Rent, Differentiation, and the Development of Capitalism among Peasants

Transcription

1 Rent, Differentiation, and the Development of Capitalism among Peasants WILLIAM ROSEBERRY University of Connecticut This essay examines some processual implications of the incorporation of peasant production within the capitalist economic system. It contends that rent, the primary means by which nonpeasants appropriate the surplus product of peasants, is an inefficient method of appropriation. The implications of that inefficiency for differentiation and capitalist development within peasant communities are then examined. THE TITLE of a recent article by George Dalton (1974) asks an important question for social scientists interested in peasants: HOW exactly are peasants exploited? The article itself points to two meanings of exploitation: (1) to be ill-used, badly treated, gouged, oppressed, treated harshly, which Dalton rightly dismisses as unspecific (1974:555); and (2) coerced payments (1974:556). Dalton then claims that exploitation does not refer to anything unique about peasants since peasants are exploited in various economic systems (e.g., capitalist, communist,, etc.) and since other (e.g., tribal) groups are exploited. Furthermore, he feels that the term does not allow us to distinguish between peasants and capitalist farmers and does not take into account subjective feelings of the peasants. He concludes, No one calls exploitation that which he likes or approves of. I think that exploitation and surplus are prejudicial words used by some social scientists (perhaps unintentionally) to condemn only those systems of social stratification they dislike and disapprove of... [ 1974: Thus it is apparent that Dalton is less interested in how peasants are exploited than whether they are, whether that exploitation is significant, and finally, whether objective social scientists should talk about it. In this essay I do not use the word exploitation to characterize social systems I either like or dislike. Our approval or disapproval of social systems is not so important; what is important is our analysis of them. Some concepts which may offend our romantic sensibilities or political beliefs may be necessary for an adequate analysis of particular systems. I will use the word exploitation to refer to the appropriation by nonproducers of a portion of the total product of direct producers, This appropriation is of course necessary for the operation of many modes of production with which we are familiar; exploitation would therefore be a basis for them. Coerced payments, then, is not a definition of exploitation; it is simply one of many forms exploitation may take. In a particular mode of production the appropriation of a portion of the product will follow certain patterns which can be objectively analyzed. We must be specific about the various forms, the social systems they correspond to, and their implications. Thus the crucial aspect of any group (e.g., Submitted for publication November Accepted for publication September

2 46 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [ 78,1976 peasants) for the social scientist is not the fact that they are exploited but rather the manner in which they are exploited.2 This essay examines the question Dalton originally asked: HOW exactly are peasants exploited? Its approach differs from Dalton s in two important respects. (1) Rather than a particularistic approach which proposes empirical typologies based on the classification of numerous forms and institutions (cf. Dalton 1972), it first isolates structural relationships which are generally operative in peasant groups. Once relationships unique to peasant society have been found, they can be applied to the diverse forms we observe, explaining the potential of particular peasant groups and of the societies of which they are a part. (2) Rather than ignoring the problem of rent, which is the principal form exploitation takes in peasant systems, this essay places its analytical emphasis on it (cf. Wolf 1966, 1972).3 Finally, I am working from a Marxist perspective, the justification for which would have to be the subject of another essay. Let me simply note that I agree with Godelier s (1972) contention that Marxist concepts, purged of dogmatism, can illuminate anthropological data, go beyond current conceptualizations, and solve a series of traditional anthropological problems. Hopefully this essay, which uses Marxist concepts to analyze some traditional peasant literature, will demonstrate at least a part of that potential. The reader should be cautioned, however, against the uncritical use of such concepts, heeding the warning of Lenin (1964:33): Of course, infinitely diverse combinations of elements of this or that type of capitalist evolution are possible, and only hopeless pedants could set about solving the peculiar and complex problems arising merely by quoting this or that opinion of Marx about a different historical epoch. CONCEPTUALIZING PEASANTS Anthropologists have been interested in peasants for over 20 years, although we have seldom been explicit about the conceptual issues involved in the study of them and have seldom offered much reason for studying them other than the fact that they are numerous and accessible to graduate students. Nor have we seriously examined the classical nonanthropological literature on peasants, an examination which would positively affect the status of our concepts (cf. Shanin 1971b). Among the various definitions of peasants, two characteristics have found wide acceptance: (1) the importance of the family labor unit, with some degree of control over the means of production (e.g., land, tools, draft animals, seeds, etc.); and (2) participation, through a series of rights and obligations, in a larger (nonpeasanl) economic system. This definition suffers two related problems. (1) It ignores differentiation within the peasant community. The emphasis on the family labor unit implies homogeneous productive units, seldom empirically demonstrated, which somehow relate with one another and participate within a larger system (i.e., they are not isolated). The conceptualization of homogeneous units which are not self-sufficient and are therefore subsumed within a larger system implies, to a certain extent, a contradiction which is not readily resolved by the definition. (2) It is a static definition. While it is true that peasants participate within larger economic systems, that participation is not limited to the simple domination of peasant communities by the larger system. Given the dynamics both of peasant groups and of the larger economic system, peasants are everywhere becomiq nonpeasants. In addition to differentiation within peasant communities, such groups have complex and changing relationships with the larger system. For example, particular peasants may spend a significant portion of the year engaged in wage labor in both agricultural and nonagricultural sectors, perhaps travelling great distances to do so. Even so, a portion of the peasant family, and the entire family for part of the year, may be engaged in subsistence agriculture. Are such persons to be defined as a rural proletariat or as peasants?

