Understanding Agro-Holdings in Russia: A Commonsian Analysis

Agro-holdings in Russia are large-scale vertically integrated farms within the food processing industry which emerged in the economic, political, and social context inherited from the Soviet era and the post-Soviet market transition. Several economic researchers consider agro-holdings either as a transitory phenomenon or as a major innovation that enables economies of scale and scope. However, their sustainability does not support the idea of a transitory organizational form. Meanwhile, important aspects of their activity, as with the financing of social infrastructures and the partnership with public institutions, cannot be explained by the aim of productive efficiency. I argue that applying John R. Commons’ concepts of strategic transactions, going concerns, and futurity offers an insight enabling the understanding of agro-holdings in Russia as the result of actors’ capacity to form new working rules and compromises, reflected in going concerns that incorporate both the productive and distributive dimensions of their activity.