The Pre-Colonial Economy of Indonesia

Abstract

The unchanging, isolated, self-sufficient village economy of 'precapitalist' myth proves difficult to locate in any particular time or place. It is especially alien to the island world of Indonesia, as naturally favoured a region for maritime commerce as any in the world. Just as in the islands of the eastern Mediterranean, this ease of communication gave rise relatively early to specialisation of economic function, and to competing but interconnected city-states as the primary political form.