Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Africana Periodical Literature Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Colonialism and Natural Economy: The Eritrean Case
Author:Araya, MesfinISNI
Year:1991
Periodical:Northeast African Studies
Volume:13
Issue:2-3
Pages:165-190
Language:English
Geographic terms:Eritrea
Italy
Subjects:colonialism
subsistence economy
economic development
History and Exploration
Economics and Trade
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/43660096
Abstract:This essay examines the impact of European colonialism on Eritrea's traditional economy. The Eritrean nationalists and a number of writers and commentators claim that the capitalist transformation of Eritrea occurred under European colonial rule. The present essay challenges this interpretation. Eritrea was never a settler colony. There was neither large-scale land expropriation nor a large-scale proletarianization process. The region was treated mainly as a trading centre and entrepot. Merchant capital, the agent of metropolitan industrial capital, was the chief mechanism of Eritrea's integration into the world market. Merchant capital related to the Eritrean rural economy mainly at the level of exchange. While the circulation of money grew significantly, capitalist relations of production did not develop significantly. The author argues that colonial rule in Eritrea produced what may be called a 'peasant mode of production', marked by the growth of commodity trade. The central problem in the argument in favour of a capitalist transformation of the Eritrean society under European colonial rule seems to be the tendency to confuse trade and the circulation of money with capitalism. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
Views
Cover