ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we attempt to explore the structure and dynamics of planting capital with respect to two major themes: the rise of global capital in terms of economic and political power and its attitude towards, and power relations with, nascent local capital. The plantation sector exemplifi es the hegemony of European-based global capital in terms of economic and political power; the local nascent capital largely aligned itself with global capital and operated from a subordinated status with respect to the latter. However, there were occasions when the emerging provincial bourgeoisie was locked in an open confl ict with global capital and attempted to defend its interests. Further, there were varying historical contexts such as the World Depression of the 1930s and the national economic policy changes in the post-colonial period, in which the provincial bourgeoisie made inroads, to a very limited extent, into the plantation business fi rst as junior partners and collaborators within global power relations1 with some of them continuing later as independent capital in their own right. While the structure, size and growth of European capital with the associated hegemony within the larger political relations are explored in the fi rst section, the sources of confl ict and the historical contexts in which local capital entered into plantation affairs is dealt with in the second section.
