5 - Dalton - Extended Review of Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa

African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Review
Reviewed Work(s): An Economic History of West Africa by A. G. Hopkins
Review by: George Dalton
Source: African Economic History, No. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 51-101
Published by: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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51
An Economic History of West Africa. A. G. Hopkins.
At the several places in his book where he defends his theoretical

point of view, Hopkins cites the writings of Karl Polanyi and myself as
being mistaken or useless because we employ a theoretical approach dir-
ectly contrary to the one Hopkins employs. Polanyi and I analyze the
workings of external trade, money usages, and other economic activities
and institutions in pre-industrial economies in which market organiza-
tion is not dominant. Because Polanyi and I are so severely criticized,
I paid close attention to Hopkins' arguments and to what Hopkins substi-
tutes for our analyses, particularly for pre-colonial Africa.
Throughout this review, I am extremely critical of Hopkins' analy-
tical conclusions because of the market language and market paradigm he
employs. I think he is seriously mistaken in his interpretations because
he vastly exaggerates the importance of market economy in pre-colonial and
colonial Africa. Fairness as well as clarity, therefore, require that I
do for Hopkins what he does not do for Polanyi and me: that I quote him
at length, in his own words, before criticizing any conclusions he draws,
and, of course, that I indicate the reasons why I disagree and cite what-
ever evidence I can adduce for such disagreement. There are also termi-
nological, semantic, and conceptual difficulties in what Hopkins says.
In quoting him, I sometimes underline the key words that I think cause
difficulty to call the readers' attention to them. When I do so, I tell
the reader that I am adding italics.
A summary passage at the end of the book captures Hopkins' analyti-
cal substance, that is, his exclusive concern with the growth of market
sectors, and captures as well his rather aggressive spirit: Hopkins'
ridicule of what he tells us are commonly believed myths about tradition-
al African economies:
"The central theme of this study has been the interaction of

the various internal and external factors which have deter-
mined the structure and performance of the market economy.
Older views of the development of the /sic/ West African
economy stressed the importance of external influ-
ences, principally colonial rule, and focused on a compar-
atively short and recent time span. The colonial rulers
were thought to have started with a static, subsistence
economy, and to have brought about a transformation which
was almost as impressive as that once achieved with the
loaves and fishes. The present work has noted the inac-
curacies of the myth of primitive Africa, has emphasized
the role of the indigenous population, and has covered a
long period of time. However, this study has also shown
that what has become known as 'the African point of view'
is to some extent a misnomer, which stems from the myth of
Merrie Africa and from an exaggerated belief in the commu-
nal solidarity of pre-industrial societies" (p. 293).
Hopkins' book is seriously mistitled. It should be called Markets

and Myths: Analytical Essays on the Market Sectors in Colonial West
Africa, 1900-1960, With Some Unproven Assertions about Pre-Colonial West
Africa and a Chapter on the Gold and Slave Trade. Indeed, two of the
three longest chapters, chapters 6 and 7, are not so much economic his-
African Economic History, Spring, 1976.
52
tory as an elementary application of ideas drawn from recent writings of

development economists. Descriptive or narrative economic history is not
the main concern of the book. Rather, each chapter is organized around
an analytical theme. The chapters group themselves as follows: chap-
ters 1 and 2 (77 pages) are what economic anthropologists would call a
formalist interpretation of pre-colonial African economies, emphasizing
their market elements and describing all economic activities in market
terminology. Chapter 3 (46 pages) is a transitional chapter on West Af-
rican long-distance trade in gold and slaves with Arabs and Europeans in
the hundreds of years before colonial rule began around 1900, a chapter
which also employs the market paradigm and market language. Nearly two-
thirds of the book, chapters 4 through 8 (203 pages), in on the growth of
commercial exports and imports just before and then under colonial rule,
1900-1960, with special concern for the economic slumps and booms occur-
ring in the several decades immediately before the end of colonial rule.
Hopkins' book, then, is a set of interpretative or analytical essays and
devotes more space to West African economies under colonial rule than to
pre-colonial Africa.
ch. 1, Approaches to Africa's Past (7 pages)

ch. 2, The Domestic Economy: Structure and Function (70 pages)
ch. 3, External Trade: The Sahara and the Atlantic (46 pages)
ch. 4, The Economic Basis of Imperialism (43 pages)
ch. 5, An Economic Model of Colonialism (20 pages)
ch. 6, Completing the Open Economy /1900-1930/ (50 pages)
ch. 7, The Open Economy Under Strain /1930-1960/ (56 pages)
ch. 8, The Economy in Retrospect (4 pages)
Chapter 1, "Approaches to Africa's Past," provides us with the "or-

ganizing principle" of the entire book. I believe that Hopkins' adoption
of the market principle contains error, ambiguity, and misunderstanding
of what fifty years of economic anthropology tells us. As always, I shall
let Hopkins speak for himself to avoid the possibility of distorting his
meaning by attributing to him what he does not say. I add italics to
call attention to the key words:
"An organizing principle is required which is broad enough

to cover the totality of economic activities over many cen-
turies, yet specific enough to provide a coherent theme for
the book as a whole. The organizing principle which best
meets these criteria is that of the market. This concept,
as defined here, has three dimensions: first, the volume
and value of goods and services transacted, which determine
the extent of the market in quantitative terms; second, geo-
graphical variations in exchange activity, which fix the
extent of the market in spatial terms, and third, the num-
ber and social status of the parties engaged in exchange,
which influence the composition of the goods and services
traded. The market is a theme that can be followed with
the help of both qualitative and quantitative evidence.
The former is predominant in the pre-colonial period and
the latter becomes important in the twentieth century" (pp. 4-5).
53
Is Hopkins saying here that throughout West African history, that

is, even before the Portuguese arrived around 1500, during the ensuing
400 years of external trade with Europeans up to 1900, and during the
sixty years of colonial rule, 1900-1960, market transactions of land,
labor, produce, and services were uniformly present and uniformly impor-
tant (quantitatively) as the organizing principle, dominating hundreds
of small West African tribal economies like the Tallensi and Tiv? That
even before the Europeans arrived, first to trade and then to rule, the
allocation of land and labor to production activities, the organization
of work, and the disposition of produce were so like those activities in
modern British and American farming and manufacture that the principles
of market price theory and resource allocation apply? That unwittingly,
Alfred Marshall was writing his Principles of Economics, 1890, for a
capitalist pre-colonial Africa as well as for capitalist Britain in the
19th century? Does Hopkins really mean us to understand by "the total-
ity of economic activities over many centuries" that there were land and
labor markets in West Africa, so frequent, so important, so heavily relied
on for earning livelihood that the organizing principle of the market
applies to land and labor allocation as well as to gold, slaves, and
cash crops? Or do "goods and services traded" exclude the factor inputs
of land and labor? Is Hopkins really saying that all "goods and services
transacted" or all "exchange activity" are market transactions and mar-
ket exchange activities? Is he saying that he can ignore subsistence
production, bridewealth, obligatory gifts to kin, obligatory payments to
kings, war raids for plunder, material transfers in making peace, and all
the other non-market social and economic activities anthropologists such
as Fortes, Bohannan, and Goody describe in their ethnographies, and still
give us an accurate account of what was typical and representative for
hundreds of small West African economies before and during colonial rule?
Does he really equate all internal and external "trade" with "market
trade" so that we may regard any goods changing hands as a market trans-
action? Yes, he seems to be saying these things:
"Trade in Africa, as elsewhere, is as old as man himself, and

the concept of the market is appropriate to early as well as
to more recent times. Moreover, exchange and subsistence
activities were (and still are) integrated" (p. 5).
The first problem created by Hopkins' adoption of the market as the

"organizing principle" of "the totality of economic activities over many
centuries" is never faced by Hopkins. It has two parts: (a) at crucial
time periods, say, around 1500 (for the arrival of the first Europeans to
trade), around 1900 (for the beginning of colonial rule), and around 1960
(for the end of colonial rule), does the evidence exist to allow one to
say how important, quantitatively, market transactions of land and wage
labor were relative to non-market land and labor allocation? (b) For
those different time periods, does the evidence exist to allow one to say
how important market sale of produce (output) was compared to production
for self-use (subsistence production), and for transaction by non-market
principles (i.e., reciprocity and redistribution)? The answer, of
course, is no for periods earlier than 1950. Later I shall cite views
of British social anthropologists on these matters which differ radically
54
from Hopkins' and cite statistics for 1950 given by the United Nations.
But first, here is Philip Curtin on these matters, in his recent Econ-
omic Change in Precolonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave
Trade:
"In spite of an active market in all of these goods, the
market sector of the eighteenth century Senegambian economy
was smaller than the self-subsistence sector . . . In some
parts of West Africa, no currency could be used to buy land
because land was not sold" (pp. 232-233).
The conceptual ambiguities and unanswered questions inherent in Hop-

kins' use of the market as the "organizing principle' for the 'totality
of economic activities over many centuries" in the large West African
area now comprising some fifteen nation-states, are compounded by his
utter confusion in equating reciprocity and redistribution with market
exchange. Hopkins seems to believe that reciprocity and redistribution
in some unspecified sense, are minor variants of market exchange; or,
worse yet, expressions of special sorts of market exchange. In the quo-
tations to follow, the sentences I italicize are confused. Hopkins
simply does not understand that body of writings in economic anthropology--
from Mauss and Malinowski to Polanyi, Sahlins, and myself--which analyze
reciprocal and redistributive transactions of labor, land, and produce.
First, he starts with an accurate statement, as though he does understand
that there are such things as non-market economies:
".../about/ the interpretation of exchange activities in pre-

industrial societies. When historians discuss markets and
trade, they tend to assume that prices are determined by sup-
ply and demand, and that the profitability of various trans-
actions influence the volume and type of goods placed on the
market and factor combination required to produce them. How-
ever, it is possible that these /supply and demand/ rules may
not apply universally. All societies have an economic system,
in that they provide material goods to satisfy biological and
social wants, but the code devised for operating this system
may not center on economizing and maximizing principles of
the kind which are thought to predominate in modern, industrial
/capitalist/ societies. In pre-industrial societies transac-
tional rules other than price may be more important in deter-
mining the terms on which goods are exchanged" (p. 5).
Up to here, all is well. Hopkins seems to realize that pre-indus-

trial economic systems need not have been market systems, that is, cap-
italism without machines. But the next sentence is a Wittgensteinian
nightmare. It indicates utter conceptual confusion as does the second
sentence I italicize:
"The principles governing market activity /sic/ in

societies may be those of reciprocity (obligatory gift-
giving among friends and kinsmen) and redistribution (the
reallocation of customary receipts by a socially-determined
authority).. .The substantive interpretation has been applied
to Africa by writers such as Polanyi and Dalton who have
55
contended according to the principles of reciprocity and

redistribution... To analyze market activities /sic/ in
Africa without considering the possibility that the rules
governing economic behavior might be very different from
those prevailing in the industrial /capitalist/ world, is
to risk adopting an ethnocentric and anachronistic approach"
(p. 6).
The sentences I italicize indicate that Hopkins does not understand

that reciprocal and redistributive transactions are different from those
of market exchange in the same sense that the transactional principles
of Soviet central planning are different from the transactional princi-
ples of American capitalism. Given Hopkins' misunderstanding of what
reciprocity and redistribution mean--that they are non-market trans-
actional principles for allocating land and labor to production activi-
ties and for transacting produce, not simply different "values and
motivation," that is, different motivational and attitudinal proclivi-
ties--it is not surprising that he goes on to say that the substanti-
vists, Polanyi and myself, are quite simply wrong.
In what follows, it is highly annoying to me that Hopkins nowhere
quotes what Polanyi or I actually say before dismissing us as wrong;
there is, after all, quite a lot in print written by Polanyi and me (as
well as by Bohannan, Sahlins, Neale, and others) which would make clear
to the reader what exactly reciprocity and redistribution mean, in con-
trast to market exchange. This is an important matter to Hopkins, more-
over, because he is arguing one of two cases--he does not make clear
which--both of which I believe to be wrong: (a) that he need not con-
cern himself in this book with any economic activities other than market
activities--his "organizing principle"--to describe West African econo-
mic history because subsistence production and transactions of recipro-
city and redistribution are quantitatively unimportant compared to marke
exchange; (b) reciprocity and redistribution are merely minor variants
of market exchange--market transactions in a different social setting;
therefore the differences between reciprocity, redistribution, and market
exchange can be ignored, so that all production and exchange activities,
no matter whether they are internal or foreign transactions, may be
regarded as market exchanges and described in textbook terms of supply
and demand. Instead of quoting us, he creates a straw man by attributing
to us a position which is a misleading caricature of what the several of
us have spelled out and applied to actual economies of time and place in
a dozen books and several dozen journal articles. We are concerned with
economic activities and institutions, such as foreign trade and money,
not simply with "values and motivation," as Hopkins would have it:
"First, the substantivists are mistaken in arguing that the

values and motivation of pre-industrial societies differ in
kind rather than degree from those of industrial societies.
Indeed, even differences of degree may be much smaller than
is often assumed. Second, the substantivist case fails to
meet the empirical test: the economy /sic/ of pre-colonial
West Africa simply did not function in accordance with prin-
ciples which are supposed to characterize 'traditional'
56
societies...The argument of this book is derived from its

theme, and relates to stability and change in the market.
The analysis of pre-colonial domestic economy /sic/ pre-
sented in Chapter 2 is basic to the rest of the book. This
chapter attacks the mythology which has grown up about the
characteristics of 'traditional' societies, demonstrates that
exchange /market? reciprocal? redistributive?/ was wide-
spread..." (p. 6).
Before going on to the analysis presented in Chapter 2 which "is basic

to the rest of the book," I should like to point out that it was unnec-
essary for Hopkins to cross the Atlantic to find substantivist myths to
demolish. Only Polanyi and myself are cited as substantivists (p. 6).
Readers of his book may come away with the quite wrong idea that what
Hopkins regards as substantivist myths about non-market economies are
the bizarre ideas of a small coterie of eccentric Americans who do work
that is not the sort of thing British chaps do. Polanyi and I say re-
peatedly in print that our work is an extension and elaboration of ideas
to be found in Mauss, Malinowski, and Thurnwald (and for myself, a long
series of British social anthropologists as well, from Radcliffe-Brown
to Andrew Strathern). Here are Daryll Forde, Mary Douglas, and Lucy
Mair writing on "traditional" economies, three very British social an-
thropologists whose fieldwork was done in Africa in the 1930s and 1940s.
Here is what Hopkins regards as the myth of Primitive Africa stated not
by Polanyi or me, but by British social anthropologists of the main-
stream. I italicize their substantivist points:
"...preoccupation with the daily and seasonal food supply,

limitation of transport, difficulties of storage, over-
dependence on one or two major resources. These restric-
tions derive mainly from a low level of technical know-
ledge which severely limits productive capacity... The
economic unit is small and, save for occasionally bartered
specialties, does not transcend the population of a small
village. Social relations are of the personal, face-to-
face kind. Everyone has known everyone else from childhood,
everyone is related to everyone else. The sick and unfor-
tunate are able to depend on the kindliness of immediate
neighbors. The sharing of tools and supplies to meet indi-
vidual shortages are matters of moral obligation between
kinsfolk and neighbors. Impersonal commerical relations
hardly exist. The group which lives and works together has
strong feelings of solidarity, partly because they are iso-
lated from other groups by poor communications.
The small size of the social group within which produc-
tion is organized and exchange effected also reduces the
opportunity for specialization. Such skills as are prac-
ticed are known to everyone of the appropriate age and sex...
in the community. Certain kinds of work are traditionally
assigned to men, others to women, but full-time special-
ists are very rare. The work of the potter, boat-builder,
smith, or magician is a voluntary spare-time task.
57
In such a setting economic relations have not been

separated out from other social relations. There is no ques-
tion of one man working for another whom he knows only as
employer. Men work together because they are related to each
other, or have other social obligations to one another. Im-
portant economic processes are thus embedded in wider social
needs, and are inextricably mixed with politics, ceremonial,
and general festivity..." (D. Forde and Mary Douglas, "Pri-
mitive Economics," in H. L. Shapiro, ed., Man, Culture, and
Society, 1956).
"Where writing is not known, the range of communications, and

so of the giving of orders, is limited to that over which
messages can be carried by word of mouth...Pre-literate
societies also lack money in the sense of a generally accep-
ted medium of exchange. This is one reason why, in such
societies, there are few impersonal economic transactions.
Sometimes even the bartering of local products--pots from
villages where there are clay deposits, fish from the sea-
coasts--depends on the existence of personal relationships
between the persons exchanging their goods. Markets /mar-
ket places/ where anyone can trade may, however, be found
in societies without a cash economy. It is in the field of
claims on services and reward for services given, that the
contrast with the Western commercial economies is most marked.
There is no such thing as the hiring at a fixed rate of any-
one who offers his labor. A man owes services to his senior
kinsmen, or his future father-in-law, or the chief of his
country, and the latter owes him a reward the amount of which
lies in his discretion. Societies organized on this basis
are, then, both pre-literate and pre-commercial... In an econ-
omy where nothing is bought or sold, it is obvious that land
cannot be, and in a society with such an economy rights to
cultivate land depend not on purchase or the payment of rent,
but either on membership of a kin group, or on a special per-
sonal relationship with a right-holder" (Lucy Mair, New Nations,
1963, pp. 18, 19, 29; see also pp. 30, 39, 41, 49-51).
Finally, here is C. Meillassoux, the French anthropologist, on the

internal consequences (within Alldian society) of their external trade
activities with Europeans:
"Involvement in outside commerce, when limited to buying

and selling, does not imply the free circulation of goods
within the group or the existence of commercial exchanges
between its members. It does not imply a new social divi-
sion of labor, specialization, or a market economy. On the
contrary, the above cases show that, while the social organ-
ization is adapted to suit /external/ trade and while politi-
cal advantages are gained from it, goods may still be dis-
tributed and circulated within the lineage along the old
lines of gift-exchange and inheritance, while the tradi-
58
tional modes of production involving subsistence, and not

trade goods, remain the same" ("Introduction," in C. Meillas-
soux, (ed.), The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West
Africa, 1971).
I shall start by providing readers of chapter 2, "The /sic/ Domestic

