2 - Markets and organization

Summary

This chapter will describe the main features of the transition that took shape in colonial India. It will also try to see the transition as part of a larger tendency. The transition involved, on the one hand, conditions in which the products of traditional industry were sold, and, on the other, conditions in which these were produced. ‘Markets’ and ‘organization’, therefore, are the core themes of this chapter. A convenient point to begin is an influential argument about ‘markets’, specifically about the impact of economic exposure during the colonial period on the Indian economy, in which argument the artisan has played a central role. This is taken up for review in the next section. The review will conclude with the proposal of an alternative reading of the evidence. The rest of the chapter is divided into eight sections. The first six describe the main elements of this alternative story. The remaining two compare India's experience with that of others to discover where they conformed and where they deviated.

The received view and its critique

The most coherent position available on the impact of economic exposure on artisans finds expression in a Marxist tradition in development literature. It involves an interpretation of nineteenth-century economic history that can be summed up in three propositions:

1. Economic contact between the European nations and their colonies in the modern developing world created a new international division of labour.