The impact of incorporation in the world market and consequent effects of change in the Gezira region traditional society in the Sudan

Abstract

Traditional societies when transformed and oriented towards commercial production undergo many socio-economic changes in the course of development. The economic system in such traditional societies reflects adaptations to natural requirements and limitations. Viewed from the perspective of a modern system of state economy, these subsistence economies were pre-market, pre-scientific, pre-capitalistic, and pre-state systems of economy, in which the participants have the abilities appropriate to the functioning of the system. These socio-economic changes have a direct bearing on the rural institutions existing in such traditional societies. Needless to say that, bearing is function of impact which in our case depends, to a large extent, on the magnitude of incorporation in the world market economy. The first objective of this paper is to study the nature, weight and spill-over effects of agrarian capitalism in the Gezira region. The second objective is to show the form of agrarian capitalism manifested by the development of the "Gezira Scheme" as a unique socio-economic experiment in Africa. It is unique in the sense that it is-more or less an expression of agrarian capitalism emerging in an intrinsically and categorically traditional society developed by a socialist pattern of development specially after the nationalization of the scheme in 1950.