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Two Paths of Agrarian Capitalism, or a Critique of Chayanovian MarxismAuthor(s): David LehmannSource: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 601-627Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/178884
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Two Paths of AgrarianCapitalism,or
a Critiqueof ChayanovianMarxismDAVID LEHMANN
Universityof Cambridge
I. INTRODUCTION: UNEQUAL EXCHANGE AND PEASANT
ECONOMY--UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS
Inthe ideologyof "dependency"andthe "worldsystem" thepreservation fa compradorbourgeoisiehighly dependenton its controlof thestateapparatusperpetuateshe condition of underdevelopmento the benefit not only of thatclass but also of the worldcapitalistsystem, andobviouslyto the detrimentofthe remainder of the population of poor countries (Wallerstein 1984).
Accordingto these theories, the conditionof dependency s sustainedalso bythe perpetuationof petty-commodityproductionand otherprecapitalistrela-
tionships.In his enumerationof the implicationsof accumulationn "sociallyandsectorallydisarticulated conomies" (thatis, thirdworldcountries),Al-
ain de Janvry, who places himself, with some reservations, in theworld-system school, states that "subsistence agriculturebecomes the ulti-mateembodimentof the contradictionsof accumulation n the disarticulated
economies; . . . the peasanthouseholdconstitutesan articulated-dominated
purveyorof cheap labour and cheap food [even though] subsistence agri-cultureslowly disintegratesunderthis dominationas it performs ts essentialstructuralunctionunderdisarticulatedaccumulation"(1981:39). ForImma-nuel Wallerstein, the state-class relationshipand the persistence of petty-commodityproductionare both features of the "peripheralcondition" and
explainwhy it is so difficult (thoughnotabsolutelyimpossible)in his schemafor countriesto graduate rom his peripheryandsemiperipheryo the core ofadvancedeconomies. The argumentruns as follows: in its expansionacrossthe globe the capitalist world economy creates social structuresand statestructures hat fit the needs of the core economies by establishinga rulingclass in control of the state and holding monopolypower withinthe national
economy. These relationshipsareparticularly uitable for the provisionof the
primarycommodities and low-productivity goods requiredby the core, but
theyalso
placethe
rulingclass in a
positionwhereit can extract
surpluseven
thoughits industriesare unproductiveand inefficient in internationalerms.These industriesareunderpinnedby state subsidies andstate-guaranteedmo-
nopolies. Thus the interestsof every majorpartyare satisfied:the dominant
0010-4175/86/4120-0231 $2.50 ? 1986 Society for ComparativeStudyof Society andHistory
6oi
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602 DAVID LEHMANN
corporationsrom thecoreget cheapgoods as inputs,and thecapitalistsystemis not threatenedby a revolt of the peripheryover primary-commoditypricesbecause the people in charge of the peripheryare successfully co-opted,living as it were "on the difference" throughtheir controlof the terms onwhich goods enter and leave peripheralcountries. (Countryin this contextrefersmerely to the territorydefined by one state's monopolyof legitimateviolence andby no othersignificanteconomic or culturalhomogeneity.)Thecore proletariats likewise co-opted since it has common interests with thecorecorporations gainstthe periphery,while the peripheryproletariathardlyexists at all. Instead, the subordinateclasses in peripheralcountriesare the
peasantryandworkers n the urban nformalsectorwho are
caughtin a web of
exploitationbased on those very householdproduction ystemswhichtendtoisolatethemand thusdeprivethem of the basis for sustainedsolidaryaction.
Thus the theoryof dependencyis structured n such a way that it simplydoes not allow for the possibility thatthe poorcountriesmightextract them-
selves, short of an apocalypticchange in the entire world system-worldsocialism, Wallersteinterms it, while rapidly conceding that there is nochance of it ever arising.This is a farcry from Marx's own view of capitalistdevelopment, thoughthatin itself need not be a basis for objection. Authors
in the dependencyandworld-systemschools clearlydo not believe that "thecountrythat is the more advancedindustriallyonly shows to the less devel-
oped the image of its own future" (Marx 1976:91). They also depart quiteseriouslyfrom Marx's view of the state in capitalistdevelopment.ForMarx,the action of the state was crucialat the stage of "primitive" or "original"accumulation;he stateopened the way for capitalistrelations of productionwith whatever violence was necessary, by wrenchingthe peasantryoff the
land and otherwise creatinga "free" labour force. Thereafter,the market
would look after itself. Wallerstein's image of the state's nonautonomous,
incestuousrelationshipwith theentrepreneuriallasses as a permanent,defin-ing featureof peripheral ormationsis radicallydifferent.
Theimportantelationshipntheseargumentss thatestablishedbetweenthe
existence of precapitalistmechanismsandthe claim thatthey arethe element
that contributesdecisively to the perpetuation f poverty.The implicationsof
theworkof WallersteinandSamirAmin arethatif the state didnotoperate nthe monopolisticandalmostfeudalway that characterises t in the periphery,thenthe fruitsof capitalistdevelopmentwouldspreadevenly acrosstheglobe,andalso thatthe state cannotoperateotherwise; ts functioning s, so to speak,
overdetermined.Likewise, it is preciselytheprecapitalist-or perhaps"non-capitalist"-elements in the organisationof peasantproduction hatareboth
sustainedby the capitalist system and also perpetuatethe poverty of the
peasantry.Statedthus, the thesis implies that the solutionfor the peasantrysnot the advent of socialism but merely the lifting of the barriersto their
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 603
becomingcapitalists.This is wherewe confrontthe Chinese Wall thatcannot
be penetrated.A deeply held assumption in the discourse concerning the
peasantrys thatpeasantsaresituatedat a pole oppositeto capitalistson everydimensionrelevantto the characterisation f either modes of productionorunits of production,and that the "logic" or "rationality"of peasantproduc-tionprevents hemfrombecoming capitalists.When it is pointedout thatthis
posesdifficulties, say, in the case of a verysmallproducerof coffee, or indeedof cocaine, for the worldmarket,thenall mannerof embarrassment nsues. Inthefollowingparagraphs show thatone can haveaviabledefinitionof peasantformsof productionwithoutriskingsuchembarrassment, ut that an ideologi-cal shifton the
partof the adherentsof
dependencyand
world-systemstheories
is probablyrequired f they are to accept it.
