Table Of ContentNEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE PAST PRIMITIVE
Genrral Editor AND PEASANT MARKETS
R. I. Moore
AdtJisory Editors
Richard Hodges
Gerald Aylmer
loan Lewis
David Turley
Patrick Wormald
PUBLISHED
Ermst Gellner Nations and Nationalism
]o714than Powis Aristocracy
Edward Peters Torture
Richard Hodges Primitive and Peasant Markets
IN PREPARATION
DatJid Arnold Famine
Bernard Cridl Representative Institutions
Ernest Gel/ner Reason and Rationalism
R. M. Harrwell Capitalism
R. I. Moore Persecution
DafJid Gres:r The Modern State
Eugene Kammka Bureaucracy
DafJid Turky Slavery
R. I. Woods Demographic Regimes
James Casey The History of the Family
Richard Bonney Absolutism
Linda Levy Peck Patronage
Brent Shaw Bandits
Parricia Crone Pre-lndustrial Societies
Basil Blackwell
Copyright © Richard Hodges, 1988
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.... -;,: -M '< ,.mo
. 77 '·~· .:"'::J First published 1988 To Colin Renfrew
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hodges, Richard, 1952-
Primitive and peasant markets.
1. Markets - History
I. Title
381' .18' 09 HF5471
ISBN 0-631-14464-1
·--.;;;.-..:.:=.,J~QISBN ~631-14465-X Pbk
Typeset in 11 on 13pt Plantin
by DMB (Typesetling), Abingdon, Oxon.
Printed in Great Britain by Billing & Sons Ltd. Worcester
Contents
Editor's Preface lX
Preface xi
1 Primitive and peasant markets 1
2 Markets in partially commercialized economies 34
3 Competitive markets 62
4 Money and primitive markets 96
5 Markets and their regions 125
6 The peasant market and its extinction 148
Bibliography 156
Index 165
Editor's Preface
Ignorance has many forms, and all ofthem are dangerous. In
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries our chief effort has
been to free ourselves from tradition and superstition in large
questions, and from the error in small ones upon which they
rest, by redefining the fields of knowledge and evolving in
each the distinctive method appropriate for its C\lltivation.
The achievement has been incalculable, but not without cost.
As each new subject has developed a specialist vocabulary to
permit rapid and precise reference to its own common and
rapidly growing stock of ideas and discoveries, and come to
require a greater depth of expertise from its specialists,
scholars have been cut off by their own erudition not only
from mankind at large, but from the fmdings of workers in
other fields, and even in other parts of their own. Isolation
diminishes not only the usefulness but the soundness of their
labours when energies are exclusively devoted to eliminating
the small blemishes so embarrassingly obvious to the fellow
professional on the next patch, instead of avoiding others that
may loom much larger from, as it were, a more distant vantage
point. Marc Bloch observed a contradiction in the attitudes of
many historians: 'when it is a question of ascertaining whether
or not some human act has really taken place, they cannot be
too painstaking. Ift hey proceed to the reasons for that act, they
are content with the merest appearance, ordinarily founded
upon one of those maxims ofc ommon-place psychology which
are neither more nor less true than their opposites.' When the
historian peeps across the fence he sees his neighbours, in
literature, perhaps, or sociology, just as complacent in relying
on historical platitudes which are naive, simplistic or obsolete.
X EDITOR'S PREFACE
New Perspectives on the Past represents not a reaction against
specialization, which would be a romantic absurdity, but an
attempt to come to terms with it. The authors, of course, are
specialists, and their thought and conclusions rest on the
foundation of distinguished professional research in different
Preface
periods and fields. Here they will free themselves, as far as it is
possible, from the restraints of subject, region and period
within which they ordinarily and necessarily work, to discuss
problems simply as problems, and not as 'history' or 'politics•
or 'economics'. They will write for specialists, because we are
The market-place rules our lives in more ways than it ever has
all specialists now, and for laymen, because we are all laymen.