Economy: Structure and Function," with a map through Hopkins' minefield
of dubious assumptions and strong assertions made without proof:
(1) West Africa, like the rest of Africa, and, indeed, the rest of
what we have come to call the Third World, was and is extremely diverse,
variable, mixed. There was no such thing as "the" domestic economy of
West Africa, there were instead hundreds of small domestic economies
(polities, and societies). Their economic, political, and social insti-
tutions were the opposite of uniform: there were kingdom-states and
stateless tribes; subsistence producers, those producing for market sale,
and those who produce both; Moslems and pagans; hunters, gatherers, fish-
ermen, herders, agriculturalists, market-place sellers, and long-distance
traders; townsmen and rural persons; years of famine and years of abund-
ance; people on the coast and peoples in the hinterland.
(2) Up until the twentieth century, there is very little quantita-
tive information. But even the qualitative information is sketchy. One
must remember that fieldwork anthropology--and so, the direct observation
of domestic economies--did not begin in Africa until colonial rule in the
twentieth century, except for the anthropological writings of missionar-
ies, like Roscoe's The Baganda (1911), and the remarks of early travel-
ers. Hopkins quite rightly begins his chapter by saying the data are
scanty:
"...for the period down to the eighth century the historian

is reliant on archaeological, linguistic and botanical re-
search. From the eighth century onwards the flow of infor-
mation begins to increase, mainly as a result of records
kept by Arab travelers, though the evidence is patchy and
refers chiefly to the region known as the Western Sudan.
After the fifteenth century, with the arrival of Europeans,
the volume of material relating to the forest zone also
starts to grow, but is confined, before the nineteenth cen-
tury, largely to the coastal zone" (p. 8, italics added).
(3) The reader of Hopkins' book should bear in mind what Hopkins
does not: that social anthropology and its specialist branches such as
economic anthropology are concerned with societies and economies through-
out the Third World, not only with West Africa. At one point in chapter
2 (p. 27) Hopkins criticizes Manning Nash's concept of "levelling de-
vices" as inapplicable to West Africa. Nash was referring to Catholic
festivals held by present-day Latin American peasants and did not remote-
ly intend his idea to refer to West Africa. Such elementary lapses by
Hopkins allow one to suspect he has not paid serious attention to the
literature of economic anthropology, writings which he dislikes and so
ignores or dismisses because so much in print is about non-market econ-
omic activities in Africa and elsewhere.
59
Like the chapters that follow it, chapter two does three things in
interspersed fashion (that is, not in consecutive fashion): (a) it gives
some descriptive and narrative information; (b) it attempts to destroy
what Hopkins says are myths about pre-colonial African economies; (c)
and it argues for what Hopkins says are novel analytical insights, Hopkins'
very own newly minted interpretations of what were the important attri-
butes and transactional mechanisms of pre-colonial African economies.
Categories (b) and (c), contentious issues, comprise a considerable frac-
tion of this and all the other chapters.
(a) Descriptive information. A sketch of physical environment, that
is, natural resources, climate, and points of geographical interest;
guesses about population size over time; remarks on epidemics, famines,
hunger periods, and disease; bits of agricultural information about root
crops versus cereals; sporadic warfare and its consequences; urban set-
tlements; the nature of domestic units and their domestic employment of
slaves; production activities; the introduction by Europeans of new crops
(maize, cassava, groundnuts, tobacco, cocoa, and various fruits); remarks
on land tenure; the importance of minerals in pre-colonial West Africa
(especially iron, gold, and salt); manufacturing industries (clothing,
metal-working, ceramics, construction, and food-processing); matters
relating to transport and the distribution network of market and exchange
transactions, short-distance and long-distance; private trading and state
trading; caravan trade and trading communities; credit institutions.
(b) Myths. The first thing one notices about the myths Hopkins sets
out to disprove is that he does not tell us who exactly perpetrates them
or believes in them today. There are no references to 20th century wri-
tings of the myth-makers. One would not suppose he is silent about who
the myth-makers are because he wants to spare their feelings. Indeed, he
cites a number of writers for praise or blame throughout the book, but he
cites only three myth-makers, two from the 19th century (Alfred Marshall
and Rudyard Kipling), and a travel brochure issued in 1972 inviting tour-
ists to come to drum-beating Africa. Some are straw myths; others are
the lazy savage myths of Europeans in colonial residence, myths that have
long since been exploded, for example, by Malinowski fifty years ago; a
few are due to Hopkins' ignorance of what those of us who write economic
anthropology are actually saying. He never quotes us, he merely attri-
butes foolish positions to us. But I shall quote Hopkins. Here is myth
number one, on Primitive Africa:
"....this outline, though incomplete, leads to a reappraisal
of the myths, ancient and modern, which have grown up about
the African past, and, indeed, about underdevelopment in
general. Unfortunately, neither a lack of evidence nor a
failure to consult work already published has inhibited the
expression of views about the economic backwardness of Africa
in the period before European rule...
An amalgamated version of the beliefs about the economic
backwardness of Africa in the pre-colonial period would in-
clude the following major points. The domestic economy /sic/
was a subsistence economy, which was uniform, unchanging and
therefore uninteresting.. .The dominant agricultural sector,
so it is alleged, was virtually immobilized by a combination
of primitive technology, communal land tenure and the extended
60
family. The development of key entrepreneurial groups was

inhibited by the prevalence of an anti-capitalist /sic/
value system. This ideology was reinforced by African poli-
tical systems, which were either conservative gerontocracies
based on ascribed status, or were so egalitarian that it was
impossible for prospective innovators to accumulate savings.
Such exchange as did occur did not follow the rules of supply
and demand, as understood in the Western world, but was con-
ducted with the aim of maximizing social rather than economic
values. Consequently there was no factor market: that is to
say, there was no regular institutionalized means of selling
land, hiring labor, or raising money. The result was the po-
tentially productive factors were kept idle" (p. 9).
The only persons he cites as associating themselves with this myth

of Primitive Africa are the eminent economist Alfred Marshall in a book
first published in 1890, and Rudyard Kipling. On the dominance of sub-
sistence production, primitive technology, "communal" (lineage) land
tenure, the extended family, African political systems, non-market
exchange, the absence of labor and land markets, and the absence of
modern money, he could have quoted twentieth century British, French,
and American anthropologists, as I did earlier: Daryll Forde, Mary Doug-
las, Lucy Mair, Claude Meillassoux, and, indeed, Meyer Fortes, Paul
Bohannan, and many others. Here, for example, is Meyer Fortes on the
Tallensi of the 1930s, half-way through the colonial period:
"European currency is firmly established both as a medium of

exchange and as a standard of value, and bids fair to oust
the cumbrous native cowry currency in the near future...
/but/ money has hardly affected the native subsistence
economy" ("Culture Contact as a Dynamic Process", Africa,
1936, p. 38).
And here are some more British social anthropologists, Radcliffe-

Brown, Fortes again, and Evans-Pritchard, perpetrating what Hopkins
asserts is the myth of primitive African economy:
"In the study of the simpler societies the anthropologist

finds that the concepts and theories of political philo-
sophers or economists are unserviceable or insufficient.
They have been elaborated in reference to societies of a
limited number of types...Most African societies belong
to an economic order very different from ours. Theirs is
mainly a subsistence economy with a rudimentary differen-
tiation of productive labor and with no machinery for the
accumulation of wealth in the form of commercial or
industrial capital. If wealth is accumulated it takes the
form of consumption goods and amenities or is used for the
support of additional dependents. Hence it tends to be
rapidly dissipated again and does not give rise to perma-
ment class divisions...Political office /in African state-
less societies/ carries no econimic privileges, though the
61
possession of greater than average wealth may be a criter-

ion of the qualities of status required for political leader-
ship; for in these economically homogeneous, equalitarian and
segmentary societies /such as the Nuer/ the attainment of
wealth depends either on exceptional personal qualities or
accomplishments, or on superior status in the lineage sys-
tem" (African Political Systems, 1940, pp. xiii, 8, 9).
The error implicit in what Hopkins is doing is that he quite wrongly

argues an either-or case, that pre-colonial West African "economy"-- I
repeat, a geographical area now covered by some fifteen nation-states--
was a single thing, either a non-market tribal economy ("Primitive Afri-
ca"), or pre-industrial capitalism (that is, a market-dominated economy).
This, of course, is nonsense, as the Polanyi group demonstrated long ago.
One need only read the two excellent essays by Rosemary Arnold in Trade
and Market in the Early Empires, 1957, to see how the market-place in
Whydah functioned side by side with the non-market Port of Trade, through
which was conducted politically administered external trade with Euro-
peans in 18th century Dahomey.
To summarize: these are the underlying reasons why Hopkins was able
to choose the paradigm of market economy for the "totality of economic
activities over many centuries" of West African economic history, a para-
digm which he hopes to convince the readers of his book is the best ex-
planatory principle, even for the centuries preceding colonial rule
(which began, of course, in the hey-day of 19th century European indus-
trial capitalism). (1) There were indeed market-place transactions and
primitive monies (crowies) in use in pre-colonial Africa, and occasion-
ally, hired labor and freehold land tenure, as well. (2) There is no
way to establish their quantitative importance before the 20th century.
But fieldwork done by anthropologists in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s
indicates that even at these late dates subsistence production was
larger than production for market sale. So too does statistics pro-
vided by the United Nations that I shall cite. (3) Hopkins dismisses
as a myth he calls Primitive Africa, what economic anthropologists des-
cribe as non-market transactions of reciprocity, redistribution, sub-
sistence production, land tenure as a function of lineage affiliation,
primitive valuables not used as commercial money, ports of politically
administered trade, and such. He dismisses these by linking such non-
market concepts and analyses (particularly the work of Polanyi and my-
self) to crude 19th century ignorance of Africa such as displayed in the
quotation from Alfred Marshall. Polanyi and I are tainted because Hop-
kins quite gratuitously associates us with the myth of the lazy savage:
"On the one hand there is the myth of Primitive Africa, which pictures
the inhabitants of the continent as living, like Alfred Marshall's sav-
ages," (Hopkins, p. 10):
"Under the dominion of custom and impulse; scarcely ever

striking out new lines for themselves; never forecasting
the distant future; fitful in spite of their servitude to
custom; governed by the fancy of the moment; ready at all
times for the most arduous exertions, but incapable of keep-
ing themselves long to steady work" (Principles of Economics,
62
8th ed., 1938, pp. 723-4, first published in 1890).
What Hopkins does not tell the reader is that Malinowski disposed
of this rubbish fifty years ago, as I pointed out in an article published
in 1971, from which I quote:
"Malinowski also set out to destroy the myth of the lazy

and improvident savage, character defects attributed to
Trobrianders (and other colonized peoples) by European em-
ployers. /Then, after quoting the same passage from A.
Marshall that Hopkins quotes, I continue/. In great detail,
Malinowski showed how wrong this stereotype is, that tribal
people frequently work hard and with foresight and planning,
that public recognition of farming ability is important,
that all stages of gardening receive much work and care"
(G. Dalton, Traditional Tribal and Peasant Economies: An
Introductory Survey of Economic Anthropology, Addison-Wes-
ley, 1971, p. 19).
Here is what I then quote from Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western

Pacific, 1922, pp. 59, 157:
"Much time and labor is given up to aesthetic purposes, to

making the /yam/ gardens tidy, clean, cleared of all debris;
to building fine, solid fences, to providing specially strong
and big yam-poles. All these things are, to some extent,
required for the growth of the plant; but there can be no
doubt that the natives push their conscientiousness far be-
yond the limit of the purely necessary.../And on the cari-
cature of the lazy savage when employed by Europeans for wages,
Malinowski remarked/. If you remove a man from his social
milieu, you eo ipso deprive him of almost all his stimuli to
moral steadfastness and economic efficiency and even of interest
of life. If then you measure him by moral, legal, or economic
standards also essentially foreign to him, you cannot but ob-
tain a caricature in your estimate."
It seems unnecessary for Hopkins to make a big thing of the myth of

the lazy and improvident savage in a book published in 1973, unless he
is able to show that such views are held by those who write in the 1970s.
This, of course, Hopkins does not show. What he does is to suggest that
the nonsense of the lazy savage is part of what Polanyi, Bohannan, and
I have written about non-market economies ("Primitive Africa"). But he
does not quote Polanyi, Bohannan, or me on non-market economies.
(4) By ignoring dozens of anthropologists who have written on non-
market economies in Africa, most of whom are British, Hopkins asserts
quite wrongly that such writings are confined to a small number of Amer-
icans:
"The substantivist interpretation has been applied to Africa

by writers such as Polanyi and Dalton, who have contended that
traditional exchange was conducted according to the principles
63
of reciprocity and redistribution. The formalist view /the

market as the organizing principle or paradigm/ has been
advanced by a larger group of scholars, headed by Firth and
Jones, who have argued in favor of the selective applica-
bility of Western economic theory" (p. 6).
The substantivist interpretation has also been applied to Africa by

many British anthropologists, some of the most eminent of whom I have
already quoted. To be sure, D. Forde, M. Douglas, L. Mair, C. Meillas-
soux, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, M. Fortes, and E. E. Evans-Pritchard--to
mention only those anthropologists I have so far quoted--do not identify
themselves as "substantivists." Most of them, of course, wrote before
Polanyi did. But their writings on non-market transactions and subsis-
tence economy are indistinguishable from those of Polanyi and myself, as
the quotations from their works show. Even Raymond Firth is not as whole-
hearted a believer in the market as an organizing principle as Hopkins
would have his readers think in citing Firth as one of the heads of the
formalists. If Hopkins were to read everything on tribal and peasant
economies Firth has written, as I have, he would become aware that there
are two Raymond Firths. Hopkins cites the formalist Firth. Here is the
substantivist Firth making statements entirely in accord with what Pol-
anyi and I have written on non-market transactions and on tribal economy
embedded in society:
"...the organization of production tends to be based not mere-

ly on a system of cash rewards, where money is used in ex-
change. Wage relations as such may not exist. The workers
may get their return by simple profit-sharing, and may be
drawn to contribute their services by a range of incentives,
including kinship, or ties of loyalty to a chief. The ties
between producers tend to reach out beyond their common
interest in the act of production and its rewards alone.
A production relationship is often only one facet of a
social relationship... In primitive communities the indi-
vidual as an economic factor is personalized, not anonymous.
He tends to hold his economic position in virtue of his
social position. Hence, to displace him economically means
a social disturbance...Economic anthropology deals primarily
with the economic aspects of the social relations of persons
...From each according to his status obligations in the
social system, to each according to his rights in that
system.. .powerful incentives to work lie in the individual's
membership of a social group" (The Social Framework of
Economic Organization," ch. 4 of Elements of Social Organi-
zation, 2nd ed., 1956).
(5) Finally, there are conceptual and semantic confusions which

permeate Hopkins' use of market language. These are displayed in the
first chapter, where he equates all "exchanges" and all "trade" with mar-
ket exchanges and market trade, and uses words which seem to mean that
reciprocity and redistribution are minor variants of market exchange, and
so can be ignored. Polanyi and I are talking about actual transactions
64
and actual economic organization; Hopkins thinks we are talking about

