Page 29 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 29
the integrated peasant economy as a concept in progress
while peasants owning larger holdings apart from using daily wage labour
could employ more stable farmhands and maids too. On the other hand we
must recognise that the market is well present in Chayanov’s peasant econ-
omy. Let’s quote just a couple of examples. In the “Theory of non-capital-
ist economic systems,” “the peasant or artisan running his own business
without paid labour receives as a result of a year’s work an amount of pro-
duce which, after being exchanged on the market, forms the gross product
of his economic unit” (Chayanov 1966, 5). In “The basic principles of peas-
ant farm organisation,” when discussing early 20th century Russian cases he
becomes even clearer by writing about the “summed family income and not
[… only] that part which its agricultural incomes constitute.”
The family throws its unutilised labour into crafts, trades, and other
extra-agricultural livelihoods. The whole of its summed agricultur-
al, crafts, and trades income is counterposed to its demands, and
the drudgery of acquiring it leads to an equilibrium with the degree
of satisfaction of these personal demands. […] Thus, the peasant
family hastens to meet a shortfall in agriculture incomes by income
from crafts and trades. […] Because the family’s agricultural un-
dertaking and crafts and trades activity are connected by a single
system of the basic equilibrium of economic factors, they cannot be
reviewed independently of one another. This compels us to change
somewhat the morphological scheme of the peasant farm […] by
including the process of work in crafts and trades (Chayanov 1966,
101–2).
Table 1.5: Percentage of the working time spent in agriculture, crafts, and trades
by farm-size in the Vologda uezd (northern Russia, early 20th century)
Sown area in each field per Percentage of working year spent on:
farm (desyatinas = 1.1 ha)
Agriculture Crafts and trades
0.0-0.0
0.1-1.0 10.3 41.9
1.1-2.0
2.1-3.0 21.7 22.8
3.1-6.0
6.1-10.0 23.0 21.9
26.9 19.8
28.1 13.7
41.6 11.1
Source: Chayanov 1966, 101 and 272.
27
while peasants owning larger holdings apart from using daily wage labour
could employ more stable farmhands and maids too. On the other hand we
must recognise that the market is well present in Chayanov’s peasant econ-
omy. Let’s quote just a couple of examples. In the “Theory of non-capital-
ist economic systems,” “the peasant or artisan running his own business
without paid labour receives as a result of a year’s work an amount of pro-
duce which, after being exchanged on the market, forms the gross product
of his economic unit” (Chayanov 1966, 5). In “The basic principles of peas-
ant farm organisation,” when discussing early 20th century Russian cases he
becomes even clearer by writing about the “summed family income and not
[… only] that part which its agricultural incomes constitute.”
The family throws its unutilised labour into crafts, trades, and other
extra-agricultural livelihoods. The whole of its summed agricultur-
al, crafts, and trades income is counterposed to its demands, and
the drudgery of acquiring it leads to an equilibrium with the degree
of satisfaction of these personal demands. […] Thus, the peasant
family hastens to meet a shortfall in agriculture incomes by income
from crafts and trades. […] Because the family’s agricultural un-
dertaking and crafts and trades activity are connected by a single
system of the basic equilibrium of economic factors, they cannot be
reviewed independently of one another. This compels us to change
somewhat the morphological scheme of the peasant farm […] by
including the process of work in crafts and trades (Chayanov 1966,
101–2).
Table 1.5: Percentage of the working time spent in agriculture, crafts, and trades
by farm-size in the Vologda uezd (northern Russia, early 20th century)
Sown area in each field per Percentage of working year spent on:
farm (desyatinas = 1.1 ha)
Agriculture Crafts and trades
0.0-0.0
0.1-1.0 10.3 41.9
1.1-2.0
2.1-3.0 21.7 22.8
3.1-6.0
6.1-10.0 23.0 21.9
26.9 19.8
28.1 13.7
41.6 11.1
Source: Chayanov 1966, 101 and 272.
27