- or at least, as we approach a new millennium this is how it
The market is one of the most ubiquitous of human
seems. In these circumstances it is very tempting to interpret
institutions, and it is hardly necessary to insist upon its power
past market and exchange systems in the familiar terminology
to transform the lives of those who produce and consume the
of modern economics. To do this, though, is not only to mis
goods in which it deals. But it is a power both complex and
understand the economics of the past, but the social found
mysterious, whose operations, as Richard Hodges demon
ations on which those economies rested. Similarly - and more
strates in this remarkably wide-ranging discussion, are not to
seriously - one consequence of western capitalism and nation
be understood simply by reiterating the commonplaces of con
alism has been to expect ex-colonial communities·o f the so
temporary economics. There are many kinds of market, each
called Third World to pass swiftly through the economic
associated with particular social conditions and relations as
trajectories which their former colonial masters experienced
well as particular economic circun\stances. The powerful
over a much longer period. At the brink of the twenty-first
alliance between anthropology and archaeology, between the
century we are only just beginning to grasp the error of such
observer and the spade, enables Hodges to use their markets as
thinking. We appear to be far from resolving alternative
windows on past and present worlds, through which we may
strategies suitable to the future as opposed to our colonial
follow their social and political development with a new and
heyday (cf. Hall, 1985: 247-8). It behoves us now, with a great
exhilarating intimacy. His book is timely if it helps us to think
array of scientific data at our disposal, to understand the
more clearly about the variety and complexity of ideas and
space-time dynamics of our global history so that at any one
processes whose mere importance is everywhere taken for
point in time in the future we shall not be induced to make
granted. It is also timely in another way, for its closing
short-term, expedient decisions. Consequently, to understand
chapt-ers show how the acute and pressing difficulties of the
the history of past markets and to shed light on their place in
800 million people whose liveliehood depends on the outcome
recent primitive contexts is to arm ourselves intelligently for
of the bruising and often brutal encounter between their own
the future. Unconventional though it has become, the
primitive and peasant marketing systems and those of the
historian should be using the past to define our destiny.
developed world are exacerbated by the dogmatic misunder
But the markets of the Third World and the markets of our
standings that are bred by bad history. Here is a plain
Euro-Asian past are very different phenomena. Daniel
opportunity for a new perspective on the past to help prepare
Thorner was right to assert in the case of western medieval
the way for a better perspective in the future.
markets systems that 'Nothing is gained by trying to view all
R.l. Moore
xii PREFACE PREFACE xiii
peasant economies as variations of that one rather special history. This is clear in the history of the medieval peasant
form. The time has arrived to treat the European experience market in the West.
in categories derived from world history, rather than to squeeze The western medieval variant has been treated either in
world history into western European categories' (1971: 217). western (often nationalistic) terms or by anthropologists
This is why it will be necessary to preface our discussion of dependent upon secondary sources couched in this tradition.
peasant markets with discussion, on the face of it rather arid, Global histories like that of Fernand Braudel invariably
of competing attempts to systematize their description and reduce these economic beginnings to terms they would deem
classification: as we shall see repeatedly to take terminology unsatisfactory for the modern world system. As Moses Finley
for granted is also to take for granted answers to fundamental has complained, vulgar positivism exists in the history of
questions which may be, in fact, quite mistaken. ancient towns; by this he means that town-histories are
This book is about aspects of these pre~modern economics, collected and collated but never analyzed (cf. Wacher, 1974).
and about certain of those archaic and redundant institutions Global approaches demand behavioural analytical techniques
which continue to exist as expressions of the plight of the that have generalized applicability; space-time dynamics need
Third World. This book, however, is not about economics in to be grasped. Geographers like Waiter Christaller and today
the strict sense; rather it is concerned with economic history Carol A. Smith have provided us with the tools to come to
and its social implications. Its primary focus is the peasant terms with the spatial implications of these mystifying data.
and/or primitive market. This institution is the subject of con~ The anthropology of the spatial attributes of peasant markets
siderable .controversy. First, should we really use the word offers historians enormous insight into social and economic
peasant? Second, can any aspect oft he market be the exclusive systems. Economic anthropology has likewise developed a
feature of one category of society? Polly Hill has convincingly great range of concepts appropriate to these needs. Time, too,
argued that country people are not peasants (1986: 8-15). I is now within our grasp. Archaeology has begun to unlock the
sympathize with her point~of~view: to use terms like country sequence of economic development in many parts oft he world
man or woman does conjure up alternative images, and in prehistoric, early historic and historic times. It is a
notably diminishes the connotation of class, oppression and controversial source of data but the modern discipline has
town-county separation that nineteenth-century thinkers equipped itself to investigate not just past elites but their
infused into a twentieth-century debate. For the purposes of communities as well. In particular, modern archaeology has
development economics Hill's point is a strong one. But it gained access to historical peasantries in the form of their
obfuscates the issue as far as anthropology and history are dwellings, material culture and resource strategies. Above
concerned. So, reluctantly, I have persisted with the term. all, the time-depth of archaeology - the embodiment of
Similarly, are certain economic conditions exclusive to past behaviour in palimpsests enshrined in towns and the
peasant societies? The great breadth of societies assembled country - make it well-suited to the sweep of Braudelian
under this title, embracing all the Continents of the world and tempo. The rhythms of time about which the French his
a multitude ofe cological and historical situations makes such a torians of the Annales school have written are fossilized in the
generalization seem spurious in the extreme. Yet if we do not material past and can be unlocked, providing we use the right
generalize we are left to distinguish between the multitude of key.
