Settler Colonialism: Economic Development and Class Formation

Kenneth Good

doi:10.1017/S0022278X00053726

Settler Colonialism: Economic Development and Class Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008

Kenneth Good

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The rise and fall of the settler societies in Africa – in Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia, and South Africa – is to be understood in relation to the global expansion and limited contraction of European capitalism, and in the light of the notions of underdevelopment and dependency. In strong contrast with the general experience of the Third World, settler societies show a capacity for independent capitalist development, built upon the heavy exploitation of African land and labour, and policies of economic nationalism externally. They thereby avoid relegation to the periphery of the world system as perpetual suppliers of raw materials, and as providers of dependent domestic markets for the manufactures of the metropole. In the process, the colon state assumes an ambivalent position in relation to imperialism in that it co-operates with the metropole, providing a secure and cheap occupation of a strategic area in return for political support and military aid.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 597 - 620

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00053726 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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^{page 597 note 1} Represented mainly by the contributions of Frank, André Gunder and Griffin, Keith; and more recently by Amin, Samir, Accumulation on a World Scale: a critique of the theory of under- development (New York, 1974)Google Scholar, and Wallerstein, Immanuel, ‘The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: concepts for comparative analysis’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History (Cambridge), XVI, 4, 09 1974Google Scholar.

^{page 597 note 2} The characteristics of the direct or administrative colony are dependency on the metro-pole and non-dynamic economic conditions internally, whereas in the settler colonies the colonial mode of production ‘emerged as a purely transitional and subordinate phenomenon, fueling an internal expansion of the capitalist mode of production’. Banaji, Jairus, ‘Backward Capitalism, Primitive Accumulation and Modes of Production’, in Journal of Contemporary Asia (Stockholm), 3, 1973, p. 399Google Scholar.

^{page 598 note 1} The idea has received little systematic consideiation. There is Rodinson, Maxime, Israel a Colonial-Settler State? (New York, 1973)Google Scholar; Kuper, Leo, ‘Political Change in White Settler Societies: the possibility of peaceful democratization’, in Kuper, and Smith, M. G. (eds.), Pluralism in Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969)Google Scholar; and Emmanuel, Arghiri, ‘White-Settler Colonialism and the Myth of Investment Capitalism’, in New Left Review (London), 73, 05–06 1972Google Scholar. There are passing references to aspects of the notion in writings on specific societies, especially South Africa and Ireland.

^{page 598 note 2} Review article by Murray, Roger, ‘Colonial Congo’, in New Left Review, 17, Winter 1962Google Scholar.

^{page 599 note 1} Clegg, Ian, Workers' Self-Management in Algeria (London, 1971), p. 24Google Scholar.

^{page 599 note 2} O'Ballance, Edgar, The Algerian Insurrection, 1954–62 (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

^{page 599 note 3} Meinertzhagen, R., Kenya Diary, 1902–1906 (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 52, 152, and 249Google Scholar; and Low, D. A., Lion Rampant: essays in the study of British imperialism (London, 1973), p. 21Google Scholar.

^{page 600 note 1} Murray-Brown, Jeremy, Kenyatta (London, 1972), pp. 70 and 72Google Scholar.

^{page 600 note 2} Wolff, Richard D., The Economics of colonialism: Britain and Kenya, 1870–1930 (New Haven and London, 1974), p. 106Google Scholar.

^{page 600 note 3} Cory, G. E. quoted in Lerumo, A., Fifty Fighting Years (London, 1971), p. 20Google Scholar.

^{page 600 note 4} Palmer, Robin H., ‘War and Land in Rhodesia in the 1890s’, in Ogot, Bethwell A. (ed.), War and Society in Africa: ten studies (London, 1972), p. 85Google Scholar.

^{page 600 note 5} Hobsbawin, E. J., Industry and Empire (Harmondsworth, 1969), p. 49Google Scholar.

^{page 601 note 1} Barnett, Correlli, Britain and Her Army, 1509–1970 (Harmondsworth, 1974), p. 274Google Scholar.

^{page 601 note 2} Wolff, op. cit. pp. 33–4.

