ABSTRACT
The political incorporation of the Celtic territories by the Crown did not end the essentially colonial relationship existing between these lands and England. Many salient features of the colonial situation have persisted within the very boundaries of the developing metropolitan state. Political incorporation forced the Celtic territories to develop in a manner which complemented, but did not permit competition with England. This was accomplished in two ways. Incorporation stimulated interregional trade and thereby extended market forces to the Celtic economies. In the periphery, this caused pressures for the evolution of highly specialized export economies. The social organization of the Celtic regions had revolved about a subsistence economy in which tenants sharing common fields engaged in production for themselves, a portion of which went for tribute due the tribal chieftain. As Tocqueville has argued, political instability may indeed result from the institutionalization of rentier capitalism.
