Neo-Populism and Marxism - The Chayanovian View of The Agrarian Question and Its Fundamental Fallacy, Part1 - Utsa Patnaik (1981)

Social Scientist
Neo-Populism and Marxism: The Chayanovian View of the Agrarian Question and Its
Fundamental Fallacy. Part One
Author(s): Utsa Patnaik
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 9, No. 12 (Dec., 1981), pp. 26-52
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3517132
Accessed: 22-02-2018 06:10 UTC
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UTSA PATNAIK
Neo-Populism and Marxisn: The

Chayanovian View of the Agrarian Question
and its Fundamental Fallacy
PART ONE
THE neo-populist viewpoint on the agrarian question,

in Russia from the late nineteenth century against Marx
enjoys a modified revival in India today. The theore
of the neo-Populist framework consists in the idea of
mically undifferentiated, virtually homogeneous peasant
shows extreme stability and viability vis-a-vis the comp
capitalist production; and is of superior efficiency w
to yield. There is a basic logical fallacy underlying t
consisting in the positing of identical conditions of
for units with differing objectives of production-"su
for pesant holdings and "profit" for capitalist holdi
situation where they coexist and are linked through
fact capitalist production cannot emerge at all unless it is
accompanied by a rise in output and surplus per unit area
compared to petty production,which presupposes technical change.
The logical necessity of differing conditions of production
implies that all the neo-Populist propositions are invalid.
When V I Lenin wrote that voluminous classic, The Development

of Capitalism in Russia, from Siberian exile in the late 1890s, he
intended not only to present a definitive Marxist analysis of the new
capitalist production relations which were growing out of and
NEO-POPULISM AND MARXISM 27
gradually supplanting the old feudal production ielations in Ru

but also, in the process, to refute the Populist (Narodnik) view
agrarian question. The Narodniks combined a genuinely revolutiona
hatred of feudal autocracy with a tendency to idealize a self-suffic
petty peasant production which was no longer there except in f
which had been undermined irreversibly by the penetration of
capitalism. Their solution to the agrarian problem stopped short at
the confiscation and distribution of landlords' estates, which would
achieve the small producers' Utopia, implicitly expected to remain
in that state thereafter. Lenin showed that not only was there
already a substantial growth of peasant capitalism and peasant wage
labour so that it was incorrect to think any longer of the "peasantry"
as a homogeneous entity; furthermore he argued that even the most
equitable land redistribution would only establish the conditions for
the unlettered growth of capitalist production from differentiation
among the petty produces themselves.
The views of the Narodniks in Russia at the turn of the century
find their ideological reflection (admittedly in anaemic and attenuated
forms) in the developing countries today with substantial peasant
populations, such as India. In the West there has been a conscious
revival of interest in recent years in "peasant studies"; in the English
speaking world, the resurrection of the writings of a leading neo-
Populist economist, A V Chayanov, has been undertaken by
D Thorner, B Kerblay and R E F Smith.' Thorner has gone on to
develop the concept of' "peasant economy" authored by Chayanov in
opposition to Marx's modes of production.2 An influential modern
exponent of the neo-Populist view has been N Georgescu-Roegen, with
an article attacking the validity of the law of concentration in agri-
culture3 and eulogizing petty production. In India, there has been
little explicit adoption of Chayanovian positions, but a number of
economists seem to be "unconcious" neo-Populists in their views,
while critiques of the neo-Populist framework largely remain confined
within the categories and concepts of that very framework.4
This seems a good juncture, therefore, to take a fresh look at
what the neo-Populist theory is all about and at which specific
t'heoretical points it comes into contradiction with Marxist theory.
Since Chayanov has been put forward, correctly, as one who "synthe-
sized the theoretical ideas of his predecessoas and contemporaries and
developed them along original lines",5 and his is the only study of
his school available in English, we will here present a critical
appraisal of Chayanov's works, Peasant Farm Organisation and On
the Theory of Non-Capitalist Economic Systems. The. former is the
substantive work in which Chayanov puts forward his theoretical
propositions and illustrates them with data drawn from zemstvo
statistical returns and the works of the other members of the neo-
Populist "production and organisation" school. The latter is an essay
28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
in which he generalizes his observations into a whole new cat

economic history, which he terms "the peasant economy".
course of our critique of Chayanov we will also discuss the
models of "peasant equilibrium" developed in India, which are
virtually identical with Chayanovian model.
Relation of Theoretical Concept to Statistical Analysis.

The basic analytical unit that Chayanov adopts, like all
Populists, is "the family farm", alternatively also termed "the labour
farm", though the first term is more frequently used. This is an agri-
cultural production unit in which a certain area of land (held through
commune, owned, or rented) and means of production are possessed
by the family which does not hire any outside labour and works the
land with family labour alone for the purpose of satisfying consump-
tion needs. Under certain circumstances the family may also engage
in "non-agricultural crafts and trades". (Thorner extends this definition
to include households which do hire outside labour provided the
extent of such hiring is less than days worked by family workers).
Thus "the family farm" so defined is nothing but the petty
agricultural producer of Marxist theory, in class terms consisting of
the small-scale tillers. (On Thorner's looser definition, the class of
middle peasants would also be included). The important point is
that, for Chayanov, no class other than that constituted by the family
farms exists within the peasantry; the latter is conceived of as a more
or less perfectly homogeneous entity. No relations bind his "family
farms" to any other category such as rich peasant, semi-proletarian, and
so on, because for Chayanov these other categories simply do not exist.
The peasantry is economically undifferentiated. In his general theore-
tical essay, On the Theory of Non-Capitalist Economic Systems,
Chayanov goes on to construct "the peasant economy" which is made
up of innumerable such economically identical family labour farms
and suggests that the laws of a capitalist economy would not apply in
such an economy (surely, a somewhat otiose proposition: if capitalism
is assumed away its laws can hardly remain operative).
It is clear that the basic analytical concept, "family labour
farm" used by Chayanov to the exclusion of all other concepts, imme-
diately puts him against the whole of the Marxist analytical tradition.
The latter also analyses the "family labour farms", but only as one
class among others within a peasantry which is in the process of
differentiating. The "family labour farms" did at one stage in history
make up all or almost all holdings, but that was under classical feuda-
lism, and the holdings in question were serf holdings. With the dis-
integration of feudalism and in particular the transition to money
rent from labour services and rent in kind, a well-documented process
of economic differentiation within the serf peasantry started in Europe
and was accelerated by the secular price inflation of the sixteenth
century. The emergence of a rich peasant stratum, which b

from the fixity of the money rent under long leases while pri
production rose, and employed the labour of poorer peasant ho
with below-subsistence holdings, constituted the developing cap
trend. This was further consolidated rapidly in those countries
underwent an enclosures movement.6
If Chayanov had argued (whether correctly or not is not germane
at this point) that historical conditions in Russia differed from the
pattern elsewhere in Europe and were such as to inhibit this process of
differentiation, his theory might have acquired some scholarly basis.
The historical demension is, however, conspicuously absent from
Chayanov's work. The only justification he gave for ignoring all
forms other than petty production was the claim, inThorner's words,
that "90 per cent or more of the farms in Russia in the first quarter
of the twentieth century had no hired labourers, that they were family
farms in the full sense of his definition".7 No evidence is put for-
ward in support of this assertion, and the elementary logical fallacy
in quoting relative numbers alone is evident. One may as well ignore
landlordism completely because landlords make up only 1 percent
of rural population, or ignore capitalism in the advanced countries
because capitalists form less than 5 percent of total work-force! Even
if 90 percent of all holdings were "family farms" not hiring labour
(which itsel- is an unsupported assertion), questions remain to be
answered: what proportion of total means of production (land,
draught animals, equipment) did they possess compared to the remain-
ing 10 percent? even if they did not hire in labour, what proportion
of the 90 percent were obliged to hire out labour to this 10 percent?
apart from labour hiring what were the relations of land renting
between the two? what of the rural wage workers without any land?
and so on.
Because Chayanov concentrates on the self-sufficient petty
producer alone to the exclusion of all other real-life categories, any-
thing in the nature ol a relation of production simply does not exist
in his work; certainly not relations within the peasantry (since by
assumption this is a homogeneous set of economically identical
family farms) and not even the all-pervading Russian reality of 1915,
the relation between the the peasants and landlords. It is certainly
a remarkable, if dubious, distinction to have written so extensively on
the Russian peasantry without referring to the most important feature
of its life, the burden of feudal oppression to which capitalist exploi-
tation was being added. By contrast-both in terms of method and
content--Lenin's study published 15 years earlier, presented
detailed statistical evidence, district by district, showing how the
rich peasant minority concentrated control over total peasant culti-
vated area, livestock and equipment; the growing importance of
labour hiring by them from the poor peasant and landless day labourer
30 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
households; their investment in improved implements and mach