"The costs of productionon a peasant farm are lower than those of a
capitalist armproducing he samecropon the samepiece of land." If thereis
one pointon which all relevantschools of thoughtareagreed n their accountsof peasanteconomies it is this. For A. V. Chayanov(1967) this explainsthesurvival of the "labour farm" or peasant enterprise; or MichaelLiptonit isan argumentfor the redistributionof land (1974) or for the redirection ofstate-controlledresources fromthe city to the countryside(1977); for Amar-
tya Sen (1966) it also explains the survival of peasant producersand thepersistenceof institutionssuchas sharecropping;or Alainde Janvry 1982) itis an element in the functionalrelationshipbetween peasant productionand
capitalism.Inall theseanalyses, the low costs, translatednto low outputpricesand the
low cost of peasantlabour(when it is the subjectof a markettransaction),arisefrom and areexplainedby the fact (orassumption) hat labour n peasantproduction s unpaidbecause of its family, domestic, or household character.This is takento implynot thatit is cost-free butthatit is less costly thanwage
labour.The wage a peasant's labourmight fetch if it were sold on the openmarket-its opportunitycost-is presumedto be very small because of the
extremelyhigh rates of unemploymentattributed o pooragrarian conomies.In contrastto peasantproducers,the capitalist employer is assumedto incuradditionalcosts of recruitment ndsupervision,and mustpay a wage of some
sort;this wage will be higherthanthe irreduciblesubsistence costs incurred
by peasanthousehold producersbecause it will reflect the compulsions of
disciplineand regularitiesof timetableimposed upon workers in a capitalistfirm. It is assumed that these "external" constraints,like "economising"
behaviour,cease to apply at the gates of the peasantfarm: within a peasanthouseholdaltruism,joint utilities, and internalisednorms take the place of
optimisingbehaviour(Folbre 1985).The definition of a peasant (better used as an adjective, for example,
peasantproducer)sharedby these writers, then, insists on the domestic and
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604 DAVID LEHMANN
unpaidcharacterof labour in peasant units of production,and the conse-
quenceof this characteristics said to be thatthose unitssupply productsand
even labour o the rest of society at pricescheaperthanthey would be if theywere producedby "proper"capitalists.This consequenceis elevated into a
functionparticularlyby K. Vergopoulosand by Alain de Janvry,for whom
peripheral apitalismdependson a reservoirof cheap labourand has no needfor the demandthat improvedincomes for labourersmight bringabout;this
labour,which can be drawnon seasonallyor cyclically, is reproducedby the
peasantsector at little or no cost to the capitaliststhemselvesor to the cap-italist state. In addition, it is claimed that the differencebetweenthe surplusthat would be transferred
y capitalistagricultural roducersand thatwhich is
actually transferredby peasant producersis something in the nature of a
"peasant" surplus(my term). This peasant surplusis different in origin but
similar in functionto the surplusvalue extracted from wage workers.' For
these writers, and indeed for Samir Amin, it is the hallmarkof peripheralcapitalism that it relies on these disarticulatedmechanisms, and on pre-
capitalistmechanismsof all kinds, to sustainits rhythmof accumulation.If it
reliedexclusively on wage labourandprofitto extractsurplusvalue it would
neithersurvive norfulfill its role in the worldcapitalistsystem. The othersdo
not pursuethe implicationsto quite such an all-embracinglevel, but theirview of the role of the peasantry n the economy is constructedon the ideaof
its cheapnessnonetheless. Abhijit Sen would say that the landlordbenefits
from the relativecheapnessof labourused undersharecropping.Liptonmain-
tains that small agriculturalproducersuse their labour very intensively to
extractunparallelledevels of productivity rom theirland andcapital,but he
does not attribute o this the cheapness of their productsor their labour;to
explain these he adduces discriminatory,misguided, or even perversestate
policies designed to extractmaximumresourcesfrom agriculture n general
for the ultimatebenefitof certain strataof urbanconsumers.He differs fromsuch as de Janvry or Vergopoulos (1978) in believing that both peasant
producersand the restof society wouldbenefit fromthe peasants'high yieldsif the state allowed them to do so, whereasde Janvrywouldclaim thatin the
logic of capitalist development peasantproducerswill use land and capitalmoreproductively hancapitalistsbutcannotexpectto obtaincorrespondinglyhigher incomes. Not merely "poor but efficient," as Theodore Schultz
(1964) would have hadthem, but "poor, efficient, andthereforeexploited";andeven here the wordefficientis somewhatmisusedbecause it is the inten-
sity of the use of land and capital, at the expense of a highly inefficient (ifmarketpriceswere applied)use of labour,which is being pinpointed.Lipton
ultimatelybelieves that a rational and benign state is at least in principlea
possibility, whereas the likes of de Janvry view the state as at best the
I For a critique,see HarrietFriedmann 1980) and David Lehmann(1982a).
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 605
harbingerof an inevitably uneven capitalist development and at worst the
agentof the immediateinterests of the capitalistclass.
Amongthose who place themselvesexplicitly in the Marxist radition,whouse the Marxistvocabularyself-consciously and with much care, Utsa Pat-naikwould say that it is not so much the domestic characterof labouras the
conditionof massunemploymentwhich enables landlords o extracta supple-
mentaryor "precapitalist"rentfrom their tenants(1983). But she does not
pursuethe functionalistargumentas do de Janvryand Vergopoulos,and she
studiously, perhapsadvisedly, avoids the word peasant. Henry Bernstein,
writingfrom a moreorthodox Marxistperspectivethanmost, also avoids thefunctionalist
formulation,but in his account he
emphasisesthe
relationshipbetweenthe high productivityof land and capital among simple commodityproducers(read "peasant producers") and the logic of subsistence which
characterises heirproductionas opposedto the logic of surplusappropriationwhich characterises ull commodity production thatis, capitalistproducers).He also discusses the cheapnessof migrant abourandpeasant products,andstates that "the abilityof simplecommodity producers . . to produce n theface of deterioratingerms of exchange, means thatthey competeeffectivelywithcapitalistenterprisesproducing he same commodities" (1979:429). Al-
thoughhe seems to have decidedconsciouslynotto enter thediscussionaboutthe relative efficacy (let alone functionality)of this capacity for capitalistdevelopment, he does state that surplus value is transferred rom simplecommodityproducers o capital, forbetteror for worse. The Brazilianecono-mistGrazianoda Silva takes a similarpositionwhenhe states that there is nocontradictionbetween the claim thatcapitalismin certaincircumstances"re-
producespetty production"and the claim that it bringsaboutproletarianisa-tion: the former is part of the latterprocess, broadlyconstrued(1981:51).
Despite theirdifferences, it seems to me that there is an underlyingcom-
monideologicalelement in the writingsof de JanvryandVergopoulos,Bern-stein and Graziano da Silva. This element-as befits an ideological mo-ment-is the attemptto resolve a contradictionbetween the observation hat
peasantproducersarehighly productive(in terms of yields) and the assump-tionthatcapitalism s attherootof all poverty(if not all evil). Thisnotionthat
capitalismis at the root of poverty is not a traditionalMarxist one: on the
contrary,several antirevisionistwritershave recentlybeen at pains to tell us
(cf. Warren1980; Smith 1980), thatcapitalismis the source of most of thewealth we can observe in the world today. It is a notion which originatesin
PaulBaranandreceived its headline-hitting ormulation rom A. G. Frank nthe mid-1960s. Now, having admittedthat peasant producersare very pro-ductive andyet thatthey remainextremelypoor, the heirs to Frank'straditionhad to find some systemic, structuralmechanism in the capitalist systemwhich-operating in a law-like manner akin to the law of surplusvalue-would explain this. For this they turnedto Chayanov.
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606 DAVID LEHMANN
II. THE CAPITALISED FAMILY FARM AS A WAY THROUGH THE
CHINESE WALL
The outcome is the idea of a Chinese Wall that will totally preventpeasantproducers rom becomingcapitalists.The assumedmechanismshere are de-rivedfromChayanovanddependencytheoryin proportionshat,thoughtheymay vary, will always leave a taste of an ill-conceived cocktail. From
Chayanov s derived the concept that a peasantfarmproducesonly up to the
pointwhere the extra unitof drudgery s not worthwhilewhen set againstthe
correspondingreduction in the distance between the producer'sfamily andtheir desired level of consumption. The implicationof this is that peasant
producerswill accumulatecapital only if they get a windfall. Inotherwords,in normaltimes, they are not interestedin such things. From dependencytheoryis derived the idea that the state is controlledby interests which willensurethatprices-not to speakof thepoliticalsystemandthebureaucracy-areconsistentlyunfavourableo peasantproducersand thattherefore hey willnot have the slightestchance of reaching arbeyondtheirdesiredconsumptionlevel even at the best of times. Thus their high-yielding labours will be
exploitedto the full by a treadmillmanipulatedby therulingcapitalistclasses.And just as dependenciahas difficulty accommodatinga dynamic class of
indigenouscapitalists(preferringo describe them as a congeriesof parasitesbaskingin the protectiveshadeof the state) so this intersectoralversion has
difficulty in accommodating he realityof farms that areclearly capitalistin
their marketbehaviouryet employ hardly any wage labour,andcertainlyno
permanentabour,outsidethe nuclear amily. In the LatinAmerican iterature
they are variously described as unidadesfamiliares capitalizadas, novo camp-
ones, or, in Spanglish,farmers.They are seen as an anomaly.In this article I
develop a theorythat tries to dispel this anomalous status.
