Labor Transformation in Javanese Society in the 19
th
– Century
Erlina Wiyanarti
Faculty of Social Science Education,Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Free labor, social change, Javanese society in 19th - century, welfare.
Abstract: The economic history of Indonesia in the 19th - century along with the social transformations that follow it,
is important to be studied carefully. The expansion of the colonial government with the monetary economy
and the arrival of private entrepreneurs have an impact on economic development. The emerging trend of the
situation is the strengthening of interdependence between industrial and raw material producing countries;
first party political domination over the second party; the subsystem colonized country from the economy of
the colonial state. The studies regarding the history of labor development are still scarce, especially related to
the issue of free labor around the 19th - century. The research problem is generally formulated in the form of
question “how free labor developed within the economic structure of Java in the 19th - century”. The
conclusion is that the understanding of Javanese society in the 19th - century on the status of free labor has
changed gradually; the accumulation of occupation and the arrival of private entrepreneurs in the 19th -
century strengthened the emerge of the free labor group; dualistic on Javanese's economy in the 19th - century
had an effect on the position of free labor in society; the change on the political economy policy of the colonial
government in the 19th - century, regarding the labouring system did not make a significant contribution to
improving the welfare of free labor.
1 INTRODUCTION
The scarcity of studies on labor issues in Java in the
19th – century, is one of the driving factors to
undertake a more in-depth study. The focused study
is more on the development of free labor in Java.
Western penetration into Indonesian people life,
especially the island of Java in the 19th – century, has
increased along with the implementation of the
economic policy of the colonial government. The
tendency of colonial economic relations pattern is
colored by the interdependence between the industrial
and the raw material producing countries, the
political domination of the colonizing parties over
their colonies, and the growth of the colonial
economic system into the economic subsystem of the
colonies (Sartono, 1992:137). This condition affects
people's lives including in Java.
During the 19th – century, along with the
deepening influence of the West, new contracting
organizations and social forms of money-based
households have been established. If the labor in the
feudal Javanese society before the 19th – century had
no commercial economic value and was more viewed
as the completeness of devotion system, then with the
intense penetration of the Western economy after the
enactment of Agrarian Law 1870, labor gradually
entered into a market economy that has an economic
bargaining position.
The main problem of this study is “How did free
labor develop in the economic structure of Javanese
society in the 19th – century?” which described in
several research questions as follows: (1) How is the
development of the employment of Javanese society
in 19th - century? (2) How is the development of labor
in a liberal political-economic era in the 19th -
century?
2 RESEARCH METHODS
This research focuses on the imaginative
reconstruction of the historical phenomena of the
economic development of Javanese society in the
19th - century, in particular, the issue of free labor
critically and analytically based on historical sources
and using the historical method. The design
developed in six stages as follows: (1) Select a topic,
(2) Investigate all relevant evidence; (3) Make a note;
(4) Evaluate critically all evidences (source
264
Wiyanarti, E.
Labor Transformation in Javanese Society in the 19th – Century.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 264-268
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

criticism); (5) Construct the results of research into a
correct and meaningful pattern; (6) Presents in a way
that can attract attention and communicate it to the
readers (Wood Gray in Sjamsuddin, 2007, p. 89).
Data collection techniques, in the form of document
study, while the instruments being used is the
researcher itself. Data analysis techniques using
internal and external criticism as the basis of
historiography.
3 LABOR IN A SOCIAL-
ECONOMICS HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE OF JAVANESE
SOCIETY IN THE 19TH
CENTURY
In general, relations in colonial society are based on a
class system and racial distinctions (Sartono, 1990).
The structure of Javanese society before Western
penetration can be distinguished on four levels,
namely: kings, heads of regions (regent), village
chiefs and ordinary people consists of villagers
(Burger, 1983: 11). The colonial politics that
undertaken during the 19th - century have made the
social structure of Javanese society change from four
to two layers, the first is the white class and the
second is the colored group.
In the 19th - century, Java island gradually began
to enter the stage of the forming process of a market
society that serves the economy of the colonial
country. Western capitalism which relatively modern,
young and aggressive - specially built in the big cities
- coexists with pre - capitalist traditions which are old,
wise and rooted in the villages. If the Western
perspective sees work as being paid for wages, it is
not so with feudal Javanese society. The Javanese
peasant’s society perspective in the 19th - century
regarding “work” was more influenced by social
rather than economic aspects. The system of devotion
in this feudalist-despotic society is the meaning of
work, that manifested as part of devotion to its master.
So the measure of well-being is not measured by how
much income, but how much satisfaction their
masters have for their devotion, other than that
working for wages is seen as a dishonorable activity
(Boeke, 1983). On that perspective condition, it is
obvious that a wage labor is a less honorable position.
