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Showing papers on "Subsistence agriculture published in 1979"



Book
01 Jan 1979
TL;DR: Hilton as mentioned in this paper argued that there is more potential value to markets, relative to the actual performance level of these other institutions and pointed out that there are more opportunities for peasants in markets than under lords, and markets can reduce the bargaining power of the lords.
Abstract: I have made assumptions about individual behavior diverging from those of the moral economists. These assumptions have drawn attention to different features of villages and patron-client ties and have led to questions about the quality of welfare and insurance embedded in both villages and vertical patron-client ties. This, in turn, has demonstrated that there is more potential value to markets, relative to the actual performance level of these other institutions. Commercialization of agriculture and the development of strong central authorities are not wholly deleterious to peasant society. This is not because capitalism and/or colonialism are necessarily more benevolent than moral economists assume, but because traditional institutions are harsher and work less well than is often believed. Depending on the specific conditions, commercialization can be good or bad for peasants. In many cases the shift to narrow contractual ties with landlords increases both peasant security and his opportunity to benefit from markets. In Latin America, “the patron held life-or-death judicial authority over his dependent serfs, and the murder of peasants or the violation of their wives and daughters was not uncommon.” Paige, , p. 167. As long ago as the fifth century, a monk described the transformation that overcame freemen who became part of estates: “all these people who settled on the big estates underwent a strange transformation as if they had drunk of Circe's cup, for the rich began to treat as their own property these strangers.” Hilton, , quoting J. LeGeof, p. 58. Single-stranded relationships may be far more secure for the peasant because there may be less coercion, an absence of monopolies, competition among landlords, and less need for submission of self. The development of an independent trading class can give small peasants easy low-risk access to international markets and a way of escaping the domination of large lords who use coercion to control the economy despite inefficient practices. Independent small traders like the Chinese in Vietnam, for example, are opposed not by peasants, but by large landowners. In particular, erosion of the “traditional” terms of exchange between landlord and tenant is not the only way for peasants to turn against large lords. It is not the case that if the patron guarantees the traditional subsistence level, peasants will cede him continuous legitimacy; peasants can and do fight for autonomy when better alternatives exist in the market. There are often better opportunities for peasants in markets than under lords, and markets can reduce the bargaining power of the lords. See, for example, Blum, “The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe,” p. 816; Breman, , p. 75; Hilton, , p. 214. Indeed, it was not uncommon in Europe for men to buy their way out of clientage for the security and freedom of markets. Rodney Hilton, “Peasant Society, Peasant Movements and Feudalism in Medieval Europe.” in Henry Landsberger, (Barnes and Noble, 1973), pp. 67-94, 81; Blum, et al., , p. 23. One need only note the land rush in the new areas of Cochinchina after the French made it habitable to see that markets can be an enormous opportunity for the poor. Throughout the world, peasants have fought for access to markets when they were secure enough to want to raise their economic level and “redefine” cultural standards! In medieval England, when peasant conditions were comparatively secure. The essential quarrel between the peasantry and the aristocracy was about access to the market. It was not that the peasants were worried about the impact of the market in a disintegrating sense upon their community; what they wanted was to be able to put their produce on the market and to have a freer market in land which would enable them to take advantage of the benefits of the market. Hilton. “Medieval Peasants - Any Lesson?,” p. 217. The rise of strong central states and the growth of a market economy, then, even in the guise of colonialism and capitalism cannot always be directly equated with a decline in peasant welfare due to the destruction of traditional villages and/or elite bonds. In the short-run, local village elites with the skills to ally with outside powers may reap the most benefits from new institutional arrangements, but, in the long-run, new elites emerge which ally with the peasantry against both feudalism and colonialism. As Weisser notes for Spain, “anarchism sought to sweep away the remnants of that old system by joining with those elements in the outside world that had begun a similar attack.” , p. 117. Indirectly, peasants clearly benefit from the growth of law and order and the resulting stability, as well as the vast improvements in communications. The numerous and onerous taxes of the colonial period - as applied by village elites - increased stratification in the majority of countries, but the colonial infrastructure also led to wider systems of trade, credit, and communications that helped keep peasants alive during local famines. As Day has noted of Java, local crop failures were so serious in precolonial times before there was a developed communications and trade network “because it was impossible to supply a deficit in one part of the country by drawing on the surplus which might exist in another.” Day. , p. 25. Colonialism is ugly, but the quality of the minimum subsistence floor improved in most countries. Geertz, , p. 80; Tom Kessinger, (University of California Press, 1974), p. 87; Charles Robequain, (Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 328. By stressing the common investment logic of intra-village patron-client and market relations I have attempted to show that given the actual performance levels of patrons and villages, neither decline nor decay of peasant institutions is necessary for peasants to enter markets. Further, peasant support for revolutions and protests may represent not decline and decay, but political competence.