In an articlepublishedin 1982 I elaborateduponthe idea of a capitalised
familyfarm as a typeof productiveunitwhich is capitalistbutuses little hiredwage labour romoutside the household.In thisI was not alone. Otherarticles
and books (such as the study by David Goodman and Michael Redclift
(1981)) writtenat about the same time, and whose authorsclearlysaw them-
selves as bearersof a Marxistor at least a Marxisant tradition,were also
developingsimilartheories,usuallyembellishedwith a ritualreverence n thedirectionof remarksby Leninabout the UnitedStates. Little didwe know thatwe would have done best merelyto 'rediscover" andredisseminatea once-classic article by John Brewster that the Journal of Farm Economics
published n 1950, entitled "Machine Process in Agricultureand Industry."Inthatessay Brewsterexplainswhy mechanisationn agricultureeads to the
preservation f family units (of production)-an argument hat contrastsboth
withthe "Leninist" predictionof theirultimatedemise (allowing, it must be
said, that it may arriveonly in the very very long run)and with the expecta-
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 607
tion of perpetualsurvivalwith perpetually ow-level technologies and livingstandards hat we find in the work of Chayanov'sMarxisant successors.
Brewster'sargument s rootedin a simpleobservation: hatboth before andafter mechanisationfarm operationsare widely separatedby time intervals
irredeemably mposed by biology and climate. In agriculture,he says, tech-
nological advance does not acceleratethe functionaldivision of labour and
specialisation, since operationsare not concurrentas they are in industry.Rather, t allows a familyto reduceits hiringof wage labour. So long as farms
specialise as single enterprisesrather than diversifying, and thereby hold
supervision requirements n check, mechanisationmilitatesagainst the pro-cesses we now call
proletarianisation.In my 1982 article I suggest that the capitalisttransition n agriculture n
today's low- andmiddle-incomecountriesfollows two mainpaths:"both the
dominance of capitalizedfamily farms and the 'involuted' dualisticpatternare possible in long-settled areas where peasantriessurvive" (1982a:158).The word involuted s usedto refer to areas wherelarge-andsmall-scaleunits
of productioncontinue to coexist conflictively, with a modernisationof the
formeranda rapidproliferationof the latter.The termcapitalised amilyfarmis used to refer to units in which capital is used far more than the popular
imageof a peasantfarm would lead one to expect, and labour s hiredonly insmall quantitiesor for brief but intense periods such as harvest, much as
Brewster would have it. The article is essentially speculative, drawing on
strands n the literature o develop an hypothesisabout the rangeof possible
patternsof agrarianstructure hat might develop as capitalismadvances in
agrariansocieties. It is also an attemptto break out of a methodologicalstraightjacketwhich has recentlybeen well describedby David Booth(1985):where muchpreviousliterature especially thatwhichplaced itself broadly n
the Marxisttradition)had been strugglingunderthe weight of the idea that a
theory was worthwhileonly if it was a theory about the inevitable,2 it ex-pressly outlined two possible polar paths of agrariancapitalism, with the
implication hattherewas a rangeof possibilitiesbetween the two poles. It did
notattempt o define thepriorhistoricaland structural onditions underwhich
one or the other path might occur. The present essay pursuesand developsthese ideas and, with the help of our observations n the Ecuadorianprovince
2 Inorder o satisfytherequirementhat the inevitableconsequenceof capitalistpenetrationna peasant economy was the emergence of two opposedpolarclasses, despite the observationof
proliferatingpeasant enterprisesin many poor and middle-incomecountries, authorscame toredefine migrationas a form of proletarianisation,and also to describe peasantproducersas
"wage-labourequivalents"or like terms(cf. Bernstein1979). These formulationshadmorethana grain of accuracy; migrantsdo become proletarians at least intermittently),and frequentlypeasantproducersare eitherpart-timewage labourersor subjectto variouscontrols over their useof theirlands. But to lump all these variationstogetheris to miss the opportunityof detectingvariations n processes of change and thus of explainingthe changes observed.
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608 DAVID LEHMANN
of Carchi,offers anaccountof some of the mechanisms hatcome intoplay inthe transition o an agrarian tructuredominatedby capitalisedfamily farms.
Before entering into detailed discussion it is important o note that thecontrastbetween the two pathscannot and must not be reducedto a contrastbetween peasant enterprisesand capitalised family farms at the enterpriselevel. It is a contrastbetween agrarianstructuresand the dynamicforces of
changewithin them-conditioned to varyingdegreesby the politicalecono-
my of the larger society and of the world system. The contrastingagrarianstructuresare characterised s dominatedby modernisedestates (in the invo-
lutedpath)andcapitalisedfamily farms(in the pathwhich bears thatname),but there is no reason
why peasant producersor
capitalised familyfarm
producersshould not be present in both. A distinction is therefore drawnbetweenpresenceanddominance,and between agrarian tructuresand unitsof production-the agrarian tructurebeing defined as a particular ombina-tion of type of class structureand the inner workings of productionunitswithin a region.
III. LABOUR RECRUITMENT AND CONTROL ON PEASANT FARMS AND
ON CAPITALISED FAMILY FARMS
The capitalisedfamily farm(CFF) is a unit of production hat, like the com-monly held stereotypeof a peasantfarm, relies principallyon kinshipties in
the recruitment f labour,butunlikethatsame stereotype,also uses fixed and
variablecapitalin accordancewith its endowmentsand with the opportunitiesoffered by the market. Whereasthe common view, accurate or not, is that
peasant armsrarelyhirewage labourbecause it is not "in their nature"to do
so, I argue, with reference to the CFF, that it does without wage labour
because of the cost and that it invests in capital if necessary. The CFF
therefore akesfully into account the marketcost of the labour t does nothire
andmakesa capitalist profiteven withouthiring any wage labour. It recruitsprimarilynot so much from among a network of kin but from within the
nuclear amily, whereasthepeasantfarm recruits rom bothand,even when it
pays wages, recruits hrougha (wider)networkof primaryrelationships.We
therefore have a series of contrasts that confound common stereotypes:a
family farm which is clearly capitalistbut recruitshardly any wage labour,and a peasant farm which is perhapsnot capitalist, yet which may recruit
wage labour, doing so throughthe kinship network ratherthan the openmarket.The only commondividing factor thatcombinesand separates hese
featurescorrectly and resolves the anomaly previously alluded to, is theirinsertion n the labour market: hey seem to operatein differentsegmentsof
the labourmarket.Whether heone orthe otheris definitively capitalistor notis academic;bothcan be taken to exist in societies where the capitalistmode
of productionprevails.The crucial feature that distinguishes peasant producersis that they are
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 609
morelikely to recruit abouramong groupsand forperiodsnot availableto the
labour market as a whole: women able and preparedto spend half a day
working for a kinsman, but not longer, and not for an unknown person;childrenwho spendtheirmornings n school;fellow farmerswho haveanodd
day or two to spare.The labourretainsits family characterbecause, whether
or not a wage is paid, the labourersare recruited hroughthe activationof a
range of primaryrelationshipsthat are usually either kinship ties or ritual
kinship relationshipssuch as compadrazgo.The terms amily andhousehold
should not be misunderstood.To Westernears, and certainlyto the Russian
writersof the turnof the centurywho fathered he theoryof peasanteconomy
andthe conceptof
a peasantfamily economy,these meana nuclear
familyor
at least a groupof people closely relatedto each other, living underthe same
roof and eating out of the same pot. From this stems the triple preconcep-tion-that the familyfarm(or "labourfarm" in Chayanov'susage)uses only
family labour,that family labour must come from this "one-pot, one-roof"
social unit, and that it cannot be paid in money (cf. Shanin 1973-74).Theseconsequencesneed notfollow; only a highlyethnocentricconceptof
family would restrict the categories of people covered by the termfamilylabourto the membersof the nuclear amily, andonly anequallyethnocentric
concept would presumethat family members are unpaid(in wages-profitshares or productsharesapart).The analyticallysignificant pointaboutthese
relationships,which indeed has not passed unnoticedby many followers of
Chayanovand othersinfluencedby him-from neoclassicaleconomists like
Lipton (1977) to Marxists or Marxisants like Vergopoulos (1978) and de
Janvry 1982) and others like AmartyaSen (1966)-is theireffect on thepriceof labour,namely, to cheapenit, explicitly or implicitly.
