Peddlers and princes

How does economic growth begin? In a closely observed study of two Indonesian towns, Clifford Geertz analyzes the process of economic change in terms of people and behavior patterns rather than income and production. Mr. Geertz believes that the burst of economic growth that a nation usually shows during the first few years of its modernization is based in part on fundamental sociological changes already under way before the "take-off." Indonesia offers a good example of a country in the "pre-take-off" period. The present study compares entrepre- neurial groups in two Indonesian towns. The first-Modjokuto-is typi- cal of the drab, overcrowded, busily commercial little towns which occur along the main thoroughfares of the central Java rice plains. Here, the emergence of a rising middle class of small, piously Islamic shopkeepers and small manufacturers is seen against the background of the traditional bazaar economy within which they grew up. The second town-Tawanna-is the former seat of a Balinese royal court and a traditional center of art and pouf tics. In this case we see a class of dis-placed nobles turned business man- agers, One of the rare empirical studies of the curliest stages of the transition to mod- ern economic growth, Peddlers and Princes offers important facts and generalizations for the economist, the sociologist, and the South East Asia specialist. Mr. Geertz also demonstrates how anthropology can shed light on economic problems. CLIFFORD GEERTZ is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago and the author of The Religion of Java, The research for Peddlers and Princes was carried out on two field trips to Indonesia (1952-54 and 1957-58), and the bulk of the book was written during the author's fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, California.