ABSTRACT
The technological stasis of the area that now constitutes Bangladesh has roots deep in history. Before Mughal times, this area was always the hinterland, the backwoods, where individuals and groups ventured to reclaim virgin land from forest and swamp, but no social structure ever clearly crystallized. Mughal governors and after them the independent Nawabs of Bengal, installed some kind of law and order, and Dhaka emerged as an important centre of administration and commerce, notably for the muslin trade. A great deal has been made of the technical sophistication of muslin production, but it was a product which by its nature was immune to technical improvement. There was no way the labour process for this highly delicate luxury could be speeded up or subjected to any further division of labour, let alone mechanized. Apart from this specialized high-value export, East Bengal remained in a state of bucolic self-sufficiency, exhibiting to perfection that unity of agriculture and craft production that Marx identified as being peculiarly resistant to the solvent properties of capital.
