Peasant Economies

Although largely a feature of traditional societies, peasant economies continue to play a role in the global economic structure. Peasant economies are defined by their rural character, their center on the household as the basic unit of production, household dependence on family labor in agriculture as the primary source of income, and a system of economic welfare based on control of land use as opposed to monetary income. Traditional peasant economies in developed nations were gradually replaced by the rise of individual family farms and later by large-scale mechanized agribusinesses that relied on hired wage labor. Socialist societies such as the Soviet Union and China have sought to collectivize their traditional peasant economies. More recently, developed nations have introduced a variety of international programs designed to modernize or eliminate peasant economies in developing nations.

The household population within a peasant economy is the chief determinant of the household economy, generally ensuring high birth rates. Another traditional characteristic of peasant economies is their basis in subsistence agriculture and the desire to minimize physical labor, growing enough to meet the family's consumption needs as opposed to those mechanized agribusinesses that produce for the commercial marketplace. Most peasant economies, however, are not purely subsistence, with many farmers producing small amounts of goods for the market. They also frequently share [Page 1308]cultivation rights to communal village lands and share harvests in times of shortage or need.

The term peasant can be variously defined to include entire societies, groups within societies, or individuals. Definitions of peasants also vary, including landowners, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, or even landless peasants as well as those who either are or are not bound to the land. The classic definition centers on those who practice sedentary agriculture and who fall under the class of aristocracy or large landowners. Economists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars have pursued various schools of thought based on the study of peasant economics. The theory of moral economy stated that peasant economies were generally conservative and resistant to agricultural commercialization and the rise of global agribusiness as challenges to their traditional belief systems and very survival.

One of the leading theorists on peasant economies in Russia and beyond was early 20th-century Russian economist Alexander Chayanov. Chayanov argued that peasant economies could not be understood through the lens of classical economics, such as profit maximization or ownership of the means of production and that peasant labor could not be evaluated in monetary terms. Rather, he determined that peasant households based their labor decisions on the family and the balance between the benefits and negatives of increased production. Chayanov faced Soviet arrest and was executed in 1939 for his ideas, which had little impact outside the Soviet Union at the time. Most theorists continued to view peasant economies through the lens of commercial business, which neglects the fact that subsistence and minimal labor expenditure rather than maximization of profits is the goal.

Throughout much of history, the peasantry comprised the largest group in most nations, even after the industrial revolution of the 19th century. Many early peasants were bound to the land and its owner through systems such as serfdom. These early agricultural peasant economies gradually shifted to an emphasis on individual family-owned farms beginning in the 16th century. Other countries, such as the United States and Australia, lacked a peasant economy from their inception.

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