Text Engine Project on
Social Classes of Agrarian Societies
RODOLFO STAVENHAGEN
Social Classes of Agrarian Societies
RODOLFO STAVENHAGEN
TRANSLATED BY
JUDY ADLER HELLMAN
ANCHOR ~0 _9_KS
ANCHOR PRESS/DOUBLEDAY .
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
1975
The Anchor Books edition is the first English-language publication
of Social Classes in Agrarian Societies. A Spanish-language edition
was published in Mexico by Siglo XXI publishers in 1969.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Stavenhagen, Rodolfo.
Social classes in agrarian societies.
Translation of Las clases sociales en las sociedades a agrarias.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Underdeveloped areas-Social conditions. 2. Social classes.
3. Peasantry. I. Title.
HN980.S7213 301.44'43'091724
ISBN 0-385-00725-6
LI'brary of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-12735
Anchor Books edition: 1975
Translation Copyright © 1975 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
EDITOR'S STATEMENT
This volume is part of a publishing program on Latin America,
under the general editorship of Otto Feinstein and
Rodolfo Stavenhagen. The purpose of these books is to present
an inter-American dialogue on Latin American affairs,
from history and culture to economics, politics, and sociology.
This program is designed to make the best scholarship from
Latin America available to readers in the United States.
OTTO FEINSTEIN is Professor of the Science of Society Division
of Monteith College, Wayne State University. He is
editor of New University Thought. Professor Feinstein has
written articles for numerous publications, and is the editor
of Two Worlds of Change: Readings in Economic Development.
RODOLFOST AVENHAGEN is a Mexican who studied sociology
and social anthropology at the University of Chicago, the
National University of Mexico, and the University of Paris.
Since 1956, he has been teaching at the National University
:,f Mexico, and is currently Director of the Department of
Sociology at El Colegi.o de Mexico. He is the author of
nany articles on Latin America, including "Seven Erroneous
fheses about Latin America," which appears in New Uni~
ersity Thought, as well as Agrarian Problems and Peasant
\lovements in Latin America, also published by Anchor as
?art of this program.
Other titles in the program include The Rape of the
r?easantry, by Ernest Feder, and Dependence and Undertevelopment
by James D. Cockcroft, Andre Gunder Frank,
md Dale Johnson.
For Nina
Marina
Andrea
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Part I: SOCIALC LASSEISN AGRARIASNO CIBTIES
Agrarian Societies and Underdevelopment
Social Classes and Stratification
Social Classes and Under4evelopment
The Process of Change
Agrarian Societies and Rural Class Structures
Agrarian Changes and the Dynamics of Class in
Black Africa
Agrarian Structure and Social Classes in Latin
America
Part II: COMMERCIAFLA RMINGA NDC LASSR ELATIONS
IN THE IVORY COAST
8. The Agni of the Ivory Coast
9. The Commercial Farm Economy
10. Interethnic and Class Relations
11. Social Class and the Farm Economy
Part Ill: INTERETHNIC AND CLASSR ELATIONISN
MESOAMERICA
12. The Maya Highlands of Chiapas (Mexico) and
xi
3
19
40
53
64
72
94
119
129
137
147
Guatemala 163
13. The Historical Background of Class Relations 170
14. Land and Class Relations 175
15. Commercial Relationships 185
16. Social Stratification 190
17. The Dynamics of Interethnic Relations: Classes,
Colonialism, and Acculturation 199
EPILOGUE: Agrarian Structures and Capitalist
Development: A Reconsideration 216
NOTES 234
INDEX 257
In every part of the world, generally speaking, peasantry have
been a conservative force in social change, a brake on revolution,
a check on that disintegration of local society which
often comes with rapid technological change.
Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture
• it is clear that in the colonial countries only the peasantry
is revolutionary. It has nothing to lose and everything to
gain. The peasant, declassed and hungry, is the exploited one
who first discovers that only violence pays.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
INTRODUCTION
The discipline of sociology of development is a relative newcomer
to the. social sciences; it is hardly more than a generation
old. Yet there is already an enormous amount of literature
on the subject. Important empirical studies have been
carried out in various parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America;
rural communities . have been researched intensively;
country surveys have provided descriptive material; and a
number of important and suggestive theoretical essays. have
attempted to provide adequate frameworks for the understanding
of the processes of social and political development.
Underdeveloped countries are mainly agrarian societies because
most of their population ustially lives off the land, and
because their economies are frequently based on · agriculture.
Peasantries, which in the Western industrialized countries
were transformed· seve~ generations ago into · the industrialized
working class, are· still very much alive in the underdeveloped
countries today, atid will probably continue tci be
so· for many decades . to come. The process of economic
development brings forth profound social and cultural
changes in the underdeyeloped nations, and is in tum conditioned
by them. What is the role of the peasant populations
in these changes? ·
The rural areas in the underdeveloped countries have usually
been treated iii the literature· as being uni,formly ''backward''
or ''traditi5>nal." Change 'is seen as a unilinear process
of ''modernization'' or "Westernization." Little· systematic at_.
tention ·has been given to social. stratification and social class
structures in the rural areas. This is not surprising, because
class analysis in sociological literature has traditionally been
applied to· highly differentiated urban . industrialized societies.
But far-reaching social changes are occurring in · rural societies
all over the world, and such changes are by no means
recent. Nothing is further from the truth than to consider the
xii Introduction
rural sector in the underdeveloped countries as being somehow
eternally stable and immutable, the passive recipient of
stimuli emanating from the modern urban centers. For several
centuries now the underdeveloped countries have played
their role in the evolution of the world capitalist system. The
slave trade produced extensive demographic and economic
changes in many areas of Africa, which were accentuated by
the political colonization of that continent during the nineteenth
century. In Latin America, the contemporary landholding
system, which many authors consider to be an important
obstacle to economic progress, but which in some
countries has begun to fall apart, is itself a product of the
colonization of the New World since the sixteenth century.
These processes have produced highly stratified rural social
systems in many areas, and the progressive social differentiation
of the rural community in others.
Now that, the colonial and semi-colonial peoples have
awakened and the underdeveloped countries are engaged in a
worldwide struggle for their economic emancipation, the attention
of social scientists in the underdeveloped countries is
being increasingly drawn away from the study of tribes, primitives,
or "simple peoples" which for so many decades focused
much of their interest, to that of the more "modernized"
peasantries, the rural populations which belong to the contemporary
world and its economic, social and political preoccupations.
But who · are the peasants? In what kinds of societies
do they live? . Are they basically a conservative force,
as Robert Redfield, the anthropologist, maintained? Or are
they fundamentally and essentially revolutionary, as Frantz
Fanon, the revolutionary theorist, asserted? Are all peasants
alike or do they divide up into social classes and strata? How
do their societies and social . relationships react to the process
of econ<;,mic development? Are they marginalized with respect
to the wider society which surrounds them, or are they
well integrated with that society?
These are just some of the questions that arise when we
tum our attention to the study of rural societies in the socalled
Third World. Although the literature on rural communities
is ·abundant, there are few books which address
themselves to these questions in a systematic manner within
Introduction xiii
a comparative framework and in sociological perspective.
The author's interest in rural problems-stemming originally
from direct work with Indian peasant populations in Mexicoled
him to explore some of. these. issues from a comparative
point of view. This book does not provide an answer to all of
the questions posed above; many more field investigations are
needed for that. Neither is it an attempt to develop a theory
of agrarian societies or rural social classes. It is simply a
comparative essay based on sociological and anthropological
data from underdeveloped countries (mainly Africa and Latin
America), in order to advance somewhat the systematic analysis
of peasant societies.
One of the more useful tools of sociological theory is class
analysis, particularly in the study of the dynamics of change
in modem societies. The problem of class and social stratification
is also one of the key theoretical issues of contemporary
sociology. However, in the underdeveloped countries
the sociology of class has received only scant attention. This
is particularly true as regards agrarian societies. A useful approach
to the study of the rural population of underdeveloped
countries is the analysis of social classes, which is the purpose
of this book.
An earlier version, with more of the scholarly trappings
required by academia, was presented as a doctoral dissertation
in the University of Paris in 1965. It was first published
in Mexico in 1969. The present Anchor volume is a revised
version of that edition. In light of the newer research and
recent theoretical discussions on the peasantry, the temptation
was great to rewrite extensively and change some of the
chapters; but I staunchly resisted this temptation, which would
have led to another kind of book altogether.
During the preparation of this work I have received the
help and advice, as well as the criticism, of many people,
and have been conscious of, and grateful for, the intellectual
influence of others. Not being able to mention them all, I
would simply like to acknowledge the stimulation, patience,
and friendship of Professor Georges Balandier, of the University
of Paris, as well as the many useful suggestions of
Claude Meillassoux. My interest in the subject which is the
concern of this book was aroused several years ago by Proxiv
Introduction
fessors Ricardo Pozas and Alejandro D. Marroquin. Fran!
rOis Chevalier and Mario Ramon Beteta were helpful in obtaining
material support for my postgraduate study in Paris,
where research for this book was begun.
I am also grateful to Bill Whitehead and Carol Goldberg
of Anchor Books for their patience and support, and to Judy
Adler Hellman for the fine translation into English.
PART I
Social Classes
in
Agrarian Societies
WHAT Is UNDERDEVELOPMENT?
CHAPTER 1
Agrarian Societies
and
Underdevelopment
Thousands of books have been published on the underdeveloped
countries and hundreds of definitions have been advanced
of . underdeveloped or . backward economies. It is beyond
the scope of this introductory chapter to attempt to
summarize the wide literature on this subject. But insofat0 as
underdevelopment constitutes the framework within which
the social processes that are analyzed in this bo0k take place,
it will be necessary to look briefly at some of the basic factors
involved.
Even though a precise definition of underdevelopment is
hardly possible and would be quite inadequate, we may mention
some of the fundamental criteria which have usually
been retained by scholars in their studies of the countries so
defined.1 The most common indicators are Gross National
Product (G:NP) and Per Capita Income, which are useful
measures for cross-national comparisons and allow one to
place all the nations in the world on a single "development"
scale. Thus the units on the scale might range from a high
per capita income of around three thousand dollars per year
(in the United States) to a low of sixty dollars (some African
countries), with most other countries falling somewhere in
between. A number of arbitrary cuts on the scale would then
give us the ''underdeveloped" countries at the bottom, . the
"developing". countries in the middle, and the "developed"
countries at the top of the scale. But statistical averages of
this kind ·are only very rough indicators of what they are
supposed to measure, for they hide considerable internal variations
and different economic and social structures.
4 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
A large number of different criteria have been increasingly
used to measure the level of social and economic development,
and they cover such various fields as demographic structure,
health and nutrition, education, employment, industrial
production, housing, communications, and others. A recent
attempt at synthesis by the United Nations includes seventythree
indicators.2 The combination of these various measures
allows one to draw a "profile" of developed or underdeveloped
countries. While this "scaling" approach is useful and
indeed necessary in somehow ordering the masses of economic
and social data from all over the world, it has one major
drawback, namely, that -by ranking nations according to their
higher or lower positions the implication is drawn that an
upward movement by any unit along the scale ( or scales)
represents the process of development, and that this process
necessarily follows similar patterns wherever it has taken
place. Much of the recent literature on the countries of the
Third World8 takes this line of reasoning, whether it refers
to the "stages" of economic growth, the sociology of modernization,
or the process of political development.4 Again,
it is not the purpose of this chapter to weigh the relative
merits of competing theories of development and underdevelopment,
though some theoretical ballast certainly needs to
be cleared away before the present problems of the under.,
developed countries can be adequately understood. 0
Among the aspects associated with underdevelopment
which are of particular relevance for our study is the fact
that a large part, and quite often the majority, of the population
of Third World countries lives from agriculture, and
generally the greater part of foreign exchange is derived from
the export of agricultural products.
With the exception of some underdeveloped countries
whose economies are based on mining or petroleum, these
nations are essentially composed of agrarian societies. This
means that not only their economic activities but also their
social institutions, political power structures, value systems,
cultural traditions, and settlement patterns as well as their
history are directly linked to the use and exploitation of the
land as a productive resource. In these countries, economic
development takes agriculture and connected activities as its
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 5
point of departure, and the various criteria of underdevelopment
are closely associated with the structure of this primary
sector. Development produces, first of all, changes in agrarian
structures and in the characteristics of the agricultural population.
But though it may be taken as one of its principal indicators,
the importance of the agricultural sector and of agrarian
structures in a ,country does not in itself define underdevelopment.
For underdevelopment is not merely the sum
of a series of distinct and quantifiable traits. It is a configuration
of mutually interdependent elements (structure) which
is the result of a particular kind of historical evolution of the
countries concerned. Even a cursory glance at their history
shows that the countries which are defined today as being
underdeveloped were incorporated for a greater or lesser time
span into one of the colonial systems which the world has
known since the expansion of the European world beginning
in the sixteenth century .. This in tum determined the relationships
between the world metropolitan centers and the "peripheral"
countries, even after the latter's access to political
independence. The colonial system established relationships
of inequality, dependence, and exploitation between the colonies
and the colonial metropolis and created within the
former the so-called structural aspects of underdevelopment
which are their main characteristics today: · 1) sectoral inequalities
in productivity; 2) disarticulation of the economic
system, or what is sometimes referred to as the "dualism" of
underdeveloped countries; and 3) external domination.8
It is commonly held that the industrialized countries of
today were able to develop in their time due to a number of
particularly favorable circumstances (natural resources, technological
inventiveness, cultural values relating to the positive
aspects of hard work, savings, and the achievement motive,
and so forth), whereas the underdeveloped countries, lacking
these elements, went their own underdeveloped way. What
this approach overlooks is that the history of the underdeveloped
countries has been inextricably linked to that of the
developed nations, not only in the sense that the colonies
provided much of the needed capital for the industrial revolution,
but particularly in that their own ulterior underdevel6
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
opment has been indelibly marked by this relationship. The
traditional view of development, when it does not actually
extol the alleged benefits that the backward countries received
from the colonial system, at worst considers colonialism as
temporarily having inhibited the spread of the benefits of
industrialism to the "less fortunate" nations. 7
In fact, however, both the development of the "central"
countries and the underdevelopment of the "peripheral" nations
are part and parcel of the history of the same worldwide
system. This is the history of the expansion of the world
capitalist system during its various stages from early mercantilism
to today's multinational corporation. Thus underdevelopment
as a structure and as an ongoing process can only be
understood as the implantation or imposition of a capitalist
economy on precapitalist and non-industrialized societies. The
underdevelopment of the periphery is as much the result of
the world capitalist system as is the development of the central
or industrialized nations. The functioning of this global system
created the development-underdevelopment dichotomy,
and the sets of relationships established among nations within
this system gave rise to some of the most severe manifestations
of underdevelopment: the destruction of traditional subsistence
agriculture and social structures; the depletion of the
natural resources of underdeveloped countries; net capital
outflow from these countries to the highly developed ones;
monetary and financial instability; inflationary processes; artificial
growth of the commercial and services sectors; low level
of national savings; widespread poverty; and other factors
which are often taken as the cause rather than the result of
underdevelopment
But while the origins and the causes of the maintenance of
underdevelopment are to be found in the external relations
of the countries of the Third World, it would be silly to blame
the problems of the underdeveloped societies exclusively on
colonialism and imperialism. Economic backwardness is also
linked to certain kinds of social and political structures. While
some of these are, to be sure, the result of colonial history,
others have their roots in the precolonial society and in the
cultures and value systems associated with a precapitalist
. economy. It is within the framework of such structures that
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 7
the issues of development and underdevelopment are staked
out. Among the many factors noted are family and kinship
relations, village community structures, social hierarchies and
stratifications, religious values, political power systems, psychological
motivations, cognitive orientations, and so forth.
When many of these elements are patterned in a certain fashion,
then it is said that they constitute "traditional society"
as opposed to "modern society," in which a different pattern,
more conducive to economic development, is said to exist.
Whether or not these traditional structures are obstacles to
development is an empirical question to be tested in each
case. Yet here again it is necessary to insist that it is not the
traditional structures in themselves that make a society "underdeveloped."
Only when they begin to play a part in the
colonial or semi-colonial capitalist system do they tend to
become transformed into "underdeveloped" structures.
Such traditional social elements dating from precolonial
times are often actually reinforced by the imported capitalist
system even as their traditional function changes. This has
been the case, for example, with the privileged position attributed
by the British to certain castes in India's age-old caste
system; or the strengthening of local feudal regimes in certain
parts of Africa and Asia by the European imperial powers;
or the artificial stirring up of tribal rivalry in Black Africa
by colonialist design. Many other examples could be given
of so-called "traditional" elements being maintained or actually
furthered to facilitate the penetration of the "peripheral"
societies by the world capitalist system. On the other
hand, the process of modernization in the social, cultural,
and political fields has not generally led to economic development;
it has, rather, simply modernized or streamlined existing
systems of domination which are an inseparable aspect
of underdevelopment. Thus the modernization of public bureaucracies
as a part of nation building in the colonial or
ex-colonial countries has frequently helped to strengthen the
economic mechanisms whereby these nations are subordinated
to the international system. Or the rise of an entrepreneurial
middle class, often heralded as the standard-bearer
of economic development, often represents nothing more than
the consolidation of a small governing elite which appropri8
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
ates for itself a part of the spoils of underdevelopment. Or
the introduction of modem technology in agriculture, while
contributing to raise overall output and push the country a
notch higher on the development scale which was mentioned
above, actually benefits only a minority and increases the
impoverishment of great masses of the peasant population.
Thus in India the celebrated "green revolution" (the massive
introduction of high-yielding "miracle" seeds) is said to pave
the way for the coming "red revolution." Or else, as in Latin
America, where political instability as measured by the frequency
of military coups is often cited as an obstacle to development
and attributed to some ancestral Spanish-Indian
heritage, the military regimes have actually been the guarantors
of the operations of the foreign-owned plantations,
mines, oil fields, and other industries which account for a
good part of the massive transfer of wealth from the Latin
American countries to the industrialized nations, thus aggravating
underdevelopment in that part of the world.
'fHE DYNAMICS OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT
It should be clear from the brief discussion above that underdevelopment
is not a state of non-development or predevelopment.
It is a dynamic, ongoing process that occurs in
countries which have been incorporated as dependent satellites
(mainly as producers of raw materials and suppliers of
cheap labor permitting the accumulation of capital on a worldwide
scale) into the expanding capitalist world system under
the hegemony of a number of developed or . metropolitan
countries (successively Spain, Holland, France, Great Britain
and the United States) . This externally dependent status has
produced increasing internal polarization between rich and
poor in the underdeveloped countries. The destruction of
traditional precolonial societies has in fact produced dependent,
satellite, underdeveloped status. Thus it has been possible
to speak of "the development of underdevelopment."8
As is well known and has been amply documented,9 the
gap between the industrialized nations and the Third World
has increased since the Second World War. This is not only
the result of faster overall growth rates in the developed
countries. A number of additional factors also play their role.
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 9
The underdeveloped countries mainly rely on their exports of
raw materials and primary products to finance their own economic
growth. With the foreign exchange obtained by their
exports they are able to import consumer and capital goods
from the industrialized countries. But the terms of trade between
their exports and imports regularly deteriorate. Not
only are the prices of primary products subject to sharp shortterm
fluctuations on the international markets, but in the long
run they tend to fall relative to the prices of the industrial
goods. Thus a typical underdeveloped country will have to
export increasing quantities of primary products just to maintain
a given level of income. In view of the fact that the
producers of these raw materials· are many, and the buyers
few, and that most of the international trade of these products
is ·in the hands of a small number of powerful international
corporations, it is the latter who can, in fact, impose on the
former the price levels of their export goods. The underdeveloped
countries have long demanded better treatment by
the industrialized countries, and a number of international
conferences sponsored by the United Nations are periodically
devoted to discussing these problems. But except in a few
cases of special agreements concerning certain commodities
the countries that produce primary products have not been
able to make much headway. Thus, over a ten-year period
(1955-65), the terms of trade deteriorated by 15 per cent
for the African countries,10 and between 1950 and 1968
they deteriorated by 30 per cent for Latin Am.erica.U
Another important factor contributing to increasing underdevelopment
in the Third World is foreign investment. It is
often stated that foreign capital is necessary for economic
growth in the underdeveloped countries. Recently a high-level
international commission set up by the World Bank recommended
that private investment flows to underdeveloped
countries be increased.12 In fact, however, private foreign
investment mainly benefits the investor, not the host country.
