Argues that contemporary India's market society, and its concepts of the market and the public, emerged from commercial laws implemented by the British between 1870 and 1930
In Stages of Capital, Ritu Birla brings research on nonwestern capitalisms into conversation with postcolonial studies to illuminate the historical roots of India’s market society. Between 1870 and 1930, the British regime in India implemented a barrage of commercial and contract laws directed at the “free” circulation of capital, including measures regulating companies, income tax, charitable gifting, and pension funds, and procedures distinguishing gambling from speculation and futures trading. Birla argues that this understudied legal infrastructure institutionalized a new object of sovereign management, the market, and along with it, a colonial concept of the public. In jurisprudence, case law, and statutes, colonial market governance enforced an abstract vision of modern society as a public of exchanging, contracting actors free from the anachronistic constraints of indigenous culture.
Birla reveals how the categories of public and private infiltrated colonial commercial law, establishing distinct worlds for economic and cultural practice. This bifurcation was especially apparent in legal dilemmas concerning indigenous or “vernacular” capitalists, crucial engines of credit and production that operated through networks of extended kinship. Focusing on the story of the Marwaris, a powerful business group renowned as a key sector of India’s capitalist class, Birla demonstrates how colonial law governed vernacular capitalists as rarefied cultural actors, so rendering them illegitimate as economic agents. Birla’s innovative attention to the negotiations between vernacular and colonial systems of valuation illustrates how kinship-based commercial groups asserted their legitimacy by challenging and inhabiting the public/private mapping. Highlighting the cultural politics of market governance, Stages of Capital is an unprecedented history of colonial commercial law, its legal fictions, and the formation of the modern economic subject in India.
"“Birla’s book opens to us a fascinating world of the merchant communities of India, who survived and competed effectively with their British counterpart. The book brings together the intricate details of how these privileged communities sought to protect their spheres when challenged by a different cultural context. . . . There is much to learn from this book. The detail opens up further areas of debate and discussion on colonialism, property rights, and economic development.”" - Journal of Economic History
"“In this important study, Ritu Birla unpacks much of the argument and literature on the subject and explains, in this complex, carefully nuanced account, how the Marwaris, a significant community of vernacular capitalists organized in family firms, interacted with various incentives to establish market governance under colonial rule. . . .Readers of the Business History Review will benefit from her thoroughly reasearched, sophisticated account of the kinship capitalism of the Marwaris and its role in developing India’s economy and market structures.”" - Business History Review
"“[An] ambitious, excitingly original work. . . . [T]his book brings together economics, law, and history in a powerful vision that shapes afresh our understanding of capitalism and colonialism.”
" - Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"“This is a groundbreaking book, in terms of its theoretical approach as much as its findings and insights. . . . While scholars of post-colonial studies have been criticised for focusing on text and discourse and the expense of material structures, Birla’s impressive study demonstrates how important capital was to the construction of western hegemonic power and notions of a colonial modernity. . . . As a call to colonial historians to ask new questions of existing archives, Stages of Capital is an exciting and inspiring intervention in the field.”" - Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History
"“This remarkable and clever book turns capitalism inside out, revealing the little-studied colonial legal structures that shaped both market governance and the commercial tactics in India. By demonstrating how a major merchant community, the Marwaris, adapted to the tide of colonial legislation about business practices in the 1880s to 1920s, Ritu Birla breaks critical new ground for historians in search of a way into the cultural and institutional construct we call the economy.”" - Enterprise & Society
"“[A] fascinating book. . . . Birla provides some important leads, which other scholars will undoubtedly begin to follow, and she deserves great credit for establishing the terrain of a subject likely to attract further research.”" - Law and History Review
Формат: Скан PDf
In Stages of Capital, Ritu Birla brings research on nonwestern capitalisms into conversation with postcolonial studies to illuminate the historical roots of India’s market society. Between 1870 and 1930, the British regime in India implemented a barrage of commercial and contract laws directed at the “free” circulation of capital, including measures regulating companies, income tax, charitable gifting, and pension funds, and procedures distinguishing gambling from speculation and futures trading. Birla argues that this understudied legal infrastructure institutionalized a new object of sovereign management, the market, and along with it, a colonial concept of the public. In jurisprudence, case law, and statutes, colonial market governance enforced an abstract vision of modern society as a public of exchanging, contracting actors free from the anachronistic constraints of indigenous culture.
Birla reveals how the categories of public and private infiltrated colonial commercial law, establishing distinct worlds for economic and cultural practice. This bifurcation was especially apparent in legal dilemmas concerning indigenous or “vernacular” capitalists, crucial engines of credit and production that operated through networks of extended kinship. Focusing on the story of the Marwaris, a powerful business group renowned as a key sector of India’s capitalist class, Birla demonstrates how colonial law governed vernacular capitalists as rarefied cultural actors, so rendering them illegitimate as economic agents. Birla’s innovative attention to the negotiations between vernacular and colonial systems of valuation illustrates how kinship-based commercial groups asserted their legitimacy by challenging and inhabiting the public/private mapping. Highlighting the cultural politics of market governance, Stages of Capital is an unprecedented history of colonial commercial law, its legal fictions, and the formation of the modern economic subject in India.
"“Birla’s book opens to us a fascinating world of the merchant communities of India, who survived and competed effectively with their British counterpart. The book brings together the intricate details of how these privileged communities sought to protect their spheres when challenged by a different cultural context. . . . There is much to learn from this book. The detail opens up further areas of debate and discussion on colonialism, property rights, and economic development.”" - Journal of Economic History
"“In this important study, Ritu Birla unpacks much of the argument and literature on the subject and explains, in this complex, carefully nuanced account, how the Marwaris, a significant community of vernacular capitalists organized in family firms, interacted with various incentives to establish market governance under colonial rule. . . .Readers of the Business History Review will benefit from her thoroughly reasearched, sophisticated account of the kinship capitalism of the Marwaris and its role in developing India’s economy and market structures.”" - Business History Review
"“[An] ambitious, excitingly original work. . . . [T]his book brings together economics, law, and history in a powerful vision that shapes afresh our understanding of capitalism and colonialism.”
" - Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"“This is a groundbreaking book, in terms of its theoretical approach as much as its findings and insights. . . . While scholars of post-colonial studies have been criticised for focusing on text and discourse and the expense of material structures, Birla’s impressive study demonstrates how important capital was to the construction of western hegemonic power and notions of a colonial modernity. . . . As a call to colonial historians to ask new questions of existing archives, Stages of Capital is an exciting and inspiring intervention in the field.”" - Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History
"“This remarkable and clever book turns capitalism inside out, revealing the little-studied colonial legal structures that shaped both market governance and the commercial tactics in India. By demonstrating how a major merchant community, the Marwaris, adapted to the tide of colonial legislation about business practices in the 1880s to 1920s, Ritu Birla breaks critical new ground for historians in search of a way into the cultural and institutional construct we call the economy.”" - Enterprise & Society
"“[A] fascinating book. . . . Birla provides some important leads, which other scholars will undoubtedly begin to follow, and she deserves great credit for establishing the terrain of a subject likely to attract further research.”" - Law and History Review
Формат: Скан PDf
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