"anti-capitalist" values and motivations.
Myth number two, Merrie Africa, need not detain us as long. Hop-
kins does not tell us who believes it. He presumably has in mind today's
political leaders of independent African nations who want to attribute
the poverty and all other miseries in their countries to colonialism,
and so postulate the myth of a golden-age of Africa before the white man
came.
"...there is the newer, more fashionable, myth of Merrie

Africa, which has come to the fore during the past ten or
fifteen years. On this view the pre-colonial era was a
Golden Age, in which generations of Africans enjoyed congenial
lives in well-integrated, smoothly functioning societies.
The means of livelihood came easily to hand, for foodstuffs
grew wild and in abundance, and this good furtune enabled
the inhabitants to concentrate on leisure pursuits, which,
if some sources are to be believed, /no sources specified/
consisted of interminable dancing and drumming. The Euro-
peans, so it is alleged, disrupted a state of harmony:
cohesion based on shared values was replaced by artificial
unity backed by force, and ruthless exploitation reduced the
indigenous peoples to a degree of poverty which they had not
known in the past" (p. 10).
The only evidence that Hopkins adduces to show that someone actually
believes this sort of thing is a travel brochure issued in 1972, inviting
tourists to visit the Gambia where "the drum beat of black Africa capti-
vates and enthrals you as you watch the happy-go-lucky natives dance..."
But why should this sort of nonsense be mentioned in scholarly work, un-
less Hopkins can show (which he does not) that scholars believe such
things? If Hopkins were writing an economic history of England and
wanted to challenge established interpretations of, say, the consequences
of the Norman invasion or of the Industrial Revolution, it would be the
analytical views presented in scholarly writings he would challenge, not--
as he does for Africa--the ignorant prejudices of the unwashed masses
whose knowledge of Africa comes from Tarzan movies. This sort of thing
is unseemly and a waste of space. No doubt it goes over well in lectures
to undergraduates, but it should not appear in his book unless he is able
to cite scholarly writings that assert such views of Merrie Africa. He
cites none.
There are other "myths" Hopkins energetically demolishes in chapter
2 without citing sources which indicate anyone actually believes these
things: that traditional populations were not mobile (p. 20); and that
the "work-force of pre-industrial societies is usually regarded as being
based on unspecialized and inefficient family labor..." (pp. 20-21). I do
not want to suggest that Hopkins is here disingenuously cooking the data.
I think rather that he has screened out from conscious awareness the fact
that very big anthropological wheels in Great Britain, some of whom I have
quoted on these matters--Raymond Firth, Mary Douglas, etc.--have said
these things about the subsistence economies in which they have done
fieldwork. Pre-colonial warfare, for example, sharply restricted mobility,
65
as Mary Douglas tells us for the Lele (see her essay in Markets in Africa,
1962). Hopkins prefers to believe they are myths, rather than things said
by prominent British social anthropologists, none of whom he cites as myth-
makers.
Section 3 of chapter 2, "The Distributive System," is sadly confused.
The confusion is compounded of four elements: (1) Hopkins' equation of
all "exchange" with "market exchange." (2) His equation of any sort of
money-like thing in pre-colonial Africa with modern cash (francs, sterling,
dollars). (3) His invariable use of conventional economic terms, which
transmogrifies lending and borrowing transactions into an "embryonic
capital market." (4) His totally unjustified assumption that finding
market transactions existed in pre-colonial Africa means that they were
typical, representative, prevalent, or quantitatively the most important
sort. It would be like equating the private market sector of foodstuffs
sold from garden plots in Soviet Russia today with the whole of Soviet
national economy (see, e.g., Ian H. Hill, "The Private Plot in Soviet
Agriculture," Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 2, no. 4, July 1975).
Market transactions of produce, land, and labor certainly existed in pre-
colonial Africa. How important they were in a quantitative sense, one
cannot say, although we have some hard information for the 1940s and 1950s
I will cite after quoting Hopkins. To assert, as Hopkins does, that be-
cause some market transactions existed, pre-colonial West Africa was a
market economy or was an embryonic capitalist economy, is assertion with-
out proof. It is to equate feudal England in the llth century with Adam
Smith's mercantile England of the late 18th century. Here is Hopkins'
assertions on these matters. I insert queries in square brackets where I
believe Hopkins wrongly equates all economic activity with market activi-
ties or in some way overstates the importance of market transactions:
"It will be argued that the concept of a subsistence econo-

my needs to be modified substantially to take account of the
fact that exchange /market? gift? state-trade?7 was widespread
/in land and labor? foodstuffs?/ that the organization of
trade and markets was both complex and efficient; that the
channels of recruitment to, and the prestige rankings of
mercantile occupations /private? the king's traders?/ dem-
onstrate that the conventional distinction between ascribed
(traditional) and achieved (modern) status has little con-
nection with reality; that a general purpose currency /mod-
ern cash, like francs and sterling/ and an embryonic capital
market /for what range of transactions?/ had evolved at an
early date; and that established statements regarding pre-
colonial transport systems have succeeded in entrenching
a series of misconceptions about a subject which has yet
to be fully investigated" (p. 51).
If Hopkins is right, then the United Nations is wrong. As late as

1954, a hundred years after the burgeoning of cash-cropping in Africa in
the 19th century that came with the end of the slave trade, and after
fifty years of further commercial expansion under colonial rule, the
United Nations is terribly concerned about the prevalence of subsistence
production in a publication entitled, "Englargement of the Exchange
66
Economy in Tropical Africa," UN, Dept. of Economic Affairs, 1954,

E/2557 ST/ECA/23, which I shall quote from and cite statistics from:
"The purpose of this study is to investigate certain aspects

of the development of the indigenous economies of tropical
Africa--an area containing approximately 140 million inha-
bitants or about 70 per cent of the total population of the
continent.* /footnote reads: The statistical study is con-
fined largely to the Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa,
French West Africa, the Gold Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Northern
Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Tanganyika and Uganda. These
territories cover a large part of tropical Africa and are
considered sufficiently representative to validate a quali-
tative extension of the conclusions to the entire area./
This area does not include either the Union of South Africa,
the industrial development of which distinguishes it from the
territory to the north, nor northern Africa which, because of
its distinctive characteristics, also requires separate
study.
From the point of view of this study, the most signi-
ficant feature of tropical Africa is the fact that the indi-
genous inhabitants are in process of transition from almost
complete dependence on subsistence activities to participa-
tion in various forms of money earning. Whereas at the
beginning of the present century, money and exchange played
little or no part in the lives of the indigenous population,
today /1954/ there are few indigenous communities whose
members do not earn some money, either by the sale of produce
or by labor for wages" (p. 1, italics added).
"In investigating the process of commercialization in tro-

pical Africa as it affects the economic condition of the
inhabitants, three chief questions need to be considered:
(a) the extent to which the resources of land and labor of
the indigenous agricultural economies have become commer-
cialized; (b) the ways in which money earning activities
have been combined with subsistence activities in the pro-
cess of the enlargement of the exchange economy; and (c)
the relation of this process to the economic development
of the territory as a whole. Regarding the first of these
questions, approximate estimates of the extent to which
resources of land and labor are devoted respectively to
subsistence production and to production for exchange
are presented in chapter 2. The estimates indicate that
in tropical Africa as a whole the major proportion of the
resources of cultivated land (approximately 70 per cent)
and of labor (approximately 60 per cent) of the indigenous
agricultural economies is still engaged in subsistence
production. Variations among the territories are consider-
able, but the Gold Coast, with upwards of 70 per cent of
its resources of cultivated land and of labor commercial-
ized, is quite exceptional" (p. 3, italics added).
67
Table 1. Classification of Area under Indigenous Cultivation

(Thousands of hectares)
Crops partly
for export Crops mainly
Crops mainly and partly for local
for export for local consumption
Territory and period consumption Total
area
Per Per Per
cent cent cont
Area of Area of Area of
total total total
Belgian Congo, 1947-50 ..... 49 2 587 27 1,577 71 2,213

French Equatorial Africa,&
1948-50 ................. 297 21 25 2 1,065 77 1,387
French West Africa,u 1947-49 305 3 1,487 16 7,796 81 9,588
Gold Coast, 1950 ........... 728 45 - - 884 55 1,612
Kenya,b 1947-50 ........... - - 18 5 352 95 370
Nigeria, 1950/51............ 242 3 1,891 22 6,494 75 8,627
Southern Rhocesia, 1950..... - - - - 912 100 912
Tanganyika, 1952........... 146 6 81 3 2,209 91 2,436
Uganda, 1948-50 ........... 700 28 - - 1,835 72 2,535
TOTAL 2,467 8 4,089 14 23,124 78 29,680
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Food and
Agricultural Statistics (Rome); United Nations, Information from Non-Self-Governing
Territories, Summary of information transmitted by the Governments of Belgium
France and the United Kingdom, 1951 (1952. VI.B.I. vol. II); Belgian Congo:
United Nations, Reply of Belgian Government to United Nations questionnaire
concerning full employment and related matters, covering the period 1951 and 1952
Chamber of Deputies, Rapport sur I'Administration de la Colonie du Congo Beig
(Brussels, 1950); Belgian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Annuaire Statistique de
Belgique et du Congo Beige, 1951, vol. 72 (Brussels, 1952); French Equatorial Africa,
French West Africa: Ministry of French Overseas Territories, Annuaire statistiq
de 1' Union frangaise, Outre-Mer, vol. 1 (Paris, 1951); National Institute of Economic
Affairs, Annuaire statistique de I' Union frangaise, dicembre 1939-1949 (Paris, 1951)
Nigeria, Department of Statistics, Report on the Sample Census of Agriculture
1950-51 (Lagos); Central African Statistical Office,' Report on the Sample Census of
African Agriculture of Southern Rhodesia (Salisbury, July 1951); United Kingdom
Report to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the Administration of Tan
ganyika under United Kingdom Trusteeship for the year 1952 (London, 1953).
a Including a small area under cultivation by non-indigenous population.
b Cassava, cotton, maize, millet and sorghum.
"In the area as a whole, the proportion of cultivated land

devoted to export crops is about 15 percent of the total under
cultivation. There are marked differences among the individual
territories, though only in the Gold Coast did the area devoted
to production for export exceed 30 per cent of the total. The
proportion of land devoted to export crops is notably higher
than the average for the area as a whole in French Equatorial
Africa, the Gold Coast and Uganda" (UN 1954, p. 11).
68
Table 2. Area under Crops for Export and for Local Consumption
Export crops Crops for

Territory and period local consumtion
Area Per cent Area Per cent
of total of total
Belgian Congo, 1947-50 .......... 372 17 1,841 83

French Equatorial Africa,& 1948-50. 305 22 1,082 78
French West Africa,& 1947-49..... 844 9 8,744 91
Gold Coast, 1950. ............... 728 45 884 55
Kenya,b 1947-50 ................ 9 2 361 98
Nigeria, 1950/51................. 1,416 16 7,211 84
Southern Rhodesia, 1950.......... - - 912 100
Tanganyika, 1952 ............... 166 7 2,270 93
Uganda, 1948-50 ................ 700 28 1,835 72
TOTAL 4,540 15 25,140 85
Source: See table 1. Total land areas under crops partly for ex
for local consumption, shown in the third column of table 1,
divided between production for export and for local consumption i
as total production is divided between export and local consumption
6 Including a small area under cultivation by non-indigenous pop
b Cassava, cotton, maize, millet and sorghum,
Table 3. Estimated Area under Crops for Domestic

Area mainly ud or crops for
Total area domestic markets
Territory and period under
cultivation Minimum P'er cent Mazimum Per 9t
of total of total
Belgian Congo, 1947-50 ....... 2,213 443 20 664 30

French Equatorial Africa,
1948-50 ................... 1,387 - - 139 10
French W\est Africa, 1947-49... 9,588 479 5 1,438 15
Gold Coast, 1950............. 1,612 403 25 564 35
Kenya, 1947-50 ............. 370 - - 37 10
Nigeria, 1950/51 ............. 8,627 1,725 20 2,588 30
Southern Rhodesia, 1950 ...... 912 91 10 182 20
Tanganyika, 1952 ............ 2,436 244 10 488 20
Uganda, 1948-50............. 2,535 - - 253 10
TOTAL 29,680 3,385 11 6,353 21
Source: See table 1; see text for derivation of estimates.
"The produce of cultivated areas indicated in

devoted to locally consumed crops is marketed
partly consumed directly. It is difficult to
these areas are divided between marketed and subsistence
production because there is very little information con-
cerning the amounts sold in domestic markets. For the
Belgian Congo and Uganda, however, official estimates of
total production and of quantities marketed are available
69
for most of the important crops. If for these two terri-

tories it is assumed that the land areas devoted to pro-
duction for local consumption are divided between marketed
and non-marketed production in the same proportions as the
estimates of quantities produced are so divided,* estimates
may be obtained of the approximate areas devoted to produc-
tion for market and to production for subsistence. /*foot-
note: Because of the lack of further information, this is
the only practicable assumption. It has obvious defects
but when applied to a wide range of crops and areas is
believed to be sufficiently accurate to yield approximate
orders of magnitude./ On this basis the total land area
under crops for the domestic market would be between 25 per
cent and 30 per cent of the total cultivated area in the
Belgian Congo and under 5 per cent in Uganda.
Although there are no comparable figures for other
territories to permit a similar direct calculation, it is
possible, on the basis of qualitative information, to indi-
cate the probable position in this respect of other terri-
tories in relation to the Belgian Congo and Uganda. The
figure for the Belgian Congo is probably near the upper
limit for all the territories in the area; Uganda repre-
sents a lower limit. On the basis of these assumptions, the
percentage of cultivated land devoted to domestically mar-
keted crops in each of the territories may be estimated
to be of the following orders of magnitude:
25 to 35 per cent: Gold Coast

20 to 30 per cent: Belgian Congo, Nigeria
10 to 20 per cent: Southern Rhodesia, Tanganyika
5 to 15 per cent: French West Africa
Under 10 per cent: French Equatorial Africa, Kenya,
Uganda
In table 3 the territories have been arranged, according

to available qualitative information, between the indicated
limits. The percentages have been employed to calculate for
each territory the area of cultivated land devoted to pro-
duction for domestic markets. On this basis the proportion
of total cultivated land devoted to production for domestic
markets has been estimated for the region as a whole.
According to the estimates in table 3, the proportion
of land in the area as a whole devoted to the production of
crops for domestic markets lies between a lower limit of 11
per cent and an upper limit of 21 per cent of the total land
under cultivation" (UN 1954, pp. 11-13, italics added).
70
Table 4. Area under Crops for Market and for Subsistence

(Percentage of total area)
Area mainly under crops Area
for market mainly
Territory and period under
Domestic Epor AU subsistence
mOarkets markets crops
Belgian Congo, 1947-50. ............... 25 17 42 58

French Equatorial Africa, 1948-50 ...... 5 22 27 73
French West Africa, 1947-49............ 10 9 19 81
Gold Coast, 1950 ..................... 30 45 75 25
Kenya, 1947-50 ...................... 5 2 7 93
Nigeria, 1950/51...................... 25 16 41 59
Southern Rhodesia, 1950............... 15 - 15 85
Tanganyika, 1952 ..................... 15 7 22 78
Uganda, 1948-50...................... 5 28 33 67
TOTAL 16 15 31 69
Source: See table 1.

a Arithmetic averages of the upper and lower limits shown in table 3.
"The estimates thus far presented are briefly summarized

in table 4. In the classification of cultivated land shown
in this table, the area under export crops is greater than
under crops for domestic markets in three territories, French
Equatorial Africa, the Gold Coast and Uganda. In the case of
the remaining territories, production for export is less
important than production for the domestic market.
In all territories except the Gold Coast, subsistence
farming accounts for approximatley 60 per cent or more of
the total land area under cultivation. In the region as a
whole, about 30 per cent of the total cultivated land area
is devoted to commercialized production (both for export
and for domestic markets); or between about 25 and 35 per
cent, if calculated on the basis of the upper and lower
limits used in table 3. In other words, between 65 per cent
and 75 per cent of the total cultivated land area of tropical
Africa is devoted to subsistence production" (UN 1954, p. 13,
italics added).
71
Table 5. Number of Africans Employed Outside the Indigenous