3 Roseberry] RENT, DIFFERENTIATION, CAPITALISM 47 Lenin claims (1964:197): Life creates forms that unite in themselves with remarkable gradualness systems of economy whose basic features constitute opposites. It becomes impossible to say where labour-service ends and where capitalism begins. Our object of analysis is the complex social relations characteristic of particular social formations and the process of their transition. While those forms, in their transition, appear with remarkable gradualncss, it is nevertheless necessary to abstract certain basic features of the component elements of the formation itself. Defining peasants is therefore useful, although the definition in its pure form has an increasingly narrow empirical base, if indeed it has one at all. We can define peasants as persons who, owning or controlling land and resources, produce primarily agricultural crops for their own ~ubsistence,~ but who also produce a surplus product, a portion of which is appropriated, directly or indirectly, by representatives of a larger economic system. Such a definition is only useful, however, for the abstraction of certain structural principles (i.e., it should not be used simply for empirical classification). Theoretical and empirical analyses of peasants must examine those principles in relation to the larger (nonpeasant) system(s) which incorporate and/or transform peasant communities. The surplus product produced by peasants and appropriated by the larger system most often takes the form of agricultural commodities which are ultimately sold on the world market (i.e., within the capitalist economic system ). The fact that peasants produce commodities which are processed and circulated within the capitalist system means that precapitalist and capitalist modes of production are interconnected in ways which affect both modes. The incorporation of noncapitalist modes of production within the capitalist economic system, a phenomenon characteristic of underdeveloped economies, continues for a variety of reasons. Lenin talks of a period in which corvke economy is being undermined but in which capitalism has not yet fully developed. In other words, while capitalism is developing within a particular country, it may not have developed sufficiently to transform the precapitalist forms within the country. According to Lenin, the uneven development of capitalism may produce a situation in which the fully capitalist sector, instead of expanding and developing within that particular country, expands into other countries, leaving modes of production within the original country which are undermined but not transformed. Nevertheless, while the precapitalist form is maintained, its basis will have been altered; it will be producing commodities for the newly developed capitalist system. We are thus faced with a system in transition, in which the mode of production is neither completely precapitalist nor capitalist (Lenin 1964: ).6 In addition to empirical situations where the noncapitalist forms are simply examples of a process of transition which has not been completed, the maintenance of the capitalist system may depend upon the existence and incorporation of noncapitalist forms, even when the expansion of that system-or of parts of it-tends to destroy those forms (cf. Luxemburg 1968). Here it is necessary to understand some basic aspects of underdeveloped capitalist economies and of peasznt production. The orientation of underdeveloped economies toward the export of a few primary products gives those economies certain features not characteristic of developed capitalist countries. Underdeveloped countries seldom have much influence in determining terms of trade. The international market on which the primary products are sold is unstable; yet production cannot readily respond to the forces of that market. For example, coffee will take two to six years from planting to the full harvest. Coffee trees will then produce for more than 25 years. The production of coffee is therefore fixed in such a way that it cannot respond to fluctuations in market price; investment in coffee production involves major risks. The fact that peasant families own or control land and other factors of production means that they will absorb some of the risks of production. In addition to coffee they may plant subsistence crops so that their consumption needs will

