Peasants are a majority of the world's poor. Despite this, there has been little effort to bridge the fields of peasant and poverty studies. Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-first Century provides a much-needed critical perspective linking three central questions: Why has peasantry, unlike other areas of non-capitalist production, persisted? Why are the vast majority of peasants poor? And how are these two questions related?Interweaving contributions from various disciplines, the book provides a range of responses, offering new theoretical, historical and policy perspectives on this peasant'world drama'. Scholars from both South and North argue that, in order to find the policy paths required to overcome peasants'misery, we need a seismic transformation in social thought, to which they make important contributions. They are convinced that we must build upon the peasant economy's advantages over agricultural capitalism in meeting the challenges of feeding the growing world population while sustaining the environment.Structured to encourage debate among authors and mutual learning, Peasant Poverty and Persistence takes the reader on an intellectual journey toward understanding the peasantry.

motw/Peasant Poverty and Persistence - J. Boltvinik.pdf

Julio Boltvinik; Susan Archer Mann; Farshad A Araghi; Armando Bartra; Meghnad Desai; Emily R Blumenfeld; Kostas Vergopoulos

Julio Boltvinik; Juliana Martnez Franzoni; Thomas Pogge; Meghnad Desai; Susan Archer Mann

Boltvinik, Julio; Archer Mann, Susan; Desai, Meghnad

Julio Boltvinik and Susan Archer Mann

Bloomsbury Academic & Professional

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Zed Books Ltd

CROP International studies in poverty research, London, 2016

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

producers:
Acrobat Distiller 7.0 (Windows)

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Cover 1
About CROP 2
Series titles 3
Title Page 4
Copyright 5
Dedication 6
Contents 8
Tables and figures 13
Acknowledgements 16
First Part: Introducing the book 18
Foreword 20
1. Persistence of peasantry: a problem for theory or history? 20
2. Abstract and concrete labour 24
3. Peasant labour 27
Conclusion 32
References 32
Introduction 34
1. The origins and contents of this book 34
2. On the definition of poverty and the low reliability of rural poverty data 35
3. Situating this volume in the history of peasant studies 40
4. Conceptualising the peasantry or the ‘awkward class’ 50
5. Contributions of the authors 53
Notes 71
References 72
Second Part: Papers 76
Session One. Theoretical perspectives on peasant poverty and persistence 76
1. Poverty and persistence of the peasantry: background paper 78
1. Introduction: agricultural capitalism needs peasants 78
2. The nature of agricultural production: its contrast with industrial production 80
3. The specific character of the peasantry 81
4. Seasonality and rural poverty 83
5. The debate on the persistence of peasantry 90
6. Djurfeldt’s virtual debate with Kautsky 92
7. Agricultural seasonality and peasant survival: a polemic with Armando Bartra 95
8. Obstacles to capitalist agriculture: the Mann–Dickinson thesis 101
9. Marx and his vision of agriculture 105
10. Marx’s theory of value disregards discontinuous labour processes 107
11. Towards a valid theory of value for discontinuous work processes 110
12. Towards a general theory of value 113
13. Subsidies and poverty in peasant economies 115
Notes 121
References 123
2. Rethinking rustic issues: contributions to a theory of contemporary peasantry 125
1. Introduction 125
2. Peasants and technology: creating the milpa (maize mixed field) 126
3. Peasants and economy: the return of differential rent 130
4. The place of peasants in the development model: ‘bimodal agriculture’ again? 136
5. The peasant in his labyrinth: a polemic 140
Notes 149
References 149
3. From field to fork: labour power, its reproduction, and the persistence of peasant poverty 151
1. Introduction 151
2. Problems with Boltvinik’s analysis of peasant poverty 152
3. The production and reproduction of labour power 155
4. The invisibility of domestic labour in theory and practice 158
5. Women and global development 160
6. Impure capitalism and its peculiar forms of production 163
7. The informal sector and global poverty 165
8. Farm subsidies: a perishable, no longer ripe idea 166
9. What is to be done? 169
Notes 171
References 171
4. Baroque modernity and peasant poverty in the twenty-first century 174
1. Epochal crisis of capitalism and peasant poverty 174
2. The controversy over peasant poverty within capitalism 176
3. The specific formal subsumption of agricultural labour by capital, and seasonal time wages 177
4. Cynical or brutal overexploitation 181
5. Baroque modernity and the non-specific formal subsumption of peasant labour by capital 183
6. The interaction of the non-specific and specific configurations of formal subsumption with the real subsumption of agricultural labour by capital in the twenty-first century 191
7. Food crisis, post-baroque modernity and transcapitalism 194
Notes 198
References 199
Session Two. Historical and empirical approaches 202
5. Agriculture/industry, rural/urban, peasants/workers: some reflections on poverty, persistence and change 204
1. Boltvinik’s argument 204
2. Agriculture and industry, rural and urban 207
3. Peasants 211
4. ... and workers (classes of labour)? 217
5. Poverty, persistence and change 220
Notes 227
References 233
6. Employment and rural poverty in Mexico 239
1. The Mexican countryside in the twentieth century 239
2. Demographic aspects of the rural population 242
3. Poverty in Mexico’s rural setting 246
4. Activities in rural contexts and family composition 251
5. Labour intensity and ‘multi-activity’ 263
6. Working conditions of the rural population: a poor, persistent peasantry 269
7. Some final reflections 271
Notes 272
References 274
Session Three. Environment, food crisis and peasants 278
7. From the persistence of the peasantry in capitalism to the environmentalism of indigenous peoples and the sustainability of life 280
1. Stating the problem of peasants’ poverty and persistence 280
2. The poverty of theory: the seasonality of labour and the historicity of Marxism 281
3. From eco-Marxism to political ecology and environmental rationality 287
4. Peasants’ persistence in a political ecology perspective: the struggle for life 291
Notes 297
References 299
8. South American peasants and poor farmers facing global environmental change: a development dilemma 302
1. Agricultural production in three dryland river basins 303
2. Being a peasant in a hydraulic society 308
3. The impact of global environmental change on peasants 312
4. Water, poverty, food sovereignty and territorial rights of peasants 319
5. Persistence of the peasantry or persistence of poverty? 321
6. Pro-peasant adaptation to climate change 325
Notes 330
References 331
9. Financialisation of the food sector and peasants’ persistence 333
1. The food tsunami 335
2. The bubble and the contemporary food crisis 337
3. Peasantry’s poverty and persistence 338
4. Family farming 339
Note 344
References 344
Session Four. Policy, self-reliance and peasant poverty 346
10. The rise and fall of the agrarian welfare state: peasants, globalisation, and the privatisation of development 348
1. Colonialism as an agrarian welfare regime 348
2. Developmentalism and the transformation of the agrarian welfare state 350
3. Globalisation and the privatisation of the agrarian welfare state 362
4. Conclusion 370
Notes 371
References 373
11. Overcoming rural poverty from the bottom up 378
1. Degrowth 382
2. Good living or sumak kawsay 383
3. Operationalisation 385
4. Communality 389
5. Implementing alternative societies 391
Notes 393
References 395
Third Part: Closing the book 400
12. Dialogues and debates on peasant poverty and persistence: around the background paper and beyond 402
1. Commentaries and criticisms to the background paper: clarifications, precisions and backups 402
2. Reply to commentaries and criticisms 422
3. The distinctive features of agriculture: a detailed version 439
4. Pending issues for discussion 441
5. Different replies to the two central theoretical questions of this book: a sketch 445
Notes 454
References 455
Foreword author, editors and contributors 458
Index 463

