Production, reproduction, and underdevelopment: petty commodity producers in Ujung Pandang, Indonesia.

Abstract

This paper examines a group of petty commodity producers in the Indonesian city of Ujung Pandang. It is argued that in order to understand the reasons for the stagnation of petty production in the city, one must appreciate both the internal structure of petty production and also the relationship between petty production and the capitalist and peasant sectors of the economy. The transfer of economic surplus out of petty commodity production which characterises these relations is important to an understanding of the poverty of the petty producers in the city, whereas the class formation this fosters perpetuates the underdeveloped character of the economy. The same processes also mean that petty commodity production plays an important part in the reproduction of the dominant capitalist sector of production because of the support it unwittingly gives to the wage labour force.