Its main effect has been to accelerate the outflow of capital
from the underdeveloped countries to the industrialized nations
through the repatriation of profits, payment of royalties,
and so forth. Only as regards its relations with the United
States, Latin America's net outflow of capital amounted to
JO Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
almost seven billion dollars between 1960 and 1968.is
Speaking of private investments in the British colonies, Herbert
Frankel noted twenty years ago that "it is very common
nowadays to suggest that the provision of capital in any form
is necessarily advantageous to the recipient society and automatically
produces 'income.' Nothing could be further from
the truth. The history of such 'investments' in Africa and
elsewhere affords many examples of railway lines, roads,
ports, irrigation works, etc. in the 'wrong places' which not
only failed to lead to income-generating development, but
actually inhibited more economic developments which might
otherwise have taken place."14
Given the capital requirements of the underdeveloped countries
much hope has also been placed on long-term international
credits and government-to-government loans to finance
exports, investments, and development projects. The result
of this foreign aid has · been the increasing indebtedness of
the underdeveloped countries, which has led to frequent monetary
and balance of payments crises. More and more foreign
aid is disbursed simply fo help the underdeveloped countries
repay their accumulated debts. The Pearson report states that
in 1965-67 debt service amounted to 87 per cent of new
loan disbursements in Latin America, 73 per cent in Africa
and 52 per cent in East Asia.1°
Even as the underdeveloped countries increase their GNP,
the combined effect of the factors just mentioned (deterioration
of the terms of trade, net private capital outflows, and
increasing external public debt service payments) decreases
the availability. of internal resources for productive invest ..
ment. Thus in Latin America the proportion of domestic
resources available for investment fell from 17.5 _ per cent of
total product- in 1950 to 14.5 per cent at the end . of the
sixties.16
It should not be assumed from the foregoing that if the
underdeveloped countries suddenly went without foreign private
investments and public aid their level of development
would automatically rise. It can be inferred, however, that
if certain internal political conditions existed (and this is the
important if) the chances of accelerating their rates of capital
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 11
formation in the absence of such foreign investments and aid
would improve.
Economic growth is usually said to be related to. the level
of investment. This, in turn, depends on the available capital
and the level of savings in any given society, and may be
called the society's actual economic surplus, that is, the difference
between society's actual current output and its actual
current consumption. The rate of development will then be
the result of the size of the actual economic surplus and the
way in which it is used. If a good part of the surplus is transferred
abroad, as is the case in the underdeveloped countries,
then of course the rate of development will be low. But societies
also dispose of a potential economic surplus, which is the
difference between the output that could be produced in a
given natural and technological environment with the help of
employable productive resources, and what might be regarded
as essential consumption. The potential economic surplus is
to be found in a) society's excess consumption, b) the loss of
output due to the existence of unproductive workers, c) the
loss of output due to the irrational and wasteM organization
of the existing productive apparatus, and d) the loss of output
due to open and disguised unemployment.17 Consequently
the chances for economic development in the countries of the
Third World depend upon the ways in which they employ
their actual economic surplus and successfully tap their potential
economic surplus which at present goes to waste. These
are problems directly related to social and political organization.
Colonialism and imperialism have not only plundered the
wealth of the underdeveloped countries and subordinated
them economically to the interests of the metropolitan or
"central" nations. They have also stimulated a certain kind
of capitalist growth in the "periphery," which we may call
underdeveloped or dependent capitalism. The main characteristic
of this system is that it tends increasingly to polarize
into two principal sectors: a "modern" agricultural, mining,
manufacturing, commercial, and services sector directly related
to exports, foreign investments, public administration,
and so forth; and a ''traditional" sector of backward agriculture,
handicrafts, low-productivity services, local trade, and
12 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
small-scale production for domestic consumption. The modem
sector includes the mines, railroads, highways, ports,
power plants, factories, and apartment buildings that have
sprung up all over the Third World. The traditional sector is
characterized by the masses of peasants and urban shantytown
dwellers living at subsistence levels who make up the
majority of the population. When reference is made to aggregate
growth rates in the underdeveloped countries as a sign
of their progress, it must be borne in mind that these usually
refer only to the modem sector.
The existence of these two sectors has led some authors to
advance "dualistic" theories regarding the evolution of the
underdeveloped countries. The main thrust of these theories
is that the traditional and backward sector pre-dates the appearance
of capitalism, that it exists fairly independently of
the modem, capitalist sector, and constitutes an obstacle to
the further development of the underdeveloped countries. It
is argued that if only the "right formula" is found, the modem
capitalistic sector will expand to incorporate the backward
one and lead the country into self-sustaining growth.ls
The real story is different. Dualism has indeed been the
result of the establishment of capitalism, but not because the
externally oriented modem sector has left the rest of the
country behind. The traditional sector is itself a result of
capitalist development. In fact, the externally oriented modem
sector has subordinated the backward sector to serve its own
interests. British colonial policies destroyed native manufactures
and a self-sufficient agricultural village economy in India.
Colonial practices in Africa disorganized precolonial
tribal societies and created vast, impoverished reserves of labor
for capitalist mines and plantations. In Latin America,
the so-called "feudal" agrarian structure is the result of over
three centuries of colonial rule and incorporation into the
world capitalist system. In fact, it is not the backward sector
which constitutes an obstacle to the development of a modem
economy. It is the modem, dependent capitalist sector which
constitutes an obstacle to the development of the backward
areas. The dialectic. of dependent capitalism leads simultaneously
to the growth of a small modem sector and to the underdevelopment
of the backward areas. The two are organiSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 13
cally linked, for the development of the former implies the
increasing underdevelopment of the latter. This has been
called internal colonialism or metropolis/satellite relationship,
for it recreates within the framework of an underdeveloped
country the same system which externally ties that country
to the world metropolitan centers.19 Some of the mechanisms
whereby this occurs will be analyzed in the following chapters.
"OBSTACLES" TO DEVELOPMENT
Much recent literature on the subject attempts to identify the
various "obstacles" to economic growth, as if development
were a natural tendency in societies artificially retarded by
cultural, social, and political hurdles which should be conveniently
placed out of the way. As we have seen, however,
the principal obstacles to development are built into the nature
of dependent capitalism itself. Consequently, facile comparisons
between the historical process of industrialization of the
Western nations and the contemporary development of the
Third World,· or all-inclusive schemes such as Rostow's theory
of the stages of economic growth,20 must be taken with
reservation. It is not possible to retain the widely held idea
that the underdeveloped <:0untries can simply repeat the road
to development that the indus~d nations have taken, and
that they even have certain "advantages of backwardness"
in that they could simply take over from these nations the
latest technological advances without having to pass through
the painful stages of industrialization which plagued
nineteenth-century Europe. There are several reasons for the
impossibility of imitation.
In the first place, the preconditions which existed in Europe
for the industrial revolution are not generally present today
in the underdeveloped countries. Kuznets has pointed to the
vast differences in per capita incomes and demographic patterns
between the European countries in the nineteenth century
and today's underdeveloped areas.21 Others have stressed
the fact that Europe already haq a considerable economic
infrastructure before the industrial revolution and that the
cultural, social, and economic heritage of Europe was quite
different from that of today's Third World.22 Similar observations
could be made regarding the United States and Japan,
14 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
the latter country being mentioned sometimes as a possible
model for underdeveloped countries to follow.2a A further
important difference, and a fundamental one in our opinion,
is that Europe's development was closely linked to its colonial
empires; not only is this kind of expansion no longer possible
for today's underdeveloped countries, but, as we have noted
above, it is precisely their colonial background which conditioned
their underdevelopment.
Comparing the underdeveloped South Asian countries and
the highly developed Western countries on the eve of their
rapid economic growth, Gunnar Myrdal reaches the general
conclusion· "that the differences in initial conditions are extremely
significant and that they regularly work to the disadvantage
of the underdeveloped countries in South Asia.
Furthermore, the differences are in many instances of such
a nature as to prohibit a pattern of growth analogous to that
experienced by the developed Western countries." 24
As regards the adoption of modern technology by the underdeveloped
countries, it has been noted that technological
transfer under prevailing conditions has been more of an obstacle
than a boon to economic development. Thus Myrdal
considers that ". • . scientific and technological advance in
the West has had, and is having, an impact on the South
Asian countries that is very detrimental to their development
prospects . • • the dynamics of technological progress will
work to the ever greater disadvantage of the underdeveloped
countries, increasing difficulties and decreasing their development
potential."2° And a United Nations report concerning
Latin America concludes that the introduction of modem
technology by the multinational corporations not only blocks
the kind of development that the Latin American countries
need and increases their technological dependency vis-a-vis
the industrialized nations, but actually helps to finance the
technological development of the industrialized countries
themselves.26
The comparison between the underdeveloped countries and
nineteenth-century Europe would be nothing more than an
exciting intellectual exercise were it not for several theoretical
implications which deserve mention. An outstanding feature
of European or American capitalist development was the role
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 15
played therein by the bourgeoisie as a social class, a sociological
phenomenon which was the basis of Marx's analysis
of capitalism as a system. In much of the recent literature
it is assumed, expected, or proposed that a middle class of
capitalist entrepreneurs plays a similar revolutionary, innovating,
and modernizing role in the underdeveloped countries.
This does not happen to be the case, however. The "knight
of industry" of early capitalism is a storybook character who
does not find a place in the world of the billion-dollar multinational
corporation with headquarters in London, New York,
or Geneva, which extends its operations over three or four
continents. Economic decisions of importance for a country's
development are no longer made by single financiers or small
groups of nationally based businessmen. They are usually
taken in corporate offices several thousand miles away. The
local entrepreneur, when he exists at all, plays a subordinate
or complementary role to these international giants. Nor are
his own interests necessarily different or opposed to those
of the foreign-owned companies, notwithstanding the theories
that regard the ''national bourgeoisie" of the underdeveloped
countries as being interested in gaining economic independence
from foreign control. In fact, the different entrepreneurial
fractions of this bourgeois social class (whether they
concern themselves with industry, export-import activities,
agriculture, or services) are well integrated into the externally
dependent "modem" sector of peripheral capitalism. They
are thus hardly likely to become the promoters of independent
economic development.
A number of special psychological and ethical qualities are
usually assumed to exist among the entrepreneurial classes
which, it is said, favored economic growth in the West.
Among these are the Protestant ethic of hard work and saving
so well illustrated in the writings of Benjamin Franklin, the
entrepreneurial spirit of innovation and starting out on new
paths, the achievement motive of wishing to get something
done or to become someone, and the willingness to take risks.
· If only these qualities existed among the middle classes of the
underdeveloped countries, it is argued, then economic backwardness
could be overcome.27 We shall not discuss here
what the role of these various factors actually was in the
16 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
development of the Western countries, but as far as the middle
classes of the underdeveloped countries are concerned, a
closer look would suggest that the emphasis is misplaced.
Risk taking, private capital accumulation, and entrepreneurial
activity were, if at all, characteristic of the early stages of
competitive capitalism. In today's underdeveloped, dependent
capitalism, these individual qualities are not necessary for the
system to function. The · economic structure does not require
them nor does it promote them. The absence of such widely
recommended values in the economic field is therefore not an
obstacle to growth at all; it is, if anything, simply an obstacle
to the growth of the kind of competitive free-for-all capitalism
which characterized nineteenth-century Europe and America.
When scholars argue that these values should be fostered
through "modernizing ideologies" or the educational system,
they seem to recommend that the only possible road to development
is that which was taken by the Western nations.
But, as we have seen, this road is impossible. When such
values are fostered within the prevailing system, they actually
contribute to strengthen "underdeveloped development."
Thus, speaking of Latin America, Lipset argues that "modernizing
societies require either strong values or rules sustaining
· achievement and universalism. They need not reject their
traditional value system if they can work out mechanisms to
guarantee that a large section of the elite will be composed of
men who are highly motivated and able to achieve. However,
much of Latin America and some other nations in the
less developed parts of the world have not succeeded in doing
either." 28 But who are the elites in the underdeveloped countries?
They are precisely those social groups who have sustained
and benefited the most from underdeveloped, dependent
capitalism. Thus the modernization of the ·elites, so
assiduously propounded by the development sociologists, will
only reinforce the internal polarization and the external dependency
of the underdeveloped countries, in the absence
of profound and thorough structural transformations.
External dependency and internal colonialism, that is, the
metropolis/satellite chain that characterizes peripheral, underdeveloped
capitalism, subsists not only because of the international
hegemony exercised by a small number of imperialist
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 17
world powers, but also-and principally-because of the role
played within the underdeveloped countries themselves by
national power structures and local ruling classes. It is frequently
argued among development economists that inequalities
of income are a necessary feature of economic growth,
because the higher-income strata are thus able to accumulate
the necessary capital to further economic development. In
the underdeveloped countries, however, the bipolarized class
structures have contributed to nothing of the sort. The ruling
elites have accumulated enormous wealth and have maintained
luxurious standards of living which have not favored
capital formation at all, but have, rather, increased their own
external dependency even as they have become more and
more isolated from the great masses of their own countries'
populations, In Latin America, the average consumption per
household among the upper strata (5 per cent of the population)
is fifteen times higher than that of the lower strata
(50 per cent of the population). A United Nations report
estimates that if this ratio were reduced to 11: 1, the annual
rate of growth of per capita income could rise from 1 per cent
to 3 per cent; and if the ratio were brought down to 9:1, the
rate of growth might reach 4 per cent or even more.20
From the foregoing we may conclude that the prospects
for economic development in the underdeveloped countries
are closely related to the social and political structures associated
with dependent capitalism, and particularly to their
class structures. For economic development implies not only
an increase in investments, but also changes in the nature
of these investments; not only certain average rates of growth,
but also the adequate distribution of increased growth rates
among different sectors; not only the availability of capital,
but also the fashion in which it is employed; not only the
channeling of foreign aid, but a complete alteration of a
country's foreign relationships; not only higher average incomes,
but also greater participation of the great masses of
the population in the benefits derived from higher incomes;
not only the modernization of certain political structures and
certain elite values, but changes in the political system and in
the concept of elites itself. It has become increasingly apparent
that economic development is not a technical problem,
18 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
but more than anything else, a political problem. As such it
involves not only changes in power relationships among social
classes but also changes in the nature of the state.
This book is concerned with social classes in the agrarian
societies of underdeveloped countries. As we shall see in later
chapters, dependent capitalism has penetrated even into the
most "traditional" of these agrarian societies and has brought
forth profound and lasting transformations in them. These
changes affect the whole gamut of social life: family, marriage,
and kinship; work and property; consumption and
standards of living; prestige and stratification; political value
systems and religion. These various elements are interwoven
through the functioning of the class structure. But before we
carry the analysis further, it will be necessary to discuss briefly
the various conceptions and theoretical implications of "social
class," a concept that has been much and ambiguously used
in sociological studies.
CHAPTER 2
Social Classes
and
Stratification
The analysis of class structures and stratification is a methodological
tool which has been developed by Western sociologists
in the study of their own societies. Efforts to apply
these concepts to the study of non-Western societies and to
underdeveloped countries have not been very systematic. Even
in the industrialized countries class analysis has often been
limited to the industrial arid urban social environment. In
comparison with the number of works that deal with· social
class in industrial societies, studies of rural classes are few
and patchy.
Before proceeding to the study of social classes in the
agrarian. societies of underdeveloped countries, it is useful to
analyze briefly the methodological and theoretical problems
facing scholars in this field, particularly as regards problems
springing from a general confusion between social class and
stratification.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
By social stratification we generally mean the process whereby
individuals, families, or social groups are ranked on a scale,
some in higher and others in lower positions. There are several
· problems with this conceptualization.
(a) According to Davis and Moore,1 stratifications are
universal and represent the unequal distribution of. rights and
obligations in a society. Society, according to these authors,
must assign to all individuals a place somewhere in the social
structure, and the basis for this assignment constitutes the
differential prestige of various positions in society and of the
people who occupy them.
20 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
The question which immediately emerges is this: What are
the bases of the prestige of certain social positions? We may
see certain difficulties in establishing them. Do we deal with
the prestige that the investigator attributes to the various positions
or with the prestige that an individual attributes to his
own position? With the prestige that an individual attributes
to the position of others or rather with that of a given position
whose worth is accepted by the whole of society? The panorama
of stratification varies according to the choice made in
each case. For example, the sociological school of W. Lloyd
Warner, who has studied stratification in the United States,
has been criticized, with some justification, for failing to distinguish
clearly between the different aspects of "prestige" as
a basis for stratification. Warner, who developed a schema of
five social classes, at times uses his own evaluation of the
prestige of certain social positions and at other times takes
the opinion of some of his informants about the prestige
of other members of the community. He also combines these
criteria with certain objective indices which we will consider
later in this chapter. A. Touraine, among others, has shown
the limitations of this approach. 2 For the American sociologist
Talcott Parsons,s stratification is a result of the differential
evaluation of the objectives of social action, that is to say,
all stratification represents a hierarchy of values. Such an
approach assumes, at least implicitly, a system of values common
to the whole society.
Because of their essentially subjective nature, these methods
fail to lead to a deeper analysis of social structures, and some
authors have discarded the phenomenon of stratification from
their discussion of social classes.
(b) But if we accept that social stratification is based on
real and objective criteria, then the problem is simply to know
what these criteria are. Davis and Moore note the existence
of two factors which, according to them, determine the rank
of an individual within a hierarchy of different positions in
society. These factors are (i) the individual's importance to
society, that is to say, his function, and (ii) the training or
talent necessary to hold such a position. Thus stratification
is usually established with respect to religion, government,
wealth, property, occupation, and technical skill. In empirical
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 21
investigations the following criteria are generally taken as
indices for the .establishment of stratification systems: amount
of income, source of income, wealth, education, occupational
prestige, residential area, race or ethnic group, and other
secondary criteria. In the majority of studies of stratification
these criteria are considered either in isolation or in combination.
But it is clear that a social stratification based on only
one of these criteria (income or. occupation, for example)
would not correspond to social reality. For that reason it is
increasingly common to elaborate multiple indices by means
of statistical calculation and to talk of "multistratified" systems.
When we consider the various criteria of stratification,
we have to distinguish clearly between those that are quantitative
and can be represented on graphs as ,gradations or
curves (such as amount of income or education) and those
that are qualitative. The latter, in turn, fall into two categories:
objective criteria (such as the possession or lack of
certain goods, .the type of work carried out, the performance
of managerial or subordinate functions, etc.) and criteria
which, though objective, are based on subjective evaluations
such as the prestige of certain occupations, racial or ethnic
groups ( criteria which are particularly important in societies
which have minority group problems).
Another important problem related to the criteria of stratification
is that of defining the social universe for which any
given stratification system is valid. The ideal system of stratification
would be that which could be applied to an entire
society. But very few authors have tried to establish general
systems of this nature; Empirical· studies usually take a specific
community as their universe. However, communities are not
representative of society as a whole, and such schemes turn
out to be invalid when applied to general cases.4 In fact
national societies taken as a whole are not really true units
as far as stratification is concerned. We must distinguish at
least two regional sectors, each of which has its own stratification.
These are the rural sector and the urban sector.5
( c) The third problem is to determine which is the smallest
unit of a stratification system: the individual or the social
group. This becomes one of the fundamental problems of
22 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
stratification because it means establishing the difference between
taxonomic description and structural analysis of society.
An individual's position iμ a system of stratification, determined
according to a series of personal attnoutes, is usually
considered to be his social status. e Often the study of stratification
becomes nothing more than the investigation of individual
statuses, and systems of stratification are frequently
referred to also as status systems.
Nevertheless, a large number of the studies of stratification
recognize not only a scale of individual statuses, but also the
objective, hierarchical existence of a series of more or less
homogeneous social categories. The individuals who comprise
these categories share certain common indices of stratification
or indicators of social position. These categories or discrete
groups are called social strata or-and here is the major cause
of the confusion-social classes. Generally, these terms only
refer to statistical categories (that is, a congeries of persons
who have a specific number of common, quantifiable characteristics
or a "common status"), or to groups of people
characterized by similar behavior, common attitudes and opinions,
or a certain level of interaction and mutual association,
In almost all of the contemporary sociological literature the
term "social classes" has this meaning: discrete groups arranged
in a system of stratification.
The consideration of classes as simple statistical and hierarchically
arranged strata has led to the elaboration of an
almost infinite number of bipartite, tripartite, quadripartite,
and quintupartite schemes. At the extremes of such schemes
we inevitably find two classes called ''upper'' and "lower,"
while a variety of ''middle" classes or layers occupy the space
in between. The majority of American scholars have discovered
five or six classes in the United States, while the more
orthodox sociologists (among them the majority of Latin
American sociologists), favor the Aristotelian model of three
social classes.
According to the indicators or indices employed, a system
of stratification will be represented either by a continuum on
which individuals are arranged without marked delineations,
or by a hierarchy of discrete and clearly defined characteristics,
Quantitative criteria produce a continuum, while qualiSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 23
tative criteria produce a step~by-step scaled hierarchy. A
combination of any of the various criteria would produce
one of these two possibilities, according to the preference of
the investigator. The studies of st:r:atification have yet to give
us more definitive schemes or more precise techniques for
conceptualizing stratification. 7
( d) What then are tl;ie relations between stratification and
the social structure? Max Weber made the now famous distinction
among the three dimensions of society: the economic
order, represented by class; the sgcial order, reprC$en~ 1:>y
status or station (Stand); and the poUtical order, represented
by the party.s Bach of these dim~nsions has its own stratification:
the economic, represented by income and the goods
and services. which an individual possesses; the social, represented
by the prestige and honor he enjoys; and the political,
represented by the power he exercises. According to Weber's
schema;· class based on the ecQnomic order would be no more
than one aspect of the social structure, an aspect which,
according to T. H. Marshall, is losing its importance in modem
society as status becomes the key element in social strati-
:ficationD. ·
. . It·· is difficult to see how stratificatio~. schemas composed
of "upper," "middle;'' and ."lower'' classes, or strata, with all
their many variations, can be. integrated into a social structure
if other factors are not taken into consideration. The principal
critique made of such stratification studies is that stratification
never goes beyond the level of immediate experience,
that it is little more than a seriC$ of simple statistical descriptions
that lead to stereotypes but not to an understanding of
structures.10 Marshall asserts that what is needed is a dynamic
analysis of tensions and adjustments as well as of
process. And Lipset and Bendix call for a historical perspective
that would take into account the factors of social process
and change. For the phenomenon of stratification to acquire
this dynamic and structural aspect it must . be linked t(? the
analysis of the structure of social classes._
S<;>CIALM OBll.ITY
But before. examining. the problem we ought to mention yet
another important aspect of stratification . studies. This aspect
24 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
is sometimes presented as the "dynamic" treatment in the
analysis of stratification, and deals with studies of social mobility.
