Peasants

The Term Peasant is imprecise, but it has much historical significance. It could hardly be otherwise when the defining characteristic of the modern [Page 1349]economy has been the gradual transformation of a world dominated by peasants and landlords (of various kinds) into a world dominated by waged labor and capitalists (of various kinds).

The contradictions within the modern project—a project predicated on the expansion and control of national territories and resources, on urban industrial development as the hallmark of progress, and on the construction of certain kinds of citizens—have turned peasants into a contradictory group, both theoretically and in practice. Throughout the modern period they have been alternately seen as backward, ignorant throwbacks to a primitive period (even today, the second definition of peasant in most English language dictionaries is buffoon or simpleton) or as independent, communitarian stalwarts of a more socially just and humane period.

In 1776 Adam Smith bemoaned the loss of the small farmer trained in all the various tasks of the farm, but he believed that peasants would not be able to withstand the competitive advantages of scale reaped by a greater division of labor on large farms. This argument would carry important political and policy weight in the post–World War II development period when industrial development was predicated on the incorporation of “underemployed” rural producers.

A hundred years after Smith, an influential Marxist argument suggested that smallholders were inherently allies of the propertied classes but that as differentiation occurred (the transition to wage labor), small farmers would become proletariats on their own land and would align with the urban worker. Another populist argument suggested that small-scale agricultural (and industrial) production was the best way to guard against the evils of largescale capitalism. A final argument, rhetorically embodied by Thomas Jefferson but captured in many other countries where territorial settlement figured prominently, such as Brazil and Mexico, suggested that national development would be propelled forward by the small farmer, an independent, hardworking class of subsistence providers who would civilize (and in some cases whiten) the land in the interests of national development and control.

The peasantry as a class became the subject of heated academic debate in the 1960s and 70s when they were rediscovered as active political subjects playing major roles in national liberation struggles from Vietnam to China. One problem inherent in the discussion of the peasantry was the conceptual difficulty of defining exactly who or what was a peasant.

Without reaching a definitive conclusion, peasants are usually defined as agricultural producers who are primarily organized as a family unit geared toward subsistence and characterized by partial, subordinate integration into relatively incomplete markets. Although the generalizing term “peasant” has been disputed, it is still used by peasant activists and by academics attempting to lend analytical or representational coherence to the group.

Interest in the peasantry in the 1960s and 70s paved the way for research analyzing their “moral economy,” the circumstances under which peasants would rebel, the political affinities of rural producers, the relationship between the peasantry and the modern nation state, and more. Debates continue about the nature of the relationship between peasants and production, between peasants and political systems, between peasants and the household, and between peasants and the greater society.

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