The value of Peasant labour power in a prolonged transition to capitalism

Abstract

Like peasant populations in many areas of the world, the Aymara of southern Peru have been subjected to a variety of social, political and economic pressures that have radically altered relations of production and exchange. However, in spite of being altered, precapitalist social relations persist in juxtaposition with increased participation in the expanding capitalist economy. By comparing the average return to labour power in subsistence production with the return associated with participation in the capitalist economy, this article highlights some of the relationships that exist between capitalist and pre‐capitalist production, and seeks to offer a partial explanation for an arrested transition to capitalism.

Notes

Institute for Development Anthropology, 99 Collier Street, Suite 302, PO Box 818, Binghamton, NY 13902, USA.

The research upon which this article is based was sponsored by an Inter-American Foundation Learning Fellowship for Social Change and a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for Doctoral Research.

The author thanks Michael Chibnik, JaneCollins, PeterLittle, Thomas Painter and Stuart Plattner for the helpful criticisms of an earlier draft.