Primitive accumulation, agrarian reform and socialist transitions: An argument

Abstract

This essay constructs a preliminary argument concerning the position of the peasantry in the twin transitions: the first to industrialisation, and the second, towards socialism. In the poor developing country launching upon both simultaneously, the agrarian question bifurcates into two dichotomous sets of issues. The first concerns the instrumentality of the agricultural sector in assisting industrialisation through the provision of investible resources which the nascent industrial sector cannot generate from within or elsewhere. The second set treats the rural sector not as the continued object of exploitation in the form of primitive socialist accumulation, but rather as the subject of socialist development. The two are obviously interdependent, but in the context of a range of widely observable socialist industrialisation strategies, also frequently incompatible. It is argued that according primacy to accelerated industrial growth generates inter‐sectoral imbalances which are resolved through the adoption of expeditiously selective commoditisation and institutional policies, especially in the rural sector, which inexorably divert the trajectory of societal transition away from any socialist direction. The general argument would obviously not apply uniformly to varying concrete specifications, although a fair illustration of it is provided by Ethiopia since 1974.

Notes

Professor of Rural Economics, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. I have benefited from discussions with Kurt Martin. My debt of gratitude would be poorly repaid if I were to allow him to be implicated in any way with the arguments or inadequacies of this article.

The use of ‘primitive’ simply follows what has become accepted parlance in the literature, despite its inappropriateness. Other substitutes are frequently used: previous, preliminary, primary, initial and original are all encountered in the debates. The trade‐off is between causing minor irritation to some as against some loss of recognition to many.