Social mobility may be considered as "a significant
movement in an individual's or stratum's economic, social
and political position."11
While changes in the position of strata have to do with
social evolution or development, studies of social mobility are
concerned with the movement of individuals. Mobility studies
are based on the notion that systems of stratification in the
modem world are not rigid, and that they permit the movement
of an individual from one status or "class" to another.
In the context of stratification, social mobility is vertical mobility,
as contrasted with horizontal and geographic mobility.
Scholars generally take changes in an individual's occupation
as the point of departure.
The numerous studies of mobility, carried out principally
by students of industrial societies, have a number of theoretical
implications which should be examined briefly.
(a) Two types of mobility have been noted: 1) the supply
of empty statuses ( ''the demographic vacuum" of the upper
classes), and 2) the interchange of ranks (for every move
up there is a corresponding move down).12 However, in
practice, most studies of mobility concentrate on upward mobility
and ignore downward movement.is The practice of
examining one but not the other tends to distort reality.
(b) A large number of studies of mobility have a totally
psychological tendency by treating the problems of motivation,
attitudes, class consciousness, etc., of the mobile individual
and ignoring the social and economic conditions which
are part of the phenomenon of mobility. For this reason such
investigations do not contribute very much to the study of
social structures.
( c) On the basis of such studies, many authors affirm that
the United States, for example, is a highly mobile society. But
it has been demonstrated recently that it is much less so than
was supposed in the past and in fact offers less possibility for
mobility than do several Western European societies.14 In
general it is asserted that the increased mobility provided
since the nineteenth century by Western industrial society
has brought about the disappearance of class antagonism in
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 25
these societies, and for this reason the "old" concepts of
class (that is, Marxist theory) are said to be no longer valid.
( d) In general, we ought not to underestimate the political
implications of the studies of social mobility.15 It is the purpose
of many of them to show that Western society is egalitarian,
that every individual has precisely the same opportunity
to ascend the social scale, and that movement from
one class to another has been substituted for "conflict"
among classes. This aspect of the mobility concept has frequently
been criticized.16
Social mobility is an important fact in every society, especially
when it is studied in relation to the structures of
power, political behavior, and changes in social structures.
But the study of social mobility is not a substitute for studies
of class structure, and mobility cannot be taken alone, as
some scholars would have it, as an index of specific modifications
in the class structure.
SOCIAL CLASSES
We have already seen that the various strata in a system of
stratification are commonly referred to as "classes." But this
terminology has little to do with the structural-functional and
dynamic conception of classes that we are going to develop
in this section. However, this conception, despite having
placed well-defined limits on the idea of class, and despite
the very precise distinction made between class and stratification,
has not yet come up with a unanimously accepted
definition of social class. While formal definitions have been
put. forth, none of them manage to incorporate all the varied
aspects of this complex phenomenon.17 However, a complete
and exhaustive definition is not really necessary in order to
give to the concept of class a content specific enough to allow
us to use it in the analysis of social structures. Rather than
concentrate on simple definitions, it is more useful to demonstrate
what kind of concept we are working with and how
that concept forms part of sociological theory. We will try
to · determine the place of "class" in sociological theory because
the concept of social class is only valid as part of a
theory of social classes.
· The structural and dynamic conception of social classes
26 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
was developed by Marx and Engels. The Marxist approach
is generally present in those studies of social classes in which
the concept of class has not been completely absorbed by
the concept of stratification. However, it is well known that
nowhere in Marx's work do we find an exhaustive definition
of class, and the systematic analysis of the subject remained
incomplete in the final volume of Capital. In Marx's various
works we can pick out different interpretations of the phenomenon,
definitions which do not always coincide, but which
are in no way contradictory. They are, on the contrary, applied
to social phenomena in a dialectic way, in different
types of analysis, and show how Marx gradually matured
the idea in his own mind. For Marx the concept of class
has three aspects: philosophical, economic, and historic.is
But in all three there is a single approach which we might
call structural-functional and dynamic.19 This approach implies
a number of problems.
{a) If strata (or "classes"), as we have been examining
them in the context of stratification, constitute descriptive,
static categories, social classes, according to the present conception,
constitute analytical categories. That is, they form
part of a social structure with which they have specific relationships.
The study of social classes leads to an understanding
of the moving forces of society and of social dynamics,
and they permit us to move from description to
explanation in the study of societies. As we have already
noted, the idea of class only acquires analytic value when it
forms part of a class theory.
(b) Social class is, at the same time and more than anything
else, a historical category. That is, classes are tied to the
evolution and development of society. They are found in
historically constituted social structures. The various classes
exist in specific socio-historical formations. Every epoch is
characterized by its own social classes. For this reason, there
is not much point in talking, as do the sociologists of the
stratification school, of upper, middle, and lower classes in
every society, in every epoch. Classes have a specific sociological
content; the social categories to which they refer can
always be described in specific terms. Thus, Marx speaks in
his analyses of "proletariat" and "petite bourgeoisie," or "flSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 27
nancial aristocracy," and these terms in each case have a
specific, concrete meaning which corresponds to the historical
moment to which they refer.
This is not to say that classes do not change over time.
They form, develop, and are modified by transformation in
the society in which they exist. They represent the principal
contradictions in society. They grow out of these contradictions,
and in turn contribute to their development. Between
classes and society and among the various classes themselves
there is a constant dialectical movement, the details of which
in each case can only be described through empirical investigation,
Classes are driving forces in the transformation of
social structures. They form an integral part of the dynamics
of the society and are moved, at the same time, by their own
internal dynamics. Classes develop from specific structural
conditions in a society and at the same time constitute structural
elements of the society.
( c) The problem which has most often divided sociologists
who study classes is the question of the criterion or criteria
that should be used to distinguish one class from another.
Ever since Max Weber described -the economic, political, and
social dimensions of society, some scholars recognize only
the economic basis of class, and this is generally the position
that is mistakenly attributed to Marx.20 For some scholars
the cultural, mental, moral, and behavioral similarities among
members of a social class are due to similarities in the objective
occupational, economic, and legal positions of its members.
21 Others, who wish to eliminate all economic implications
from the concept of class, take into account only the
political basis of class, and this political factor is taken in its
widest meaning, that is, as relations of power and domination.
22
The Marxist position is clear in this respect. It is not occupation,
or income, or life-style that constitute the principal
criteria in the definition of a social class, although these secondary
factors may be extremely important in certain cases.
Together with power ot political authority (which has its
own determinism) these are dependent factors that express
or reflect to a greater or lesser degree the fundamental criterion.
This criterion has been clearly set forth by Lenin.
28 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
Classes are large groups of people which differ from each
other by the place they occupy in a historically determined
system of social production, by their relation (in most cases
fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production,
by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently,
by the dimension and mode of acquiring the
share of social wealth of which they dispose. Classes are
groups of people one of which can appropriate the labor
of another owing to the different places they occupy in a
definite system of social economy.23
This definition of social class does not exhaust all aspects
of it which are to be found in Marxist literature. But it shows
what is, for Marxism, the economic base of the constitution
of social classes and the fundamental criterion for their integration:
the relation to the means of production. We are
not dealing here with an arbitrary criterion, chosen according
to the whim of the author ( as occurs with the criteria of
stratification). We are dealing rather with a logical result of
the structural analysis of society. If the relations of men to
the means of production determine the existence of those
human groups that we call classes, it is because the forces of
production on the one hand and the relations of production
on the other give to each socioeconomic structure, to each
historical stage, its content and form, its own physiognomy.
The mode of production of a given society, which is what
distinguishes one socioeconomic structure from another, determines
the specific characteristics of certain human groups
and the type of relations that they will have with other groups
of the same kind. These groups are classes, and these relations
are class relations. Only if we take the relation to the means
of production as the fundamental criterion for the determination
of social class is it possible to link these classes to the
social structure and to arrive at a structural analysis of society
and at sociological and historical explanation. Scholars who
take other single or combined criteria for their analysis, and
ignore this fundamental criterion may talk of "classes," but
they never manage to establish an analytical concept which
would enable. them to carry out structural analysis and historical
explanation. It is for this reason that schemas of upper,
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 29
middle, and lower "classes" have no specific sociological content
or any relation to historic and concrete socioeconomic
structures.
Lenin's definition is not concerned with the classification
:if any given person, the identification of a specific individual
with a specific social class. Nor is it meant only to distinguish,
for example, those who control the means of production from
those who do not, nor those who labor from those who do
n.ot. These distinctions, which are generally accepted by other
authors as well, represent only a part of the general concept
:if social class. What is important is that these and other
::listinctions occur within a specific socioeconomic system in
which the classes in opposition (dominant-dominated) are
dso complementary and dialectically linked ( exploiters~
xploited) as integral parts in the functioning of a whole.
( d) One of the fundamental aspects of the concept of class
is that classes are never found in isolation, but only as part of
1 class system. A social class exists only in relation to other
;lasses. What define and distinguish the various classes are
:he specific relations they establish among themselves. Indeed,
1 social class exists only as a function of others. The relations
,etween the different classes take many different forms, but
.vhat stand out are those we can consider as fundamental or
;tructural relations. Such relations are determined by the obective
interests of the classes which, in turn, result from the
ipecific positions they occupy in the production process, and
he specific situation of each class with respect to the means
>f production. These differential positions which, according
o Lenin's formulation, permit one class to appropriate the
ruits of the labor of another, determine that the objective
nterests of the classes are not merely different, but contrary
md opposed. Accordingly, the fundamental relations estabished
between classes are relations of· opposition. We say
hey are fundamental because it is these relations which bring
Lbout the transformation of social structures. Relations of
,pposition are asymmetrical: the classes do not confront each
,ther on an equal plane. The differential positions occupied by
he classes in the socioeconomic structure imply that some
vill have greater wealth, economic power, and political auhority
than others, and this power and authority will be
30 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
exercised against the interests of those classes that lack such
strength. As such, the two classes in opposition are the dominant
and the dominated; and the relations of opposition become
relations of domination and subordination. But these
relationships constitute only one aspect of the opposition. The
opposing classes, the dominant and dominated, not only represent
two distinct social phenomena, but also two facets of
the same social phenomenon. In a specific socioeconomic
structure, social classes in opposition are, at one and the
same time, complementary classes in that they form an integral
part of the functioning of the system; and antagonistic
classes in that they represent the basic internal contradictions
which bring about the radical transformation of the system.
The basis of the antagonism, of the contradiction, is inherent
in the differential position of the classes with respect to the
means of production. The difference in power and resources
between the classes is what permits the surplus produced by
one class to be appropriated by another. In other words, the
classes in opposition are the exploiting and the exploited
classes, and their relations are relations of exploitation. Thus
we have it that classes are complementary, opposed, and
antagonistic and that their relations may be described, in the
framework of the total socioeconomic structure, in terms of
function, opposition, and contradiction, which lead inevitably
to the transformation of all their constituent elements and
of the structure as a whole.
(e) Class opposition is not simply an academic matter. It
occurs at all levels of social action, in class conflict and class
struggle, and, above all, in the political and economic :field.
As such, classes not only constitute structural elements of
society, but also specific politicoeconomic interest groups
which, under special economic circumstances, acquire consciousness
of themselves and of these interests, and tend to
organize for political action with the goal of capturing the
power of the state. Class consciousness is the link· that allows
the transformation of a class "in itself," a grouping with
objective, "latent" interests, into a class "for itself,'' or a powet
group which tends to organize itself for political conflict ot
struggle and whose interests at some point become "manifest.
"24
!ocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 31
But class consciousness does not emerge automatically from
~e "class situation," nor does every group organized for
,olitical conflict have social· class as its basis. The · specific
elations between the position of a class in a certain socioconomic
order and its conscious political action (the purpose
,f which may be the radical transformation of the social
tructure or the maintenance of existing structures} vary acording
to the particular historical circumstances and should,
1 each case, be the object of concrete empirical investigation.
There are, then, two consecutive phases in the develop-
1ent of class. In the first phase, a class constitutes a class
nly with respect to other classes, as a function of its position
1 the socioeconomic structure, and the specific relations that
row out of this position. In the second phase, a class has
ained consciousness of itself, its interests, and of its historical
mission," and constitutes a class "in the truest sense of the
rord." It is a political action group that intervenes as such
1 social struggles and economic-political conflicts, and conibutes
as such to social change and the development of
Jciety. Although the two phases are consecutive from the
istorical point of view, because men's social conditions de,
rmine their consciousness, the move from one to the other
epends on a number of concrete historic factors. In any
11Sei,t is necessary to bear in mind as far as possible the
istinction between these two phases or aspects of developtent
of social classes.
(/} Class struggle and conflict are the expression of the
ttemal contradictions of specific socioeconomic systems. The
rincipal contradiction, that which constitutes the fundamenil
force behind class struggle, is the contradiction between
te forces of production and the relations of production.
1ther contradictions also exist, but this one is the cause of the
rincipal antagonisms between opposing classes. The dominant
ass that holds power and controls the means of production
:presents the established relations of production in the soety,
and the dominated class, whose labor is appropriated
f the former, represents the forces of production which
,oner or later come into conflict with this system of relations.
hus Marx and Engels could say that the history of mankind
18 been · a history of class struggle, because the structural
32 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
transformation of society implies that relations of production
that no longer correspond to the forces of production in
development will be eliminated and replaced by others that
do. And this change means the substitution of the class in
power by another. The developing ascendant class is that
.which corresponds to the· developing forces of production.
Once this class has captnred political power it establishes a
new system of production relations, and enters into contradiction
with the new forces of,production liberated by its own
seizure of power. This has been the history of classes up to
our time. It is the dialectical process of the evolution and
development of society and of opposing classes. This process,
which can be taken as a theoretical model, is changed and
modified in each particular case, in each historic stage, by
other· political and social factors, Thus a specific class is always
linked to a specific socioeconomic structure, and all
structural change in society is accompanied by transformations
in the nature of the· classes that characterize it.
The relations between . classes and sO(:iety at any one time
are reflected in the power structure and the state.-If the statE
generally represents the. interests of the dominant class, iII
practice it may, at times; express a compromise between various
classes. But as long as contradictions exist between thE
forces of production and the relations of production, tha1
is to say, between social classes, the political struggle of classei
will always have as its objective the control of the power oJ
the state.
RELATIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND CLASl
Smucnnm
Class opposition. in society is asymmetrical. This means· th.a
those who hold power, wealth, and the means of productio1
are confronted by. those who control none of these things
that those who control the means of production employ th1
salaried labor of others to work them. Clearly some individ
ua1s in society could be said to be· "at the top" and other
"at the bottom." Therefore, the different classes in societ:
indeed form a stratification system. But this stratification i
neither a continuum of indivi!iual statllses nor a series o
superimposed strata. The hierarchies that form . in socie~
!Jocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 33
::luster at two extreme poles into opposing classes or blocks
t>f classes, while intermediate groups fall somewhere in the
middle. But this tendency cannot be reduced to a single universally
valid scheme. The specific characteristics of each
stratification system depend directly on the specific relations
md opposition between classes. Stratifications are based on
the relations between classes and tend to reflect them.
There are stratifications which, at first sight, do not seem to
rest on class relations-for example, occupational prestige
~ategories or certain hierarchies based on racial or ethnic
:riteria in multiracial or multiethnic societies. But these strati~
cations have their origin in a class situation and can only
Je understood in relation to this origin. The position of the
ndustrial worker in a prestige scale springs from the situation
>f the proletariat during the industrializing stage of developnent,
and this position is still found rooted in a system of
ralues despite changes in the objective situation of the proetariat
that have taken place since that time. In the same
~ay, discrimination against black people in the United States
-if we ignore for the moment its economic implications~
ew out of slavery, as well as the period of the development
>f industrial capitalism in the United States after the abolition
>f slavery. Thus the racial stratification of the United States
ividently developed from and continues even today to rest
m class.25
Stratifications frequently represent what we may call social
':fixations" or "projections," which at times become legally
:odified and in any case psychologically internalized, as relections
of certain social relations of production as expressed
11 class relationships. Other secondary or accessory factors
e.g., religious or ethnic ones) may also play a part in these
ocial :fixations and may act to re-enforce the stratification
ystem. At the same time these factors perform the socio:,
gical function of "liberating" the stratification from its ties
e> the economic base. In other words, they tend to maintain
b.e stratification system even when its economic base may
:ave changed. As a result, stratifications may also be conidered
as justifications or rationalizations of the established
conomic system, that is, as ideologies.26
As with all phenomena of the social superstructure, strati34
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
fication systems acquire an inertia of their own which acts
to maintain them, although the conditions that gave rise to
them may have changed. As class relationships are modified
by the dynamics of class opposition, conflict, and struggle,
stratification systems tend to turn into "fossils" of the class
relations on which they were originally based. For that reason
they may cease to correspond to existing class relationships
and may even enter into contradiction with them, particularly
in the case of revolutionary· changes in the class structure. It
is because of this process that certain kinds of stratification
have no apparent relation with the economic base. Examples
of this phenomenon are provided by certain social stratifications
associated with European aristocracies or the remains
of an ethnic stratification corresponding to the colonial epoch
in some Latin American countries. ·
We may go one step further and suggest that stratifications,
as phenomena of the superstructure and the product of certain
class relations, react in tum upon these relations. They
are not only a passive reflex. The middle strata of stratification
systems tend to blunt the sharper oppositions that might
exist between their two polarized extremes, when these extreme
strata are at the same time social classes. In "open"
systems of social stratification (i.e., where social mobility is
possible), mobility performs the dual function of reducing
the severity of opposition between classes while re-enforcing
the stratification itself. Thus it is clear that stratification is an
essentially conservative device of societal systems, whereru
class . oppositions and conflicts are basically dynamic. At th~
same time that social stratification divides society into groups,
it has the function of integrating society and consolidatinE
given socioeconomic structures.
From the point of view of the interests of social groups
all stratification systems serve the interests of their uppe1
stratum, but only certain specific types of stratification servE
the interests of the ruling class in society ( only those strati,
fications that correspond to the socioeconomic structure)
We see then that the ruling class and the upper stratum ar«
not necessarily identical, as occurs when class relations hav«
developed beyond the limits fixed by the existing stratificati01
systems. It would appear that the ruling class and the uppe:
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 35
stratum, when not identical, can coexist for some time and
intertwine in the social structure according to particular historical
circumstances. But sooner or later a new system of
stratification will develop that more closely corresponds to
the existing class structure.
This tendency also explains the fact that multiple stratification
systems may coexist in a society while only one class
structure is possible within any given socioeconomic system.
Classes are incompatible with each other, that is to say, they
are mutually exclusive. But this is not the case with the strata
of various stratification systems. Thus an individual may have
various statuses in society; he may participate in several stratifications,
but he may belong fully to but one class (which
does not deny the possibility that an individual may change
his class, or although a member of one class, he may consciously
identify with another, for example, the case of revolutionary
leaders of the proletariat or peasantry who are
themselves of bourgeois origin).
Whereas stratifications represent value systems which claim
to have universal validity, class oppositions, on the contrary,
create conflicting value syste:qis. As a result, the contradictions
that may arise between a stratification system and a
class structure imply multiple conflicts between value
systems.21
CASTE, RAcB, AND MINORITIBS
Social class and stratification systems are often complicated
by the introduction of terms like "caste," ''race," and ''minority."
In underdeveloped countries .and in some developed
ones we hear references to ''racial stratification" or to "caste
stratification" as opposed to a "class system." It thus seems
appropriate to try to pin down the meanings of these terms
and to consider the way in which they may form part of the
theory of stratification and social classes.
