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The historical facts connected with the realization of this idea were
briefly as follows:
(1) the reserves thus created were never really used for stabilizing
purposes but instead were diverted (for the first decade or so)
to bolster the exchange rate of sterling, and thus to support
what remained of the British Empire - in short the post-war
form of British imperialism;
(2) the neo-colonial governments (at least, from Independence
onwards) viewed these monies as state revenue, spending
them freely on infrastructural works but even more on
expanding the bureaucracy and raising salaries in short,
for consumption purposes of the bureaucratic class.
It was thus inevitable that the peasants again became the subject in a
tributary mode of production. In other words, appropriation of the surplus
by the neo-colonial government does not have a purely economic form but,
on the contrary, a political form which to some extent is based on the
continued existence of traditional political structures. A class other than
the commercial capitalists, i.e. the bureaucratic class, has thus put itself in
opposition by creating an expropriation mechanism with which to
guarantee its own share; this class has created a political form of
expropriation and, more specifically than the merchants, is interested in
increasing the volume of peasant production.
As we have already pointed out, this is a neo-colonial interest - one
that has come clearly to the fore particularly since about 1950. It was present
before that time, however, and has also been given forms other than that
of the marketing boards. Once the minds of the colonial civil servants were
turned towards the question of increasing quality and quantity and, of
course, the productivity of peasant production, they hit upon a number of
ideas. The marketing board idea was launched quite some time after that
of agricultural development schemes was attempted (in Ghana the failed
Oagomba groundnut scheme) and realized (in the Sudan the Gezira
scheme).
[In this chapter we have tried to show both theoretically and historically how
peasants in Southern Ghana have remained subject to various forms of
exploitation in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial situations. We
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