I wish to thank Anne Booth, Robert Taylor, Sean Turnell, and the three anonymous referees appointed by Business History Review for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. I am responsible for the remaining errors.

¹ On the first point, note, for example, the argument that Burma's colonial “prosperity lay only in the national statistics and the country's trade and other economic relationships with exploiting imperialists,” reported by Taylor, Robert H., “Disaster or Release? J. S. Furnivall and the Bankruptcy of Burma,” Modern Asian Studies 29, no. 1 (1995): 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² This clarification is important as the contrast between an apparently prosperous colonial economy and an impoverished Myanmar–the official name of the country in foreign languages since the late 1980s–is often made or implied. And the contrast can easily evolve into the simple argument or implication that Burma's generals have ruined a once prosperous country. See, for example, the opening two sentences of Sean Turnell's fine study: “At the dawn of the twentieth century Burma was the richest country in Southeast Asia. At the dawn of the twenty-first century it was the poorest.” Turnell, Sean, Fiery Dragons: Banks, Money-lenders and Microfinance in Burma (Copenhagen, 2009), 1Google Scholar.

³ A conclusion made still more unpalatable by the fact that “[t]he colonial period is …. cited [by the military itself] as the root cause of most of the problems facing the state.” Steinberg, David I., Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York, 2010), 38Google Scholar.

⁴ Siok-Hwa, Cheng, The Rice Industry of Burma, 1852–1940 (Kuala Lumpur, 1968), 241–43, 201Google Scholar.

⁵ Andrus, J. Russell, Burmese Economic Life (Stanford, 1948), 165Google Scholar.

⁶ Adas, Michael, The Burma Delta: Economic Development and Social Change on an Asian Rice Frontier, 1852–1941 (Madison, Wisc., 1974), 58Google Scholar.

⁷ Ibid., chs. 2 and 3, provides an excellent account of this transformation of the Burma delta in the final decades of the nineteenth century.

⁸ For example, the annual average number of immigrants arriving by sea–overwhelmingly laborers from India–in the years 1906–10 was 316,800. For most Indian laborers, their time in Burma was brief–often less than a year or just one or two years, although repeated migration and return was common–and consequently the figures for emigration from Burma back to India were also high. In those same years, 1906–10, the annual average number of emigrants leaving by sea was 297,800. However, until the late 1930s, arrivals always exceeded departures, often by a substantial margin. Figures from Cheng, , The Rice Industry of Burma, 122Google Scholar.

⁹ For details on Chettiar operations in this period, see Adas, The Burma Delta, chs. 3 and 5.

¹⁰ Cheng, , The Rice Industry of Burma, 77–93, 227–28Google Scholar.

¹¹ That broad statement notwithstanding, the impact of the world economic crisis of the 1930s on Burma's rice economy, and in particular the response of the cultivators to the crisis, was notably diverse and subtle. See Brown, Ian, A Colonial Economy in Crisis: Burma's Rice Cultivators and the World Depression of the 1930s (Abingdon, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Cheng, , The Rice Industry of Burma, 146Google Scholar. In 1930 the Chettiars had held just 6 percent.

¹³ Furnivall, J. S., Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India (New York, 1956), 116Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Calculated from Andrus, J. Russell, Burmese Economic Life (Stanford, 1948), 164Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Corley, T. A. B., A History of the Burmah Oil Company, vol. 1: 1886–1924 (London, 1983), 320–21Google Scholar; vol. 2: 1924–1966 (London, 1988), 396.

¹⁶ Andrus, , Burmese Economic Life, 116–22Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Ibid., 102–6. In addition to its operations in teak, petroleum, and rice, Steel Brothers owned the Burma Cement Company and had interests in commercial insurance: 153–55, 311.

¹⁸ Ibid., 206–11, 148–49.

¹⁹ Ibid., 303–5.

²⁰ Cheng, , The Rice Industry of Burma, 82–84Google Scholar.

²¹ Adas, , The Burma Delta, 110–11Google Scholar. It should be added that “Chettiars often supplied the capital which Burmese moneylenders loaned to agriculturists,” 164–65.

²² Thet, Aung Tun, Burmese Entrepreneurship: Creative Response in the Colonial Economy (Stuttgart, 1989), 97–99Google Scholar.

²³ Cheng, , The Rice Industry of Burma, 131–34Google Scholar.

