AN ECONOMIC FOCUS BRINGS A DIFFERENT STORY

"FOLLOW THE MONEY"... BENEATH THE SURFACE 

Karl Marx's premise that the underlying economy determines long-term change was almost taken for granted in the U.S. from the 1930's to the Cold War, and in France from the Collaboration's defeat in 1944 to the rise of multinationals in the 1980's. 

Then narrations that stressed political, philosophical or individual factors replaced it. 

Showing how societies that have nothing but their economic base in common react to similar economic change in similar ways  reintroduces that approach. My experience leads to comparing societies of preindustrial France and precolonial Africa, but the method applies anywhere.

 

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The pages on Africa come from my doctoral thesis for Columbia University, 1975. 

"Growth and Violence in the Precolonial Sudanic Belt began with economic data in explorers' accounts of  West and Central Africa. I then consulted the archives of Paris, Abidjan, Dakar, Bamako, Ouagadougou and Accra, conducted interviews in those towns and in Segu (Mali) and did three months of field work in Djimini,  in the northeastern Ivory Coast, in 1973.

The thesis was published as Croissance économique et violence dans la zone soudanienne in "Guerres de lignages et guerres d'état en Afrique" ("Wars of Lineage and Wars of State in Africa").* 

*Ed. by Jean Bazin and Emmanuel Terray, Paris, Éditions des Archives, 1982, pp. 423-500, translated by Emmanuel Terray, Director of Studies at the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences).

I had married a Frenchman and lived in Paris. University doors stayed closed. As the late Emmanuel Terray wrote in another context, 

In spite of the quality of her work, Catherine Aubin could not find a place in the French university system. That will not surprise those that know how deeply that system turns inward and is reserved to an "elite," pre-selected by the important schools ("Ecoles Normales Supérieurs") and administrative competition (the "Agrégation"). Even if Catherine Aubin had published her thesis in the United States, even if she had published numerous articles — beyond her contribution to the collective work Guerres de lignages et Guerres d'Etat en Afrique ) that I published with Jean Bazin in 1982 — the situation would not have changed and she would not have been able to obtain a university position in France; her case is far from unique: no matter what her qualities and value of her work — and they are considerable — it is practically impossible for a foreign man, and perhaps even more for a foreign woman, to integrate the French university network of which the access is, de facto, solidly locked off from the start.  

--Emmanuel Terray, January 8, 1991, by then Director of the EHESS

So I became a Paris tour guide.

That led me to French history,

 and to the comparisons that follow.

     The Sheik of Bornu in Clapperton's narrative, 1824  / Louis XIV by M. Leloir in G. Toudouze, Le Roy Soleil, 1931

Railings emphasize and isolate kings in 19th-century Northern Nigeria and 17th-century France.

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Next:

Why choose Africa?  

WHY CHOOSE AFRICA?

THE REASON IS A CLEANING-LADY 

When my brother and I were small Cora Bailey, a Black woman from a neighboring town, would do some house work and take care of us when our mother took a day off. She was a calm person whom we never thought of disobeying. She made superb lemon meringue pie and peanut butter cookies. Sometimes she brought her daughter, Doris, a teenager I admired because she could twirl.

When I was 15 Cora told me that Doris wasn't coming because she had had a baby, and then, that he had died. "She misses him," she said.

At about that time my aunt, who worked at the Urban League in the town where Cora lived, told my mother that Cora was a prostitute. "We don't need you any more," Mom told her. We never saw her again.  

The accusation may not have been true. In any case there had never been anything untoward in the ten years that Cora took care of us, and her private life was none of our business. She may not even have known the reason for being let go. 

Such unfairness led to my choosing the left and her memory explains being drawn to Blacks. It is the reason for choosing African history.

Blook II is dedicated to Cora Bailey.

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Next,

Summary and contents

SUMMARY AND CONTENTS

 0. Summary & contents

ECONOMIC GROWTH LEADS TO A CLASH BETWEEN OBSOLETE AND RISING FORCES 

African and French populations react in comparable ways when profit-oriented producers destabilize the social order: 

• In Dahomey,* when the British block the port to keep slave-ships from sailing the king finds himself with 300 captives to feed. Rather than sell them to palm oil producers** who would use them as laborers, he beheads them through a massive human sacrifice (in 1853).

*The kingdom in modern Benin that controlled the slave trade on that part of the coast. 

** Whom their White clients make independent of the king. 

Sacrifice humain au Dahomey en 1863, "Le Tour du Monde"

-- Analyzed by the late anthropologist Claude Meillassoux,

Ostentation, destruction, reproduction , "Économies et sociétés," 1968, II, 4, pp. 760-766.

The king sits in the front row under a parasol, a symbol of power. The people massed behind him cheer each time the executioner raises a head. 