1. Castes
The discussions that arise among specialists over the meaning
and sociological nature of castes or caste systems indicate
that the essence of the phenomenon has yet to be fully understood
and that scholars are divided as to the meaning and
36 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
nature of caste. There is a general consensus that caste systems
are stratification systems, and that there is no sense in
speaking of a "caste" without reference to a whole system
of castes. But outside of this consensus two divergent tendencies
have developed. The first group considers that a caste
system is a special form of stratification characterized by various
specific structural features (the rigidity of the system,
ascription to a caste by virtue of birth, the impossibility of
changing castes, the absolute hierarchy of castes in all fields,
particularly in the system of values, and so forth). According
to this school of thought, any system of stratification with some
of these characteristics could be considered to be a caste
system, or at least a variant of a caste system. This tendency
views caste as an extreme, rigid, and immobile case of stratification,
in contrast to a mobile, open stratification of "social
classes/•2s
The second school considers caste systems as cultural, specifically
Hindu, phenomena rooted in a Hindu value system
and philosophy, and incomprehensible outside of this frame
of reference. According to this tendency we would be dealing
here with a sui generis phenomenon not found in any other
part of the world. 20
A compromise position between these two schools has been
taken by certain British scholars who consider caste systems
from the structural point of view, but believe them to be
limited to the pan-Indian cultural area; In addition to the
characteristics of castes already mentioned, these scholars insist
above all (as do Cox and Dumont) that there are certain
relational features of caste systems, sueh as the mutual rights
and obligations of different castes, which make castes "functional
units." Thus Leach sees in caste "a functional unit
with a special series of cultural characteristics that distinguish
it." And Bailey emphasizes the fact that caste systems are
found only in small and simple societies (like Indian villages)
and that they lose their structural characteristics within the
nation-state and the political and economic complexity of
modem society.so
Whatever the situation in the pan-Indian cultural area, it
is necessary to determine if the concept of caste · should be
applied to other systems of stratification.
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 37
In our opinion, the use of the term "caste" has no real
meaning outside of the pan-Indian area. If the use of this
term serves to characterize a rigid stratification system in contrast
to an open system of "classes,'' it seems to obscure and
confuse more than it clarifies. A rigid stratification system
can be part of a class system as we have defined this concept
above. If, on the other hand, the concept of caste is used to
characterize systems of relations which include different racial
groups ( as in the United States ot South Africa) or different
ethnic groups (as in Latin America), then its use in making
implicit ·comparisons with the pan-Indian area also leads to
confusion. This confusion results from the fact that such
comparisons often ignore or obscure historical · factors that
have played an important part in the establishment of systems
of racial or ethnic relations, such as slavery, colonialism,
military conquest, forced labor, etc. Yet these factors are
associated with the economic expansion of Europe, and the
development of the capitalist system. Thus we do not see any
methodological advantage in the use of the term caste as an
analytical category in the study of stratifications or of class
systems outside of the pan-Indian cultural area.
2. Races and Minorities
Race and Minority are concepts often mentioned in studies of
class and caste and stratification in general, and it seems appropriate
to try to establish their main characteristics. Sociologically
speaking, ''race is a human grouping culturally defined
in a given society,'' that is, distinguished from other
groupings by biological characteristics which are attributed
to it and which may vary from one place to another.s1 The
concept acquires its full sociological meaning in a situation
of "race relations," that is, a system of specific social relations
that involve two or more groups, each one of which may be
defined in racial terms. When two or more races, thus defined,
interact in a system of relationships, it is always· necessary
to determine the kind of· relations involved: political,
economic, or social. Racial groups may confront one another
in a class system ( as in the United States) and in colonial
systems (as in colonial Africa), or in social structures that
contain both kinds of relations (as in Latin America). Gen38
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
erally when referring to race relations we speak of domination
and subordination, as well as of social, economic, and political
conflicts among the racial groups, The object of these conflicts
may be the maintenance or destruction of certain economic
or political privileges of one of the races, or competition
among racial groups for control of certain privileges or
rights. Therefore, it is obvious that when we use the term
''race relations," it is important to discover the sociological
essence of the ties that bind races together or the conflicts
that separate them.
"Minorities" is another term often used in the same context.
A minority may be defined as a "subgroup of a wider
society, whose members are exposed to incapacities which
take the form of prejudices, discrimination, segregation, or
persecution by another subgroup generally considered to be
a majority."32 Minorities are distinguished, in addition, by
their tendency toward intragroup marriage and, generally,
for having their own cultural characteristics that transform
them into subcultures. Minorities are often ranked hierarchically,
and their members compete with the majority for status
and privilege. Minorities can be national, linguistic, or religious.
33 As in the case of races, they may represent at the
same time strata in a system of stratification, and power
groups in political ( and at times economic) conflict with other
minorities or with the dominant group called the "majority."
The object of the conflict may be the emancipation or the
assimilation of the group. Minorities cannot be considered
to be classes principally because the basis of their integration
is not their relation to the means of production, or their
place in the production process. However, it is sometimes
possible to find a minority in a class situation, and at times
its political struggle against the majority may turn into a class
struggle. Such cases should be analyzed in the light of specific
empirical studies. But it is crucial that "minority" not be confused
with "class" despite the fact that at times they may
be intertwined in real life situations.
CoNCLUSIONS
The structural-historical or Marxist analysis of social classes
is quite different from the study of "social classes" as they
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 39
appear in the analysis of stratification systems. Marxist class
analysis is better suited for the understanding of the relationship
between the economic and the social system, particularly
in capitalist society, as well as in the study of social dynamics.
It is our thesis that social stratification systems are built upon
and reflect underlying class relations. Nevertheless, they acquire
a dynamic of their own and in particular historical
circumstances they enter into conflict with the class relationships
that they represent. In multiple or plural societies, where
social groups are also divided along cultural or racial lines,
the study of stratification systems becomes more complex,
particularly when the capitalist economy is not yet fully developed
and when precapitalist modes of production still operate
at the local level. The problems inherent in this approach
will be studied in later chapters.
CHAPTER 3
Social Classes
and
Underdevelopment
SOCIAL CLASSES Af\!D STRATIFICATION IN UNDERDEVELOPED
COUNTRIES
The analysis of social, class structures and stratification has
been developed principally in the industrialized capitalist
countries. Is this kind of analysis equally applicable to the
underdeveloped world? It would seem that the theoretical
problems we have already discussed become more complex
when the theory is applied to underdeveloped countries. In
the first place, the capitalist system has always served as the
classic frame of reference for the structural analysis of social
classes. However, capitalism is never found in a "pure" state
in the Third World because it has been imported to these
countries from the developed world. Capitalism in underdeveloped
countries does not grow from internal development
but is superimposed on previously existing structures. Furthermore,
because a variety of economic structures and different
stages of economic and social evolution coexist in the underdeveloped
world, stratifications in these countries have many
aspects that they lack in developed countries. Consequently,
an analysis of social classes in the underdeveloped countries
must necessarily proceed differently from one focused on the
industrialized societies.
In order to orient our discussion, it is important to bear in
mind that the historical evolution of underdeveloped countries
has been marked since the expansionist era in Europe by
the development of the world capitalist system. Some underdeveloped
countries ( e.g., Latin America) suffered the effects
of this process earlier than others. But all of them have been
touched by mercantilist expansion and the economic developSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 41
ment of the "central" countries. As a result, the evolution of
class structures in the underdeveloped countries has also reflected
the changing class relations in the advanced countries.
However, the Third World is comprised largely of agrarian
countries, and the traditional social and political . structures
that existed before the first contact of these countries with
the expanding capitalist system were agrarian structures. For
this reason the agricultural population of underdeveloped
countries plays a far more important role than does its. counterpart
in advanced countries. Not only does it o~en represent
the greater part of the population, but agricultural production
is frequently the most important branch of the economy.
As was pointed out in Chapter 1, underdeveloped countries
are often characterized as unequally developed societies/ that
is to say, as dual societies, in which a capitalist mod1::m sector
coexists with a backward sector of subsistence production.
This dualism is particularly sharp in agrarian structures. But
it would be a mistake to suppose, as do some scholars, that
we are dealing here with two independent societies or structures.
The. economic ties between the modem and the traditional
sector are very close; one could not exist without the
other. However, in these apparently dual or even plural societies
of the underdeveloped countries there coexist multiple
stratification systems. Some of these systems may be considered
as obstacles to development inasmuch as they correspond
to precapitalist economic structures. In order to understand
the dynamic of classes in today's underdeveloped societies,
it is indispensable to review briefly some aspects of the socalled
traditional structures that have been affected by the
processes of change stimulated by European colonial expansion.
ThADITIONAL STRUCTURES
Without attempting to give a definition of traditional structures,
we may say that they include forms of cultural and
social organization that have remained at the margin of socalled
Western civilization and the industrial economic system,
as well as vestiges of pre-industrial systems. As such they
include both "primitive" and "archaic"2 or tribal societies
as well as the feudal or semi-feudal systems that existed before
42 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
mercantilist expansion, some of which persist today in modified
form in certain regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In this inquiry, traditional structures will be important
only insofar as they relate to social classes and stratification.
Most primitive or archaic groups are preclass societies.
Their social organization is based principally on kinship ties.
Their technology is simple, and the units of economic production
are small. Capital accumulation is weak and in the
event that any member of such a society should amass more
goods than others, the society has institutional means to prevent
the excessive accumulation of riches and to assure a
circulation of wealth.s Land, the principal means of production
in these societies, is not privately owned, and the
concept of private property is either non-existent or barely
developed. Class divisions are thus unknown, although some
specialization in the division of labor and certain kinds of
economic oppositions among the members of the society may
be considered as potential class oppositions. The study of the
independent development of social classes in primitive or archaic
societies is a historical or ethnohistorical question because
at present the formation and evolution of classes in this
type of society is the result of changes introduced from the
outside.
Although we cannot speak of real social classes in primitive,
archaic, or tribal societies, we do find stratification. It is
precisely in these primitive societies that we find stratifications
that are independent of a class structure. These stratifications
are not composed of a hierarchy of various superimposed
layers, but rather of different statuses of individuals and lineages
that may be linked to political, religious, or even economic
pre-eminence. 4
Apart from primitive or archaic communities, which will
not be examined in this work, class societies have existed in
various regions of the underdeveloped world even before the
expansion of capitalism.
The general nature and the theoretical characterization of
these class societies has been the subject of important discussions
among scholars, discussions which at times reveal
strong political implications.
Karl Marx outlined the asiatic mode of production and
Social. Classes in Agrarian Societies 43
the general characteristics of "precapitalist economic formations."
5 Nevertheless, a majority of Marxist scholars, following
Morgan and Engels, have refused to see in the class
societies of non~Westem countries anything other than slave
or feudal systems, or else societies at the .stage. of barbarism
or military democracy. The concept of the asiatic mode of
production was revived some years ago by Karl Wittfogel
within the framework of his. theory of hydraulic societies administered
by enormous agrarian bureaucracies under the
absolute power of oriental despotism-a theory that he attempts
to apply to contemporary socialist societies.6 Notwithstanding
his erudition, the theoretical contribution of Wittfogel
appears somewhat weak. More recently, however, new
discussions on this theme have taken place among Marxists, 7
and the notion . of the asiatic mode of production is used once
more as a fruitful instrument of investigation. Maurice Godelier
developed the hypothesis of the asiatic mode of production
as corresponding to "a form of social organization belonging
to the passage of classless society to a class society, a form
that contains . the contradiction of the passage of the classless
society to a class society." This form of social organization
is characterized by ''the unity of communitarian structures
and the embryo of an exploiting class."8
Whatever may have been· the situation in certain societies
of the Far East or in pre-Columbian America, in other parts
of the world, such as precolonial Africa or pre-British India,
the existence of feudal or semi-feudal structures has been
clearly demonstrated.
We are employing these terms in a generic manner rather
than giving them a rigorous definition. We are dealing here
with social structures which, according to the expression of
Maurice Dobb, are characterized by "an obligation imposed
on the producer by force and independently of his own will,
to satisfy a certain number of economic exigencies of a master,
whether these exigencies take the form of services performed
or tributes paid in money or kind , , ."o A few examples
should suffice.
1. Pre-Columbian America: The Aztecs and Incas
A particularly interesting example of organized states and
44 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
class structures which existed before the expansion of the
West are the Aztec and Inca societies of Latin America.
Neither Aztec nor Inca society survived Western expansion.
Both were violently destroyed by the Spanish Conquest.
Should these two forms of social organization be called
"semi-feudal"? Or were they tribal societies, military democracies,
or hydraulic societies? The question is still open.10
In any case we do know that they were highly centralized
states with a social organization based on territorial clan communities
(the calpulli and the ayllu respectively), and that
they undertook large-scale military conquests. · The spoils of
war and tribute collected by the Aztecs and Incas enabled
them to establish political and economic power unrivaled in
the pre-Columbian world, and a strict hierarchical class structure
which was strikingly similar in the two societies. The
principal social classes were the following:
A. the nobility, with its four subdivisions:
1. the hereditary nobility which performed important
functions for the supreme chief of state;
2. the "bureaucratic" aristocracy, created on an ad
hoc basis to carry out the ever more complicated
and important administrative functions stemming
from the military conquests;
3. the aristocracy of conquered peoples, who were
integrated into the administrative functions of the
state at its lower levels; and
4. the clan nobility (that is, the members of the most
prestigious lineages of the calpulli or the ayllu),
who became increasingly subordinated as the state
grew stronger.
B. the clergy, or priestly class, who held considerable political
and economic power and were tied to the aristocracy.
· C. merchants and artisans, who were relatively free under
Aztec rule but were subject to strict state control under
the Incas.
D. the commoners, members of the local clans who constituted
the great majority of the population in the two
societies.
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 45
E. the warriors, who occupied strictly regulated positions,
with special privileges, including the possibility of becoming
part of the aristocracy.
F. the slaves, who, contrary to what might be supposed,
were not prisoners of war (who were generally sacrificed
by the Aztecs and set free by the Incas), but rather common
people who had fallen into debt.11
It would appear that slavery never played an important
role in these societies and that it was on the verge of disappearing
at the time of the Spanish _ Conquest. The power of
the nobility and the state was based principally on their military
conquests. These became possible due to a division of
labor which arose from the high agricultural productivity
of ingeniously irrigated (Aztecs) or terraced (Incas) lands.
The kinship organization of the clan coexisted for some time
with a developing dominant aristocracy and a centralized
state. Nevertheless it appears that the system of territorial
clans was already in the process of disintegration when it was
overwhelmed by the Spanish Conquest. In contrast, the merchant
class, at least in Aztec society, was growing ever more
important in the social organization at this time.12
One of the most intriguing mysteries of history is the question
of what would have been the final development of these
two societies had the Spanish Conquest not occurred. Whatever
the answer, the conquest did, in fact, bring total disorganization
to both the Aztec and Inca states. Clannic organization
progressively disappeared and today only vestiges of
it remain among certain marginal Indian groups in the Andes
and in Mexico. For some time the indigenous aristocracy continued
to enjoy certain privileges under Spanish· colonial administration,
at least at its lower levels. But in general, during
the colonial epoch, the indigenous population became the
peasant base of a new class structure and came to occupy a
specific position in a rigid system of stratification imposed by
the Spaniards. From that time on the evolution of class structure
in the countries of Latin America reflected, mutatis mutandis,
the colonial economic development of Europe, p_articularly
of Spain through the beginning of the nineteenth
46 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
century, and later that of England, France, and the United
States.
2. Pre-British India
In other parts of the world as well, feudal structures developed
before contact with European culture. These structures
have been transformed in various ways by European·
expansion. The situation in India is a good example. "Ancient"
feudalism in India was characterized by the absence
of a landholding aristocracy and of private ownership of
land.13 Land was the collective property of the rural community
whose members were obliged to pay a regular tribute
to a non-landholding feudal nobility. These nobles were
charged by the king with the administration of his kingdom
and the collection of taxes. Political power was based on
military conquest, but apart from the payment of taxes, the
rural community administered its own affairs, and maintained
its traditional economy,14 This kind of feudalism was typical
of India before the fourteenth century, and some historians
have called it "feudalism from above."16
After the fifteenth century, a kind of "feudalism from below"
emerged from the structural transformation of the rural
community. What developed at this point was a class of
owners ( or landholders) whose properties were worked first
by slaves and later by landless peasants who, in effect, became
serfs. The absence of hereditary political feudalism and a
strict social hierarchy controlling the land at all levels of
ownership, made possible the development of a ''village" class
of feudal lords from which later sprang the zamindary system.
The British were to utilize this system to establish large-scale
capitalist ownership in agriculture.
· In the sixteenth century under the rule of the Moguls, the
principal form of land control was the dschagir, a state-owned
property. The undifferentiated peasantry who worked these
lands were obliged to pay rent to the direct representatives
of the sultan, the mukta and the iktadare. The latter did not
constitute a hereditary nobility. They supported themselves
by the collection of rent and taxes, rather than through the
direct exploitation of landholdings.is Thus for considerable
time several systems of feudal or "asiatic" exploitation coSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 47
existed in India with a traditional communal economy and
even with the beginning of a capitalist system of exploitation,
the zamindariat. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century,
state feudalism, or the "agro-bureaucratic" system,
based on the collection of taxes and rent, was already disintegrating,
This process was accelerated by the British colonial
administration, which increased the taxation of the
peasants, establishing it on a fixed monetary basis. This policy
led to the economic ruin of the peasant masses. At the same
time, through a program of "permanent settlement" which
gave to the zamindars permanent and hereditary rights over
the land they occupied, the British established the basis of
capitalist agriculture.17
In some parts of India the British established another land
tenure system as well. This was a system of small properties
called ryotwari, under which the traditional peasant retained
his rights to the land. This system spread until it extended
over half of India.is However, both systems represented a
deviation from the traditional system of the collective property
of the rural community. "Thus," writes an Indian
scholar, ''the British conquest brought about an agrarian revolution.
It created the prerequisite for the capitalist development
of agriculture by introducing individual ownership of
land, namely peasant ownership and large-scale landlord
ownership. This together with the commercial and other new
economic forces which invaded and penetrated the village,
undermined both the agrarian economy and the autarchic
village of India of the pre-British period. This transformation
of land relations was the most vital link in the chain of causes
which transformed the whole precapitalist feudal economy of
India into existing capitalist economy."19 From that time on,
as had occurred in America two and a half centuries earlier,
the development of the. social class structure in India has reflected
the capitalist system imposed by British colonialism.
3. Madagascar
~ contrast to what occurred in Latin America and India,
African traditional feudal structures have survived up to the
present time with their own special characteristics. This is
48 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
doubtless due to the relatively late conquest of Africa by the
colonialist nations of Europe.
Madagascar, for example, before its definitive conquest by
France at the end of the nineteenth century, was for a long
time one of the principal and strongest feudal states in this
part of the world. The M erina society was originally made
up of three "castes": the nobies (andriana), the free men
(hova), and the slaves (andevo). Slave trade and the introduction
of a monetary system in the eighteenth century
brought about the progressive enrichment of the hova. Two
antagonistic classes developed: the chiefs and noble warlords,
who lived from plunder and the sale of slaves, vs. the more
peaceful merchants and craftsmen, who allied themselves with
the peasantry. At the end of the eighteenth century, after
years of struggle, the state managed to bring about some
equilibrium between the two principal classes and a stratification
system evolved which included the following categories:
A. nobles (andriana), divided into several hierarchical
"castes";
B. free men (hova), merchants who constituted an ascending
social class;
C. freed slaves (hova-vao);
D. former hova now reduced to slavery by debt or sentence
(zaza-hova);
E. royal slaves (tsiarondahy); and
F. slaves (andevo).
During the years following initial contact with Europeans,
the opposition between the classes grew sharper at the same
time that the French were extending their influence. Toward
the middle of the nineteenth century the merchant class took
power and initiated a policy of collaboration with the French.
After the definitive conquest of Madagascar, the economy
was transformed into a typically colonial economy: the autonomous
ruling classes began to disintegrate, and the exploitation
of the landless peasantry increased. From that time on
the evolution of the class structure in Madagascar followed
the evolution of the colonial economy as it occurred in other
parts of Africa. However, the existence of a relatively imSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 49
portant commercial bourgeoisie in Madagascar ( a class absent
in most of Black Africa) antedates colonization by the
French. Also, the importance in recent years of a national
liberation movement (the popular uprising of 1947 was brutally
repressed by French colonialism) is due in part to the
existence of a strong national state that controlled important
areas before the French conquest. 20
4. Precolonial Africa: Nigeria
In other parts of Black Africa, feudal systems of a traditional
nature have survived until very recently. A good example
is the feudal kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria, which has
been studied by the English anthropologist Nadel.
Two clearly defined and opposing classes coexisted in the
feudal system: a) the ruling class of nobles, absentee landlords
involved at the same time in war and slave trade; and
b) peasants and common citizens. Relations between the two
classes took place within the framework of a series of specific
rights and obligations of a cfientele system. In addition, there
were two other categories in this social structure: the craftsmen
of the cities and the Muslim intelligentsia. These classes
and categories were relatively closed, strongly hierarchical
groupings. Social stratification was maintained through a
rigid system of etiquette. Some social mobility existed, but
admission to the nobility (which had strong class consciousness)
was gained only through formal investiture. In contrast,
each of the classes was, in turn, internally arranged in a
hierarchy according to a system of rank whose higher positions
were theoretically accessible to all members of the class.
At the level of the peasant community there were no class
oppositions, but rather a stratification system. Competition
for access to higher ranks tended to diminish opposition between
classes to some extent. ''The hierarchy of ranks helps
to preserve the precarious balance of power in the feudal
state. It is an efficient weapon to safeguard • • • class privileges.
"21 The feudal structure of the Nupe kingdom is an
example of traditional social structure that felt the inevitable
impact of national economic development (in the case of
Nigeria), and, accordingly, has undergone profound changes.
