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Book chapter | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Markets, commodity production and indigenous farmers in colonial Algeria |
Author: | Fitzgerald, Peter |
Book title: | The State and the Market: studies in the economic and social history of the Third World |
Year: | 1987 |
Pages: | 47-65 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Algeria France |
Subjects: | colonialism cash crops |
Abstract: | The unprecedented growth of market opportunities brought about by the creation of the settler economy in colonial Algeria failed to convert the majority of the indigenous peoples into full-time commodity producers. To explain the weak responsiveness of the North Africans, the author examines four questions. First, what was the extent of commercialization and commodity production in Algeria before the arrival of the French? Second, how did colonial rule generally affect the economic situation of Algerians? Third, why did the modern sector of the colonial economy - i.e. settler agriculture and industry - not provide alternative employment opportunities for the growing indigenous population? Finally, why did the majority of Algerian farmers stick to the traditional goal of household self-sufficiency? The argument put forward is that given the pattern of land distribution in French Algeria where most indigenous farmers could only hope to hang on and subsist, a rational risk-avoidance approach to production decisions must have been at the root of the Algerian farmers' reluctance to enter into commodity production for the market. Notes, ref. |