Class, Status, and the Small Farmer

In this essay, contrasting processes of class formation are related to the relative success and failure of rural development programs in two dependent countries, Uganda and Brazil. I explain why government programs aimed at transforming peasants into small farmers integrated into a market economy have much greater chances of success when local middle classes mediate the interaction of peasants with imposed capitalist institutions than when these programs occur within a bipolar class structure. Focus on rural development programs provides two advantages for the analysis of the relations between the state and rural classes. First, these programs involve specific, clearly defined cases of government action and policy toward these classes. Second, despite differences in organization and strategies in each country, the aim of integrating peasants into a market economy is the same and thus provides a basis for comparative analysis of two very different historical experiences. These historical experiences are examined to explain the different forms and results of rural development programs in terms of the different organization of economic and social domination in each area. The key difference in both economic formations and the organization of domination in Uganda and in Brazil corresponds to differences in the colonial and post-independence experience of their respective continents. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, the colonial state directly appropriated surplus produc

Capitalism · Colonialism · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Independence (probability theory) · Market economy · Middle class · Political science · Politics · Rural area · Social class · State (computer science) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Rural Development and Agriculture

• Social classes in agrarian societies

  Rodolfo Stavenhagen•Social classes in agrarian…•1975

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• Social Classes in Agrarian Societies

  M A Seligson, Mitchell Seligson•Hispanic American Historical Review•1976

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• Agricultural policy and strategies of land reform

  Open Access•Solon L Barraclough•Studies in Comparative…•1968

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• The Predicament of the Modern African Chief

  Open Access•Lloyd Fallers, Lloyd A Fallers•American Anthropologist•1955

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