Agricultural Economies, 1950
(Thousands of persons)
I empoysmaet
Told
Territory adull real Parce, ft
popkatioso Numbe b lol t lo a
mdr oprlatolr?
Belgian Congo....................... 3,241 962 30

French Equatorial Africa ............. 1,253 190 15
French West Africa .................. 4,898 244 5
Gold Coast ......................... 1,219 184 15
Kenya .............................. 1,500 368 25
Nigeria............................. 6,943 258 4
Southern Rhodesia.................... 493 196 40
Tanganyika.......................... 2,100 396 19
Uganda............................. 1,405 171 12
To-rAL 23,052 2,969 13
Source: United Nations, Information from Non-Self-Governing T

mary of information transmitted by the Governments of Belgium
United Kingdom, 1951 (1952.VI.B.1. vol. II); United Kingdom
A n Economic Surrey of the Colonial Territories, 1951, vol. III (Lon
Congo: Reply of Belgian Government to United Nations questio
full employment and related matters, covering the period 1951
West Africa: Eughne Guernier, Encyclopidie coloniale et mariti
dentale franiaise, vol. 1 (Paris, 1949); Gold Coast: Ministry of Fin
Some Economic Matters (Accra, 1952); Kenya: East African Statis
Qtuarterly Economic and Statistical Bulletin (Nairobi), No. 19, M
African Statistical Office, National Income and Social Accounts of S
1946-1951 (Salisbury, 1952); Comparative Survey of Native Policy
desia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (London, 1952).
SOver 15 years of age; calculated from official estimates of t
on the assumption that one in 3.5 of the population is a male ov
b Including both migrant labour and fully urbanized workers; se
are not available. No specific adjustment has been made to allow
ment of workers across territorial boundaries, except in'the case of
where there is a large net inflow which is recorded in official stat
of other territories the net movements are relatively small or consi
mostly engaged within the agriculturalteconomies and`not inclu
estimates.
"The percentages in table 5 show the proportion of wage

earners in the total male population over fifteen years of
age in each territory... The table indicates wide variations
among the territories in the importance of wage earning out-
side the indigenous agricultural economies in relation to
their total labor resources. Wage earning appears relatively
unimportant in Nigeria and French West Africa, where approxi-
mately 4 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, of the male
population over fifteen years of age are employed in wage
activities at any given time. It is much more important
in Southern Rhodesia, where approximately 40 per cent of
the male population over fifteen years of age is involved,
and also, though to a lesser extent, in the Belgian Congo,
Kenya and Tanganyika...Proceeding on these assumptions, a
calculation may be made of the relative proportion of males
over fifteen years of age in commercialized and in subsis-
tence production, using as a basis the percentages applied
to the distribution of land areas in table 4, above. Table
6 shows the result of this calculation for nine territories"
(UN 1954, pp. 16-17).
72
Table 6. Adult Male Population in Commercialized and in

Subsistence Production, 1950
(Percentage of total rnale population over fifteen years of age)
Commercialixed production
Subsistnce
Territory Within In production
indigenous outside wage Total
economies earning
Belgian Congo...................... 29 30 59 41
French Equatorial Africa. ............. 23 15 38 62
French \Vest Africa .................. 18 5 23 77
Gold Coast.......................... 64 15 79 21
Kenya.............................. 5 25 30 70
Nigeria.......................................
Southern Rhodesia ................... 39 4 43
9 40 57
49 51
Tanganyika ........................ 18 19 37 63
Uganda............................. 29 12 41 59
TOTAL 27 13 40 60
Source: Calculations based on averages be

in table 3, above. See text for further explan
"Table 6 indicates that, for the region as a whole, the num-

ber of adult males engaged in money earning activities is
approximately 40 per cent of the total male population over
fifteen years of age, with the remainder engaged in subsis-
tence production. Of the 40 per cent engaged in money earn-
ing activities, approximately one-third are in wage earning
employment outside the indigenous agricultural economies.
Of the individual territories, the Gold Coast and the Bel-
gian Congo show percentages of labor engaged in commercial
production appreciably above the average for the area as a
whole. Only in French West Africa does the figure appear
to be considerably below the average.
It is evident that the patterns of cash earning vary
considerably from territory to territory. In French West
Africa, the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Uganda, the predominant
form of cash earning by the indigenous agricultural economies
is cash cropping. Wage earning outside the economies is
relatively unimportant. In Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, on
the other hand, wage earning outside the indigenous agricul-
tural economy provides the chief source of cash income, and
commercialized production within the economies is compari-
tively small. A different pattern may be seen in the Belgian
Congo, and less markedly in French Equatorial Africa and Tan-
ganyika, where commercialized production within the indigen-
ous agricultural economy and wage earning outside it are
both relatively important. In the Belgian Congo, which in
general is more involved in exchange activities than most
other territories except the Gold Coast, the existence of
both forms of commercialization is particularly striking"
(UN 1954, pp. 17-18, italics added).
Table 4 tells us that "in all territories except the Gold Coast,
subsistence farming accounts for approximately 60 per cent or more of
73
the total land area under cultivation" in 1950, and if, as table 6 tells
us, subsistence production occupied more than 50 per cent of adult males--
except in the Belgian Congo and the Gold Coast--in 1950, the quantitative
importance of subsistence production was bound to rather greater fifty
and a hundred years earlier in the pre-colonial period for which Hopkins
is arguing the importance of the market principle for the "totality of
economic activities." Note also how variable West Africa is: in the
Gold Coast, only 21 percent of adult males are engaged in subsistence
production, while in Nigeria 57 per cent, and in French West Africa, 77
per cent of adult males are engaged in subsistence production. For esti-
mates relating to subsistence production in Africa for 1960 (which agree
with the orders of magnitude in the UN figures for 1950; see I. Adelman
and C. T. Morris, Society, Politics, and Economic Development, 1967,
pp. 21-22).
Hopkins then begins to argue his case for the importance of capital-
ism in pre-colonial Africa by committing more errors. I will, as always,
quote his own words, but first I want to prepare the reader for the
errors to come. Hopkins makes statements which are incapable of proof
or refutation because the quantitative evidence simply does not exist
for pre-colonial Africa, assertions that I italicize:
"The majority of households undoubtedly produced the great-

er part of the goods they required as consumers, but the
pure, subsistence economy was an exception rather than the
rule. Most households regarded trade as a normal and an
integral part of their activities, and planned their pro-
duction strategy accordingly" (p. 51).
Hopkins then sets up a straw man by misrepresenting what Bohannan

and I say in Markets in Africa and then ignores the crucial definitions
we provide which, if he had noticed them, would assuage his qualms.
Again, he does not quote anything we say, he merely misrepresents and
then dismisses us. Nor does he tell the readers of his book that the
Introduction to Markets in Africa refers to the descriptive evidence
given in the twenty-eight essays in the book written by anthropologists,
a geographer, and an agricultural economist on the basis of fieldwork
they did in the 1950s. These 28 essays agree with the UN statistics for
1950 in describing the importance of subsistence economies and economies
with petty markets only. The reader should bear in mind that the
"societies" referred to in the quotation to follow are village-level
societies of tribal segments under colonial rule--Wolof, Kuba, Lele,
Kipsigis--not "societies" in the sense of nation-states, or the European
enclaves of mining, or cities in Africa. In this one compressed para-
graph Hopkins is describing a 28 page essay of which I am co-author.
Therefore I have inserted some clarifying remarks in square brackets as
an aid to the reader.
"Social scientists have given considerable thought to the

problem of understanding the internal trade of pre-colonial
Africa. The most publicized analysis of this subject is that
proposed by Bohannan and Dalton, which is based on a distinc-
tion between the market place /transacting produce/ and the
74
market principle /transacting land, labor and other factor in-

puts, as well as finished goods and services/. Bohannan and
Dalton have advanced a three-fold classification: first,
societies which lack markets /market places/ and in which
market principles are hardly present /commercial transactions,
that is, purchase and sale of labor, land, money, goods, and
services, are hardly present/; second, societies which have
market places, but in which market principles operate peri-
pherally /in the sense that only petty amounts are transacted
by purchase and sale/; and third, societies in which market
principles have become dominant /because land and labor markets
and cash-cropping and wage labor have become dominant, and
so subsistence production has declined with European colonial
expansion of commercial activities/. The first two categories
are said to apply to Africa, while the last is typical of in-
dustrial /capitalist/ societies /as well, Bohannan and Dalton
point out, to the "cities and industrial complexes" of the
Africa of the 1950s described in the last three essays in
the book, written by Mukwaya, McCall, and Miracle!. Commu-
nities /villages or tribal segments! of the first two types
can be thought of as being multicentric, having distinct
transactional spheres /or sectors/ distinguished by differ-
ent goods and services, and operating according to discrete
principles of exchange /that is, obligatory gift-giving, or
reciprocity; obligatory payments to and receipts from central
political authority, or redistribution; and market exchange!.
In multicentric economies the laws of supply and demand are
less important in determining the terms of exchange /in pre-
colonial and much of colonial Africa/ than are principles of
reciprocity and redistribution" (p. 52).
Hopkins faintly praises these ideas but then goes on to give his reasons
why he thinks them so seriously defective that he can dismiss them in
favor of straightforward principles of economics, that is, market
analysis and terminology, for pre-colonial West Africa. In what follows,
Hopkins again does not mention the twenty-eight empirical essays in
Markets in Africa that contain the factual evidence that led Bohannan
and me to write what we did about multicentric economies. Our "Intro-
duction," after all, is an introduction to the twenty-eight essays that
follow. Nor, in his haste to dismiss us, does he read what we say about
"peripheral markets." We undertook the "daunting task" of "measuring the
degree of peripherality" on p. 2 of the Introduction to Markets in Africa,
as I shall show after first quoting Hopkins' weak praise and strong cri-
ticism of our analysis of market and non-market sectors:
"This is a subtle analysis, and it has stimulated, directly

and indirectly, a great deal of further research. However,
Bohannan and Dalton's classification will not be used here
for the following reasons (which, because of limitations of
space, will have to be stated briefly). The chief criticism
is one, curiously, which has not been stressed before, possibly
because most commentators have been economic anthropologists
75
rather than historians. Although Bohannan and Dalton

claim that their first two categories are applicable
to "traditional" societies in Africa /pre-colonial and
much of colonial Africa/ neither author has made more
than brief use of sources which historians would re-
gard as necessary to the analysis of the pre-colonial
period. It so happens that during the past ten years
historical research has shown that both the market place
and the market principle were more important than
Bohannan and Dalton allowed in their publication of
1962" (p. 52).
In the introductory essay of 1962 that Hopkins is referring to,

Bohannan and I are basing our analytical statements about market
places and the market principle on the twenty-eight empirical essays
that follow our Introduction, many of which refer to historical
sources. See the fifteen pages of Bibliography, pp. 738-753 in
Markets in Africa, 1962, for an exact .listing of these historical
sources. Hopkins continues:
"Their claim that peripheral markets do not influence

production decisions is at variance with the evidence"
(p. 52).
Hopkins does not specify this evidence which contradicts our

claims. Nor does he consider the evidence on which we base our
statements about peripheral or petty markets, which is contained in
the twenty-eight essays in Markets in Africa, none of which Hopkins
mentions. Nor does he mention the writings of British social anthro-
pologists on non-market economy, the writings I quoted from earlier.
Nor does he mention any of the work Bohannan and I did before 1962;1
nor the much larger body of work we did in the years following 1962,
which also relates to the points at issue;2 nor does he mention here
the theoretical work and its application to pre-colonial economies
in West Africa (e.g., Dahomey) done by the Polanyi group, which
also could have enlightened him on the distinctions between market
place and market principle and on reciprocity and redistribution as
contrasted with market exchange.3
"The extent to which market activity failed to mobilize

the factors of production fully is better explained in
terms of economics (technological limitations and con-
straints on demand) than in terms of social controls
based on anti-capitalist values" (p. 52).
If I understand this remarkable statement correctly, Hopkins

is answering a question it never occurred to Bohannan and me to
ask: why didn't what we now call economic development occur in
pre-colonial West Africa? His answer, "technological limitations
and constraints on demand" is a perfectly general and therefore a
perfectly useless answer, exactly like answering the question, "why
did that automobile collision occur," by saying that "two cars were
trying to occupy the same space simultaneously." It is true by the
76
very definition of underdevelopment, and so does not help us to understand

the specific causes. "Technological limitations and constraints on de-
mand" is also the answer to the same question put to any early economy,
e.g., why didn't the Industrial Revolution occur in Imperial Rome, Han
China, or England in the lth century? Answer: technological limitations
and constraints on demand. Bohannan and I did not raise the question to
which Hopkins thinks--quite wrongly--our answer is "social controls based
on anti-capitalistic values." If Hopkins quoted what we do say, or what
British social anthropologists say on non-market economic structure and
performance, he could not have attributed to us what he does. (To see
how Hopkins' question is answered by development economists, see I. Adelman
and C. T. Morris, Society, Politics, and Economic Development, chapters
5 and 8). Hopkins comments on our analysis as follows:
Even if it is assumed that the market principle was in some

sense peripheral, this insight turns out to be less helpful
than it appears at first. The crucial problem is to find a
way of measuring the degree of peripherality, but this ad-
mittedly daunting task is not one which Bohannan and Dalton
have attempted. Their case rests on the assumption that
there is a sharp contrast in the values governing multicentric
and unicentric economies" (p. 52).
That Hopkins is ignorant about the writings of Polanyi, Bohannan,

and myself is quite evident from his failure to cite here anything we
wrote before or after the Introduction to Markets in Africa. But the
passage just quoted also indicates he did not understand the Introduc-
tion he refers to either. Bohannan and I did undertake the "daunting
task" of specifying what exactly peripheral markets are, and the UN
publication of 1954 I quoted from and the 28 essays that follow the
Introduction to Markets in Africa also illustrate the meaning of peri-
pheral markets. They are petty markets in two senses: the market
sellers get only a minor fraction of their livlihood or total real in-
come from such market-place sales; and in economies containing such
petty markets in which produce (output) is sold, land and labor are
not allocated to agricultural lines of production by market sale; pro-
duction processes, which usually means farming, do not hire labor and
do not have freehold land tenure. Neither land nor labor has yet become
a marketable commodity--except peripherally, that is, infrequently and
in petty amounts. Here again is a passage from the UN's "Enlargement
of the Exchange Economy in Tropical Africa:
The communal systems of land tenure which are character-

istic of tropical Africa present none of the problems
of landlordism which beset agricultural reform in other
underdeveloped regions. They have frequently proved adapt-
able to changed conditions introduced by cash cropping,
under the influence of which they have in some instances
been supplanted by more individualistic forms of tenure.
Thus, for example, in parts of the Gold Coast the purchase
77
and sale of land with freehold title is not uncommon.*

