Structural Change and the Agrarian Question in the Marxian Tradition

Abstract

The economists’ interest in the concept of structural change itself dates back to the tradition of classical political economy. Ideas related to structural change in the face of agrarian transitions can be found in classical economists as early as Quesnay and the Physiocrats. The analysis of the agrarian transition to capitalism (and socialism) as part of the overall structural change in the economic system has been a matter of interest for Marx and the Marxists. The Marxian agrarian question discourses, including Marx’s study of primitive accumulation, Engels’s peasant question, Lenin’s and Kautsky’s work on the development of capitalism in manufacturing and industry, and the post-Soviet debates on the transition to socialism, have the mechanics of structural change at their centre. This study reconstructs the ideas on structural change in the canonical texts of the agrarian question discourse in a thematic manner and constructs an analytical framework of structural change and agrarian transition in the Marxian tradition. This study is an attempt to survey and rearticulate the Marxian agrarian question from a history of economic thought standpoint, focusing on the mechanics of structural change.