Peasant farmers today still make up the majority of the world’s poor, and thus any truly effective strategy of development and poverty alleviation will have to address their situation and concerns. Despite this, there has been little effort to bridge the fields of poverty, development, and peasant studies—until now. Peasant Poverty and Persistence provides an important critical perspective and corrective to debates about global rural poverty. By interweaving contributions from a variety of disciplines and bringing together scholars from around the globe, the book provides innovative new approaches to the agrarian question as well as new perspectives on the uneven pace of global development.
As the industrial scale of agriculture continues to grow at unsustainable levels, addressing the peasant model of agricultural production is crucial, making this book timely and essential reading for scholars in rural development, particularly in the Global South.
**
Review
“A provocative examination of the persistence of the world’s peasantry and rural poverty that explores, challenges, and significantly advances one of the most influential lineages of scholarship that has shaped the contemporary sociology and political economy of agriculture.”
( Patrick H. Mooney, University of Kentucky )
“A fascinating set of essays investigating the relationship between peasant persistence and poverty. The editors have assembled an outstanding line-up of respondents to address this puzzle from a variety of perspectives. This is a timely and substantive revival of the classic debate.”
( Philip McMichael, author of Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions )
“This stimulating book offers a most exciting renewal of classic debates in Marxian theory over the character and the persistence of peasant production, and illuminates the implications for rural people of the ways in which contemporary capitalism works.”
( John Harriss, Simon Fraser University )
About the Author
Julio Boltvinik is professor of sociology at El Colegio de México in Mexico City, and he has previously served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies in the Mexican Congress. Susan Archer Mann is professor of sociology and director of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Orleans.

Peasants are a majority of the world's poor. Despite this, there has been little effort to bridge the fields of peasant and poverty studies. Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-first Century provides a much-needed critical perspective linking three central Why has peasantry, unlike other areas of non-capitalist production, persisted? Why are the vast majority of peasants poor? And how are these two questions related?
Interweaving contributions from various disciplines, the book provides a range of responses, offering new theoretical, historical and policy perspectives on this peasant 'world drama'. Scholars from both South and North argue that, in order to find the policy paths required to overcome peasants' misery, we need a seismic transformation in social thought, to which they make important contributions. They are convinced that we must build upon the peasant economy's advantages over agricultural capitalism in meeting the challenges of feeding the growing world population while sustaining the environment.
Structured to encourage debate among authors and mutual learning, Peasant Poverty and Persistence takes the reader on an intellectual journey toward understanding the peasantry.

2025-10-27