/*footnote: Where communal tenure systems have thus
given way to individual forms of landholding, landlord-
ism has appeared in more than one African territory, as
has occurred in the Gold Coast, where it is probably most
wide-spread, in the Bukoba district of Tanganyika, in
the Kiambu district of Kenya, in the Buganda province of
Uganda, in parts of Southern Rhodesia and in parts of
Nigeria./ In tropical Africa as a whole, however, this
tendency has not gone far enough to change radically the
customary form of tenure, partly, no doubt, because agri-
culture is still organized largely for subsistence pro-
duction, and partly because, in the interest of the
indigenous inhabitants, /colonial/ governments have sought
to preserve customary rights" (UN, 1954, p. 44, italics
added).
Here is what Bohannan and I said about peripheral markets in

the Introduction to Markets in Africa, p. 2:
"There are, in the second place, societies in which

market places exist and the market principle operates,
but only peripherally; that is to say, the subsistence
requirements of the members of the society are not acquired,
to any appreciable extent, in the market place or through
the operation of the market principle. As in marketless
societies, the test is a simple one: land and labor are
not transacted by the market principle, and if the market--
in either sense--were to disappear from such a society,
inconvenience would result, but no major hardship would
necessarily follow because the basic necessities of life
are acquired otherwise than by transactions in the market.
Neither sellers nor producers depend on market sale for
basic livelihood."
We go on to explain further the meaning of peripheral or petty

markets and to indicate that we--and the 28 authors of the essays
to follow--are aware that professional traders relying on market
sales for livelihood are sometimes present in such petty market
places in the Africa of the 1950s:
"Some distinguishing characteristics, both of the econo-

mies in which peripheral markets occur and of the mar-
ket places themselves, appear to be the following:
(1) from the viewpoint of the entire economy, market sales
are not the dominant sources of material livelihood.
Either most people are not engaged in producing for the
market or selling in the market, or those who are so
engaged are only part-time marketers. Their livelihood
comes largely from nonmarket spheres /sectors/ of economy.
A common indicator of a peripheral market is the minute
quantities transacted--it is on a pin money level. (2)
78
Participants in peripheral markets are sometimes 'tar-

get' marketers. This concept, first expressed with regard
to 'target labor,' applies equally well to other ways of
obtaining cash income in situations in which basic sub-
sistence is acquired in nonmarket spheres. These 'target
marketers' engage in marketing sporadically to acquire a
specific amount of cash income for a specific expendi-
ture, such as a bicycle or tax payment, as is indicated
in Colson's article on the Tonga /in Markets in Africa/.
Typically, buyers in peripheral markets buy only a small
proportion of their daily used material items; they too
acquire the bulk of subsistence goods in other ways.
However, it is common in peripheral markets for buyers
to regard the market place as economically important
because it is the only place to obtain some special item
or import. There may also be present in peripheral markets
foreign traders for whom the market is not peripheral,
however much it may be so for the local attendants"
(Bohannan and Dalton, 1962, p. 7).
In our Introduction, Bohannan and I emphasized the point that

market transactions vary in importance in the African economies of
the 1950s analyzed in the 28 essays in the book. We did so by dis-
tinguishing between market-place transactions of produce and market
transactions of land and labor which do not, of course, take place
in market places. We indicated that there were some marketless
economies, some having petty markets only, and some in which market
transactions of land, labor, and produce have come to be dominant,
that is, have come to be the principal source of livelihood, as they
are in European and American capitalism. In his criticism of our
presentation, Hopkins does not tell the reader that Bohannan and I
are quite aware that such market-dominated situations also occur in
Africa. Here is what Bohannan and I said:
"Finally, there are those societies (or social situa-

tions such as modern cities) in which market places may
be (and usually are) present, but in which the primary
source of subsistence goods for buyers and of income for
sellers and producers is the market in the sense of trans-
actional principle. In such a society, livelihood is ac-
quired by first selling something, which means that not
only products but the factors of production as well
(particularly land and labor) come to be subject to the
operation of the market principle. It is in such societies
that the price mechanism functions as an integrative device
to allocate resources, incomes, and outputs.
In Africa, two different situations each characterize
this market-dominated society. There is, on the one hand,
dependence on the sale of a cash crop which makes the market
of extreme importance to the producers of that crop; with
the cash income they receive, they buy on the market not
only the imported and luxury goods that they have come to
19
demand, but also all or the major portion of their daily sub-
sistence requirements. There is, on the other hand, a situa-
tion that we have come to associate with modern industrial
societies, in which most people sell their labor 'to the mar-
ket' and buy their subsistence on the market. Both types of
market dependence may occur together, as indeed the case in
the United States and some African economies. In others, only
cash crop or wage labor may appear.
The three typical situations can be summarized thus: (1)
Societies which lack market places, and in which the market
principle, if it appears, is but weakly represented; (2)
societies with peripheral markets--that is the institution of
the market place is present, but the market principle does
not determine acquisition of subsistence or the allocation of
land and labor resources; (3) societies dominated by the market
principle and the price mechanism " (Bohannan and Dalton, 1962,
pp. 2, 3).
Throughout, Hopkins gives evidence that organizing principles other

than the market were operating in pre-colonial West Africa. But these
are obscured by his use of market terminology, that is, by his equation
of all economic activities with market activities. We learn (pp. 60-62),
that there were "target marketeers" and "official traders who transacted
business on behalf of the state," as in Ashanti, Dahomey, and Mossi king-
doms, although Hopkins guesses--as always, without quantitative evidence--
that "independent merchants" probably conducted a larger share of long-
distance trade than did African state-traders. He also tells us (on
p. 63) that "A round trip from Sokoto to Ashanti /1200 miles/ took between
six months and a year," which suggests to me that not very many persons
could have derived basic livelihood from such time-consuming trade. Here
as elsewhere, language betrays Hopkins. He chooses words which convey
opposite meanings, in this instance, that long-distance trade was simul-
taneously important and unimportant to livelihood:
"The network of long distance trade routes thus gave West Africa
a tenuous economic unity, linking and partially integrating,
different geographical zones and ethnic groupings, and cross-
ing many state boundaries. However, there were limitations
to the development of a 'national' West African economy. The
unity achieved through long distance commerce was incomplete
because the trade itself was restricted in volume and because
its principal effects were felt by a minority of the total
population" (pp. 66, 67).
Hopkins next considers matters relating to money in pre-colonial

Africa (pp. 67-70), and again explicitly rejects the analyses written by
Polanyi and me in favor of a market analysis of indigenous African money.
In my opinion, the most puzzling, the least well-understood topic in that
branch 6f economic anthropology that considers the organization of abor-
iginal or pre-colonial economies--before colonial incursion--is "primitive
money." The descriptive literature is large and modern fieldwork anthro-
pologists started to consider the nature of primitive money early, but
80
the analytical literature is highly contentious, that is, the meaning,

importance, and roles of money-like objects is not at all agreed upon
by those who specialize in economic anthropology and early economic
history.4
There are several reasons why primitive money is a difficult and
contentious topic: (1) Hundreds, if not thousands, of things called
"primitive money" have been reported to be in use in an extremely wide
variety of pre-industrial economies and societies. No one, to my know-
ledge, has been able to create a single unified theory which explains
persuasively the varying usages of these varying money-things in econo-
mies and societies which differ as much as small, stateless tribal seg-
ments in Highland New Guinea--using pigs and pearlshells, and large
state societies such as China two thousand years ago, using coins.5
(2) Anthropologists who did their fieldwork during the colonial period
(e.g., M. Fortes, P. Bohannan, M. Douglas) found that indigenous money-
things, such as manillas, cowries, and strips of raffia cloth, were still
being used along with the British sterling and French francs introduced
by colonial authorities. Indigenous monetary usages had already been
changed in some ways by the presence of European cash and by other
economic and political changes brought by colonial rule and European
commercial activities.6 (3) Polanyi and I have written on monetary
usages in economies in which market exchange is not the dominant organi-
zing principle. Our central point is that where markets for land, labor,
and produce were not dominant, valuables were unlike modern cash; they
were not used to purchase a wide range of natural resources, labor, and
ordinary goods. In aboriginal stateless societies, such as those in
Highland New Guinea and among the American Indians of the northwest
coast before the whites arrived (e.g., Kwakiutl), valuables were used
principally in political and social transactions, such as bridewealth,
death compensation, paying military allies, and such.7 In those ea
state societies in which markets were not importantly present, political
and status usages of money-things were also different from the commercial
usages of modern cash: fines, taxes, rations distributed by the state.8
Polanyi called such monetary objects "special purpose" or "limited purpose"
money, in contrast with francs and sterling which he called "general purpose"
money, modern cash used in market economies.
Hopkins, of course, adopts a market interpretation of pre-colonial
monetary objects, regarding them all as cash--francs or sterling--because
he adopts the market principle for all economic activities throughout
West African economic history:
"A variety of currencies was in circulation in the cen-

turies before colonial rule, the most important being gold,
cowries, strips of cloth, and copper and iron rods.. .The fore-
going review makes it clear that the major currencies of
pre-colonial West Africa functioned as general-purpose
currencies, and had the attributes of modern money.. .This
argument is fully consistent with the argument advanced ear-
lier in this chapter that trade and market principles were
more common in the pre-colonial era than some writers have
thought" (pp. 67,70).
Whether Hopkins is right or wrong depends on evidence that does not

exist. To assess the role of any monetary object in any economy, one
81
must know: (a) exactly what range of natural resources, labor, goods,
and services one could get in exchange for the monetary object; (b)
whether or not status constraints are imposed on acquiring the monetary
object, that is, who exactly--elite persons only, all adult males--
permissibly could acquire and spend the monetary objects; (c) whether
or not non-commercial payments (taxes, fines, bridewealth) as well as
commercial purchases are carried out with the monetary objects. Francs
and sterling are general-purpose monies because in market economies like
France and Britain, (a) an enormous range of natural resources, labor,
goods, and services, are purchasable with francs and sterling; (b) no
status constraints are imposed on acquiring and spending francs and ster-
ling; and (c) political payments such as taxes and fines are made in the
same money one uses for commercial purposes.
Chapter 3, "External Trade: The Sahara and the Atlantic," contains
descriptions of the two main external trade networks in gold and slaves
in the hundreds of years before colonial rule, and Hopkins' analytical
assessment of them. Here, as elsewhere, Hopkins guesses a lot. On p. 104
alone, we find:
"...it seems likely... It is even possible that...may well have

been... It seems reasonable to suppose..."
Another remarkable feature is Hopkins' use of the language of the

elementary economics of the capitalist business firm to describe the
capturing and selling of slaves by African kings. Hopkins first tells
us that slaves were acquired mainly by warfare, raiding, and tribute:
"As the /slave/ trade expanded, however, it became necessary

to secure massive increases in the numbers of slaves and other
saleable subordinates. The indigenous rulers then set about
creating a class of unfree Africans, with the result that by
the close of the eighteenth century there was indeed a servile
group which was more numerous and more closely defined than
in the sixteenth century. It seems reasonable to suppose that
the bulk of the eleven million people shipped from Africa
were not members of an established slave population, but
ordinary farmers and their families, who were deprived of their
liberty by fellow Africans in response to external demands
/and, surely, the eagerness of African kings to acquire
European guns and other goods. G. D./
There were various ways of securing slaves, including
raiding, warfare, collecting tribute, kidnapping, purchas-
ing, and disposing of criminals, real and alleged. It appears
that the majority of slaves were gathered through raids, war-
fare and tribute, all methods which impinged on other societies.
Raiding and warfare were effectively means of direct action,
while tribute was a type of extortion used by a dominant
/indigenous political/ power to secure a specified number of
slaves from a satellite state or village" (p. 104).
Hopkins proceeds to translate slave-raiding, warfare, and collecting

tribute in slaves by African kings into the economic language of cost-
82
benefit analysis of the ordinary production activities of the ordinary

capitalist manufacturing firm: labor, capital, efficiency (nowhere
defined), the firm, optimum size, minimum conditions for entry. By such
semantic magic, slave-raiding by African kings becomes further evidence
for the existence of indigenous capitalism in pre-colonial Africa. I
italicize Hopkins' use of the words of formal economics:
"By the standards of the time slave raiding and trading

were operations which required considerable labor and capi-
tal, and so tended to be financed and directed by a few substan-
tial entrepreneurs... Labor was needed to assemble a band of
raiders, and capital to pay for equipment, guides, agents,
tolls, and for the maintenance of retainers and captives.
Moreover, a slave was indivisible, and his value was such
that transactions were handled by large dealers, and not by
petty traders. Firms which were only just big enough to
overcome these barriers /to entry into the industry of slave
raiding/ can be thought of as marginal; they had no /capital/
reserves for dealing with unforeseen circumstances, and they
were more likely to be liquidated /i.e., go bankrupt/. Once
the minimum conditions for entry /into the slave raiding indus-
try/ had been met, the optimum size of the firm could vary to
some extent according to the number of slaves required, the
distribution of settlement, and the defensive capacity of the
people who were to be raided.
Fundamentally, the external slave trade existed only
because the return on exports was greater than on employing
labor in the domestic economy. If this had not been the case
a much larger number of slaves would have been retained for use
in Africa itself. The cost of gathering slaves was the same
for both markets...Africa was able consistently to undercut
/in price/ all other potential suppliers. Production /of
slaves/ and wholesaling /of slaves/ remained in indigenous
hands mainly because of the African delivery system...was
flexible and efficient enough to supply the slaves required
at a price the Europeans were prepared to pay...The interaction
of supply and demand merits further consideration...slave
suppliers may have experienced increasing marginal costs as
a result of the growth of external diseconomies which, given
the extent of slavery, were inevitable. It is hard to see how
producers /slave raiders/ could have adjusted successfully to
this situation: once minimum conditions of entry /into the
business of slave raiding/ had been met, there appear to have
been few important economies of scale to slaving operations,
and consequently little scope for reducing the internal costs
of the firm /raiding for slaves/"(pp. 104-105).
At the end of this review I will guess at why this sort of egregious
nonsense is taken seriously by scholars. Here I will say why I think it
is nonsense. Particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, Moslem and
pagan kings in Africa employed their political power to direct their
warriors to capture slaves. The slaves were brought to what Polanyi
83
and his associates have described as "ports of trade" and there sold to
European merchants in residence in exchange for guns and other European
trade goods, some of which the King retained for himself and his palace
entourage, and others of which he distributed among his warriors and
elite; all this long before European colonial rule. Hopkins describes
the slave raiding done by the military servants of African kings as
though it were an ordinary British commercial enterprise, such as a firm
manufacturing shoes in Birmingham, a firm whose money costs of production
must remain below its money sales revenue to make a profit and stay in
business. In so doing Hopkins vastly overstates the similarities and
totally ignores the differences between the two. What he does is exactly
like saying that in present-day Britain, France, or America, there is
no difference between prostitution and marriage because both entail an
exchange of material items or money for sexual services. Marriage does
entail material support of wives and sex between husband and wife. But
the differences between prostitution and marriage are so great that we
regard them as markedly different institutions. So too for slave raiding
in 18th century Africa and a shoe manufacturing firm in Birmingham. For
one thing, the African kings needed guns to retain their political auton-
omy once their enemies--other African kings--got guns. Not to have traded
for guns would have meant defeat and subjugation by other African states.
On the part of the African kings, one impetus for trade, therefore, was
not profit maximization, but political survival. Secondly, unlike the
shoe manufacturing firm in Birmingham, the African kings could do no
cost-benefit profit calculation because there were no money costs incurred
in acquiring the slaves by capture, and the European goods acquired in
exchange for the slaves were not sold by the African kings; there were
no money costs and there were no money sales revenues. To the Europeans,
buying, shipping, and selling the slaves was indeed a commercial enter-
prise whose money costs and money sales revenues could be calculated,
because the Europeans bought for sterling or francs the guns and cloth
they paid over to the African kings, and sold for francs and sterling the
slaves that they received in return.
In the quotation to follow, it is a pity that Hopkins tells us that
he could not find space to tell the reader what Polanyi says about slave
raiding and slave trading by African kings, other than that Polanyi's
analysis is deficient. It is also a pity that Hopkins does not tell us
exactly how he knows that African kings' slave-raiding and "wholesaling"
were "efficient," since "efficiency" requires a cost-benefit analysis
the data for which simply do not exist, particularly since the African
kings neither incurred money costs nor received monty revenues:
"European traders were content to remain on the coast not only

because of the difficulty and cost of moving inland, but also
because the system of slave gathering and wholesaling devised
by Africans proved efficient, and was therefore acceptable.
The African response to external demands has been explained
here in terms of universalist or formalist assumptions be-
cause African economic behavior in the export sector is rec-
ognizable as approximating to that of Western economic man.
This approach contrasts with the substantivist viewpoint,
and in particular with Karl Polanyi's stimulating analysis
84
in Dahomey and the Slave Trade. Space does not permit a

lengthy review of Polanyi's account of what he calls an
'archaic' economy. It must suffice to say that his book has
serious omissions in its historical sources, and that it
does not satisfactorily define or apply certain characteris-
tics of the archaic economy, particularly the concepts of
'administered' trade and 'redistribution' " (p. 112, italics
added).
Two of Hopkins' assertions in the quotation above require comment.