• In France, Protestants were often nascent capitalists whose beliefs, applied in practice, threatened traditional controls on gain. When they sidelined Catholic businesses whose activities medieval guilds contained, Louis XIV billeted dragoons in their homes, saying that they could do whatever they liked short of killing them unless they converted (in 1684).

Dragonnade (detail) by Maurice Leloir in Le Roy Soleil by Gustave Toudouze, 1931

 

Both populations approve thwarting the disruptive forces, which reaffirms authority. 

The essential conflict was not that of 

"slaves against masters, peasants against lords,"

but of rising economic forces 

and those trying to contain them.

These pages uncover those cycles of conflict.

# # #

Contents

 I. Hinterlands react to sudden growth

 II. Braking the search for gain

One can't bring in the harvest or fish with large nets or hunt big animals alone;  Curbs on gain that villagers impose; The grandiose destruction of wealth, a universal practice; From elders to chiefs to kings; Behavior whose logic escapes us; Were (are) tangible factors recognized?; Awareness of the economic base would avoid tragedies like this 

III. Curbing growth: kings and limited war

3.1. Kings maintain the status quo

Kings concentrate wealth, then make it circulate; African kings, prestige and constraint; "Absurd" succession practices; Kings of medieval Europe are also restrained; Detour: Christ becomes a warrior or king; Static kings are universal; Commercial peoples' subordination 

3.2. Ritualized warfare, another brake on growth

IV. Africa: the choice of a backwater

4.1. The African past revisited

4.2. Commerce strikes a communal society

4.2.1. Legendary empires of the medieval savannah

4.2 2. Trade strengthens social systems, then transforms them

4.2.3. Classless communities that elders lead

4.2.4. Cowries, new traders and textiles... 

4.2.5. The cowrie currency meets violent resistance

4.2.6. Introducing a pattern of change

         4.3. Throughout the savannah, same cycle 

4.3.1. Back to the hinterland: Violence reappears

4.3.2. Commercial forces win, then crumble

4.3.3. Another narrative

V. "The past is another country:" pre-industrial France

     5.1. Enigmas, often clues 

     5.2. Growth and the "Wars of Religion"

     5.3. Absolute Monarchy wins

     5.4. The Sun King, anti-capitalist? 

The end of brakes on gain —  almost

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Hinterlands react to sudden growth

I. HINTERLANDS REACT TO SUDDEN GROWTH

RUDIMENTARY ECONOMIES MAKE ITS EFFECTS STAND OUT

Mid-19th-century Timbuktu and mid-15th century Paris were   backwaters compared to the towns of Italy, the Middle East, India and China.

• Yet in 1850 West African production was expanding, and states had emerged in the most commercial regions (west of Lake Chad and along the Senegal and Niger Rivers)...

 "Arrival at Timbuktu," Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa by Henrich Barth, 1855 / zoom (color added)

Timbuktu: soldiers accompany the caravan because authority is weak and routes unsafe. 

• And by 1450 France, recovered from the plague and the ravages of the Hundred Years' War, was undergoing a gradual economic growth that slowly-centralizing royal power contained. 

Louis II of Anjou arrives in Paris, "Chronicle of Jean Froissart," toward 1475 / zoom 

Paris: the north-south route looks like a country path.

• But upheavals brewed:

• In West Africa, the Atlantic slave trade buttressed archaic elites, slowing the rise of producers independent of them. Its end let those producers sweep away out-of-date entities social upheaval that economic destabilization provoked. The result was the rise of dynamic economies, which Islamic theocracies both protected and controlled. The colonial conquerors' liberating the slaves to install their own economies brought that transformation to an end. 

• In France, the geographic discoveries of the end of the 15th century would bring unprecedented economic growth. There too, social upheaval would bring the new interests' victory and a stronger state to control them, until the only way to do so was to erase them. 

We now turn to 

how those economies worked. 

*      *      * 

 

Next,
I.
Braking the search for gain

II. BRAKING THE SEARCH FOR GAIN

2. Braking the search for gain

UNMECHANIZED AGRICULTURE DEMANDS COLLABORATION

  Zoom

Fresco in an ancient Egyptian tomb

  Gone from the web

 Ethiopian villagers return from the field.

        Witness by Peter Weir with Harrison Ford, 1985 / YouTube

Amish farmers build a barn

This chapter explains need to contain profit  

and how it took place.

• One can't bring in the harvest or fish with large nets or hunt big animals alone

• Curbs on gain that villagers impose

• The grandiose destruction of wealth, a universal practice

• From chiefs to kings

• Behavior whose logic escapes us 

• Were (are) tangible factors recognized? 