4 48 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [ 78,1976 be at least partially met whether the coffee produces a cash return or not. Therefore, where the primary products produced for export are agricultural, peasant production may be more rational than would be capitalist production. The buyers of peasant produce thus trade increasing productivity per man-hour for the lessened risks of investment. We may say that the marginality of land and the poor technology are here a function of the speculative market (Wolf 1955:464; emphasis in original). Closely related to this, Chayanov points to different reckonings of profitability in capitalist and peasant systems. The capitalist depends upon a certain rate of profit; a peasant reckons on the basis of a satisfaction/drudgery equilibrium. In areas where productivity is marginal, the peasant might find it profitable to invest while the capitalist might not. In other words, the peasant might, through labor intensification, etc., reach a depressed equilibrium and still have some produce left over for rent, where the capitalist farmer could not invest, pay an average wage, and still extract an average profit (Chayanov 1966:237, 238). Since the peasant family follows different criteria in making production decisions, then, it may engage in productive activities in what would normally be considered marginal areas. Related to all of these considerations is the fact that peasants, by producing their own subsistence, absorb their own labor costs. This absolves capitalist investors in areas or commodities which may only require a seasonal wage labor force from the responsibility of supporting that labor force throughout the year (cf. Meillassoux 1972; Wolpe 1973). We therefore see that within the capitalist economic system certain commodities are circulated which are not produced within the capitalist mode of production (particularly tropical agricultural products, cf. Laclau 1971 for the distinction between economic system and mode of production ). The consequent dynamics of the economic system and of the peasant areas it incorporates pose significant problems, particularly for those of us who study peasants. The problem is especially crucial in analyzing the specific relationships, or articulation, between the peasant units and the larger system. I agree with Berthoud (1 9 72: 11 8) : Unquestionably, the main problem faced today by anthropologists, who study marginal areas and their relation to the leading centers of capitalistic development, is to conceptualize various form of articulation of an internationally dominant capitalist mode of production (and correspondent juridical, political, and ideological domains) with non-capitalist modes of production. The analytical problems posed by this articulation are both methodological and conceptual. Because the methodological problem, while complex, can be at least partially resolved by proper conceptualization, it will be mentioned first. Simply stated, how does the social scientist analyze the manner in which a discrete unit produces and reproduces its social life without being blinded to the operation of the larger political and economic system which influences that discrete unit (and to which the analyst cannot build by incorporating ever larger units)? On the other hand, how can we analyze the larger system without getting hopelessly mired in units beyond our methodological control, and how do we say anything sensible about those discrete units by analyzing the larger system? Of course this is an old and unresolved problem and has been with anthropologists since we moved beyond the study of primitives into communityy7 studies (cf. Redfield 1955, 1956; Steward et al. 1956; Manners 1957). In attempting to conceptualize the issues involved here I will accept Galeski s concept of subsumption (1972: 22) : In economic terminology there is a well-known term, subsumption, which signifies the subordination of some forms of economic activity in the economic system to principles determining the functioning of the economy as a whole. The peasant farm, under the conditions of the capitalistic order, is usually cited as an example of a subsumed system. This implies that (1) the peasant farm lacks the basic characteristics of a capitalist enterprise, (2) changes in the mode of peasant farming are determined by the laws

5 Roseberry] RENT, DXFFERENTIATION, CAPITALXSM 49 governing the functioning of the capitalistic system as a whole, and (3) the peasant farm is acquiring certain features specific to the capitalist enterprise. The crucial aspects of Galeski s definition are (1) and (3). The peasant farm differs from the capitalist enterprise primarily in that the former is not based on wage labor. While some peasants may occasionally engage in wage labor and others may hire labor, peasants for the most part control their own productive activities by owning or controlling land and/or other factors of production. This control of means of production by the direct producer is not a characteristic of wage labor. Furthermore, the peasant farm, even while producing commodities for a world market, is primarily concerned with subsistence production (cf. Stavenhagen 1970:241; Wolf 1955:464; Mintz 1959:26). Here Galeski s analysis of the identity of the enterprise with the domestic economy (1972: 10, 11) becomes important. Point (3) in the above quote (... the peasant farm is acquiring certain features specific to the capitalist enterprise ) reminds us that, Like every social entity, peasantry exists only as a process, i.e., in its change (Shanin 1971b:16). The important question (and this relates to the methodological problem outlined above) is whether or not Galeski s contention in point (2) that... changes in the mode of peasant farming are determined by the laws governing the functioning of the capitalist system as a whole... is true. Since it is true that peasant units maintain some control over their productive activities, peasant communities must have internal dynamics not determined by the capitalist system and, possibly, in contradiction to it. Furthermore, if we must view peasants as part of a process of change, we must also view the capitalist system as dynamic. It then becomes apparent that relationships between peasant units and the capitalist economic system will change. As Wolf notes (1955:462, 463): It would be a mistake, moreover, to visualize the development of the world market in terms of continuous and even expansion, and to suppose therefore that the line of development of particular peasant communities always leads from lesser involvement in the market to more involvement.... Two things seem clear.... First, in dealing with present-day Latin America it would seem advisable to beware of treating production for subsistence and production for the market as two progressive stages of development. Rather, we must allow for the cyclical alteration of the two kinds of production within the same community and realize that from the point of view of the community both kinds may be alternative responses to changes in conditions of the outside market. This means that a synchronic study of such a community is insufficient, because it cannot reveal how the community can adapt to such seemingly radical changes. Second, we must look for the mechanisms which make such changes possible. An analysis of the mechanisms which make change possible requires a careful examination of the nature of the articuiation between the two systems. Since peasants produce commodities processed and circulated within the capitalist system, we must analyze the mechanisms by which those commodities are appropriated by the larger system. Recalling our initial definition of exploitation, this means that we must examine the question posed by Dalton: how exactly are peasants exploited? I will term the form exploitation takes in peasant societies rent (cf. Wolf 1966); its primary analytical significance lies in its difference from wage labor as a method of exploitation. To fully appreciate the importance of rent, then, we must first describe the social relations based on wage labor. This allows us to do two things: (1) analyze the manner in which the payment of rent differs from wage labor and the consequent implications of that difference, and (2) appreciate the tendencies inherent in peasant communities which exist within a capitalist system,... acquiring certain features specific to the capitalist enterprise (Galeski 1972:22). Because Marx provided the first and classic analysis of capitalist exploitation, I will briefly summarize his explanation. MARX S ANALYSIS OF CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION Marx assumes that the worker in the capitalist mode of production confronts the