The authorsmentioned above makevarious claims: (1) that since the pro-ductive unitpays no money wages it has no labourcosts (Chayanov),(2) that
since it employs family labourit has lower labour costs thancapitalistunits(deJanvry, Vergopoulos),(3) that it has low labourcosts becauseit exists in a
sea of unemployment,and indeed survivesbecause it providesthe last mini-
mally secure refuge against that unemployment (AmartyaSen). The com-
monly held but never explicit assumption underlyingthese theories is that
people work for low wages or low returnswithin the family or householdeitherbecausethey love their families-which they often don't-or because
they automaticallyobey their fathersand husbands-also subjectat least todoubt. My claim is that the labouris cheaperon a peasantfarm than on a
capitalistfarm because peasant producershave access to those partsof thelabourmarket that others cannot reach, because it can employ people for
"peculiar"periods,becauseit uses kinshipandparakinshipies, in particularties of patronageandpersonal dependency,to keep the costs of labourdown.It follows from this, and in the light of Abhijit Sen's (1981) account of
sharecroppingand marketfailure, that landlordsand capitalistfarmerswill
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6IO DAVID LEHMANN
take advantageof these characteristics hrougha rangeof tenancyand sub-
contractingarrangementswith peasant producers.This image of a peasantfarm s basedon a more concrete and realistictheoryof "peasantmotivation"thanthat which underliesthe models of Chayanovand his followers. Theirtheoriesdependon notions which we tend to accept only becausethey ascribeto peasant producersand their families the motivation that Western ide-
ology-not Westernreality-ascribes to families in industrial ocieties. The
ironyis compoundedwhen we recall that these ideasoriginatewith populistshostile to, or distrustfulof, the consequencesof industrialisation.
It follows frommy view thatin peasantsocieties (a term used here to referto those societies which observerswould
intuitivelydescribe as such, rather
than to any rigorously defined groups) producersdo not necessarily relyexclusively on kin for labour,and certainlynot on close kin, and that evenwhenthey do recruitkin they maywell paythem a wage. But this does notbyanymeansexcludethe possibilitythat the recruitment f labour hrough heseties makes it cheaperto employ thanlabourrecruitedon the open market,ifsuch exists. The activationof kinshipties in the recruitment f labourmakeslabourcheaper in the short run for this purchaser han it would be for an
impersonalcapitalist operatinga small unit with no links to the networkof
relationships n which the workers move.The two provisos-the "short" run and the "small" unit-reveal key
aspectsof theargumentaboutcheaplabour.Althoughcheapin the shortterm,the labourpurchasedmayprovemoreexpensivethan it appearsat firstsight if
in the long runit involves the purchasern a web of costly or time-consumingcommitments o return avours or to dispensepatronage.The small size of the
unit is relevantbecauseit is on smallunits in particularhatlabour s requiredin small andirregularquantities,and it is preciselythese sortsof requirementsthat can be fulfilled (withoutincurring he excessive costs usuallyassociated
withsmalltransactions)by the activationof primaryoyaltiessuch as kinship,as mentionedat thebeginningof this section. Theownerormanagerof a largeunit would have little use for the dribs and drabsof labourtime thata small
unitneeds. Such a personmightwell find a bevy of hangers-onsomethingof
an irritation-though it is worthrecallinghow the movie moguls of Holly-wood's GoldenAge littered heirpayrollswith relativesnearand far. Evenso,the contention thatpeasant producersobtain labour at cheaperaverageunit
costs thancapitalistproducers,and thatthis is due to their access to a web of
primary oyalties (which is partof the definition of a peasant producer)re-
mains. Whether t follows from this that the smallerunit is actuallytherebytransferringurplusout to the rest of society, or to particularocial classes, is
extremelydebatable,since the relativelylow productivityof this labourmust
be takeninto account in makingsuch claims.
Inevitablythe small size of the unit has enteredinto the definition of the
peasantproduceror productionunit. At first sight this is unsatisfactory, or it
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612 DAVID LEHMANN
family relationshipsmay be reinforcedby differentpatternsof capitalistde-
velopment in agriculture.In the involuted path, the mechanisms of labour
recruitmentust outlined may be reinforced, as Rodrigo Sanchez has elo-quently argued (1982), while in the capitalised family farm, those rela-
tionshipsconventionallyassociated with precapitalist amily farms-by, for
example, Shanin (1973-74)-are not only reinforced but also operate as
dynamicfactorsin the emergenceof capitalisedfarming.
IV. STRUCTURAL CONCOMITANTS OF THE INVOLUTED PATH:
PATTERNS OF MIGRATION AND LABOUR CONTROL
Theinvolutedpathis one in whichsmall-scale unitsproliferatewhile the largeunitspreserve heir dominantposition.They preserve t even though they alsoreducetheiraveragesize, shedding marginal andby distributingt to former
employeesor selling it off; theyeven preservetheirdominancewhen convert-ed fromlandlord'sestates to peasant-run o-operatives.Inaddition,theyraisetheircapital-labouratios often with the supportof cheap public-sectorcredit.The largeunits also tend to choose lines of production hat demand the least
labour,above all, permanent abour. Seasonal labouris drawn from neigh-
bouringor distantsmallholdingareas. Correspondingly, he labour force in
neighbouringsmallholdingareas faces poorlocal
opportunitiesfor
regularemploymentbut intense demandfor their labour at seasonalpeaks.3With this patterngoes a concomitant patternof migrationto cities, to
frontierareas,or to otherruralareas.Comingfromrelativelypoverty-strickenareas,migrants rom these involutedregions will often be too poorto gain asecure foothold in the city or to establish themselves as independent armersin frontierareas.Migration,it should be recalled, is not a cheap optionopento anyoneirrespectiveof means. The poorestoften dependon labourcontrac-tors to pay even theirfares (on credit)from theirvillages of origin, in which
case they migrate only seasonally and to work in periods of peak labourdemand on plantations; f they go to a city, migrantsfrom areas where the
involutedpath has dominated-such as Riobambain the highlandsof Ec-
uadorsouth of Quito(Burgos 1977)-tend to work in the extremelyinsecure
construction ndustryor in domestic service. The difficulty of obtainingse-
cureemploymentdeters them from selling their land, the small security theycan fall back on. Thus land markets tend to freeze and intergenerationaltransfersexacerbatefragmentationand subdivisionof holdings.
Migration o frontierareasis hardlya realistic alternative or people from
theseinvolutedareas. Theprospectof selling their landsto go andseek othersin frontierareas must seem daunting, especially in the light of the risks and
3 Examples of the involuted path include the northeastof Brazil (Lehmann 1982), the
CayambeValley of northernEcuador(see text below for furtherdetails), the Departmentof
Cajamarca n northern Peru (Taylor 1979); the southernhighlands of Peru (Figueroa 1982;Sanchez 1982).
