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beckerleschar@sentoo.sn
[Editor's note: X-Posted from H-NET List for the
History of Slavery <H-SLAVERY@H-NET.MSU.EDU> From:
Claus K. Meyer (H-SLAVERY Co-Moderator)
claus"k"meyer@gmx.net]
Published by EH.NET (August 2006)
Gareth Austin, "Labour, Land and Capital: From Slavery
to Free Labour in Asante, 1807-1956". Rochester, NY:
University of Rochester Press, 2005. xxiv + 589 pp. $75
(hardcover), ISBN: 1-58046-161-1.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Nathan Nunn, Department of
Economics, University of British Columbia.
In recent years, Africa's underdevelopment has been of
growing concern for policy makers, not to mention for
those living within Africa. Despite this, research on
Africa remains relatively neglected by development
economists. Instead, research has tended to focus on
India and China. Even more neglected is research on
the relationship between Africa's pre-colonial and
colonial history and post-colonial economic
development. Gareth Austin's book fills this void by
providing a detailed analysis of the history of rural
Ghana's economy between 1807 and 1956. This book is a
valuable addition to this area of research.
The book's twenty chapters are organized into seven
parts. Part I (chapters 1 to 4) describes the
conceptual framework and historical context. Part II
(chapters 5 to 7) discusses land tenure, labor
institutions, and credit and capital arrangements.
Part III (chapters 8 to 10) analyzes the political
economy of slavery and pawning, the importance of
gender and kinship for production, and the implications
these had for welfare and conflict. Part IV (chapters
11 to 13) examines the economy's transition from
slavery to cash-crop farming, describing in detail the
British abolition of slavery and the subsequent use of
vcoerced labor. Parts V and VI (chapters 14 to 19)
examine factor markets in the first half of the
twentieth century, during a time when coerced labor was
on the decline. The final part of the book is chapter
20, where the author discusses his conclusions.
The book seems to be targeted more to historians than
to economic historians or economists. This is
illustrated by the fact that in the introduction the
author takes considerable effort to define basic
concepts such as "markets," "factor markets," "property
rights," and "economic rents." Despite this economists
and economic historians will still be interested in
many parts of the book. The chapters that are likely
of the most interest to economists, particularly
development and trade economists, are chapters 8 and
13.
In chapter 8, Austin tests whether slavery in Asante
was "rational". That is, whether it was a profit
maximizing response to a scarcity of labor relative to
land. Austin does this by comparing the costs of free
labor to slave labor using data that he assembles in
chapter 6. As the author notes, the analysis of this
chapter is the first empirical comparison of the costs
of free labor and slave labor in a pre-colonial African
society.
In chapter 13, Austin examines whether the ending of
Asante slavery can be explained by the rapid
specialization in cocoa farming at the time. Unlike
previous studies that test for the effect of
specialization of production on domestic institutions,
Austin finds that economic specialization did not
affect the institution of slavery within Asante. He
concludes that the institutional changes were exogenous
to the economic changes occurring at the time. This
chapter adds valuable evidence to our knowledge of the
effect of comparative advantage and specialization of
production on domestic institutions.
Overall, the book provides a rich, well thought out,
and well written analysis of the history of rural
Ghana's economy between 1807 and 1956.
Nathan Nunn's publications include "Historical
Legacies: A Model Linking Africa's Past to its Current
Underdevelopment," "Journal of Development Economics"
(forthcoming).
Copyright (c) 2006 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This
work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if
proper credit is given to the author and the list. For
other permission, please contact the EH.Net
Administrator (administrator@eh.net; Telephone:
513-529-2229). Published by EH.Net (August 2006). All
EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
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