Petty capitalism sustains portfolio diversification rather than single-enterprise commitment

Evidence

One in five had assets worth more than £10,000 in the mid 1960s; half had accumulated £2,000 or more. These were substantial sums by Frafra standards, but only three were rich on a national scale. Men outnumbered women four to one. They usually maintained a diverse portfolio of investments; few were committed to managing a single enterprise. They were part-time petty capitalists: in the south, a third were still employed for wages and a further half had been employed fairly recently. The most common medium for investment was housing for rent (three-quarters of the sample); next in priority (each being an interest of half the sample) were trade — wholesale, retail, and commodity speculation; bars — beer and gin, food (most of the women were traders or caterers); machinery and plant producing services — flour mills, water supplies; and crime, including money lending at usurious interest rates. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2359

Categorization

• XREF: Portfolio diversification across rent, trade, and crime mirrors the familiar circulation-vs-production split the author flags; links to risk-spreading rather than deep specialization.