50 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
5. Precolonial Africa: The Lake Kingdoms
Another example of feudal structures that have survived
to this day but have undergone some radical transformations
as a result of the development of a colonial economy are the
kingdoms of the lake region of East Africa: Ankole, Bunyoro,
Ruanda, Soga, and Ganda, among others.
In spite of some differences among these various states,
they are characterized by virtually the same type of feudal
system.22 This system differs from others in that cattle play
an important role, not only in the economy, but also as the
basis of a very . special kind of clientele system. The feudal
structure is founded on two opposing· classes:. the cattleherding
nobility, the bahima (in Ankole) or tutsi (in Ruanda)
who own the herds and participate in the political and military
organization of the state; and the agriculturists, the
bairu (in Ankole) or hutu (in Ruanda), who are the serfs of
the nobility. The herdsmen are tied to their sovereign (mugabe
in Ankole, mu-ami in Ruanda, and mukama in Bwiyoro)
by a voluntary clientele relationship which · is characterized
by the homage and tribute paid to the sovereign in exchange
for the privileges and protection he provides to the herdsmen.
In this relationship cattle play an extremely important role
as they are circulated as a sign of wealth and a symbol of
social status. The nobility supply the officials that· run the
local chiefdoms and · administer the kingdom. The relationship
between the dominant herdsmen and the bairu or hutu
agriculturists was originally imposed on the latter by the
coercive force of the tutsi or bahima conquerors. But over
time these relations have turned into patron-client relationships.
The agriculturists pay tribute to the dominant herdsmen
class and form the true economic base of this feudal
structure because cattle, in this case, represent savings and
capital rather than providing for consumption needs.
In Ankole, as in Ruanda, agriculturists are not permitted
to own productive cattle, or to fight as warriors, or to hold
any kind of political status, On the other hand, the dominant
herdsmen class is stratified according to their relationship
with the sovereign and royal lineage, and according to the
political and administrative function performed by its memSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 51
bers. In Ankole, apart from the bahima and bairu there were
several other social groups: the abatoro, conquered bahimaa
who occupied a slightly lower position than the latter; the
mixed-blooded abambari, offspring of illegal unions between
bahima men and bairu women, who generally shared the
social position of bairu; and the slaves, or aba-huku, who
were prisoners of war and belonged only to the mugabe or to
certain powerful and rich cattle owners.
Ankole society is rigidly stratified, while in Ruanda and
Bunyoro the stratification is more flexible. The feudal political
organization of the Bunyoro has been compared by one
scholar to the political organization of England at the time
of the Norman invasion.
Some of the features described above have undergone
change in recent years, especially in the countries that fell
under English colonial rule. The circulation of cattle as part
of a clientele system has grown less important. Tribute formerly
paid by the peasant population in kind or in services
became, under British rule, a monetary tax paid to the colonial
administration. The power of the territorial chiefs diminished,
and their real income now comes from a fixed
salary paid to them by the administration. Wars of conquest
and slavery have disappeared. While the economic bases of
the class structure have been modified by the colonial administration,
the political importance of the chiefs, and the rigidity
of the social stratification persist. These are some aspects
of the conflicts in the social organization and the value systems
that characterize these feudal kingdoms at the present
ti.m e.2 3
CONCLUSIONS
Class societies similar to those we have just examined have
existed in North Africa, in the Middle East, and in the Far
East before their modification by European colonialism.
What conclusions can we draw from this brief discussion of
some traditional structures? In the first place, that in the underdeveloped
world some traditional societies had class structures
in which opposition, conflict, and antagonism based on
the exploitation and economic and political domination of
one class by another, took place. Next, that none of these
52 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
class structures has wholly resisted the modifying impact of
European expansion. The violent destruction, by military conquest,
of. an autonomous culture and social structure, as occurred
with the Aztecs and Incas, is undoubtedly an extreme
case. But we have seen that state feudalism in India was altered
by the British conquest; that the class structure in the
Merina kingdom of Madagascar was transformed in the process
of struggle against French domination, and later against
the establishment of French political power and economic
interests; that the economic basis of feudal structures on the
African continent was radically modified by the colonial administration
and by the development of capitalism. Throughout
the underdeveloped world certain processes set in motion
by the colonial system have brought about radical transformations
of the class structure and have led. to the appearance
of new social categories that have become integrated or are
becoming integrated into new structures.
In contrast to class structures, the traditional systems of
social stratification tend to resist economic and political
changes and to maintain themselves as value systems long
after the historical stage to which they originally corresponded
has passed. Without doubt, the most. notorious example of
this tendency is the persistence of caste stratification in India,
even in the great industrial cities, where the functional division
of labor implicit in the caste system no longer exists.
The changing role of the traditional chiefdoms in Black
Africa-and the conflicts of values produced by this transformation-
is still another example. Certainly there exist other
traditional structures: some forms of family organization,
matrimonial relationships, customary law, and other manifestations
of the cultural superstructure which survived the
first contact with Western civilization. These persistent traditional
structures tend to integrate themselves into the new
socioeconomic system and come to form the basis of the
well-known cultural synchretisms of underdeveloped countries.
But the traditional (feudal or semi-feudal) divisions of
social classes cannot resist the changes introduced by the
colonial . system. Class is one of the first social structures to
be modified or changed by colonialism and economic development.
CHAPTER 4
The Process
of Change
The establishment of colonial systems and the expansion of
capitalism in underdeveloped countries led to certain
processes of social change which accelerated the disintegration
of traditional structures and gave birth to new social
categories and social classes. The processes of social change
and acculturation currently under way in underdeveloped
countries are varied and complex; here we will deal only
with six processes that have been essential in the transformation
of class structures and stratification.
THE INTRODUCTION OF A MONEY ECONOMY
Here we have one of the most important results of the implantation
of capitalism in an underdeveloped country. The search
for raw materials and markets, which constitutes the first
objective of any new colonial capitalist system, makes the
establishment of a money economy indispensable in places
where such a system does not already exist. A money economy
necessarily contributes to the disruption of the traditional
village economy. It stimulates the development of commercial
exchange and frees the labor necessary for capitalism.
Let us analyze the main elements of this process.
1) One of the first acts of any colonial administration in
an underdeveloped country is the establishment of monetary
taxes. Thus, for example, in India the tribute traditionally
paid in kind to the monarch was converted by the English
into a monetary tax paid by the peasants to the colonial
administration. The same transformation took place in Latin
America during the colonial period. In Black Africa, the
English and French colonial administrators placed the traditional
chiefs in charge of tax collection.
54 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
2) At the same time wage labor is introduced. What has
been said of Black Africa is true of other countries as well.
• . . In order to secure labor from the very first days of
colonization, the colonizers resorted to various pressures,
from forced labor to taxes on the male population. Up to
now, in his own local economy, the African has not been
inclined to sell his labor for a wage. But pressures mounted
with modem economic development, as a result of the
growing desire of Africans to procure the products of modem
industry, and the ever more precarious situation of the
subsistence economy. • • . A continuous and growing
supply of migratory workers are willing to work for wages
and on a seasonal basis, and this supply is maintained due
to the increased population pressure on the land and the
simple nature of agricultural technology and also as a result
of the need to obtain a monetary income in order to
pay taxes and buy the goods offered on the market.1
It is interesting to note that the same process is still taking
place today in some Indian areas of Latin America. And the
development of a salaried labor force constitutes the very
basis of the formation of a working class in the underdeveloped
countries.
3) Another important aspect of the monetary economy is
the development of commercial monetary exchange. The
early establishment of barter trade, then of national markets,
and later of commercial distribution networks imposed a system
of monetary exchange on indigenous peoples who formally
had only a barter system. The same· pressures that
forced the members of traditional communities to sell their
labor, soon forced them to dedicate themselves to commercial
activides. In Black · Africa women played a very important
role in the development of commerce. With the development
of commercial monetary exchange we see the
formation of new social categories such as merchants, middlemen,
and traveling salesmen.2
The monetary economy is inseparable from the development
of capitalism; together with other processes of change it
has encouraged the rise of new social categories and the
transformation of traditional social structures.
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 55
Tim INTRODUCTION OF PRNATE LANDOWNERSHIP AND COM•
MERCIAL MONOCULTURE
Here we are examining two processes which are different,
but so intertwined through history that it is possible to discuss
them together. Wherever capitalism has developed, it
has stimulated individual appropriation of land. We have seen
that in India, for example, the British established private landholdings
through the zamindary system. In Black Africa, the
process of disintegration of tribal land tenure and the formation
of private landholdings among Africans has been under
way now for many years. At the same time and as a result of
colonization, land belonging to the native population was
systematically expropriated and occupied by European colonists
(as in North Africa, Kenya, and in South'Africa) or by
foreign companies in the form of "concessions." In Latin
America, the appropriation by colonists of huge tracts of
land historically inhabited by indigenous populations took
place from the :fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on (and in the
Caribbean was accompanied by the extermination of the Indian
population). However, in several Latin American countries,
indigenous communal property was abolished by decree
only in the last century. The concentration of land in the
hands of a small minority has generally been the outcome
of the establishment of private land tenure. This has been
the case in Latin America, in North Africa, and in the Middle
East. This process of expropriation, appropriation, and concentration
of land that accompanies capitalist development
in underdeveloped countries has given birth to new social
categories: the peasant cultivator, the large landowner, and
the landless peasant.
We have noted before that one of the most characteristic
features of the implantation of capitalism in underdeveloped
countries is the transformation of subsistence agriculture into
commercial, export agriculture. The widespread establishment
of large-scale commercial monoculture (sugarcane, cocoa,
cotton, coffee, etc.) in the tropical countries is inseparable
from the individual appropriation of the soil.a This process,
which has profoundly altered traditional social structures
wherever it has taken place, has also given rise to new social
56 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
categories and represents an essential aspect of the formation
of new social classes.
· Later we will analyze in greater detail some examples that
illustrate this process.
MIGRATION OF WORKERS AND RURAL EXODUS
The expropriation of land, the destruction of traditional subsistence
agriculture, the impoverishment of the peasant
masses, the demands of the monetary economy, and economic
development in underdeveloped countries have all contributed
to the creation of a demographic movement which became
very significant in the twentieth· century. The seasonal migration
of workers in Africa and in Latin America is 311 indicator
of these radical changes in traditional economic structures
as well as a powerful factor in the formation of new social
classes. These migrations take place within or across national
borders. In Africa migration has reached considerable proportions.
Africans leave their rural homes to work in the
mines, the farms, the plantations,· and the industrial and urban
centers. At times they traverse tremendous distances, cross
international boundaries, work for longer or shorter periods
(according to the seasonal contracts which bind them), and
return to their home villages for a short time only to resume
their migrations once more. In this way an African worker
may spend the greater part of· his life away from his home
and community, roaming from place to place and from job
to job. The mobility of African workers is geographical as
well as occupational. Hundreds of thousands of Africans take
part each year in these population movements. ·Some African
countries regularly import a large amount of foreign labor.
Among these countries are South Africa, Rhodesia, Uganda,
Zaire, Liberia, Ghana, and others. Botswana, Mozambique,
Malawi; · and Ruanda are some of the countries that regularly
export labor. In Malawi, for example, in 1954, it was
estimated that more than 42 per cent of able-bodied adult
men were employed outside their own country. In Mozambique
in the same year more than 50 per cent of the economically
active population worked away from their home region
during some part of the year. On the other hand, in 1957 two
thirds of all African miners in South Africa came from other
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 57
African countries. Other examples could be given. J. Woddis
has noted six characteristics of these migrations . of African
workers:
a) They are made up almost exclusively of adult men.
b) The workers are generally contracted for a strictly limited
period of time.
c) The migration is repeated several times during the life
of the rural worker.
d) The workers generally travel enormous distances, often
on foot.
e) These migrations are tied to various kinds of recruitment,
many of which are nothing more than disguised
forms of forced labor.
f) These migrations are of such large scale that they create
a complete disequilibrium between the populations
of the cities and the. countryside, which aggravates the
already acute agrarian crisis, and totally destroys the
economic harmony of the African countries and territories
most directly affected. In addition, the instability
of the labor force and the occupational mobility inherent
in the migration system make it difficult for workers
to upgrade their skills, make union organization
virtually impossible, and, logically, tend to reduce wage
levels.4
It is clear that these migrations have important consequences
for the formation and development of a working class in
Africa. In addition to seasonal migration, we must consider
rural exodus, that is, the definitive migrations of rural populations
to the cities. The causes of rural emigration are many,
and they may be found mainly in the poverty of ·the· rural
areas as a result of the processes mentioned before. Whereas
seasonal migrations contribute to the instability of the labor
force and of all forms of traditional social organization, rural
exodus, in turn, creates new urban problems which will . be
examined below.
Seasonal migration also takes place in Latin America, although
not to the · same extent as in Africa. In some countries,
such as Colombia and the Northeast of Brazil, these
migrations are brought about by special conditions, either
58 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
political or climatic. But generally speaking, seasonal migrations
in Latin America are due to the nature of the land
tenure system. In Mexico the seasonal migration of rural
workers to the United States is called bracerismo, and it involves
approximately half a million men each year, with important
consequences for the Mexican economy and the transformation
of traditional social structures. Unfortunately, the
statistics covering internal seasonal migrations in Latin
American countries are not very precise. But if seasonal
migration does not play as important a role in Latin America
as in Black Africa, on the other hand, rural exodus plays an
even more dramatic role in Latin America than anywhere
else in the world. Massive emigration to the cities and the
amazing growth of urban population is one of the most important
phenomena of recent decades in Latin America. The
importance of migratory movements in the development of
new social categories and new social classes ought not to be
underestimated.
URBANIZATION
Urbanization is not merely a demographic process of the
growth of cities and rural-urban migrations. It is above all a
social and economic process which profoundly affects traditional
socioeconomic systems and provides the context within
which new social structures appear.0
It is often held that urbanization is equivalent to modernization
of society, and to a certain extent this is true. But there
are different kinds of urbanization processes, and different
ways to measure the degree of urbanization of any given
population. In the underdeveloped countries, the process of
urbanization is a result of the development of colonial and
dependent capitalism. Although some African cities have
existed since precolonial times, 6 most of them were created
by the colonizers to serve as commercial, administrative, or
mining centers, and until very recently have maintained closer
economic relations with Europe than with their own African
backlands. 7
The migrations of rural populations to these urban centers
take place within the changing economic processes which
liberate manpower from the areas of subsistence agriculture
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 59
and draw it into. the money economy. But not all sectors of
the economy absorb labor at an equal rate. Indeed, most
rural migrants do not find stable, permanent employment
in the cities; they tend, rather, towards the already disproportionately
large tertiary sector, that is, the trades and services,
characterized by low productivity, low incomes, and high
degrees of underemployment and unemployment. Contemporary
processes of urbanization simply transfer rural·poverty
to the urban areas. The large cities of the Third World are
increasingly populated by marginal masses of unskilled, untrained,
underemployed, and underpaid workers, who live in
the shantytowns and hovels-by now only too well knownwith
all their problems of housing, sanitation, and urban
services.
Statistically speaking, many countries that used to be considered
agricultural nations (mainly in Latin America) have
in recent decades become ''urbanized." What this means,. actually,
is that the development of capitalism has been able to
uproot millions of rural peoples but has been unable to provide
for them adequately in new, integrated, economic and
social structures. Rural migrants and urban marginals do
not turn automatically (except for a small proportion) into
an industrial proletariat or a "rising middle class" as is so
often argued. The nature of dependent capitalist development,
through the modernization of certain branches of the economy
and the further underdevelopment· of others, contributes
to the increasing marginalization of the rural and urban populations.
Thus the process of urbanization, which reflects this tendency,
becomes the crucible in which existing class structures
are redefined, new classes emerge, and new stratification systems
develop.a
INDUSTRIALIZATION
One of the causes of the special characteristics of urbanization
in underdeveloped countries is the fact that in contrast
with the rise of the modem city in Western Europe and the
United States, urban growth in the Third World has not been
accompanied by a corresponding process of industrialization,
The development· of industry in these countries is a recent
60 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
phenomenon, introduced from the outside, and is taking place
at a time when the other processes of change mentioned
above are already well under way.
Industrialization is, of course, the key process in the development
of a new social class, the industrial proletariat.
But here again, the nature of dependent capitalism is responsible
for the kind of industrialization which is taking place.
For a long time, the establishment of industries in the colonies
and underdeveloped countries was prevented by the
manufacturing interests of the colonial powers. India's manufactures
were destroyed by British imperialism, which transformed
that country from an exporter of cotton goods to the
whole world into an importer of cotton goods.o In Africa,
during the colonial period, industrialization was never undertaken,
because it would have led to the local accumulation of
capital, which might in turn have produced a real increase in
the salaries and rights of African laborers. Local industrialization
· would have destroyed the colonial monopolies.10 In
Latin America, early attempts at industrialization in some
countries, toward the end of the nineteenth century, were frustrated
by imperial power politics.11
By the fourth decade of the present century, due to the
crisis of the world capitalist system, the beginnings of industrialization
did take place in some underdeveloped countries.
Since the Second World War, this process has been sped up
under the aegis of the multinational corporations. In Latin
America, this has been known as import substitution and
consists essentially in producing locally some of the :finished
articles which used to be imported before. Some African
countries have taken this road to industrialization during the
last decade. More recently, a number of manufacturing companies
of the industrialized countries have set up plants in the
underdeveloped nations in order to take advantage of tax
exemptions, cheap labor costs, and raw materials, but the
:finished or semi-finished product is re-exported back home.
This kind of industrialization increases the underdeveloped
country's dependence upon the industrialized nation, does
not contribute to strengthening the internal market in the
country in which it takes place, and due to modem, capitalintensive
technologies, hardly contributes to an expansion of
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 61
the industrial labor force. Thus industrialization undoubtedly
:figures among the most important processes that alter traditional
class structures and provoke the development of new
social classes, but it does · so within the general framework of
dependent and underdeveloped capitalism.
NATIONAL INTEGRATION OF UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES
The countries of Latin America, with only a few exceptions,
gained their political independence at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, and the majority of the states that exist
today in this region have enjoyed more · than one hundred
years of political autonomy. This, of course, is not the case
in Black Africa. Not only is the African independence struggle
still in progress, but the politico-administrative units that
are currently either African colonies or independent states
date only from the colonial conquests of the past· century.
While in Latin America the process of national integration
began with the Conquest and continued during three centuries
of colonial regime and progressive intermixing of populations,
traditional politico-administrative areas still persist in
Black Africa in total contradiction with the political units
formed by colonization. The process of national integration
on. a political and psychological level, the regrouping, or in
some cases the division, of the various tribal or ethnic groups
are among the problems that affect the structure of social
classes.12 Other problems of this sort are the establishment
of administrative, fiscal, and communication networks at the
national level and the establishment. of bureaucracies, military
organizations, and a centralized authority for economic
planning. For example, while only twenty years ago it . was
still possible to speak of the economy of French West Africa,
today one must distinguish clearly between the economic development
of Guinea and of the Ivory Coast. As a result,
social class structure, which can only be understood in the
context of specific socioeconomic systems, would differ considerably
between the two countries. The process of formation
of new politico-administrative units is a very immediate problem
for the new states of Black Africa. It has extremely important
implications for the development of new social classes.
62 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
Nevertheless, even in Latin America national integration is
far from complete. Many Latin American countries are
marked by regional and ethnic differences. Their well-known
''pluralism" and the asynchronism of their development often
underlines these differences. In part these factors also explain
the various forms of nationalism that have developed in Latin
America, which, to a greater or lesser degree, condition relations
among social classes in that region.is
CONCLUSIONS
The six processes of change that we have just examined: the
introduction of a monetary economy, the introduction of private
landholding and commercial monoculture, the migration
of workers and rural exodus, urbanization, industrialization,
and, finally, national integration, constitute, in our view, the
essential conditions for the transformation of traditional class
structures. These processes of change affect not only the class
structure, but the entire social structure as a whole.
Each of these processes should be more carefully analyzed
from the point of view of its relations to a changing class
structure. There are important studies which more closely
examine these problems, especially the questions of urbanization
and industrialization. Of the six processes outlined above,
the first three have particular significance with respect to rural
class structure. It is important to stress that, in a general way,
these processes of change have proceeded historically in the
underdeveloped countries according to the order in which
they were discussed above (with the exception of national
integration, which, from the administrative and political
point of view, took place in Latin America long before
urbanization and industrialization), Thus in Latin America
the first three processes discussed have been developing over
a long period of time, and in some parts of this region they
are still going on. Therefore, the fact that they have their
origin in the colonial era of the sixteenth century does not
imply that they are not relevant to the changes that are taking
place today. All the processes that have been analyzed one
by one in this chapter in fact form part of a single and longterm
sequence of structural change that we have divided
into six categories only for the purpose of closer analysis.
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 63
We should also point out that this structural change has proceeded
far more slowly in Latin America than in Africa,
where the same development that took 400 years in Latin
America actually occurred within the last century.
