The agrarian question, past and present

Abstract

Capitalism from Above and Capitalism from Below: An Essay in Comparative Political Economy, by Terence J. Byres. London: Macmillan Press, 1996. Pp.xxiv + 490. £60 (hardback). ISBN 0 333 66657 7

In his Capitalism from Above and Capitalism from Below: An Essay in Comparative Political Economy, T.J. Byres has as his concern an examination of the contemporary relevance of critical issues surrounding the development of agriculture in capitalist societies, as these unfolded in the past. Part of that relates to the agrarian roots of capitalist industrialisation. The historical experience, in this regard, of England, Prussia, the United States, France and Japan, is his chosen terrain, and in the present volume the manner of resolution of the agrarian question in two of these, Prussia ('capitalism from above') and the United States ('capitalism from below'), is addressed. In a rich, thoroughly researched and carefully argued examination of ‘agrarian transition’ in these cases ‐ in which he stresses that in the United States there were two distinct instances of transition, one in the South and the other in the North and West — he offers a nuanced assessment, in considerable historical depth, and develops new and important explanations of agrarian change, and its implications, in the two countries. Some of his major conclusions are discussed, and issue is taken with Henry Bernstein's argument/critique, developed with respect to Byres s conclusions, that the breakdown of boundaries which has occurred in the era of globalisation may signal the ‘end of the agrarian question’ in the sense of the elimination of any prospects of agrarian transition as a route to comprehensive industrialisation in contemporary poor countries.