Colonialism/ Imperialism Impact on Global Economics/ Social Structures (Marx)

Question 1

Colonialism/ Imperialism Impact on Global Economics/ Social Structures (Marx) - PBABFG

Answer 1

Polanyi - Disembedded
Bohannan - Spheres Flattened
Appadurai - Changing Social Value
Bolt - Imposing Labour Hierarchies
Ferguson - Masking Coercion
Graeber - Imagining Non-Capitalist

Question 2

Introduction

Answer 2

• Colonialism reshaped global economies, forcibly inserting non-European societies into emerging capitalist systems.
• This involved dismantling embedded local economies by flattening the spheres of exchange and transforming cultural logics of value, then imposing/ reconfiguring labour hierarchies, and masking this coercion through moralised or “developmental” narratives.
• This is because capitalism must continue to expand on all fronts, mirroring colonial logic, meaning its legacy is carried on and embedded into global capitalism through economics and social structures

Question 3

Karl Polanyi - PCE

Answer 3

Disembedding Economy
- PRE-capitalist societies embedded economic life within social relations; markets were subordinated to moral, communal norms - governed by reciprocity, redistribution, and subsistence, not market profit.
- CAPITALISM’S rise disembedded the economy from society, making markets “self-regulating” at the cost of human security and stability, ultimately only accountable to the ‘invisible hand’.
- Colonialism lives through capitalism as they both have the same EXPANSIONIST ideologies.

Question 4

Polanyi Case Studies - British Africa Taxation
CEK HFR

Answer 4

• British Africa – Land and Taxation
• In many African societies (e.g., Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya), land was held COMMUNALLY, not privately owned.
• Colonial administrators imposed EUROPEAN-style property law — redefining communal land as individual, alienable property.
• In parts of Kenya, land used by KIKUYU communities was reclassified as “waste” or “underutilised”, then seized and sold to settlers.
• Cash Taxation to Create Labour Markets
• Colonisers introduced HEAD or hut taxes, payable only in cash — but rural societies were subsistence-based and used no money.
• People were FORCED to enter wage labour markets in order to pay the tax, often working on colonial plantations, mines, or infrastructure projects.
• In British-ruled RHODESIA (now Zimbabwe), African men migrated to work in mines because cash was needed to avoid fines or prison for unpaid taxes.

Question 5

Polanyi Disembedded Social Effects
TNC EMWR

Answer 5

• TRADITIONAL systems of reciprocal exchange, communal labour, and local redistribution were undermined.
• Colonial policies devalued NON-MONETARY forms of exchange, branding them as “primitive” or inefficient.
• Markets were introduced as “CIVILISING” tools, but actually served to extract labour and resources for the metropole.
  Social Effect:
• ELDERS lost power over land allocation.
• MEN left villages for wage labour, disrupting family and agricultural life.
• WOMEN often bore the burden of maintaining subsistence economies alone.
• Colonial capitalism RIPPED economic life out of its social and moral context, turning land, labour, and goods into commodities governed by price, not principle. This wasn’t a “natural” evolution — it was imposed from above, often violently.

Question 6

Polanyi Marxism
DD MCU

Answer 6

• Polanyi DIFFERS from Marx by emphasising social disembedding rather than class conflict, but aligns in seeing capitalist expansion as violent, imposed, and world-altering.
• More focus on social DISLOCATION but also new class divisions emerged between those integrated into the colonial market and those excluded or dispossessed.
• Strengths:
• MARKETS are NOT natural, but politically constructed.
• COERCIVE foundations of capitalism — especially in colonial settings.
• Critiques:
• UNDERPLAYS Cultural Specificity: Polanyi generalises too broadly, flattening diverse economic systems into one category of “embeddedness”

Question 7

Paul Bohannan - C

Answer 7

Colonial market integration COLLAPSED structured boundaries between types of goods and forms of value — turning socially meaningful exchanges into commodified transactions.

