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Essaouira: The Formation of a New Elite 1940-1980

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Thomas Park
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Extract

This paper is an attempt to assess the Braudel/Wallerstein model of the modern world-system by looking at the development of a new commercial elite in a small urban center in Morocco (Braudel, 1979; Wallerstein, 1974). The modern world-system model raises a host of questions which cannot be properly addressed in a brief paper. After reviewing some of these questions, this study will focus on the role of trade in the spread of capitalism and the idea that capitalist trade can be distinguished from non-capitalist trade. If capitalism spreads through trade, one might expect that an analysis of the commercial sector might be at least as illuminating as one of the spread of capitalism in the rural or industrial areas—which are the more common sorts of analysis to date. The primary concern is to delineate how homogeneously capitalist the commercial sector of this urban center is, and what changes have occurred in its structure with the appearance of a new elite. The paper begins with an outline of the geographical and historical background and then proceeds to a discussion of the modern world-system and the theory of unequal exchange, which has been posited as the mechanism for maintaining the peripheralization of much of the world. The main section of the paper which follows tries to assess the structure of the commercial sector and the development of a new commercial elite in Essaouira during the 20th century. In the conclusion, the paper assesses the importance of the modern world-system as an explanation for the structure and behavior of the Essaouiran commercial sector and the new elites.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , December 1988 , pp. 111 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1988

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References

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