all underlining the capitalist character of these developmen
went on to analyse the relations characteristic of the old landlord-
serf economy as modified by the abolition of formal serfdom, and
showed that even the feudal types of exploitation such as otrabotki
carried elements of a transitional form.
Chayanov's bold assumption that class differentiation within
the peasantry does not exist, and his ignoring of the landlord-peasant
relationship, undoubtedly does give an air of unreality to his work,
as does his preoccupation with the purely technical aspects of culti-
vation without reference to the economic milieu in which they were
operative. His picture of the industrious family labour farms multi-
plied n times, without classes and without conflict, was in patent
contradiction with the reality of the Russia he lived in: the peasant
uprisings of 1905 were within recent memory when he wrote, while
the unresolved contradictions between nobility and peasantry were to
erupt afresh into revolution in 1917-barely two years after the
publication of his main work. In the light of this it is difficult to
see how Chayanov could have put forward the views he did (for he
retained his core theory despite some nominal concession to the
increasing barrage of criticism after the revolution). It is not
possible to argue, either, that Chayanov's main concern was to
analyse the "internal equilibrium" of the family farm at the "micro"
level and that for this purpose production relations and their histori-
cal evolution did not matter. For Chayanov went on to generalize the
concept of "the family farm" to an entire economic system in its own
right, the so-called "peasant economy" which he thought should be
considered alongside categories such as slave economy, serf economy
and capitalist economy.
There is a fairly simple but fundamental methodological reason
why Chayanov's concept of "peasant economy" cannot be placed
alongside the Marxist concept of mode of production. The latter is
an analytical concept (abstracted from a study of historical reality).
The mode of production comprises the totality of a particular set of
production relations and the corresponding level of productive forces:
the machanism of historical transition from one mode to another is
the contradiction between a given set of production relations on th
one hand and the developing productive forces on the other. Chayanov
"peasant economy", on the other hand, is a purely descriptive category
(and even as a description not very satisfactory). The"peasant economy
is not a set of production relations at all; it is simply an aggregatio
of individual, atomistic production units-the family farms-all
identical with each other: the micro unit blown up n times. As
M Harrison has put it, "family labour on the family farm does not in
itself constitute a social relation".8 The "peasant economy" so
defined has never existed outside the conception of its author. What
has actually existed is petty production as the basis of feudalism, an

petty commodity production in transitional forms to capitalism as fe
economy disitegrates-both of which do constitute social relation
production.
Predictably there is no theory in Chayanov regarding th
dynamics of his "peasant economy". There is nothing to indicate ho
the "peasant economy" has come into existence, whether it will
give way to other forms of economy, and if so what will be t
machanism of transition. (Chayanov's theory of "demograp
differentiation"-which we discuss a little later-is a theory of cy
cal movement within the given structure of "peasant economy"
does not relate to change in the structure itself: it is therefore not
genuinely dynamic theory of transition). At such a simpliste level
theorizing one need not confine oneself to "peasant economy" al
It is possible to define any number of purely descriptive catego
and indeed bourgeois economists after Chayanov have not hesit
to do so. J R Hicks in his Theory of Economic History talks of
Revenue Economy" and "The Mercantile Economy"-again, pure
descriptive concepts at exactly the same level, methodologically
Chayanov's "peasant economy".9
Yet when all is said and done, Chayanov did work extensive
with Russian data and even produced individual insights, albeit
original ones, into existing phenomena (such as the high rents
land prices paid by peasants, the lower-than-wage return to fam
labour, and so on). The question arises, how someone familiar w
empirical work could propound a theory which is so unrealistic in i
overall dimensions. Chayanov's statistical work is especiall
interesting in that it illustrates with text-book clarity the proposi
that statistical analysis is not a neutral activity, but rather that
results are dependent on the underlying theoretical categories adop
The very use of the abstraction, "the family labour farm", and
application to empirical work, suppressed the reality of a clas
differentiated agriculture by leading Chayanov to aggregate and pres
the data in certain ways and not in others. Let us see how, concrete
this happened by going through Chayanov's Peasant Farm Organ
tion chapter by chapter, with special reference to his use of statist
In the first chapter Chayanov advances what has been termed
somewhat inaccurately because it is not really a dynamic theory
theory of "demographic differentiation" in opposition to t
Marxist theory of class differentiation in agriculture. His the
goes as follows: The "family labour farm" does not remain static bu
grows over time in terms of both size of family and area cultivated
The expansion of family size is the autonomous, because biologic
determined, factor: a couple marry and successively have childr
As the family grows more land is needed to feed it and the farm si
also grows; so farm size is taken as the adjusting variable. The thru
32 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
of the argument is that since it is the family size which determ

farm size, observed variations or inequality in farm size at
time can be explained largely by variations in family size, that is
tively there is no or very little inequality of landholding among
vators. Clearly, this is diametrically opposite to the M
emphasis on the unequal distribution of means ol' productio
generates exploitative production relations.
In support of his propositions Chayanov gives two
correlation exercises, one relating sown area per holdin
dependent variable to family size as the independent variab
second relating gross agricultural income (as a proxy for a
family size. In the first case a non-linear function (polyno
secnod degree) is fitted without any indication of goodness o
the second case the relationship is linear and the correlation
cient is stated to be 0.61 and 0.64 taking the number of wor
number of consumers per family as family size, respectivel
without any mention of significance.
Two comments on this exercise are in order. Firstly, the
finding that larger farms tend to have larger families, is not something
cofined to Russia but is a characteristic of all economies with a
substantial peasantry, for example,East European countries and India.
The Indian Farm Management Studies (hereafter F M S) give the same
result. The "small" fact that Chayanov forgets to mention is that,
according to his own data, family size less than trebles while ihe size
of farm increases over a thousand fold, so that landholding per
worker is over four hundred times higher on the largest farms compared
to the smallest. (Chayanov's own budget studies data for Starobels'k
as reanalysed by M. Harrison: see Table 1)10 To take the per capita
land area is the simplest, most easily comphrended method of norma-
lizing farm size for varying family size. (The distribution of per
capita landholding was shown to be highly concentrated for every
district and province by Lenin, who presented landholding data by
both number of holdings and by population on those holdings). Far
from refuting, this underlines the correctness of treating the peasantry
as highly differentiated. The peasant household with only one-
hundredth of a dessyatine per capita in the family will te in a
qualitatively different position, to say the least, compared to the
peasant household with four and a half dessyatine per capita.
Significantly, at no point while postulating that "family size
determines farm size", does Chayanov give such a simple table
showing the average per capita landholding on farms ranked by size:
this would have thrown immediate doubt on his theory. Correlation
exercises, on the other hand, were a novel technique in the 1910s.
Few would have been able to spot the fallacy in an argument
presented in its language: the fact that the values of the correlation
coefficients are low, no indication of their significance is given, and
only one-third of the total variation in farm size is statistic

explained by family size variation in the second exercise.
Moreover, a schoolboy today would be able to point out t
correlation does not imply causation. Chayanov argues that fa
size variations are caused by family size variations, and cites the p
tive correlation between the two as proof. In fact, the positive co
lation proves nothing of the kind. It is equally consistent wit
opposite proposition, namely, that it is variations in farm size, m
particularly in per capita landholding, which cause the variatio
family size. A possible Marxist argument would go as follows
smallest holdings which have very small amounts of land per wor
TABLE I
ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF 101 PEASANT FARMS, STAROBELS'KY 1910
Size-class Sown area per No of consumers Output Output per

