
industrial capitalists in political institutions. 0n the other hand,
British policy towards the dependencies--those colonies acquired
largely during the late nineteenth century, and some older ones, such
as the West Indies--was a return to a policy of direct colonial rule.
The reasons for this regressive policy included the British fear of

raw material scarcity and the interest in markets fOr light

292

manufactures, both of which required low levels of economic develop-
ment in the dependencies. Monopoly capitalist corporations moved
into these areas, producing raw materials through use of capital in-
tensive technology. As the West Indian case well exemplifies, farmers
and peasants and other indigenous labor engaged in production dir-
ected to export or the export sector did not generate economic de-
velopment; producers of goods and services for the internal market
faced retrenchment or stagnation after the coming of metropolitan
monopoly capitalist corporations. But both classes competed for

land and labor with monopoly capitalist corporate plantation owners,
and in the West Indies, their presence in political bodies aggravated
the already exaggerated fear of non-whites for their physical safety
(Williams, 1966a, pp. 87-106).

The emancipation of slaves and declining production of the sugar
industry generated slightly greater diversification in agriculture,
and more local trade and crafts. This development increased the
strength of non-planting groups in colonial legislative bodies. The
planters and those merchants still linked to sugar planting resisted
the enfranchisement of newly freed Africans, attempting to reimpose
property and income qualifications for voting. The white population
of the West Indies claimed to fear physical assault from ex-slaves,
and were supported by the British Crown in their control of suffrage
through various qualifying criteria. The planters vociferously
fought legislation in favor of the black masses supported by enfran-
chised and office-holding Afro-Europeans. The foundation of racial
antagonism was the competition between planters and the new black

peasantry for land and the peasants' labor. British religious

293

society initiatives to assist African and Afro-Europeans with land,
as well as favorable reports to the British government on the settlers'
progress, disheartened planters (Williams, 1966a, pp. 87-106). When
the Governor of Jamaica, representing white interests, overreacted
to a small-scale black revolt with excessive force, the so-called
Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 brought whites and non-whites into
bloody confrontation. The rnmerical supremacy of African Jamaicans
was not enough to counter the weaprony of Governor Eyre's troops;
439 people died, most of whom were African or Afro-European. One
thousand houses were "wanton[1y] and cruel[1y]" burned, as noted by
the British government commission appointed to investigate the event
(Williams, 1966a, p. 120). Jamaica became a Crown colony; power and
responsibility became vested "substantially in the Crown," with col—
onial privilege limited to the "free exposition of adverse views in
debate, and the right of recording protests which the Governor is
bound to transmit to the Secretary of State" (British Secretary of
State, quoted in Williams, l966a, p. 125). A similar governmental
administration ruled in Trinidad, and within a few years the white
fear of non-whites led to the voluntary surrender of eastern Caribbean
assemblies to the Crown. In Barbados, whites were more numerous
than in other islands of the British West Indies, and the sugar in-
dustry remained fairly prosperous. By the 1870's, Barbados and
British Guiana were the only British West Indian colonies not ruled
directly by the Colonial Office.9
The Crown governments of the West Indies ruled quite clearly
in the interest of individual planters, planting merchants and mer-

chant houses, and the emerging monopoly capitalist corporate

294

plantation owners--all trying to recover from the disarray of the
sugar industry caused by Emancipation and the Sugar Duties Act of
1846. More money was spent than ever before for improvement of the
infrastructure serving the sugar industry, and later the fruit com-
panies. Although motivated by the decline of the West Indian sugar
industry and the worldwide problems of cane sugar farmers competing
with bounty-fed beet sugar, these initiatives were consistent with

the policy of the British Colonial Office to improve transport and
production facilities in the dependencies. Roads from the plantations
to ports were improved; the Jamaican government took over the Jamaican
Railway Company, extending rails and making the company financially
solvent. In the early 1900's the Jamaican government began to improve
investment incentives by paying interest on capital invested in the
products of the island. After the emancipation of slaves, the West
Indian governments paid one-third of the costs for the immigration

