Postcolonial capitalism typically combines free and forced labor together

Evidence

To take a pertinent example: in Europe, the rise of capitalism is consequent upon the destruction of feudal ties and the formation of “free labor”—of labor-power as a commodity. It is hard to think of a capitalist formation in which there would be no form of labor-power available to capital in its “free” form. This, in turn, means that, whatever is the specific legal form with which capitalist development “corresponds,” it must be one in which the concept of the juridical “contract” between “free persons” appears, which can legally regulate the forms of contract which “free labor” require. This “requirement” is something more than a mere, empty, or formal “condition of existence.” However, this does not mean that the tendency to combine capitalism with “free labor” cannot, under specific historical conditions, be cross-cut or countermanded by a counteracting tendency: namely, the possibility of certain of the conditions of existence of capitalism being effectively secured by combining “free labor” with certain forms of “unfree” or “forced” labor. Once we move away from European to post-conquest or postcolonial societies, this combination—free and “unfree” labor, on the basis of a combination of different modes of production—becomes more and more the paradigm case. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 624

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how the free-plus-forced-labor combination plays out in specific postcolonial economies — Hall says almost everything remains to be done here.