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The social history of plantation capitalism in Indonesia highlights the development of several forms of agrarian capitalism and small-scale entrepreneurship by workers. State labour regulations and the local economic environment are the key explanatory factors that are analysed in this article. During the colonial period, workers were put to work by force through the indenture system and had very limited autonomy. Two decades of social movements followed the independence of Indonesia, during which social progress was achieved through the formalisation of labour laws. The liberalisation of work that was imposed afterwards has shifted the responsibility for social protection from the companies to the workers themselves who then became dependent on local land availability in order to sustain their retirement needs.