of East Indians and other laborers, assisted with loans from the
British government. British Guiana paid for colonial expenses through
taxes on food.consunption; no tax was levied on sugar exports or on
imported machinery. The West Indian colonies paid for other ser-
vices to planters through Crown grants and loans from Great Britain,
and private sources, marking the heightened commitment of the Crown

to aid planters and corporate sugar and banana growers. In Table 14,
Eisner traces Jamaican government indebtedness from 1860 to 1934.
There were fluctuations in levels of borrowing, although borrowing

was generally higher for the 1880-64, 1885-89 and 1890-94 periods

than for periods before or after. The decrease in government borrow-

ing from 1895 to 1915 resulted from the repeal of state subsidies to

295

European beet producers and the failure of the Jamaican railroad.
The level of government borrowing rose again before the depression

of the 1930's.

Table 14. Gross Jamaican Government Borrowing for All Purposes,

 

 

1860-1934
Years f'OOO ‘ Years f'OOO
1860-64 107.7 1900-04 . 155.9
1865-74 731.3 1905-9 30.0
1875-79 155.0 1910-l4 143.0
1880-84 1044.2 1915-19 217.0
1885-89 2800.0 1920-24 1515.5
1890-94 820.9 1925-29 429.5
1895-99 40.0 1930-34 86.5

 

Source: Eisner, p. 285

The British government became somewhat more attuned to the needs
of African and Afro-European peasants, plantation workers, craftsmen,
etc., following the imposition of Crown colony government. The Bri-
tish endowed a few schools, which came under Jamaican government con-
trol in 1870. Jamaican government spending for education was meagre;
in 1929, there were only 25 secondary schools on the island, enough
for one of every fifty students. "As far as the ruling classes were
concerned education for the Negroes should create an acceptance of
their role as agricultural laborers in a society that was rigidly
stratified along racial and social lines" (Brown, 1974, p. 42).

After 1865, the Crown Colony government of Jamaica initiated some

Public Health improvements, but sanitation, vaccinations, etc., were

296
still carried out in an inadequate manner. The Nutrition Commission
of 1945 of the British government.found the average Jamaican consumed
about 1800 calories daily, of which 70% were bulky starches (Eisner,
pp. 326-345).

Peasant proprietors and traders petitioned local and central
political institutions, now generally directed by Crown appointees.
They were particularly eager to have improved roads and marketing
facilities. But their demands were only occasionally met. Brown
notes that in the parish of Portland, peasant needs were often ig-
nored, as local boards favored whites and generally preferred to
spend as little as possible on improvements in the infrastructure or

social reforms (Brown, p. 38).

Summary

In this chapter I have argured that the British transition from
competitive to monopoly capitalism provides the best framework to un-
derstand West Indian economy and society during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Metropolitan capitalist development
is the foundation for the study of satellite history in general.
Therefbre, this chapter began with an examination of four proposi-
tions about the effects of metropolitan transition from competitive
to monopoly capitalism on satellite systems of production, class rela-
tions, dependent development and the state. A critical analysis of
recent Marxian literature on dependency, and my own observations about
West Indian and satellite history, provide the bases of these propo-
sitions.

I then reviewed West Indian society and economy during the period

297

of transistion from British competitive to monopoly capitalism in the
late nineteenth century. West Indian systems of production, class
relations, dependent development and the state were the subjects ex-
plored. I suggested that industrial and commercial enterpriese in
Britain underwent capital concentration and centralization, concen-
tration of production, and vertical integration with the rise of mon-
opoly capitalism; merchant houses, raw material refiners and other
firms experienced these shifts. They invested in raw material pro-
duction in the Third World, including the West Indies, where some mer-
chant houses had acquired holdings cheaply as a result of the decline
of mercantile systems of sugar production. As the oligopolies moved
into the area, economic growth was concentrated in the export
sector, intensifying dependency and uneven development; limits were
put on the potential growth of the internal market. Class relations
were influenced primarily by the encroachment of the large-scale en-
terprises into areas of small-scale production of export crops and
food, both of which had expanded during the period of British compe-
titive capitalism. Finally, the West Indian colonial state was sub-
jected to Crown colony rule after an era of increased independence
from Britain. Legislative bodies in the colonies lost most of their
power, and represented principally British monopoly capitalist inter-
ests. The Crown ruled, too, in favor of large-scale export producers,
although the national bourgeoisie retained some influence on the
metropolitan and colonial states.

