The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 309)

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عنوان

The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 309)

المحتوى

293
development of other agricultural societies, which is by now well established in the
economic development literature. Second, and related to the first implication, is
that those developments in the Palestinian economy “preceded” Jewish European
settlement, a fact that undermines the argument that growth and change were made
possible only as a result of that settlement.
In the Mandate period, we start to witness major quantitative and qualitative
differences in taxation, debt, and land tenure. In taxation, the Mandate government
pursued contradictory policies. It reduced the tithe rate and abolished tax farming,
and, on the other hand, it issued the Commutation of the Tithe Ordinance and
required the tithe to be paid in cash; the effect of the latter two measures more
than offsetting the benefits of the first two.
The imposition of cash taxes in addition to years of bad harvests and falling
prices drove the peasants to increased borrowing from and dependence on
moneylenders. Cash taxes meant that peasants were now more intensively
integrated into market relations. Falling prices meant an increase in the surplus
appropriated from peasants, as they had to now give up a greater portion of their
output to pay taxes and debt. The burden of all agricultural taxes increased as
compared to the pre-Mandate period. The increase in debt ultimately led to many
peasants losing their land or parts thereof.
The replacement of the tithe and werko by the Rural Property Tax in 1935
helped to alleviate the tax burden, but it was too late for peasants who already lost
part or all of their land before then, as pressure mounted on them with the
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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

تاريخ

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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