The economic structure of Javanese society, in
1800 to 1900, was marked by the increasing
penetration of Western economies based on the
modern economic joints on the economy of the
population based on traditional economic patterns.
According to Boeke (1983: 11) and affirmed by
Sartono (1992), such economies are called dualistic
economies. The features of dualistic economy
include: (a) The small mobility of production factors
in the lower layers (the mass of indigenous peasants)
that manifests itself in the limping equation between
prices and wages at the same time; (b) The difference
between city and village; (c) Penetration of household
money to household goods. The necessity of
indigenous people for money have been significantly
encouraged by taxation policies that established by
the colonial government; (d) The gradual
disappearance of village household authorities and
replaced by the centralization of the governing
economic policies of the government; (e) The
development of a mechanical life principle coexisting
with the organic life principle (often identified
inappropriately with adolescence, fatalism and
laziness). This process gradually diminishes meaning
and even destructs the organic life principle that has
diminished the meaning of the “sideline” company of
indigenous people.
The labor structure in Java until the first quarter
of the 19th - century could not be separated from the
land ownership pattern. Everything concerning
employment appears to be more clearly oriented
towards compulsory submission forms for both land
and labor, as a result of an agreement with local
rulers. Correlation of labor and land can be seen from
the way of labor mobilization by utilizing the easiness
of use rights on land and corvee labor to be used for
public and private interests of the rulers. Formal
arrangement of employment in Java started in 1818,
in the form of a prohibition of slave trade, followed
by 10 years later, in 1829 the government issued a
regulation on the freedom of the indigenous people to
grow export crops that can be sold in the international
market. Through the policy, indigenous people have
an income and will eventually increase the power to
purchase goods imported from Europe (Sartono K,
1987: 332). The concept is similar to Raffles point of
view, that with the increases in people's purchasing
power, the demand for imported goods from Europe
will rise as well. However, the regulation did not take
place clearly, because of the arrival of new Governor-
General Van Den Bosch with the concept of
cuultuurstelsel (Cultivation System).
The growing phenomenon of labor issues between
1830 and 1870 is characterized by an imbalance
between the availability of land for compulsory
planting and the availability of labor. This conditions
is especially felt in the cultivation of sugarcane
plantations and the establishment of sugar factories
that require more labor than other plants. To
Labor Transformation in Javanese Society in the 19th – Century
265

overcome these difficulties, a compulsory labor
system is implemented, and only a small portion of
the work is completed by wage labor. The
establishment of sugar cane processing factories and
the transport of plants from fields to factories can no
longer be carried out by forced labor, because of
compulsory workloads are already burdensome.
Kartodirdjo (1987) asserted that if the “gugur
gunung” or mutual cooperation of road construction
work was built, then the planting and processing was
done by compulsory labor, thus making it impossible
for them to carry out transportation and processing
work at the factory. On such circumstances, the wage
labor is known, even with relatively small wage rates.
In subsequent years, the production is increasing and
the demand for wage labor is higher. The composition
of the compulsory labor begins to displaced by the
position of the wage labor who is working with a
mutually agreed wage system. The number of
compulsory labor or forced work gradually
diminished, and was finally banned along with the
gradual implementation of the Cultivation System at
the pressure of the Humanist group in the
Netherlands. According to Burger (1954), the
abolition of Cultivation System became the beginning
of the de-feudalization process in Javanese the social
life of Javanese society, and after 1870 there was a
condition in which people were dragged into the
capitalist mode of production by the power
mechanism over labor and land.
If Cultivation System has utilized the traditional
or feudal system, and it is strongly disliked by
liberals, then to build a new political economic
policy, it is necessary to establish a system that gives
constitutional authority to private entrepreneurs to
develop their investment in Indonesia. The growing
power of Dutch private entrepreneurs and
industrialization led to the growth of financial
capitalism that focused on the necessity of the
colonial state as an investment region. So since 1870,
the need for capital investment to seek distribution in
Indonesia directed to plantation companies. For these
specifics of interest the Agrarian Law was issued in
1870 (Kartodirdjo and Surjo, 1991:80).
The enactment of the Agrarian Law 1870 means
that land liberalization as the main factor of
production and the policy has an impact on other
equally important factors of production namely labor.
The private plantation system has encouraged the
increasing demand for labor and land, as well as an
increase in the need for money so that indirectly
began to develop habits in society providing
compensation for any work in the form of money.
