BOOK
Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century
Julio Boltvinik | Susan Archer Mann | Meghnad Desai
(2016)
Additional Information
Book Details
Abstract
Peasants are a majority of the world’s poor. Despite this, there has been little effort to bridge the fields of peasant and poverty studies. Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-first Century provides a much-needed critical perspective linking three central questions: Why has peasantry, unlike other areas of non-capitalist production, persisted? Why are the vast majority of peasants poor? And how are these two questions related?
Interweaving contributions from various disciplines, the book provides a range of responses, offering new theoretical, historical and policy perspectives on this peasant 'world drama'. Scholars from both South and North argue that, in order to find the policy paths required to overcome peasants’ misery, we need a seismic transformation in social thought, to which they make important contributions. They are convinced that we must build upon the peasant economy’s advantages over agricultural capitalism in meeting the challenges of feeding the growing world population while sustaining the environment.
Structured to encourage debate among authors and mutual learning, Peasant Poverty and Persistence takes the reader on an intellectual journey toward understanding the peasantry.
Julio Boltvinik has spent over three decades studying and fighting poverty. He is a professor and researcher at the Centre for Sociological Studies, El Colegio de México, and has been a visiting professor in the UK and Mexico, as well as holding government positions, working for the United Nations Development Programme and being member of the Scientific Committee of CROP. As well as one hundred and fifty articles and book chapters, he has published books including Social Progress Index: A proposal (with A. Sen and M. Desai, 1991), Poverty and Social Stratification in Mexico (1994), Poverty and Income Distribution in Mexico (co-authored with E. Hernández-Laos, 1999), Poverty in Mexico and the World (co-edited with A. Damián, 2004), Broadening Our Look: A new approach to poverty and human flourishing (forthcoming) and To Understand the Current Capitalist Crisis (2010). He also writes the weekly column ‘Moral economy’ in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, for which he received the Citizen National Journalism Award in 2001.
Susan A. Mann was professor of sociology and former director of women’s and gender studies at the University of New Orleans in Louisiana. She also served as a former chair of the Race, Class and Gender Section of the American Sociological Association. Her books include Reading Feminist Theory: From modernity to postmodernity (2015), Doing Feminist Theory: From modernity to postmodernity (2012) and Agrarian capitalism in theory and practice (1990).
‘An original contribution to past and present debates on the peasantry. A range of issues are discussed from a variety of critical perspectives exploring the causes of poverty as well as alternative developments which offer a better future. This is the text I was searching for in my teaching. Readers will learn much from it.’
Cristóbal Kay, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
‘A fascinating set of essays investigating the relationship between peasant persistence and poverty. The editors have assembled an outstanding line-up of respondents to address this puzzle from a variety of perspectives. This is a timely and substantive revival of the classic debate.’
Philip McMichael, author of Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions
‘Brings together different points of view to provide an innovative theoretical background and analyse changes in the condition of the peasantry, as well as suggesting ways to move so many people beyond a poor and precarious existence.’
Frederick Magdoff, co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism
‘A provocative examination of the persistence of the world’s peasantry and rural poverty that explores, challenges, and significantly advances one of the most influential lineages of scholarship that has shaped the contemporary sociology and political economy of agriculture.’
Patrick H. Mooney, University of Kentucky
‘This stimulating book offers a
most exciting renewal of classic debates in Marxian theory over the character
and the persistence of peasant production, and illuminates the implications for
rural people of the ways in which contemporary capitalism works.’
John Harriss, Simon Fraser
University
'Outstanding … on key issues and debates about the peasantry … a highly provocative, stimulating and innovative book in agrarian critical political economy.'