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 613
costs involved in the migrationprocessitself: the hiringof a lorryto transport
people and possessions and the dangersof bandits, thieves, and confidence
tricksters,all dissuade the very poorfrom such an adventure.This can be wellillustratedrom the BrazilianAmazonregion. Migrantsmovingto thatregionfrom the south sell their southernland, hire a vast lorry (pau-de-arara, or
parrot'sperch),andgo to a placewherethey have contacts and some expecta-tion of a piece of land far bigger than the one they have sold. These peopleoften even make an exploratory ripbefore finally setting off, somethingthe
poorsmallholdercould rarelyaffordto do. In contrast,the poorand landless
tend to migratealone, without families, in busloads, in searchof whatever
employment they can obtain. These featuresof Brazilianmigrationto the
frontier ndicatethe differentiatednatureof migrantexperience.The study by
WayneCornelius(1978) of migration romvillages in theregionof Jalisco, in
Mexico, to the United Statesoffers a striking llustrationof the importanceofthecosts of migration n determiningwho can migrateand underwhatcondi-
tions;it shows that these costs areso high-ranging as theydo fromtransportfees to bribes for frontier officials and paymentsto helpersor smugglers-that only the upperstrataof the villages can afford it. Poorervillagers no
doubt also migrate, but to less distant, and less lucrative,places andjobs.Outward
migrationrom involuted
areas, then,is a more
periodic,seasonal
affairthanelsewhere, andthereis also more returnmigration han one might
expect from the jeremiads about ruralpoverty provoking excessive urban
growth.A recentstudyof southernPeruby DanielCotlear(1984) emphasisesthe relationshipbetweenthe insecurerightsoffered by communaltenure and
both the impermanentnatureof migrationand the phenomenonof return
migration.My interpretations that it is the involutedcharacterof agricultural
development n the regionwhich offers the explanation,andthat the commu-
naltenure s butanepiphenomenon.Cotlearexplainsthereturnof migrants o
theirvillages by referenceto the insecurityof their inheritance;my claim isthat this would not matter o them if they had a secureurbanbase, given the
usually paltryamountsof land involved. The persistenceof communalten-
ure-with all the insecuritywhich it implies and which Cotlearrightly4em-
4 This is importantbecauseof the layersof ideologicalobfuscation hatsurround heuse of thetermcomunidad. To manypeople of variedpolitical persuasions t evokes an imageof securityandarcadian ogethernessandsolidarity.Inparticular, here is a very widely held belief thatthisinstitutionprotects rights in land. Yet we know that the institutionwas created by the Incacolonialstate, and laterre-created n the sameimageby thatstate'sSpanishsuccessor, in thispartof the world, as a basis for the provisionof tribute abour.Furthermore,he role of the chiefs ofthese base institutionshas always been subjectto the conflictingpressuresof a state-which co-opts them-and a communityof people who press themto defendtheir lands. The latterdo not
always win out (cf. Spalding 1973; Murra1977; Sempat 1982; and Sanchez-Albornoz1978).This line of analysisof indigenouscommunities,emphasisingtheroleof theirleadersas agentsofthe state and the internalconflict they contain, has been pursuedwith some vigour by Samuel
Popkinagainstthe purported omanticismof certaininterpretationsf Vietnameserevolutionarynationalism 1981) andagainstJames C. Scott's conceptof the "moraleconomy" of the peasant
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614 DAVID LEHMANN
phasises-is itself a consequenceorconcomitantof thepersistentcoexistenceof largeestates and areasof tiny peasant holdings. The fact thatan agrarianreform has transferredownership of those estates to peasant co-operativesseems to make no difference. Cotlear's evidence, therefore,provides some
supportfor the idea that an involutedpatternof development goes togetherwith nonpermanentmigration.This patternmay follow an annual, seasonal
cycle or a morelong-drawn-outone stretchingover an individual's life span.Migration rom areas where the involutedpathprevails, then, tends to be
more seasonal, more intermittent, han migrationfrom the countrysideas awhole. It tends to stimulate ratherthan stem the proliferationof smallhold-
ings, intensifyingrather han
relievingthe
pressureson the land
preciselyin
the areas where unequaldistribution s most acute and where thereforethat
pressurehas the most seriousconsequences.Under these conditions of involution, "peasant" practices in labourre-
cruitmentandcontrol,far fromdecliningunder he impactof capitalistdevel-
opment,maywell increase,as richpeasants akeadvantageof networksundertheir control to hire from the pool of underemployed abour. Involutionis
accentuated,as the estates develop their productiveforces and the richer
smallholders ind thatthey can expandproductionby recourseto the recruit-
ment of labourvia primaryrelationshipsrather hanby capitalinvestmentorincreasingcapital-labour atios.One frequentlyobserved featureof these rich peasant enterprises s their
involvement n a diversityof productmarkets:n agriculture, n dairyproduc-tion, in cattle breedingor fattening, in trade, in transport cf. Smith 1984).
They use networks of contacts and deals, and their economic activity is
markedby a seamless web of pay-offs and favours. They do not build up a
centrallymanagedbusiness with a clear objectiveof extractinga returnon a
given amountof capital.They maystrike t rich,butalwaysin the contextof a
networkof primaryrelationships hatmobilize both capital (throughvariousformsof sharecropping, haretrucking, harefishing,or short-term redit)and
labour (through their access to the peasant labour market.) Theirs is a
bricoleurcapitalism,but its peculiarcharacterarisesfromtheiraccess to the
peasant abourmarketrather han froma peculiar"rationality"different rom
that of any othercapitalist. (If they had a differentrationalityor logic would
they even so be human?)The temptation acing those writingaboutpeasanteconomies is to search
for a criticaldistinctionbetweenpeasantenterprisesandcapitalistenterprises
in terms of an immanentcharacteristicof what is sometimes called theirrationalityor their mode of calculation.This poses serious difficulties if onlybecause the taskof identifyingthe differentrationalitiesof individuals s both
dauntingand most likely impossible. Such a distinction can never offer a
(1976). Not that Popkin's rampantindividualism offers the solution to all these problemseither. ...
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 6I5
reasonablemethod of classifying units of productionbecause it excludes a
priori hepossibilitythatout of a peasantsociety theremightemergecapitalistfarmers. Thus wherever rich peasants or small capitalists arise confusionabounds.In this essay a solution is adoptedwhich some mightlabel evasive:the distinctionbeing drawnis between types of agrarianstructureand rural
labourmarkets,not betweenenterprises.Thus the bricoleurcapitalismof rich
peasants s a featureof regionswith particular tructuresandmarkets,and is
not linkedto any immanentfeaturesof the producers hemselves.
V. STRUCTURAL CONCOMITANTS OF TH-E RISE OF CAPITALISED
FAMILY FARMS
There is little hope for the capitalisedfamily farm if the greatestates retain
their dominantposition; they must therefore enter into or be pushed into a
periodof decline, eitherby their internalcollapse or by an agrarianreform.Our researchin the Ecuadorianprovince of Carchi revealed an unexpected
process of this kind, for what is interestingand instructive about Carchi's
recenthistoryis that,when contrastedwith betterknownand morepublicisedagrarian eforms,the regionillustrates he consequencesof a redistribution fland in which the official apparatuschargedwith implementationof the re-
formplayed an indirect noninterventionist ole.The great estates of the province have essentially disintegratedunder the
weight of their own internal inanition. The whole highland region of the
provincealongthe callejo6 andino(Andean corridor)was once dominatedbythe HaciendaEl Vicundo, said to be the largestestate in Ecuador,but it was
dismembered n the 1930s. This dismembermentoccurredundertwo sets of
pressures,the death of an owner who left no direct heirs and the pressuresexerted by a local group, few of whom seem to have been in any sense
"indians," who claimedthat a portionof the estate's landsactually belonged
to an indigenouscommunity. Manyof those involved wereprobablymigrantsfrom over the border in Colombia. The pressureon the hacienda was in-
creasedby the interventionof thegovernment-at thattimerunby a reformist
militarygroup-itself pressedby people from the area.Finally,a largestretchof high, forested land was sold to a groupof purchasersat a cheap price andon concessionary terms. This was to become the Colonia Huaquena, re-nownedfor its potato production.At the time, the landseemed to be worth-
less, but when it was eventually cleared and planted, and above all whenfertilizerswere introduced n the 1950s, it turnedout to be extremelyfertile
andespecially suitablefor potato production.In Carchiprovinceas a whole,potatooutputhas multipliedseventeen times between 1961 and 1980, and theharvest of broad beans five times. During the 1960s and 1970s potatoesbecamealmost a monocropin the area, while barleyand wheat faded away,leaving only dairy cattle to compete with the tuberfor land. By 1980 even
very small producersreckoned to spend some U.S.$1,500 per hectare of
potato production in labour, chemical fertilizers, and (much abused)
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6I6 DAVID LEHMANN
pesticides. The potatohas, withoutdoubt, providedthe base for the rise and
expansion of a stratumof middling farmerswho now have displaced the
hacendadofamilies fromtheirpositionsof dominance n theprovince'shigh-landareas and can therefore no longer strictlybe called middling.