The United States exerted power in the region during the devel-
opment of British monopoly capitalism. American oligopolies invested

in fruit production and tourism. The United States played a major

298

role in West Indian trade during the time of intense beet sugar
competition. A return to protectionist policies in Britain led
to movement on behalf of cane producers against government boun-
ties to European beet sugar producers, and drew the West Indies

back into trade with Britain.

299
FOOTNOTES

1Metropolitan capitalists invested in manufacturing in sat-
ellite nations after World War II. As a consequence, substantial
economic growth was generated in sectors other than those of raw
material production in many Third World countries. Cardoso (1972-3)
and Evans (1975-6) point out that this economic development, al-
though dependent upon metropolitan capital and technology, has in-
volved national capital investment and national profit-making.
National entrepreneurship of this magnitude, and in the manufacturing
sector, counters the claims of the theorists of "stagnation" and "ex-
clusion" who have contended that metr0politan capitalists have in-
vested primarily in the production of commodity exports, for thier
exclusive aggrandizement. Nevertheless, the low potential for domes-
tic capital accumulation persists in satellite nations, regardless
of apparent levels of manufacturing or national participation.
Profits are necessarily shared with metropolitan capitalists; more-
over, manufacturing enterprises in the satellites have little capa-
city for expansion, in terms of forward or backward linkages, or the
growth of the local market.

2Petras elaborates further on the ability of various groups in
the satellite to influence satellite state policy. "Power in per-
ipheral society is largely derivative: the interest groups that
emerge and compete for power (short of revolutionary classes, parties
or movements) are expressions of the consolidation and institutional-
ization of the ongoing structure of power. The terms under which
ruling class power are (sic) exercised is subject to the class strug-
gle. Therefore, the power of the capitalist is rarely absolute, ex-
cept in cases of totalitarian dictatorships under which the class
antagonism became latent and rulership appears total. The dominance
of a mode of production defines the prerogatives of the ruling class
and define the role of the state. However, the state, while subject
to the laws of development of that mode of production, also is subject
to the level of the class struggle" (Petras, forthcoming b).

3Another sign of planter political power was the Guianese policy
of direct taxation of food consumption, but not on the exportation of
sugar or the importation of machinery (Mandle, 1973a, p. 28).

4Eisner notes (1961, p. 197) that in the 1840's, the absentee-
owned Jamaican estates were more efficient than those of residents, as
absentees could acquire needed funds more easily, from private British
investors, than could those planters residing the the West Indies.

5Beachey (1957, p. 143) claims that the costs of producing beet
and cane sugar were about equal in 1890, but the bounties and lower
transport costs gave the advantage to European beet sugar in the
European market. Foreign cane sugar was preferred to British West
Indian cane sugar, says Beachey (p. 144). Tate and Lyle, later to
become a great plantation owning corporation in the British West
Indies, imported thousands of tons of Javanese sugar to Britain in

300

in the 1880's. Saul (1958, p. 4) contends that Java and other fresh,
productive areas, often under monopoly capitalist corporate control,
were able to counter beet competition, although the West Indian polit-
ical pressure against bounty-fed sugar drove beet producers to greater
efficiency and less reliance upon bounties in order to naturally under-
cut the price of cane sugar.

