Class Dynamics of Agrarian ChangeDevelopment processes are never neutral. They impact various groups and classes of people differently. A high food price may benefit some rich peasants who produce and sell food surplus, but it may disadvantage landless rural laborers. A project on irrigation may benefit those who own the land, but not the landless tenants. Nowadays, official documents by governments and development agencies tend to lump different groups of people into vague categories like rural poor. This might be useful in some cases, but in large part this thinking can harm the poorest of the poor. Using Marx’s theory of capitalism, Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change argues that class dynamics should be the starting point of any analysis of agrarian change. It provides an accessible introduction to agrarian political economy while showing clearly how the argument for bringing class back in provides an alternative to inherited conceptions of the agrarian question. It illustrates what is at stake in different ways of thinking about class dynamics and the effects of agrarian change in today’s globalized world. |
Contents
The Political Economy of Agrarian Change | 1 |
Production and Productivity | 13 |
Origins and Early Development of Capitalism | 25 |
The Long March of Commercial Capitalism | 32 |
Colonialism and Capitalism Phases of Colonialism | 39 |
4 | 60 |
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activities agrarian capitalism Agrarian Change agri-input agribusiness agricultural commodities Asia and Africa Brazil capitalist agriculture capitalist farming century chapter class dynamics class formation classes of labour colonial commercial capitalism commodification of subsistence commodity relations complex consumption corporations countryside cultivation debt bondage development of capitalism dispossession divisions of labour economic sociology effects emergence Europe European example exploitation family farmers family labour feudal forms fund grain Green Revolution hacienda harvest historical household income India industrial capitalism investment issues Journal of Agrarian Journal of Peasant labour power labour processes labour regimes land reform landed property landlords Latin America markets Marx means of production modern movements neoliberal neoliberal globalization numbers path peasant peasantry percent period petty commodity production Political Economy population primitive accumulation profit proletarianization rent revolution rural scale small farmers small-scale farming social divisions social relations South struggles sub-Saharan Africa surplus surplus labour tion trade wage labour workers