A comprador or compradore () is a "person who acts as an agent for foreign organizations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation." An example of a comprador would be a

native Native may refer to: People * '' Jus sanguinis'', nationality by blood * '' Jus soli'', nationality by location of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Nat ...

manager for a

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an business house in

East East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

and

South East Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

, and, by extension, social groups that play broadly similar roles in other parts of the world.

Etymology and usage

The term ''comprador'', a Portuguese word that means ''buyer'', derives from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''comparare'', which means ''to procure''. The original usage of the word in East Asia referred to a native servant in European households in

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

in southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

or in the neighboring Portuguese

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

Macao Macau or Macao is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese colony, the ter ...

- such persons went to market to

barter In trade, barter (derived from ''bareter'') is a system of exchange (economics), exchange in which participants in a financial transaction, transaction directly exchange good (economics), goods or service (economics), services for other goods ...

their employers' wares. The term then evolved to mean the native contract-suppliers who worked for foreign companies in East Asia or the native managers of firms in East Asia. Compradors held important positions in southern China - buying and selling tea, silk, cotton and

yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. '' Thread'' is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern ...

for foreign corporations and working in foreign-owned

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

Robert Hotung Sir Robert Ho Tung Bosman, (22 December 1862 – 26 April 1956, ), also known as Sir Robert Ho Tung, was a businessman and philanthropist in British Hong Kong. Known as "the grand old man of Hong Kong" (), he was knighted in 1915 (Knight Bac ...

(1862–1956), who worked in the late-nineteenth century as a comprador of the trading conglomerate Jardine, Matheson & Co., allegedly became the richest man in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

by the age of 35. The Hong Kong firm of Li & Fung, founded in 1906, partly functioned as a Canton comprador in its early stages.

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

theoreticians in the 20th century applied the term ''comprador

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...

'' to similar trading-classes in regions outside East Asia. With the emergence or the re-emergence of

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

, the term "comprador" has reentered the lexicon to denote trading groups and classes in the

developing world A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...

in subordinate but mutually-advantageous relationships with metropolitan

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

. The Egyptian Marxist

Samir Amin Samir Amin () (3 September 1931 – 12 August 2018) was an Egyptian-French Marxian economics, Marxian economist, political scientist and World-systems theory, world-systems analyst. He is noted for his introduction of the term Eurocentrism in 19 ...

(1931–2018) discussed the role of compradors in the contemporary global economy in his work. In addition, the Indian economist Ashok Mitra (1928–2018) labelled the owners and managers of firms attached to the Indian software industry as compradors. Growing identification of the software industry in India with comprador "qualities" has led to the labeling of certain persons associated with the industry as "dot.compradors". Marxist terminology counterposes a ''comprador bourgeoisie'', perceived as the serving the interests of foreign imperial powers, to a ''national bourgeoisie'', which is considered as opposing foreign

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

and promoting the independence of its own country and, as such, could be, under some circumstances, a short-term ally of socialist revolutionaries. Mikhail Delyagin has characterised the 21st-century

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

state as in itself a comprador in a system of comprador capitalism. Irish historian Dr. Conor McCabe, building on analyses present in the writings of early 20th Century Irish socialists like

James Connolly James Connolly (; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was a Scottish people, Scottish-born Irish republicanism, Irish republican, socialist, and trade union leader, executed for his part in the Easter Rising, 1916 Easter Rising against British rule i ...

Peadar O'Donnell Peadar O'Donnell (; 22 February 1893 – 13 May 1986) was one of the foremost radicals of 20th-century Ireland. O'Donnell became prominent as an Irish republican, socialist politician and writer. Early life Peadar O'Donnell was born into an I ...

and Brian O'Neill, has used the concept of "comprador capitalism" to help explain the development of the Irish financial sector and the Irish economy more broadly.

Notable compradors

China

* Chang Kia-ngau (

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

) * Zheng Guanying * Liu Hongsheng * Tong King-sing (

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

) * Ho Tung (

)

References

External links

{{Authority control Business occupations Economic history of China Management occupations Marxist terminology Trading companies Maoist terminology

Etymology and usage

Notable compradors

China

See also

References

Further reading

External links