A discussion of production conditions among the peasantry
Salles, V.A.
Estudios Sociologicos 2(4): 105-134
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0185-4186 PMID: 12266530 Document Number: 406561
The immediate goal of rural production is to satisfy the consumption needs of the peasantry. The peasant enters the market either to acquire goods which he does not produce or to sell his goods or labor. In either case the peasant is forced to sell part of his product, thereby converting it into merchanise; this exchange represents an interaction between the peasant econmy and the capitalist system. In order to overcome the unfavorable conditions of this exchange, the peasantry has had to adopt a variety of strategies, such as intensifying family labor, diversifying the work, working outside its own land, or specializing in certain activites. It is by carrying out a wide range of activities that peasant families survive within a broader socioeconomic context. A number of macrosocial factors serve to control access to the land and other means of production; these in turn influence agricultural output and the peasants' economic behavior. These factors are: the delimitation of the rural area, the indispensable nature of land and its products, the inability to produce land, and the monopoly exercised by landowners. The peasantry is therefore forced to organize its agricultural production within the constraints imposed by the amount and quality of the available land. In addition, peasant agriculture is conditioned by the available labor (e.g.., the family) and by crop cycles and seasonal changes. Productivity will therefore vary widely vary widely from 1 farmer to the next. Prices, however, are established by the capitalist sector; this results in the pauperization of the peasantry who cannot compete in their market. Empirical data from Mexico show a 4-fold variation in agricultural output per unit of land. Peasants, who have the worst land and lack the technology to improve productivity, are at a disadvantage. Because the agricultural yield is often not enough to insure the survival of the domestic unit, peasant familirs diversify their work and either perform a variety of non-monetary activities or sell their work or goods on the market. In the latter case, they are doubly exploited, as pauperized farmers and as cheap labor.