Hopkins equates the existence of African slave-raiding and trading with
the existence of capitalism in pre-colonial West Africa, that is, with
the "behavior" of "Western economic man." But external trade has been
carried out for thousands of years in all sorts of economic systems, from
the prehistoric external trade reported by archaeologists,9 the external
trade in "kula" valuables and utilitarian goods in Malinowski's Tro-
briands,10 and the tributary trade of China's Ch'ing Dynasty,11 to t
foreign trade carried on today by every one of the world's communist,
capitalist, and Third World countries. It is simply wrong to conclude
that wherever we find external trade (or market places, or monetary
objects in use) we ipso facto find capitalist economic institutions.
Does the fact that Communist China engages in foreign trade today mean
that Communist China has capitalist economic institutions? It is pre-
cisely this assumption--that to find external trade, money, or markets
in the economies of interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, and
historians, means to find incipient capitalism--that all of Polanyi's
work and the writings of many others on non-market economies disproves.
Hopkins says what he does because he has adopted the market as the
"organizing principle" for "the totality of economic activities over
many centuries" (pp. 4-5). And so Hopkins describes all economic
activities in market terms, and thereby slave raiding and trading by
African kings become the activities of a capitalist business firm; and
that which differentiates slave raiding and trading from market produc-
tion does not get mentioned, i.e., the nature of redistribution and of
politically administered trade that Polanyi and his associates describe
in detail.
Hopkins says that Polanyi's Dahomey and the Slave Trade "does not
satisfactorily define or apply certain characteristics of the archaic
economy, particularly the concepts of 'administered' trade and 'redis-
tribution.'" This statement is dead wrong. Here is Polanyi on "archaic,"
"redistribution," and /politically/ "administered trade," all quotations
from Dahomey and the Slave Trade, 1966:
"The word 'archaic' that was dropped from systematic anthro-

pology as merely of esthetic and cultural connotation may have
to be restored to denote a sociological phase intervening
between the 'primitive' and the 'modern.' But the historian
will have to apply it with caution, if he is not to find him-
self entangled in a circular definition. The interconnected
phenomena of state and economy, institution and society--each
of them sometimes called archaic--lack an authentic priority
to the claim of being the name-giving category. Not states
85
and societies, not even economies as a whole should be regarded

as archaic. We shall prefer the genetic approach describing
as 'archaic' those economic institutions which do not yet appear
in primitive communities but are no longer found in societies
where the use of money as a means of /market/ exchange is
already common" (p. xxxv).
"We shall call 'archaic' such economic institutions as are absent

in 'primitive,' kinship-organized society and emerge only in state
societies, but fade again when money as a means of /market/
exchange becomes widespread. Economic institutions, then, that
make their appearance in state societies fall roughly into
two groups: those, such as the taking of interest, mortgage,
or business partnership, which, once established, continue
into modern times, and those others, such as voluntary work
teams, the pawning of children, or the entailing of fruit
trees, which eventually recede into insignificance or dis-
appear. Only these latter, which are restricted to early
state societies, deserve to be called specifically archaic
economic institutions. They number several dozen, a few of
which shall be listed. The antichretic pledge served a purpose
akin to the taking of interest: the object given as a surety,
whether land, cattle, or slave, was not only handed over to the
creditor was also entitled to use the object until the debtor
had paid up. Sales were ensured even in the absence of markets:
in parts of the Sudan sales were regularly held through brokers,
and even auctioneers were employed who often were also the bro-
kers. For almost all staples equivalents were established in
what we have called 'staple finance,' particularly in the
operation of redistributing and household accountancy.
/Market/ Exchange Institutions such as /external/ trade,
market, and money possessed their archaic variants. Notably
this was the case in /politically/ 'administered' trade, involving
the status trader or the port of trade; 'isolated' markets with
a compulsory money use; and last but not least archaic variants
of money, of which the cowrie currency of Dahomey was an out-
standing instance" (pp. 173-74).
/on redistribution/ "Paul Mercier describes Dahomey as a highly

centralized kingdom where the local life of religion and vil-
lage was nevertheless intense. In the economic field we can
also distinguish a centralized domain of the state proper,
and alongside it a fairly state-free body of society. The state
sphere of the economy is presented in Chapter Three; the state-
free field of the economy in Chapters Four to Six. In the
state sphere redistribution was the main pattern. That is, the
movement of the goods, whether actual or merely dispositional,
was toward a center and out of it again. In the nonstate sphere,
that is, the familial and local orbit, reciprocity and house-
holding were the dominant patterns. In the absence of a market
system exchange was only secondary since it did not comprise
labor and land, and even commodity markets /market places/
86
were isolated and did not form into a system...The monarchy

was the central institution of the state sphere. It was
accepted as of divine origin. The king was the link between
the people and the deified ancestors, as well as the guardian
of the people's livelihood. As such, the king played a central
role in the Dahomean economy. It was he who annually reviewed
economic conditions, formulated plans for the future, distri-
buted a minimum of cowrie to the population to buy food, set
certain equivalents, received and dispensed gifts, and levied
tolls, taxes, and tribute...The place of the monarch in Dahomean
life came into focus at the great redistributive ceremony of the
Annual Customs. On this occasion the king appeared before an
assembly of all Dahomey to discharge his various duties as sover-
eign. The Annual Customs was the principal event of the economic
cycle. In terms of gross national product and foreign import,
as well as popular participation, it was an economic institu-
tion of unique proportions. The king himself was the central
actor in an assembly of all the personages, administrators,
and office holders of the land, in which literally every fam-
ily was represented by at least one member for part of the time.
In a day-long performance the king received gifts, payments, and
tributes, subsequently distributing a part of this wealth as
gifts to the crowd.
The economic aspect of the process may be analyzed as a
move of goods and money toward the center and out of it again,
that is, redistribution. It was the main occasion of building
up the finances of the royal administration and of distributing
cowrie and other imports among the people. It took care of
the remuneration of all higher officials to whom valuable rewards
of brandy, tobacco, silks, robes, carpets, and other luxuries
were dispensed. Foreign traders and businessmen contributed
considerable sums to the king's revenue while native adminis-
trators, occupying lucrative posts, handed a share of their
revenue to the king. These payments were not always made
publicly, while the royal return gifts were staged with a view
to the utmost effect.
Held each year upon the return of the Dahomean army fro
the wars, the customs was symbolic of the religious and poli-
tical unifications of the peoples of Dahomey under the Allad-
oxonu kings. It was the occasion upon which the people did
honor to their ancestors and gave thanks for victory in battle.
The king was the mediator between the living and the dead. He
sacrificed large numbers of captives, 'watering the graves'
of his forebears with the blood of the victims and recommitting
the nation to the care of the ancestral spirits. These obser-
vances were repeated on an ever vaster scale at the Grand Cus-
toms, which marked the period of public mourning following the
death of a king of Dahomey and the accession of his successors...
The Customs was the occasion for a collection and redistri-
bution of goods on a grand scale. All Dahomeans of any note,
including all who held office, attended the ceremonies in person,
bringing gifts to the king. The Europeans in Whydah, /the
87
port of trade from which slaves were shipped/ as well as emis-

saries from African sovereigns, were expected to present
themselves before him, likewise bearing gifts. During the festi-
vities, which continued for weeks at Abomey, the king himself
made disbursements to the population. As many as thirty or forty
thousand people might be present. On the platform erected for
the king and members of his court, cowries, rum, cloth and other
fine goods were heaped up to be scattered among the crowds by
the king or the dignitaries of the court day after day as the
ceremonies continued (Dalzel, 1793: xxiii ff., 121 ff., 146-7).
A great variety of goods was distributed, items coming from as
far away as Europe and India, in addition to manufactures such
as fine cotton cloth from neighboring countries. The size of
the contributions to the king varied greatly. Lavish gifts
were expected and received from the traders on the coast (Forbes,
1851 /11/: 173). One of them later complained that he had
brought with him the value of his year's profits as gifts for
the king.
The captives taken in battle were presented to the king at
this time and the king in turn accorded public recognition to
his warriors and officials by making gifts of slaves to those
who distinguished themselves. These formal gift exchanges cele-
brated Dahomey's wealth and power, and reaffirmed the mutual
relations and obligations between king and people" (pp. 32-36).
/politically administered tradej "The port of trade was an

institution comparable in function and efficiency to our inter-
national marketplaces, while restricted to operational methods
foreign to the competitive supply-demand-price mechanism with
which we are familiar (Polanyi, 1963). . . .Its rationale was
to offer to the trader safety of life and limb as well as of
property... In the emergence of ports of trade in civilized areas,
three features generally were present: economic administration,
political neutrality, and ease of transportation. Trade was
transacted not through price competition but by means of admin-
istrative acts; the port authorities were committed to poli-
tical nonalignment; finally, neutral waterways, whether coastal,
paludal, or riverine, were essential for cheap carrying...
Effective control of foreign trade and the customs tariffs was
secured by a set of regulations which enforced publicity of
all actions relating to trade and created a network of automatic
checks compelling a minute observance of the law. In broad
outline, the bulk of the business in the international port
was unaffected by a change in sovereignty. Among these items
were financial obligations of foreign traders for permission to
trade in Dahomey, tolls and taxes due for exporting or importing
slaves, and, finally, the prices of the slaves themselves.
Instead of the king in Savi and his ministers as before, the
Yavogan and the Chacha were now the final authorities, supported
by a body of official traders, police, military personnel, and
a host of porters, boat men, hammock men, and slaves of all
sorts to do the rough work. As routine business, there was
88
the general order of landing, the first meeting at the cap-

tain's tree, the sheltering of goods in tents on the beach,
having them moved to a warehouse or a fort, the series of
meetings with trade officials, the defraying of the customs
to the king, and payment in goods at set prices for the usual
services like watering, wooding, and so on. .. .The vital asset,
however, the inflow of guns and powder (as well as their denial
to hostile neighbors), was now continuous. If Bosman could,
several decades earlier, speak with horror of the number of
European firearms with which he and his colleagues of all
nationalities were supplying the inland natives, we need not
doubt that Dahomey's prime purpose was attained. In her struggle
for military survival she probably held her own only by virtue
of the ample influx of arms from the coast" (pp. 99, 136-390).
These lengthy quotations are a tiny sample. Here is a list of the

writings of Polanyi and his associates in which "redistribution" and
(politically) "administered trade" are defined and applied to actual econ-
omies of time and place, beginning with the book Hopkins cites as not
"satisfactorily" defining or applying these concepts: In Karl Polanyi,
Dahomey and the Slave Trade, 1966, ch. 3, "Redistribution: The State
Sphere;" ch. 7, "Whydah: Institutional Origins of a Port of Trade;" ch. 9,
"The Port of Trade Under Dahomey;" ch. 11, "Archaic Economic Institutions."
In Karl Polanyi, Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies, 1968 (a
collection of previously published journal articles and chapters from his
books, edited by me): ch. 8, "The Semantics of Money Uses;" ch. 10,
"Ports of Trade in Early Societies;" ch. 11, "Sortings and the Ounce
Trade in the West African Slave Trade;" ch. 13, "On the Comparative Treat-
ment of Economic Institutions in Antiquity with Illustrations from Athens,
Mycenae, and Alalakh."
In K. Polanyi, C. M. Arensberg, and H. W. Pearson, eds., Trade and
Market in the Early Empires, 1957: ch. 2, by K. Polanyi, "Marketless
Trading in Hammurabi's Time;" ch. 4, by R. Revere, "'NO Man's Coast:'
Ports of Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean;" ch. 7, by A. Chapman, "Port
of Trade Enclaves in Aztec and Maya Civilization;" ch. 8, by R. Arnold,
"A Port of Trade: Whydah on the Guinea Coast;" ch. 9, by R. Arnold,
"Separation of Trade and Market: Great Market of Whydah;" ch. 13, by
K. Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process."
All of these writings were published long before Hopkins wrote his
book. He need not blame his ignorance of redistribution and administered
trade on Polanyi's deficiencies. The deficiencies are Hopkins' in dis-
missing analyses which contradict his without telling the readers of his
book what this large literature says. And since Hopkins' book was pub-
lished in 1973, additional writings on these topics have appeared: In
J. Sabloff and C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, editors, Ancient Civilization and
Trade, 1975, essays by K. Polanyi, "Traders and Trade;" G. Dalton, "Karl
Polanyi's Analysis of Long-Distance Trade and His Wider Paradigm." In
Annales, December 1974, "Anthropologie economique et Histoire: L'oeuvre
de Karl Polanyi," pp. 1310-1380 (some seventy pages of critique of
Polanyi's work by French anthropologists and economic historians).
The remainder of Hopkins' book, chapters 4-8, can be considered as
a single set of related topics. They deal with the colonial period of
89
the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Like the earlier
chapters these too are analytical, that is, each chapter tries to estab-
lish definite conclusions about important events, economic activities,
and structural change. And again, Hopkins' explanations are explicitly
meant to challenge, contradict, and displace what he says are the pre-
vailing views on colonialism in West Africa:
"This chapter /ch. 4, "The Economic Basis of Imperialism"/

will try to establish two conclusions about West African his-
tory in the nineteenth century. First, it will be argued that
the structure of legitimate commerce /groundnuts, palm oil/
marked an important break with the past /the illegitimate com-
merce of the slave trade/ and signified a new phase in the
growth of the market, a phase which can be seen as the start
of the modern economic history of West Africa...Second, it will
be suggested that the strains involved in creating this economy,
combined with fluctuations in its performance, are central to
an understanding of the partition of West Africa in the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. This proposition, too, is
intended to be set against current interpretations, most of
which hold that imperialism was a product of political motives
stemming from Europe...It is argued that economic motives are
a central and neglected feature of partition, not that they
provide a complete explanation of it" (p. 124).
I do not know why Hopkins thinks his economic interpretation of the

partition of West Africa into colonies of European powers is in any sense
new. J. A. Hobson's, Imperialism: A Study, 1902, and Lenin's Imperial-
ism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916, had a great deal to say about
it, and the excellent article by D. K. Fieldhouse, "Imperialism: An
Historiographical Revision," The Economic History Review, 1961, pp. 187-
209, appeared twelve years before Hopkins' book was published. That is,
in 1961 Fieldhouse demolished Hopkins' argument about the economic impor-
tance of British colonization in the late 19th century.
Here I must call attention to a peculiarity in Hopkins' book that
occurs several times, a peculiarity I came to think of as Hopkins the lion
and Hopkins the lamb. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to two themes, the
second of which is an economic interpretation of why West Africa was par-
titioned and colonized after 1885. Hopkins the lion roars his opening
statement (p. 124) quoted above, that the strains of legitimate commerce
and its fluctuations are "central to an understanding of the partition
of West Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century," and that
"economic motives are a central and neglected /but not a complete/
explanation" of the coming of colonization (p. 124).
By the time we reach pp. 164-66, Hopkins the lamb is speaking:
"Economic motives do not constitute a complete analysis of

imperialism, but there is considerable justification for con-
centrating on them here because on the whole they have been
neglected in the past" (p. 164).
Neglected? Hobson? Lenin? Gunder Frank and the other modern Marx-
ists? Fieldhouse's refutation of them in 1961? Hopkins the lamb now puts
90
the weight on the (mythical) neglect, not the (mythical) importance of

economic factors. And on p. 165, he is very lamb-like indeed:
"The aim of this chapter has been to establish a framework

of analysis which contains the main variables, but not, it
must be stressed, to rank them in a fixed order of importance
applicable to every point on the West Coast."
We begin with a roar and end with waffle.