^{page 601 note 3} Robinson, Ronald and Gallagher, John, Africa and the Victorians (London, 1961), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

^{page 601 note 4} Galbraith, John S., Reluctant Empire: British policy on the South African frontier, 1834–1854 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963), p. 8Google Scholar.

^{page 601 note 5} Quoted in Murray, Roger, ‘The Algerian Revolution’, in New Left Review, 22, 1963, p. 16Google Scholar.

^{page 602 note 1} Graham, Gerald S., Great Britain in the Indian Ocean (London, 1967), p. 2Google Scholar.

^{page 602 note 2} Signalled in the Crimea and in the Anglo-Boer war; Barnett, op. cit. Ch. 14. Entrenched in the underdeveloped world, Britain almost simultaneously failed to modernise economically at home and in Europe; Hobsbawm, op. cit.

^{page 602 note 3} Quoted in Wolff, op. cit. p. 234.

^{page 602 note 4} Sorrenson, M. P. K., Origins of European Settlement in Kenya (Nairobi, 1968), p. 27Google Scholar.

^{page 602 note 5} Wolff, op. cit. p. 48.

^{page 602 note 6} Congo and Nigeria were also key areas. Rodney, Walter, ‘The Imperialist Partition of Africa’, in Sweezy, Paul and Magdoff, Harry (eds.), Lenin Today (New York, 1970)Google Scholar.

^{page 602 note 7} Hobsbawm, op. cit.

^{page 602 note 8} Reported in Robinson and Gallagher, op. cit. p. 333.

^{page 603 note 1} Quoted in Keatley, Patrick, The Politics of Partnership (London, 1963), p. 50Google Scholar.

^{page 603 note 2} For Marx, Karl, ‘force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power’. Capital, Vol. I, and found in Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, On Colonialism (Moscow, n.d.), p. 290Google Scholar.

^{page 603 note 3} Not only cheap labour, but ‘probably the cheapest in the world’, said an observer familiar with South Africa: ‘the advantages over other countries… are enormous’. Wolff, op. cit. pp. 116 and 130, his emphasis.

^{page 603 note 4} Ibid. p. 91.

^{page 604 note 1} Brett, E. A., Colonialism and Underdevelopment in East Africa: the politics of economic change, 1919–1939 (London, 1973), p. 168Google Scholar.

^{page 604 note 2} Despite the fact that settlers tend to be wasteful of much of the labour and land they control. A significant percentage of the adult African population is relegated to domestic servitude, and only a small part of European-held land is actually placed under crops. In the latter case the figure for Rhodesia in the late 1950s was 3–4 per cent; Leys, Colin, European Politics in Southern Rhodesia (London, 1959), p. 29Google Scholar.

^{page 604 note 3} For example, in 1946, 280 private companies were incorporated in Kenya, valued at £40 million, well over double the number and value in Uganda and Tanganyika together. In the next 12 years, another 3,380 were established, valued at £120 million, as against 2,650 companies worth some £81 million in the other non-settler colonies combined. van Zwanenberg, R. M. A. with King, Anne, An Economic History of Kenya and Uganda, 1800–1970 (London, 1975), pp. 128–9CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 604 note 4} Kenya's output for manufacturing and repairs totalled £21·6 million, compared with £7·3 million in Tanganyika, and £5·9 million in Uganda; as percentages of G.N.P. these figures represent 9·7 for Kenya, 3·9 for Tanganyika, and 4 per cent for Uganda. The Economic Development of Kenya. Report of a Mission Organized by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Baltimore, 1963), p. 151.

^{page 604 note 5} Sandbrook, Richard, Proletarians and African Capitalism: the Kenyan case, 1960–1972 (Cambridge, 1975), p. 5Google Scholar.

^{page 605 note 1} Thompson, C. H. and Woodruff, H. W., Economic Development in Rhodesia and Nyasaland (London, 1954), pp. 161–71Google Scholar.

^{page 605 note 2} This gain represented a shift away from reliance upon mining, not a decline in agricultural output. Figures quoted in Harris, Peter, ‘Industrial Workers in Rhodesia, 1946–1972’, in Journal of Southern African Studies (Oxford), 1, 2, 04 1975, p. 161Google Scholar.

