Peasant Production of Cash Crops and Social Stability
All of my work in the last fifteen years has been influenced by my association with Bill Brown. But it is perhaps especially appropriate that this piece be included in this tribute to him, for it is the first paper which I wrote after joining him, and it focused on what was always of prime concern to him: the clarification of concepts. I still recall some of our discussion when I showed him the first draft: he was with it, at least insofar as the limits of space permitted development of the topic. Perhaps I remember this because this paper was in a way an earnest of what my stewardship in his institution should be. The paper was read at the American Anthropological Association annual meetings in Detroit, December 1954, in the Symposium on Economic Factors in Stability and Change. I made no effort then to submit it for publication in any of the appropriate journals because I had taken time out from writing my dissertation to do the paper and returned my attention to that urgent task (it was also my first year of teaching a survey course on African ethnography), and the paper was soon out of mind. Now, after a lapse of time, the question arises, should it be brought up to date? Two quite different things can be implied by this question. First, should more recent data be adduced? To do so would be to write a new paper which would have none of this one's association with W. O. Brown. Furthermore, this paper now has a certain historical value as a contemporary description of some aspects of late colonial conditions. Second, should the interpretation and conclusion be modified in the light of more recent writings? I feel that both can stand. Therefore, no change has been made in the text.