Commodification/generalized commodity production -- Commodification of small scale farming -- Class differentiation in the countryside -- Agrarian capital beyond the countryside -- Rural labour beyond the farm -- Agriculture beyond the farm -- Globalization -- Who are the farmers? -- Complexities of class
Summary
Development processes are never neutral
They impact various groups and classes of people differently
A high food price may benefit some rich peasants who produce and sell food surplus, but it may disadvantage landless rural laborers
A project on irrigation may benefit those who own the land, but not the landless tenants
Nowadays, official documents by governments and development agencies tend to lump different groups of people into vague categories like "rural poor"
This might be useful in some cases, but in large part this thinking can harm the poorest of the poor
Using Marx's theory of capitalism, Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change argues that class dynamics should be the starting point of any analysis of agrarian change
It provides an accessible introduction to agrarian political economy while showing clearly how the argument for "bringing class back in" provides an alternative to inherited conceptions of the agrarian question
It illustrates what is at stake in different ways of thinking about class dynamics and the effects of agrarian change in today's globalized world
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 131-138) and index