297 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper argued that the basic cause of the lack of economic progress is the nonmaterialistic, non-capitalistic nature of African culture and institutions and concluded that the tribal African responds in an economically rational manner to economic stimuli.
Abstract: S EVERAL economists have questioned the usefulness of conventional economic theory in the analysis of resource allocation in African subsistence economies. Those who adopt this position claim that resources in the indigenous or subsistence sectors are not allocated efficiently because the subsistence farmer does not use economic criteria when making decisions. Dalton states, "It is not that he is indifferent to material abundance or efficiency; rather unlike the West, the . . . [tribal] economy neither compels producers to seek out minimization, nor provides them with economic directives (factor and output prices) to make economizing decisions in work arrangement."' Sadie went much further than Dalton, arguing that the basic cause of the lack of economic progress is the nonmaterialistic, noncapitalistic nature of African culture and institutions.2 A number of empirical studies, however, conclude that the tribal African responds in an economically rational manner to economic stimuli.3 Dean has even applied Becker's market discrimination model4 to the exchange and trading patterns that developed between persons of different tribes in West Africa5 and Beals, Levy, and Moses applied a Sjaastad-type model6 to migration patterns in Ghana.7

186 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
30 Nov 1979-Science
TL;DR: The degree of market participation by four native villages in central Brazil is related to the difficulty of making a living from slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture as measured by the ratio of labor input to food output.
Abstract: Simple exposure to Western goods may not be a sufficient explanation of why isolated village communities increase their participation in external market economies. The degree of market participation by four native villages in central Brazil is related to the difficulty of making a living from slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture as measured by the ratio of labor input to food output.

144 citations


Book
01 Jan 1979

129 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors pointed out some of the differences between these two countries that might explain the success of one and the failure of the other to feed its people, and pointed out the difference between the two countries in terms of food scarcity.
Abstract: In early modern Europe the major concern of many people was getting enough food to stay alive. The “problem of subsistence” varied considerably, however, between one country—or one region—and another. England, for instance, was free of major subsistence crises during the later seventeenth century, when France was hard hit by repeated and deadly famines. In this essay I shall point out some of the differences between these two countries that might explain the success of one and the failure of the other to feed its people.

110 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, conclusive archaeological data are disclosed that demonstrate that about 10,000 B.P. there were in America groups of people able to exploit the sea with remarkable effectiveness, through the analysis of the biological indicators of three coastal archaeological sites of different chronology, the continuity and the diachronic development of the maritime adaptation in the north of Chile is shown.
Abstract: In this report, conclusive archaeological data are disclosed that demonstrate that about 10,000 B.P. there were in America groups of people able to exploit the sea with remarkable effectiveness. In addition, through the analysis of the biological indicators of three coastal archaeological sites of different chronology, the continuity and the diachronic development of the maritime adaptation in the north of Chile is shown.

