Monopsonistic commerce and export duties combined to suppress African crop prices
Evidence
The low prices paid to the African producer can be explained by the lack of competition which existed in West Africa among the import-export houses who bought the African peasant’s crops. The export duties which these firms had to pay, which helped to finance the budget of the Government General, also encouraged merchants to pay artificially low prices to the African producer. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1397
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to the general economic logic of colonial extraction seen in other reading on cash-crop coercion; also parallels the diamond cartel’s price suppression mechanisms from ‘Opting out of the Legal System’.