Anothersourceof pressureon the estatescame from theprospect,and laterthe reality, of agrarianreform in the early 1960s. Unlike the landlords of
Riobamba,who resisted or gave up only reluctantly,those in the northern
highlandsof the countryeitheractively co-operatedor took pre-emptiveac-tion. In the area of Cayambe, which lies between Carchi and Quito in thesame provinceas Quito, landownerswere quick to accept the reform,handover
marginalplotsto their
huasipungueros,or
dependentlabourers,and
concentrateand modernise their activities on dairy farming on the valleybottom. They in effect created a model of the involutedpath, and the pur-portedbeneficiaries of the reform have suffered as might be expected. Thebeneficiarieswere not helped by the government'srepressivemanipulation fthe reformin that area after the stirringsof unionismorganizedin the 1950s
by the CommunistParty(Salamea 1980). In Carchi,still further o the north,thegrass-rootspressurecame from what one mightcall the petitebourgeoisieof the townships, not from the dependentpeasantryon the estates. Artisans,
muleteers, barbers,carpenters,and even the supervisory employees of theestates themselves, both pressured he estates andoffered to pay for plots of
land. They obtained credit from banks for the purpose,and the owners, gladto be freed of the threat of government-imposedreform in a peaceful way,allowed easy repaymentterms. In some cases the owner was the Catholic
Church, in the shape of the local bishopric, or the Curia, as the peopledescribedit, which took a lead in making its land available to prospective
purchasers,though it was clearly not in the business of making outrightdonations. In other cases the owners were in any event losing interestin the
properties,buying elsewhere, or moving into professionalactivities in thecapitalcity, Quito. The outcome has been a redistribution f landfavourable
to the middlingfarmer-as our surveydatashow-but offeringvery little to
the formerhuasipungueros or whom the reformwas originallydesignedand
who have hardlyprotestedat all. The beneficiariesfirstorganizedthemselves
in co-operatives orthe purposeof buyingandpayingforthe land,butas soonas they had paid off the debt, or a sizeable portionthereof, they dividedthe
landinto private parcels, in which thereis now an active marketdespite the
often dubious legality of the title.5
5 This is the result of the unwillingness of the AgrarianReform Institute (charged with
implementinghe reform)to permitthe parcellisationof these lands. The initialdistributionwasto a cooperativebecause thisenabledpurchasers o obtaincertainexemptionsand also speededuptheprocedures.Unfortunately, t also restricts he purchasers' reedomof manoeuvre omewhat,but invariably hey proceedregardless,andthereare, as far as we could see, no disputesamongthemaboutlegal aspects of land tenure.
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 617
Oursurveycovered two areas,one theparishof Huaca,the otherEl Angel,comprisingthe parishes of San Isidro and La Libertad.The disintegrationfromwithin of the greatHaciendaEl Vicundo had its impactin Huaca,whilethe agrarian eform had its impactin El Angel at a laterdate. Our datafromthe cadastreshow thatbetween 1920 and 1980 the categoryof medium-size6
holdingsrose from 32.7 percentto 41.6 percentof units in the two parishesnear El Angel, that this category's sharein the total value of unitsrose from21.5 percent o 37.6 percent.Inthatperiod,theabsolutenumberof largeunitsrose from thirteen to twenty-seven, but they fell from 4.4 percent to 3.0
percentof units, and their share of value droppedfrom 70.4 percentto 58.4
percent.In Huaca the data are not
quiteso
striking;in the
distribution,the
share of both units and value in the medium-sizecategoryremainedalmost
unchanged,while the small-sizecategory,which rose only from58.3 percentto 60.0 percentof units, increased its share of the land from 15.5 percentto20.0 percent.The share held by large-size farmshas remainedmore or lessconstantat about 1 percentof units and 20 percentof land. Althoughit mayappearthat Huaca has not changed at all, these figures probablymask amassiveturnoverwithinthe mediumcategory.The absenceof immiserizationcanbe gaugedby comparing heratioof theaveragevalue of smallunits to the
averagevalue of medium units in 1920 and in 1980. An averagemedium-sizeunitwas worth 18 times as much as a smallone in 1920, butonly 4.6 times asmuch in 1980. In El Angel, where the data on landdistribution howed the
emergenceof a middling stratum so well, the data on values show only asmallchange in ratios:the mediumunits were worth on average5.1 times asmuchas the small ones in 1920, and 6.6 times as much in 1980.
Thepressure rombelow in thisregionhasnot come fromthepoorestof the
poor. Indeed, there is some evidence that the petite bourgeoisie displacedindigenous communities from their lands, later to emerge as "peasants"
needing and fromthe agrarian eform!By theearly 1980s, ecologicaldeterio-rationwas beginningto tell, the result of massivedeforestationandexcessive
one-cropconcentrationduringthe previoustwo decades. Those who had themeansto do so were shiftingout of potatocultivationbecauseof its enormousand increasingrisks from blight, unsuitableweather,highly volatile productprices, and soaringlabour,fertilizer,andpesticidecosts. They were shiftinginto dairy farming, which requiredfar less labourand offered a secure in-come, benefitting rombothsubsidizedcredit for thepurchaseof cattle and an
officially fixed price for milk-though it may be a mistaketo regardthese
subsidies as a permanentarrangement.Obviously, most farmerswere not
6 For the sake of simplicity we divided the strataof landownersas follows: small-up to 5hectares, medium-5-100 hectares, large-more than 100 hectares. Although this divisionwould be too crude for detailed cross-section analyses (as in the sharecroppinganalysis inLehmann 1986) where a muchmorecomplex criterion s used), suchsimplicityis a virtue whencomparingdataof variablequalityacross a long time period.
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6I8 DAVID LEHMANN
going to establishcapital-intensivedairyfarms,but it seemed that the agrarianstructurewould be dominatedby this type of unit, and this expectation usti-fied the descriptionof Carchi as in transition o a structuredominatedby theCFF.
The contrastbetweenthis agrarian eformand thoseannouncedandappliedwith morebombast n Chile andPeru, or indeed the same legislationapplied
differentlyelsewhere in Ecuador,merits at least a passingcomment. InChile
and Peru the beneficiariesdid not purchasedirectly from the landlords; n-
stead, governments mposed compulsorypurchaseand then createdproduc-tionco-operativeson the expropriated states. Theirmotives were several: to
preservehe economies of scale attributed o theestates;to save on thecost of
delimitingand fencing in large numbersof smallholdings; o maintainsome
sort of political control;and perhapsto see that the benefits of reformwere
equallydistributedamongthe beneficiaries. In bothcases the economic per-formanceof the expropriatedunits was disappointing(Lehmann1974; Kay1982). In Perutheoverwhelmingmajorityof the ruralpoorwere smallholders
who were left out of the landredistribution lthough n Chile theydid benefit
from a massiveexpansionof credit, technicalassistance,and social mobiliza-
tion. The eventual, indirect-and, it must be said, much debated-political
consequences in Chile were nothingless than the destructionof electoral
politicsby a vengefulandthreatenedmilitaryand theirallies, while in Peruit
is not entirely fanciful to suggest thatSendero Luminoso,with all its indi-
genist integralism, s a consequenceof the attemptby the militaryto impose
technologicalandmanagerial hangeby bureaucraticmeansduring he period1968-75. Finally, when all is said and done, these reformshave led to the
expansion of the rural petite bourgeoisie-a result that could have been
achieved just as easily with less bombast, less political risk, and for that
matter ess risk to human life.