(dessyatine) family worker' per family per des. family worker,
(dessyatine) (composite ratio) Rb. Rb. (I x 3)
1 2 3 4
0- 0.009 0.008 3.22 1166.0 9.33

0.01- 3.00 0.81 2.88 70.6 57.19
3.01- 7.50 1.97 4.13 51.6 101.65
7.51-15.00 2.68 6.09 46.7 125.16
15.01 4.40 7.39 46.2 203.28
PERCENTAGE OF FARMS Income from No.of workers Ratio of

Hiring out Hiring in agriculture per family 'consumer' to
labour labour per family,Rb. (7- 4) workers(2 -8)
5 6 7 8 9
91.0 18.2 23.32 2.50 1.29

52.9 17.6 124.19 2.17 1.33
57.7 23.0 287.20 2.83 1.46
36.0 52.0 541.49 4.33 1.41
13.7 77.3 1066.49 5.25 1.41
PER FAMILY Deficit[suplus Consumption

Total income Total con- per farm per 'consumer' Rb.
Rb. sumption Rb. (10 -11) Rb.(11 2)
10 11 12 13
145.52 147.80 -2.28 45.90
189.06 179.40 9.66 62.29
352.60 303.50 48.10 73.49
604.52 491.50 113.02 80.71
1078.89 792.30 286.59 107.21
Source: R M Harrison, "A. V. Chayanov and the Study of the Russian Peasantry"
(Mimeo-Cambridge 1972). All columns expcept nos 4, 8, 9 and 13 are
reproduced from th's paper (p18 Tables 4.2). Cols. 4,8,9 and 13 have been
calculated by us as indicated. Harrison has calculated from materials
in Byudzhety Kresty'an Staroblel'skogo Uezda by Chayanov, Kharkov,
11de915atine2.7 are
dessyatine=2.7 acres.
34 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
(one-hundredth part of a dessyatine in Chayanov's own budget

are struggling to make ends meet and are semi-proletaria
character, for 90 percent of these households hires out labour
Owing to the low level of consumption on such holdings (o
fifths of the level on the largest holdings) infant mortality is
adult life expectation lower, and they end up with small fa
the other extreme are the largest holdings which are ma
peasant in class status, for they have high per capita land e
(five hundred times higher on average compared to the sem
rians), over three-quarters of them hire labour; not only
afford to raise larger families but they also enjoy a much hig
of consumption per capita. Thus, larger family size is on
many manifestations of the greater economic strength of
holdings.
The correlation exercise, then, tells us nothing about the
direction of causation between two variables (or indeed whether there
is a causal link at all). The reader must make up his own mind, on
the basis of all the available facts, regarding which is the more realis-
tic and scientifically correct hypothesis: the Marxi st one, which sees
the extreme inequality of ownership of means of production as
generating qualitatively distinct economic classes within the peasantry
which enter into relations of production with each other; or
Chayanov's theory that there is really no or little inequality and
hence it is correct to treat the peasantry as a homogeneous, undiffe-
rentiated aggregation of identical "family labour farms".
Unfortunately Chayanov's other main statistical exercise in the
first chapter is also of very dubious validity. This is a two-way table
from a study by Kushchenko, showing the percentages of holdings in
various sown area groups in 1911, against sown area groups for 1882.
(Table II). Chayanov's argument is that, just as cross-sectionally
variations in farm size are determined by variations in family size,
over time too the changes in the distribution of holdings by area are
determined by changes in family size. Households would acquire
more land and move up into higher sown-area groups as their family
size expanded, while some households with grown-up children would
tend to subdivide and move into lower sown-area groups. The table
in question at first seems to support this propositian since most of
the households in a given 1882 sown-area group were no longer in that
group by 1911. The entire validity of the exercise however comes
into question owing to the fact that the data relate to commune area
alone, a fact casually mentioned by Chayanov in the following
sentence: "...within the limits of our statistical exercise-which
incidentally relate to repartitional commune areas. ...The connection
between family size of argricultural activity should be understood as
a dependence of area of land for use on family size rather than con-
versely ......".11
TABLE II
1911 SOWN AREA BY 1882 SOWN AREA GROUPS (PERCENT)
Des. sown
in 1882 Dessyatines sown in 1911
0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12 12 Total

0-3 28.2 47.0 20.0 2.4 =2.4 100.0
3-6 21.8 47.5 24.4 8.2 2.4 100.0
6-9 16.2 37.0 26.8 11.3 2.4 100.0
9-12 9.6 35.8 26.1 12.4 16.1 100.0
12 3.5 30.5 28.5 15.6 21.9 100.0
SOURCE: Chayanov, p. 67 Table

"repartitional commune area" and excludes rented, leased out and
purchased land, also non-communally held allotment land, and (probably)
that part of communal area no longer subject to repartition.
Now, the criterion on which the "repartitional commune area",

or allotment area, was periodically redistributed by the mir among
peasants in those areas where the practice still prevailed was
precisely the egalitarian one of the size of family. For this reason
the allotment area showed a remarkably equal distribution over the
cultivating population, though even here the economically more
powerful kulak households succeeded in grabbing rather more land
than their numbers justified. The important points are the following:
firstly, the portion of the allotment area still subject to repartition,
accounted, as early as the turn of the century, for about 60 percent of
the total, while the allotment area itself accounted for about 70 per-
cent of the total cultivated area with peasants, reducing the "reparti-
tional commune area" to only 42 percent of area opera ted by peasants.
The decreasing importance of allotment area in total peasant operated
area was a result of the extensive purchase and leasing-in of land-
lord's land, which was concentrated in the hands of the rich
peasants.' 2 Secondly, the allotment area itself was the object of
leasing, and here again the leased-in allotment area was heavily
concentrated in the large rich peasant holdings. Lenin showed, with
detailed regional data on landholding, that owing to the concentration
of purchased and rented land with the minority of large holdings the
overall distribution of "land in use" was highly concentrated despite
the relative equality of the allotment component. Incidentally,
Lenin's "land in use" is the same as what we know today as "operated
area", for he obtained it by summing allotment, purchased, and
rented (=leased in) land and deducting land leased out (see Table II1).
Lenin remarks while rejecting the neo-Populists' favourite
device of classification of holding according to allotment area, that
it "ignores a fundamental feature of Russian life, namely, the unfree
character of allotment land tenure, in that by force of law it bears an
equalitarian character, and that the purchase and sale of allotment
36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
land is hindered in the extreme. The whole process of th

gration of the agricultural peasantry consists in life evad
legal bounds...we reject a limine any classification acco
allotment and exclusively use classification according to e
strength...'".13
TABLE III
DISTRIBUTION OF CULTIVATED AREA BY PEASANT GROUPS, TAURIDA

Percent of Total
Area No of Land in
sown house- Allotimenlt Purchased Rented Leased use
Group (Des.) holds Persons area area area out area (4-5+6-7)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1
Poor Up to
10 39.9 32.6 25.5 6.0 6.0 65.5 12.4
2
Middle 10-25 41.7 42.2 43.5 16.0 35.0 25.3 41.2
3
Well 25
to-do More 18.4 25.2 28.0 78.0 59.0 9.2 46.4
All 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

