The Myth of the Capitalist Class: Unofficial Sources and Political Economy in Colonial Malawi, 1895-1924

Abstract

One of the prevalent theories in Malawian historiography is that primitive accumulation created a unified capitalist class which worked in concert with the colonial state and sowed the seeds of poverty by viciously exploiting the indigenous community. This proposition relies almost exclusively on official sources, and scholars have rarely looked for unofficial material to corroborate it. Such a lacuna is regrettable because unofficial data indicate that Malawi's colonial capitalists were often a badly fragmented class antagonistic to the colonial administration. Moreover, the capitalists' divisions paralyzed them politically and thus allowed the state to enact legislation which was often antithetical to capitalists' ambitions and prerequisites. As a result, the capitalists often found themselves economically imperiled. Few documents demonstrate this trend better than the colony's most important expatriate newspaper, The Nyasaland Times.The Nyasaland Times first appeared in 1895. Published by R.S. Hynde at the Blantyre Mission press, it immediately declared that “we are devoted to the planting interests of the community—the interest, we venture to state, on which the commercial prosperity of B.C.A. [British Central Africa] depends.” That the planters needed a voice devoted to them can scarcely be denied. By 1895 both the administration and the missions had established papers which were often hostile to the planters. In particular, Sir Harry Johnston's British Central African Gazette reflected the Commissioner's almost feral antipathy towards the planters in its editorials.