types in space and time, and particularism invariably chal It will be very obvious that I have restricted the scope oft his
lenges the search for explanation and induces a form of vulgar book to those areas with which I am familiar. A great deal of it
---
XlV PREFACE
is devoted to medieval markets, and to some extent updates
my earlier study, Dark Age Economics (1982). I cannot write 1
confidently about modern markets for these are steeped within
capitalist circumstances beyond my grasp. Some sections,
however, relate to my experiences in the field where I have Primitive and Peasant Markets
had the good fortune to encounter country-people and to
question them on their relations to market systems. It will be
apparent that the twilight of the South European peasantry
has had a profound effect upon me.
On market days in Haiti the towns and the country market
I am grateful to Bob Moore, the editor of the series, for
places gather thousands of peasants for hours ofb usy and noisy
inviting me to write this book, for his encouragement while I
activity. The people come for gossip, courtship and the playing
set to it and for his valuable comments on the first draft. The
out of personal rivalries, to visit a clinic or to register a birth;
task was made easier by conversations with my colleague,
but above all they come for business - to sell the tiny surpluses
Robin Torrence and with Chris Wickham. Thankfully neither
of their little farms and to buy necessities. They press together
will approve of the result, for if they did life would be much
in the ragged lanes among the stalls and the heaps of produce
less stimulating in the future! I should also like to spread on the ground, inspecting and handling the displays of
acknowledge my debt to Klavs Randsborg for timely dis textiles, hardware, spices, soap and cooking oils, buying,
cussions on aspects oft his book. Kathleen Biddick kindly sent selling and chaffering. Children push by hawking trays of
me offprints pertinent to chapter 5, while chapter 4 contains a sweets; farmers pull produce-laden animals through the crowds,
good deal from a paper John F. Cherry and I collaborated on, calling loudly for the right of way. Trucks back up and turn
published in Research in Economic Anthropology 5 (1983). I am around, their drivers honking horns, apparently oblivious of
the people and the great piles of goods. There are vigorous
greatly iadebted to my wife Debbie for making me the time to
arguments, sometimes ending in blows and arrests. In the very
write it, as well as for helping to produce the manuscript itself.
intensity of colour, sound and smell the outsider is
I vividly recall the March day on which I became fascinated
overwhelmed with an impression of confusion and disorder.
by economic anthropology and ancient trade in general. Colin
But for all its apparent anarchy the market place i<~
Renfrew del·ivered a lecture on the subject that exceeded even
characterized by an elaborate underlying order. Wherever they
his high standards. His enthusiasm for this subject was
exist, peasant markets reveal a great deal about the societies
lastingly contagious. Therefore, as a small token of this debt,
they serve. They are a central economic institution in many
as well as in gratitude for the help and encouragement he has countries where large numbers of small-scale farmers work
so freely given, I dedicate this book to him. their own land. To follow the movement of marketers and
stock through the system is an ideal way to begin to study the
economy and to trace the distribution of economic and
political power in society.
Sidney W. Mintz, 'Peasant Markets'.
The material affiuence of nations of the contemporary West is
rooted in its medieval peasant markets and to some extent in
2 PRIMITIVE AND PEASANT MARKETS PRIMITIVE AND PEASANT MARKETS 3
the markets of the Third World in modern times. Markets of meanings. The peasant market, therefore, might be pos
have played a major role in shaping western history and still itioned on an evolutionary scale between two extreme categor
play an important if controversial part in the Third World. ies: the 'tribal• exchange-place and the agricultural markets of
Market exchange in peasant societies is essentially a pre· modern agrarian societies. Of course, 'tribal', peasant and
capitalist device. In this book, therefore, market exchange post-peasant modern farmer each have attached to them
denotes relations fused by what Eric R. Wolf has defined as historical connotations. Each belongs to a social, political and
the tributary mode of production. This mode of production economic context that can be readily distinguished from the
functions through the deployment of political power and other two. Each conjures up in our minds a level of economic
domination over an agrarian labour force, as opposed to a class development and a certain level of technology. Hence, as
division in which one segment of the population produces George Dalton has pointed out, Charlemagne's serfs in the
surpluses and another holds the means of production. Put year 800 were French peasants going to local market-places
simply, primitive and peasant markets are and have been with a few chickens and eggs; some French citizen-farmers
attributes of pre-industrial societies in which 80-90 per cent of in the year 1900 were also peasants selling some cash crops in
the population are engaged in full-time agricultural activities. regional markets. But the two sorts of French peasant and, in
In this chapter I wish to consider what is meant by primitive particular, the markets in which each was engaged, differed as
and peasant markets. Clearly, these are not simply bustling of course did the societies, polities, the extent of economic
carnivals of the kind witnessed by Mintz (see p. 1) or visited development and the cultural fabric in each.