61 have found no suggestion in the literature on the West Indies
of the link between mercantilism and repressive forms of labor in
early export agriculture and mining, and the competitive and monopoly
capitalist corporate preference for free labor. Williams (1966b)
clearly demonstrates the relationship between the use of slavery and
soil depletion, a proposition advanced by Adam Smith. Best (1968)
also notes this conncetion (p. 290). The implication of this relation-
ship is the incompatibility of labor-repressive systems with long-
term, competitive industry, as Genovese contends (1965). Both Will-
iams and Best underscore the capital-intensivity of late nineteenth
century plantation systems, but they fail to relate this phenomenon
to changes in the development of metropolitan capitalism in its com-
petitive and monopoly stages. Nor do they see that free labor was
generally a necessity following the abandonment of mercantile prefer-
ences, as labor-repressive systems were too expensive without monopoly.
Oligopolies in a world of preferences and international commodity
agreements have the capital and market guarantees to support a system
of repressive labor. But such a method of labor use is inimicable
to monopoly capitaliSm, in which the logic is not rapid accumulation
at any cost, but the long-term, constant accumulation of capital.

In this sense, slavery, bonded labor, etc. are too expensive to
oligopolies. Surprisingly, both Beckford (1972) and Mandle (1972)

fail to link labor repressive systems with soil depletion, or to recog-
nize the demise of the former because of their effect on soil fertil-
ity. Beckford recognizes the transition from slave to free labor on
plantations, but does not explain its origins. Mandle tries to find

a general principle to explain labor use on plantations across per-
iods during the development of capitalism, and concludes that coer-
cive control of the labor force spans the history of the "plantation
economy."

7Waddell (1967, p. 97) asserts that the Jamaica Banana Producers'
Association's shipping facilities to England were not saved by Jamaican
government loans. Rather, the subsidized line failed within a few
years and was taken over by United Fruit Company, which controlled
all Jamaican banana exports until 1929, when the Jamaica Banana Pro-
ducers' Association was able to make independent shipping aggangements.

8It is widely known that Standard and United Fruit Companies
own and operate fruit growing, marketing and shipping facilities
throughout the world. TablelClshows the total banana exports of the
banana growing countries of the Caribbean and Central America from
1900 to 1932. It is clear that for many areas, including Jamaica,
the two fruit oligopolies exported a large percentage of the total
exports of bananas from these areas. Of.the 20,360,600 bunches of
bananas exported by Jamaica in 1932, nearly three-quarters, or“

301

14,082,866 bunches were "exported" (sold by agents of) United Fruit
or Standard Fruit and Steamship Corporation. Moreover, Jamaican
properties, and opportunities for banana trading and shipping, were
extremely valuable to United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit and
Steamship Corporation in the early part of this century. Table 10
reveals a high level of exports from Jamaica relative to other banana
producing countries as late as 1932, when the number of bunches of
bananas exported by these corporations from Jamaica was higher than
that for any country, except Honduras.

9British Guiana's territorial expansiveness and the success of
Indian immigration reduced the tension between white and African
and Afro-European inhabitants. See Mandle, l973a.

CHAPTER VII

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

This dissertation is part of a larger project in which my aim
is to establish a general historical framework for the study of the
West Indies from the beginning of British imperialist penetration
to the present. A second, related objective has been the examination
of several historical problems and controversies. In relation to the
first of these intentions, I have argued that conceptualizations of
West Indian society and economy have generally lacked a coherent
theory of metropolitan economic growth, satellite economic develop-
ment and satellite class relations. Marxian theories of imperial-
ism and dependent development provide the possibility of a fuller
understanding of the West Indies, displaying particular strength
where past treatments have been inadequate-~in the analysis of econ-
omic development and class relations. Furthermore, the elaboration
of a Marxian framework for the study of the West Indies offers an
avenue for the resolution of several historical questions and incon-
sistencies that have not been adequately explained by proponents of
other perspectives. I have chosen a methodological approach that is,
in my opinion, inherent to Marxian thought. It is based on the
assumption of "relations" among all social phenomena.

Here, in this’concluding chapter of the dissertation, I will

briefly summarize the principal relations described and analyzed in

302

303

this work. (Sunmaries of each substantive chapter can be found in
Chapter II). I will then suggest topics for future research which
reflect substantive concerns established here and the methodology
employed.