6 50 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [ 78,1976 capitalist (who owns the means of production) possessing nothing but his or her labor power. According to Marx, this is the ability or potential for labor which the worker possesses, including skills necessary for specialized jobs. This labor power has a value which is determined by the amount of labor required to produce and sustain it. Specialized labor power would therefore have a greater value than unskilled labor power because a greater amount of labor goes into the production of such skills (e.g., time spent in training, etc.). The value of general, undifferentiated labor power would tend toward a socially defined level of subsistence. The worker sells this labor power to the capitalist at its value, and the capitalist then uses it in the production of a commodity which has an exchange value. That exchange value is determined. according to Marx, by the amount of socially necessary labor realized in the final product. This would include the amount of labor embodied in the machines and other capital resources used in the production of the commodity in addition to the actual labor expended in the act of production. The laborer, however, will not be paid the value of what has been produced but will receive the equivalent of the value of his or her labor power. Marx assumes that the use of labor power in the form of labor will produce more value than labor power itself is worth. There is, then, a quantitative difference between the value of the product of labor and the value of labor power, the difference being called surplus value. Because the capitalist controls the process of production and the worker has already been paid the value of his or her labor power in the form of wages, this surplus value is the property of the capitalist. This, then, is the precise economic form exploitation takes under capitalism, according to Marx. The appropriation of a portion of the commodity produced by the direct producer occurs because the nonproducer (the capitalist) controls all aspects of production, and therefore the product. The necessary precondition for this form is the existence of a labor force which does not own or control any means of production, which possesses only its own labor power and must therefore sell it, in the form of wage labor, in order to survive. Note that Marx does not assume that any theft is involved or that the worker is paid less than he or she deserves or that the commodity is sold at an exorbitant profit. He has shown that this form of exploitation occurs even if all commodities, including labor power, are sold at their value.* In fact, Marx observes that while the laborer receives a wage corresponding to the value of labor power, and the actual use of labor creates a surplus value in the form of unpaid labor, the circumstance... is, without doubt, a piece of good luck for the buyer [of labor power], but by no means an injury to the seller (Marx 1967:1, 194). Analytically, Marx divides the commodity produced under capitalism into three elements: constant capital or c (the value of machines and other capital elements-determined by the amount of labor embodied in them-used in the actual production of the commodity), variable capital or u (the amount paid for labor power, which takes the form of wages), and surplus value or s (the difference between the total value created by labor and the value of labor power). The precondition for capitalist exploitation, the existence of a labor force which possesses only its own labor power, is lacking in peasant production. By definition peasants own or control at least some of the means of production. They therefore control the process of direct production itself (i.e., they may decide how much of their land to plant in cash crops, how much in subsistence crops, how much of their time to spend in artisan production, etc.). As a consequence they control at least a part of the product of their labor. The appropriation of a part of it is accomplished by nonpeasants who have a prior claim, economic or noneconomic, upon the peasant producer (e.g., landlords, merchants, creditors, the church, the state, etc.). The peasant surrenders a portion of the product to the claimants; what remains belongs to the peasant. Exploitation is therefore more efficient, more rational, under capitalism (where the appropriator of the surplus product actually controls the process of production and can therefore pay the worker only the value of labor power)

7 Rose berry ] RENT, DIFFERENTIATION, CAPITALISM 51 than it is under precapitalist forms, in which the product the producer retains may include a surplus product greater than the value of labor power. It is the inefficiency of exploitation (from the rational capitalist perspective) in precapitalist forms which gives those forms a dynamic separate from that of the capitalist economic system. PEASANT RENT AND SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION Under the category of rent I will include actual rent, taxes, interest on loans, forced presale of produce at less than market price, etc., i.e., ariy extraction of surplus ualiie not based on the sale of labor power. Rent is here, therefore, a broad category which refers to the principal form exploitation takes among peasants. While such a definition suffers for lack of precision, it benefits from the structural principle it allows us to examine. My interest, then, is not in rent per se but in the processual implications of a form of exploitation I call, for the sake of convenience, rent. Marx (1967:III, ch. 47) examines three basic types of rent, arranged in an evolutionary progression (partly determined by the level of development of the larger system in which the peasants operate); labor rent, rent in kind, and money rent. Although the three types imply an evolutionary progression, they can occur simultaneously. For example, a Latin American estate owner may parcel out plots to peasants on which the peasant producers grow subsistence crops (thus replacing their own labor power); the owner can then appropriate the actual labor of the peasant without compensation a certain number of days per year (primarily in peak seasons) for the production of cash crops. Or the owner may parcel out plots to peasants who produce the cash crops themselves (thus absorbing much of the risk), appropriating a portion of the produced commodity. Money rent would be much like rent in kind, in that the peasant would be producing cash crops; rent would simply follow sale rather than precede it. All three forms may exist on the same estate. Marx notes that a comrnon characteristic of the three forms of rent is that they are inefficient modes of extracting surplus, i.e., rent does not necessarily extract all of the surplus product; it may also extract less thau or more than the total surplus. For instance, under labor rent, while the peasant is simply granted a subsistence plot, the peasant might produce a surplus product beyond subsistence needs. Under rent in kind, the direct producer may produce a surplus of cash crop commodities because of particularly good environmental conditions in a given year. Under money rent, the market price for a commodity may be high in a given year. If relit were computed on the basis of previous or average market conditions, the peasant would be able to pay the rent with a smaller portion of the total product, thus retaining a surplus. Claimants of peasant rent will of course attempt to respond to these conditions, but the response is necessarily a slow one since they do not control the production process. It is thus possible for some peasants to retain a surplus product after the payment of rent. It is also possible, indeed likely, for rent to absorb more than the surplus produced by a peasant unit. Figure 1 illustrates the three possible outcomes for particular peasant units in a given year after the extraction of rent. It analyzes the possibilities in terms of the capitalist categories c, u, and s. (c + u) is meant to correspond to the replacement and consumption costs necessary to maintain or reproduce the peasant unit. s here takes the form of surplus product rather than surplus ualue; rent itself takes the form of surplus value. The bad correspondence between rent as surplus value and s as surplus product illustrates the inefficiency of rent as a mechanism for extracting surplus value. Case B shows rent at its most efficient; in this case rent is able to extract all surplus product, which therefore corresponds to surplus value. But in any given year both cases A and C are likely due to a variety of circumstances (e.g., fertility of soil, market conditions, labor productivity, differential control of resources, etc.).

