Two Paths of Agrarian Capitalism, or a Critique of Chayanovian Marxism

Abstract

In the ideology of “dependency” and the “world system” the preservation of a comprador bourgeoisie highly dependent on its control of the state apparatus perpetuates the condition of underdevelopment to the benefit not only of that class but also of the world capitalist system, and obviously to the detriment of the remainder of the population of poor countries (Wallerstein 1984). According to these theories, the condition of dependency is sustained also by the perpetuation of petty-commodity production and other precapitalist relationships. In his enumeration of the implications of accumulation in “socially and sectorally disarticulated economies” (that is, third world countries), Alain de Janvry, who places himself, with some reservations, in the world-system school, states that “subsistence agriculture becomes the ultimate embodiment of the contradictions of accumulation in the disarticulated economies; … the peasant household constitutes an articulated-dominated purveyor of cheap labour and cheap food [even though] subsistence agriculture slowly disintegrates under this domination as it performs its essential structural function under disarticulated accumulation” (1981:39). For Immanuel Wallerstein, the state-class relationship and the persistence of pettycommodity production are both features of the “peripheral condition” and explain why it is so difficult (though not absolutely impossible) in his schema for countries to graduate from his periphery and semiperiphery to the core of advanced economies. The argument runs as follows: in its expansion across the globe the capitalist world economy creates social structures and state structures that fit the needs of the core economies by establishing a ruling class in control of the state and holding monopoly power within the national economy.