Capitalism and the Development of Agriculture

In this chapter I shall try to complement as well as to make more concrete some of the theoretical points of the two previous chapters by a detailed analysis of two books on development: (a) S. Amin and K. Vergopoulos, La question paysanne et le capitalisme;1 and (b) K. Vergopoulos, The agrarian problem in Greece: The issue of the social incorporation of agriculture.2 These two works reflect, in varying degrees, two recent interconnected trends in Marxism which have stimulated important theoretical debates and fruitful empirical research in a number of different areas. The first refers to Althusser’s work which, by advocating a return to the type of rigorous analysis found in Marx’s mature writings, constitutes the basis for a critique of theories which were alleged to have been only superficially or eclectically Marxist.3 The second trend is the development of a new type of Marxist anthropology which, influenced to some extent by Althusser’s work, has tried to assess how far certain Marxist concepts (especially that of modes of production and their varied articulation in social formations) could help in their study of the so-called primitive societies — in particular, how these societies are incorporated into the world capitalist system.4 In fact, these two books constitute an interesting attempt to use some of these new insights in order (a) to build up a general theory on the development of agriculture under capitalism, and (b) to apply this theory to a specific social formation, namely that of Greece.