8 52 A AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST B C E S Rent X S Rent S Rent C+V C +v ctv Fig. 1. The three possibilities for division of total peasant product. c represents constant capital, u variable capital, s surplus product, and x a surplus product greater than the surplus value extracted as rent. Peasant C is in the least viable position. The surplus value being extracted includes more than the surplus product, demanding a portion of the peasant s subsistence costs. The options for peasant family C are limited. They may lower their consumption level, thus remaining to a certain extent self-sufficient. This option has obvious limits, however. Once those limits are reached the peasant must go into debt or engage in occasional wage labor, assuming the possibility of wage labor exists. Should peasant family C remain in this condition long, it will lose control over means of production, becoming possessors of nothing but labor power. Wage labor will no longer be an occasional option. This will be true unless the creditor/landlord decides to maintain the indebted peasant, a common decision since the peasant is then tied to the creditor/landlord and constitutes a dependable non-wage-earning labor supply. Peasant B corresponds closely to the image of a self-sufficient peasant engaging family labor for subsistence production, neither employed nor employing, characteristic of most definitions of peasants. Unfortunately for peasant B, this is the most unstable of positions. In a given year, because of market or environmental conditions, this peasant unit might find its condition changed to either A or C, most likely C. In fact where the differentiation illustrated by Figure 1 is widespread, the ranks of type A and C peasants find most of their recruits from among type B peasants. Peasant A is the most fortunate, producing a surplus product (x) greater than the surplus value extracted as rent. This situation would never be general. Peasant types A, B, and C would exist and interact in the same social situation, with type A peasants in the minority. An understanding of the interaction among the three types, and thus an understanding of the dynamics of peasant communities, requires an examination of the uses to which the surplus product (x) which is the property of peasant A, can be put. In more isolated peasant areas there would be little or no opportunity for productive investment by peasant A. The family s only options would include increased consumption

9 Roseberry] RENT, DIFFERENTIATION, CAPITALISM 53 and ceremonial expenses. Such ceremonial obligations would tend to retard but not prevent the social differentiation inherent in the three outcomes of peasant rent. Ceremonial expenses themselves would most likely arise, however, because there is no other outlet (e.g., productive investment) for the surplus product within the social unit. Such closed, isolated communities are rare, however. The peasant producers we are concerned with are incorporated within a capitalist economic system. Opportunities for the investment of the surplus product by peasant A are therefore numerous. Of course, peasant A may still spend all or a portion of the surplus product on increased consumption or ceremonial expenses. The point is that investment is an option for some peasants (type A peasants) in noncapitalist areas incorporated within the capitalist system. For the peasant just beginning to accumulate a surplus, the main investment opportunity may be that of becoming a broker between peasant producers and the capitalist system. The peasant would first invest in commodities produced by other peasants, buying up agricultural and artisan commodities for sale to other peasants and middlemen. The peasant would then be able to buy goods from the middlemen to sell to other peasants. Here the peasant is investing the surplus product in the buying and selling of commodities, becoming a petty trader. Since the surplus product would initially be small, we would expect the trader to maintain peasant production as well. For example, the male in the peasant household might continue to farm while the female engaged in trading activities (cf. Mintz 1959, 1964, 1967; Johnson 1973). With increased participation as traders in simple commodity circulation, the surplus product possessed by the peasant will increase by a variety of means. Initially, a profit may be realized simply through circulation, i.e., through fluctuations in market price. The trader will develop partnerships, however, with particular peasants and merchants. Many of these partnerships will be with type C peasants, who are in a particularly vulnerable position since they are existing below subsistence levels. Peasant/trader A may make loans to peasant C, which will take several forms. For instance, the trader may purchase peasant C s produce before production at less than market price, thus giving the peasant the funds necessary to produce. Upon harvest, the peasant would surrender the produce to the trader, who would then be able to realize a profit by selling at market price. Such partnerships would increase the control of peasant/trader A over the productive activity of type C peasants. The differentiation which is inherent in the inefficient nature of peasant rent will therefore tend to increase because of the investment opportunities necessarily open to the possessors of surplus product. Upon accumulating profits in circulation, peasant A may expand trading activities, becoming a capitalist trader (cf. Johnson 1973) or invest the surplus in production (e.g., land and other means of production, mills for the processing of particular crops). Expansion of agricultural holdings may be at the further expense of peasant C, who will provide the wage labor necessary for the developing capitalist agricultural sector or for other capitalist sectors. Peasant A is therefore tending to become a capitalist, and peasant C, who is gradually being stripped of most everything but labor power, is becoming a wage laborer. Through the differentiation of the peasantry, we are able to witness a process not unlike that which Marx termed the primitive accumulation of capital (Marx 1967:I, pt. 8). This is a process whereby a few persons gain control of production while most, separated from the means of production, join the ranks of the proletariat. Thus, there is to be observed a complete interdependence between the formation of a class of rural entrepreneurs and the expansion of the bottom group of the peas- antry.... One and the same peasantry throws on to the market millions of workers in search of employers-and 1964:241, presents an impressive demand for wage workers [Lenin It should be noted that the processes described assume the existence of a capitalist economic system. While the potential for differentiation is present under all forms of rent, it