I began the dissertation by examining the theoretical perspec-
tive now dominating the study of the West Indies. Structuralism,
I contended, although ostensibly an anti-imperialist and occasion-
ally a "socialist“ ideology, displays many of the theoretical weak-
nesses of modern American social science. The structualists study
the "social system"; this is most clearly represented in the Car-
ibbean structuralist emphasis on the "plantation economy" and the
"plantation society." Many of the criticisms leveled lately at
American structual-functionalism and neo-classical economics apply
to the structuralist study of the West Indies as well.

First, there is the unit of analysis itself, the "system."
It is an abstraction, with no basis in reality. Yet study of the
mechanisms, constituent parts, needs, imbalances, etc., of this
system, deflects our attention from real group and individual actions
and intentions. Thus, there is no conceptual apparatus for the
study of stratification in theories of the "system." Nor is there
an adequate theoretical basis for the study of social change.

Second, there is the explicitly political position that is the
basis of the study of society and economy as an abstract, static and
reified concept. The American sociologists and economists have had
few illusions about the political implications or foundations of
'their work, endorsing gradualistc solutions to systemic dysequilibrium.

The structuralist position, however, is a politically radical one,

304

making structuralist theory contradictory and puzzling.

A possible explanation for this inconsistency may be found by
looking at the world economy, specifically, the differences in econ-
omic and political power held by the developed and developing coun-
tries. Many of the most vocal proponents of schemes to equalize the
international distribution of wealth are nations which foster dependent
capitalist development within their own boundaries. They resist the
eradication of export-oriented systems of production, in particular
export agriculture, in favor of redistribution of international
wealth. Although Third World proposals to raise and stabilize com-
modity export prices, to improve the terms of bilateral and multi-
lateral lending, etc., are initially startling, these demands have
a similar effect upon the international capitalist system as liberal
strategies for social change have upon the metropolitan nation. They
are ameliorative and do not effect a transformation of the national
or international mode of production, and they depend upon the largess

‘ Taken in this light, the

of the economically hegemonic forces.
theories of the structuralists are liberal rationalizations of the
current Third World demand for a greater share of the world's wealth.
Radical prescriptions for social change in the West Indies re-
quire a radical intellectual interpretation of society and economy.
The Marxian approach to the study of the West Indies has not been
widely undertaken, particularly since the boom in American Marxian
studies in the late 1960's that have yielded much of theoretical
value on the subjects of imperialism and dependency. Recent Marxian

theories of imperialism have generally suggested useful ways of

analyzing British economic dominance over the West Indies. But

305

Marxian writings on dependency, and on metropolitan rivalry, have
held less promise for the reinterpretation of West Indian history;
some have suffered from many of the same general contradictions and
inconsistencies as structuralist theory, and some of the same weak-
nesses in relation to the study of stratification and economic
development.

I have argued that the "underdevelopment" and "world system“
theses, like the "plantations society" and "plantations economy,"
present conceptual and empirical difficulties. They are themselves
concepts that are reified, more than the sum of their parts. They
are not grounded in human activity, and cannot be grounded in group
interest and action. Nor is social change easily or systematically
examined. Clearly, Frank, Wallerstein, and their followers endorse
radical political activity; they advocate anti-imperialist, social-
ist revolution in Third World societies. And, to more fully validate
this political position, these theorists have introduced the discus-
sion of conflict among classes, ethnic groups, etc., into their per-
spectives, and have noted that mechanismscniimperialism have changed -/”’
historically. These theoretical adjustments are congruent with their
authors' politics, but they render the larger framework problematic.
Having thrown out Marxian definitions of class, theorists of "under-
development" and the "world system" provide no means to delineate
classes or other social groups. Nor do movements in the metropoles
necessarily tell us if satellite social relations will change, or
how. Moreover, political practice based on incomplete or incoherent
theoretical formulations, as are those advocated by Frank,Wallerstein, —-

gt_gl,, can lead to disastrous consequences. This is especially true

306

in the crucial area of class alliances, a subject not systematically
treated by the theorists in question.

