Debt Economy and Class Transformation in Tunisia: A Critical Comparative Analysis (1860s–1970s)

The progressive integration of Tunisia into the international capital market implies deep institutional and social transformations as well as the positioning of the country in the semi-periphery of the capitalist world-economy. From the mid-19th and during the twentieth century, the growing Tunisia’s debt paved the way to a compulsory financial administration of the North African country by 1870. Likewise, this process favoured the development of a capitalist class, whose origins were both exogenous and endogenous, drawing its power from doing business with the global financial élites. Thus, we assist to the birth of a capitalist class with local and international interests, also called afterward compradors. Adopting an original comparative approach, this article shows that the integration of a country into the global economy, mainly when occurring through a growing foreign debt, paves the way not only to the birth of a local capitalist class drawing its power from the circulation of capital but also to the permanent positioning of the country in the semi-periphery of the capitalist world-economy. The access to the international capital markets, according to the rules of the controlling powers and elites, makes the indebted country less independent in its economic policy choices, thus modifying its class structure in favour of the new capitalist elites, and their interests.