Journal of Agrarian Change
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | Cover | ||
| About CROP | i | ||
| Series titles | ii | ||
| Title Page | iii | ||
| Copyright | iv | ||
| Dedication | v | ||
| Contents | vii | ||
| Tables and figures | xii | ||
| Acknowledgements | xv | ||
| First Part: Introducing the book | xvii | ||
| Foreword | xix | ||
| 1. Persistence of peasantry: a problem for theory or history? | xix | ||
| 2. Abstract and concrete labour | xxiii | ||
| 3. Peasant labour | xxvi | ||
| Conclusion | xxxi | ||
| References | xxxi | ||
| Introduction | 1 | ||
| 1. The origins and contents of this book | 1 | ||
| 2. On the definition of poverty and the low reliability of rural poverty data | 2 | ||
| 3. Situating this volume in the history of peasant studies | 7 | ||
| 4. Conceptualising the peasantry or the ‘awkward class’ | 17 | ||
| 5. Contributions of the authors | 20 | ||
| Notes | 38 | ||
| References | 39 | ||
| Second Part: Papers | 43 | ||
| Session One. Theoretical perspectives on peasant poverty and persistence | 43 | ||
| 1. Poverty and persistence of the peasantry: background paper | 45 | ||
| 1. Introduction: agricultural capitalism needs peasants | 45 | ||
| 2. The nature of agricultural production: its contrast with industrial production | 47 | ||
| 3. The specific character of the peasantry | 48 | ||
| 4. Seasonality and rural poverty | 50 | ||
| 5. The debate on the persistence of peasantry | 57 | ||
| 6. Djurfeldt’s virtual debate with Kautsky | 59 | ||
| 7. Agricultural seasonality and peasant survival: a polemic with Armando Bartra | 62 | ||
| 8. Obstacles to capitalist agriculture: the Mann–Dickinson thesis | 68 | ||
| 9. Marx and his vision of agriculture | 72 | ||
| 10. Marx’s theory of value disregards discontinuous labour processes | 74 | ||
| 11. Towards a valid theory of value for discontinuous work processes | 77 | ||
| 12. Towards a general theory of value | 80 | ||
| 13. Subsidies and poverty in peasant economies | 82 | ||
| Notes | 88 | ||
| References | 90 | ||
| 2. Rethinking rustic issues: contributions to a theory of contemporary peasantry | 92 | ||
| 1. Introduction | 92 | ||
| 2. Peasants and technology: creating the milpa (maize mixed field) | 93 | ||
| 3. Peasants and economy: the return of differential rent | 97 | ||
| 4. The place of peasants in the development model: ‘bimodal agriculture’ again? | 103 | ||
| 5. The peasant in his labyrinth: a polemic | 107 | ||
| Notes | 116 | ||
| References | 116 | ||
| 3. From field to fork: labour power, its reproduction, and the persistence of peasant poverty | 118 | ||
| 1. Introduction | 118 | ||
| 2. Problems with Boltvinik’s analysis of peasant poverty | 119 | ||
| 3. The production and reproduction of labour power | 122 | ||
| 4. The invisibility of domestic labour in theory and practice | 125 | ||
| 5. Women and global development | 127 | ||
| 6. Impure capitalism and its peculiar forms of production | 130 | ||
| 7. The informal sector and global poverty | 132 | ||
| 8. Farm subsidies: a perishable, no longer ripe idea | 133 | ||
| 9. What is to be done? | 136 | ||
| Notes | 138 | ||
| References | 138 | ||
| 4. Baroque modernity and peasant poverty in the twenty-first century | 141 | ||
| 1. Epochal crisis of capitalism and peasant poverty | 141 | ||
| 2. The controversy over peasant poverty within capitalism | 143 | ||
| 3. The specific formal subsumption of agricultural labour by capital, and seasonal time wages | 144 | ||
| 4. Cynical or brutal overexploitation | 148 | ||
| 5. Baroque modernity and the non-specific formal subsumption of peasant labour by capital | 150 | ||
| 6. The interaction of the non-specific and specific configurations of formal subsumption with the real subsumption of agricultural labour by capital in the twenty-first century | 158 | ||
| 7. Food crisis, post-baroque modernity and transcapitalism | 161 | ||
