The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 284)

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 284)

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268
Unlike the case of capitalists, and as discussed below, that of agricultural
laborers, the 1931 Census did not provide a breakdown of the remaining
agricultural population primarily involved in extensive cereal production. Thus, it
was not possible to fit them as neatly in Patnaik’s categories. However, we can
definitely classify them in a more general and schematic manner. For this, I draw
primarily on the Johnson-Crosbie Report™ but also on the 1936 survey of 322
villages and the 1944 survey of five villages.
As already noted, the size of a holding, in itself, is insufficient to classify
the class position of the holder or to determine the ability to derive a living from
it. The nature of the holding and access to other resources need to be considered.
For example, in the Johnson-Crosbie Report, only half of the owner-occupiers who
owned between one and two feddans could live off the land without having to
supplement their income by hiring out. However, in general, there is a positive
correlation between size of holding and class position, or with ability to live off the
holding.” This was true in Palestine as with all other primarily agricultural
economies. This was even truer for the villages surveyed in the Johnson-Crosbie
It was noted that the Johnson-Crosbie Report had problems with calculations
of debt and income, and so on, but it is its classifications of households’ income
that is important for our purposes here; see Kamen, 246-52.
Official estimates of the “lot viable” defined as “the holding necessary to
support its occupants in a reasonable standard of living” varied widely: 100 to 150
dunums; 240 to 320 dunums; 400 dunums for the Beersheba region; and 400 to 600
dunums for hill areas; for irrigated citrus and bananas, 10 to 20 dunums. See
Hope-Simpson Report, 61-4; Government of Palestine, Palestine Royal
Commission, Minutes of Evidence (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1937),
42.
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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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