(Absolute areas in
thousand dessyatines) (222.1) (33.9) (137.9) (32.9) (360.0)
SOURCE: VI Lenin, "The Development of Capitalism in Russia", Collected Works,
Vol 3.
In the light of this, it is quite clear that the use of"repartitional

commune areas" is far from being of only "incidental" importance for
Chayanov's argument. On the contrary, his result turns crucially on
taking only that component of the total operated area which by
definition, by "force of law", varied according to family size.
Chayanov himself seems to be uneasily aware of the extreme academic
dubiousness of his procedure. This involved not only ignoring a
large component of operated area which did not "fit" into his theory,
but also involved ignoring the fact that equal distribution was
institutionally maintained and, therefore, could not be adduced in
proof of an autonomous "demographic differentiation" mechanism.
He adds some qualifying phrases:
...in all probability, in another agrarian regimen less flexible than

that of the repartitional commune the influence of the biological
factor of family development on size of land for use would not
stand out so prominently. ...However, a sequential analysis of
Starobels'k budgets show the tendency of land for use to approach
family size and composition may be achieved not only by communal
repartitions but also with still greater success by short leases of land.
The sale and purchase of land may also be the way in which l
is regulated in countries with private property in land.1 4
This makes matters worse. The clear suggestion is that com

nal repartition is the "agrarian regime" relevant for Russia while
"private property" with land purchase and sale is a separate "agrarian
regime" located in other countries altogether. The fact of the matter,
however, is that in Russia the communally-held land of the (increas-
ingly weakening) mir existed side by side with private property,
purchase and sale for a full three decades or more before Chayanov
wrote, and the communally-held land itself was the object of mortgage
and leasing. Further, as mentioned earlier, far from adjusting farm
size to family size, the purchase and renting of land by peasants
served to worsen considerably the distribution of per capita land-
holding. Table III is reproduced here from Lenin; the data relate to
Dnieper Uyezd, Taurida; exactly the same pattern is observed for the
seventeen other districts analysed.
It will be seen that allotment area accounted for just 61 per-
cent of total area in use; the rest was accounted for by purchased and
rented land. About 14 percent of the allotment area itself was leased
out, and this was done mainly by the small holdings (65.5 percent of
total leased out area on account of Group 1). Conversely the rented-
in land, amounting to nearly 40 percent of land in use, was heavily
concentrated with the largest holdings (78 percent of total rented
land was with Group 3). Thus we find that even the "repartitional
commune area" itself was somewhat unequally distributed since the
poorest 40 percent of households with 32.6 percent of population
sowing below 10 dessyatines had only 25.5 percent of the allotment
area; the situation was made far worse however by the above pattern
of land pur,:hase and lease, so that the poorest group ended up with
only 12.4 percent of land in use. The area actually cultivated per
household in Group 1 was as a result far lower than allotment area,
while the converse was true for Group 3.
If indeed Chayanov's analysis of Starobels'k budgets showed,
as he claimed, the opposite phenomenon to that established above, it
is surprising that he did not present these results to strengthen his
statistically very shaky argument. It seems dubious that he could have
done so, however, for M Harrison's reanalysis of the Starobels'k
budget data used by Chayanov shows, as we can see from Table I, a
high degree of differentiation in no way different from the pattern
shown to hold by Lenin across seventeen districts. Secondly, since
Lenin wrote his Development of Capitalism in Russia important events
had occurred to hasten the process of economic differentiation. By
Stolypin's 1906 Decree, every head of a peasant household could with-
draw from the commune with his family's share of allotment land as
private property, and also claim a share of the common grazing,woods,
38 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
and so on. He could demand a consolidated block of land and failing

this, obtain compensation. By 1915 roughly 30 percent of communal
holders had applied for "separation", and 29 percent had obtained it,
accounting for roughly 15 percent of area. This contained two quali-
tatively distinct elements: the rich peasants withdrew to set up
consolidated farming, while the poorest "ruined peasants" withdrew
to sell their strips of land and migrate in search of non-agricultural,
usually wage work. Needless to say Chayanov's table (or rather
Kushchenko's as used by Chayanov) on movement of holdings by
allotment area groups would fail to capture these important effects of
Russia's attempt at a delayed "enclosures movement".
It may be thought that we have spent too much time on the
defects of a single table. We have done so because this single table is
so instructive. It enables us to illustrate the following proposition:
when the underlying theory is unscientific, the only way to find empiri-
cal "support" for it is to pick out partial, selective aspects of reality
and suppress the other aspects. Whether this is done consciously or
unconsciously, is not germane; the fact remains that scientific
objectivity was sacrificed by those (not only Chayanov, but a whole
generation of neo-Populist writers) who sought to "prove" the relative
equality of landholdings by picking out only the repartitional allotment
area, the component which by definition, "by force of law", varied
with family size, and ignored the remainder, making up the major
part of peasant cultivated area. And they got away with it more
often than not. Basile Kerblay reproduces this same table half-a-
century later without even a mention of the fact that it refers to
repartitional allotment area alone. 6
The Sulperior 'Viability' and 'Efficiency' oF Family, Farms Relative to

Capitalist Farms.
In the second chapter Chayanov puts forward his most impor-
tant propositions: firstly that the "degree of self-exploitation of
family labour", that is, how hard family members work given the local
level of labour productivity, is determined primarily by "the pressure
of consumption demand" and in particular by the ratio of consumers
to workers; secondly, the family labour farm has a high degree of
stability and "viability" because it can absorb unfavourable price
fluctuations unlike the capitalist farm which would go out of business.
The proposition on the viability of family farms is a theme which crops
up again and again in the neo-Populist writings, and this, along with
the closely related proposition that family farms produce a higher
output per acre compared to capitalist farms and are therefore more
"efficient", may be said to constitute the core of the neo-Populist
theoretical position. This is what we term the "fundamental fallacy
of the neo-Populist position", and we propose to try to show the
nature of the fallacy in some detail in part two. Before that let us
look at Chayanov's statistical exercises relating consumer-w

ratios and number of days worked by family labour farms.
Chayanov's argument is that, assuming a given level of l
productivity (which depends on local soil fertility, location and
the family worker's income and consumption are a function of th
ber of days worked. The labour-days actually worked will be dete
by "the pressure of consumption demand" which in turn dep
family size and composition. In a young family with children n
of working age the ratio of consumers to workers will be high
number of days worked per worker will also have to be hig
maintain output and consumption per capita, compared to farms
a lower ratio of consumers to workers. In short, we must ex
strong positive correlation between the consumer-worker ratio
one hand, and days worked and output per worker on the ot
the family farm.
So far so good: it is hardly possible to doubt such obviou
common sense propositions regarding the family labour farms,
the behaviour of individual members of the class of small-scale
The trouble arises when Chayanov seeks to use cross-sectional da
illustrate his proposition, for this involves the untenable assump
that all the holdings in the cross-section sample are in fact
labour farms, so that the observed variations in days work
worker and output per worker in the sample are to be expl
wholly, or mainly, by variations in the consumer-worker ratio.
Again, at first sight, Chayanov's Tables 2.7 to 2.10 appear t
consistent with his proposition that variations in the consumer-
ratio (c/w) determine variations in days worked. His Table
example shows that with rising c/w values the average per w
number of days worked and output rise steadily. But does this r
necessarily support Chayanov's proposition? No, because
thought shows that it is equally consistent with the following, a
native proposition. We have already seen that an increasing f
size is a manifestation of increasing economic strength as we
from the dwarf holdings (poor peasants) through the medium
holdings (middle peasants) to the largest sized ones (rich pea
Now, larger families also tend to have a higher ratio of consume
workers (this is to be expected since a large family will contain m
children and old people). For Chayanov's own budget stud
from Starobels'k we have calculated the avarage c/w ratio f
classes of holdings and find that it rises with rising size of
(Table 1). Thus not only family size but the clw ratio is pos
associated with farm size (see Col 9 Table 1).
As regards the number of days worked and output per worker
exterme shortage of land on the dwarf holdings limits the days w
severaly no matter how intensively labour is applied, and subs
involuntary underemployment reuslts. With rising farm si
40 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
rising area per capita, family workers are more and mor
ployed so we have rising per worker number of days worked
Furthermore, by calculating from Chayanov's own data i
we find that the output per work-day (labour productiv
stantially higher on the holdings with higher c/w ratios
in Table IV). There is nothing in Chayanov to explain th
if anything his theory predicts the opposite. As soon a
that on average it is the large holdings which have higher c
the puzzle is resolved. The large-sized holdings, of mainly rich
peasant status, not only have higher per worker employment and
output, but they also have higher labour productivity owing to better
techniques.
Thus, our alternative proposition is that it is the farm size
(which is rough proxy for class status) which should be taken as the
explanatory variable not just in the statistical but also in the analy-
tical sense. The c/w ratio happens to vary positively with farm size
for the reasons given and so do per worker employment and output;
hence the observed positive relationship between the c/w ratio and
per worker days worked and output. For any given size-class of
holdings (corresponding, let us say, to the poor peasants) it may well
be true that the variation in "the pressure of consumer demand" may
determine variation in days worked, but for a cross-section of holdings
of widely different sizes such as Chayanov takes, it is the class status,
as approximated by farm size, which is the basic explanatory variable.
TABLE IV
Consumer-worker Workers output Working day Output per workilg