^{page 605 note 3} Wolff, op. cit. p. 88.

^{page 605 note 4} Arrighi, Giovanni, ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective: a study of the proletarianization of the African peasantry in Rhodesia’, in Journal of Development Studies (London), VI, 04 1970, p. 210Google Scholar.

^{page 605 note 5} Brett, op. cit. pp. 77, 148, and 168. The limitation upon economic nationalism in Kenya was the failure to attract a large colon society and to find minerals; and the result was an inability to build an economic base ‘independent of support from London’. Ibid. p. 212. But the settlers did not stop trying.

^{page 606 note 1} ‘Whatever defects may exist in the present form of Government of the Transvaal, the substitution of an entirely independent Republic governed by and for the capitalists of the Rand would be very much worse for British interests.’ Quoted in Robinson and Gallagher, op. cit. p. 428, my emphasis.

^{page 606 note 2} Quoted in Murray, , ‘The Algerian Revolution’, p. 29.Google Scholar

^{page 606 note 3} Leys, Cohn, Underdevelopment in Kenya: the political economy of neo-colonialism, 1964–1971 (London, 1975), p. 171Google Scholar.

^{page 606 note 4} Wolff, op. cit. p. 92.

^{page 606 note 5} The decline of the peasantries in South Africa and Rhodesia was specially induced, after they had established their ability to compete only too well with white farmers, and in terms of the new labour needs of the settler economy. Bundy, Colin, ‘The Emergence and Decline of a South African Peasantry’, in African Affairs (London), 71, 285, 10 1972Google Scholar; Arrighi, ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective’, loc. cit.; and Phimister, I. R., ‘Peasant Production and Underdevelopment in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1914’, in African Affairs, 73, 291, 04 1974CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 607 note 1} Harbeson, John W., Nation-Building in Kenya: the role of land reform (Evanston, 1973), pp. 15–18Google Scholar.

^{page 607 note 2} Republic of Kenya, Statistical Abstract, 1965 (Nairobi, 1966), p. 112Google Scholar.

^{page 607 note 3} Furedi, Frank, ‘The African Crowd in Nairobi: popular movements and elite politics’, in The Journal of African History (Cambridge), XIV, 2, 1973Google Scholar, and ‘The Social Composition of the Mau Mau Movement in the White Highlands’, in Journal of Peasant Studies (London), I, 4, July 1974. See also Barnett, Donald L. and Njama, Karari, Mau Mau from Within (New York, 1966)Google Scholar, introduction.

^{page 607 note 4} The advice of the rural bourgeoisie or constitutional-nationalists within the Kenya African Union, specifically Kenyatta. Singh, Makhan, History of Kenya's Trade Union Movement (Nairobi, 1969), p. 158Google Scholar.

^{page 608 note 1} Arrighi, Giovanni, The Political Economy of Rhodesia (The Hague, 1967)Google Scholar, and ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective’, loc. cit. p. 223; also Sutcliffe, R. B., ‘Stagnation and Inequality in Rhodesia, 1946–68’, in Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Economics and Statistics (Oxford), 33, 1971Google Scholar.

^{page 608 note 2} H. J., and Simons, R. E., Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850–1950 (Harmondsworth, 1969), p. 554Google Scholar.

^{page 608 note 3} Davies, Robert, ‘The White Working-Class in South Africa’, in New Left Review, 82, 11–12 1973, pp. 42 and 43Google Scholar.

^{page 609 note 1} Trapido, Stanley, ‘South Africa in a Comparative Study of Industrialization’, in Journal of Development Studies, VII, 3, 04 1971, p. 352Google Scholar; and Yudelman, David, ‘Industrialization, Race Relations and Change in South Africa’, in African Affairs, 74, 294, 01 1975, p. 95CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 609 note 2} Trapido, loc. cit. p. 315.

^{page 609 note 3} Simons, op. cit. p. 492.

^{page 609 note 4} Legassick, Martin, ‘South Africa: capital accumulation and violence’, in Economy and Society (London), III, 3, 1974, p. 285Google Scholar.

