How did we come to think that eliminating poverty is a legitimate goal for public policy? What policies emerged in the hope of attaining that goal? The last 200 years have witnessed a dramatic change in thinking about poverty. Mainstream economic thinking in the eighteenth century held that poverty was necessary and even desirable for a country's economic success. Today, poverty is more often viewed as a constraint on that success. In short, poverty switched from being seen as a social good to a social bad. This change in thinking, and the accompanying progress in knowledge, has greatly influenced public action, with heightened emphasis on the role of antipoverty policy in sustainable promotion from poverty, as well as protection. Development strategies today typically strive for a virtuous cycle of growth with equity and a range of policy interventions have emerged to help ensure that outcome. An expanding body of knowledge has taught us about how effective those interventions are in specific settings, although many knowledge gaps remain.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19210/w19210.pdf

The Idea of Antipoverty Policy

Cette these s’efforce de redefinir le concept de caste dominante qui fut d’abord etudie a l’echelle villageoise, dans le contexte de l’Inde rurale des annees 1950, afin de le rendre pertinent en l’adaptant aux evolutions contemporaines d’un pays de plus en plus urbanise, ou les mobilites socio-spatiales se sont intensifiees. Pour ce faire, cette recherche s’appuie sur le cas des Kamma, caste dominante originaire d’Andhra cotier ou elle continue de posseder l’essentiel des terres, meme si ses membres ont migre en grand nombre vers l’interieur et le sud de la peninsule indienne, dans les nouvelles zones irriguees et les villes. Ils occupent desormais des positions-cles dans la vie politique et economique de l’Andhra Pradesh, et dans une moindre mesure du Tamil Nadu et du Karnataka. La prise en compte du territoire, tel que ce concept a ete elabore par la geographie sociale, est essentielle pour comprendre ce changement d’echelle et de nature de la dominance de caste et pour etudier ses variations regionales. Dans les annees 1980, avec l’arrivee au pouvoir en Andhra Pradesh d’un parti controle par les Kamma, le Telugu Desam, la prise en main de l’appareil d’Etat leur a permis de renforcer leur influence. Ils dominent aussi les medias et le cinema telougous, ce qui leur confere une preeminence socioculturelle. Ces nouveaux attributs de dominance, ideels voire ideologiques, et non plus seulement materiels, permettent de parler d’hegemonie. Celle-ci est toutefois remise en cause par la resistance des Dalit a l’oppression de caste et de classe, tandis que la domination culturelle des Kamma est contestee dans la region du Telangana par les partisans d’un Etat separe de l’Andhra.

Caste dominante et territoire en Inde du Sud : migration et ascension sociale des Kamma d’Andhra côtier

Women's major productive role (outside of the home) in agriculture and the crucial part which women play in peasant revolts have been more or less ignored by social scientists. In this paper an attempt is made to analyse the interconnections between class and sexual oppression, and between women's movements and class struggle, in rural India: with class structure, the nature of society, and the development of social movements looked at from the viewpoint of women themselves. With the use of two key concepts, work participation and mode of production, it is argued that in India, increasingly during the last decade, capitalism has developed in the countryside, and that, with the changing social relations of production, there has emerged a mass‐based and militant women's movement, whose objective basis has been the militancy of women of the rural poor. This is illustrated for a variety of Indian states, but especially for the state of Maharashtra.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3516628.pdf

Women and rural revolt in India

The late 18th century saw the intellectual germ of the idea of “ending poverty,” but the idea did not get far in economics or policy making until much more recently. Over the 19th century, poverty rates fell substantially in Western Europe and North America, and we started to see mainstream advocates of ending chronic poverty, and policies for doing so. There was an explosion of interest in the idea from around 1960, with policy responses in many countries, including America. In the post-Colonial period, the newly independent states were keen to see an end to poverty. From the 1990s, development agencies began to identify this as their overarching objective. The U.N.’s first Millennium Development Goal (MDG1) of halving the 1990 poverty rate by 2015 was achieved ahead of time. The U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals came to include ending extreme poverty by 2030. This is more ambitious than MDG1, and more politically challenging. Economic growth in poor countries is likely to remain important, but the policy emphasis has shifted to redistributive interventions, though these will require a deeper reach to the poorest if we are to see the end of poverty, judged by any chosen poverty line.

On the Origins of the Idea of Ending Poverty

ORGANIC FARMING AND RURAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: A POLITICAL ECONOMY APPROACH

/pdf/organic-farming-and-rural-transformations-in-the-european-3im9xv7dwt.pdf

Organic farming and rural transformations in the European Union: A political economy approach

﻿Ashok Rudra (Review of Agriculture, September 27, 1969) tells us that he is more interested in the 'Red Revolution' than in the 'Green Revolution', The colour of the revolution which I have seen in one area after another of India in the 1960s is steel-grey. I call it an industrial revolution.

Capitalist Farming in India

﻿Daniel Thorner "Welfare Capitalism" is the principal positive recommendation for agriculture offered by Gunnar Myrdal in his important treatise, "Asian Drama". Yet his own analysis of the agrarian scene in con- temporary India suggests that the type of capitalist farming most likely to spread is predatory rather than welfare-oriented. It follows logically that Indian agricultural workers can promote their own welfare best by organising themselves into powerful labour federations.

Predatory Capitalism in Indian Agriculture

﻿Daniel Thorner HAROLD MANN'S fame in agriculture and the natural sciences always overshadowed his remarkable achievements in the field of social study. He himself contributed to this process by his disarming habit of referring to his town and village studies as merely his hobby. With rare exceptions, his acquaintances in the agricultural world took those expressions at face values. Even the most summary review of his contributions to the social sciences will suggest, I believe, that his accomplishments in this field were probably are great as those which gave him an international reputation in the natural sciences.

Daniel Thorner

Papers

Capitalist Farming in India

Predatory Capitalism in Indian Agriculture

Social and Economic Studies of Dr Mann