STATE, MARKET, AND MOSLEM ENTREPRENEURS:

Abstract

When Indonesia was being hit by monetary crisis, there were many lessons learned taken in term of industrial dynamism. There were many large indus¬tries run by market (giant investors) and supported very much by the state could not survive and fell into bankruptcy. While small industries, like home industries operated by villagers could survive and finesse to encounter the crisis. There were as a matter of fact several business ventures, which suffered the decrease of their turnovers, nevertheless the calamity also brought many boons—many being tickled pink for sudden and steep rise in turnovers. Some¬thing that deserves appreciation over rural small business practitioners is that amid capital and equipments constraints they can survive from market stag¬nant instead. Apparently, it shows that small industries’ survival capability can be traded on better than the large scale industries boosted by market having been spoiled by state and banking industries in Indonesia all this time. This study seeks to elaborate dialectics between state and market in connec¬tion with Moslem entrepreneurs’ strategy in boosting the growth of house¬ hold economy in Sleman district of Yogyakarta special region. Here, the term “moslem entrepreneur” refers to two things, viz. religion identity and business practice underlying Islamic values.2 The major research questions of this study are: How do these Moslem entrepreneurs overcome state’s policy and market institution inclining to not take side to rural industry practitioners? What kind of strategy or method do they apply to access state’s policy and market institu¬tion in operating their ventures? Whatever boundaries and problems are they facing? Whatever have they achieved so far?