²⁴ Corley, , A History of the Burmah Oil Company, vol. 1: 1886–1924, 149–50Google Scholar.

²⁵ McCrae, Alister and Prentice, Alan, Irrawaddy Flotilla (Paisley, 1978), 126, 129Google Scholar.

²⁶ Andrus, , Burmese Economic Life, 304Google Scholar.

²⁷ Thet, Aung Tun, Burmese Entrepreneurship, 43–44Google Scholar.

²⁸ Brown, Ian, “South East Asia: Reform and the Colonial Prison,” in Cultures of Confinement: A History of the Prison in Africa, Asia and Latin America, ed. Dikötter, Frank and Brown, Ian (London, 2007), 242, 245Google Scholar.

²⁹ Furnivall, , Colonial Policy and Practice, 119–20Google Scholar.

³⁰ A medical school was established in 1907 to train Burmese medical subordinates (until the early 1920s, Burmese wishing to become doctors had to train in India). But the staff and atmosphere in the medical school–and in the hospitals in which the trained subordinates might hope to find employment–were overwhelmingly Indian and consequently relatively few Burmese ventured to apply. Furnivall, , Colonial Policy and Practice, 120, 126Google Scholar.

³¹ Corley, , A History of the Burmah Oil Company, vol. 1: 1886–1924, 149–50Google Scholar.

³² Taylor, Robert H., The State in Myanmar (London, 2009), 139Google Scholar.

³³ Ibid., 140.

³⁴ For a detailed account of these “denial” operations, see Corley, A History of the Burmah Oil Company, vol. 2: 1924–1966, ch. 3.

³⁵ Collis, Maurice, Last and First in Burma (1941–1948) (London, 1956), 116Google Scholar.

³⁶ Government of Burma, Public Works and Rehabilitation Department, “Answers to Questionnaire: A Brief Summary of War Losses and Their Effects,” no date [but apparently December 1946]; Burma Office, “Devastation in Burma,” no date [but August 1946]; United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Reconstruction of Devastated Areas Working Group for Asia and the Far East, “Country Studies: Burma,” Feb. 1947: each in India Office Library and Records, M/4/689.

³⁷ In addition to the serious damage suffered by Chettiar business as Burmese cultivators defaulted on their loans at the beginning of the decade, Indian labor faced strong competition from Burmese as economic conditions worsened in the depression. The tension between the two erupted into serious communal rioting in Rangoon in mid-1930.

³⁸ For the Indian population of Burma in 1941, see Chakravarti, Nalini Ranjan, The Indian Minority in Burma: The Rise and Decline of an Immigrant Community (London, 1971), 15Google Scholar.

³⁹ Bayly, Christopher and Harper, Tim, Forgotten Armies: the Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945 (London, 2004), 167–70, 181–90Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ From an extensive literature on these years, see Cady, John F., A History of Modern Burma (Ithaca, N.Y., 1958)Google Scholar, part 4; Collis, Last and First in Burma; Bayly and Harper, Forgotten Wars, chs. 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9 passim.

⁴¹ Tinker, Hugh, The Union of Burma: A Study of the First Years of Independence (London, 4th ed., 1967), 94–95Google Scholar.

⁴² Ibid., 258–59.

⁴³ Ibid., 95–96, 238–45. In fact, the 1948 Land Nationalization Act was a dead letter and more carefully constructed legislation was introduced in 1953; even so, in the first years, implementation–the redistribution of land–was slow.

⁴⁴ Tinker, , The Union of Burma, 114–15Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Taylor, , The State in Myanmar, 255–56Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ From Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar (Singapore, 2004), 17, 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 23–24, 33–34. Tinker, , The Union of Burma, 120, 258–59, 269–71Google Scholar, provides details on incompetence, mismanagement, and malpractice in the State Agricultural Marketing Board.

⁴⁸ Taylor, , The State in Myanmar, 293–94Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 52–53Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Corley, , A History of the Burmah Oil Company, vol. 2: 1924–1966, 255–71Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Turnell, , Fiery Dragons, 224–28Google Scholar. The Chartered Bank became People's Bank No. 2, the Hongkong and Shanghai, People's Bank No. 9.

⁵² Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 52–53Google Scholar.

⁵³ Taylor, , The State in Myanmar, 345Google Scholar. The first calculation is for legal imports–officially recorded imports. Taylor suggests that in this period, illegal imports were equal to between one-third and two-thirds of legal imports.

