The Plantation was a socially pyramidal, enclosed autarky whose slave basis froze technical progress.

Evidence

Let us SUITl up in a few connected phrases what we know of the Plantation. It is an organization formed in a social pyramid, confined within an enclosure, functioning apparently as an autarky but actually dependent, and with a technical mode ofproduction that cannot evolve because it is based on a slave structure. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 372

Categorization

• DEFINE: Glissant’s compact structural definition of the Plantation — pyramid, enclosure, apparent autarky, dependent, slave-blocked evolution — the load-bearing unit his whole creolization argument operates on.
• XREF: connects to: The Plantation’s rigid racial hierarchy paradoxically generated ambiguous complexity — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 379