THE CHANGING PEASANTRY
CHAPTER 5
Agrarian Societies
and
Rural Class Structures
To the extent that the agricultural economy is the basis upon
which the major transformations of the underdeveloped countries
take place, it is particularly important to define agrarian
social structures and their changes. As we have seen in previous
chapters, the extension of capitalism has modified agrarian
structures and the nature of rural populations all over the
world. In fact, these changes have shown the almost infinite
variety of rural types and the different kinds of agricultural
life in the underdeveloped countries, for nothing is further
from the truth than the once widely held idea of the existence
of an undifferentiated peasant mass, a homogeneous and unchangeable
rural substratum upon which new, externally generated
structures have somehow been grafted mechanically.
Yet rural populations, whatever their differences, also have
many common characteristics. In agrarian societies all over
the world we find similar social structures, analogous collective
and individual reactions in the face of new stimuli, social
organizations, and institutions that may vary in form and
content, but that often tum out to be surprisingly similar in
their functions and social dynamics. Despite the changes
brought on by the expanding capitalist system, which have
been mentioned in previous chapters, the vast majority of
the populations of agrarian societies still live most of their
lives in small, relatively isolated and self-contained rural communities,
with their own special cultural values and traditions.
1 A look at the ethnographic literature shows us that
whatever the differences may be, the rural village has many
common features whether it be in the Far East, in India,
l
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1'
u
lS
c
a:
lO
f;
in
io;
0
ef1
T
OJ
pe:
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 65
the Middle East, Central Africa, Latin America, Russia, or
southern Italy . No matter how varied their respective backgrounds,
traditional social structures are breaking down everywhere
under the inJpact of the new economy and traditional
precapitalist values are slowly disappearing. In the most diverse
cultures, rural populations are :finding sinJilar responses
and solutions in the face of similar problems. All over the
world, :finally, we see the disappearance of integrative mechanisms
based on kinship, locality, and prima1y relations, and
the rise of new social mechan isms of integration, based on
the market and the nation -state.
It must be remembered that the vast majority of the world's
population is rural and depends directly or indirectly upon
agriculture for a livelihood . What are these rural populations
like, as far as their social and economic structures are concerned?
How can they be characterized and defined? Generically,
rural populations may be referred to as peasantries,
but the concept "peasant" is often given a specific meaning
in sociological literature and does not always include all types
of rural populations. A useful distinction is sometinJes made
between tribal peoples, peasant s, and modern farmers. Tribal
cultivators live in relatively closed, self-contained societies,
and while they may engage in trade or barter with other
groups, they are not economically integrated into wider social
units. It might be argued that tribal cultivators (who are
sometinJes referred to as "primitives" in ethnological literature)
have not yet undergone the structural transformations
which result from contact with capitalist economy. There
still exist such marginal groups in some parts of the world,
but their number is small, and in this book we are not concerned
with them.
In contrast to tribal or primitive peoples, peasant societies
do form part of wider economic, social, and political units,
with which they engage in special kinds of relationships. Anthropologists
tend to consider peasants as members of "part societies
with part -cultures," who can only be understood in
relation and contrast to urban society.2 Peasant economy
tends toward self-sufficiency and the household is the main
unit for production and consumption, based on the intensive
use of family labor.s
t
t
SJ
68 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie~
be used for commercial crops. There is a poorly developec
market in land, and neither the value of land nor the valm
of labor is great. Labor is generally unfree, attached to th<
estate through the tenure system or personal peonage. Th,
landlord class disposes of almost absolute power over th
peasants. The two principal classes of this system have ver
different standards of living and legal privileges. The dom
nated peasantry has virtually no political power or organiz1
tional capabilities. This system was characteristic of Europea
feudalism and still exists in numerous underdeveloped cow
tries, particularly in the Middle East and Latin America.
2) Family-size tenancy, in which the operative unit of agi
culture is the family enterprise, but property rights rest wi
rentier capitalists. Rents may be paid in kind or in mom
and sharecropping arrangements between operator aowner
are not uncommon. This type of system occurs usua
when the following conditions are met: a) land has very hi
productivity and high market price; b) the crop is higl
labor-intensive, and mechanization of agriculture is little ,
veloped; c) labor is cheap; and d) the period of product
of the crop is one year or less. Here commercial agricult
in small parcels or plots predominates. The peasants' incc
in this system is inversely related to that of the landowi
and conflicts tend to arise between the tenant of sharecrof
class and the owners, who frequently are absenteeist ur
dwellers. This system is politically quite unstable and
quently leads to peasant uprisings and fand reforms in wJ
the landowning classes (which appear to the peasants t<
alien, superfluous, grasping, and exploitative) are expropri1
Family-size tenancy is found in countries with high di
graphic pressure: in the Orient, in India, in North Af
3) Family small holding is similar to the system of fa
tenancy, from which it may have arisen in some conn
It may also be the result of colonization of agricultural 1:
as happened in the United States, or of the pressures o
market in industrialized countries. Costs of productio1
generally fixed.: there is no rent to pay and no variable
of labor (provided by the family). However, the fluctl:
of the market price of agricultural products as well as th
,cial Classes in Agrarian Societies 69
' credit weigh on the peasantry and, in consequence, the
>litical movements of the peasantry in this system are genally
directed against urban merchants and moneylenders,
td finance capital is identified as the class enemy.
4) Plantation agriculture is characterized by commercial
ops which require large, long-term investments. It is. assoated
mainly with tropical crops in colonial or semicolonial
·eas, where labor is cheap and intensively used. The system
1ed to be based on slavery. Workers tend to be unskilled
td their standards of living and legal prerogatives are much
ferior to those of other strata of the population. The class
' landowners possesses the necessary managerial skills and
>Ids political power. It is able to prevent the developD)ent
: a class of smallholders on uncultivated lands, in order to
aintain its own dominant position.
5) Capitalist extensive agriculture is based on wage labor,
td is characteristic of areas with abundant, low-cost land
td a free-floating, mobile labor force, which is generally
asonal. The cost of labor is relatively high and there is a
ndency towards mechanization. Distinctions in life-styles,
gal privileges, and technical know-how between the ownerttrepreneur
and the salaried agricultural workers are not
rry marked.
This general typology is a useful frame of reference, but it
Duld have to be refined if it is to be applied in different
eas of the world. Each one of the five large types could in
m be subdivided, and other types would have to be created.
1e important point to remember is that the kind of agriculral
enterprise which becomes the setting for specific kinds
· class relations is the result not only of geographical and
chnical factors (soils, climate, water, crops, available agriiltural
technology, etc.), but also of historical and strucral
conditions of the wider society and economy. Thus
mily tenancy and family ownership are closely related to
e political fortunes of the landowning classes in relation to
e industrial and financial bourgeoisie.11 Plantation agriculre
is typically related to colonial systems and multiethnic
cieties. Capitalist extensive agriculture is linked to the avail-
1ility of industrial inputs, and so forth.
70 . Social Classes in Agrarian Societif
RURAL SOCIAL CLASSES IN UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES
To the extent that in the underdeveloped countries the cap
talist system has been implanted upon pre-existing social struc
tures, rather than arising out of them as was the case i
Western Europe, and coexists with modes of precapitalist pre
duction, the class structures in the agrarian sector will b
complex and variegated and in a state of flux. Class Iimi1
will not be clearly defined, class relationships will be ambigt
ous, structures that belong to different historical epochs wi
coexist and cut across each other, and different and conflic
:irig stratification systems will complicate the social scene11
It is therefore impossible tet establish clear1y a :fixed numbe
of social categories that might be common to the peasantr
of the underdeveloped countries. Students of agrarian stru<
tures and rural areas in these countries have found a dive1
sity of social classes and strata which may range from simpl
dichotomic divisions to the nine "socio-economic statuses
which one research team found in rural Lebanon,12 not t
speak of schemas containing multiple strata, castes, types, c
subcultures of the peasantry.
To this social diversity one may add the diversity of metl
ods and procedures employed by the scholars in gatherin
and analyzing their materials. It should be clear, of course
that the number and varieties of classes and strata is ofte
as much the result of a researcher's mental equipment as
is of the reality he studies. This poses serious problems whe
attempts are made to compare data from different parts c
the world which have been gathered and analyzed with di
ferent methods and within different theoretical frameworks.
In the rural and plural societies of underdeveloped cow
tries class structures are sometimes closely intertwined wit
various kinds of stratification systems and it is not always po:
sible, even in the most serious studies, to distinguish one fro1
the other. For example, in Latin America a number of a1
thors have identified the . three main racial components of t1J
society-white, mestizo,· . and Indian-respectively with thre
"classes": the upper, the middle, and the lower.18 In rur:
Brazil social class stratification and racial stratification c1
across each other, but class stratification seems to be predon
~ial Classes in Agrarian Societies 71
nt in conditioning the nature of interracial relationships.14
Scholars in Africa have often identified the social groups of
, colonial situation with social "classes."15 These groups,
ne of which have arisen in the course of colonization, have
~ to struggle for power, as in Fang society in the
.bon.1e While such struggles may be partially considered in
, light of class conflict, they also represent struggles be=
en different kinds of stratification systems. In India, the
,rarchy of castes and the division of social_c lasses are closely
erwoven at the level of peasant society. After the British
1quest, new social classes emerged in agriculture, which
tpted themselves at :first to the pre-existing caste system,1'1
t later the class struggle tended increasingly to cut a.cross
: traditional caste hierarchy.is
[n peasant societies, social classes are mainly defined in
ms of their relationship to the land. The particular criia
may vary according to the circumstances: the possession
non-possession of the land; the size of agricultural enterse;
the relationships between operator and owner of the
m unit; the use or non-use of wage labor; etc. But other
:ia1 categories, which may or may not be linked to the
ss structure, are defined also in terms of other criteria.
ey may be linked to cultural elements such as the so-called
1cated elites in colonial Africa 111 or the cholos and ladinos
the Indian areas of Latin Am.erica;20 or they · may be
ntified with certain religions, such as the Muslims or Chris-
18 in African countries; or else they may arise out of ral
mixture in ethnically heterogeneous societies.
f?or the purposes of this investigation, our interests lie with
,se new kinds of social categories that arise out of the
1ctural transformations of agrarian societies. What are
se transformations and what kinds of groupings ( classes,
tta) do they bring forth? These are the questions to which
following chapters will be devoted;
CHAPTER
Agrarian Changes ar
the Dynamics •
Class in Black Afric
In Africa south of the Sahara contemporary rural society
the result of a mixture of traditional precolonial structur
and the processes of · change introduced by the colonial m
tropolis. We have already seen the difficulties encounterc
by the anthropological use of the concept "peasant" in d
scribing the agriculturists of Black Africa. There are sever
problems in attempting to characterize rural Black Afri•
in terms of class structures.
In the first place we run into technical problems. Rur
classes and other social categories have not been treated sy
tematically in the sociological and ethnological literature <
Black Africa. Anthropological studies are generally co
cemed with a specific tribe or ethnic group, or with tl
examination of specific changes in African society since col
nization and their effects on rural life, or with problems ,
urbanization, the conflict between old and new systems
values among the elites, the changing roles of tradition
chiefs, etc. Secondly, some problems arise out of the ve
conditions of development in rural Africa, and it would see
that the relative paucity of literature dealing with class issu
is chiefly due to the fact that it is still risky, even today,
speak of a crystallized class structure in rural Africa, whe
the economic and social systems are very much in a sta
of flux. It seems in fact that with very few exceptions, rm
Black Africa has not undergone the same development pre
esses that have stimulated the evolution of a class structu
in other parts of the world.
Black Africa is, in fact, characterized by a number of si:
cial features. In the first place, up to now there has been 1
1cial Classes in Agrarian Societies 73
:mographic pressure on the land similar to that which affects
orth Africa, the Middle East, or most of Asia. And where
rui kind of demographic pressure has recently begun to have
,me effect, it has been local in its impact, but has neverthess
contributed to the development of social classes, as we
ill see in later chapters. Secondly, traditional feudal political
ructures in Black Africa have not been based on the difrential
access to the land, but rather on control over herds
: cattle. Thus the traditional classes of some of these African
'stems have been the dominant herdsmen, the subordinated
:nculturists, and domestic slaves. Stratification systems arose
ith respect to political power in the context of kinship strucires.
Thirdly, before the European conquest, private ownertip
of land was generally unknown and land was never
>nsidered to have exchange value. To be sure, Jomo KenLtta
has asserted that the Kikuyus bought and sold land as
ivate property even before the arrival of the British.1 Howrer,
thrui assertion is contradicted by other authors, who
~scribe the communal nature of property among African
ibesmen.2 Although the concept of "property" had not
ken root, there is no doubt that rights of possession over
nd were exercised by certain lineages, families, or individlls
even before the colonial period. What were not yet part
: the rural African scene were the rental of cultivated or
1cultivated private land and· a population of landless peas-
1ts. Finally, the generalized subsistence agriculture prac~
d in these societies produced small surpluses which were
:ed in some regions to support non-agricultural sectors of
.e population such as the ruling political nobility, the war:>
rs, the artisans, or the merchants. However, this kind of
1bsistence agriculture never represented a sufficient basis to
ing about the internal differentiation of the peasantry.
Apart from the traditional cultivators belonging to what
tve been called "tribes without rulers" and the peasants of
e traditional feudal states (neither of whom we will be studyg
here), the new categories among African peasants are
.e result of the European colonization. In a previous chapr
we have already outlined the different processes that have
.odified traditional class structures in the underdeveloped
mntries. In Africa it is only relatively recently that these
74 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie
processes have begun, and they show clearly how new socia
categories among the peasants have arisen and continue t4
arise.
One of the most important processes stimulating chang,
was the expropriation of native land by the colonial settlen
a phenomenon which operated with greater intensity in som
regions than in others. In Kenya, expropriation was cata
strophic for the native population, destroying the basis of th,
traditional economy, reducing the African population to over
crowded "reserves," and obliging them to seek work in th,
cities or as cheap labor on European-owned estates.a In Bot
swana native reserves were created before the turn of th,
century and the African population had access to only 3'
per cent of the protectorate's territory. The scarcity of lan1
for subsistence agriculture in this country is one of the fac
tors which has stimulated the formation of new socfa
classes.4 In the former Southern Cameroons (ex-Britisl
mandate), the expropriation of land was begun by the Get
mans and continued under English rule. Here again, · loca
agriculture suffered, and new forms of work were impose,
on the Africans. 5 In what used to be French Equatoria
Africa and the Belgian Congo, and to a lesser degree ii
French West Africa, the concessions of agricultural and fores
areas to the Europeans displaced the African population an,
altered the old structures. B In Liberia, the concessions wer
given to an American company (Firestone rubber plantation)
While the concessions and expropriations in Black Afric
represented only a small percentage of total area, the Ian,
taken from the Africans in this fashion was the most valuabl
in terms of econoinic use. Population density per unit c
cultivable land is high in Africa, and it was precisely thi
land that was expropriated by the colonial powers.
At the same time other processes accompanied the exprc
priations of land. The establishment of monetary taxes wa
one of the first acts carried out by the colonial powers in eacl
case, and had a· sweeping effect on the life of African peas
ants. These taxes have taken various forms,7 and in orde
to pay them, the African cultivators have been obliged, o:
the one hand, to raise commercial crops, and on the othe1
to work for a wage. The development of commercial crop
iocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 75
:peanuts in Senegal, bananas in Guinea, coffee and cocoa in
he Ivory Coast, cocoa in Ghana, palm oil in Dahomey, batanas
in Cameroon, etc.) is in fact another process which
>rofoundly changed the life of the peasants. When economic
ncentives were not sufficient to transform the subsistence
armer into a producer of commercial crops, the colonial
Ldministration would apply a variety of different pressures to
'orce this conversion. Thus H. Labouret writes that the gov:
mor of the Ivory Coast "imposed a genuine forced cultivaion
of cocoa on the natives."8 The same procedures were
1sed in Guinea.9 As a result, several factors have operated
n the agrarian transformation of Black Africa. Perhaps it
s too soon to speak of a division of rural classes based on
he extension of land ownership. The development of the
totion-and of the legal fact-of private ownership of the
and is a process which has only just begun.10 For this reason
here are not sufficient statistical data on this issue to permit
IS to make a detailed country-by-country analysis.
To be sure, there is no lack of general essays of classificaion
of the African peasantry. Thus Majhemout Diop disinguishes
between rich and medium-sized farmers and poor
,easants or rural proletariat, and speaks of the existence of
'feudal" landholders.11 However, if such a classification may
,e considered valid for the countries in which differentiation
>f the rural population has long since taken place ( as in
:..atin America and North Africa), we must question whether
t is valid for Black Africa, a region which is undergoing a
·apid process of transformation of its rural areas. Other
:lassifications have been made on the basis of intensive local
:ase studies. In Ghana four "classes" have been identified
n a single cocoa-producing village. These are: 1) owners of
:ocoa farms, 2) adults who receive a part of the harvest,
I) agricultural workers under sharecropping arrangements,
md 4) a small "class" comprised of annual and seasonal
vage laborers.12 However, as J. Boyon has pointed out
vith respect to these social categories, "in fact, in a more
leveloped country they would constitute true social classes,
mt here they are only subdivisions, the beginnings of a
lifferentiation within the cocoa-producing community."1S
76 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie1
Rather than attempting to set up general classifications.
which will not permit us to grasp the whole complexity oJ
rural Africa's changing structures, it seems more useful tc
analyze the emergence of new social classes as they aris(
out of the change process itself. This process results, as W(
have seen, from the colonial system, and it has given ris(
to three new rural social categories, which are 1 ) the seasonal
migratory worker, 2) the agricultural laborer on commercial
plantations which produce export crops, and 3) th(
individual farmer who produces commercial crops for export
None of these three categories is homogeneous, and tht
exact boundaries between one group and another are no1
always easy to determine. Nevertheless, there is no doub1
that if a new class structure is going to replace the tradi,
tional feudal or family structures in rural Africa, it will bt
through the impact of these three new social groups.
Next to subsistence farming, commercial agriculture hru
become increasingly important in Black Africa, and it is thii
new agriculture which will retain our attention here. It ii
difficult to determine with any precision the proportion oJ
the population that lives from subsistence agriculture or itl
relative contribution to agricultural output. In an early stud)
on agricultural labor in Africa we read:
A subsistence agricultural sector not linked to the capital,
ist marketrepresents an obstacle to the constitution of wagt
labor on a massive scale, the availability of which is om
of the requirements of capital. If, on the other hand, thii
agriculture improves its performance and comes to pro
duce for local markets, there is then a risk that it wil
begin to compete with capitalist agricultural production
which has higher production costs. Capitalists will thu
tend to develop market agriculture, i.e., commercial crops
only if they can control the production process as well a:
the marketing of the crops in order to assure a profit. Thi
outcome of this trend is that the African cultivator, ever
the "independent" one, at the same time that he improve:
his level of production, will increasingly become chargec
with debts, taxes and other obligations which in this systen
constitute the price of development.14
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 77
Part of the marketable agricultural produce is obviously
consumed in Africa itself. This is what occurs with the major
part of all cereals, legumes, and tubers produced in Africa.
However, the most important crops ate exported and the
production of export crops is on the increase. These crops
form the very basis of the economy of most African countries.
Cocoa is the principal export product of -Ghana, Nigeria,
Togo, Cameroon; rubber of Liberia; peanuts of Senegal;
and coffee of Guinea, the Ivory Coast; Kenya, and
Uganda.
It is not easy to find precise figures on the agricultural
population of the various countries of Black Africa, due to
statistical deficiencies. It is even more difficult to provide figures
on the distribution of the agricultural population in the
different types of agriculture. According to United Nations
statistics, more than three fourths (77 per cent) of the labor
force in all of Africa was engaged in agriculture in 1960, a
decrease of four percentage points from the decade before.1°
An ILO study of some years ago reported that 17 per cent
of the labor force was engaged in the production of commercial
crops and 60 per cerit in subsistence agriculture, while
13 per cent were agricultural wage workers.16 The proportion
of wage workers in agriculture with respect to wage
workers in general varied between around 25 per cent in Zaire
and what used to be French Equatorial Africa, 40 per cent
in Madagascar, 20 per cent in the countries of former French
West Africa, 16 per cent in Ghana, 20 per cent in Ruanda,
40 per cent in Rhodesia, 45 per cent in Kenya, and 50 per
cent in Tanzania.17 These figures attest to the importance of
the emerging social category of agricultural laborers.
Tim MIGRATORY WORltER
The development of a migratory worker population is the
direct result of the various processes of social change that
we have described and discussed above. Migratory workers
do not form a new social class but rather fall into a transitional
category. We assign a. special place to this group because
migratory workers reflect the transformation of traditional
structures into emerging modern ones. Two different
kinds of workers' migrations take place in Africa. The first
78 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
are the migrations to the industrial, mining, and urban centers,
which are mainly found in southern Africa, in the
"Copper Belt" of Rhodesia and Katanga, and in the mining
and industrial regions of the Republic of South Africa. The
other type are migrations to commercial agricultural regions,
especially in East and West Africa. The first type of migration
leads to the formation of an African industrial proletariat,
while the second tends to build a rural proletariat. To the
degree that migrant workers are generally on the move for
limited periods at a time and tend to preserve their tribal and
community basis, they also contribute to the rise of new
social categories in agriculture. Labouret has shown how the
migratory workers remained tied to their villages and cannot
be studied except with reference to their. communities.
