I. The Myth of Primitive Societies

A. Primitive = natural

1. Clear distinction between nature and culture
2. Human history is progressive evolution from nature to culture

B. Primitive = behavior dictated by culture

1. Malinowski: kula is complex, non-utilitarian, traditional
2. Polanyi: social institutions shape behavior, no natural impulses
3. Prisoners of culture?
4. Logic and science of West vs. tradition and culture of the rest

C. Problem with both views: colonialism

1. No pristine primitive societies for anthropologists to study
2. New Guinea (includes Trobriand Islands)

a. claimed by Spain in 1545
b. 18th to 19th centuries, colonized by both England and Germany
c. 1906 and World War I ==> Australian
d. Protestant missionaries
e. European goods and money

3. Trobriand Islands changing when Malinowski got there

 

II. The Three Stages of Colonialism

A. Exploration (late 15th-mid 17th centuries)

1. Outposts in America, Africa, and Asia
2. Portuguese explore southern Africa toward India
3. Spanish conquistadors in North and South America
4. French in Canada in 17th century
5. English in North America

B. Mercantilism (17th century and 18th centuries)

1. Term coined by Adam Smith in 1776 as part of his critique
2. Theory

a. National wealth is measured by gold and silver
b. Colonies exist to benefit mother country, help achieve profit
c. Mother country gets raw materials, sells colonies finished products
d. Monopolistic trade

3. Dutch mercantilism

a. 16th century: leading European colonial and commercial power
b. Become de facto rulers of territorial bases
c. Colony in Indonesia, base for trade with Asia

C. Imperialism (late 18th-mid 20th century)

1. Impact of Adam Smith's laissez-faire philosophy
2. Industrial Revolution starts in England in 1760s
3. Industrial nations want to expand markets for manufactured goods
4. Colonies supply industrial raw materials and food
5. Imperialist economic policies

a. Land-holding: private property, European acquisition, plantations
b. Cheap wage labor for commercial agriculture and mining
c. Encourage spread of money and commodities, money payments for taxes, land rents
d. Block native production and exports

6. Direct rule, new legal codes, cultural assimilation, military force
7. British Empire includes South Pacific, East Asia, South Atlantic, African coast, India (1803)
8. Spain and Portugal decline as colonial powers
9. Imperialism accelerates, late 19th-early 20th centuries

a. More nations: Germany, the United States, Belgium, Italy, Japan, and Russia
b. More territory: China (trade zones), Africa

D. World Wars and Russian Revolution destabilize colonies
E. 1950s-1970s: most colonies become independent

 

III. Factors explaining colonialism

A. Colonialism and Capitalism are linked

1. John Atkinson Hobson: Imperialism, a Study (1902)

a. Colonialism results from financial interests of capital-owning classes
b. Excess capital, slow expansion of domestic markets ==> colonies as sites for capital expansion

2. V.I. Lenin

a. Capitalism in Europe had become monopolistic
b. Large firms want monopolies over extraction of raw materials
c. Imperialism as natural expression of monopolistic capitalism

B. Joseph Alois Schumpeter's sociological explanation

1. "The Sociology of Imperialism" (1919), published in Germany
2. Three conditions

a. Persistent tendency for war and conquest
b. These urges result from history, they are not innate
c. Tendency toward conquest is promoted by certain interest groups who stand to gain socially and economically

3. Conclusion: capitalism doesn't naturally promote imperialism, but it does result from monopolistic interest groups, capitalism gone awry

C. Other explanations

1. National identity
2. Religion
3. "White man's burden"

 

IV. Postcolonialism: Economic Development and Globalization

A. Postcolonial conditions

1. Cheap labor, relatively unskilled
2. Cheap raw materials
3. Poor infrastructure
4. Agriculture, mining, or natural resources accounted for a large proportion of national income
5. Dependency on one or two products

B. Development policy

1. Top-down: governments, multi-national corporations, NGOs
2. Primary goals

a. transition from agriculture to industry (industrialization)
b. population movement from rural to urban areas (urbanization)
c. increase in labor productivity and specialization (modernization)
d. rise of state as economic planner (bureaucratization)

3. Key assumptions

a. rural sector declines, not productive, isn't important
b. use agricultural surplus to expand industry

4. Policies to jump-start industry

a. overvalue currency, imported industrial inputs are cheap
b. low industrial workers' wages, at subsistence level
c. low food prices subsidize urban industrial workforce
d. import substitution

5. Policies to extract rural surplus

a. direct export tax
b. cheap food prices
c. State revenues from export taxes go to industry
d. Decline in agricultural productivity frees up more farmers to work in industry
e. Declining profits in rural sector prompt urban migration
f. Nearly infinite supply of cheap labor from rural areas benefits industrialists

6. Secure foreign aid and investment for industry
7. Impact of these policies

a. Economic growth
b. Prestige projects: superhighways, airports
c. Traditional parts of economy saw little development
d. Cheap labor force lacks skills
e. Growing foreign indebtedness
f. Perpetuation of global inequalities created by colonialism

 

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