COLONIAL CAPITALISM TO DEVELOPMENTALISM

The dominant position of foreign or resident European capital and the national/racial component of relations between labor and capital were central features of colonial capitalism and the formation of working classes in both Tunisia and Egypt. But there were also significant differences. Egypt was nominally independent, a far richer prize, and strategically located at the crossroads of the British Empire. Tunisia was a settler colony, albeit on a much smaller scale than neighboring Algeria. Settler workers established strong unions informed by the language of socialism and class. Their blindness to colonialism prompted Tunisian workers to form their own trade unions informed by a nationalist understanding of class. Among Egypt's relatively small population of resident Europeans and Levantines there were some pioneer trade unionists and socialists. Resident Greek cigarette-rollers went on strike in 1899 and subsequently formed Egypt's first trade union. But as early as 1908 Egyptian nationalist politicians — lawyers, journalists, and other modern professionals — embraced workers and led many trade unions. They avoided the language of class until Marxists reintroduced it in the 1930s. The Tunisian nationalist intelligentsia was slower to support workers and their issues, so trade unions became a salient, relatively autonomous actor in the nationalist movement.

COLONIAL CAPITALISM IN EGYPT

From the 1860s to the 1950s, the distinctive elements of Egyptian colonial capitalism were cultivation and export of raw cotton; concessionary contracts with Europeans for infrastructure, transportation, and public utilities projects; and financial bondage to European banks. The most important transportation concession was the Suez Canal. It opened in 1869 and was built, owned, and operated by a Paris-based multinational corporation. The Egyptian government supplied twenty thousand corvée laborers annually during the decade of the canal's construction. In return, it received 44 percent of the company's shares. Under financial duress, Khedive Isma'il sold Egypt's shares to the British government in 1875.

Egypt's state bankruptcy in 1876 and a popular movement of resistance to European economic and political domination in 1879–82 led to British military occupation of Egypt in 1882. A nationalist uprising in 1919 compelled Britain to issue a unilateral declaration of independence in 1922, although Britain retained ultimate power in collaboration with the monarchy it created, the large cotton-growing magnates, and an emergent urban business class. From the formation of the first nationalist parties in 1907 until 1954, ending the British occupation was the principal issue in Egyptian politics.

The Euro-American financial crisis of 1907 triggered a collapse in the global market price of raw cotton and its byproducts, which comprised over 90 percent of Egypt's exports. Tal'at Harb, a financial manager for the Egyptian Sugar Company, seized the occasion to begin campaigning for economic diversification and industrialization. By then a cosmopolitan Egyptian bourgeoisie including aspiring industrialists was in formation, consisting of resident foreigners, Levantine minorities, and indigenous Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

The 1919 nationalist uprising was the formative moment for themobilization of both labor and capital under a patriotic banner. In March the British arrested and deported Sa'd Zaghlul, the leader of the Wafd (delegation) Party, which had been formed only months before to demand Egyptian independence. During the ensuing national uprising, urban workers engaged in dozens of strikes, formed new trade unions, and readily conjoined their workplace issues with the nationalist cause.

In 1920 Tal'at Harb and his colleagues established Bank Misr (Misr is the Arabic name for Egypt). He promoted it as the first Egyptian-owned bank with a mission to finance industrial development. Bank Misr's flagship enterprise, established in 1927, was the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company — popularly known as Ghazl al-Mahalla after the central Delta town of al-Mahalla al-Kubra, where it is located. At the end of World War II Ghazl al-Mahalla employed twenty-five thousand workers and was the largest industrial enterprise in the entire MENA region.

Egypt regained tariff autonomy in 1930, enabling the government to ban imports of sugar and cotton thread and encourage agrobusiness and industrial enterprises. During both world wars large allied armies stationed in Egypt employed hundreds of thousands of Egyptians. The Anglo-American Middle East Supply Center established during World War II promoted industrial production for the war effort. Modern transportation networks, state-supported private enterprises, and allied military requirements made Egypt the most industrialized Arab country with the largest working class by the end of World War II.

Nonetheless, Egypt could not manufacture producer goods or agricultural machinery like tractors or harvesters. The fundamental contours of the political economy were unaltered: cotton remained king. The departure of the allied armies after World War II collapsed the domestic market. Tens of thousands of first-generation industrial, transport, and service workers were morally and economically shocked to find themselves "arbitrarily fired," as they understood their situation. Local capital was too weak to provide an adequate number of comparable jobs or compete with the renewed flow of imported manufactures.

Stimulated by the growth of the textile industry, and supported by cosmopolitan intellectuals engaged in renewing Egyptian Marxism, a trend advocating trade union independence from all political parties emerged in the 1930s. Marxist-influenced workers led large textile workers unions in suburban Cairo during and after World War II. Three strike waves in 1945–46, 1947–48, and 1950–51 infused the nationalist movement with a progressive social component, inextricably intertwining class and national identities.

COLONIAL CAPITALISM IN TUNISIA

Predatory loans by French banks led to Tunisia's state bankruptcy in 1869. Its finances fell under joint British-French-Italian control. Political control followed. France declared Tunisia a protectorate in 1881.

In the nineteenth century, Italians were the principal European settlers. Italian and French settlers employed Tunisian sharecroppers to cultivate olive trees in the Sahel (the coastal plain extending south of Hammamet through Sousse and Monastir to Mahdia) and French or Tunisian laborers in the vineyards of the Mejerda River valley. To offset the Italian presence, France promoted settlement of its citizens and their investment in agriculture. By 1930 the rate of mechanization and productivity of settler colonial agriculture in Tunisia was greater than in...