Historical Arguments for a 'Logic of Development' in 'Precapitalist' Agriculture

In: Journal of historical sociology, Band 5, Heft 4, S. 379-391

Abstract

Abstract
In this essay I produce historical arguments for 'suspending belief in the hypothesis of discontinuity, by which I mean the conception that the real or alleged differences between economic regimes and historical periods are in some sense (never explicitly discussed) more fundamental to their historical interpretation than the factors which they share in common. Part One challenges the notion that the different economic epochs are each characterised by a predominant type of labour relation, e.g. the ancient world by slavery. Part Two looks very rapidly at the work of some medieval historians to extract the general postulate that the agriculture of any given period is characterised by a complex and differentiated use of labour. Finally, in the concluding pages I take up sharecropping and permanent farm contracts, referring mainly to India. The logical next step, after an essay of this sort, would be to look at the issue of managerial control in agriculture but in this paper I've sedulously avoided this massive subject.