Organizing Autarky: Governor General Decoux’s Development of a Substitution Economy in Indochina as a Means of Promoting Colonial Legitimacy

Cut off from the metropole and coerced into trade with Japan, the French administration in Indochina under Governor General Jean Decoux had to find ingenious ways to produce locally what it had been accustomed to importing. Through the creation of a substitution economy, the nurturing of the artisanat, and appeals to Indochinese solidarity, Decoux designed policies to minimize the impact of Indochina’s isolation and exalt the benefits of French tutelage, as part of a final effort to convince the peoples of Indochina that French civilization could drive their societies forward — an approach founded on linearity that in itself reveals much about the colonial mind.