As I explained Chapter II, the relational methodology of Marx—
iism is based on different epistemological assumptions than the "sys-
tems"theory of structuralist and some Marxian writings. The relation-
al universe is built on few assumptions about human interaction;
those made are categorical and not law-like. Within the framework
suggested by these categorical assumptions, we find tremendous var-
iation historically and "cross-sectionally" in all social institu-
tions.

The emphasis of Marxian relational analysis is on human inten-
tionality, expressed in class conflict; the so-called unit of analysis
is class, and not the system, the society, or the firm. Higher lev-
els of abstraction are conceptualized with the recognition that they
are but webs of class relations. Moreover, change is a function of
class conflict in Marxian relational terms; evolution from one stage
of capitalist development to the next results from class conflict
and changes in class relations.

How, in specific terms, is this Marxian relational methodology
applied? I have chosen, through my selection of subject matter, to
construct a broad relational framework to study the West Indies and
the British-West Indian tie. In so doing, I have sacrificed some
precision and depth in the discussion of social relations at a lower,
more concrete level. I have based my framework of analysis on the
development of British capitalism (in fact, the evolution of British
class relations); within this historical context, West Indian economy

and society can be investigated. I have traced the link between

307

British class relations and geographical expansion, extending the
examination of class relations to the areas of imperialist penetra-
tion; there, metropolitan classes have established coalitions with
sectors of the dependent population. However, the natibns of the
West Indies must be allowed some conceptual autonomy within this
general scheme. This is possible by viewing West Indian class rela-
tions (and economic development) as phenomena which are, to some
extent, independent of British imperialism.

The substantive chapters of this dissertation (III-VI) cover
the history of British economy growth from the mercantile period to
the beginning of monopoly capitalism, although they focus on the
years from 1830 to 1930. In these chapters, I have also analyzed
West Indian class relations and economic development. In reference
to Britain, I have argued that each stage of capitalist development
contained the basis for transition to the following stage within its
expansionary dynamic. The way in which the capitalist and working
classes functioned in relation to one another created this dynamic.
Each bourgeois capitalist country also experienced a shift in mode
of imperialist penetration of satellite nations as a result of the
evolution to a new phase of capitalist development. Trade policies
were transformed as well.

Employing a case study approach, I delineated general movement
in bourgeois class relations and in the particular case of Britain.
The transition from mercantile to competitive capitaliSm was dis-
cussed, as well as the change from competitive to monopoly capitalism.
I also explained, briefly, how this Marxian interpretation of the

British-West Indian relationship provides a more adequate analysis

308

of British capitalist development, and its relation to imperialism,
than do materialist strategies.

West Indian economy and society have been discussed in terms
of four historical propositions that reflect the transitions of Bri-
tish capitalism from one stage of development to the next. Satel-
lites in general experienced modifications in class relations as a
result of major transformations ofmetropolitan capitalism. Systems
of production changed in the satellites, as did forms of dependent
development and the state. These relations were explored in terms
of satellites in general, and the West Indies in particular, both
for the period of transition from metropolitan mercantilism to com-
petitive capitalism, and the time of twansition from competitive to
monopoly capitalism. This section of the dissertation includes a
discussion of how precisely this interpretation of West Indian class
relations and dependent development differs from and improves upon
the structuralist position, both conceptually and empirically. Com—
ments were made, as well, on the traditional materialist persepctive
on several issues discussed by structuralists; and some theoretical
similarities between the "plantation society" and ”underdevelopment"

were considered.

Further Research

 

The discussion of British capitalist growth and its conse-
quences for West Indian history ends rather abruptly around 1930.
Only the general characteristics of monopoly capitalism were explored;
I investigated the beginnings of monopoly capitalism in Britain, and

its initial effects on the West Indies. Many important relations

309

were omitted or addressed inadequately.