Nor, inexplicably, does Hopkins draw from a mountain of import, ex-
port, and investment statistics to show how economically important West
Africa was to Britain or France before and after partition and coloniza-
tion. Here are some simple statistics which show how unimportant all of
Africa was to British economy. First, in foreign investment by 1913-14,
all of Africa does not even merit a separate entry in the statistics
Kenen cites. Africa appears as investment in "other countries."
Value of Major Foreign Investments, 1913-14
Investment by Millions of dollars Investment in Millions of dollar!
United Kingdom 18,000 Europe 12,000

France 9,000 North America 10,500
Germany 5,800 Latin America 8,500
United States 3,500 Asia 6,000
Other Countries 7,700 Other Countries 7,000
Total 44,000 44,000
Source: P. B. Kenen, "Private International Capital Movements,"

in The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968,
vol. 8, p. 28.
Here also are some international trade statistics for Great Britian
from a standard British source: B. R. Mitchell and Phyllis Deane,
Abstract of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge, 1962. Chapter 11,
"Overseas Trade," tells how important all of sub-Saharan African trade
was to Britain before and after Britain's acquisition of colonies in all
of sub-Saharan Africa. All figures are in millions of British pounds
sterling, except for the numbers in parentheses which are percentages
I shall explain.
91
Great Britain (total trade) Britiain's trade with Africa (all

Africa except N. Africa)
Domestic Re-
Imports Exports Exports Imports Exports Re-Exports

1870 303.3 199.6 44.5 6.8 (2) 4.5 (2) 0.5 (1)
1890 420.7 263.5 64.7 9.4 (2) 13.1 (5) 1.1 (2)
1900 523.1 291.2 63.2 8.4 (2) 19.1 (7) 1.9 (3)
1910 678.3 430.4 103.8 19.7 (3) 34.5 (8) 2.7 (3)
1920 1,932.6 1,334.5 222.8 80.6 (4) 98.7 (7) 5.8 (3)
1930 1,044.0 570.8 86.8 45.8 (4) 55.7 (10) 3.0 (3)
1933 675.0 367.9 49.1 33.9 (5) 40.1 (11) 1.5 (3)
All the numbers except those in parentheses are in iillions of

pounds and come from Mitchell and Deane. From their figures I calcu-
lated percentages, which are given in parentheses. Note that these
figures are for "all Africa except North Africa;" that is, they include
all of sub-Saharan Africa. They tell us, for example, that in the year
1870, total imports into Great Britain came to 303.3 million pounds ster-
ling, of which 6.8 million pounds sterling worth came from sub-Saharan
Africa; that is, in 1870, 2 per cent of total British imports came from
sub-Saharan Africa. So too for British exports to sub-Saharan Africa in
1870; they too amounted to 2 per cent of total British exports, that is,
4.5 million pounds worth sold in sub-Saharan Africa out of total British
exports of just under 200 million pounds (199.6).
In the period of partition, 1890, 1900, 1910, British imports from
sub-Saharan Africa were 2 per cent, 2 per cent, and 3 per cent of total
British imports. In those same years, British exports to sub-Saharan
Africa were 5 per cent, 7 per cent, and 8 per cent of total British ex-
ports. I shall leave it to Hopkins to establish what fraction of these
figures relate to West Africa alone; considerably less than half I should
think, given the special economic importance of South Africa.
Here are some figures cited by Robinson, Gallagher and Denny, Africa
and the Victorians. p. 32, for "British Trade with British West African
Colonies," 1870-1886, and (p. 51) for "British Trade with Tropical Africa
Before and After the Partition:"
British Trade with British West African Colonies (in K000's)
British Exports To British Imports From
Gold Sierra Gold Sierra

Coast Leone Lagos Gambia Coast Leone Lagos Gambia
1870 156 212 273 45 191 81 299 22
1875 270 253 331 64 241 113 271 17
1880 284 322 244 103 352 104 256 8
1881 302 261 160 57 275 125 160 12
1882 306 272 280 98 260 189 267 36
1883 295 302 314 90 251 169 259 46
92
1884 404 330 338 87 331 157 250 19

1885 345 229 293 35 342 122 195 10
1886 262 187 223 30 334 111 309 19
Sources: Parliamentary Pa!pers (1881) XCIV, pp. 22-3, 28-9; Parlia-

mentary Papers (1890-1) XC, pp. 686-7, 692-3).
British Trade with Tropical Africa Before and After the Partition:
(In thousands of pounds sterlings)
Annual Total Exports to % Total Imports from %

Average Exports Trop. Africa 2:1 Imports Trop. Africa 5:4
1 2 3 4 5 6
1877-1879 194,427 1,249 .64 375,394 1,805 .48

1898-1901 267,266 3,062 1.19 500,161 2,572 .51
Sources: W. Schlote, British Overseas Trade from 1700 to the

19_30s, (1952), pp. 122, 125, 168-9.
The rest of the book, chapters 5-8, considers West African economies
under colonial rule emphasizing the enlargement of agricultural produc-
tion for cash-sale, particularly from the point of view of today's concern
with economic development. Hopkins adopts Dudley Seers' model for the
"open economy:" primary exports in return for manufactured European con-
sumption goods; the European powers' unwillingness to spend Metropolitan
taxes in their colonies; banking principally to finance expatriate trad-
ing firms; colonial monetary arrangements of a very conservative sort
geared to the monetary systems of Britain and France.
It is a pity Hopkins didn't make use of Seers' article, "The Limita-
tions of the Special Case," Bulletin of the University of Oxford Institute
of Economics and Statistics, May, 1963, which some British development
economists thought so important that they held a symposium in 1964 in
order to consider the points Seers made. The symposium papers and comments,
together with Seers' 1963 article, was published: Kurt Martin and John
Knapp, editors, The Teaching of Development Economics, 1967. Here, Bri-
tish development economists are remarkably substantivist, eminent persons
like Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, and I. M. D. Little saying that text-
book economics is vastly insufficient to understand the complicated deter-
minants of development (a theme also elaborately spelled out in Gunnar
Myrdal's Rich Lands and Poor, 1957). Here are some conclusions of the
1967 symposium:
"As some of the papers, notably that of Mr. Seers, had stressed,
the important factor in development or growth is not what we
call economics at all. It is really institutional and politi-
cal...Mr. Kaldor said he agreed with Mrs. Robinson's strictures
93
against the traditional doctrines of our textbooks. He thought

that when one is confronted with an underdeveloped country,
none of our elaborate theories seem really useful as such...
Mr. Little thought one of the positive things that we /econo-
mists/ can and should do is to try to get some of these other
disciplines more interested in economic development and really
make a start on curing the deep basic ignorance which, it seemed
to him, prevails concerning the basic causes of development"
(Martin and Knapp, 1967, pp. 164, 165, 169).
So too, Hopkins' analysis of why more economic development did not

take place under colonial conditions would have been helped by Arthur
Lewis' simple model of dualism, "Economic Development With Unlimited
Supplies of Labor," The Manchester School, 1954, which shows the conse-
quences for the capitalist sector of the presence of subsistence acti-
vities, a situation quite relevant to West Africa under colonial rule,
as Hopkins mentions at one point: "....most exports were drawn from a
small part of the total area covered by West Africa" (p. 178). Lewis
shows that market processes work in a very special way when hired labor
comes from a large subsistence sector.
Concluding remarks. Hopkins says at one point, "...it is the his-
torian's job to take account of bias of all kinds, including his own"
(p. 119). I shall assist Hopkins here to take account of his bias. But
first I want to quote another cogent remark by Hopkins, which also relates
to my concluding remarks on his book: "This debate owes much of its lon-
gevity to lack of hard evidence, for conjecture thrives where refutation
is impossible, and assertions, if repeated often enough, eventually
assume the dignity and title of facts" (p. 198).
Hopkins' book is about the market fraction of economic activities in
pre-colonial and colonial West Africa. Indeed, it is almost certainly
the minor fraction for the entire time period Hopkins considers, if the
figures cited by the United Nations for 1950 and those calculated by
I. Adelman and C. T. Morris for 1960, are correct. Hopkins is silent
about that which interests anthropologists, that is, village-level econo-
mic organization and how economy relates to political and social organi-
zation. At three places in his book. pp. 122, 126, and 214, he recognizes
the predominance of subsistence activities, but does not analyze non-
market sectors. You would not know from reading his book that a large
number of anthropologists, agricultural economists, and development
economists have written on subsistence production and other non-market
economic activities, writers such as Fortes, Bohannan, Mair, Meillassoux,
Nadel, Allan, de Wilde, Biebuyck, McLaughlin, Lewis, Myrdal, Seers, Hagen,
Adelman and Morris, Wharton. His footnotes occasionally list such writ-
ings, but his text is not concerned with them, except for what he attri-
butes to Polanyi and me.
We learn from Hopkins' citation of Philip Curtin's evidence that
something like eleven million slaves were exported from Africa, but we
are told nothing about the hundred if not thousands of small tribal
economies and societies these Africans lived in before they were captured
and enslaved.
Hopkins makes dozens of dubious assertions, stated with confidence
instead of evidence. Here is a sampling:
94
"...political independence was itself closely linked to a

particular stage in the development of the open economy"
(p. 171).
If so, then why did political independence come to some sixty new
countries all over Africa and Asia within a 20 year period, countries
like Ghana and Zaire on the one hand, and Upper Volta and Bangladesh on
the other, whose economies were markedly different from one another? Were
all sixty in the same stage in the development of the open economy, India
and Algeria as well as Nigeria and Ghana? How exactly does Hopkins know--
what is his evidence--that favorable terms of trade in the period 1900-
1913 "...helped to reconcile Africans to colonial rule, and so made the
task of the new administrations much easier than it would otherwise have
been" (p. 183)? What is his evidence for such a remarkable statement
that one of the reasons why expatriate plantations were of little signi-
ficance in West Africa was due to "...a shortage of labor, which also
meant that wages had to be relatively high" (p. 213)? When Firestone
established its rubber plantation in Liberia in the 1920s, it paid five
American cents a day to its Liberian laborers. Indeed, when I worked in
Liberia in 1962, the daily wage for rubber tappers on independent farms
and expatriate plantations ranged from forty to seventy-five American
cents a day.12
How can Hopkins assert without evidence, without considering the
enthnographies of anthropologists who have worked in West Africa and
describe subsistence agriculture at first hand (e.g., M. Fortes, P.
Bohannan), and without Lewis' excellent analysis of dualism, that "...
considerable regional inequalities exist in West Africa, though without
there being any marked dualism between the so-called 'traditional' and
'modern' sectors of the economy" (p. 179)?
Finally, one finds such remarkable understatements as the following
about the shift in the 19th century from hundreds of years of slave raid-
ing and trading by military kingdoms to the cultivation of groundnuts and
palm kernels as cash crops to export, the shift forced by the European
ending of slavery. Since Hopkins portrays slave raiding by African kings
as a capitalist enterprise, the changeover to cash-cropping is minimized:
"The collapse of the indigenous military systems, and of the slavery
which was associated with them also led to a certain amount of occupa-
tional change" (p. 234). Yes indeed, in the same sense that the Bolshe-
vik Revolution in 1917 also led to a certain amount of occupational
change in Russia. One would have thought there were rather deeper poli-
tical and economic consequences of both events.
The central difficulty in all this is the one explained at the
beginning of this review, Hopkins' adoption of the market as the organi-
zing principle "to cover the totality of economic activities over many
centuries." In the language of J. H. Hexter reviewing Christopher Hill
(Times Literary Supplement, Oct. 24, 1975), Hopkins is a "lumper" rather
than a "splitter." Like other such market interpretations of tribal and
peasant economies,13 Hopkins misinterprets the essential nature of hund
reds or thousands of small marketless economies and economies with petty
markets, by vastly exaggerating their similarities to modern capitalism.
Market sectors existed in pre-colonial Africa and most certainly grew with
European colonial rule. This much is certain. But to assert without
95
evidence that market transactions of land, labor, and produce were domi-
nant--even by the end of colonial rule in 1960--is unprovable for pre-
colonial Africa and almost certainly false for Africa as late as 1950.
He not only seriously misunderstands the economic anthropology written
by Polanyi and me, but also ignores the other rival paradigm to the
market, that is, Marxism. And he cites only those works by anthropolo-
gists that deal with cash-cropping, such as Polly Hill's work on cocoa-
farming. For what he regards as the myths of Primitive Africa and
Merrie Africa, he substitutes the myth of economic man in Africa: inside
of every pre-colonial and colonial African there was a Schumpeterian
entrepreneur with a commerical gene for making cost-benefit calculations.
Each chapter begins with a lion's roar--Hopkins will crush some
myth, or put forward a bold new interpretation contradicting conventional
views, or blaze a new path of inquiry for others to follow. Most chapters
end with a lamb's bleat, cautiously phrased conclusions rather less bold
than the opening statements. By the end of each chapter Hopkins appar-
ently learned caution in the writing of it. But the lesson is forgotten
with the opening of the next chapter.
We are all frequently reminded of Santayana's epigram that those
who do not know the past are condemned to relive it. So too for the his-
torians writing in the relatively new subject of African economic history.
Hopkins' book will do for West African economic history what some 19th
and early 20th century economic historians (Rodburtus, Biicher, Meyer,
Weber, Rostovsteff) did for Greece and Rome:14 by taking strong positions
on utterly insufficient evidence--and, indeed, by ignoring contradictory
evidence and by using ambiguous concepts--cause lakes of ink to be
spilled in refutation, rejoinder, and dispute over paradigms.
The power of the mind to screen out evidence that is not in favor of
one's own ego-laden interpretation, is staggering. The most glaring of
several examples in the book is Hopkins' ignoring the celebrated Marxian
economic interpretations of the late 19th century wave of colonialism,
interpretations which go back to Hobson and Lenin; Hopkins also ignores
their refutation in a large recent literature, and particularly in the
analytical argument and quantitative evidence given by Fieldhouse.15
Like Harold K. Schneider, a formal economic anthropologist who has
been attributing foolish positions to Polanyi and me since 1964,16
Hopkins does not quote the substantivists before criticizing us. But
first quoting what you disagree with is the only way that contentious
theorectical issues can be clarified (as I have tried to show in this
review). I do not say resolved. After reading Kuhn and Wittgenstein I
am convinced that disputes over paradigms cannot be resolved. Kuhn has
spelled it all out for us in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Harold K. Schneider and A. G. Hopkins will continue writing their for-
malist interpretations, the Marxians their Marxian interpretations, and
I my substantivist interpretations. That portion of the academic commu-
nity which is interested will read all this stuff and decide which
interpretation best explains real world activities and organizations on
the basis of the evidence adduced to support the conceptual categories
and conclusions presented by each set of writers. One of the three
paradigms will eventually prevail, and adherents to the losing two will
not become converted, they will simply die off.17
96
The question is, if I am right in this review, then why do intelligent

chaps like Hopkins believe such theoretical nonsense? I am about to do
some guessing so I must forewarn the reader. I once shocked an archaeo-
logist friend of mine by suggesting to him that an important step forward
in his subject could be taken if all archaeologists agreed that any guess,
conjecture, supposition, or assertion without accompanying evidence had
to appear in bold type in their articles and books, marking off such
statements from factual description and from analytical statements sup-
ported by evidence presented. This, together with the groundrule of
first quoting what you intend to criticize, would also save a good deal
of contention and rejoinder, save a good deal of wasted ink. In addi-
tion, if everyone were to read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investiga-
tions and come away properly shaken by the treachery of words and an
awareness of the need to explain concepts clearly--and then read Kuhn's
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and see the close family resemb-
lance between disputes over paradigms in all university subjects--
academic bliss would ensue, and we could cheerfully administer euthana-
sia to half the journals in being. Whole forests would be rescued from
pointless destruction.
In reading Hopkins' repeated criticism of Polanyi and myself, and
his application of the market paradigm to all of West African economic
history, I was reminded of a sentence Charles Darwin wrote not long after
the publication of The Origin of Species, about how differently his ideas
were being received in different countries:
"It is curious how nationality influences opinion; a week

hardly passes without my hearing of some naturalist in
Germany who supports my views, and often, puts an exaggerated
value on my works, whilst in France I have not heard of a
single zoologist, except M. Gaudry (and he only partially),
who supports my views" (Life and Letters of Darwin, II, p. 209).
On the theoretical issues dividing formalists (like Hopkins), sub-

stantivists (like myself), and Marxians, nationality also influences
opinion. The French economic anthropologists and economic historians
seem to be either Marxian or substantivist, but not, like Hopkins, for-
malist.18 The Americans, characteristically, are very mixed, all three
theoretical frameworks being regularly adhered to, applied, and written
about.19
About the British, the position is now less clear; perhaps it is
now closer to the American mixture than to the French. One need only
read the new British journal, Journal of Peasant Studies, to see that
Marxism is growing in Britain. One need only read R. Firth, editor,
Themes in Economic Anthropology, 1967, to find within the same book,
qualified formalism (R. Firth), strong formalism (L. Joy, S. Ortiz),
qualified substantivism (P. Cohen), and Marxism (R. Frankenberg). In her
early writings, Mary Douglas seemed to be substantivist. More recently,
she proclaims formalist aspirations, but we still await their fulfill-
ment.20 The eminent Cambridge economic historian, M. I. Finley thinks
some of what Polanyi has written is useful, criticizes other portions of
it, and, I think, refrains from any sort of strong theoretical pronounce-
ments.21 Among British anthropologists it is common to find writers on
97
economic topics (Lucy Mair, Audrey Richards) who see no need to adopt
any sort of theoretical framework, but whose analytical points of
emphasis seem to me to be distinctly substantivist. Among British
economic historians of Africa (Hopkins, Gray, and Birmingham), formal-
ist economics is distinctly prevalent. We shall see. It is early
innings yet.
To conclude with some speculations about why African economic
historians like Hopkins are so strongly formalist, why they adopt such
an extreme position about the universal relevance of conventional econo-
mics, even for pre-colonial Africa. Here I am guessing. Everything
after the first paragraph to follow is to be read as if in bold type.
First, let me establish what is not a guess, but what is demons-
trably true: that some writers on the economic history of medieval
Europe also adopt a strong formalist position, the most extreme example
to date being D. North and R. Thomas, The Rise of the Western World,
1973, a book with striking affinities to Hopkins', because North and
Thomas also adopt the market as the organizing principle. I mention
this because it is my guess that the reasons why North and Thomas adopt
the market principle for the totality of economic activities in medieval
Europe also hold true for Hopkins.
Among American economists very strongly, and among British econo-
mists only slightly less strongly, economic history is small potatoes.
Mainstream economics is theoretical, mathematical, econometric, and con-
cerned overwhelmingly with the structure and performance of present-day
capitalism in Europe, America, and Japan.22 The Nobel prizes in economics
go to Samuelson, Arrow, Leontiev, and Hicks, not to Postan, North, or
Thomas. In the eyes of mainstream economists, economic historians are
academic wogs, and economic historians feel themselves to be academic
wogs.
But African economic historians, only very recently having come
among us, are double wogs. Hopkins burns at sneers pronounced from on
high by Established Historians, such as Trevor Roper's (which Hopkins
refers to on pp. 3 and 32, and quotes on p. 32, as follows):
However, an account of traditional farming which is confined

to shifting cultivation and to allegedly wasteful slash and
burn techniques, though it accords well with Trevor Roper's
notion of African history as the story of the 'unrewarding
gyrations of barbarous tribes,' scarcely does justice to the
complex reality revealed by geographical research.
I am guessing that Hopkins in Britain, like North and Thomas in

