Liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia by Gareth Knapman & Anthony Milner & Mary Quilty

Author:Gareth Knapman & Anthony Milner & Mary Quilty [Knapman, Gareth & Milner, Anthony & Quilty, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138082052
Goodreads: 39221887
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Shapes of despotism and shades of orientalism

This chapter will focus on a particular example of how oriental despotism was (in)directly ‘observed’, how such an observation became possible, and what wider meanings it entailed. The example illustrates how the trope of oriental despotism provided an overarching imaginary, welding together different epistemic levels into a continuum bridging the intersections between colonial knowledge production and liberal theorising. Its registers ranged from immediate observation to theorising over the origin of oriental despotism, identifying its societal functions, and deducing its implications for these societies and their subjects, all of which were conceived and conducted within a framework of imperial liberalism. More precisely, the focus will be on discursive processes through which the alleged existence of such a benign trait as a relatively high level of wages in Siam, Burma and Cochin China was transformed into directly observable evidence of oriental despotism.18

In Crawfurd’s travel accounts, despotism was recognised by the ways in which the state power, or the government, disruptively interfered in civil society. It could be identified through the combination of five key elements. First a truly absolute sovereign and the absence of security provided by the existence of private property19 – even though Crawfurd allowed a certain notion of private property to be recognised in both Siam and Burma.20 Second, the state, or the Sovereign himself, holding a monopoly of the most important branches of trade.21 Third, a formal social stratification of society that did not correspond with the real power structures within it, and which affected the merchant class in a negative way.22 Fourth, the lack of a proper remuneration of the state officials which gave rise to an endemic corruption and peculation.23 And lastly, the fact that society investments were put into religious and void prestige architecture instead of being vested in practical projects, such as improving infrastructure and production facilities.24

In addition to these characteristics, a sixth, more specifically oriental, element was often accentuated in the shape of a prevalent indolence among the inhabitants, as S. Alatas has documented lucidly in his seminal study on the European ideas on – and representations of – the ‘lazy native’ in Southeast Asia.25 This aspect acquired a prominent position in European discourses about Southeast Asia, notwithstanding whether it was explained by recourse to an inherent, and thus racially caused, character of the people, or – as Crawfurd more often explained it – by a lack of incitement for personal aggrandisement in an exploitative society that did not respect private property.26

So, how did a high level of wages fit into this dismal picture? And why did Crawfurd choose to expend so much energy on precisely this, apparently paradoxical, phenomenon? The answer to the latter must probably be sought in the general manner in which Crawfurd and other contemporary colonial scholar-administrators addressed the issue of labour and its remuneration, which Mary Quilty has studied in depth.27 The answer to this question will also help us understand the seemingly self-contradictory nature inherent in high wages for workers oppressed by the yoke of oriental despotism.

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