Mpiluka, William Herman2019-09-102020-01-082019-09-102020-01-081977Mpiluka, W. H (1977) The historical development and socio-economic role of negotiable instruments with special reference to England and Tanzania, Masters dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam. Available at ( http://41.86.178.3/internetserver3.1.2/detail.aspx?parentpriref=)http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/6293Available in print formThe material conditions obtaining in human societies in the process of production and reproduction of the lives of their members are the main levers that have given rise to the development of exchange commodity production and commerce, money, negotiable instruments and other related social institutions. This is the premises on which this dissertation is based. In part one, the historical development and socio-economic role of money is dealt with. This is the main condition which gave rise to the development of negotiable instruments. Thus the discussion of negotiable instruments in the subsequent parts presupposes the understanding of money. In this part, therefore, we see the rise and development of exchange and money as a result of the growth and development of the productive forces in the course of human history leading to the dissolution of primitive societies based on communal ownership and the rise of private property, class formation, division of labour and commodity production. Apart from its dissolving effect on primitive societies based on natural the of economy, the role money is to progressively introduce complex forms of division of labour especially when it acts as an aspect of industrial capital and later finance capital. In part two the historical origin and the development of negotiable instruments in changing socio-economic contexts are dealt with specifically. It is shown here that the main role of negotiable instruments including their legal form has been to advance commodity production and commerce mainly by means of discounting, negotiation and bank money. It is shown that negotiable instruments were useful tools in advancing the capitalist system. It is during the capitalist period that negotiable instruments became fully developed. Part three of the dissertation deals with negotiable instruments in Tanzania. These were introduced by finance capitalism to serve the capitalist economic system and particularly its attendant relations of production imposed on the people of Tanzania. In here we analyse the economic structure before, during and after colonialism and conclude that the structure introduced by colonialism has remained substantially unchanged after independence and even after the Arusha Declaration. Since this economy is controlled by finance capital, the objective role of all the socio-economic institutions including the practice and law on negotiable instruments is, in the main, to serve, and facilitate the continued domination of, finance capital in Tanzania. In conclusion we observe that this economic domination by finance capital and therefore the objective role of the socio-economic structure is radically revolutionised to negate this domination and replace it with socialist relations of production.enNegotiable instrumentsTanzaniaEnglandThesis