103 citations


01 Jan 1979
TL;DR: In this paper, a sociolinguistic study of an Australian Aboriginal community of western Cape York Peninsula, Queensland is presented, where a pattern of predominant dialectal exogamy is related to the number of dialectally similar clans and the extent to which their territories are contiguous; residence groups are normally poly-lingual.
Abstract: nnnnn This is a sociolinguistic study of an Australian Aboriginal community of western Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Its initial chapter begins with a review of the theoretical literature relevant to the construct of qlinguistic communityq, discusses the Australianist debate over the so-called qdialectal tribeq and surveys the literature on the Wik-speaking peoples. The second chapter presents a description of ecology, subsistence, land tenure and demography in the Cape Keerweer area. It is shown that a pattern of predominant dialectal exogamy is related to the number of dialectally similar clans and the extent to which their territories are contiguous; residence groups are normally poly-lingual. The third chapter discusses social identity, social institutions and personal networks, and lays stress on the relatively unimportant role of dialectal affiliation in political life . There is a lack of congruence between different forms of personal and group identification. The fourth chapter includes a brief description of the dialects of the area, their distribution, relatedness and history. The fifth chapter explores the selection of speech varieties within and across dialects, and the implications of this subtle, complex, selective behaviour for linguistic change. The conclusion foreshadows an expanded model of linguistic community that starts from the primacy of social interaction, in which the flux of personal and group politics is in a feedback relationship with social institutions, values and linguistic competence.

93 citations





Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a model for the interactions among demographic, skeletal and nutritional variables across the transition from hunting and gathering to maize agriculture based economies is presented for the effects of subsistence base changes on health in prehistoric populations.
Abstract: A variety of osteological techniques provide direct estimates of the effects of subsistence base changes on health in prehistoric populations. A model is presented for the interactions among demographic, skeletal and nutritional variables across the transition from hunting and gathering to maize agriculture based economies. Data on population composition, growth retardation, growth arrest markers, cortical bone dynamics, and nutrition‐related aspects of dental health are examined in the light of this model. These techniques permit a quantification of the biological impact of the transition from Woodland to Mississippian economies in the Lower Illinois Valley region from 0 to 1000 A. D.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A study of plant and animal remains from eleven archaeological sites in the Moche Valley, Peru, revealed that three major subsistence patterns prevailed between the time of the first permanent settlements and the arrival of the Spaniards.
Abstract: A study of plant and animal remains from eleven archaeological sites in the Moche Valley, Peru, revealed that three major subsistence patterns prevailed between the time of the first permanent settlements (c. 2500 B.C.) and the arrival of the Spaniards (a.d. 1532). The first permanent settlements were predicated on marine resources and gave way gradually to larger inland polities with irrigation agriculture and a non‐marine animal protein source. The final shift saw the development of the Chimu state and associated satellite communities established to provide specific goods and services and linked to the state through an extensive system of redistribution. All three patterns are examined in terms of changes in diet and subsistence, and some effort is made to place them in proper cultural perspective.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a Ricardian model with several qualities of land is proposed, which is more differentiated than standard models assuming homogeneous land (or simply including land in "capital K").
Abstract: The reader may notice the similarity between the title of this paper and that of Arthur Lewis's classic paper.l It is intentional. Like Lewis, I shall discuss development under conditions of perfectly elastic factor supply. But land has been substituted in the title for labor because ours is a land surplus rather than a labor surplus economy. However, a land surplus economy is only interesting if there are several qualities of land, and this takes us to Ricardo's theory of differential rent.2 Moreover, the scope of this paper is narrowed down to colonial economic development and that means agricultural development; under old-style imperialism, development in the colonies was concentrated to agriculture with infrastructure, trading facilities, and administrative institutions. I stop short of dealing fully with industrialization but do discuss its preconditions in our particular setting, and I shall briefly touch upon the possible application to a neocolonial setting with multinationals operating in independent less developed countries (LDCs) with surplus land. A Ricardian model with several qualities of land is, of course, more differentiated than standard models assuming homogeneous land (or simply including land in "capital K"). Our aim, however, is not just to set up a model with n qualities of land rather than one. In associating particular qualities of land with particular social classes, we shall go a step further in differentiation. Thus we shall take it that subsistence agriculture by illiterate and uneducated native farmers takes place exclusively

