Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Ian Phimister, Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the 'Dark Forests' of Matabeleland
Dagfinn Gatu, Social and Political Change in Revolutionary China: The Taihang Base Area in the War of Resistance to Japan, 1937–1945
Marc Blecher, Sources of Chinese Economic Growth 1978–1996
Louise Fortmann, Modern Forests: Statemaking and Environmental Change in Colonial Eastern India
Frank Dikötter, Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949–1968
Ben Fine, The World Bank: Structure and Policies
Jonathan Pincus, Economic Transition in Vietnam: Trade and Aid in the Demise of Centrally Planned Economy
Vivek Chibber, An Agrarian History of South Asia, The New Cambridge History of India, IV, 4     

'Changing Before Our Very Eyes': Agrarian Questions and the Politics of Land in Capitalism Today

This paper endorses the criticisms of neo-classical populism and its advocacy of redistributive land reform provided by other contributions to this special issue of the Journal, to which it adds several further points. If GKI propose a version of an agrarian question of 'small' or 'family' farming, and its resolution through a familiar (Chayanovian) path of development, much of the critique rests, in one way or another, on the 'classic' agrarian question in capitalist transition, in effect the agrarian question of capital in which the agrarian question of labour was once subsumed. Here the question is posed whether, in the conditions of contemporary 'globalization' and its tendency to the 'fragmentation' of labour, there might be a new agrarian question of labour, now detached from that of capital, and which generates a new politics of struggles over land (and its distribution). Even to conceive of this question is beyond the analytical and political field of vision of neo-classical populism. Some of the dimensions of an agrarian question of labour are illustrated in a brief consideration of recent, and highly contradictory, events in Zimbabwe: a unique case of comprehensive, regime-sanctioned, confiscatory land redistribution in the world today.     

The Chilean Agrarian Transformation: Agrarian Reform and Capitalist 'Partial' Counter-Agrarian Reform, 1964–1980

This article, which is published in two parts, is an empirical analysis of the Chilean agrarian reform (1964–1973) and 'partial' counter-agrarian reform (1974–1980). Its aim is to explain and interpret their logic and the changes they brought to Chile's agrarian property regime in particular and Chilean life in general. Chile's agrarian reform was successful in expropriating (under the Frei and Allende administrations, 1964–1973) the great estates of the hacienda landed property system. The capitalist 'partial' counter-reform then redistributed them (under the military, 1974–1980). CORA, the country's agency for agrarian reform, expropriated and subsequently redistributed 5809 estates of almost 10 million hectares, or 59 per cent of Chile's agricultural farmland. A large amount of the expropriated land (41 per cent) benefited 54,000 peasant households with small-sized family farms and house-sites. The rest of the farmland benefited efficient and competitive commercial farmers and agro-business and consolidated medium-sized farms. Of central concern is the role of the agrarian reform and subsequent 'partial' counter-reform processes in fostering the transformation of the erstwhile agrarian structure of the hacienda system toward agrarian capitalism. The redistribution of the agricultural land previously expropriated made possible the formation of an agro-industrial bourgeoisie, small commercial farmers, an open land market and a dynamic agricultural sector. While, however, under military rule, a selected few benefited with family farms and became independent agricultural producers, a large majority of reformed and non-reformed campesinos were torn from the land to become non-propertied proletarians in a rapidly modernizing but highly exclusionary agricultural sector.     

The Chilean Agrarian Transformation: Agrarian Reform and Capitalist 'Partial' Counter-Agrarian Reform, 1964–1980

This article, which is published in two parts, is an empirical analysis of the Chilean agrarian reform (1964–1973) and 'partial' counter-agrarian reform (1974–1980). Its aim is to explain and interpret their logic and the changes they brought to Chile's agrarian property regime in particular and Chilean life in general. Chile's agrarian reform was successful in expropriating (under the Frei and Allende administrations, 1964–1973) the great estates of the hacienda landed property system. The capitalist 'partial' counter-reform then redistributed it (under the military, 1974–1980). CORA, the country's agency for agrarian reform, expropriated and subsequently redistributed 5809 estates of almost 10 million hectares, or 59 per cent of Chile's agricultural farmland. A large amount of the expropriated land (41 per cent) benefited 54,000 peasant households with small-sized family farms and house-sites. The rest of the farmland benefited efficient and competitive commercial farmers and agro-business and consolidated medium-sized farms. Of central concern is the role of the agrarian reform and subsequent 'partial' counter-reform processes in fostering the transformation of the erstwhile agrarian structure of the hacienda system toward agrarian capitalism. The redistribution of the agricultural land previously expropriated made possible the formation of an agro-industrial bourgeoisie, small commercial farmers, an open land market and a dynamic agricultural sector. While, however, under military rule, a selected few benefited with family farms and became independent agricultural producers, a large majority of reformed and non-reformed campesinos were torn from the land to become non-propertied proletarians in a rapidly modernizing but highly exclusionary agricultural sector.     