ratio, CIW (Rb) per worker day (Rb) (1 2)
1 2 3
1.01-1.20 131.9 98.8 1.34

1.21-1.40 151.5 102.3 1.48
1.41-1.60 218.8 157.2 1.39
1.61-a 283.4 161.3 1.76
SOURCE: Chayanov, p. 78 Ta
and col. 3 calculated by us as indicated.
To give an analogy, supposing, instead of Chayanov's c/w

ratio we take the weight to height ratio (w/h) and put forward the
nonsensical proposition that it is variations in w/h ratio which
determine per worker labour days worked (and hence output) we
are quite likely to get impressive-looking positive association between
the two sets of variables. This would happen, because per worker
employment and output varies with farm size, and the w/h ratio is
also likely to vary positively with farm size, since not only are
workers likely to be taller and heavier on large farms, but o

better nutrition they may well be fatter per unit of height!
Chayanov's attempt to use cross-sectional data to show that
c/w ratio determines per worker employment and output, invo
fallacy that every elementary textbook of statistics warns a
This is that if an association is seen to exist between two variab
and y, it does not follow that one determines the other. For both
may be related to a third variable z which explains separately their
individual variation. For someone who used correlation exercises,
Chayanov was certainly remarkably careless and seems to have fallen
into every single statistical pitfall in his eagerness to read support
for his theory into the data. Not only did he attribute causation to
correlation, as we have seen, but in the above exercise the incorrect
preconception he starts out with, namely the absence of any real
inequality in landholding per capita, leads him to present the cross-
sectional data in such a manner (by c/w classes) as to treat the reality
of actually-existing acute inequality in landholding as incidental, and
focus instead on an explanatory variable-the c/w ratio-which itself
is not independent of farm size.
Chayanov then goes on to reformulate his propositions in terms
of the subjective utility-disutility calculations of the family workers.
This need not detain us very long; at the time he wrote utility
analysis applied to the choice between work and leisure may have
been a novel idea, but subsequently every microeconomics textbook has
treated of the matter ad nauseain. The utility analysis applied to the
peasant is simply an extension of the standard neo-classical theory of
consumer choice in the two-commodity case, with "income" and
"leisure" constituting the two commodities and maximization being
subject to the production function which replaces the budget con-
straint (since for a peasant, what is produced is what constitutes
income which is consumed).
The thoroughly tautological character of "explanations" based
on subjective utility has been recognized, and not only by Marxists. To
say that somebody works until the subjective drudgery of labour relative
to utility from income is just compensated by the marginal product,
adds nothing of an explanatory nature to our knowledge; it is equiva-
lent to saying that he works up to the point that he does work.
Whatever the observed point of labour input happens to be, it is
treated as an equilibrium point (otherwise it would not be observed)
and definitionally must satisfy the imputed subjective utility maximi-
zation conditions. To put forward these same subjective conditions
as an "explanation" of the observation is tautology.
To set Chayanov's analysis in perspective with modern neoclas-
sical models of "peasant equilibrium", however, the following points
may be usefully borne in mind. The first order condition for utility
maximization in such models is that the subjective rate of substitution,
42 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
that is, the ratio of marginal disutility from work to marginal u

from income, is equated to the marginal product of labour. B
level of mpL at which the equation takes place, varies dependi
the assumed form of the production function constraint. If the l
is defined to include the market wage-rate (for example, outp
function of labour input which in turn is a function of the wage
or, a component of total income is wage income) then the equilibr
point of equation is at the level of the wage-rate. 7 Chayano
some others however leave the level of equilibrium mpL inderm
the exact level varies depending on circumstances. l 8 Indeed
according to Chayanov, constitutes the great strength of the
labour farms: if necessary, they can push labour days worked
an extreme that mpL and therefore eventually the average produ
labour as well, drops far below the wage-rate.
There are two main circumstances undr which, in Chayanov
family farm members will accept an average product of labour
than the wage-rate, that is, a rate of return per day worked w
lower than that obtained by the agricultural labourer. One i
the price, and therefore the value of output, falls; average physic
duct is unchanged but average value product declines. Th
Chayanov discusses in the second chapter in connection with an a
to show the superior viability of family farm compared to ca
farms in the face of price fluctuations, and we will examine it in
detail below.
The second case is when the family farm does not have enoug
iand or capital. To discuss this we have to anticipate and go on t
Chayanov's third chapter, where he develops, in a piecemeal fashio
what M Harrison has aptly characterized as his "secondary theory,
deviant model", which "is incompletely integrated into the 'Classi
model' ...and is in some ways completely inconsistent with it".1 8 W
have seen that Chayanov's theory, as developed in the first t
chapters of his book, says that farm size (and, implicitly assumed, als
the stock of equipment) adjusts to changing family size and compo
tion. The peasant household not only strives to maintain that optim
level of area per capita which gives it sufficient employment and out
put to satisfy consumption needs, but in the main it succeeds in doin
so. This is the whole foundation, his "classical model", on wh
Chayanov rejects economic class differentiation and maintains t
observed changes in the area distribution of holdings over time are th
result of changes in family size.
The prevalent reality of acute land shortage and land hung
which characterized such a large proportion of peasant households
Russia, obliged Chayanov to develop a subsidiary, "deviant" mod
which has exactly the opposite assumption to that adopted in his main
model. While the main model says that means of production-lan
and equipment-expand according to the needs of growing fanlily
so that an "optimal" scale of operation is maintained, the d

model says that "very frequently, owing to constant or chance c
land or means of production available is less than the optimum de
and insufficient for the full use of the family's labour. ...As long
farm does not succeed in transferring this factor from the mini
the optimum, the volume of activity will closely conform to its s
What the "constant or chance causes" are remains unspecifie
the general tenor of discussion in this chapter and elsewhere su
that Chayanov has in mind a situation of generalized land sca
particular areas of high population density. This is in sharp c
with the Marxist position which is based on the fact that land s
is not a generalized phenomenon over the entire population
given area, but a characteristic of particular classes within
peasantry in every area, and it arises from the concentration of
property. Regardless of how average population density, produc
and so on, may vary, in every region a substantial proport
cultivators has too little land relative to their consumption
and a necessary corollary is that a minority has too much lan
is precisely what generates class differentiation and relations of
hiring within the peasantry. For Chayanov, however, the si
of land shortage only qualifies his main model and does not neg
because for him it has no connection with land concentration.
Coming back to the labour-days worked by the family, when a
family farm has too little land to employ the members fully and satisf
their consumption needs, Chayanov says they will try to find non
agricultural employment. If, however, the chances of finding work a
low and/or the wage rate is low, it may make economic sense for the
family to work its existing landholding very intensively, pushing the
average product of labour far below the wage-rate. Increased tota
output is thus purchased at the cost of lowering labour productivit
drastically, but this is "advantageous" to the family holding in th
given situation and an aspect of its capacity for survival.
The proposition on intensive work and low productivity is quite
correct though not in the least original, and furthermore, Chayanov
puts it within his overall framework which prevents a full appreciation
of its significance and indeed leads to an apologetic interpretation
the phenomenon. Nearly two decades before Chayanov, Kautsky h
given data from Germany on the "overwork and underconsumption"
of the small farms with inadequate land. The fact that the smal
scale tillers and poor peasants were obliged by their very poor com
mand over means of production (which is what determines their class
status) to work the given area so intensively as to lower their average
productivity below the wage-rate, was analysed by the Marxists a
length.
The existence of a small peasantry in every capitalist society
44 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
is due not to the technical superiority of small p