10 54 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [78,1976 can only be realized in those social situations in which peasants have options for the use of the surplus product other than consumption and ceremonial expenses. This is what Marx was referring to when he wrote that money rent (which assumes the existence of a larger system based on the development of commerce and manufacture) was the last form of peasant rent, that it provided the basis for the dissolution of rent as the primary means of extracting surplus value (Marx 1967:III, ). It should also be noted that while this process is revolutionary (i.e., it is transforming a mode of production), it may nevertheless be gradual, producing a variety of transitional forms. Any particular empirical situation we view will represent but one moment of that process, particularly if we restrict ourselves to synchronic analyses. A proper understanding of the dynamics of those empirical situations will therefore require an application of the principles of peasant rent and an analysis of the extent to which and the mechanisms by which differentiation within the peasant community is occurring. Obviously enough, the present scheme has been simplified somewhat in order to explain the processual potential of peasant societies. Actual empirical situations will present a much more complex picture, the options and restraints which peasants and traders face being numerous. Ultimately, we will need detailed empirical analyses of the dynamics of regional economies. Such analyses will probably demonstrate that some options (e.g., becoming a trader or investing in productive enterprises) have greater potential for capitalist development than others (cf. Cook and Diskin 1975, especially the concluding essay). The crucial point of analysis here is the transition from one mode of production to another. Some uses of the surplus product will be perfectly compatible with the old mode of production whereas others will necessitate its transformation. For instance peasant producers within the traditional coffee economy of the Venezuelan Andes may invest their surplus in commercial activities, starting a small bodega, selling production and consumption goods and perhaps serving as low-level coffee buyers. Such activity does little to change the precapitalist mode of production; although such investors are no longer peasants, they are acting within the confines of the old mode of production. Others may invest in new strains of coffee trees and fertilizers, whose high yield and constant maintenance require, even in small plots, a year-round labor force, requiring as well the development of capitalist relations of production. It must also be noted that peasant A may not actually invest his or her own surplus product (even though the peasant will need a surplus product to invest) but will use credit. In capitalist forms of investment the necessary finance capital, public or private, will largely come from outside the precapitalist mode of production-from a sector of the capitalist economic system. The availability and source of such credit will be essential objects of analysis. CONCLUSION There is a tendency among analysls of underdeveloped countries to assume that once capitalism is imposed upon the country by the international capitalist system, it transforms the precapitalist modes into capitalist ones (e.g., Frank 1967, 1969, 1972). This essay has assumed that while the initial development of capitalism in such countries has been imposed from the outside, the capitalist economic system has incorporated and maintained a variety of precapitalist forms. The articulation between the two modes of production is based on the fact that precapitalist forms are producing commodities for the capitalist system, which the capitalist extracts from the peasant producers primarily in the form of rent. Because of the inefficient nature of peasant rent and because the maintenance of precapitalist forms means that peasants control, at least partially, their own production and reproduction, peasant areas have a dynamic which cannot be completely determined by the capitalist