The motivations that lead to migration are the same everywhere.
In the first place there is the need for money to
cover the deficit in the rural budget. It is said that in the
past, the heads of families designated some young men
who had to leave the village to seek work outside. These
young men would regularly send their wages and savings
back to the village, keeping only enough money to buy the
gifts customarily presented by returning members of the
community, or to invest in some business which promised
greater profit. Today the head of a family does not intervene
in this process. His authority is now diminished and
disputed and no longer permits him to give efficient orders.
Both young men and young women freely take off
for distant work locations and for the cities. They do,
however, continue to send money to their relatives in the
community. • • • In the geographic zones where the seasons
alternate and which provide the largest proportion of
migratory workers, these leave to work for an average of
six to seven months a year, from November to May; that
is, just before the beginning of the rainy season.is
We see that at least during the first stages of the development
of the new social structures the migratory workers are,
or continue to be, essentially agriculturists and members of
peasant society, although their later development brings
them closer to, and progressively integrates them into, the
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 79
more advanced capitalist structures. Among the Tonga in
Nyasaland, although they may have lived for considerable
time in the cities, migratory workers maintain very direct
ties with their tribe and their rural community, and these pendular
migrations have even been considered as a positive
factor in the maintenance of tribal unity.19 Migratory labor,
whether it be industrial or agricultural, is conditioned by the
nature of agrarian society. Let us take a closer look at two
cases of seasonal migratory labor.
1. Seasonal Migrations in West Africa
In the countries that used to be known as French West
Africa, the production of commercial crops has reached considerable
proportions. Seasonal laborers regularly leave the
regions where subsistence crops are grown (Mali and Upper
Volta in particular) and set out for the peanut-producing
regions of Senegal, or the cocoa and coffee farms of Ghana
and the Ivory Coast. It has been calculated that between 150,-
000 and 300,000 laborers migrate to the Ivory Coast from
other countries to work seasonally on the cocoa farms; 90
per cent of these workers come from Upper Volta.20
The Senegalese migrant workers are called navetanes, and
generally come from Mali to cultivate peanuts during the
winter season. Often they remain at their seasonal jobs for
six or seven · months before returning to their homes. · The
navetanes generally work on small farms under a variety of
different contracts which tie them to the owner of the land.
The farmer generally provides the navetane with housing, food,
and seed as well as a small plot to cultivate on his own. In
exchange the navetane works a fixed number of days on the
plantation of his employer and, at harvest time, returns the
seed lent him by the farmer while retaining the remaining
produce of the plot he has cultivated on his own. Another
kind of work contract obliges a navetane to work, not a certain
number of days, but rather at specific work tasks on a
fixed field. Still another kind of contract requires the· navetane
to provide his own farming implements and seed and
to pay the farmer a certain amotin:t of money in addition to
contributing a certain number of days of labor. In return,
the farmer provides the navetane with food and housing,
80 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
while the latter is allowed to retain all he produces on his
rented plot. In some regions the navetane receives a :fixed
wage for the days he works on the farmer's land. Clearly,
the concept of land rent is developing here. 21
Similar work patterns are found on the cocoa plantations
of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The navetane is tied to his
employer through an oral and short-term contract. His situation
includes some elements of sharecropping, tenancy, and
wage labor but he is neither truly a sharecropper nor a tenant
farmer nor a wage worker. He is not tied in a permanent
way to the land he cultivates, or to the owner of the farm.
The monetary income derived from his work on the land
represents only a part-at times only a small fraction-of his
income. The relationships between the employer and the
seasonal worker are generally of a personal nature. When
the navetane goes home to his village during some part of
the year, he often returns to work for the same employer.
Yet it is not unusual for a seasonal migratory worker to
establish himself in the region where he has found employment,
obtaining from the local farmers a plot of land and
the right to cultivate it permanently. This kind of arrangement
is possible so long as the notion of private ownership
of the land has not been established.
It seems clear that the seasonal migrant worker of West
Africa is a new type of peasant, specifically tied to the development
of agricultural capitalism in this part of the world.
But these peasants should be considered a transitional social
group whose members will inevitably become integrated into
one of several developing social classes.
2. Seasonal Migrations in Botswana
Migratory labor in Botswana, in . southern Africa, has also
been studied, particularly with regard to its effects on tribal
life.22 In this former British protectorate the seasonal migrant
worker generally goes to the mining centers in the neighboring
Republic of South Africa, where he may work as an
unskilled laborer for less than a year at a time. While tribal
agriculture in this region essentially remains subsistence agriculture,
the requirements of the monetary economy introduced
by the British dictated that a large portion of the active
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 81
population in the native reserves would regularly need to
seek salaried employment outside the reserve. Thus, before
a man can permanently establish himself as a farmer in the
reserve, it is probable that he will have spent from six to
ten years on the migratory circuit. Such migrants may return
to the reserve for longer or shorter periods in order to take
part in the agricultural labor of the local community, before
leaving to return once again to their seasonal jobs elsewhere.
The number of people who migrate permanently is very small,
a mere 6 per cent of the total _migrant work force, Migrant
labor is conditioned by the economic necessities of tribal life;
for example, by the lack of arable land. As I. Schapera writes,
"the native population as a whole depends upon labour migration
in order to maintain its present standard of living."23
However, seasonal employment is not the principal source
of income for the migrants. Their livelihood continues to
come from agriculture. Despite the fact that during their migrations
the peasants work mostly in industry, the Botswanan
migrants form an essentially agricultural social category.
It might be argued that because they work in the mines of
South Africa, they should be considered a kind of industrial
proletariat, a transitional category moving toward new economic
structures. This impression is reinforced by Schapera,
who enumerates the methods used at different times by recruiting
agents of the mining companies, by the British colonial
administration, and even by the local tribal chiefs in
order to force the young men of the tribe to seek temporary
employment outside their home community, But the temporary
nature of this salaried labor is emphasized by the very
same people who are most in need of· it. The mining companies
and the administration have done everything possible
to assure that the worker return to his reserve as soon as he
fulfills the term of his contract It was always in the interest
of the colonial administration and the mining companies that
the migratory worker preserve his ties to his own community
and its agricultural activities. Schapera cites the report of the
Mine Natives' Wages Commission of 1944: "It is clearly to
the advantage of the mines that Native labourers should be
encouraged to return to their homes after the completion of
the ordinary period of service. The maintenance of the sys82
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
tern under which the mines are able to obtain unskilled labour
at a rate less than that ordinarily paid in industry depends
upon this, for otherwise the subsidiary means of subsistence
would disappear and the labourer would tend to become a
permanent resident upon the Witwatersrand, with increased
requirements • • ."24
In order to achieve this objective, the administration uses
several different procedures. The work contracts are of
strictly limited duration. Working and living conditions in the
mines are such that the worker cannot think of bringing his
family along. Once the worker returns to his home community,
he must spend a certain amount of time -there before
being allowed to leave for work in the mines once more.
Anyone who does not have a contract is not authorized to
live outside of the tribal territory. One part of the worker's
salary is in the form of deferred pay which is only distributed
at the conclusion of the contract, when the worker is about
to leave for his community. Finally, the administration and
the local chiefs do everything possible to prevent or to diminish
the effects of "detribalization," that is, they attempt
to keep the worker psychologically and physically tied to his
tribe. Notwithstanding all these efforts, migrant labor tends
to alter tribal life in many ways. The income brought in by
the migrant workers contributes to the material well-being
and purchasing power of the tribe. "In the main, however,"
as Schapera has pointed out, "migration has reacted unfavourably
upon the traditional peasant economy of the Reserve.
• • . Migration has actually tended to disorganize the
traditional forms of economic activity."25 It has disrupted
agriculture and brought about a decline in agricultural productivity
and cattle raising. At the same time, migration has
had unfavorable effects on the social organization of the tribe,
especially on patterns of marriage, family life, traditional
tribal hierarchy, health, and birth rates, among other aspects
of social life.
In conclusion, we can say that in Botswana as in West
Africa, migratory and seasonal workers constitute a· new social
category within the peasantry. However, this group is a
transitional category which, in itself, does not constitute a
new social class. In Botswana, the African population forms
Social Classes in Agrarian Soc~ties 83
a reserve of cheap labor for the capitalist enterprises of South
Africa. The capitalist system needs to preserve the old system
of subsistence agriculture, and the social structures associated
with it. However, the very demands of capitalist development
tepd to destroy . these.26 The contradictions between
tribal agriculture and the development· of industrial
capitalism will surely have grown stronger since Schapera
carried out his study. The migrant workers of Botswana are,
from the point of view of their objective working conditions
in the mines, an industrial proletariat and, at the same time,
a· traditional peasantry in decline; As a result they form a
partly rural, partly industrial semi-proletariat.
'Iim AGRICULTURAL WORKER ON THE PLANTATION
In those regions of Black Africa where commercial export
crop plantations were set up by colonial capitalism, the old
economic structures .have broken down and a new social category
of salaried agricultural workers has emerged to occupy
an important place in the monetary economy. This social category
is similar in many ways to the migrant workers. In fact
the salaried agricultural work~r of.the plantation is often the
same seasonal migrant worker described above. However,
the plantation economy requires. a certain level of organization
and in various parts of Africa the conditions of plantation
work -have given birth .to a new rural stratum which
can now be considered an agricultural proletariat. Two examples
should suffice to give us some idea of the characteristics
of this new social class.
1. Liberia
Liberia provides a particularly instructive example of the·functioning
of capitalism in Black Africa. Liberia is a politically
independent country in which nevertheless a true "colonial
situation" forms the sociological framework. In the case of
Liberia, the· Firestone Rubber Company occupies the place
of a foreign colonial power. The Firestone Company holds a
ninety-nine-year lease on a large part of the best land in the
country, and this land is devoted exclusively to the production
of robber. This new activity has transformed traditional
agriculture not only because the tribes have been despoiled
84 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
of their land on a large scale, but also because "the entire
economic system must now adapt itself to the life of a forest
region which no longer provides palm, cocoa, bamboo, cotton,
wood for canoes, nor herbs for ritual or medicinal use."27
Wage labor on the rubber plantations has been the only economic
solution for a large proportion of men in the tribes.
In addition, the company occupies a position of key importance
in the economy of the country as a whole.
This implantation of Firestone, a true enclave in the heart
of the Republic of Liberia, is exceptionally important.
[The company] holds 835 thousand hectares, employs
from 25 to 30 thousand salaried workers, acting as a source
of income for the State and as a source of salaries and
imported merchandise for the native population.2s
While some of the plantation workers are seasonal, the
great majority are permanent laborers. The proportion of permanent
to migrant workers is continually increasing. Housing
has been constructed on the plantations for the men of the
tribes. The authorities hope that a stable salaried labor force
will begin to form in these villages. Not only lodging, but
also free medical service and education serve to attract and
to stabilize the labor supply. The unskilled laborers (who
represent the majority of workers on the plantations) are
paid by piecework. Work is carried out under strict discipline
and according to the most detailed organization.
The concentration and control of the workers begins with
the sounding of a gong at the break of day . . . the collection
of latex lasts four hours and the head of the group
must assure that all the trees are well cut, that the barrels
of latex are carefully cleaned and empty and that both
the waste and the latex that drops are recovered. • • . The
workers are once again called together between 10 and 11
in the morning. • • • Every worker sits in front of the
produce he has collected which is then weighed, measured
and stored in cement caves . . • at this point the worker
must see to the maintenance of his own trees. • • .20
The wages of these workers are judged to be low, and they
are paid at the end of each month ( or else at the time they
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 85
wish to leave the plantation) according to days actually
worked. The company exercises monopoly control over the
supply of food and all commerce . on its plantations. But if
wages are low, fringe benefits are appreciable and, in general,
the laborers seem to think that they work under satisfactory
conditions. Nevertheless, Liberia is a veritable economic colony
of the United States, reserved for a single company.
Recently, Firestone extended. its operation in Liberia, and
for this reason, the agricultural working class is growing.
there is no doubt that so.oner or later this class will become
conscious of its objective condition, under the influence of
the nationalist movements in neighboring countries, especially
Guinea. The hierarchical nature of Liberian society (with its
Americanized bourgeoisie almost totally detached from the
rest of the population) provides the objective conditions for
the spread of class consciousness.
2. Cameroon
The formation of a rural proletariat has also taken place on
the plantations of Southern Cameroon.so In this country the
expropriation of tribal land . has been in progress since the
nineteenth century. Prior to the First World W~, German
companies already owned. hundreds of thousands of hectares
of the best land in the country. Today the Cameroons Development
Corporation, a governmental institution, administers
the plantations on which bananas are produced as the
prip.cipal crop, together with palm oil, cocoa, rubber, and
other less important crops. The economic organization of the
plantations is -a complex of different activities. About 75 per
cent of all plantation employees are involved in agricultural
labor.
The volume of employment on the plantations undergoes
considerable seasonal fluctuation because of variations in. the
supply oflabor due to thewo r~ers· tendency to preserve their
ties with their home community. The majority of the workers
are unskilled. The organization of work is virtually the same
as on the Liberian plantations described earlier. Wages are
paid monthly on the basis of days worked, and the work week
is forty-five hours, distributed over s~ days.
86 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
The plantation workers come from various tribes of Southern
Cameroon and Nigeria. The demand for labor is greater
than the supply, and workers come from distant regions because
there is not sufficient labor supply locally. This labor
shortage creates other problems as well. For example, the
subsistence agriculture of the neighboring villages produces
too little to feed the thousands of laborers who move into
the region to work on the plantations. Thus the corporation
has to import food for its own workers. For many of these,
employment on the plantations represents the first wage ever
received. And when they interrupt their work to return home
they nevertheless tend to return to their old jobs on the same
plantations. When this study was made, most of the plantation
workers had, at one time or another, completed a· term of
continuous service of more than one year. Many others, however,
had yet to complete a full year of continuous service,
but this was also due to the fact that so many of them were
young men who had only recently been recruited. But there
is a marked tendency toward stability on the job.
The influence on the workers of their families and their
home communities is obvious. These factors often determine
when the worker will remain on the plantation, when he will
interrupt his work to return to his community, etc. But while
workers are generally forced to seek employment on the plantations
because of economic conditions in the home community,
the economy of the Cameroon communities does not
seem to have been so negatively affected by the migrations
as· were the tribal communities in Botswana. In Cameroon,
for example, we do not find the same kind of demographic,
economic, and social disequilibria. While these disequilibria
are found on the plantation they are present to a far lesser
extent than is generally believed. Although the contingents
of single men are important, more than half of the plantation
workers are married, and three fourths of the married men
bring their wives and children to live with them on or near
the plantation. In addition, according to interviews carried
out among these workers, the majority have no intention of
returning to their communities even if economic opportunities
were to open up for them there. Some of the social problems
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 87
encountered on the plantations are similar to those found in
the urban areas of Africa.st
The living conditions on the plantations were considered
by the interviewers to be unsatisfactory. Housing was insufficient
and in bad condition, food was expensive and the majority
of the workers and their families suffered from malnutrition,
Economic necessity forces the workers to pursue
secondary economic activities during ,their free time, or, alternatively,
their wives work to supplement the low incomes
received by the salaried workers. Despite the effort to earn
more, the majority of these people live in a state of continual
debt, and they often organize themselves into mutual savings
associations of the type well kn.own in other African societies.
These associations are often organized along tribal lines. Two
examples are the esuau, based on the principle of rotation,
and the "Christmas clubs," in which savings are generally
returned to the members just before Christmas.
Immigrant workers, especially those who are accompanied
by their families, attempt to establish themselves permanently
in the plantation region, In addition to their work on the
plantation, it is not unusual for them to attempt to obtain
small plots of arable land from the surrounding villages in
order to carry on subsistence farming or to cultivate their
own banana crop. Up to now there has been no shortage of
land, and the neighboring tribes freely gave pieces of uncultivated
land to anyone who requested a small plot. However,
the contingents of immigrants and the increased extension
of the plantations have changed this situation. The notion
of private ownership of the land is spreading, and once the
land tenure situation came to be one of scarcity rather than
abundance, the local tribes began to sell rather than give the
land to the immigrants, However, in contrast with the conditions
that exist in Botswana, where salaried labor does not
represent the principal source of income for the migrant
farmers, in South.em Cameroon salaried work on the plantations
is the most important and, at times, the only source of
income for the agricultural laborer. This is the essential difference
between migrant workers and the stable agricultural
workers who in Cameroon, as in Liberia, may be considered
as an emerging rural proletariat.
88 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
'fiIE CoMMERCIAL FARMER
In the regions of Black Africa where European settlement
took place, especially in South Africa and in Kenya, a class
of white farmers established itself early in the areas where the
native population was thrown off the land. This class, in contrast
to other groups we have discussed, was imposed on
African society from above, and belongs to the colonial society.
In the context of this study, however, we are more
interested in the social categories which have grown out of
structural changes in African society, originating with the
development of capitalism. In all parts of Black Africa, but
especially in West Africa, the development of industrial crops
and of commercial monoculture has brought about the emergence
of the commercial farmer, a new category within the
peasantry.
African-owned commercial farms have been established in
those regions where no large monopoly concessions were
ceded by the colonial government to companies producing
commercial crops. The commercial farmer is to be distinguished
from the traditional subsistence peasant by the fact
that he is principally (although almost never exclusively)
engaged in the production of a marketable crop such as
peanuts, cocoa, coffee, etc. In addition he is totally integrated
into a market economy in which he sells his produce in order
to buy what he needs. Such farmers employ wage labor with
increasing regularity, and are moving increasingly from extensive
to intensive agriculture through the use of the plow,
draft animals, fertilizer, and other inputs. As a result of all
these different tendencies in commercial farming, land is in~
creasingly considered to be a form of private property and
the old forms of land tenure and land rights are disappearing
rapidly. Thirty years ago, H. Labouret had already noted:
The precarious, often collective possession of the land will
be transformed into individual property, will probably modify
rules of inheritance and the constitution of the family,
and will lead to a complete evolution of the societies involvea.
s2
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 89
Thus the farmer constitutes a new social category with its
own sociological and economic characteristics. In Ghana this
group
has arisen from the deformation of the right of possession
of land into a property right. With this, the framework of
the extended family has been broken. This is the case particularly
in the forest areas where the person who clears
the land acquires certain rights over it, and in the areas
where commercial crops are grown. It is said in the Ashanti
language, "Cocoa kills the family." The penetration of
Western culture has led to the development of the concept
of private property which has progressively spread through
the more developed regions of the country where property
rights are based on the extended family or on individual
ownership. This may be the basis for social differentiation
due to the accumulation of capital. But in order for this
change to take effect, it is essential that the society pass
from a closed, seigneurial economy to an exchange economy
open to the rest of the country and to foreign markets;
that is, from an economy based on subsistence agriculture
to an economy based on export or commercial agriculture.
In this respect, the region which will probably be the
scene of the development of a social stratification is the
forest zone where cocoa is produced. Changes in world
prices during the post war period have reinforced the
rhythm and the magnitude of this stratification. Today it
seems that cocoa farmers form a well-differentiated group
that has its own interests and is conscious of those interests.
In all of the Gold Coast, it is the only group whose real
purchasing power has increased or at least the group in
which it has increased in greatest proportion since the war.
Geographically, the group is localized in a certain area.
Cocoa farmers have a sense of their own interests, and
these interests are more important than those that are determined
and dominated by the existing tribal structure.
It is significant that the first national reaction-one could
even say, nationalist reaction-was a common boycott by the
cocoa producers of Ashanti and the Colony in the face of
the decline of prices paid by European buyers for their
90 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
products. Since the war, the cocoa producers constitute an
interest group whose existence has been recognized by the
public authorities. The Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB)
includes three representatives of the cocoa farmers among
its nine members.as
Around 300,000 people in Ghana are involved in the production
of cocoa, either as owners or tenant farmers. The
farms are small, and rarely exceed 2.5 hectares, but often a
single farmer owns several small farms.
Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, the development of cocoa
farms has been spontaneous, without intervention from governmental
authorities. It is significant that despite the considerable
economic advantages of cocoa farming the majority
of Yoruba still devote an important part of their time and land
to staple crops. In addition, the pattern of land· tenure among
the Yoruba has not been radically changed by the introduction
of commercial crops, and despite the establishment of
the farms and the individual appropriation of the agricultural
produce, the concept of private ownership of land has not
yet developed. Commercial farmers are nevertheless distinguished
as a social class because their economic prosperity
( despite somewhat unfavorable agricultural conditions, both
technical and geographic) is the result of the exploitation of
a grossly underpaid immigrant labor force. Several characteristics
of the traditional social organization . and culture of
the Yoruba have contributed to the fact that the establishment
of a new economy did not cause the breakdown of the traditional
structures. 34
For our analysis it is important to know if the new category
of commercial farmers is characterized by some internal differentiation
based either on the size of landholdings or the
volume of production. Unfortunately, these data are only
partially available in published material. Thus it is still difficult
to talk systematically of large, medium, or small farmers.
However, differentiation according to size of property and
production has apparently taken place.