by package tour parties in the course of summer holidays in George Dalton is one of the few anthropologists to have
underdeveloped countries. As we shall see, primitive and been bold enough to define the peasant market. His defmition,
peasant markets have featured in much of man•s recent however, becaase he has become the acknowledged doyen of
history, especially in the last two millennia. But the market is one school of economic anthropology, tends to arouse strong
not an institution congealed in aspic. It has taken different opinions (see below). But his typology of peasant markets like
forms, in different environments, in different political circum his contentious typology of peasant societies offers a useful
stances. For this reason anthropologists and historians have starting point. It will be embellished and reshaped in the
debated the definition of markets, sometimes with memorable course of this book.
vigour. These debates about definition may seem 'mind Dalton first directs our attention to 'what peasant markets
bogglingly . . . reductionist" today in their oversimplification were not'. In his opinion they were not aboriginal, indigenous,
of the issues (Hart, 1986: 644). But they serve to remind us of tribal exchange-places such as those made famous by Bronislav
how we have arrived at better defmitions, and more particu Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of the Western Pacific
larly, they serve to emphasise that such reductionist views can (see chapter 2). In these aboriginal contexts, according to
be positively harmful to peoples threatened in some cases, like Dalton, agriculturalists exchanged yams for wooden bowls with
animals, by extinction (cf. Hill, 1986: 22}. visiting hawker-craftsmen-carvers with whom they had no other
In this chapter, therefore, I wish to set out the anthropo economic or social dealings. To the agriculturalists these were
logical definitions and debates, before considering one profit petty market exchanges at haggled prices, and the acquired
able avenue for pursuing this subject in the future. goods were quantitatively insignificant and scarcely important
There is no exact defmition of this category of exchange, to their livelihoods. This petty marketing occurred in contexts
largely because the terms peasant and market embody a range which we would dc;scribe as extremely underdeveloped, in
4 PRIMITIVE AND PEASANT MARKETS PRIMITIVE AND PEASANT MARKETS 5
which technology was primitive and production barely where a group of buyers and a group of sellers meet. The
exceeded domestic requirements. These circumstances, in market principle is the determination of prices by forces of
Wolf's social taxonomy, might be defined as the kin mode of supply and demand'. The market principle, in their opinion,
production. occurs in three forms which are characteristic of:
At the other extreme in Dalton's definition are the markets
of industrial capitalism. Here, markets are ubiquitous, domi 1. Societies which lack market-places as such but where
nant foci that integrate production on an inter-regional and the principle is weakly represented.
international scale. This market economy reflects a high level 2. Societies with peripheral (my italics) markets -that is,
(in terms of world history) of achieved economic development the institution of the market-place is present but the
and industrial technology. Farmers in such circumstances fall principle does not determine the acquisition of sub
from being 80-90 per cent of the population to about 10-15 sistence or the allocation ofland and labour resources.
per cent. (At 1086, when the Domesday survey of England 3. Societies dominated by a market principle and the
was compiled almost the same acreage was under plough as price mechanism.
that recorded in 1914. In the interval, of course, the popula
tion had swelled from about 2-3 minions to about 40 In addition to these defmitions ofm arket-places, George Dalton
millions.) The agricultural sector becomes an adjunct of the has proposed at least three different types of peasant markets
urban industrial, manufacturing sector, as well as the import which he classifies as follows:
export sector of the national economy, integrated with it
through markets. As Oalton asserts: 'Here we have total 1. Traditional peasant markets
market dependence for livelihood and the ubiquitous use of 2. Peasant markets in early modern and pre-(or proto)
cash: the self-regulating market economy ofA lfred Marshall's industrial societies.