11 Rose berry ] RENT, DIFFERENTIATION, CAPITALISM 55 system. Endogenous development of capitalism from among the ranks of peasant producers is therefore a possibility, enabled by the imposition of capitalism in the larger economy. The development of capitalism in areas which parts of the capitalist system would attempt to maintain as precapitalist will produce conflicts between the dynamics of the two systems (cf. Wolpe 1973) which will merit close analysis. There is also a tendency in the literature to emphasize the fact that peasants are exploited, that surpluses are extracted from them, without analyzing the implications of that exploitation. This essay has attempted to demonstrate that the form which the exploitation of peasants must take-rent-has profound processual consequences which cannot be ignored. In addition, I hope to have demonstrated that, despite Dalton s (1974) assertions to the contrary, exploitation is not simply a derogatory label but rather a concept which allows us to analyze the dynamics of particular forms of social life. NOTES Acknowledgments. I undertook the analysis which led to this essay while receiving financial support from an NSF Graduate Fellowship. I also thank Norman Chance, Scott Cook, James Faris, Ben Magubane, Steve Zwerling, and in subsequent stages of preparation Sidney Mintz and Eric Wolf for their criticism and encouragement. None of the above is to blame for the final product. Dalton points out at least six times in an eight-page article that peasants are exploited in communist states as well as in capitalist ones (1974:553, 555, 556 [twice], 557, 559). Finally he asks (1974:559): If peasantries in general are exploited, does this mean Cuban, Russian, and Chinese peasants are also exploited? In the Shanin reader (1971a), one of the two sources on exploitation Dalton cites, we find an excerpt from the work of Preobrazhensky, a Soviet scholar who was ultimately purged but whose ideas were implemented by Stalin. Preobrazhensky is attempting to outline principles of primitive socialist accumulation; he points out that socialist accumulation, just as capitalist accumulation before it, must occur at the expense of the peasant sector. In the period of primi.tive socialist accumulation the State economy cannot get by without alienating part of the surplus product of the peasantry and the handicraftsmen, without making deductions from capitalist accumulation for the benefit of socialist accumulation [Preobrazhensky 1971:224]. Of course, Preobrazhensky was addressing his remarks to the period of primitive socialist accumulation in those countries with a large peasant population which become socialist. The process of industrialization would therefore take place at the expense of peasants. In both capitalist and socialist economic systems, peasants, where they exist, are in the process of de-peasantization. It is this process, not the fact that they are exploited, which is the object of this analysis. Exploitation is important simply because the manner in which it occurs illuminates certain tendencies in the process of de-peasantization. What the peasants are in the process of becoming will depend upon the nature of the larger system (e.g., capitalist or socialist). In the capitalist economic system, with which this essay is concerned, peasants are in the process of becoming proletarians and, in smaller numbers, capitalists. 2Some readers may feel that such a definition is inordinately broad and may object to the fact that it includes social situations which the producer or the researcher may not consider to be exploitative. I prefer the definition because it is precise, objective, and allows us to avoid the sort of sloppy definitions Dalton rightly dismisses (1974:555). As noted in the essay, such exploitation is necessary for the operation of a wide range of modes of production; we are therefore forced to deny the term its pejorative connotations. It also serves important explanatory functions in the study of social evolution, as the appearance of this appropriation-or exploitation-and the mechanisms by which it develops will increasingly be objects of fruitful research. 3Elsewhere Dalton has claimed (1971 :237), When one writes in rage one suspends professional judgement. The enraged writer is a warrior, not an analyst. He caricatures what he is attacking. I agree. The remainder of this essay attempts to provide an analysis which will resolve some of the confusion expressed and promoted by Dalton (1974). By necessity many of the concerns expressed by Dalton (the warrior) will be ignored. My interest is not