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss agricultural development, diet and nutrition in the context of food and nutrition, and propose a methodology for agricultural development and diet adaptation based on the ecology of food.
Abstract: (1979). Agricultural development, diet and nutrition. Ecology of Food and Nutrition: Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 265-273.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a critical point in the process of adaptation to irrigation agriculture is explored through an examination of subsistence data from two sites: the Initial Period (1800-1400 B.C.) site of Gramalote on the coast and the Initial period and Early Horizon (1400-400 BC) settlement of Caballo Muerto located well inland.
Abstract: Technologically, the Initial Period in Peru began with the introduction of pottery and the change from twined to woven textile production. Within the Moche Valley, it was the time when a complex settlement first appeared in the valley interior — a relocation correlated with the beginnings of irrigation agriculture. This critical point in the process of adaptation to irrigation agriculture is explored through an examination of subsistence data from two sites: the Initial Period (1800-1400 B.C.) site of Gramalote on the coast and the Initial Period and Early Horizon (1400-400 B.C.) settlement of Caballo Muerto located well inland. Evidence from Caballo Muerto suggests that the shift from floodwater to irrigation agriculture was complete, yet the inland site still relied heavily on animal protein from Gramalote on the coast. Taken together, the two early ceramic sites form an economic unit which, when explored, reveals several important aspects of the transition from an exclusively coastal orientatio...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present data from four native Central Brazilian societies on the time spent at various subsistence tasks and the productivity of those tasks and conclude that decisions to allocate labor to hunting and fishing are influenced more by the overall possibilities for production in an area than by the availability of animal proteins alone.
Abstract: The question of why people work more or less at various activities is an old one in anthropology and recently has surfaced in studies of native South American societies. Growing out of debates about protein scarcity, arguments have arisen over the reasons why people spend time on hunting and fishing. Some authors suggest that labor allocation and other societal features can be explained with reference to absolute minimum requirements for specific nutrients (e.g., protein). This study presents data from four native Central Brazilian societies on the time spent at various subsistence tasks and the productivity of those tasks. The evidence suggests that decisions to allocate labor to hunting and fishing are influenced more by the overall possibilities for production in an area than by the availability of animal proteins alone. Satisfaction of calorie requirements appears to take precedence over satisfaction of protein requirements. In those societies in which gardening is highly productive, people can spend more time on hunting and fishing and improve the overall quality of their diet.



Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1979
TL;DR: The authors explored three basic questions about the economic behavior of prehistoric hunter-gatherers: (a) what factors influence the subsistence decisions of hunters, (b) what variations in these decisions are necessary in response to specific perturbations, and (c) how will these behaviors manifest in the archaeological record.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter explores three basic questions about the economic behavior of prehistoric hunter-gatherers: (a) what factors influence the subsistence decisions of hunter-gatherers? (b) what variations in these decisions are necessary in response to specific perturbations? (c) how will these behaviors manifest in the archaeological record? Previous approaches to prehistoric economy have often attempted to deal with these questions on a subjective level. Most quantitative models were limited to consideration of only a few variables such as carrying capacity, biomass, or energy value of resources. However, in considering these questions, it becomes abundantly clear that hunter-gatherer societies are complex cultural systems that cannot be accurately studied on an intuitive level or described by simple two- and three-variable models.