^{page 609 note 5} These alternative tendencies seem to be represented respectively in Paramount Chief Kaiser Matanzima of the Transkei, and Chief Gatsha Buthelezi of KwaZulu.

^{page 609 note 6} These social formations are typical of the advanced capitalist states at the centre of the world system. Samir Amin, op. cit. p. 378.

^{page 610 note 1} Murray, , ‘Algerian Revolution’, p. 29, his emphasis.Google Scholar

^{page 610 note 2} Blundell, Michael, So Rough a Wind (London, 1964), p. 74Google Scholar.

^{page 610 note 3} Hole, Hugh Marshall, The Making of Rhodesia (London, 1926), p. 97Google Scholar.

^{page 611 note 1} There seem to be strong parallels with the annihilation of the aboriginals of Tasmania, the destruction of the North American Indians, and the exclusion of the Palestinians.

^{page 611 note 2} Murray, , ‘Algerian Revolution’, p. 49.Google Scholar

^{page 611 note 3} Behr, Edward, The Algerian Problem (London, 1961), p. 39Google Scholar.

^{page 611 note 4} Blundell, op. cit. p. 82.

^{page 611 note 5} Brett, op. cit. p. 170.

^{page 612 note 1} Murray, , ‘Algerian Revolution’, p. 19.Google Scholar

^{page 612 note 2} Davies, loc. cit. p. 45.

^{page 612 note 3} That the settlers were ready to support the metropole when global imperial interests were at stake, was perhaps best shown in September 1914 when the South African Parliament by a vote of 92 to 12 affirmed its ‘whole-hearted determination’ to ‘take all measures necessary for defending the interests of the Union and for cooperating with His Majesty's Imperial Government to maintain the security and integrity of the Empire’. South Africa again supported Britain in September 1939, but by only 80 votes to 67, then followed by Hertzog's resignation as Premier and the formation of a coalition Government by Smuts. Simons, op. cit. pp. 176 and 527.

^{page 612 note 4} Hobsbawm, op. cit. pp. 139–40.

^{page 612 note 5} Ibid. p. 150.

^{page 612 note 6} Samir, Amin, The Maghreb in the Modern World (Harmondsworth, 1970), p. 190Google Scholar.

^{page 613 note 1} Henissart, Paul, Wolves in the City (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

^{page 613 note 2} Brett, op. cit. p. 180.

^{page 613 note 3} Singh, op. cit.

^{page 613 note 4} Perham, Margery, The Colonial Reckoning (London, 1963), p. 72Google Scholar.

^{page 614 note 1} John Harbeson believes that the factors influencing Colonial Secretary Iain Macleod at the end of the decade were ‘evidence of atrocities and mishandling of prisoners in the Emergency detention camps, the pace of political advance in West Africa, the cost of the colonies to a British government in serious economic straits, and, possibly, American influence in favor of decolonization’ Harbeson, op. cit. p. 84.

^{page 614 note 2} Altrincham, , Kenya's Opportunity (London, 1955)Google Scholar, forward; and Cohen, Andrew, British Policy in Changing Africa (London, 1959), p. 61Google Scholar.

^{page 614 note 3} Barnett, op. cit. p. 481.

^{page 614 note 4} He adds that the Swynnerton plan was ‘devised in great haste’, partly because of the return of ‘thousands of unemployed Kikuyu’ from Tanganyika and other parts of Kenya. Harbeson, op. cit. pp. 34 and 63.

^{page 614 note 5} Ibid. p. 101.

^{page 615 note 1} Blundell, an established and successful settler, supported the emphasis on economic efficiency and ‘multi-racialism’, but he too was surprised when Iain Macleod announced at the Lancaster House constitutional conference in 1960 that Kenya would be independent in 1963. Its rejection by many settlers was symbolised by the Judas Iscariot gesture directed against Blundell on his return to Nairobi. Ibid. pp. 82–3 and 113

^{page 615 note 2} Wolf, Eric R., Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (London, 1971), p. 241Google Scholar.