12 56 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [ 78,1976 so much in distinguishing peasants from tribal groups or from capitalist farmers. Rather, I am attempting to analyze peasants as part of a process of change, which the static classification of forms of social life obscures. Similarly, for the purposes of this analysis I am not interested in the subjective feelings of peasants. I am talking about the processual implications of a method of exploitation. Whether or not the peasants feel exploited thus becomes a moot point in relation to the processes being analyzed. Production for subsistence implies both the production of subsistence crops and the production of cash crops, the sale of which will be directed toward the purchase of subsistence goods. This essay limits its analysis to the social situation of peasants existing within the capitalist economic system. This does not mean that peasants do not exist under other systems or that the problems of peasants under, say, socialism are not significant (cf. Galeski 1972). Obviously enough, I am not trying to outline a universal theory of peasants; nor am I ignoring that peasants existed before capitalism and have continued to exist under socialism. Nevertheless, many of the peasant groups with which North American anthropologists are familiar, or among whom anthropologists are currently working, exist within the capitalist economic system. This fact is not simply politically important. The social existence of such units and their potential dynamic create specific problems of theory and method for researchers which anthropologists must seriously address.... capitalist economy could not emerge at once, and corvbe economy could not disappear at once. The only possible system of economy was, accordingly, a transitional one, a system combining the features of both the corv6e and the capitalist systems [ Lenin 1964:194]. 7 Exchange value does not correspond to what is traditionally conceived of as price. Marx, like the other classical economists, was interested in a theory of value which could explain how exchange value could be produced despite fluctuations in price due to the market forces of supply and demand. You would be altogether mistaken in fancying that the value of labour or any other commodity whatever is ultimately fixed by supply and demand. Supply and demand regulate nothing but the temporary fluctuations of market prices. They will explain to you why the market price of a commodity rises above or sinks below its value, but they can never account for that due itself.... At the moment when supply and demand equilibrate each other, and therefore cease to act, the market price of a commodity coincides with its real value, with the standard price round which its market prices oscillate. In inquiring into the nature of that due, we have, therefore, nothing at all to do with the temporary effects on market prices of supply and demand. The same holds true of wages and of the prices of all other commodities [Marx 1970:27]. The value of a commodity is determined by the total quantity of labor contained in it. But part of that quantity of labour is realized in a value, for which an equivalent has been paid in the form of wages; part of it is realized in a value for which no equivalent has been paid. Part of the labour contained in the commodity is paid labour; part is unpaid labour. By selling, therefore, the commodity at its value, that is, as the crystallization of the total quantity of labour bestowed upon it, the capitalist must necessarily sell it at a profit [Marx 1970:54]. Such a broad definition should only be used in a general essay such as this one. Specific empirical analyses will have to carefully analyze the various forms exploitation may take and the potential of each. For example, I am currently engaged in research among peasant producers who own their own land and whose primary exploitative link with the larger system has historically been middlemen-coffee buyers/creditors. The processual potential for such peasants is quite different from that for peasants who are landless, and it would make little sense to use the word rent for this specific situation. Ultimately, we will need a series of studies of specific forms of exploitation and the consequent potential of peasant groups involved. Nevertheless, the basic point regarding the inefficiency of the exploitative relationship between peasants and the systems which incorporate them remains valid, regardless of the precise form of that relationship. I therefore regard such an imprecise use of the term rent as justifiable for general expository purposes. Finally, the fact that rent is paid by representatives of other groups (e.g., capitalist farmers) is not as important as it may at first seem. In such groups rent does not represent the primary form of exploitation, as it does with peasants. Strictly speaking, and remembering our definition of exploitation, rent would not be a form of exploitation for

13 Roseberry] RENT, DIFFERENTIATION, CAPITALISM 57 capitalist farmers but rather a payment out of surplus value which has already been appropriated by the capitalist farmer-who, again strictly speaking, is not a direct producer-through the wage labor form. Note that we are assuming production of agricultural commodities for the market. I The application of categories c, u, and s to products produced by peasants is intended simply to illustrate a structural tendency. Of course, we know that the categories apply to capitalist production and cannot be uncritically imposed on peasant production. Nevertheless, their application helps us to see that a portion of the surplus product (that portion not necessary to replace production costs or maintain the worker at a socially defined level of subsistence) may remain in the hands of peasants because of the nature of peasant rent. This structural possibility does not exist for wage labor under capitalism. Wolf has suggested that by definition peasants do not invest, using investment as a distinguishing characteristic between peasants and farmers (1955:454). Elsewhere (1966) he has outlined four funds which the peasant must pay out of the total product: the replacement fund, the consumption fund, the rent fund, and the ceremonial fund. Although I have not adopted this vocabulary in the essay, it should be clear from the discussion that I regard these four functions as options or obligations facing the peasant family in the disposition of its product. Because the peasants we are concerned with do not exist in isolation but are incorporated within the capitalist economic system, however, and because we must view peasants processually, I feel that investment should not be excluded from our definition of peasants. Indeed, investment will be just as important an option for some peasants as will be, say the ceremonial fund. I 3This analysis tends to support the arguments of Dobb and Takahashi in a debate over the possibility of capitalist entrepreneurs arising to any significant degree from the ranks of petty producers (Dobb 1963; Sweezy et al. 1954). Mintz (1964) has also suggested that we look to the petty traders rather than functionaries of large export firms for the progressive middle class in underdeveloped countries. His suggestion agrees with my analysis. I4I do not mean to imply that the process described is the only way in which peasants may become participants in the capitalist mode of production. As we know, capitalist enterprises have in many cases set up large, capitalistically-based estates, expropriating the peasants, and turning them into rural proletarians (cf. Mintz 1956). This analysis applies to those areas which the capitalist system incorporates without a complete transformation. REFERENCES CITED Berthoud, G Introduction: Dynamics of Ownership in the Circum-Alpine Area. Anthropological Quarterly 45: Chayaiov, A. V The Theory of Peasant Economy. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin. Cook, Scott, and M. Diskin. eds Markets in Oaxaca: Essays on a Regional Peasant Economy of Mexico. Latin American Monographs. Austin: University of Texas Press. Dalton, George 1971 Reply [to Frank]. Current Anthropology 12: Peasantries in An1,hropology and History. Current Anthropology 13: How Exactly Are Peasants Exploited? American Anthropologist 76: Dobb, Maurice 1963 Studies in the Development of Capitalism. New York: International. Frank, Andre Gunder 1967 Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press Latin America: IJnderdevelopment or Revolution? New York: Monthly Review Press Lumpen-bourgeoisie, Lumpen-development: Dependence, Class, and Politics in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. Galeski, B Basic Concepts of Rural Sociology. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Godelier, Maurice 1972 Rationality and Irrationality in Economics. New York: Monthly Review Press.

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