The Indonesian Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Colonial adventures in tropical agriculture: new estimates of returns to investment in the Netherlands Indies, 1919–1938

“…At its peak, in the 1850s, the forced cultivation of sugar, tea, indigo and coffee by Javanese peasants contributed an estimated 52 % to Dutch central tax revenues and an estimated 4 % to Dutch GDP (van Zanden and van Riel 2000, 223). The net surplus on the Indonesian balance of payments was used to service high levels of Dutch state debt, to finance Dutch infrastructural investments and to subsidize the less 'productive' Dutch colonies in the West Indies (Geertz 1963;Elson 1994;Booth 1998;Lindblad 1989;van Zanden 2004).…”

“…For France the debate has recently flared up again, but seems to lean towards the view that empire was a burden, rather than a boon (Huillery 2014;Lefeuvre 2006;Dormois and Crouzet 1998;Marseille 1984). Yet, studies on the 'smaller' colonial powers such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal almost unanimously agree that their empires in Asia, Africa and South America have greatly enriched the metropolitan economy and have impoverished the colonial economy, if not in absolute terms, than certainly from a long-term comparative development perspective (see for Belgium and the Netherlands: Booth 1998Booth , 2007Stengers 1989;Vanthemsche 2007;Frankema and Buelens 2013). A recent assessment of the contribution of empire to Portuguese economic growth in Colonial adventures in tropical agriculture: new estimates… 199 the early-modern era reaches a clear conclusion: ''eliminating the economic links to empire would have reduced Portugal's per capita income by at least a fifth'' (Costa et al 2015: 1).…”

Primitive Accumulation and ‘Progress’ in Southeast Asia: The Diverse Legacies of a Common(s) Tragedy

“…The deepening incorporation of the Indonesian archipelago within the world economy over the course of the nineteenth century entailed advanced forms of exploitation in commercial agriculture, commodity processing, and natural resource exploitation, as well as the elaboration of a modern transportation network, creating a sizeable class of wage laborers. By 1900, some 435,000 hectares were leased out to large private estates on Java, 35 and connected through sugar mills and railroads to port cities like Batavia, Semarang, and Surabaya, which hosted more than 150,000 residents by the turn of the twentieth century. 36 By 1900 Java was the most technologically modern and integrated economy between Bengal and Japan.…”

“…By 1900, some 370,000 hectares of land outside Java were held by private estates, with nearly another plus another 480,000 under various kinds of concessions; by the 1920s, there were 500,000 hectares under concession in North Sumatra alone, with private estates across the entirety of the archipelago claiming nearly 3 million hectares of land. 39 Enclaves of concentrated, and heavily capitalized, production dotted the landscape: a vast plantation belt along the eastern coast of Sumatra, tin mines on the islands of Bangka and Belitung, coal mines in West Sumatra, oil refineries in Borneo, and scattered mines and plantations elsewhere. Most notable was the so-called 'Deli belt' of plantations on the eastern coast of Sumatra:…”

Balancing and counterbalancing : the Indonesian state addressing pressures to improve palm oil sector sustainability

“…After assuming the presidency in 1967, Suharto led an economic development-oriented administration that stimulated growth by facilitating foreign capital inflows and a more liberalised trade regime, while maintaining stability through repression. The Indonesian state organised extensive development interventions until the 1980s; this declined afterwards when the revenues from the oil boom decreased and the country experienced a shift toward a more liberal macroeconomic approach (Booth 1998;Hill 2000).…”