^{page 615 note 3} Quoted in Henissart, op. cit. p. 218.

^{page 615 note 4} Quoted in ibid. p. 21. While this havoc was carried on inside Algeria and directed against Algerians, there was also then and later some 30 known attempts planned or made on de Gaulle's life in most of which colon elements were involved.

^{page 616 note 1} Sandbrook, op. cit. p. 13.

^{page 616 note 2} Ibid. pp. 23, 28, and 185. In April 1966, when 13 prominent trade union leaders resigned as members of the Government party (K.A.N.U.) in order to join the new opposition Kenya Peoples Union, they did so, they said, because there were fewer people in wage employment than under colonialism, and because the education system encouraged the growth of a privileged class. Good, Kenneth, ‘Kenyatta and the Organization of KANU’, in Canadian Journal of African Studies (Montreal), II, 2, Autumn 1968, pp. 128–9Google Scholar.

^{page 616 note 3} Sandbrook, op. cit. pp. 191 and 29.

^{page 616 note 4} The many pro-French Algerian auxiliaries, or Harkis, went with the French; the Kikuyu ‘Home Guards’ or ‘Loyalists’ stayed behind.

^{page 617 note 1} Reliance on French products has fallen from where France supplied 57 per cent of all imports in 1968 to 30 per cent in 1972. But the development strategy has largely been at the expense of the peasantry, and Algeria is heavily dependent on the importation of such basic foods as cereals, sugar, and milk. The relative importance of agriculture in total production is roughly the same in Algeria and South Africa: 9–10 per cent of G.N.P. Supplement on Algeria, , The Times (London), 1 and 2 11 1974Google Scholar, and The Guardian Weekly (London), 26 April 1975, p. 12.

^{page 617 note 2} Amilcar Cabral has given a direct description of the problems associated with the development of a revolutionary movement based on the different classes of the peasantry, at different stages and times, organised and led by new urban strata, such as elements of the working class and petty bourgeoisie. See Revolution in Guinea (London, 1969), and Our People Are Our Mountains (London, n.d.).

^{page 617 note 3} The Times, 11 April 1975, p. 6.

^{page 618 note 1} Quoted in Good, Kenneth, ‘Settler Colonialism in Rhodesia’, in African Affairs, 73, 290, 1974, p. 33CrossRef Google Scholar. The idea is considered in Loney, Martin, Rhodesia: white racism and imperial response (Harmondsworth, 1975)Google Scholar.

^{page 618 note 2} Henissart, op. cit. p. 263.

^{page 618 note 3} It was reported that Pretoria had decided at the end of March 1976 to end all military aid to Rhodesia, but this was then denied by Prime Minister Vorster. The Times, 22 and 23 April 1976.

^{page 618 note 4} For example, Trapido says: ‘The experience of the various phases of South Africa's economic growth suggests that the economic and political systems combine to maintain existing relationships’; op. cit. p. 318. Frederick Johnstone concurs: ‘Far from undermining white supremacy, economic development is constantly re-inforcing it. Its power structure is continually strengthened by its own material output.’ ‘White Prosperity arid White Supremacy in South Africa Today’, in African Affairs, 69, 275, April 1970, p. 136.

^{page 619 note 1} The Economist (London), 19 July 1975, p. 67.

^{page 619 note 2} Supplement on Johannesburg, , The Times, 26 August 1975, p. 4.Google Scholar

^{page 619 note 3} Ibid. p. 2.

^{page 619 note 4} Horwitz, Ralph, The Political Economy of South Africa (London, 1967), pp. 286–7 and 363Google Scholar.

^{page 619 note 5} The Times, 28 August 1976, p. 13.

^{page 619 note 6} The significant actions which began among the concentrated urban population of Soweto in June 1976 continued for several months. There was an unprecedental intensity in the destruction of property, attacks on whites, wide-scale strikes in Johannesburg, and the involvement of mixed-race groups in the southern Cape.

^{page 620 note 1} Adam, Heribert, ‘Conflict and Change in South Africa’, in Baker, Donald G. (ed.), Politics of Race: comparative studies (London, 1975), pp. 211–43Google Scholar.

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