Entrepreneurs and colonization: the case of Morocco

 Entrepreneurs and colonization: the case of Morocco Sofia Tozy The colonial economic history of morocco is an under explored field in the North Africa academic literature. Few books deal directly with the subject1, and most of Moroccan specialists2 circumvent the question. Yet the Moroccan colonial economy is interesting for a number of reasons. On one hand, exploring the colonial history allows a better understanding of Moroccan current economy. As Marc Bloch said in the Historian Craft: “ignorance of the past not only confused contemporary , but confound contemporary action”. A large part of Moroccan public and private firms were created during the colonial period, and current entrepreneurs descend from those alive at the time. On the other hand, the economic history of modern Morocco in the colonial period remains itself an appealing case for historians and economists. It provides a case study from which we can analyze the confrontation of two economic systems and their consequences: a pre capitalist structure and a predator industrial economy. Within this framework, one is left with the intriguing problem of how such a relatively complex context allows the emergence of a class of Moroccan entrepreneurs. In 1912, the Moroccan economy seams freezed in the dawn of the new Century. The economic system displayed all the characteristics of a pre-­‐capitalist structure. Main industries were located in major cities as Fez, Marrakech, and Sale (Brown, 1976) and were still primarily in craftsmanship. These industries essentially supplied the Moroccan internal market. The economic system functioned according to a guild system (Geertz 1979) where each guild is governed by its own rules and hierarchies. At the top of the hierarchy, the Muhtassib supervised the city commerce. He was in charge of the craftsmen and the merchant corporation3. Thus, the guild was an institution, which controlled craftsmen while also acting as a source of protection against the Makhzanien power. The guild system generated a dense and complex network of economic and social linkages both inside and outside the cities. The economy was not in 1 Georges Hatton: Les enjeux financiers et économique du protectorat marocain 2 Daniel Rivet, Jean Louis Miège and Charles André Julien who are the main specialist of Moroccan History 3 The craft and the merchant corporation were known as the hanti, Moroccan equivalent of the European guild. A large definition of the corporation system is available in Geertz’s assay about the Sefrou suq. complete autarky. It was connected to the foreign market thanks to historical trade flows controlled by few merchant families. French domination of Morocco started late (1912) and ended early (1956) in comparison of other colonial situations. In a short period, the protectorate transformed both directly and indirectly the whole economic structure of the country and caused a deep crisis in the traditional Moroccan economy. Directly, in order to promote the colonial economy, the French administration created new rules and new perspectives that distorted the economic environment and left the traditional economic structure behind . Indirectly, by promoting trade openness and developing modern way of communication, they subjected the traditional sector to world competition that it was not prepared for. This “violent moment of domination” caused a demoralization of the traditional Moroccan economic fabric (Bourdieu, 1977). Industrial products entered local commerce; either as novelty or competing goods, and thanks to their low price marginalized the local products. Traditional production techniques of the artisanal sector could hardly compete with modern capitalism’s methods of production. Still, the demise of guild organizations in Fez did not only result from competition with industrial products but also from the political emasculation of the tradition institution during the protectorate (Miner, 1973). Based on this historical context, this work focuses on the emergence of the class of Moroccan entrepreneurs that resulted from this tectonic change in the Moroccan economy. The colonial period provided a channel for entrepreneurs to acquire technical skills, international knowledge and access international markets, although within a context of institutional discrimination (Tripathi 2004). The analysis will borrow elements from the methodological frameworks of two disciplines: history and sociology. Historians have used in recent years biographical and firm-­‐level data to examine the influence of religion, nationality, and social group affiliation on entrepreneurship. We attempt to proceed using the same pattern. Indeed, we will try to build entrepreneur genealogy that tracks their origins before the colonial period through to the21st-­‐century. The period imply to take on consideration beside the common element examine on the literature the impact of colonial presence on entrepreneurship and his consequence (Walker 1986).4 A major goal of the study is to combine the classical approach of business history to a sociological She shows how slavery and institutionalized racism severely limited entrepreneurial opportunities for blacks, but also how they fostered certain types of entrepreneurial responses among African Americans designed to undermine the legitimacy of these institutions. We can transfer this analysis to the Moroccan colonial context where the statute of indigenous restrains opportunities for Moroccan entrepreneur. Some institutions that promote French settlement where closed to Moroccan as the chamber of commerce and industry of Casablanca. 4
colonial framework analysis on the Moroccan case. This hybrid approach suggests taking account of the implementation of the colonial discourse as well as the investigation of the fact. Furthermore, lack of corporate documents on guild activity during the first decade of the protectorate forces us to work through institutional archives instead of private documents. We will restrain our study to a representative sector: the sector of textile. It was rooted in the traditional guild structure and during the course of the century became one of the most extensive sectors in current activity. I have already investigate a part of the colonial literature searching through the Bulletin économique et social and relative other publication some colonial analysis that describe the change in artisanal sector. I have also conducted some biographical interview with fassi family entrepreneur: the Bencherif who manage the transition from handicrafts production of artifact to the manufacture. The next stapes of my work is to analyze with more precision the French policies toward the traditional sector. I will rely on the Bulletin official that compile all the official French action and law. In the same time, I am going to continue the interview work that I started with the Bencherif with other entrepreneur and try to get corporate document. References : Banerjee, Abhijit, and Lakshmi Iyer. "History, institutions and economic performance: the legacy of colonial land tenure systems in India." (2002). Berg, Maxine. The age of manufactures, 1700-­1820: industry, innovation, and work in Britain. Psychology Press, 1994. Berque, Jacques. "Le Maghreb entre deux guerres." (1962). Bleuchot, Hervé. Les libéraux français au Maroc, 1947-­1955. Vol. 2. Éditions de l'Université de Provence, 1973. Bloch, Marc. The historian's craft. Manchester University Press, 1992 Boissière, Thierry. "Mermier Franck, Peraldi Michel (dir.), Mondes et places du marché en Méditerranée. Formes sociales et spatiales de l’échange, Paris, éditions Karthala, CJB, IFPO, 2011, 337 p." Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 132 (2012) Bonin, Hubert. Histoire économique de la France depuis 1880. Masson, 1988 Bourdieu, Pierre. Sociologie de l'Algérie. Vol. 802. Presses universitaires de France, 1958. Brown, Kenneth L. People of Salé: tradition and change in a Moroccan city, 1830-­1930. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976. Buob, Baptiste. "Artisanat et tradition au Maroc: étude d’anthropologie filmique sur les dinandiers de la Médina de Fès." (2007). Paris, Ibis Press –Éditions de la MSH (« Archéologie expérimentale et ethnographie des techniques », 10), 4 films, 390 p., 60 fig., 32 pl. Buob, Baptiste. "Détenteurs et voleurs du savoir. Changements et diversité des relations maître/apprenti dans un artisanat marocain." Cahiers de la recherche sur l’éducation et les savoirs 9 (2010): 197-­‐217. Catusse, Myriam. Le Temps des entrepreneurs ? : Politique et transformations du capitalisme au Maroc, Paris, Tunis, 2008.-­‐ 348 p. Chikhaoui, Saïd. Politique publique et société: essai d'analyse de l'impact des politiques publiques sur l'artisanat au Maroc. Vol. 54. Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines, 2002. Ennaji, Mohammed. Expansion européenne et changement social au Maroc: XVIe-­XIXe siècles. Ed. EDDIF, 1996. Gallissot, René. Le Patronat européen au Maroc (1931-­1942), Edition Thermiques Nord-­‐
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