The Origins of Agrarian Capitalism in South Africa: A Reply¶
Tim Keegan (1989). The Origins of Agrarian Capitalism in South Africa: A Reply. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Debate). Taylor & Francis.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | theoretical or conceptual |
| Period studied | 1830s–1940s |
| Regions | South African highveld, Orange Free State, Transvaal, Natal, Eastern Cape |
| Themes | origins segregation, agriculture land, business and state, comparative theory, resistance social movements, politics ideology elections |
| Citation key | keegan1989 |
Argument¶
Keegan replies to Martin Murray's critique of 'social history' and to Mike Morris's thesis that semi-feudal tenancy gave way to capitalist agriculture by the 1920s. He argues that Morris's Eurocentric model misreads a colonial setting where capital arrived through merchant capital and then mining capital. Pre-industrial interior South Africa was a frontier economy of primitive accumulation, neither feudal nor capitalist. After the mineral revolution, commercialised share-cropping and rent tenancy extracted absolute surplus value through extra-economic means. Capitalist production stayed stunted until state-financed mechanisation (above all the motor tractor) after the 1940s. The transformation was imposed from above by a strong racial state, driven by fear of impoverished and proletarianised whites and by competition from black producers, and the Chilean comparison is used to ask why South Africa's landed and ruling groups pursued it.
Evidence and method¶
Mostly secondary literature and the author's own earlier work (Rural Transformations, 1987), plus Bradford, Beinart and Bundy, Denoon, Delius and Trapido. Marxist theory (Lenin, Brenner, Genovese, Laclau, Moore) frames the argument. No new archival or quantitative data are presented. Chile is used as a comparative case.
Place in the debates¶
- Morris thesis: timing and nature of the transition to agrarian capitalism (semi-feudal labour tenancy to capitalism by the 1920s) (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Rejects Morris. Keegan accepts Lenin's account of the capitalist character of some tenancy forms but argues the 1920s countryside was still dominated by primitive accumulation and share-cropping. Capitalism became dominant only with mechanisation after the 1940s.
- Structuralist vs 'social history' approaches in South African historiography (see Historiographical approaches). Defends rural historians against Murray's blanket critique. He insists revisionist work retains concern with structure and process, while granting that rural conceptualisation needs re-theorising.
- Origins of racial supremacy: frontier isolation vs commercial/capitalist origins (see Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War). Merchant capital was colour-blind, and racial lines came from colonial ruling classes' local accumulation and state-building. He cites Fredrickson and Thompson as exponents of the opposing frontier view.
- The Prussian road analogy and the 'from above' route to agrarian capitalism (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Accepts the Prussian analogy, but reinterprets east-Elbian and South African systems as products of external capitalist expansion mediated by merchant capital rather than as feudal.
Findings¶
-
Capitalism in the colonial world arrived as an external imposition mediated by merchant capital, so the European transition model fits poorly. (p. 5)
In the non-European world, capitalism was manifested as an alien imposition, and was initially experienced through the mediation and domination of merchant capital.
-
Agricultural labour often remains unfree and only partly commoditised, which complicates clean feudal/capitalist dichotomies. (p. 6)
Labour in agriculture typically remains unfree and coerced, and new forms of unfree labour (for example prison labour) are always being created.
-
The pre-industrial interior was a frontier economy under merchant capital, neither feudal nor capitalist. (p. 11)
If this was clearly not yet a capitalist economy, there was also nothing feudal about it.
-
Racial supremacy was produced by local colonial ruling classes and was not inherent in merchant capital. (p. 13)
Merchant capital was colour-blind, but the local colonial ruling classes it spawned identified themselves and structured their accumulative drives along racial lines.
-
African tenants resisted dispossession and commoditisation, and peasant consciousness shaped rural struggles in the 1920s. (p. 14)
Bradford demonstrates that in the 1920s a strong peasant consciousness still informed black struggles on the land
-
Capitalist farming stayed weak until state-initiated mechanisation after the Second World War. (p. 16)
But capitalist production remained stunted and fragile (as in other settler economies in Africa) until state-initiated mechanisation revolutionised the productivity of agriculture after the Second World War.
-
Mechanisation, especially the motor tractor, from the 1940s displaced the peasantry from commercial farming. (p. 16)
since the 1940s all major productive processes have been mechanised, firstly and most importantly with the coming of the motor tractor
-
In Chile, landowners who controlled the state had no incentive to transform agriculture, which contrasts with South Africa. (p. 18)
In Chile, the families who owned the land also controlled the state.
-
The state was driven to promote racially defined capitalism by threats from black producers and from impoverished whites. (p. 19)
there were profound imperatives driving the state to take up an activist role in the promotion of a more advanced, racially defined capitalism in both town and countryside.
-
Agrarian capitalism was imposed from above by a strong state. (p. 19)
It was imposed from above in a process of struggle under the auspices of a strong state.
