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J -J

A. V. Chayanov

_

on

THE THEORY

OF

PEASANT

ECONOMY

Edited

by

Daniel

Thorner

Basile Kerblay

R. E. F.

Smith

With a Foreword by

'feodor

Shanin

,

THE

UNIVERSITY

OF WISCONSIN PRESS


2/12

ontents

Foreword

33

Introduction '"

35

it

The

historyof the Organization and Production

School

in Russian agricultural

:1

economics, and the

objective

preconditions

for its emergence (35). Peasant farm

theory

is

only

a

small part in the works of the Organization and Production

School

(37).

Genesis

of

the labor

farm theory (38). Six empirically established

features of

the

peasant farm as a private economic undertaking which cannot

be

explained

from

the viewpoint of the usual norms

of

the

capitalistically

or

ganized

undertaking

(39). Recognitionof the specialmotivationof peasantfarm

economic

activity as the basic working

hypothesis

of

the

school

(41). Five basic

objections to the

labor

farmth eoryand the reasonsfor their lackof validity (43).

The task before thestudy

and

thegeneralplanof the book (51).

Chapter I. ThePeasant

Family

and

theInfluenceof

Its

Developmenton Economic

Activity

53

The family as oneof

the

main determinants in peasant farm organization (53).

Size

and

composition

of

Russian peasant families (55). Theoretical

scheme

of

"normal"

developmentofa

family

for the26 yearsof itsexistence (57). The prob

lem

ofthe

influence

of age and

family size

onthe

general

volumeof

its

economic

activity (58). Disclosureof

the

directionof

this

connection

in

static

and

dynamic

facts (64). The needto study

the

originof the peasant farm,

apart

from family

composition,

and to study the

effect

of landand capital

availability,

the market

situation,

natural

conditions, and so on (66).

Chapter

2 MeasureofSelf-ExploitationofthePeasantFamily

LaborForce. TheConceptofAdvantagein theLaborFarm 70

The

subject

of

our analysis is the farmof the working family and not its agri

cultural output

(71).

Peasant

family

gross and net

labor products in different

areas

of the

U.S.S.R.

and

in

different

categories

of the

peasant

population

(72).

Measure of self exploitation

of

peasant

labor and

establishing

how

little it is

used

(73).

Factors

determiningthemeasureofselfexploitationand peasant family

annual labor productivity:

(I) family composition

and demand

pressure (76);

(2)

amount of

land for use (79); (3) payment of the working day in terms of

output

(80).

The labor consumer

balance

theory as

a

hypothesis explaining

the

empiricalrelationships that

havebeenobserved(81).

The

conception

ofadvantage

on thelabor

farmdistinctfrom

that

on the

capitalistically

organized farm (86).

Professor

E. Laur's objections (89).

Chapter

3

The

Basic Principles

of

PeasantFarm Organization

The

basicelements

that

harmoniouslycombine toform the

farm (90).

Thepattern

of r at ios of these e lements for

all

sizes of agricultural

undertaking

(91). The

determining significance

of family size in labor

farm

conditions,where

number

ofworkhands is given (92). Deviationfromthis ruledue to pressure

from

amount

offamilycapital

andland

foruse (93). Effect ofavailablefixed capitalon

various

labor farmelements

(94).

Thepartplayed

by

crafts and

trades

in the system

of

peasant farm elements

(101).

Correlation

coefficients

and "functional link" for

mulas for individualelements

of

thepeasant

farm (103).

Three

basic questions

in

3

90


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32

THE THEORY

OF PEASANT ECONOMY

peasant farm organization

and their

solutions

(106): (I) What ~ e t e r m i n e s the

quantitative

division

of l b ~ r between crafts trades

and

agnculture (107)?

(2)

What determines

the


4/12

xii

THE THEORY OF PE S NT ECONOMY

quiries, which continued through four decades down

to World

War I

In sheer bulk, they add

up

to more than 4,000 volumes. These con

stitute perhaps the most ample single source of data we have on the

peasant economy of any

country in modern

times.

More significant

than

the

quantity

is the quality of these data.

From the outset, the field investigators included some of the ablest

men of the day.

Sympathetic

to the peasantry and anxious to gain

insight into their

problems, they

were determined

to carry

out their

inquiries with utmost thoroughness. In presenting their results, they

took great pains to choose suitable categories and

to

design statistical

tables so as

to

bring out clearly the basic

relations

among the various

economic and social groups in the villages. Some of

their

reports were

so striking that in 1890 the goveniment passed a law forbidding any

further inquiries

into

landlord-peasant relations,

but,

nonetheless,

the work

went

on.

In

the decades from 1880 onward, Russia's leading economists,

statisticians, sociologists,

and agricultural experts

assessed, analyzed,

and fought over the

materials

furnished by the successive zemstvo

inquiries. Their articles

and

books provide the richest analytical lit

erature we have on the peasant economy of any country

in the

period

since the Industrial Revolution. Among the Russian scholars who

participated in the debate over the zemstvo statistics, N. A. Ka blukov,

V. A. Kosinskii, A N. Chelintsev, N. P. Makarov, and G. A. Studen

skii stand out for their attempts

to

formulate a theory of peasant

economy. Alexander Vasilevich Chayanov, from 1919 to 1930 the

leading Russian

authority on

the economics of agriculture, synthe

sized the theoretical ideas of his predecessors and contemporaries,

and

developed them along original

lines.

Translations into

English

of

two

studies by Chayanov form the core of the present volume.

The

first

and

by far the larger of these works is Chayanov's master

piece, Organizatsiya krest yanskogo khozyaistva,

the

title

of

which

may

be

rendered in English as

Peasant Farm Organization. t

pro

vides a theory of peasant behavior at the level of the individual family

farm, i.e., at the micro level.

The

second, much shorter

study- Zur

Frage einer Theorie der nichtkapitalistischen Wirtschaftssysteme, l

which may be translated as On the Theory of Non-Capitalist Eco

nomic Systems -sets forth the proposition that at the national, or

macro, level, peasant economy ought to be treated as an economic

system in its own right, as a noncapitalist system

of national

econ

1

rchiv fur Sozialwisunschaft und Sozialpolitilt.

Vol.

51

(1924). part

11

pp.

577 6111.

Chayanov s

Concept of

Peasant

Economy

xiii

omy. The brief remarks

that

follow will be concerned chiefly

with

Chayanov's

theory of

the peasant farm, his

micro

theory,

which

Con

stantin von Dietze has termed the most noteworthy creative synthesis

so

far achieved in this field down

to

the present day.2

Chayanov s

Theory of

the

Peasant Farm

I

[The

sure and certain way to misunderstand the peasant family

farm, Chayanov held, was to view it as a business, that is to say, an

enterprise of a capitalistic sort.

To him,

the essential characteristic

of business firms or capitalistic enterprises was that they operated

with hired workers in

order

to earn profits. By contrast, peasant fam

ily farms, as Chayanov defined them, normally employed

no hired

wage labor-none whatsoever. His family farms were pure

in

the sense

that they

depended

solely

on the

work of

their

own family members]

Chayanov's definition of the family farm may surprise us by its

narrowness

when compared with the much wider

usage

of the term

in recent decades.

s

Present-day economists familiar with model build

ing might assume

that

for his purpose Chayanov framed a special

model

or

ideal type. In fact, Chayanov considered his category a real

one drawn from life.

He contended that

90 percent

or

more of the

farms in Russia in

the

first quarter of the twentieth century

had

no

hired

laborers, that they were family farms in

the

full sense of his

chayanov intro

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