Question 8

Bohannan Case Studies - Tiv - BSRMS UCBBC NON

Answer 8

• Bohannan’s fieldwork in the 1940s–50s among the Tiv people of central Nigeria revealed a complex system of “spheres of exchange” — structured moral and social BOUNDARIES around different types of goods.
• SPHERES included: Subsistence goods (e.g., yams, grain), Social reproduction goods (e.g., bridewealth, cattle), Prestige goods (e.g., ritual items, iron rods, slaves in pre-colonial times).
• Each sphere had its own RULES, values, and social functions, and goods could not be exchanged freely across spheres. For example, you could not use yams to obtain bridewealth.
• MARRIAGE alliances required specific goods, obtained through networked gift exchange, not markets.
• Exchange was about STATUS, reciprocity, and maintaining kin ties, not individual gain.
• Colonial Disruption and Moral Collapse
• The British colonial administration introduced UNIVERSAL currency (British pounds) and facilitated market integration to support taxation and commodity production.
• Money allowed the CONVERSION of goods across spheres — eroding the traditional exchange boundaries. Resulting tensions included:
• BRIDEWEALTH inflation — prices for marriage payments became monetary, making marriage harder for young men.
• BREAKDOWN of reciprocal obligations — formerly gift-based exchanges now had market equivalents, undercutting social cohesion.
• COMMODIFICATION of formerly sacred or socially-regulated goods, such as land and ritual items.
• Strengths:
• NOT all economies operate under market logic => rather embedded in culture, a key insight shared with Polanyi and Mauss.
• Critiques:
• OVER-emphasises boundedness: Later anthropologists argued that boundaries between spheres were more flexible or negotiable than Bohannan claimed.
• NEGLECTS local agency: The Tiv were not passive victims — they strategically navigated and resisted colonial capitalism in diverse ways.

Question 9

Bohannan Marxism - CA

Answer 9

• Shows how colonialism COMMODIFIED social life, turning relationships, obligations, and cultural values into economic transactions.
• Highlights the ALIENATION caused by colonial capitalism — where human labour and cultural meaning are stripped of context and made into exchangeable commodities.

Question 10

Arjun Appadurai

Answer 10

Social Life of Things
- Colonial capitalism restructured how people assign value to objects, turning spiritual, kin-based, or utilitarian goods into commodities.
- This shaped new social hierarchies, where wealth was measured not through relationships but through accumulable, tradeable things.

Question 11

Appadurai Case Studies - Statues, Cloths - BSMTU / PSMTU

Answer 11

• PILGRIMAGE souvenirs (e.g., relics, statues, cloths) are embedded in religious life. They are meant to hold spiritual significance, connect devotees to divine power, and mark sacred journeys.
  DISPLACEMENT and Commodification:
• Under broader capitalist exchange systems, especially colonial or global trade circuits, these sacred objects are dislocated—sold in bazaars, collected by travellers, and displayed outside of their original ritual context.
  RECONTEXTUALISATION as Art or Curio:
• Once removed, they’re no longer primarily sacred; instead, they’re treated as aesthetic curiosities or exotic artifacts. Museums, private collectors, and tourists begin to see them as valuable for their form, age, or exoticism, rather than spiritual power.
  New TRADE Circuits:
• These objects become part of global markets, circulating among buyers, dealers, and institutions (e.g., auction houses, museums). Their original context is effaced, and a new monetary value is imposed.
  SOCIAL Disruption:
• The role of religious stewards, devotees, or makers is undermined, as authority over the object shifts to those who can profit from its circulation. Traditional forms of cultural and religious authority are replaced by market actors and institutional gatekeepers.

Question 12

Appadurai Marxism - FO

Answer 12

• Appadurai extends Marx’s commodity FETISHISM: objects are not just alienated but carry shifting meanings — colonial markets transformed cultural value into exchange value, reshaping identities and class structures.
• However, OBJECT-centred risk: Critics argue that focusing on the “life of things” might obscure the human labour, suffering, and structural violence behind commodification — especially under colonialism

Question 13

Maxim Bolt - HES

Answer 13

• Bolt argues that postcolonial capitalism still operates through colonial labour HIERARCHIES — particularly racial and ethnic divisions.
  Economic:
• Even after independence, the structure of ECONOMIES remains skewed: reliant on low-paid, precarious labour in agriculture, mining, etc., to serve global markets.
  Social:
• SOCIAL structures such as racial stratification, ethnic marginalisation, and patriarchal systems of authority are retained, often through informal but deeply entrenched practices.

Question 14

Bolt Case Studies - ZPTHP

Answer 14

• Black ZIMBABWEAN migrants are recruited into low-wage, insecure, and physically demanding jobs, while South African citizens (especially white landowners) occupy managerial or ownership roles.
• These jobs are structured through PATERNALISTIC contracts that echo colonial labour systems: workers are dependent, surveilled, and expected to show deference.
• Though these workers are TECHNICALLY “free” under postcolonial, capitalist contracts, their choices are heavily constrained by poverty, migration policy, and institutional racism.
  Labour HIERARCHY:
• Top: South African (often white) farm owners and managers.
• Middle: Local, possibly coloured or black South Africans in mid-level roles.
• Bottom: Zimbabwean (foreign, black, migrant) workers doing the hardest and lowest-paid labour.
• Postcolonial capitalism PRESERVES colonial patterns of labour exploitation, especially through racial and migrant hierarchies.