agriculture, but to the fact that the small peasant
requirements below that of the wage workers an
energies far more than the latter do (...the agric
worker is better off than the small peasant, says K
tedly); the same thing to be observed in Russia too.2
Thus Lenin says, commenting on Kautsky's work. L

analysed budget data to compare the standard of livin
peasants (no-horse and one-horse owning households,
semi-proletarian in character) with that of the hired fa
found that the latter's level of consumption was actu
higher. 2 1 Lenin's exercise is a more comprehensive
a stronger result than Chayanov's proposition that the d
the family with not enough land might be lower than
for this still leaves open the possibility that owing to a
of days worked by the peasant household its total incom
tion might be higher than that of the agricultural la
Kautsky and Lenin's exercises showed was that not on
peasant work the land more intensively at a lower daily
but he ended up with a lower or at most as high a to
consumption compared to the labourer.
In what respect does the Marxist analysis on land
intensive labour differ from Chayanov's? The first i
on property relations: land shortage, consequent inten
of labour and under-consumption characterize the sm
and poor peasants (semi-proletarians) as a class, and p
class status form a large proportion of households in
because every region is characterized by the concentr
property. Conversely, the middle peasants have enough l
their consumption requirement at a higher level of labou
while the rich labour-hiring peasants not only satisf
needs at an even higher level of per capita consumpti
a surplus in addition. By contrast, Chayanov's overall
a homogeneous, undifferentiated peasantry leads him
shortage as an exceptional situation, which is remedied i
to long run, even if not in the short run, because "th
with minimum land area and means of production has
to develop them to the optimum and in accord with
carries out their expansion...".22 How a family whic
at most as much as the agricultural labourer succeed
more landandnd equipment is a question Chayanov ev
say after a great deal of circumlocution is that acqu
production out of a constant income can be done by lowe
tion; but we have already seen that the holdings aff
shortage consume even less than do wage-workers! The a
so-called "capital accumulation", including land expansion on hol

affected by shortage, is the most obviously weak point of the
the point where the contradiction between class reality and Chayan
classless model appears most glaring.
Finally, we come to Chayanov's numerical exercise (Table
purporting to demonstrate that the "family farm" has more capac
for survival than does the capitalist farm. This is simply a lo
development given certain crucial assumptions from the earlier pr
sition that workers on the family farm need not pay themselves t
wage-rate but accept (read: are forced to accept) lower-than-w
average return to labour. In Chayanov's exercise, suddenly a wa
labour-based capitalist farm appears (there had been no mentio
the existence of capitalist production within the "peasant econo
up to this point) and it is assumed to produce the same level of
put as the family labour farm for the same expenditure of mat
inputs and labour days worked, that is, capitalist holding and fami
farm are assumed to have identical production functions. The capit
farm pays for hired labour at the going wage rate while for the fam
farm the rate of payment of family labour is simply the total out
minus material costs divided by the number of labour days wor
In situation I the capitalist holding makes a profit of 15 roubles af
TABLE V
COMPARISON OF THE 'VIABILITY' OF CAPITALIST AND

FAMILY FARM FACING FALL IN MARKET PRICE
1. Before price fall,

Capitalist Farimi Facllily Farmt
Gross income: 60 X 1 Rb = 60 Rb. 60 X 1Rb. = 60 Rb.
Expenditure: Rb Rb.
Materials 20 Materials 20
Wages 25 Family labour payment 40
Net income (profit) 15 Payment per work'ng day

x - 40 - 25 = 1.60 Rb.
Note: Both use 25 working days, on the capitalist farm this being wage-labo
paid at 1 Rb. daily.
II. After price falls to 0.6 Rb.,

Capitalist Farm Family Farm
Gross income: 60 X 0.64 Rb = 36 Rb. 60 X 0.64Rb. = 36Rb.
Expenditure: Rb Rb.
Materials 20 Materials 20
Wages 25 Family labour payment 16
Net income (loss) -9

Payment per working day
x = 16 25 0.64 Rb.
SOURCE: Chayanov, p 88.
46 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
paying workers at one rouble daily, while the family farm

output and inputs has no formal "profit" but pays what is
capitalist holding as income to its members, who there
1.60 rouble per day, considerably higher than the wage-
tion II the price suddenly falls by 40 percent and so does t
of output. The capitalist farm makes a nine rouble loss
of business for it must continue to pay workers at the wag
the peasant holding has no formal "loss" but absorbs wh
the capitalist holding by accepting a lower rate of rewa
workers; the new rate is only two-fifths of the origina
rouble per day. This, according to Chayanov, demonstrates
"viability" of the family holding.
Before going on to look at the basic fallacy in the arg
the following part, let us take the exercise at face valu
what happens to family workers' consumption. Curiou
the utility models all (correctly) attribute to the family la
the objective of wishing to satisfy consumption needs, w
actually succeed in satisfying those needs or not is no
germane to the farm's viability. (Yet how else can "via
family farms be defined, except in terms of whether they
postulated objective?) Thus in the example given, owin
price of the output the family farm's labour income (pr
an entire season, since agricultural output value is realiz
of harvest) declines drastically to less than one-half of
level (from 40 Rb. to 16 Rb). If the family worker
satisfying consumption needs earlier, clearly they cann
satisfying consumption needs now. They must consume
of what they were consuming before; in a more extreme c
price fall they might not have anything to consume at all;
consume, it will be by not setting aside seed and livestock
next period's production and will entail borrowing to ca
duction. It is a nice theoretical point, how "viable" is a h
the producers semi-starve; presumably more "viable" tha
are dead. To interpret enforced hunger, in extreme case
as "superior viability" is the logical, if grotesque, result of
framework which abstracts from the extreme real life inequality in
the distribution of means of production (which generate the observed
phenomena). As we shall see below, it also reflects the absence of an
objecttve concept of consumption. The upshot is that the peasant
maximizes utility subject to the constraints; but whether this maxi-
mized utility level leaves him dead or just alive is a question which
is ignored.
Of course, in real life the small-scale tiller faced with a drastic
drop in the value of output will not sit back and quietly starve in a
demonstration of Chayanovian "viability" and peasant "concept of
advantage". He will try to make good the shortfall in income by
throwing himself on the labour market and seeking work for w

in the meantime he will borrow to finance consumption. In
unfavourable price fluctuations would compel the petty com
producer to become a semi-proletarian and fall into the usur
clutches, which is pricisely why the Marxist theory predict
differentiation under commodity production.
There is only one element of truth in Chayanov's argumen
that is the relative tenacity and persistence of small holding
there are no economic alternatives. It is perfectly true that the
work of family labour-based small-scale production does permit
time, the persistence of sub-human conditions of life and w
very low, below wages levels of productivity for the family in
tions when the labour market itself is characterized by underem
ment for full-time labourers, and non-agricultural work opport
are not developing rapidly enough (as is the case, for example, i
today). But this persistence is not something to be extolled as
"superior viability" and advantageous to them: it is to be deplored as
the enforced reaction to an inequitable property structure combined
with non-availability of alternative ways of earning a living at a
higher level of productivity. Chayanov's framework, by ignoring
property inequality, leads inevitably to an apology for the conditions
under which small-scale production operates.
The modern utility models of "peasant equilibrium" argue in
exactly the same way, to the same apologetic conclusion. Thus in a
typical model of this description A K Sen takes the authors of the
Indian Farm Management Studies to task for talking about "losses" on
the small holdings and for expressing alarm on this score.23 Now
the F M S relating to the mid-1950s, found among other things
that firstly, the smallest holdings had the highest labour days worked
per acre; and secondly, when family labour days were evaluated at
the market wage-rate, the output value on these small holdings failed
to cover cost includiug that of family labour. In short, the content
of the statistical exercise was that the earnings of a family worker on
small holdings were less than those of a labourer working the same
number of days. (Incidentally this was not a new finding in India; the
Floud Commission in Bengal mentioned the same findings for the
1920s). Since the labourer belongs to the worst-off class in the village
and barely scrapes a subsistence (in India their wage is not even a
living wage), there is certainly cause for alarm that the small farmers
taking their "family farm" activities alone, do not even get an income
as high as that of the labourer for an equivalent number of days
worked. We need not use the particular term "loss", but the content
of the F M S exercise remains valid and gives ample cause for
concern.
The explanation in terms of subjective utility advan

model in question, goes as follows. There is no ca
48 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
for the "losses" on the small holdings are "fictitious losses".