01 Sep 1979
TL;DR: The rural poor in many parts of the Third World seem to be getting poorer while the urban poor can at least keep pace with the cost of living.
Abstract: Internal migration of the rural poor to urban areas in all Third World countries is the so-called "largest migratory movement in human history." This trend is true for many reasons. Conditions make village life based on small-scale or subsistence agriculture less and less bearable. Governmental programs for development seem to concentrate and overinvest in urban areas to the disadvantage of the countryside. Urban areas have always held a romantic attraction. Modern-day urban areas also offer employment and educational opportunities unequalled in rural areas. The rural poor in many parts of the Third World seem to be getting poorer while the urban poor can at least keep pace with the cost of living.

Book
01 Jun 1979
TL;DR: Barakat et al. as discussed by the authors argued that institutional barriers between primary and secondary markets have been the predominating explanation for the stability of age differentials in unemployment rates since at least the Depression.
Abstract: My main reservation regarding the work is that it is difficult o accept Osterman's thesis that institutional barriers between primary and secondary markets have been the predominating explanation for the stability of age differentials in unemployment rates since at least the Depression. Rather, the decline in the wage rates of youth relative to adults in the face of the huge post-World War II expansion of the youth population suggests that market forces have contributed greatly as well. Such traditionally expected labor market adjustments have been much less influential in containing the unemployment of black youth, but Osterman assigns discrimination a "central explanatory role" without himself explaining why racial discrimination has increased over time to account for the widening gap in black-white youth unemployment rates. On the whole, this book is worthwhile reading. I recommend the first half, especially, to all who are interested in youth. The second half is likely to be of greater interest to a more limited audience and perhaps ought simply to be skimmed by the general reader for the drift of recent findings. Arnold Katz Associate Professor Department of Economics University of Pittsburgh

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In many otherwise diverse societies, owners of large agricultural estates have paid their year-round workers with the use of a piece of land on which to produce their own subsistence crops.
Abstract: In many otherwise diverse societies, owners of large agricultural estates have paid their year-round workers with the use of a piece of land on which to produce their own subsistence crops. In a “preliminary report” Magnus Morner cited some eleven examples of this system in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Although Morner mentions different influences, he does not advance an argument to explain these systems. This essay seeks to contribute to our understanding of the political economy of these “labor rent” or “estate labor” systems. The paper is exploratory: previous approaches are considered, a theoretical framework is proposed, and some tentative hypotheses are presented. My evidence comes from three examples: the Insten system of East Elbian Germany from ca. 1750 to ca. 1860; the ‘izbah system of the Egyptian Delta from ca. 1850 to ca. 1940; and the pre-1930 inquilinaje system of Central Chile.

Book
01 Jan 1979
TL;DR: The authors explored the nature of the link between past and present in Uduk society and found that there are also inner connections between the past experience of the people, their digested memory of that experience, and the way in which they represent themselves, the'kwanin pa, as still a'foundling people' who have survived the repeated destruction of their former world and are putting together a new.
Abstract: Account of the Uduk people of the Sudan, their subsistence, kinship and settlement patterns, population history and migrations. Repeated reference is made to selected aspects of myth, symbol and cult, and to the Gurunya ritual which is devoted to the saving of'foundling' children. In this way the author has tried to explore the nature of the link between past and present in Uduk society. Besides externally demonstrable links between the hisorical record of devastation and the main features of Uduk communities today, there are also inner connections between the past experience of the people, their digested memory of that experience, and the way in which they represent themselves, the'kwanin pa, as still a'foundling people' who have survived the repeated destruction of their former world and are putting together a new. This self-image is the key to understanding present-day Uduk economic, political, and kinship institutions and behaviour.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The following article describes the strategies of a group of rural Kenyan market women for coordinating their various family responsibilities: subsistence production, income generation, child rearing, and household maintenance.
Abstract: The following article describes the strategies of a group of rural Kenyan market women for coordinating their various family responsibilities: subsistence production, income generation, child rearing, and household maintenance. By approaching the study of these women through their income-generating role, which is essential to the performance of their other roles, this analysis provides an important entree for understanding all aspects of women's behavior.



Book ChapterDOI
31 Jan 1979