Lost in Transitions? Feudalism, Colonialism, and Egypt's Blocked Road to Capitalism (1800-1920)

Bibliographic Data

ID4300964
AuthorsJelle Versieren (0000-0001-9014-1314, Department of History University of Antwerp Centre for Urban History Antwerp Belgium), Brecht De Smet (0000-0003-2643-4707, Middle East and North Africa Research Group at Ghent University Ghent Belgium)
Year2022
Volume35
Issue2
Pages200-221
Publication date2022-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Historical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0952-1909 • E-ISSN: 1467-6443
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/johs.12364
OpenAlexW4220948343
LanguageEN
References cited52

We revisit the transition debate to capitalism through the historical case of nineteenth century Egypt and the theoretical lens of uneven and combined development. We argue that the twin concepts of formal and real subsumption of labor under capital offer a necessary methodological device to study capitalist transitions. We conclude that nineteenth century Egypt was not a society experiencing an 'indigenous' transition to capitalism that was blocked by colonial intervention. Instead, colonialism warped the ongoing formation of a commercial-absolutist state, which led to a combination of feudal and capitalist social forms that lingered well into the middle of the twentieth century. Through a long-term historical analysis of the Egyptian social formation as a complex ensemble of political power relations and ongoing cycles of articulations of multiple mode of productions we problematize the dominant 'modernization' thesis. The modernization paradigm presupposes that economic growth will take place due to globalized markets, transforming, in turn, existing social and political practices and institutions along modern lines. This idea has been reiterated by neoclassical and neo-institutionalist economists who understand economic backwardness as a simple lack of market-efficient behavior of local economic agents. As such, we also emphasize that the gradual integration of the Egyptian social formation into the capitalist world market did not automatically lead to the establishment of a dominant capitalist mode of production within this formation

Backwardness · Capitalism · Capitalist mode of production · Colonialism · Economic growth · Economics · Feudalism · Indigenous · Mode of production · Modernization theory · Neoclassical economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Production (economics · Sociology · State (computer science · State formation · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Law

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