The Chilean Agrarian Transformation: The Pre-Agrarian Reform Period (1955–1965)

Today Chilean agriculture has recovered from years of diminishing returns. The same arduous work carried out by a declining workforce has suddenly attained higher productivity and, therefore, achieved economic growth. This article suggests that Chile has undergone a series of fundamental changes in the last quarter of the twentieth century, which have intensified its capitalist development. It analyses the agrarian structure of the hacienda system during the period immediately before the agrarian reform, looking particularly at the transition to modern capitalism, agricultural growth and the land question. It argues that before the implementation of the agrarian reform, the country had not finished its transition to modern capitalism due to the persistence of the antiquated hacienda system. It further suggests that the land reform process – implemented and consolidated from 1964 to 1980 – permitted the culmination of the long-postponed transition to modern capitalism and gave rise to the ascendancy of an agro-industrial bourgeoisie and an export-oriented agriculture integrated into the world economy.     

Comments on the Brenner–Wood Exchange on the Low Countries

The exchange between Brenner and Wood on the Low Countries in the early modern period raises a number of theoretical and historical issues relating to the conditions for the emergence of capitalist social-property relations and their unique historical laws of motion. This contribution focuses on three issues raised in the Brenner-Wood exchange: the conditions under which rural house-hold producers become subject to 'market coercion', the potential for ecological crisis to restructure agricultural production, and the relative role of foreign trade and the transformation of domestic, rural class relations to capitalist industrialization.     

The Closing Frontier: Agrarian Change, Immigrants and the 'Squatter Menace' in Gokwe, 1980-1990s

‘Squatting’ in the communal areas of Zimbabwe has been largely ignored in the literature because it is assumed that it does not exist in a ‘communal’ land tenure system. This article argues that ‘squatting’ in Gokwe villages has become a common strategy by landless immigrants to access land. Gokwe has been a frontier region for many immigrants in search of land since the 1950s with intense pressure on land by the 1990s. As the frontier closed, the question of citizenship in Gokwe villages became more signi?cant than ever before. Those who are not formally registered as residents are de?ned by local government authorities and established villagers as ‘squatters’ who should be evicted. The article traces how local authorities and established villagers have responded to what they perceive as the ‘squatter menace’. It further examines the means used by ‘squatters’ to lay claims to land and to defend those claims in Gokwe villages.     

论华夏农耕文化发展过程及其重农思想的演替

华夏农耕文化的核心是耕战论和由此衍生的旧重农思想。此种重农思想可分为三个发展阶段：秦代的草创阶段、汉代的奠基阶段和共和国建国初期到20世纪末的盛极而衰阶段。2005年的一号文件透露新重农思想的萌芽。本文认为，要进一步形成新农业的政策体系并进一步以新的文化改造旧的耕战文化，还要克服两大难题，即重农思想的新构建和对传统单一谷物农业系统的彻底改造。     

'Sowing the Seeds of Their Own Destruction': Southern Planters, State Policy and the Market, 1933–1975

In this article, I examine the relationship between class, state and market. I analyse the process of class transformation, tracing the demise of the Southern planters. Scholars analysing the retrenchment of US agricultural policy in the 1970s frequently overlook the profound influence that this class segment had on the agricultural policy of price supports and production controls. Yet, this policy of supply management contributed to the transformation of the plantation–tenant system in the South. This transformation created an opportunity for the emergence of the civil rights movement, which further weakened the Southern planters and allowed for changes in agricultural policy. The retrenchment of agricultural policy between 1950 and 1975, then, must be understood in light of this process of class transformation.     

The Question of Market Dependence

Capitalism is a system of social-property relations in which survival and social reproduction are dependent on the market; a system that is, therefore, driven by the imperatives of competition and a relentless drive to improve the forces of production. This article explores the nature of that market dependence and the specific historical conditions in which it emerged. In debate with Robert Brenner's recent article in this journal (vol.1, no.2) about the early development of capitalism in the Low Countries, it is suggested that, while the Dutch Republic was a highly developed commercial society, it seems to have lacked the specific conditions that made market dependence a basic property relation, as it was in early modern English agrarian capitalism. The differences between Dutch and English patterns of economic development reflect some fundamental differences between commercial and capitalist societies.     

