Peasants

The term peasant generally refers to anyone who cultivates the soil as a small landholder or an agricultural laborer. Originally, the peasantry referred to a class of people within the feudal systems of Europe who tilled the land and provided manual labor for a feudal estate. During the Middle Ages and as late as the 18th century, peasants constituted between 80% and 90% of the population in Europe and occupied the bottom rung of the social hierarchy. Peasants bore heavy rent, tax, and tithe burdens, and in some regions (particularly Eastern Europe and Russia) they were legally bound to a particular manor or landlord who ruled over virtually every aspect of their lives. Legally bound peasants were known as serfs. In some places such as Russia, serfs lived in virtual slavery because landowners could legally transfer them from one estate to another at will. Even where peasants were free—in Britain, northern Italy, Spain, most of France, and western Germany—their burdens and obligations were onerous and their living conditions were dismal. Peasants were required to work for their lords and pay a significant portion of their crops as rent in exchange for the right to cultivate their own pieces of land. Often they were also expected to provide free labor and to tithe (donate) 10% of their harvest to the Church. Producing enough food to feed their families under these conditions was a constant and uncertain struggle, and most peasants lived desperate impoverished lives.

More recently, social scientists have used the term peasants to refer to a broad range of groups engaged in subsistence-based or small-scale agriculture in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America, including small land-owning farmers, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and landless agricultural laborers, who form the main agricultural labor force in a region. Some scholars argue that the term should refer only to those engaged in agriculture, whereas others argue that other groups such as rural artisans, traders, foresters, and fishermen should be considered members of the peasantry because many farmers also engage in these activities. There is also considerable debate about whether or not small-scale commercial farmers and landless agricultural laborers should be included in definitions of peasants. Most scholars agree, however, that nomadic and seminomadic pastoralists should not be included as such.

These debates surrounding the definition of peasant reflect the considerable diversity that exists in agricultural production systems both across world regions and historically and that has made establishing a precise definition of peasant so difficult. Furthermore, so-called modern-day peasants often do not refer to themselves as such, preferring instead identities such as farmers and agricultural workers. As a result, some scholars avoid using the term at all.

Despite these debates, consensus does exist on some basic features of peasant economies and societies. In general, peasant economies are characterized by a simple technology and a division of labor based on age and sex. The basic unit of production is the household. Peasant households have access to relatively small plots of land that they farm with their own labor, draught animals, and nonmechanized equipment. Production is small in scale; output per worker is relatively low, and peasant families generally consume what they produce. However, a portion of their output may be sold in the market or paid to a landlord. In fact, the extraction or transfer of surplus production, either freely or coercively, to dominant nonproducing rulers is a key tenet underlying classic definitions of peasant.

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