is happening is that family workers are pushing labour inp
point where marginal product of labour falls below the wa
since they are correctly equating mpL to the ratio of marg
utility from work to marginal utility from income (termed
"real cost of labour") which is less than the wage-rate. "If th
labour based farms did have to pay the market wage-rate fo
labour, they would not have applied that much labour and
have certainly avoided the loss. But since they in fact, faced
real labour cost, they applied labour beyond the point whe
marginal product equals the wage-rate ... no story of low or
returns to family labour emerges from this'.2 4
The tautology involved, as in every explanation bas
subjective utility, is evident. Since the economist is not
cannot know in some independent fashion that "in fact", f
workers "faced a lower real labour cost" than the wage-rate
actual process of reasoning goes as follows: The observed
labour days worked per acre and lower-than-wage average r
small holdings constitute an equilibrium point. Being an equ
point it must satisfy the first-order utility maximization c
which says that the subjective rate of substitution, that is, the
imputed marginal disutility of work to imputed marginal u
income is equated to the marginal product of labour. Theref
equilibrium mpL is below the wage-rate; therefore "real lab
is below the wage-rate. This last subjective condition, w
been derived by simply translating the given observation
language of subjective utility, is then put forward as an "explan
of that same observation: the tautology is complete. What r
from the tautology is a rationalization of the observation in sub
terms. If the observation was the opposite, namely, lower
input per acre on the small holdings, as for example in Pun
explanation would have to be in terms of higher-than-wage "re
costs." Any observation can be rationalized and translated
manner into subjective terms. One consequence is that "expla
based on subjective utility are always, definitionally "correc
can never be falsified.
It is certainly more than a little paradoxical that the th
using the utilitarian framework, criticize so severely the im
of the wage-rate to family labour although this wage-rate is an
tively existing category which moreover contributes in reality
poorer peasants' income; at the same time they happily
utilities and disutilities, not to speak of subjective real labou
Since the "peasant equilibrium" models of Chayanov a
modem times, pay no attention to the objective fact of propert
centration which forces those with too little land to intensif
input and purchase higher output at the expense of lower
productivity, they also pay no attention to the fact that even w

intensive effort the holdings in question may not be able t
minimum consumption needs, that is, total output may well f
of requirements. Hence the strange result noted earlier th
when family workers are starving, the utility models interpre
"viability". Any framework which starts with assumed p
equality and then goes on to rationalize existing phenomena
jective terminology, is bound to lead to such apologetic con
Maurice Dobb expressed the matter with his characteristic
in one of his earliest writings:
Apologetic uses of vulgar economy, frequently derive f

emphasis on the correspondence between the subjectiv
ferences of individual participants and the technical config
of the economy... this correspondence takes the form of a
of equalities between the 'subjective' rates of substitution
good for another and the corresponding 'objective' or tec
rates of substitution.
Again:
The individual practitioner of neoclassical economics may be

motivated by the purest spirit of scientific enquiry or may even
be a socialist who finds the present social order morally re-
pugnant. This fact does not however alter the objective effects
of neoclassical economics as a system of thought. No matter
what the aspirations of its more progressive practitioners, the
conceptual framework and starting point of neoclassical econo-
mies render virtually impossible a scientific analysis of the capi-
talist or of any other mode of production. ... Genuine scientific
advance becomes possible only to the extent that the original
system of thought is, implicity or explicitly, abandoned.2 5
Although Chayanov himself did not stress the fact, the more
intensive application of labour by small holdings facing land shortage,
to the point of lowering marginal product of labour (and eventually
average product) below the wage-rate, carries the implication that
output per unit of area will be higher on the small holdings compared
to the capitalist labour-hiring holding (on the assumption, made
throughout by Chayanov and the modern utility models, that produc-
tion functions are identical). This has been made much of as
denoting the superior "efficiency" of the family farms; in India some
advocates of land reform have been so misguided as to use this
particular "efficiency" argument. We shall discuss the basic fallacy
involved in the argument, in the next part. But again taking the
result at face value, two questions can be asked. Firstly, why does
higher output per unit area denote superior "efficiency" while the
50 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
associated lower output per labour day that the same holdings h
not taken as lack of "efficiency"? Secondly, even if output per
area is higher on small holdings, given their tiny total area, is
output sufficient to meet the family's consumption requiremen
are back to the question of whether the "family farm", in part
the small holding with lowest land per capita and highest outpu
unit area, succeeds in achieving its objective in production whi
family consumption. As we have seen, this is a question whic
modern models of peasant equilibrium ignore completely (
Chayanov thinks of it as a sub-optimal situation which will soo
come optimal with the family acquiring more land); and, as we
see, in reality the smallest holdings with the highest output pe
area do not succeed in meeting anything but a fraction of thei
sumption requirements from their "family farm activities".
(By arrangement with The Journal of Peasant Studies)

TO BE CONCLUDED
1 A V Chayanov, The Theory of Peasant Economy, (Eds) D Thorn

and R E F Smith, Homewood, Illinois, Irwin, 1966.
2 D Thorner, "Peasant Economy as a Category in Economic H
presented to the Second International Conference on Economic H
en-Provence, 1962, Vol II, Mouton, and "A Post-Marxian Theor
Economy: The School of A V Chayanov", Economic and Poli
Annual No, 1965. T Shanin, "Nature and Logic of Peasant
Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol 1, Nos 1 and 2, 1973-74.
3 N Georgescu- Roegen, "Economic Theory and Agrarian Refo
Economic Papers, 12 (February 1960), reprinted in summery in
LWinte (Eds), Agriculture in Economic Development, McGraw
reprint, Vora, Bombay, 1970). All page references below are to
4 A K Sen, "Peasants and Dualism with or without Surplus Labou
of Political Economy, 1966. Sen independently develops the basi
model with clarity and rigour in this article and applies it also
tion of surplus labour. P Bardhan and T N Srinivasan ("Cropshar
in Indian Agriculture: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysi
Economic Review, March 1971), use the neo-classical peasan
framework mainly to look at the "efficiency" of the "tenant
pared to the "owner peasant" and the effect of technical c
critique of the internal logical consistency of the model, see A
"Some Implications of Unemployment in Rural Areas", Economi
Weekly, Special Number 1973.
A survey of the neo-classical models and a partial critique is
N K Chandra, "Farm Efficiency under Semi-Feudalism: A Crit
nalist Theories and Some Marxist Formulations", Economic
Weekly, Special Number, August 1974. S S Shivkumar, ("Famil
sumption Expenditures, Income and Land Holding in an Agraria
Economic and Political Weekly, July 1976) seeks to test some Cha
positions with data from 12 south Indian villages. At a somew
level is J Banaji, "Chayanov, Kautsky and Lenin: Consideration
Synthesis", Economic and Political Weekly, 2 October 1976, whi
Chayanovian and Marxist concepts can be synthesized, without
any discussion of the mutually contradictory economic assumptions of the

