Abstract
Debate over the `agrarian question' has continued throughout this century. In recent years, however, partly arising from a renewed interest in Marxist theory, research into rural transformation in Latin America, Africa, and India has both attacked and modified the notion of undifferentiated `peasant societies' (Chayanov, Shanin), and approached the classical Marxist model of assumed differentiation (Marx, Engels, Kautsky) as an empirical question. Rejecting the a priori view that the peasantry in the Third World are being polarised into rural bourgeoisie and landless proletarians, recent research has identified the various forms of subsumption of small-holders to capital. A conflict of interest has been identified between indigenous and international finance capital, the former with an interest in differentiation and accumulation in the countryside, the latter preserving, though exploiting, a `non-accumulating middle peasantry'. It has also been argued that capitalist penetration of the countryside might take place in a form that creates accumulating small producers, without creating a landless proletariat, as a result of the absorption of surplus labour by households. Again, it has been suggested that, while retaining the form of individual proprietorship, small producers are `really' disguised proletarians, a thesis developed in opposition to the articulation position. Finally, recent research has posed questions about the implications of particular forms of transition for political action and consciousness.
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