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Economic Forms in Pre-Colonial Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Stephen H. Hymer
Stephen H. Hymer
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

This paper uses a simple physiocratic model to examine forms of economic organization prevailing in Ghana before it was incorporated into the British Empire at the end of the nineteenth century. It is divided into three parts. The first analyzes the village subsistence economy and suggests that the egalitarian nature of the land-tenure system prevented the emergence of a land-owning class and the appropriation of an economic surplus. This led to an economic structure characterized by a low level of material production and a low degree of specialization and exchange. The second part analyzes forms of economic organization associated with long distance trade: that is, the very old northern trade with other parts of Africa, and the southern coastal trade with Europe which began in the fifteenth century. It argues that foreign trade not only expanded the consumption possibilities of the society, as predicted by the theory of international trade, but also introduced a new class structure and greater income inequality, since it allowed a small group to appropriate a surplus for its own use. The third part discusses the relevance of Pre-Colonial forms to twentieth century economic development.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1970 , pp. 33 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1970

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References

1 There is a vast literature on the structure of traditional subsistence economies. The following have had a special influence on the formulation of this paper: Jones, H. G., The Earth Goddess: A Study of Native Farming on the West African Coast (London: Longmans, 1936)Google Scholar. Amin, S., “The Class Struggle in Africa.” Revolution, No. 3, November, 1963, 23–47Google Scholar. Meillassoux, C., “Essai d'interprétation du phénoméne économique dans les sociétés traditionelles d'auto subsistence.” Cahiers D'études Africaines, December, 1960Google Scholar, 38–67. Rotstein, A., “A Note on the Surplus Discussion,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 63, No. 3, June, 1961, 561–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Polanyi, K., The Great Transformation (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1944), p. 47Google Scholar. On land tenure systems see: Belfield, H., Report on the Legislation Governing the Alienation of Native Lands in the Gold Coast Colony and Ashanti, H.M.S.O., Cmd. 6278 (1912)Google Scholar; Division of Agricultural Economics Staff, “A Report on a Survey of Land Tenure Systems in Ghana,” Ghanaian Bulletin of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 2, No. 1 (March, 1962), 1–15Google Scholar; Liversage, V., Land Tenure in the Colonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945).Google Scholar

2 H. G. Jones, The Earth Goddess.

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17 Quoted in Wilson, , The History of Unilever (London: Cassell, 1954).Google Scholar

18 An excellent account of early colonial policy on land tenure can be found in Kimble, David, A Political History of Ghana 1850–1928 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).Google Scholar

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