The Scottish Path to Capitalist Agriculture 3: The Enlightenment as the Theory and Practice of Improvement

The second in this series of articles traced the transformation of Scottish agriculture during the period between 1747 and 1815. The Scottish Enlightenment is usually seen either as a passive expression of these and related economic changes, or as a local variant on European-wide intellectual trends with little direct connection to economy or society. In fact, it was directly involved in the transformation in three ways: as a theory of socio-economic development ('political economy'), a programme for agrarian change and the movement for its implementation ('Improvement'). The Scottish Enlightenment theorists were always conscious of the oppressive aspects of the division of labour which were inevitable under their own model of 'commercial society'. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, however, they became increasingly aware of how 'actually existing capitalism' concentrated power in ways that the model had not predicted. Faced with the counter-revolutionary onslaught on British radicalism which occurred in response to the French Revolution, the Scottish Enlightenment shattered under the weight of these contradictions into its component academic disciplines. The economic aspects of the Scottish Revolution accomplished, political economy increasingly shed all elements of critique and became reduced to an intellectually rigorous justification for the now capitalist landowning classes and the emergent industrial bourgeoisie.     

欠发达地区工业园区发展机理初探

为了总结欠发达地区工业园区建设的成功经验，并进一步探索工业园区发展的内在规律，分析了欠发达地区的经济社会特征，从区住、成本、政府作用、外部辐射及制度文化因素等多个方面对欠发达地区工业园区发展机理做了探究和分析。     

'Urban Bias', Intersectoral Resource Flows and the Macroeconomic Implications of Agrarian Relations: The Historical Experience of Japan and Taiwan

It is argued that agrarian relations play a critical role in the pattern of intersectoral resource flows and the way in which the agricultural sector shapes the macroeconomy in developing countries. The notion of 'urban bias' used by GKI is defective in its abstracting from the pre-existing agrarian system and from the prevailing institutions and in focussing on one simple set of influences outside the agricultural sector itself, i.e. government policy bias. This is illustrated with reference to the historical experience of two countries regarded as exemplary by GKI: Japan and Taiwan. Their experience shows that high rates of taxation and surplus extraction from agriculture are not incompatible with maintaining profitability and production incentives in agriculture, as long as agrarian relations and other enabling conditions can ensure a fast enough rate of technological progress and productivity growth in the sector. The macroeconomic implications of different agrarian relations are much more complex than the urban bias story told by GKI would suggest.     

印度茶业的崛起及对中国茶业的影响与打击——19世纪末至20世纪上半叶

印度是当今世界主要茶叶生产和出口大国。一百多年前,为了打破中国茶叶对世界茶市场的垄断,牟取厚利,英国殖民当局从中国全面输入茶籽、茶苗、茶工、种制技术,大力发展印度茶业。经过几十年的努力,印度一跃成为世界主要茶叶生产和出口地区,对世界茶业产生了深远影响。     

Whose scarcity? Whose property? The case of water in western India

Water scarcity is usually portrayed in absolute or volumetric terms. But do most analyses of scarcity focus on how the ‘problem’ of scarcity is constructed, the need to disaggregate users and their entitlements and the imperative to look at the politics of distribution and technology choice within a frame of political economy? By taking the case of water scarcity in Kutch, western India which is supposed to benefit from the controversial Sardar Sarovar Narmada Project (SSP), the paper demonstrates how scarcity has emerged as a ‘meta-narrative’ that justifies controversial schemes such as large dams, allows for simplistic portrayals of property rights and resource conflicts and also ignores the cultural and symbolic dimensions of resources such as water. Moreover, water scarcity tends to be naturalised and its anthropogenic dimensions are whitewashed. It is thus necessary to distinguish between the biophysical aspects of scarcity that are lived and experienced differently by different people and its ‘constructed’ aspects. The paper draws on a wide range of conceptual approaches such as political ecology, common property resource theory and post-institutional approaches to highlight that scarcity is not a natural condition. Instead, it is usually socially mediated and the result of socio-political and institutional processes. It also argues that while institutional perspectives have played in a key role in moving away from alarmist portrayals of scarcity and property rights by demonstrating how local people can manage and live with scarcity, they need to be complemented by analyses that locate property rights within wider historical, cultural and socio-political processes that combine both discursive and materialist analyses.