Clearlythereis no pathof development n which all of today's "peasants"canbecometomorrow's"farmers";proletarianisationoes occur in the tran-
sition to a CFF system, albeit in forms differentfrom those observed in the
involuted path, and the existence of an agrarianstructurewith relatively
egalitariandistributionof landduringa particularperioddoes not imply that
in the generationsand decades leading up to that time no producerswere
marginalized,or thatno families lost their land. If anything hecontrary s the
case; the disappearance f the peasantrymay be far more radical n this case
thanin the involutedpath. In thatpath, the processof proletarianisationwas
observed in the growing dependenceof independentpeasantproducersonincome fromwage labour.Althoughthey preserved ome of theirindependentstatus,theirunderlyingpositionwas more andmore akinto thatof purewagelabourers.In the rise of the CFF, the fate of many peasantproducers s more
drastic; hey lose their landcompletelybecausecompetitionmakesit impossi-ble for marginal producersto survive. There are two sides to a dynamic
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 619
process-some prosper,while others are drivento the wall. In this case the
dynamismputs pressureon labour costs either directly or by reducingthe
periodbetween agriculturalcycles. This last forces the pace of mechaniza-tion, makingsurvival difficult and occasionally almost impossible for thosewho cannot affordadaptivenew technologies. A well-known case of this sortof process is thatof southernBrazil, especially the stateof Parana,where thecombined effect of frost and changing technologies has forced vast numbersof small coffee growers out of productionand indeed out of the region,sendingthem off to new areasin Amazoniaor to employment n the cities ofthe south(Lehmann 1982b:255-57). In the same regionthe establishmentofan annualcycle of soybean and wheat cultivation, with a rapidturnaround
betweenthe harvestof the one and the plantingof the other, has meantthatthose who cannot mechanize must sell out, because the turnarounds not
possible withoutmachinery.A second mechanism of proletarianisation,more violent, is the simple
expulsion by force of an autochthonouspopulationto make way for immi-
grantfarmers,as occurredin the ArgentineChaco between 1880 and 1911
(Carrera1981:242). There is some indicationof this in Carchi as well in the
disappearance f indigenouscommunal nstitutionsof land tenure n theearlydecades of this
century.VI. THE PROBLEM OF MOTIVATION IN FAMILY LABOUR: PERSONAL
DEPENDENCY AND PARTNERSHIP
As mentionedearlier, the CFF is a family farm in a much stricterand nar-
rower sense than is the peasant farm described above. It is a family farm
because it uses almost exclusively the labour of members of its owner's
nuclearfamily, and it is capitalistbecause it must deal with the priceof wagelabourandallocate resourcesaccordingly.But thereis more:where the peas-
ant household "socialises" commodity relations, the CFF commoditiseskinship relations. Where the one cheapens wage labourby persuadingthe
labourershatthey areperforminga serviceto a primarycommunityof which
theyform a part,the other retains oyaltyof the household membersby givingthem a quantifiablestake and proportionate ewards n a partnership.These
contrastingcharacteristicsare a concomitantof the different constraintsand
opportunitiesoffered by the agrarianstructureswithin which they exist.A strikingillustrationof the difference between areas where the CFF is
risingto a dominantpositionandthose where the involutedpatternprevailsis
to be found if we examine the usage of certain terms and the meaning ofcertainpracticesusually identified as peculiarlyAndean. We have seen howthe anthropologistsdescribe reciprocityin centraland southernPeru, and Ihave presentedan interpretation f that relationship n termsof its possibleinequalities.Needless to say, when we went to do our researchin the Ec-uadorianprovinceof Carchi we looked for these characteristicAndeanprac-
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620 DAVID LEHMANN
tises, andwe found an institutionknown as el diaprestado, borrowinga day'swork. This is a form of delayedandilliquid paymentfor a day's work, quitecommon in stereotypicalpeasanteconomies; but here it seemed to be ratherrare,and it did not seem to be embedded n a web of relationshipsof personaldependency.Third, it seemed that the advantage n the deal lay not with the
personwho delayedthe paymentof the day's work-since this usuallycon-stitutedonly a tiny proportion f his labourrequirements-but ratherwith theother person, who, by requestinga day's labour in paymentratherthan a
money wage, was securingfor himself a workerfor a date in the futurewhenthe labourmarketmightbe verytight. The readyacceptanceof a peon sent inlieu of the debtor himself--who
mightbe
busythat
day-illustratesthe
relativelyunimportantole of personaldependency n therelationship,as wellas its transitory haracter: nce the transactionhad been completedthat wasthe end of the story.
A similar contrastcan be found if we comparecommunal labour evies in
the Ecuadorianprovinceof Carchi with those describedfor Peru (see, for
example,Winder1978). InCarchithey are(confusingly)calledmink'a,whilein Peruthey are calledfaenas (literally, "tasks"). Now in Peru the impres-sion given is that underthe cover of comunidadorganisationa cliqueor cabal
of richerpeasantssucceed in havingwork carriedout which is of particularfnotexclusive benefitto themselves. An irrigation hannelhas to be cleanedor
built, a roadbuilt or repaired,or-above all-afiesta organisedwith all the
attendant itual and edible paraphernalia.The literature hows thatsuch ac-
tivities areof disproportionate,houghnot necessarilyexclusive, benefit to a
small minorityof comuneros(see, for example, the monographson various
communities n the ChancayValley, suchas Celestino 1972;Fuenzalidaet al.
1968;Grondin1978). InCarchi,in contrast,suchpublicworks areorganizednot by an independentcorporatecommunitybut by a cabildo, which is the
lowest rungof the administrativehierarchyof territorialunits into which thecountryis divided (ascending throughcantons, provinces, and the nation).The cabildo has no full-time officials. Its real effectiveness obviously varies
enormously,and it would be absurdto claim that its actions embody some
highidealof social equity. The crucialdifferencewithrespectto the Peruvian
model of a corporatecomunidad,of which there are plenty in Ecuadoras
well, is that it does not control land and only builds or repairs nstallations,such as roads or a church, which are clearly public goods. The cleaning of
irrigationditches or canals would be the business of the directbeneficiaries
andthecabildocertainlyhasnojurisdictionover land. Its activitiesaremostlyundertaken n conjunctionwith the state. Thus, if a small roadis to be built,the cabildo is committed to providingthe necessary labourfrom among itsmemberson a rotationbasis, while the stateprovidesthe materialsand ma-
chinery.Richerresidentsmightprovidea day's wage or some refreshmentn
lieu, but not necessarily. The practise in Carchi suggests that there is no
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 621
necessary conflict between the fulfilment of an individual's obligation
througha paid workerand the public benefit of the works in question.7The instinctive reactionof most observers s to takean extremelydim view
of suchdeals-wage labourundermininghe solidarityof the communityandall that. But it is equally plausibleto arguethat the monetisationand relative
anonymityof such obligationsgoes some way to preventthe rich fromtaking
advantageof positions of authoritywithin the community to use for their
personalenrichment he work of the poor.Now this can hardly be a question of the difference between Peru and
Ecuadoras countriesor states. Innumerable ommunidatdesn Ecuadorareno
doubt in the hands of small cabalswho use them toget
workdone onprojectsof personal nterestas if they wereof publicbenefit.Theessentialpointis that
these comunidad institutions are privately appropriated bove all where the
involutedpathis sustained,whererelationshipsof personaldependency playan importantpartin labourrecruitmentand penetrateand sustainthe "pub-lic" facade of communalinstitutions.
As againstthe "personalisationof commercial relations" which we have
pointedto in peasanteconomies and in the involutedpath, Carchi exhibits
whatmightbe termed the commercialisationof family relationships.Against
the authoritarian nd arbitraryexercise of paternal authoritythat seems toprevail in the Chayanovianmodel of peasanteconomy, the pictureoffered
hereis of a family farm in which certaindevices exist to matchthe returns o
individualmembersagainsttheircontributions.The women not only milkthe
cows; they also retain controlover the income from sale of the milk. Whensons leave school they do not work for freeon their fathers'land; rather, hey
sharecropwith him. In such an arrangement here would be a lot of cost
sharing,and, according o ourdata,the contractsbetweenfathersandsonsdidnotexhibitany systematicdifferencesas compared o those betweennonkin.
These were not exploitative relationships n the sense commonlyconnotedbythe idea of sharecropping Lehmann 1986). A similar grasp of a capitalist
concept of equity is observablein inheritance.Women have equal rightsto
boththeirparents'property,as stipulatedby Ecuadorianegislation,but notas
practised n areasof Ecuadorwhere the involutedpathprevails,where womenare at a clear disadvantagein inheritance.Not only is a woman entitled to
acquireher equal share of her parents' property,she also, like her husband,
passes mostof it on to herchildren,not to herspouse, at herdeath,or earlierif she likes. Before the readergains the impressionthat this is some sort of
7 It may be relevant n this contextto note that the Ecuadorian abildo, as the lowest level ofterritorialadministrativeunit, is an institutionthat does have some status in law. unlike thePeruviancomunidades,each of which has its own idiosyncraticmodus operandi, land tenure
provisions, and rotation of offices. It is not, therefore, an autochthonous nstitution;but then
manywould questionwhether the comunidad s autochthonous n any meaningfulsense, havingbeen createdor shaped by the Inca and the Spanishto serve their needs for tributeandtaxes in arole akin to that of a subcontractor.
