Peasant economy, rural industry and capitalist development in the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico

Abstract

This article examines the dynamics of rural industrial commodity production in capitalist development. Data from fieldwork in the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico, are presented and analysed around issues such as the relationship between agriculture and industry, factors influencing the incidence of rural industrial production (between households, communities and districts), the role of household demographics in rural industry, the difference between simple commodity and simple capitalist production, social differentiation and class formation as related to different rural industries, and the role of labour‐intensive rural industrialisation in developing capitalist economies. A general conclusion is that labour‐intensive industries in capitalism today may not be as uniformly retrograde as some have argued they were in earlier periods of capitalism.

Notes

Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268, USA