Question 15

Bolt Marxism - E

Answer 15

• Labour EXPLOITATION, central to Marxist interpretations of colonialism, remains active — though now hidden behind flexible contracts and formal independence, showing how coercion is rebranded under neoliberalism

Question 16

James Ferguson - D

Answer 16

Ferguson critiques the aftermath of colonial commodification — showing how DEVELOPMENT discourse continues to naturalise inequality.

Question 17

Ferguson Case Studies - MMD VF AMN

Answer 17

• In The Anti-Politics Machine, Ferguson studied how development aid projects in Lesotho aimed to MODERNISE rural life — introducing agricultural reforms, roads, and bureaucratic infrastructure.
• Similar to Bolt, men from Lesotho were systematically recruited to work in South African gold and diamond MINES.
• The colonial and apartheid states structured this DELIBERATELY: Lesotho was kept poor, underdeveloped, and dependent, so that its male population would migrate for work.
• In VILLAGES: many households had no able-bodied men, only women, children, and elders.
• FAMILIES relied on money sent back by these workers — not on farming, which remained largely subsistence-level and symbolic.
• AID agencies ignored this reality, treating Lesotho as a self-contained economy in need of agricultural modernisation.
• By doing so, they MISREAD everyday life, misunderstood why people were poor, and REPRODUCED the colonial economic logic — where black labour served South African capital, and Lesotho remained peripheral and dependent.
• By ignoring the political economy of migrant labour and colonial history, development NATURALISED Lesotho’s poverty — as if it were self-inflicted, not structurally imposed.

Question 18

Ferguson Marxism - PE FPL

Answer 18

• Inequality PERSISTS through technocratic, depoliticised tools that obscure global power dynamics.
• Ferguson shows how aid EXPANDS state power — however, he doesn’t always explore how that power is used or contested in nuanced ways.
  Critique:
• Ferguson FOCUSES heavily on institutional failure and bureaucratic logic, but gives less voice to the perspectives of ordinary Basotho people.
• Villagers appear more like PASSIVE recipients of aid than active participants in shaping or resisting development
• LATER studies suggest development can reshape state-society relations, not just reinforce colonial patterns.

Question 19

David Graeber - I

Answer 19

• IMAGINING Non-Capitalist Alternatives = Graeber closes the loop by arguing that many precolonial societies suppressed by empire (like those studied by Polanyi and Bohannan) were viable alternatives — not “primitive” but politically meaningful.

Question 20

Graeber Case Studies - ZNA CERTAM

Answer 20

• ZAPATISTA Army of National Liberation (EZLN) emerged in 1994 in Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state, with a base of Indigenous Maya peasants.
• They rose in armed rebellion on the day the NAFTA free trade agreement was signed, rejecting neoliberal capitalism, land privatisation, and state neglect.
• Since then, they’ve established AUTONOMOUS zones — self-governing territories that reject state authority and experiment with alternative, anti-capitalist ways of living.
• Real-world example of a functioning, non-capitalist society — a “revolution without taking power”:
  1. Reclaiming COMMUNAL Land
• Land seized from elites or abandoned after the uprising was redistributed and held collectively — managed by communities, not individual owners.
• This resisted capitalist land privatisation, returning to EJIDO-style collective landholding rooted in Indigenous traditions.
  2. RECIPROCAL Exchange and Mutual Aid
• Economic life in Zapatista zones was structured around reciprocity, shared labor, and local production, not wage labour or profit.
• Villagers organised work through TEQUIO (communal labour) and shared harvests — reducing dependence on markets and cash.
• Small-scale barter, solidarity economies, and local cooperatives helped ensure subsistence and autonomy without capitalist extraction.
  3. ANTI-Hierarchical Governance
• Governance was organised through community assemblies, where decisions are made by consensus rather than imposed by leaders.
• The phrase “MANDAR obedeciendo” (“lead by obeying”) expresses the principle that authority is temporary, rotational, and accountable.
• There is no standing army, centralised party, or top-down control

Question 21

Graeber Marxism - RAC RDS

Answer 21

• Graeber RECLAIMS historical imagination — reminding us that colonialism wasn’t just economic domination, but the suppression of other ways of living and organising.
  Strengths:
• Inspiring, grounded example of lived ANARCHISM and Indigenous resistance.
• CHALLENGES the idea that capitalism is the only viable system, showing that plural economic forms can and do exist.
  Critiques:
• Graeber has been accused of ROMANTICISING the Zapatistas — focusing on their symbolic value while downplaying internal tensions, contradictions, or limitations.
• DAILY life in the autonomous zones can involve hardship, gender inequality, and uneven participation, which Graeber discusses less directly.
• Critics suggest his work reflects more political SOLIDARITY than dispassionate analysis, questionining its scalability