Principles of Economics [1890]' (Dalton, 1973: 241). Market 3. Hybrid/composite peasant markets.
forces in this sense leave no part of the globe untouched. The
industrial capitalist market has been a feature of western A fourth category, arising from transplanted peasants such as
history for the past two centuries, and is becoming a feature the French in Quebec and the Dutch in South Mrica, to some
of world history in the last quarter-century of this miUen extent over-complicates the scheme.
nium. 1. Traditional peasant markets, in Dalton's view, are those
Now, it should be stressed that this typology is readily found in Western Europe up until the Late Middle Ages, and
criticized: it pigeonholes systems as black or white when each in Japan before about AD 1600. Dalton allows for the historical
embodies a great range of shades. Nevertheless, we cannot variation within this broad category, admitting that markets in
grapple with human history if we have no means to describe England at 1066 were different in several respects from those
it. The definitions may be contentious, but they provide plat operating in the fourteenth century. Despite these distinctions
forms for debate. This has certainly been true of Dalton's 'the larger economies were overwhelmingly agricultural, typi
other attempts at market typologies. cally three-fourths or more of the population directly engaged
His first was published jointly with Paul Bohannan as the in agriculture, and, of course, underdeveloped in technology
seminal introduction to their edited volume, Markets in Africa and low in output per capita proquced' (Dalton, 1973: 241).
{1962). First they defmed the market place as a 'specific site He sums up this society as one where:
6 PRIMITIVE AND PEASANT MARKETS PRIMITIVE AND PEASANT MARKETS 7
more than half of all output produced was not transacted by market sale; that To repeat, Dalton's catch~all definitions provide a useful
is, most of what was produced was consumed directly by the peasant
point of departure. As he writes: 'The only general meaning to
farmers' households or by priests and lords to whom the peasants - freemen
be attached to the term "peasant market" is negative: that they
as well as serfs - made obligatory payments. The rest was sold for cash in
are not the moneyless petty markets of aboriginal Melanesia
four sorts of controlled output markets:
and that they are not the full~blooded input and output
1. market-places in villages and hamlets, usually meeting weekly ... markets of late nineteenth-century industrial Britain' (1973:
2. urban market-places to supply foodstuffs and raw materials to
242).
tradesmen and craftsmen, who, in turn sold some fabricated goods
Not unexpectedly George Dalton's classification ofm arkets,
to peasants and for export;
like his approach to aboriginal economics and peasants, has
3. foreign market trade in staples, wool and wine;
4. periodic large-scale fairs (international market-places). aroused a good deal of criticism. Eric R. Wolf, for example,
has firmly challenged Dalton's 'sequential' typology of
Dalton asserts that these markets were controlled by political, peasants upon which this categorization of markets is based.
municipal or guild authorities. They were designed for Wolf makes three forceful criticisms of Dalton's typology of
produced goods (commodities in the terminology of many peasant societies, which apply equally to his views on peasant
anthropologists (e.g. Gregory, 1982)) and raw materials rather markets. These were:
than, for example, land and labour, which were relatively
minor features of these market exchanges. 1. that the traditional peasantry of medieval Europe is
2. Peasant markets in early modern and proto-industrial itself but the outcome of a process of hybridization of
societies, according to Dalton are those such as occurred in tribal groups after the disintegration of the Roman
Western Europe between the fourteenth, and late nineteenth empire;
centuries, and in Japan from about 1600 to 1914. They were 2. that Dalton vastly overschematizes the diversity of
partly modern and partly traditional. The ranked existence of conditions characteristic of Western Europe during
a range of regional and international markets began to any phase of its existence;
determine more specialized peasant agrarian production. 3. that Dalton pays too little attention to the degree to
Peasants, similarly, purchased some commodities rather than which European expansion determined the develo~
making or producing them themselves. Such societies were ment or lack of development of societies elsewhere in
still categorized by 'a good deal off arm production for peasant the world, and the extent to which Eu.ropean growth
household consumption', and by frequent use of ou.t~of..date was predicated upon the establishment of hybrid/
technology. composite peasant systems (Wolf, 1972: 410).
3. Hybrid/composite peasant market systems appeared in
most parts of the World following colonization by West From another standpoint Polly Hill (1986: 55) has charged
European nations and the development of cash-cropping Bohannan and Dalton's scheme with lacking a perspective of
schemes by planters. These economies 'combine economic market~based societies over a long time~period. Furthermore,
and social characteristics from medieval European peasantry, in common to some degree with Wolf, she charges them with
early and late modernization; in short a very mixed bag of failing to address the question of colonialism as they sought to
peasantries with a very mixed bag of markets, running the chart the evolution of markets. Like Wolf's criticisms, these
whole gamut from tribal to post-peasant' (Dalton, 1973: 242). may be justified but nevertheless, as we shall see, these
