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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
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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
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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