Colonial Development

In this chapter, we outline Joan Robinson’s early insights on development derived from the work on The British Crown and the Indian States. Development is considered to be the same thing as Western industrialism. How did the village economy break up is the question addressed here. As it lacked internal economic forces to outgrow itself, external penetration became inevitable. Colonialism played this role. Here again she seems to be following Marx unknowingly, which justifies the detailed comparisons made between the two. The external forces, it is pointed out, took the form of international division of labour forced by colonialism and the supportive role of the colonial state in providing the needed infrastructure. Money, exchange and the associated uncertainty disturb the life of an ‘optimizing peasant’, while the relatively cheap money-based machine-made goods undersell the village industries. The discussion then turns to the consequences of external economic impact. Whereas Marx had talked of the slower dissolving effects on the internal solidity of the pre-capitalist mode of production, the study focuses on the continued predominance of agriculture and a slower development of internal trade. The preconditions for an industrial revolution were being laid, but the industrial revolution itself was not round the corner.