PEASANT ECONOMICS
Dr. Jane Granskog
California State University, Bakersfield
Major Components of Peasant
Economic Systems


Modes of production (based on
characteristics of the ecosystem)
Mechanisms of exchange between
peasants (non-capitalist reciprocity &
redistribution) and between peasants and
the Larger Society (capitalist market
exchange)
IMPACT OF THE ECOSYSTEM
UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
According to Netting, there are three
key dimensions that mark the ways in
which the ecosystem influences/affects
the characteristics of the social
organization. He refers to these
dimensions as social instrumentalities.
The Three Social Instrumentalities:



The density and spacial distribution of the
population;
The structure and composition of work
groups; and
The rights to the means of production (who
has them as well as what the "rights"
encompass).
FORMS OF PRODUCTION PEASANT ECOTYPES
There are two general categories that
peasant ecotypes fall into:
(1) paleotechnic
(2) neotechnic
PRESENCE OF ECOTYPES
Which ECOTYPE is dominant varies
depending on the socio-cultural context.
However, the availability of land, labor, the
length of the growing season, as well as the
types of crops grown and accessibility to the
outside, and the way in which all of these
factors interact can affect the strategies
followed and the kind of ecotype that exists.
PALEOTECHNIC ECOTYPES


Predominant form of ecotype up
to mid 19th century;
Relies upon human labor and
animals as a major source of
power.
PALEOTECHNIC ECOTYPES


Includes a wide variety of types from slash and
burn/swidden agriculture and other labor
extensive strategies w/ low level technology
to
Hydraulic (irrigation) agriculture which is highly
labor intensive but can be very productive
(basis of early complex civilizations).
NEOTECHNIC ECOTYPES


Rely upon technological advances (new crops,
animal breeds) & mechanization (use of
combustible fuels) as a major source of power.
Include year around farming w/ crop rotation,
use of fertilizer, specialized agricultural
strategies ( e.g., dairy farming; crops of the
tropics -- coffee, cotton, sugar cane etc.; truck
farming; etc.)
NEOTECHNIC ECOTYPES



These ecotypes are often labor extensive
(because of mechanization).
They correspond to the production of
cash crops for the market.
A recent variation within the past few
decades includes the effects of
agroindustrialization and transnational
migration
TYPES OF EXCHANGE


Systems of exchange describe the socioeconomic networks that link individuals and
groups to one another within a community
and with a wider extra-community network.
For peasants, based on Wolf, there are 3
dimensions involved in the system of
exchange relations:
Dimensions of Exchange Relations:



Degree to which the household relies on an
external market (marks relative degree of
self-sufficiency of the household);
The degree to which the external market
must process goods before consumption; &
The system of distribution of goods, modes
of exchange that are prevalent.
Three modes of exchange - Status
Economies and Market Exchange


Reciprocity and redistribution are based on role
obligations and are called status economies.
Market exchange involves the exchange of
goods and services at prices (defined by the
medium of exchange - money) regulated by
supply and demand (i.e., the capitalist market).
Reciprocity


exchange of goods and services ("gift
giving") between social units that are similar
in organization but not always equal in rank;
serves as a strategy to hedge one's bets,
e.g., exchange of goods between
households, (guelaguetza), between fictive
kin, and/or between groups/castes/jati w/in
the Indian jajmani system.
Redistribution


Has two elements, an inflow of goods and
services to a central administrative center,
and
a later outflow involving re-allotment of some
point to individual households encompassed
by redistributive system, e.g., fiesta.
Market Exchange



Peasants have characteristically manifested
partial participation in imperfect markets.
Amounts of goods and services traded have
been often in small amounts on an
intermittent basis.
Changes within the past decades have led to
increasingly complex participation in global
markets
TYPES OF MARKETS
Wolf notes two types of markets that
historically peasants have
participated in (often are involved in
both types simultaneously):
sectional markets
•
network markets
Sectional Markets



Links sets of communities within a given
region (local) whose economic mainstay is
subsistence agriculture
each also has a characteristic craft that it is
known for and sells in the market (are
traditional community monopolies);
communities act as a unit in interaction with
outside market;
Sectional Markets


exchange relations between individuals are
single purpose (single-stranded) between
peasants of similar status (horizontal);
markets are not totally free or open (prices
fluctuate within a range defined by community
monopolies), are thus stable; are held on a
weekly or semi-weekly basis.
Network Markets




are part of the national and international global - economic system;
guided strictly by supply & demand (are free
and open) w/out traditional monopolies and
are very unstable; often involve exchange
between peasants and non-peasant middlemen
(vertical & horizontal exchanges);
are held on a daily basis.
Factors Inhibiting Market
Participation
operate close to the margin - restrictive
ecosystem
 lack of capital, resources, access to
credit
 increased participation recently may be
primarily in terms of the ‘informal
economy’

Kearney argues that modern essentialist
conceptions of 'traditional' 'peasants' in
relation to the superordinate 'modern' state
(L.S.) described in terms of modernization
theory and later dependency theory are
inadequate to describe the dynamic strategies
such 'peasants'/rural populations employ to
cope with changing socio-economic
conditions.
Basis of Articulation Theory
(Kearney )
dismantles the distinction between
'traditional' and 'modern' by showing
how both are bound into circuits of
exchange that fuel their differentiation
 rests upon the conception of articulated
v.s. disarticulated economies.

Articulated Economies



Characterized by developed societies at the
core of the world system
Correspondence exits between production of
capital goods (Sector I) and the production of
consumption goods (Sector II)
Is an articulation between capitalists and
laborers
Sectorially and Socially
Disarticulated Economies


Located at the periphery of the world
capitalist system - two types - export enclave
and import substitutions
Traditional sector - source of low wage labor
for the externally oriented modern sector
which depends on export of luxury goods to
developed nations in return for capital
investment
Disarticulated Economies


The impoverished rural noncapitalist
agriculturalists/semiproletarian rural workers
oriented toward subsistence provide the
cheap food and labor that serve as the basis
of accumulation for the modern sector
Is a "functional dualism with subsistence
agriculture"
Significance of Articulation Theory


Describes the complex interaction of capitalist
and non-capitalist modes of production while
"dissolving the categorical distinction between
them" that underlies previous dualistic
perceptions of rural people "as essentially
either peasants or proletariats"
Significance of Articulation Theory
Implies that "capitalism as a global
phenomenon does not just subsume
developed and de-developed poles
 its inner workings generate and
perpetuate noncapitalistic forms

TYPES OF DOMAIN
Refers to the ultimate ownership or
control over the use of a given area.
 Four types noted by Wolf:

–
–
patrimonial
prebendal
- merchantile
- administrative
TYPES OF DOMAIN
patrimonial - rights that are inherited e.g., as
in feudal rights of lord of manor; may involve
community control over resource disposal;
 prebendal - not inherited but granted by
government to officials who draw tribute - tax
farmers;

TYPES OF DOMAIN
merchantile - land is private property, owner
has exclusive rights of use and disposal,
rents it out (e.g. hacienda system; and
 administrative - state economies (e.g. China)
group land into "collectives" for mass
production, state dictates what will be
produced;

TYPES OF DOMAIN


Forms are not mutually exclusive - mix and
relative importance of different forms
determines organizational profile of particular
social order.
It is the way the pattern of social relations is
used by powerholders which is decisive in
shaping the profile of the whole system.
TYPES OF DOMAIN


overall effect of capitalist agriculture - erodes
autonomy of small producers leading to "their
increasing incorporation into increasingly
distant and complex forms of control and
surplus extraction" via transnational and
regional migration
defines a 5th domain -- agroindustrialization -emerged within the past several decades