Uleri F. Capitalism and the peasant mode of production: A Chayanovian analysis // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №3. P. 43-60.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-3-43-60
Annotation
Although the disappearance of the peasantry under capitalism was repeatedly announced, peasants are still here, and the peasant mode of production still serves as a livelihood basis for millions of rural households. Based on Chayanov’s ideas, the article identifies some reasons for this resistance to capitalism by describing the internal functional logic of the peasant economy and the difference of the peasant mode of production from the capitalist one. The complexity and spatial-temporal variability of agricultural production and social-economic formations of the mature capitalism are replacing agriculture in the process of changes that consist of multiple transformations (Geels, 2002; van der Ploeg, 2008). One of the most debated agrarian changes is the trajectories of rural development under the persistence or dissolution of the peasant mode of production in the course of modernization that characterizes the evolution and consolidation of capitalist societies. The fate of the peasantry, or the “peasant question”, is the core part of the larger debate on the “agrarian question”, which the Marxist political economy defines as a set of agrarian transformations leading to the penetration of capitalist relations into agriculture and to the transfer from pre-capitalist, feudal or semi-feudal modes of production to capitalism (McMichael, 2006; Akram-Lodhi, Kay, 2010a; 2010b; Lerche, 2014). However today the empirical scenario is contrary to the Marxist perspective for the peasant mode of production expands and reappears in the repeasantization as a viable alternative to the capitalist agriculture (Domínguez, 2012; Corrado, 2013; Carrosio, 2014; van der Berg et al., 2018). The author presents an overview of the classical conceptualizations of the fate of the peasantry and explains “why peasants are still here” by the spatially and temporally contextualized analysis of the peasant economy in the microeconomic perspective with the help of the theory of peasant economy (TPE) proposed by Chayanov in the early 20th century.
Keywords
peasantry, capitalism, Chayanov, capital, labor
About the author
Uleri Francesca, PhD Researcher, Agrisystem Doctoral School, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza (Italy).
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Bernstein G., Trotsuk I. Policital Economy of the Agrarian Change // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 8-37.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-8-37
Annotation
According to the author, the understanding of the agrarian transformations in the modern world requires an analysis of capitalism as a special system of social relations between capital and labor, which as historical development is changing the social nature of small farms, runs the processes of commodification and produces not a single "class" of the peasants or the heads of households and internally heterogeneous classes small agricultural capitalists, small producers and workers. The author poses a challenge - using categorical apparatus of the class theory of Marx on the capitalist mode of production, to bring order in the diverse and complex agrarian history of the modern world, designating a number of "common themes" in the world-historical career of capitalism and refusing thereby from simple and ideologically attractive moralizing stories about peasant world and its disappearance. The article indicated by the general logic of the historical relationships of colonialism and capitalism, gave rise to large-scale agricultural transformation on all continents; highlighted local and global trends in the development of agriculture and the rural economy; given the characteristics of new forms of organization of the world capitalist system that emerged under the influence of neo-liberal globalization; The role of resistance to capitalist exploitation and land reform in the development of modern agriculture.
Keywords
political economy, agrarian change, capitalism, colonialism, class of capitalists, class of petty commodity producers, class of wage labour, Marx’s theory
About the authors
Bernstein Henry, Professor of Development Studies of the University of London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Adjunct Professor at the College of Humanities and Development Studies of China Agricultural University, Beijing; coeditor of Journal of Agrarian Change.
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, United Kingdom.
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Trotsuk Irina, D. Sc (Sociology), Associate Professor at the Sociology Chair of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia; Senior Researcher at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
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Russian Peasant Studies. Scientific journal
Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
- Publisher: Delo Publishing, RANEPA
- Editor-in-Chief: Nikulin Alexander
- ISSN 2500-1809 (Print), ISSN 2949-2564 (Online)
- Founded in 2016
- Frequency: four issues per year (March, Jun, September, December)
- Open Access: All volumes and articles can be downloaded for free in the PDF format.
- Author fees: free of chagre
- Indexation: Russian Science Citation Index, Russian Science Citation Index Core, List of Journals approved by Russian Hihger Attestation committee (Ministry for Sciende and Education), Scopus, UlrichWeb Global Serials Directory, European reference index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIHPLUS), CNKI scholar
- Russian registration number: PI FS77-65824 27-May-2016
Hard copies of the journal can be purchased at the Delo e-store or by subscription in the "Press of Russia" Agency (subscription index - Т81017).
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