America, is trying to prove to his Established Colleagues that he is not
an academic wog. He does so by adopting the language and paradigm of
conventional economics as the general explanatory principle for all of
West African economic history, and so plays at being a mainstream econo-
mist. It is a vast pity he does not model himself instead on F. W. Mait-
land, Marc Bloch, M. I. Finley, and Georges Duby. Hopkins' book is an
attempt to exorcise his woggishness by chanting the priestly incanta-
tions of economic theory. But he does his subject a disservice, with
this sort of foolishness, solemnly pronounced.
98
"Trans-Saharan commerce reached its optimum point of

organizational efficiency at an early date with the intro-
duction of the camel, and no further internal or external
economies were possible (or at least were achieved) until
the coming of the motor car in the 1920s" (p. 81).
George Dalton
Department of Economics
Northwestern University
NOTES
1Paul Bohannan, Tiv Farm and Settlement. Colonial Office Research Studies
15. London, H.M.S.O., 1954. Paul Bohannan, "Some Principles of Exchange
and Investment Among the Tiv," American Anthropologist, 1955. Paul
Bohannan, "Africa's Land," The Centennial Review, 1960 (reprinted in
G. Dalton, ed., Tribal and Peasant Economies, 1967). George Dalton,
"Economic Theory and Primitve Society," American Anthropologist, 1971.
George Dalton, "Traditional Production in Primitive African Economies,"
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1962.
2Paul and Laura Bohannon, Tiv Economy. Northwestern University Press,

1968. George Dalton, "Primitive Money," American Anthropologist, 1965.
George Dalton, ed., Tribal and Peasant Economies, 1967. George Dalton,
"Introduction," in Karl Polanyi, Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies,
1968. George Dalton, "Theoretical Issues in Economic Antrhopology,"
Current Anthropology, 1969. George Dalton, Economic Anthropology and
Development, 1971. George Dalton, ed., Studies in Economic Anthropology,
1971. Goerge Dalton, ed., Economic Development and Social Change, 1971.
3Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 1944. (Published in England in
1945 as Origins of Our Time.) Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg, and
Harry W. Pearson, eds., Trade and Market in the Early Empires, 1957.
Karl Polanyi, Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies, 1968.
4Bronislaw Malinowski, "The Primitive Economics of the Trobriand Island-

ers," The Economic Journal, 1921. Raymond Firth, "Currency, Primitive,"
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed., 1929. Paul Einzig, Primitive Money,
1948. A. H. Quiggin, A Survey of Primitive Money, 1949. Karl Polanyi,
"The Economy as Instituted Process," in Trade and Market in the Early
Empires, 1957. Karl Polanyi, "The Semantics of Money-Uses," in Primi-
tive, Archaic, and Modern Economies, 1968. Philip Grierson, "Commerce
in the Dark Ages: A Critique of the Evidence," in Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, 1959 (reprinted in G. Dalton,
ed., Studies in Economic Anthropology, 1971). Mary Douglas, "Raffia
Cloth Distribution in the Lele Economy," Africa, 1958. Mary Douglas,
"Primitive Rationing: A Study in Controlled Exchange," in R. Firth, ed.,
Themes in Economic Anthropology, 1967. P. Vidal-Naquet, "The Function
of Money in Archaic Greece," in W. I. Davisson and J. E. Harper, Euro-
pean Economic History, 1972. George Dalton, "Aboriginal Economies in
Stateless Societies," in J. Erickson and T. Earle, eds., Exchange Sys-
tems in Prehistory, 1976.
99
On non-commercial monetary usages in Highland New Guinea, see Andrew

Strathern, The Rope of Moka, 1971; also, George Dalton, "Aboriginal
Economies in Stateless Societies," in J. Erickson and T. Earle, eds.,
Exchange Systems in Prehistory, 1976. On money in early China, see
Nancy Swann, Food and Money in Ancient China, 1950.
6See especially, Paul Bohannan, "The Impact of Money on an African Sub-

sistence Economy," The Journal of Economic History, 1959 (reprinted in
G. Dalton, ed., Tribal and Peasant Economies, 1967). Also, Mary Douglas,
"Raffia Cloth Distribution in the Lele Economy," Africa, 1958. Mary
Douglas, "Primitive Rationing: A Study in Controlled Exchange," in R.
Firth, ed., Themes in Economic Anthropology, 1967.
7See especially, George Dalton, "Karl Polanyi's Analysis of Long-Distan

Trade and His Wider Paradigm," in J. Sabloff and C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky,
eds., Ancient Civilization and Trade, 1975. George Dalton, "Aboriginal
Economies in Stateless Societies," cited above.
8Here is a listing of Karl Polanyi's writings on "special-purpose" and

"general-purpose" monies: "The Economy as Instituted Process," in
Trade and Market in the Early Empires, 1957. Chapters 10 and 11
in Dahomey and the Slave Trade, 1966. Chapters 8, 13, in Primitive,
Archaic, and Modern Economies, 1968.
9The nature of external trade in prehistoric economies is a topic of

growing interest to archaeologists. See, Grahame Clark, "Traffic in
Stone Axe and Adze Blades," The Economic History Review, 1965. Colin
Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilization, 1972. J. Sabloff and C. C.
Lamberg-Karlovsky, Ancient Civilization and Trade, 1975. J. Erickson
and T. Earle, Exchange Systems in Prehistory, 1976. Creighton Gabel,
Analysis of Prehistoric Economic Patterns, 1967. Edwin N. Wilmsen, ed.,
Social Exchange and Interaction, 1972 (Anthropological Papers of the
Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, publication no. 46).
10Bronislaw Malinowski, "Kula: The Circulating Exchange of Valuables

in the Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea," Man, 1920. Bronislaw
Malinowski, Agonauts of the Western Pacific, 1922. For a summary of
of anthropological writings on external trade, see Karl Heider, "Visit-
ing Trade Institutions," American Anthropologist, 1969.
11J. K. Fairbank and S. Y. Teng, "On the Ch'ing Tributary System,"

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1941. J. K. Fairbank, "Tributary
Trade and China's Relations with the West," The Far Eastern Quarterly,
1942. Y-S. Yu, Trade and Expansion in Han China, 1967.
12On Liberian economic history and development, see George Dalton,
"History, Politics, and Economic Development in Liberia," The Journal
of Economic History, 1965. George Dalton and A. A. Walters, "The
Economy of Liberia," in P. Robson and D. Lury, eds., The Economies of
Africa, 1969. R. W. Clower, G. Dalton, M. Harwitz, and A. A. Walters,
Growth Without Development: An Economic Survey of Liberia, 1966.
100
13Harold K. Schneider, Economic Man, The Anthropology of Economics, 1974.

Leopold Pospisil, Kapauku Papuan Economy, 1963.
14See Harry W. Pearson, ch. 1, "The Secular Debate on Economic Primitiv-

ism," in K. Polanyi, C. M. Arensberg, and H. W. Pearson, eds., Trade and
and Market in the Early Empires, 1957.
15The following are all collections of articles: D. K. Fieldhouse, ed.,

The Theory of Capitalist Imperialism, 1967. Kenneth E. Boulding and
Tapan Mukerjee, eds., Economic Imperialism, 1972. Harrison M. Wright,
ed., The New Imperialism, Analysis of Late Nineteenth-Century Expansion,
1961. George H. Nadel and Perry Curtis, eds., Imperialism and Colonial-
ism, 1964. A. R. Hall, ed., The Export of Capital from Britain, 1870-
1914, 1968.
16Harold K. Schneider, "Economics in East African Aboriginal Societies,"

in M. J. Herskovits and M. Harwitz, eds., Economic Transition in Africa,
1964. Harold K. Schneider, "Comment, on Dalton's 'Theoretical Issues
in Economic Anthropology"' Current Anthropology, 1969, pp. 89-91.
Harold K. Schneider, Economic Man, The Anthropology of Economics, 1974.
17
I know of only one exception, S. Cook, an economic anthropologist who
has changed from strong formalism, to Marxism. Compare his two articles,
"The Obsolete 'Anti-Market' Mentality: A Critique of the Substantivist
Approach to Economic Anthropology," American Anthropologist, 1966.
S. Cook, "Production, Ecology and Economic Anthropology: Notes Toward
An Integrated Frame of Reference," Social Science Information, 1974.
A good sampling is contained in "Anthropologie economique et Histoire:

L'oeuvre de Karl Polanyi," Annales, 1974. Also, in Maurice Godelier,
ed., Un domaine conteste: L' anthropologie dconomique, 1974. For Fre
Marxist approaches to economic anthropology, see Maurice Godelier,
Rationality and Irrationality in Economics, 1972. Emmanuel Terray,
Marxism and "Primitive" Societies, 1972. For a Russian Marxist's view
of the formalist-substantivist controversy in economic anthropology, see
Yu. I. Semenov, "Theoretical Problems in Economic Anthropology," Philos-
phy of the Social Sciences, 1974.
19For writings of American formalists, in addition to the works cited

above by Harold K. Schneider, see E. E. LeClair and Harold K. Schneider,
eds., Economic Anthropology, 1968. For American Marxian writings, see
Eric Wolf, Peasants, 1966. Also, the exchange between several Marxists
and myself on "peasant exploitation," in the American Anthropologist,
September 1974, June 1975, September 1976.
20Compare Mary Douglas, "Lele Economy Compared with the Bushong: A Study
in Economic Backwardness," in P. Bohannan and G. Dalton, eds., Markets
in Africa, 1962; and Mary Douglas, "The Exclusion of Economics," Times
Literary Supplement, July 6, 1973.
21M. I. Finley refers to Polanyi in "Acknowledgements" to The World of

Odysseus, 1954. Also in The Ancient Economy, 1974, and The Uses and
Abuses of History, 1975.
101
22Two qualifications: a number of mainstream economists specialize in

one or more of the communist economies (e.g., A. Bergson, P. Wiles),
in a relatively small field called "comparative economic systems,"
for an elementary account of which, see George Dalton, Economic System
and Society, 1974. A larger number of applied economists now specialize
in economic development of the Third World.
West African Food in the Middle Ages. Tadeusz Lewicki. New York
and London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Pp. xi, 262,
$23.50.
This book was originally written in Polish and published in 1963.

The English translation was made by Marianne Abrahamowicz and this was
then edited for publication by Marion Johnson on the initiative of
Professor J. D. Fage who has also written a Foreword to the present
English edition. The work remains essentially of 1963 vintage, though
a few references are made to works published subsequently. It has not,
however, been noted that the papers of Baker, Porteres and StantOn
delivered at the Third Conference on African History and Archaeology
(held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London in July,
1961) were published in the following year in volume iii of the Journal
of African History.
The book is arranged in the form of an encyclopaedia of the various
items of food about which information can be gleaned from the Arab geo-
graphers and historians who wrote in the period c.800-1400, with a great
deal of comparative material from later European writers and travellers
and a few references to the seventeenth century ta'rlkhs of Ka'ti and
Al-Sa'di and the work of Leo Africanus. The idea was to give as complete
a picture as possible of what foods were eaten and how they were prepared
before the introduction of South American and Far Eastern plants by the
Portuguese. Needless to say, in spite of the phrase 'West African food'
in the title, the geographical area from which information is actually
derived is only the northern fringe of West Africa - essentially the
Sahel region - because of the limitations of the Arab writers' own
knowledge. It is also important to note the other implication of the
phrase 'according to Arabic sources,' since the archaeological evidence
which might in particular have thrown light on other areas of West
Africa, is not examined. But the book was written by a specialist
making use of the materials which he felt competent to handle (and
which few other scholars could handle so competently) and is no less
valuable for this. Professor Lewicki has, in fact, performed similar
tasks of combing through the Arabic sources to extract material on live-
stock rearing and on precious stones in Africa in the same period (see
his 'Animal husbandry among medieval agricultural peoples of the western
and middle Sudan,' Acta Ethnographica Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae,
xiv (1965), pp. 165-78 and 'Les ecrivains arabes du moyen Age au suject
des mines de pierres prdcieuses en territoire africaine et leur exploi-
tation,' Africana Bulletin (Warsaw), vii (1967), pp. 49-68).
African Economic History, Spring, 1976.

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African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison

African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison is collaborating with JSTOR

An Economic History of West Africa. A. G. Hopkins.

At the several places in his book where he defends his theoretical

"The central theme of this study has been the interaction of

Hopkins' book is seriously mistitled. It should be called Markets

African Economic History, Spring, 1976.

tory as an elementary application of ideas drawn from recent writings of

ch. 1, Approaches to Africa's Past (7 pages)

Chapter 1, "Approaches to Africa's Past," provides us with the "or-

"An organizing principle is required which is broad enough

Is Hopkins saying here that throughout West African history, that

"Trade in Africa, as elsewhere, is as old as man himself, and

The first problem created by Hopkins' adoption of the market as the

The conceptual ambiguities and unanswered questions inherent in Hop-

".../about/ the interpretation of exchange activities in pre-

Up to here, all is well. Hopkins seems to realize that pre-indus-

"The principles governing market activity /sic/ in

contended according to the principles of reciprocity and

The sentences I italicize indicate that Hopkins does not understand

"First, the substantivists are mistaken in arguing that the

societies...The argument of this book is derived from its

Before going on to the analysis presented in Chapter 2 which "is basic

"...preoccupation with the daily and seasonal food supply,

In such a setting economic relations have not been

"Where writing is not known, the range of communications, and

Finally, here is C. Meillassoux, the French anthropologist, on the

"Involvement in outside commerce, when limited to buying

tional modes of production involving subsistence, and not

I shall start by providing readers of chapter 2, "The /sic/ Domestic

"...for the period down to the eighth century the historian

family. The development of key entrepreneurial groups was

The only persons he cites as associating themselves with this myth

"European currency is firmly established both as a medium of

And here are some more British social anthropologists, Radcliffe-

"In the study of the simpler societies the anthropologist

possession of greater than average wealth may be a criter-

The error implicit in what Hopkins is doing is that he quite wrongly

"Under the dominion of custom and impulse; scarcely ever

8th ed., 1938, pp. 723-4, first published in 1890).

"Malinowski also set out to destroy the myth of the lazy

Here is what I then quote from Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western

"Much time and labor is given up to aesthetic purposes, to

It seems unnecessary for Hopkins to make a big thing of the myth of

"The substantivist interpretation has been applied to Africa

of reciprocity and redistribution. The formalist view /the

The substantivist interpretation has also been applied to Africa by

"...the organization of production tends to be based not mere-

(5) Finally, there are conceptual and semantic confusions which

and actual economic organization; Hopkins thinks we are talking about

"...there is the newer, more fashionable, myth of Merrie

"It will be argued that the concept of a subsistence econo-

If Hopkins is right, then the United Nations is wrong. As late as

Economy in Tropical Africa," UN, Dept. of Economic Affairs, 1954,

"The purpose of this study is to investigate certain aspects

"In investigating the process of commercialization in tro-

Table 1. Classification of Area under Indigenous Cultivation

Belgian Congo, 1947-50 ..... 49 2 587 27 1,577 71 2,213

"In the area as a whole, the proportion of cultivated land

Export crops Crops for

Belgian Congo, 1947-50 .......... 372 17 1,841 83

Table 3. Estimated Area under Crops for Domestic

Belgian Congo, 1947-50 ....... 2,213 443 20 664 30

"The produce of cultivated areas indicated in