• Awareness of the economic base would avoid tragedies like this

*      *      *

Next,
One can't bring in the harvest 

or fish with large nets or hunt big animals alone

ONE CAN'T BRING IN THE HARVEST OR FISH WITH LARGE NETS OR HUNT BIG ANIMALS ALONE

SO WORK MUST BE COLLECTIVE

 The Harvesters by Pieter Breughel the Elder, Flanders, 1565 / zoom

Pursuing individual gain weakens the community and communal lands become privately owned. Then people leave —"He went off to seek his fortune," is how many fairy tales begin.

The growing towns let some migrants learn a craft or become merchants — that's how a middle class grows up — but most finish as vagabonds, mercenaries or thieves. 

Those who remain on the land become sharecroppers or serfs. 

*     *     *

Next,

Curbs on gain that villagers impose

CURBS ON GAIN THAT VILLAGERS IMPOSE

INDIVIDUALS' SEARCH FOR PROFIT BRINGS IMMEDIATE RESTRAINT

In traditional Africa the newly-rich are admired if they share their wealth, tolerated if they spend it and sanctioned if they keep it: Griots (praise-singers) follow them, chanting acclaim...

Zoom

Griots accompany a chief, Mali, early 20th century; they will certainly sing his praises.

Zoom

Griots celebrating a birth, Senegal, 2006

That gradually becomes mockery of their servile origins until they give the expected tip — that is, until they distribute funds  they might otherwise invest.  

Expecting immigrants to distribute presents 

when they return to their villages 

and pestering them if don't do so enough: 

same idea. 

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Next,

The grandiose destruction of wealth,

a universal practice

THE GRANDIOSE DESTRUCTION OF WEALTH, A UNIVERSAL PRACTICE

THE SIMPLEST WAY TO CONTAIN PROFIT: ELIMINATE IT

Spectacular destructions draw in the public, reinforcing authority at the same time. As by:

Competition

When the Kwakiutls, people of the North Pacific, toward 1850 obtain goods by barter with Whites, the clans that control the trade compete by throwing the wares into the sea. The clan that destroys most wins. 

This 1914 movie filmed the last match.

The community watches from the shore. Then all celebrate with a feast and dancing.

Trailer

Pictures from the movie, that is, of the real ceremony

The return

Ostentation 

Nobles disperse their income in horses, accoutrements and arms that they show off in processions that accompany important people, notably the king. People come from miles around to watch processions that break the routine.

       A Royal Army on the March,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum

Dispersing wealth with panache is part of prestige: King Arthur cares "not for gold or silver, but for honor alone," says a Roman envoy whom Arthur has treated with a feast that a full page describes.

-- La Morte d'Arthur

Funerals 

When a Viking chief dies his body is placed in a boat is filled with treasure, put to sea and burnt. Everyone watches from the shore.

The  Vikings by Robert Fleisher with Kirk Douglass, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, 1958.

 Considered ethnographically excellent.

 The movie shows the majesty of the destruction.

Monuments

Ancient Egypt remained essentially unchanged for 3,000 years. Imagine — 3000. 

Because the pharaohs neutralized investible income with monuments so huge that the term "pharaonic" applies to any construction that is over the top? 

That immensity was a constant show of power.   

           The Great Pyramid of Giza /  zoom

 Squandering 

A 14th-century ruler of the Mali Empire spends so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that its value drops for a decade, which hinders emerging producers.

Populations watch the extraordinary caravan pass and benefit from the largesse. 

The emperor holds a huge gold nugget in this European map of his time. / zoom

 Deliberate destruction

takes place innumerable ways

 and transforms the meaning of innumerable
customs and events.

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Next,

From elders to chiefs to kings

BEHAVIOR WHOSE LOGIC ESCAPES US

WE TEND TO GLOSS OVER WHAT WE DON'T UNDERSTAND  

Take an explorer's mistake. He contrasts Western dancing (on the right) with that of "black devils." 

"Grant Dancing with Ukelema," Second Visit to Discover the Sources of the Nile by John Speke, London, 1864

The youths highlight the chief's exploits as villagers look on.

At other times men and women dance in separate lines, never touching. The dance reflects a collective society, like that of European royal courts:

Ball at the Wedding of the Duke de Joyeuse, anonymous. 1581 / zoom  

Since the explorer has the artist draw his partner's astonishment, he knows he's broken the rules. He thinks he's done the right thing — showing Africans how to dance.   

# # #

Deciphering the past means acting like a detective, pondering what seems odd.

Paris's rue de Belleville

A painting placed too high for viewing, urban voids too vast for traffic, a king replacing Jesus or bright yellow liveries when discretion was indispensable, can be clues to situations that we do not spontaneously understand. 

"She had been trained to look for anomalies,"

 is how the heroine of a crime novel is introduced. 

-- The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, 1988

 Historians should be too.

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Next,

Were (are) tangible factors recognized?