Socialism and capitalism in the Chinese countryside -- Chinese agrarian change in world-historical context -- Agricultural productivity and decollectivization -- The political economy of decollectivization -- The achievement, contradictions, and demise of rural collectives
This book examines the case for and against collective farms in developing countries. Basing his account on a careful analysis of China's rural economy from the 1950s to the 1980s, the author argues that collective farms have serious shortcomings and that they are not the most suitable institutional form for rural economic development in poor count
Analyzes the lessons learned from thirty years of "actually existing socialism" within the collective farm system of Hungary. Provides the first thorough sociological analysis in English of this example of "successful" collectivization through a detailed study of its internal social structure and relevant decision-making processes.
The book covers Indian agricultural development from the colonial to the present period. It examines how ruling class political ideology determined the agricultural policies from colonial rule. It considers both quantitative and qualitative aspects in all periods: colonial period to pre-green revolution phase, post-green revolution phase (early and late stages) and post-globalisation phase after 1991. India has achieved the ability to maintain food security, through enough food grain buffer stocks to meet the enormous public distribution system. But, with India’s entry into WTO in 1994, euphoria has been created among all types of farmers to adopt commercial crops like cotton cost-intensive inputs. Even food grain crops are grown through use of costly irrigation and chemicalised inputs. But they lacked remunerative prices, and so farmers began to commit suicides, which crossed 3.5 lakh. Government of India attributed this agrarian crisis to the technology fatigue and gave scope for second green revolution (GR-II). GR-I was achieved by public sector enterprise, whereas the GR-II as gene revolution is a result of private sector enterprise/MNCs. There is fear that opening up of the sector may lead to handover of the family farms to big agri-multinationals. GOI’s proposal to double farmers’ income by 2022 is feasible only when the problems, being faced by small, marginal and tenant farmers, are addressed in agricultural marketing, credit and extension services. Now, it is time to go for suitable forms of cooperative/collective agriculture, as 85 percent of total cultivators are the small and marginal farmers. This book is co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the print versions of this book in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The Political Economy of Collectivized Agriculture/A Comparative Study of Communist and Non-Communist Systems assesses the political and economic impact of collectivization by surveying the experience of several nations with different forms of collective or state farming. Focusing primarily on the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) nations, this book addresses a number of questions, such as whether collectivized agriculture is more or less efficient than private agriculture; whether the manner in which collectivization is implemented affects its success; and whether there are social and political motivations that override economic considerations. This monograph is comprised of nine chapters and opens with a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of state agriculture in the USSR, followed by an analysis of collectivized agriculture in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, German Democratic Republic, and Poland. The impact and politics of agricultural collectivization on productivity in China are then examined, paying particular attention to its advantages and drawbacks as well as the factors driving the growth of Chinese agriculture. The experience of Israel with collectivized agriculture is also considered, along with the impact of industrialization and modernization on the kibbutz and the problems associated with embourgeoisement. This text will be of interest to economists, political scientists, and policymakers concerned with agriculture.
This book is the first to document the reform of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and to analyse the political and economic factors which determined the outcome of the negotiations. The policy (non-)reform will affect the world's global food security and agricultural ...
Over its lifetime, 'political economy' has had different meanings. This handbook views political economy as a synthesis of the various strands of social science, treating it as the methodology of economics applied to the analysis of political behaviour and institutions.
In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century. Many of the players are well known in the history of the African American experience: Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph and the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Jo Baker, George Schuyler and the Young Negroes’ Co-operative League, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party. Adding the cooperative movement to Black history results in a retelling of the African American experience, with an increased understanding of African American collective economic agency and grassroots economic organizing. To tell the story, Gordon Nembhard uses a variety of newspapers, period magazines, and journals; co-ops’ articles of incorporation, minutes from annual meetings, newsletters, budgets, and income statements; and scholarly books, memoirs, and biographies. These sources reveal the achievements and challenges of Black co-ops, collective economic action, and social entrepreneurship. Gordon Nembhard finds that African Americans, as well as other people of color and low-income people, have benefitted greatly from cooperative ownership and democratic economic participation throughout the nation’s history.