The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 294)

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 294)

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278
world and with a density of population comparable with that of India
is not afflicted with the problem [of unemployment or “surplus
labor”). The growth of population obviously plays a part in the
formation of a proletariat but it is the social processes whereby large
sections of the community are separated from their means of
production that is the decisive factor.*
Then there was Carmi and Rosenfeld’s assertion that the peasant was “free
from work on the land for at least half the year,” which was part of an “agrarian
regime that provided limited opportunities.” In essence, what they are saying is
that there was an abundance of “surplus labor” in a sector that was stagnant.
Although W.A. Lewis was not mentioned, we are dealing with the same meaning
of the concept “surplus labor” in which a portion of the labor force, characterized
by “zero marginal product,” could be taken out of agriculture without a reduction
in the total product. As noted in Chapter 1, this has been shown to be ahistorical
and empirically inaccurate in the case of the former Rhodesia.*°
In addition, the use of concepts like “surplus labor” shows a lack of
understanding of the nature of agricultural economies and thus the superimposition
of notions derived from neoclassical economy theory. Perhaps these concepts,
which are
appropriate to a modern industrial economy, are not really
applicable. Particularly for the unpaid family labor that accounts for
most of the rural workforce, there is no institutionally determined
Geoffrey Kay, Development and Underdevelopment: A Marxist Analysis
(London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1975), 154-5.
Giovanni Arrighi, “Labor Supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of the
Proletarianization of the African Peasantry in Rhodesia,” Journal of Development
Studies 6, no. 3 (1970): 197-234.
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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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