'Predatory Capitalism' and the Politics of Settlement on the Kazakh Steppe

• In Event: Settler Colonialism and Borderlands Capitalism in Siberia and Central Asia

Abstract

In a letter to the newspaper Russkie Vedomosti, agricultural economist N.P. Oganovskii attacked the growing threat of “predatory capitalism” which he argued was causing ruin to the native Kazakh population during the resettlement era. This paper focuses on the issues Oganovskii raised in his letter, particularly the imperial government's practice of granting land access at absurdly cheap prices to "large entrepreneurs" for the purpose of livestock breeding, pushing Kazakhs from their traditional pastures and often leaving them destitute. It goes further to illuminate larger economic trends regarding livestock breeding throughout the Russian Empire in the aftermath of serf emancipation and the conditions that pulled (or pushed) largescale operations into the Steppe.

Author

• Sean P McDaniel, Cumberland U