| Notes | 165 | ||
| References | 166 | ||
| Session Two. Historical and empirical approaches | 169 | ||
| 5. Agriculture/industry, rural/urban, peasants/workers: some reflections on poverty, persistence and change | 171 | ||
| 1. Boltvinik’s argument | 171 | ||
| 2. Agriculture and industry, rural and urban | 174 | ||
| 3. Peasants | 178 | ||
| 4. … and workers (classes of labour)? | 184 | ||
| 5. Poverty, persistence and change | 187 | ||
| Notes | 194 | ||
| References | 200 | ||
| 6. Employment and rural poverty in Mexico | 206 | ||
| 1. The Mexican countryside in the twentieth century | 206 | ||
| 2. Demographic aspects of the rural population | 209 | ||
| 3. Poverty in Mexico’s rural setting | 213 | ||
| 4. Activities in rural contexts and family composition | 218 | ||
| 5. Labour intensity and ‘multi-activity’ | 230 | ||
| 6. Working conditions of the rural population: a poor, persistent peasantry | 236 | ||
| 7. Some final reflections | 238 | ||
| Notes | 239 | ||
| References | 241 | ||
| Session Three. Environment, food crisis and peasants | 245 | ||
| 7. From the persistence of the peasantry in capitalism to the environmentalism of indigenous peoples and the sustainability of life | 247 | ||
| 1. Stating the problem of peasants’ poverty and persistence | 247 | ||
| 2. The poverty of theory: the seasonality of labour and the historicity of Marxism | 248 | ||
| 3. From eco-Marxism to political ecology and environmental rationality | 254 | ||
| 4. Peasants’ persistence in a political ecology perspective: the struggle for life | 258 | ||
| Notes | 264 | ||
| References | 266 | ||
| 8. South American peasants and poor farmers facing global environmental change: a development dilemma | 269 | ||
| 1. Agricultural production in three dryland river basins | 270 | ||
| 2. Being a peasant in a hydraulic society | 275 | ||
| 3. The impact of global environmental change on peasants | 279 | ||
| 4. Water, poverty, food sovereignty and territorial rights of peasants | 286 | ||
| 5. Persistence of the peasantry or persistence of poverty? | 288 | ||
| 6. Pro-peasant adaptation to climate change | 292 | ||
| Notes | 297 | ||
| References | 298 | ||
| 9. Financialisation of the food sector and peasants’ persistence | 300 | ||
| 1. The food tsunami | 302 | ||
| 2. The bubble and the contemporary food crisis | 304 | ||
| 3. Peasantry’s poverty and persistence | 305 | ||
| 4. Family farming | 306 | ||
| Note | 311 | ||
| References | 311 | ||
| Session Four. Policy, self-reliance and peasant poverty | 313 | ||
| 10. The rise and fall of the agrarian welfare state: peasants, globalisation, and the privatisation of development | 315 | ||
| 1. Colonialism as an agrarian welfare regime | 315 | ||
| 2. Developmentalism and the transformation of the agrarian welfare state | 317 | ||
| 3. Globalisation and the privatisation of the agrarian welfare state | 329 | ||
| 4. Conclusion | 337 | ||
| Notes | 338 | ||
| References | 340 | ||
| 11. Overcoming rural poverty from the bottom up | 345 | ||
| 1. Degrowth | 349 | ||
| 2. Good living or sumak kawsay | 350 | ||
| 3. Operationalisation | 352 | ||
| 4. Communality | 356 | ||
| 5. Implementing alternative societies | 358 | ||
| Notes | 360 | ||
| References | 362 | ||
| Third Part: Closing the book | 367 | ||
| 12. Dialogues and debates on peasant poverty and persistence: around the background paper and beyond | 369 | ||
| 1. Commentaries and criticisms to the background paper: clarifications, precisions and backups | 369 | ||
| 2. Reply to commentaries and criticisms | 389 | ||
| 3. The distinctive features of agriculture: a detailed version | 406 | ||
| 4. Pending issues for discussion | 408 | ||
| 5. Different replies to the two central theoretical questions of this book: a sketch | 412 | ||
| Notes | 421 | ||
| References | 422 | ||
| Foreword author, editors and contributors | 425 | ||
| Index | 430 |