Colonial elites equated civilization with contract capacity and investor-friendly institutions.

Evidence

The curse was starkly outlined by Rappard’s colleague on the Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC), Lord Lugard: without a sovereign state to guarantee investments and secure contracts in the mandates, this former East Africa Company employee and then British colonial official argued, private investors lacked confidence to invest. From this perspective, the mandates lacked key determinants of ‘civilisation’: the capacity to enter into binding contracts, and to protect property rights and investments. Rappard took the problem very seriously, arguing that it was no good to respond that, in deterring capitalists, the mandate system had protected its beneficiaries from exploitation. Although coming from ‘the home of Rousseau’, the Swiss diplomat added, ‘I shall refrain from denouncing the evils of civilisation and singing the praises of the state of nature!’ Civilisation, Rappard made clear, was synonymous with economic development, and required an attractive climate for private capital investment. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 91

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what ‘civilisation’ meant in League of Nations mandate discourse: contract capacity, property rights, and investment climate.
• XREF: Connects to how the reader’s existing work on racialized moral panics over ‘laziness’ echoes the accusation that non-investor peoples lacked civilization. — connects to: French colonial thinkers equated civilization with multiplying native desires for goods. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 190; Mandate-era thinkers equated civilization with investor-friendly contract and property law — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 91

Broader Connections

• French colonial thinkers equated civilization with multiplying native desires for goods. #expands (0.82) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 190