Impact of Plantation Economy and Colonial Policy on Sri Lanka Peasantry

The present agrarian structure of Sri Lanka is an outcome of the imposition of a colonial plantation system of production on a native economy evolved over a long period. This native economy was dictated principally by a mode of production in which use value dominated exchange value, simple reproduction was the rule, and where the surplus was extracted under well-established direct and indirect extra-economic sections. The imposition of the plantation system on this native economy disrupted this mode of production without however in any way facilitating the emergence of more progressive forms of capitalist production. This paper examines some aspects of this impact of the colonial extraversion of Sri Lanka's economy on its peasantry.