Descrying the bourgeoisie - Sugar, capital and state in the Netherlands Indies, circa 1840-1884
Date
2007
Authors
Knight, G.
Editors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Journal article
Citation
Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania, 2007; 163(1):34-66
Statement of Responsibility
G. Roger Knight
Conference Name
Abstract
<jats:p>Any attempt to descry the existence of a significant colonial bourgeoisie in Java during the middle decades of the nineteenth century might appear futile. An old, and apparently still lingering, orthodoxy postulates a colonial state uniquely in thrall to a powerful bureaucracy: one that exercised so extensive a control over resources as to largely preclude bourgeois capital formation. On this reading, colonial proprietorship, notably in sugar, was seignorial in nature rather than bourgeois.</jats:p>