Thus, according to Heilbroner (1994:6), the condition
becomes an indicator of optimizing the mobilization
of labor as a dynamiter factor in the forming of market
society, in other words, the emergence of free wage
labor, according to Sartono (1987) is a logical
consequence of the forming process of market
society. The complete abolition of compulsory labor
after 1882, there is no alternative for plantation
entrepreneurs to look for wage labor in the free labor
market.
At first, labor issue is not formally regulated
because there is a presumption that in Java with
higher population density than other regions in
Indonesia, the assurance of labor availability will be
fulfilled by itself. A labor policy since 1830-1870
contained in the rules of implementing Cultivation
System which is often identified with the exploitation
of labor in Java (Mubyarto,1992:107). The
government policy on labor after 1870 is more an
anticipation of various issues that arise from capital
penetration of private plantation entrepreneurs. In
1872 the government reintroduced the Police
Punishment Regulations that impose sanctions on
termination of labor contracts (Kartodirdjo, 87: 332).
Another rule was issued in 1880 known as “Koeli
Ordonantie”, which was followed by gradual changes
in 1889, 1911 and 1915 (Tauchid, 1952:93).
The emergence of free wage labor in Java actually
began to grow since the implementation of
Cultivation System. This circumstance is more due to
the government's inability to manage the
transportation and production sector in sugar
factories. And to overcome these issues, the
government has no choice but to employ the wage
labor provision (Breman, 1983). So as with the
increase in export production, that would also
increase the need for wage labor until the end of
Cultivation System implementation. Likewise, the
needs of private plantations in Java and in the newly
opened East Sumatra also experienced difficulties in
the provision of the work force, and for that reason,
they recruited wage labor which largely from Java
(Day,1972).
The free labor group that worked with wage
system in Java in the 19th - century, in sociologically-
historically can not be separated from the pattern of
social life of the society at that time. The reason to
become free wage labor is certainly not a
generalizable reason, because of the social conditions
of society that also different. However, it can
generally be categorized into wage labor groups as
forced by circumstances, and volunteer wage labor
groups.
The free labor group that forced by circumstances,
come from landowners who are inadequate because
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part of the land is sold or leased to the planters.
According to Kohlberg in his book published in 1909,
the income of landowners from rent or sale of land is
often not sufficient for life, take into account of the
lifestyle of some of them that likes to waste money on
non-productive activities, so to cultivate their own
land they do not have the medium, either agricultural
tools and animal for towing. Therefore they
reluctantly become wage labors on plantations. This
group is called gogol (Kohlbruge in Breman, 1987).
The second group, voluntary free wage labor that
is more liberal in scope, they will move to the area
that needs them, from densely populated areas to less
populated plantations. The plantation for the
smoothness of the production process required
moonson labor which is free to roam with the daily
wage system (dagloon). They are the so-called
traveler’s people or can be called Javanese gypsies
that remain the people without a home and nomadic
from one village to another, even from one plantation
to another. They live unattached to any village, nor do
they cling to any habits and often commit fraud
(Haselman, 1962:31-32). They originally came from
landless peasants, who later formed a community in
centralizing the barracks of settlements and uprooted
from the life of their village societies. Usually, these
groups are not permanent peasants, the coolie
barracks who are responsible for transporting,
typically employing such people. Millard in 1862
found that it was from this group that most European
entrepreneurs actually meet their needs for labor. Of
course, it must be understood if they are often absent
and screw up on their works (Breman, 1987).
4 CONCLUSION
The government's economic policy between 1830 and
1870 forced the socio-economic structure of the
village to open itself wider to the development money
economy and the capitalization of land and labor
became more apparent and the increasing power of
the European bureaucracy supported by the village
bureaucracy. Javanese economy in 19th - century had
a dualistic characteristic that characterized by the
socio-political structure of traditional and semi-
feudal society, alongside with new economic
principles which built on the more open and free
socio-political structure of society. The development
of a private plantation economy under the enactment
of Agrarian Act 1870 has gradually created free labor
market and a decrease in the use of compulsory labor.
Complete abolition of compulsory labor after 1882
forced entrepreneurs to seek wage labor in the free
labor market.
The term of free labor in Javanese society during the
19th - century underwent changing process from the
placement as a less respectable profession within the
old tradition, significantly changing into a developing
promising profession. Nevertheless, what has not
changed significantly is not in the view point of the
term free labor as a profession, but in the aspect of
motivation or encouragement to become free labor.
Until the end of the 19th – century, the urge to become
free labor was more motivated by the helplessness of
the labors in choosing and determining work. The
emergence of moonson labor provides big
opportunity for the growth of free wage labor. The
increasing of opportunity to become free labor did not
run parallel with the increase of Javanese peasant's
welfare. Yet, this study has proved that the growth of
free labor from 1800 to 1900 shows a significant
development in the economic development of
Javanese society.
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