two frameworks.
5 D Thorner, "Introduction" to Chayanov, op cit, p ii.
6 See K Marx, Capital, Vol I, Part VIII; R H Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in
the 16th Century, London, 1912; M Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capita-
lism, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1946, pp 120-188, 224-237.
7 D Thorner, "Introduction" to Chayanov, op cit, p iii.
8 M Harrison, "Chayanov and the Study of the Russian Peasantry", Mimeo,
Cambridge, 1972. Harrison presents a critical evaluation of Chayanov
basing himself mainly on Chayanov's budget studies using Starobels'k
zemstvo data, published as "Byndzhety Kresty'an Starobel'skogo Uyezda", by
A V Chayanov, Kharkov, 1910. This is not available in English translation.
9 J R Hicks, A Theory of Economic History, London, Oxford University Press,
1969. When we talk of a "descriptive" as opposed to an "analytical" con-
cept, we have in mind the attempt to put forward, as an abstract historical
category, a concept which merely describes a given empirical situation, and
is not located within any theory of historical transition.
1 o In Chayanov's "Peasant Farm Organisation", no data are given on the distri-
bution of population and area cultivated by size of holdings, nor are the
sources of his tables cited in most cases. Accordingly we rely on the work
of M Harrison (q v), who has reworked the original budget studies data
from Starobels'k on which Chayanov based his first major (hitherto untrans-
lated) work, and which strongly influenced his subsequent generalizations.
Harrison shows that the same data when grouped by sown area show a picture
of economic differentiation similar to that established by Lenin in his ana-
lysis of the data of 17 uyezds in The Development of Capitalism in Russia.
Starobels'k was located in one of the most backward, commercially unde-
veloped areas of the black-earth belt (Kharkov province, located in the estern
Ukraine) and the degree of economic differentitation within the peasantry
was considerably less than that in all other regions in Russia except the
Central Agricultural Region. Harrison adduces this as one possible reason
for Chayanov's later insistence on the homogeneity of the peasantry, namely,
that Chayanov was basically generalizing from the situation in Starobels'k.
11 Chayanov, op cit, p 68. Emphasis added.
1 2 Before 1905, the obschina or village land commune prevailed over most of
European Russia, being absent however in the western provinces of White
Russia and Ukraine. Of the allotment land, 22.8 percent was "heritable
household tenure", that is, land which was not communally held for redis-
tribution, and this was concentrated in the Baltic, Lithuanian and Ukraine
provinces. In the remainder of European Russia, with 73 percent of the
allotment land in over 70 percent of communes the mir still effected general
redistributions, in about 10 percent there were partial redistributions, while
in 17 percent no redistributions had taken place in the preceding 23 years.
Thus about 60 percent of total allotment area was still subject to general or
partial redistribution (100-17- 83 percent of 73 percent). See L A Owen,
The Russian Peasant Movement 1906-1917, London, P S King and Son, 1937, pp
56-57, for these estimates.
With regard to the share of allotment area in total peasant operated area,
the data given by Francis M Watters in "The Peasant and the Village Com-
mune", W S Vucinich (Ed), The Peasant in 19th Century Russia, Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 1968, enables us to construct the following picture for the
turn of the century:
Roughly 1900: Area Operated by Peasants (million dessyatines)
Allotment Area 146.07 of which (a) communally held 116.85
(b) privately held 29.22
52 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
Purchased Area 20.60

Leased-in Area 38.00
(non-allotment)
Total Operated: 204.67
The purchased area has been obtained by fitting a line to the f
points and obtaining the value for 1900 by interpolation:
Purchased Land with Peasants (million dessyatines)
1877 5.8
1887 12.6
1905 23.6
Thus the purchased plus leased land is 38.0

amounting to 28.6 percent of total area oper
This must have risen further in the subsequ
tion of the trend of purchase and lease.
13 Lenin, Development of Capitalism in Russia,
14 Chayanov, p 68. Emphasis added.
15 L A Owen, ibid, pp 63-65. About 30 percen
commune sold their allotments between 1907 and 1910 alone; 3.7 million
dessyatines were sold.
1 6 Basile Kerblay, "Chayanov and the Theory of the Peasantry as a Specific
Type of Economy", in Teodor Shanin (Ed), Peasants and Peasant Societies,
London, Penguin Books, 1971, p 157.
17 Among modern models, Bardhan and Srinivasan (op cit) make the least
Chayanovian assumption: the tenant-cultivator's income contains two com-
ponents-share of output on rented land, and wage-income from agricultural
labour. Since the wage-rate figures explicitly, equilibrium marginal product
of labour is equated to wage-rate. A K Sen however makes the Chayanovian
assumption: equilibrium marginal product of labour is below wage rate, being
equated to subjective "real labour cost" which is below wage-rate.
18 Harrison, op cit, p 11.
19 Chayanov, p 91. Emphasis added.
20 Lenin, Development of Capitalism in Russia, Preface to first edition, p 4.
21 Ibid, pp 167-170.
22 Chayanov, p 113.
23 A K Sen, op cit, p 442.
24 lbid,p 443. Emphasis added.
25 M Dobb, An Introduction to Economics, Cambridge University Press, 1926,
pp 3-5.

Neo-Populism and Marxism - The Chayanovian View of The Agrarian Question and Its Fundamental Fallacy, Part1 - Utsa Patnaik (1981)

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Social Scientist

Neo-Populism and Marxisn: The

THE neo-populist viewpoint on the agrarian question,

When V I Lenin wrote that voluminous classic, The Development

gradually supplanting the old feudal production ielations in Ru

in which he generalizes his observations into a whole new cat

Relation of Theoretical Concept to Statistical Analysis.

century. The emergence of a rich peasant stratum, which b

households; their investment in improved implements and mach

has actually existed is petty production as the basis of feudalism, an

of the argument is that since it is the family size which determ

only one-third of the total variation in farm size is statistic

ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF 101 PEASANT FARMS, STAROBELS'KY 1910

Size-class Sown area per No of consumers Output Output per

0- 0.009 0.008 3.22 1166.0 9.33

PERCENTAGE OF FARMS Income from No.of workers Ratio of

91.0 18.2 23.32 2.50 1.29

PER FAMILY Deficit[suplus Consumption

(one-hundredth part of a dessyatine in Chayanov's own budget

1911 SOWN AREA BY 1882 SOWN AREA GROUPS (PERCENT)

0-3 3-6 6-9 9-12 12 Total

SOURCE: Chayanov, p. 67 Table

Now, the criterion on which the "repartitional commune area",

land is hindered in the extreme. The whole process of th

DISTRIBUTION OF CULTIVATED AREA BY PEASANT GROUPS, TAURIDA

All 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

In the light of this, it is quite clear that the use of"repartitional

...in all probability, in another agrarian regimen less flexible than

This makes matters worse. The clear suggestion is that com

and so on. He could demand a consolidated block of land and failing

The Sulperior 'Viability' and 'Efficiency' oF Family, Farms Relative to

look at Chayanov's statistical exercises relating consumer-w

Consumer-worker Workers output Working day Output per workilg

1.01-1.20 131.9 98.8 1.34

To give an analogy, supposing, instead of Chayanov's c/w

workers likely to be taller and heavier on large farms, but o

that is, the ratio of marginal disutility from work to marginal u

so that an "optimal" scale of operation is maintained, the d

The existence of a small peasantry in every capitalist society

is due not to the technical superiority of small p

Thus Lenin says, commenting on Kautsky's work. L

so-called "capital accumulation", including land expansion on hol

COMPARISON OF THE 'VIABILITY' OF CAPITALIST AND

1. Before price fall,

Net income (profit) 15 Payment per work'ng day

II. After price falls to 0.6 Rb.,

Net income (loss) -9

paying workers at one rouble daily, while the family farm

throwing himself on the labour market and seeking work for w

The explanation in terms of subjective utility advan

for the "losses" on the small holdings are "fictitious losses".

productivity, they also pay no attention to the fact that even w

Apologetic uses of vulgar economy, frequently derive f

The individual practitioner of neoclassical economics may be

(By arrangement with The Journal of Peasant Studies)

1 A V Chayanov, The Theory of Peasant Economy, (Eds) D Thorn

any discussion of the mutually contradictory economic assumptions of the

Purchased Area 20.60

Thus the purchased plus leased land is 38.0

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