⁵⁴ Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 55Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Taylor, , The State in Myanmar, 344Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ The annual average growth of GDP between 1966 and 1969 was 2.2 percent, and between 1970 and 1973, just 1.3 percent–although it was higher in other parts of those decades. Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 55Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 66, 79–80Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ This paragraph draws on Ibid., 60–62, 87–98.

⁵⁹ See also Turnell, , Fiery Dragons, 240–46Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ The government's aim was to keep down the cost of living.

⁶¹ As noted earlier, British rule had failed to create a substantial core of Burmese with the training and experience essential to the running of a modern economy and society. But in addition, following the coup of March 1962, the military purged the bureaucracy of its elite, older Burma Civil Service personnel, reducing still further the state's inadequate managerial resources. Steinberg, , Burma/Myanmar, 66Google Scholar.

⁶² Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 106–9Google Scholar.

⁶³ Ibid., 90–91, 119n1.

⁶⁴ With little concern for the economics of location, the aim was to stimulate the development of backward regions: Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 105, 120n6Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Turnell, , Fiery Dragons, 234Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 80–81Google Scholar. Estimates of the value of the black market in the mid-1980s range from 50 percent to 85 percent of the value of official trade.

⁶⁷ Furnivall, , Colonial Policy and Practice, 46Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Taylor, “Disaster or Release?” 53.

⁶⁹ Ibid., 53.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 56–57.

⁷¹ Even communist Vietnam came to embrace a “socialist-oriented market economy” and re-establish relations with the capitalist world economy.

⁷² Calculated from Ghee, Lim Teck, Peasants and their Agricultural Economy in Colonial Malaya, 1874–1941 (Kuala Lumpur, 1977), 245Google Scholar.

⁷³ For British policy and practice toward Malay smallholder cultivation of rubber, see Lim, Peasants and their Agricultural Economy in Colonial Malaya.

⁷⁴ For a fine survey of the modern economic history of Malaya (Malaysia since 1963), see Drabble, John H., An Economic History of Malaysia, c.1800–1990: The Transition to Modern Economic Growth (New York, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁵ For the modern history of Burma, see the following: Cady, John F., A History of Modern Burma (Ithaca, N.Y., 1958)Google Scholar; Myint-U, Thant, The Making of Modern Burma (Cambridge, U.K., 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Myint-U, Thant, The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma (London, 2007)Google Scholar; Charney, Michael W., A History of Modern Burma (Cambridge, U.K., 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁶ Of course they did, not only for the reasons outlined immediately above but also because of the dispossession of the Burmese rice cultivator by the Chettiars in the 1930s. Anti-Indian riots in 1930 and 1938 were a major measure of Burmese feeling.

⁷⁷ Here it might be noted that, through the 1950s, Kuomintang forces, defeated in China's civil war, occupied a major part of Burma's Shan State. They were supported not only by Taiwan “but surreptitiously by the United States through the Central Intelligence Agency.” Steinberg, , Burma/Myanmar, 45–46Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ There had been racial riots in Rangoon in 1930 and 1938. See Cady, , A History of Modern Burma, 303–7, 393–95Google Scholar. For the cultivator's default, foreclosure, and the Chettiars during the depression, see Brown, A Colonial Economy in Crisis, ch. 3.

⁷⁹ The Burma census of 1953 reported the number of persons of Indian origin in urban areas at around 287,000–including 140,000 in Rangoon. There was no figure for rural areas. In the 1931 census, the Indian population–for Burma as a whole–was reported as 1,017,825. Chakravarti, Nalini Ranjan, The Indian Minority in Burma: The Rise and Decline of an Immigrant Community (London, 1971), 186, 15Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ This summary draws heavily on Thein, Myat, Economic Development of Myanmar, 58–59Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Ibid., 59.

⁸² “No significant bourgeoisie existed in Burma.” Taylor, , The State in Myanmar, 302Google Scholar.

⁸³ Tinker, , The Union of Burma, 389–400Google Scholar. In considering the low number of business entries, allowance might have to be made for the possibility that Tinker was more interested in politics and administration.

⁸⁴ Trager, Frank N., Building a Welfare State in Burma, 1948–1956 (New York, 1958), 117Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ Tinker, , The Union of Burma, 303Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ The reality should be noted: after the March 1962 coup, the military expelled a further 200,000 Indians. Steinberg, , Burma/Myanmar, 73Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ Booth, Anne E., Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast Asia (Honolulu, 2007), 204Google Scholar.