-
State-led capitalisation was needed to rescue racially privileged whites who were victims of primitive accumulation. (p. 20)
only a state-initiated and sustained process of capitalisation and industrialisation could save them from the consequences of their economic disempowerment.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keegan's own prior research on the southern Highveld (Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa), including oral histories, drawn on for class differentiation, tenancy and mechanisation | secondary literature compilation | to 1914 (and later periods per chs. 3, 5, 6) | Cited as the place where evidence on share-cropping, class differentiation, mechanisation and the rise of black family farmers is analysed, rather than presenting that evidence here. |
| Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa (1988) | secondary literature compilation | 1920s | Relied on for evidence that a peasant consciousness persisted in 1920s rural struggles and that primitive accumulation, not capitalism, dominated rural relations. |
| Keegan, Facing the Storm: Portraits of Black Lives in Rural South Africa (1988) - life stories | interviews oral history | 20th century, apartheid era | Life stories are cited as evidence that access to land remained important in survival strategies under apartheid. |
| Keegan, 'Trade, Accumulation and Impoverishment: Mercantile Capital and the Economic Transformation of Lesotho and the Conquered Territory, 1870-1920' (JSAS 1986), used for the Frasers company history | company records or reports | 1870s-present | Frasers' trajectory from grain trading to labour recruiting and mine concession stores is the illustration of merchant capital's subordination to industrial capital. |
| Morris, 'The Development of Capitalism in South African Agriculture: Class Struggle in the Countryside' (Economy and Society 1976) and 'Social History and the Transition to Capitalism' (1987) | secondary literature compilation | c.1900-1920s | Target of critique: Keegan examines Morris's characterisation of semi-feudal tenancy and the claim that capitalism predominated by the 1920s, and finds it lacks evidence. |
| Denoon, Settler Capitalism (1983), pp. 86, 89 - Chilean comparison | secondary literature compilation | late 19th century | Supplies the comparative account of Chilean landowners and mining investment, used to contrast Chile with South Africa. |
| Case studies of Abel Erasmus (Delius) and C.J. de Villiers (Keegan) in Beinart et al. (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground | secondary literature compilation | 19th century | Used as examples of Boer accumulators combining state office, land ownership and tribute exaction in the pre-industrial interior. |
Inference¶
Quantification: None.
Theoretical and conceptual argument in a polemical reply, with historiographical critique of Morris and Murray. Claims rest on Marxist theory of merchant and industrial capital, illustrative cases, comparison with Prussia and Chile, and the author's earlier monographs. No new primary evidence is presented.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Morris's semi-feudal to capitalist tenancy transition is a Eurocentric schema supported only by theoretical authorities, not South African evidence. (p. 669) | Reading of Morris's 1976 article; the only cited support is Lenin, Hindess and Hirst, and Poulantzas. No archival or statistical counter-evidence is offered. | Asserted |
| Before the mineral revolution, South African interior society was a frontier economy under merchant capital, neither capitalist nor feudal, with Boer accumulators exploiting state office and tribute. (p. 675) | Case examples of Erasmus and de Villiers and the author's earlier articles on the Orange Free State. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Share-cropping and rent tenancy intensified after the mineral revolution, with extra-economic extraction of absolute surplus value, family break-up and impoverishment of tenants. (p. 679) | Keegan, Rural Transformations, chs. 3, 5, 6, and Bradford; evidence is not reproduced in the article. | Partial data |
| Capitalist agriculture remained stunted until state-initiated mechanisation, especially tractors, after the Second World War displaced the peasantry. (p. 680) | Asserted from the author's earlier work; no mechanisation or tractor statistics are given. | Asserted |
| Share-cropping on the Highveld resembles Latin American haciendas and east-Elbian seigneurial estates as non-capitalist, highly commercialised systems subordinate to metropolitan capital. (p. 681) | Comparative analogy drawing on Laclau, Moore and Kay; no new data. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| South Africa differs from Chile because contradictions in the racial ruling bloc, pressure from black share-croppers and the impoverishment of whites drove a state-led capitalist transformation. (p. 683) | Comparison with Chile via Denoon, plus theoretical argument about the racial state; the author calls the ideas speculative. | Asserted |
| The state supplied the money capital that let landholders take control of production, since finance capital alone did not make agriculture attractive. (p. 684) | Assertion with no statistics on state credit, subsidies or the Land Bank. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
Keegan describes his Chile comparison as 'rather speculative ideas'. He also acknowledges that the conceptual inadequacies of past work, his own included, must be the starting point for new starts.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument needs quantitative evidence on the timing of the shift from share-cropping and labour tenancy to wage labour and mechanisation, such as agricultural census data on tractors, tenants and farm employment, and on state credit (Land Bank, subsidies). It also needs archival evidence on landlord-tenant contracts, such as magistrates' records and Native Affairs files, to test the pre-1940 'absolute surplus value' claim. Much of this was available in 1989, including the agricultural censuses and the official reports on land and farm labour.
Replicability: Not applicable.