The completion of this project will entail a fuller examination
of monopoly capitalism and an elaboration of several topics intro-
duced here. Most important is the increasing concentration and cen-
tralization of capital within British industrial and commercial oli-
gopolies, and the growing tendency f0r West Indian raw material pro-
duction to be controlled by metropolitan oligopolies. But the period
of 1930 to the present is marked by another phenomenon, the rivalry
among metropoles that resulted in the eclipse of Britain by the
United States in the role of premier metropole. The development of
British monopoly capitalism has been influenced by growing United
States economic and political hegemony, as has British imperialism
in the West Indies. I would argue that British capitalist development
must remain the basis for analysis of West Indian history since 1930,
but that the rise of the United States is an enduring consideration
in the study of Britain and the Caribbean region. Furthermore,
United States capital has been heavily invested in the West Indies
and the American state has developed tremendous political influence
in the area.

The specific issues to be discussed in the second half of this
work are outlined in Chapter II. The primary orienting proposition
are these: 1) Britain suffered from industrial, commercial and fin-
ancial competition with the United States from the late nineteenth
century through World War II, when the United States achieved inter-
national political and economy hegemony; 2) Britain withdrew increas-
ingly into her empire for trade and investment, unable to compete

with the United States and other metropoles in other geographical

310

spheres; 3) the costs of governing eventually led to the British
abdication of political control of most of her colonies in the post-
World War 11 period, although she maintained lucrative economic ties
through investment, trade, lending and a shared system of currency;
4) within the dependencies, patterns established during the early
years of British monopoly capitalism continued, although investment
in manufacturing, primarily by United States firms, often enabled
national bourgeois participation, and independence brought an expan-
sion of a middle sector of state personnel.

There are many relations touched upon in this dissertation which
warrant further analysis at a future time. Several of these topics
have been of interest to me for some time; but before developing a
theoretical perspective for the study of West Indian economy and
society, I was unable to ask appropriate questions about these phen-
omena. One such topic is a detailed comparative analysis of the
effects of labor repressive systems on costs of production and the
general fortunes of the owning class. This issue has not been fully
studied by Caribbeanists or by the many students of comparative slave
systems. The framework I have presented in this dissertation links
labor repressive systems with metropolitan capitalist development,
providing a hitherto neglected relationship that is crucial to an
understanding of the instability of this use of labor. Moreover, I
would argue that the relations I have presented here form a basis
for comparative studies of many aspects of imperialism and dependency.
Obviously, the history of the British-West Indian tie is not strictly
parallel to that of other metropoles, but the general historical

framework of bourgeois capitalist development and expansion has wide

311

application.

The approach to the study of British and West Indian histories
presented in this dissertation suggests several directions for re-
search on other specific and controversial subjects. I would like to
review primary data on the levels of food production and manufac-
turing for the internal market since the late nineteenth century,
having clarified somewhat the dimensions and implications of this
type of production. Scholars of the region have failed to provide
a category for this fundamental aspect of West Indian economic de-
velopment. In a similar manner, historians and social scientists
have neglected the consideration of West Indian local government,
focusing instead on metropolitan and centralized colonial political
bodies. Nevertheless, local political power is both a reflection of
and basis for the sometimes violent class conflict that has marked
West Indian history, as my research and analysis has demonstrated.

The investigation of the phenomena outlined above will sharpen
the general historical framework offered in this dissertation. In
fact, the precision and usefulness of broad historical conceptual-
izations can and should be enhanced by the study of specific histor—
ical problems. Marxian studies must establish constant interaction
between the historically general and particular. I regard my contri-
bution to the study of the West Indies to be the construction of a
framework for the analysis of a variety of relations, at many levels
of generality. It is my intention to consider further several specific
relations. I hope that others may derive from my work an approach to
particular topics and use their findings to improve upon this histor-

ical framework.

312
FOOTNOTES

1There are dangers in assuming too close a parallel between
the world and the nation-state. Explaining one of these problems,
Galtung (1971) presents a schematized description of the overlap
of metropolitan and satellite "centers" or capitalist classes. Never-
theless, the gap in wealth and income between metropolitan nations and
satellites is real and the basis f0r the political conflicts recently
aired in several international bodies. It may be, however,that the
time of sharp dispute between rich and poor countries is coming to an
end, forced by the growing disunity of Third World nations over the
gains they can make within the present world economy, and by the in-
creased willingness of metropolitan nations to yield to some demands.

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