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622 DAVID LEHMANN
feministvalhalla,or that I believe it is, this image of equality, or at least of
matchingbargainingpower,needs to be
qualified,for once the CFF is
fullydeveloped, thingsmaychangefor its women. If, as is common in the Andes,
they have tended the cattle (and kept the revenue therefrom)in a mixed
agriculturaland dairyunit, they may lose their exclusive controlover thosecattle when theirspouses switch into specialised dairy production.The insid-ious bourgeoisfamily takes over.
A further llustrationof these contrasts s to be found in a paperby Lourdes
Arizpewhich comparesthe process of migration rom two Mexicanvillagesthatappear o fit roughlyouropposedcategoriesof involuted and CFFpaths.In
bothvillages migration s in some sense a familyaffair,butwhereas,in theone, the parentskeep a tightcontrol over the urbanactivitiesof theirchildrenand the incometherefrom,andbringthem back to the village to work on the
family holding when the season requires, in the other, migrantsuse familyconnections to set themselves up independently,though loosely connected
with their kin via urbancommercial networks(Arizpe 1981:119-44).
By emphasisingthe commercialisationof kin and otherpersonalor multi-
strandedrelations thatseem to be a featureof agrarian tructuresdominated
by the CFF, andprobablyalso a condition of a transition o such a structure,
do not mean to say thatthey do not employ wage labour. What counts in thecontrast with involuted structures s the mechanismof recruitmentof that
labour. In the transition to a CFF-dominatedstructure he mechanistnwill
become graduallymore anonymousand impersonaland less permeatedby
relationshipsof personaldependency.A CFF system must often have recourse to seasonalwage labourbrought
from other regions-especially from those where the involuted path pre-vails-because the cost of locally recruited labouris too high. This raises
intriguingquestions:the CFFsystem may well contribute o a preservation r
intensificationof the conditions of involutionin those regionsby strengthen-ing a stratumof rich peasantswho act as labourcontractors,and who maylend the workers some money for the trip and other expenses. By offeringseasonalincomescomplementary o those obtainedfrom subsistencecultiva-
tion it also perpetuatesthe existence of a class of semiproletarians.This
observation hows us how the two pathscanbe related o eachother,and neednot be analysedonly in terms of endogenous processes in the regions where
they exist.
VII. FACILITATING, BUT CRUCIAL, ELEMENTS IN THE RISE OF THECFF: MIGRATION AND SHARECROPPING
There are two mechanisms that seem to play a particularly interesting-andwithout doubt unexpected-role in facilitating the transition from landlord
domination o a CFF system:migrationand sharecropping. n contrast o the
patternof migrationdescribedearlierfor areas characterisedby the involuted
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TWO PATHS OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM 623
path,the transition o a CFFsystemis facilitated f the migration romtheareais not only
quantitativelyhigh, but also qualitativelydifferent;it should be
permanent ather hantemporary,and it should be linkedwithupwardmobili-
ty, thus relieving pressureon the land market.A strikingfeatureof the datawe collected in Carchi is the contrastbetween the migrationpatternobservedthereand that describedearlier as characteristic f involuted areas. Ourstudyshows thatpeople from Carchihave a very strong propensityto migrateandalso that they tend not to return.We carriedout a survey of 100 owners of
land andinquiredabout the occupationof theiroffspring. Amongthe children
who lived elsewhere, almostexclusively in cities, the most frequentoccupa-tion was education:
theywere
attending secondaryschool in
Quitoor the
capital of the neighbouring province, Ibarra.This is not exceptional. The
poverty-strickencomunidadesof southern Peru also send children away to
study, beginningat primary-school evel, becauseof the inadequacyof local
provision.Butthechildrenwho are sent from thesecomunidadeshaveto earntheirway throughschool, by workingfor a relative, for example. The chil-dren fromCarchiare fortunate n the qualityof local primaryeducation,andthere is a very high rate of attendanceat that level (more than 70 percentof
childrenaged six to twelve attendschool); and when these childrengo to a
city to attendsecondaryschool theirparentspay their board and lodging, sothey have plenty of time to studyor, unfortunately, o dissipate. These chil-dren will not return to the countryside, nor are they expected to; on the
contrary,the secure establishmentof theiroffspringin an urbancalling is atremendous ource of prideforparents,andit is notonly the wealthywho are
prepared o spend vast sums to set their children on what they consider the
rightpath. When it comes to inheritance,these children will sell out to theheirs who have remained n the countryside. Obviously, this patternrelieves
pressureon the land. This outcome is favouredby a systemof land tenure hat
conforms to Ecuador'snational aws andnot to local custom, or to the manip-ulations of communityleaders as is often the case elsewhere. The system ofinheritancedecrees and obtains equal shares for male and female heirs andleaves to the parents hardly any say as to how their possessions will be
dispersedupondeath. This is importantbecause, as Sanchez's workshows forcertainpartsof Peru, and as might indeedbe learntfromthe agrarianhistoryof Ireland, nsecureor uncertain nheritanceprospectsdelay the age at whichthe next generationcan participate n the land market and make productiveinvestments.
The more transparent, ess opaque (Starobinski 1958) relationshipsbe-tween generations in Carchi are reflected in other more indirect and less
tangiblemechanismsof transmissionof wealth. As I try to show in anotherarticle(1986 forthcoming),sharecroppings a practise hatenables childrenoflandowners o participaten the land market ong beforeinheritingand, if theyareluckyandshrewd,to buildup substantialholdingsof land. One reason for
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624 DAVID LEHMANN
this is thatthey caneithersharecropwiththeir fathersor mothers,or theycan
sharecropwith others with the backingof theirparentsor other relatives. In
this way small- and medium-sized landownerscan rent land to these youngpeople, andeven advance the sharecroppers' hare of costs, without fear of
beingunableto recoupany losses. Ultimately,as oursurveyshows, inheritedland will makeup a tiny fraction of landowned by established farmers.I donot thinkthatthis would be the case in an area characterisedby the involuted
pathand its frozen land markets.
These sharecroppingarrangementsnvolve complex cost-sharingarrange-ments subject to negotiationand contractscovering one sowing only; theyinvolve
peopleof
roughlysimilar social
status,althoughhereis a
systematictendencyfor the ownerof the landto be betteroff than the sharecropper, ndthereis a systematic tendencyalso for those who rentin to be youngerthanthose who rent out. The conclusion from this analysis is that sharecroppingcan stimulate rather than impede commercialisation because cost-sharing
sharecroppingontractsrequirecareful calculationof inputcosts. Itmayevenbe that such practicesreinforcewhatone mightcall the capitalistcalculation
mentality(Lehmann 1986).In the final analysis, the question is whether these stories from Carchi
constituteanexception, the productof a rareandnonrepeatableoncatenationof circumstances,or whetherthey are an exampleof processesthat aregoingon in manyplacesbut that thepessimismwhich is frequentlya hallmarkof the
studyof developmenthas found it convenientto ignore. To say this is not to
denythat the involutedpath, with all its blockedchannels,exists; rather, t is
to express what some would regardas a naive faith in the entrepreneurial
capacitiesof poorruralproducers n poorcountries.It is also to say that the
fate of the peasantry s not merely dictated to them by the world capitalist
system or the exploiting classes and officialdom that run the countries in
whichthey live, but is also to some extent theirown creation.The problem sideological:if we areopposedto capitalismarewe thereforecommitted o the
view thatit impoverishesall of the poor, the saltof the earth?Are we thereby
precluded romallowingthe salt of the earthto becomecapitalists oo'?These
may, atone level, be ideologicalproblems,butwho is to say thatthe ideologi-cal attitudes hatunderlie our theoreticalpositionsare to be forever inscribedin tabletsof stone? That is why we do social research.
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