Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 104)

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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 104)

المحتوى

The tax farmer would oppress the peasant
without fear of punishment or inspection; he
Squeezed from the Faliah a much higher tax-rate
than the fixed tenth, either by arbitrarily rating
a higher price for his crops, or when receiving the
tithe (ushur) in kind, by forcing the peasant to
give him the wheat at a rate lower than the market
price. If the peasant refused to yield to these
demands, the tax-farmer could employ any of the
following means against him. He could deprive a
peasant of the necessary quantity of grain requireé
to sow his field for the next year,; or impose on
him heavy fines, or even subject him to corporal
punishment (Ma'toz, 1968: 160).
Many peasants, in the process, became heavily indebted to the new
owners and were eventually forced to flee the land and seek
subsistence somewhere else (14). This happened in the Marj, where the
heavy taxation imposed on them by the Sursuks led to many abandoning
their land and leaving the region. According to Owen, even when the
Sursuks brought in other dispossessed peasants, settling them on the
land and providing them with cash advances, they were not able to
succeed. This effort failed and the new peasants, who were eventually
ruined, had also deserted the land (Owen,1981). Resorting to a share-
cropping system, Owen observed, was the most profitable choice for the
Sursuks. A similar argument regarding the Rothschilds enterprise in
the Maritime Plain is provided by Gozansky (Gozansky,1986).
Changes in Pre-Capitalist Relations of Production
Share~cropping, which in the late 19th century became widespread in
Palestine, was not, as some authors maintained, incompatible with
capitalism (Gozansky, 1986; Saed, 1985). On the contrary, this system
provided a strong indication that changes in production relations were
developing. Share-cropping, as Marx maintains, is a transitory form of
production relation which marks the transformation of pre-capitalism
30
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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation

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Nahla Abdo-Zubi

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