Peasant-Proletarian Transition

Abstract

Before considering in detail the way that estates and peasant communities change under the impact of capitalist economic relations, we need to consider the factors which give rise to these relations. Among the most important are changes in demand for food, in part prompted by urbanization in the peripheral country and also, in some cases, by the necessity to produce foodstuffs at a price which will make them competitive with imported produce. These changes in demand reinforce, in turn, technological developments in agriculture — both biological technologies which are “land saving” and mechanical technologies which make savings in labour. In addition, according to the “unequal exchange” theorists, it is in the interest of the industrial bourgeoisie that wage costs are low, in order that they should derive advantage from their insertion within the international market, where (in more developed countries) they are higher.