This socioeconomic differentiation within the category of
commercial farmers is based on the different sizes of holdings
among the cocoa growers, on ownership of the land, on the
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 91
form of labor relations, etc. A study carried out in Ghana
showed that in one community the average yearly income
obtained from cocoa was .£5.8 for a farm owner, £3.4 for
a sharecropper, and £3.S for a wage worker,85
Among the Yoruba the differentiation among commercial
farmers is very marked, Almost half of the farmers produce
less than 10 per cent of the total cocoa crop, while 1S per
cent of the farmers produce more than half of the total crop.
Moreover, the members of the old dominant class, the warrior
nobility and aristocracy, own the largest plantations and
receive the highest incomes. The Yoruba provide an example
of a new emerging class structure that has not immediately
entered into contradiction with the pre-existing social stratification.
The mutual adaptation between the old stratification
system and the new class structure. is facilitated by the fact
that the large Yoruba farmer does not automatically become
a capitalist. ·Reinvestment in agriculture is low, and income
obtained from the sale of cocoa is mainly spent on the purchase
of consumer goods and the satisfaction of community
and family obligations.
The new social category of African commercial farmers
will be the subject of a more detailed analysis in Part II of
this book.
CoNCLUSIONS
Of the three new rural social categories in Black Africamigrant
· workers, agricultural workers, and commercial farmers-
the first is a completely transitional category. It appears
where traditional subsistence agriculture has begun to break
down in the face of both the stimuli and the new requirements
imposed by the development of a monetary economy. At the
same time, the maintenance of a subsistence economy and
the need for a labor force to supply a capitalist economy
give this category a transitional but not necessarily transitory
character. The participation of these migrant workers in the
monetary economy gives the category its class character. But
the maintenance of a subsistence economy prevents its full.
grown emergence, To the extent that the principal source of
their income continues to be subsistence agriculture, and as
long as they retain an essentially tribal way of life, migrant
92 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
workers certainly do not constitute a social class. The South
African mining companies that employ Botswanan laborers
have a strong interest in preseIYing precisely this situation.
The other two. new social categories of rural Africa have
more of a class character. The agricultural wage workers
represent a new social class because they are integrated into
a new· socioeconomic structure, a new mode of production
in which they occupy a specific position. They sell their labor
and they create a surplus. As a group they have common
interests which derive from their common situation in the
production process, and which unite them in the face of
those who, because they occupy other positions in the production
process, have different or even opposing interests.
This is the case, for example, with the agricultural workers
of the plantations of Southern Cameroon. But the class situation
becomes definitive only when the new position in the
production process is stable and permanent. And this is not
always the case, because the plantation worker may often
leave his work and return to subsistence agriculture in his
own village.
The third new social category, the commercial farmers,
may become the basis of one or several new social . classes.
Their number will depend on the development of agriculture
in Black Africa. The commercial farmer is in a class situation
in that he produces for the market, he is directly affected
by the price fluctuations of his crops in the international
market, and he employs the labor of others. The commercial
farmer may be the origin of not only one, but several different
classes, according to the extension of landownership
(where landownership will develop), the size of the commercialized
crop, and the use that the farmer makes of his monetary
income.
In summary, we can say that fully established class structures
are not yet found in the African countryside. Many
traditional structures have begun to be modified, while the
new structures which have grown out of the development of
capitalism are still in the process of formation. This transitional
situation has been the case particularly since the majority
of African states have won their political independence.
Colonial rule has now disappeared, and social mobility has
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 93
increased. If we can speak of a class system, it is in the context
of partial, not global, economic structures. The migrant
worker is defined with respect to both a capitalist industrial
system that requires his labor and the traditional subsistence
economy. The agricultural worker of the large plantation is
defined in relation to an economic structure which is characteristic
of underdevelopment (i.e., export monoculture) but
is, at the same time, only one aspect of the general economic
framework of underdeveloped countries. And finally, the commercial
farmer is defined not only with respect to the agricultural
workers he hires (in his capacity as employer) but
also with respect to the international market and to commerce
(in his capacity as producer). In addition, he is defined with
respect to other farmers with whom he identifies or from
whom he distinguishes himself according to the factors of
differentiation mentioned above.
The new social groups in the African countryside will eventually
give way to new rural class structures. But the form
these structures will take will also depend on factors that
cannot always be observed by studying rural society. To predict
the form that African class structures will take we would
have to know about the "style" of development chosen by
each country, its relations with other societal units, and so
forth. Bach of the three categories mentioned will have a
future determined in large part by the particular evolution
of each one of the African countries.
HISTORICAL EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 7
Agrarian Structure
· and Social Classes
in Latin America
As has been shown in previous chapters, some precolonial
societies of Africa as well as Latin America were divided
into social classes and were highly stratified. Both regions
suffered the impact of colonial conquest, :first of the expansion
of mercantilism and later of capitalist plantation agriculture.
They are, furthermore, historically related through the institution
of slavery: for three centuries African populations
were transplanted to the American continent by the millions.
Along the Atlantic coast of Latin America, from the Rfo de
la Plata to the Caribbean, the cultural and racial influences
of African origin are significant. The African factor is one of
the three principal elements which, together with the Indian
and the European, make up the population of Latin America.
The slave trade may be considered as one of the historically
unifying factors which have joined Africa and Latin America
in their underdevelopment while at the same time contributing
to the wealth and progress of the colonialist nations of Europe.
Yet the structural differences between the two continents
should not be underestimated. The conquest of America was
carried out at the beginning of European mercantilist expansion,
while the colonial conquest of Africa took place,
after several centuries of slaving and trading along the African
coast, during the classic period of imperialism. Thus,
while in America the Spanish and Portuguese were still able
to establish systems of agricultural exploitation based on slavery
and serfdom, the new agriculture in Africa displayed
more strictly capitalistic characteristics because it had to satisfy
far more developed European economic interests: those
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 95
of the nineteenth century. Another important distinction to
be kept in mind is that whereas the colonization of America
resulted in the definitive destruction of aboriginal societies
and their total or partial transformation during three centuries
of. colonial rule, in Africa native social systems were
able to survive much longer, some of them extending into the
twentieth century.
Consequently, from the cultural point of view, Latin America
as a whole-including its Indian peasant populationsshould
be catalogued within the currents of Western civilization
to a much greater degree than the societies of postconquest
Black Africa. Such cultural differences do play their
part at the level of the rural village community, even when
structural similarities and common processes of change are
apparent.
The Iberian conquest of what was to become Latin America
had from the start, in the sixteenth century, an essentially
agrarian component. The colonizers set about creating new
agrarian structures, even as they retained, in some places and
for varying periods of time, a number of native agrarian
institutions, upon which they began to graft their own. The
agrarian policies of the Spaniards and Portuguese contained
two basic components: a land tenure policy and a labor policy.
However, it would be a mistake to think that either Spaniards
or Portuguese had a clear idea at all times of the kinds
of agrarian institutions they were establishing. Rather, their
agrarian policies pursued different objectives at different times,
according to historical circumstances, and the land tenure
systems that came to characterize Latin America at a later
stage took several centuries to unfold.
There were basically two sources of wealth in America
which attracted the Spanish colonizers after the first source,
the direct plunder of the accumulated riches of the Indian
civilizations (mainly the Aztec and Inca ornamental gold),
had dried up. These were the silver mines of the Andes and
Central Mexico, and the products of the exploitation of the
land. We are here concerned with the second of these aspects.
It should be remembered that the Spanish conquest was
not a planned state policy, but rather a series of private enterprises,
called capitulaciones, which were carried out under
96 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
the Crown's supervision. By royal mandate, the conquistadores
were enabled to. appropriate land, and to administer
and distribute it as they saw fit. They thus became a· potent
social force in the early sixteenth century, bent upon acquiring
wealth, power, and social prestige. This they could obtain
only by transforming the military conquest into a colonial
economy and by establishing themselves as masters of the
land. In order to extract wealth. from th.e land, it · became
necessary to marshal the labor of the Indian populations. At
first there were attempts to enSlave the Indians, but the Spanish
Crown opposed· them for two principal reasons: a) because
it wished to restrict the independent power of the conquistadores,
and b) because its vision of empire rested on
the incorporation of a large number of "free" vassals; A
number of royal decrees in the 1530s and 1540s prohibited
the slavery of th.e Indians, except under special circumstances
such as during th.e "Just Wars" against rebellious Indians
who refused to submit to Spanish authority.
The demand for labor resulted in the development of a
special institution known as encomienda · ( the origins of
which are to be found in the Spanish wars of reconquista
against the Moorish settlements in southern Spain). Through
an encomienda grant the Spanish colonists were permitted
to exact both commodity tribute and labor service from the
Indians who were assigned to their jurisdiction. The encomienda
was th.e most important system whereby the colonizers
were able to exploit·lndian labor during th.e·first century of
their rule. It had been designed as an instrument of colonization,
and th.ough its beneficiaries fought to· maintain it from
generation to generation, by the end of the sixteenth century
it had begun to decline. However, it was formally abolished
ofily in -the eighteenth century.
The encomienda was not a land grant nor did it constitute
th.e legal. basis for · the formation of the large estates
which arose in colonial Latin America. Neither was it legally
a form of serfdom and much less slavery. Indians who were
encomendizdos retained-at least on paper-'-a certain amount
of individual freedom and, principally, rights of possession
to their ancestral lands. In fact, however, the Spanish encomendero
class did use th.e system as a basis for th.e exproSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 97
priation and appropriation of Indian lands and the permanent
subjection of the Indian labor force. When the encomienda
finally declined, it was mainly because of the tremendous
decrease in Indian population which followed upon Spanish
conquest and which required the development of other agrarian
institutions.
As the extraction of surplus value of Indian labor through
the encomienda system was rendered more difficult, the colonizers
became interested in the direct. exploitation of the land,
and a slow process of land accumulation and concentration
began to take place which has lasted into modern times. The
origin of private landholding in Spanish America is to be
found in the land grants (mercedes) that the Crown distributed
to its faithful servants, having :first appropriated the land
itself by right of conquest. Mercedes took various forms and
were granted in various sizes, according to the status of the
beneficiary. The Crown was interested in the settlement of
Spanish colonists and the development of a class of familysized
agriculturists; but this objective was nevet attained, for
the way to wealth and power lay not in working the land,
but in owning it and having it worked by a servile Indian
labor force. Not every Spaniard became a landowner, of
course, for early in the colonial period a class of large landowners
was able to bar effectively access to land to competitors.
This became particularly important in the later colonial
period, when competition for increasingly scarce Indian
labor increased. Aside from mercedea, land accumulation
took place through direct acquisition or by taking it, by hook
or crook, from the Indian communities. Conflicts over land
titles were a common occurrence in colonial times, and the
Spanish administration periodically set about -to straighten
things out ·through arrangements and settlements called composiciones.
These usually led to confirmation of the colonists'
land claims, revenues for the administration, and loss of lands
for the Indians.
A similar process of land accumulation took place in Brazil,
where the Portμguese kings divided the newly discovered
territory into a number· of capitanias as early as 1534, which
were adjudicated to an equal number of highly placed "captains"
who took it upon themselves to colonize, the country.
98 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
They, in turn, were authorized to distribute land grants under
the name of sesmarias. The sesmaria was only granted to
colonists who had a certain amount of capital and a minimum
number of slaves to work the land. It became the basis for
Brazil's large estates, the f azendas. Smaller land grants to
agriculturists from Portugal or the Azores were given the
name of data da terra. Inasmuch as Indian labor was not as
readily available in Brazil as elsewhere in Spanish America,
nothing like the encomienda system developed here. The
basis of Brazil's agricultural economy became slavery, which
lasted until the end of the nineteenth century.
Aside from their prestige value, large landholdings were
useless without a permanent supply of labor. The main concern
of the estate owners in Spanish America from early
colonial times to the present has been the search for such a
supply. After the decline of the encomienda system, a number
of mechanisms developed to satisfy the increasing demand
of the landowners for labor in the face of a diminishing
Indian population. An important system of compulsory labor
allocation and distribution was made up of the repartimientos,
or corvee labor, whereby a local authority, usually called
juez repartidor, allotted Indian workers to haciendas or mines,
on a rotational basis for specific periods of time. Indian villages
were forced to provide able-bodied workers and the
estate owners competed for the available labor supply. The
repartimientos constituted an extreme form of exploitation
and met with the resistance of the Indian populations. On
the other hand, the estate owners, particularly the more powerful
hacendados, attempted to tum repartimiento legislation
in their own favor, by trying to hold down labor permanently
on their properties.
This became the dominant tendency in the later colonial
period, and as repartimiento slowly declined because it was
increasingly difficult to operate, the attachment of permanent,
serf-like labor to particular estates, i.e., peonage, became
the principal mode of production in Spanish American
agriculture. The particular forms of peonage and the circumstances
of its development varied from region to region and
received local. names, such as yanaconaje in Peru, colonato
in Bolivia, inquilinaje in Chile, pongueaje in Ecuador, conSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 99
certaje in Colombia, peonaje in Mexico, etc. It is this peonage
as the basis of labor relations in the . countryside which has
led many authors to speak of a feudal system in Latin
America. To be sure, the conditions of servitude of the Indian
population on the haciendas do remind one of medieval serfdom,
but it must be remembered that this development took
place within the framework of an export-oriented, mercantilist,
colonial economy. Furthermore, the peonage system,
as we shall see below, became even more entrenched during
the nineteenth century expansion of capitalist agriculture.
Many Indians preferred peonage-under the guise of a
"free" labor contract-to the rigors of the repartimientos, and
sought protection on the haciendas from the forced conscription
of repartimiento labor. In other cases, the estate owners
circumvented repartimiento and held on to their Indian workers.
In still others, hacienda owners usurped Indian communal
lands to force the population into the haciendas as laborers.
In general, the destruction of the ecological basis of the Indian
agricultural communities ( deforestation and erosion due
to the introduction of cattle, destruction of native irrigation
arid terracing systems, etc.), accompanied by the drastic
demographic decline of the Indians, transformed peonage
into the most efficient system whereby the landlords could
control a necessary supply of labor. Debt-slavery, physical
coercion, and denial of economic alternatives for the Indians
were some of the means employed by the landholding class
in order to maintain the Indians in subjection. ·
All during the colonial period, the Indian communities
waged a losing battle against the encroaching haciendas.
Nevertheless, Spanish colonial policy did attempt to protect
Indian communal landholdings, at first through the forced
settlement of Indians on villages known as congregaciones
or reducciones, which also facilitated military control, the
process of Christianization, and forced labor conscription,
and later by setting aside special lands for such communities,
the resguardos, to which the villages received royal titles. A
voluminous and complex body of laws, decrees, and rules developed
throughout the colonial period, known as Legislaci6n
de lndias, in which the rights and duties of the Indians were
codified. Despite these tutelary policies, however, the haci100
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
endas and peonage developed, whereas the traditional Indian
communities ( and their population) declined.
By the end of the colonial period not only had private
property of land become a permanent feature of agrarian
structure, but it was also characterized by concentration in
large estates, many of which belonged to the Church. Indeed,
the Church had become the most important single
landowner in the colonies. The principal forms of land tenure
were the large, privately owned haciendas; the smaller agricultural
properties of Spanish settlers (which never really
became a significant factor in the land tenure system); the
communal landholdings of the Indian communities; and :finally
the extensive holdings of the Church, which were legally
mortmain (manos muertas), i.e., once held by the Church
they could not again be sold or subdivided. This represented
a problem for the development of capitalism which was to
explode in full force by the middle of the nineteenth century.
The main social categories which had arisen in the agrarian .
structure during the colonial period were: a) the private
estate owners (hacendados, estancieros, or fazendeiros), who
constituted the white Spanish, or criollo, colonial aristocracy;
b) their administrators or high-level employees, often racially
mixed, or mestizos; c) the small, independent Spanish, or
criollo, farmer (numerically weak, generally located near an
urban market, such as the owners of chacras-farms-in Central
Chile); d) the servile peons of the haciendas, generally
Indians or, later, of mestizo origin; e) communal Indians
not yet separated from their communities who worked the
collectively held village lands, but who might also work as
occasional laborers on nearby haciendas; and f) the African
slaves of the plantations of the eastern seaboard ( and occasionally
elsewhere) .1
Independence from Spain did not bring any fundamental
changes as far as the agrarian structure was concerned. To
be sure, slavery was abolished in most countries (in Brazil
it lasted until 1888), but the power of the creole landed
aristocracy was, if anything, strengthened in the absence of
controls from Spain. Unclaimed lands, or tierras realengas
( over which the Crown had exercised control), rapidly passed
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 101
into · private hands and were · concentrated within a small elite.
The lands that Bolivar distributed among his soldiers after
the wars of independence in South America were soon grabbed
up by the landed oligarchy. The exploitation of the Indian
peasantry became· intensified with the disappearance. of the
colonial tutelary policies and the Indians' new status as "free
and equal citizens."
During the middle of the nineteenth century, a number of
Latin American governments expropriated the mortmain properties
of the Church and threw them onto the free market.
They were soon incorporated into the private estates of the
oligarchy. At the same time, the corporate communal landholdings
of the Indian villages were transformed-under the
aegis of economic liberalism~into the private properties of
their members, who, in turn, usually lost them to the expanding
haciendas.
· The extension and improvement of the means of communication,
and the demand for new cash crops ( e.g., coffee)
in the international market made for the consolidation of
large landholdings and the ever more intensive exploitation
of peasant labor through peonage, debt-slavery, and wage
work, accompanied by the expropriation of small, independent
peasant holdings and the remaining communal lands of the
Indian villages; Peonage increased during·. this period of the
capitalist expansion of agriculture in Latin America. In Mexico,
the most intensive exploitation of peasant labor occurred
precisely during the latter half of the nineteenth century and
the beginning of the twentieth, at a time when haciendas
modernized and extended their operations in answer to . the
growing demand of the national and international market.
This process resulted in numerous local peasant uprisings and
general social unrest in the rural areas. Similar situations are
reported in other Latin American countries.
The economic evolution of the Latin American countryside
has not been a continuous or unilinear process. On the contrary,
alternating with eras of economic expansion in the
eighteenth century, and again toward the end of the nineteenth
century, there were periods of economic depression
and stagnation of commercial and plantation agriculture. This
cyclical development affected the peasant economy of Latin
102 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
America to the extent that certain peasant communities
which practiced commercial agriculture for external markets
during some periods closed themselves off during others and
returned to the cultivation of food crops for subsistence.
The unequal development of the agricultural economy of
the different countries of Latin America has contributed to
the great diversity of types of peasants on this continent. The
new categories of peasants that can be studied today emerged
mainly after the abolition of slavery and the land tenure reforms
of the nineteenth century, which abolished communal
landholdings and Church property and opened the door to
the capitalist concentration of the land. Several types of peasants
have been identified in Latin America:2
1) In the highlands of "nuclear" Latin America live peasants
who carry on intensive cultivation of food products
mainly for consumption. Yet they sell at least 25 per cent of
their produce and the market economy occupies an important
place in their life. The villages they inhabit have been
called "corporate" communities. Usually there is some sort
of community control over distribution and ownership of land.
A rigid political and religious hierarchy binds members together.
At times ceremonial expenses (a prestige economy)
contribute to a leveling of the socioeconomic status of individual
families. Such communities also have communal means
of resolving conflicts and maintaining the corporate identity
of the group. Finally, kinship ties play an important role
in group solidarity. But what gives the community its structural
characteristic is, above all, its collective relationship to
the land. From the cultural point of view, indigenous elements
persist together with Spanish elements from the colonial
era. The communities generally,include two distinct ethnic
groups with important cultural differences. Often the interethnic
relations that are established between them represent
only the cultural aspects of class relations in the community.
2) On the lower slopes of the Latin American mountain
ranges and in the humid tropical regions of the lowlands live
peasants who are engaged in the cultivation of commercial
products such as sugarcane, coffee, bananas, cocoa, tobacco,
and other tropical crops. Although they retain some part of
their production and cultivate food products for subsistence,
Social Classes in Agr_arian Societies 103
approximately half of what they produce is destined for the
market. These peasants are tieq to the capitalist system through
external :financing. Their agriculture is commercial, their attitudes
are individualistic. Here land is essentially private property.
However, their primitive technology and the very conditions
of tropical agriculture do not allow them to achieve high
levels of capitalization. The main purpose of farming continues
to be consumption, not reinvestment. We are still dealing
here with ''poor peasants." Nevertheless, the corporate
community is not characteristic of this type of peasantry.
Their community is "open" to foreign influences and to
change.
Accc,rding to Eric Wolf, these two types of peasantry constitute
historically the two pillars of the Latin American rural
environment. Cyclical changes in the economy that have characterized
the development of Latin America have, according
to this author, also produced cyclical changes from subsistence
to commercial agricuiture. Wolf offers the hypothesis
that the "corporate" communities have been transformed
into "open" communities and retransformed into corporate
communities according to the oscillations of the agricultural
economy.a
3) Alongside these two kinds of peasantry we also find in
Latin America small and medium-sized independent landowning
farmers who resemble far more their counterparts in the
United States than the peasant types mentioned above. In the
Spanish-speaking regions they · 'are usually known as rancheros,
while in · Brazil they are called sitiantes. From the
cultural point of view European influences predominate among
these cultivators.
4) Two other types of agriculturists are to be found· among
the workers on large commercial plantations, especially in
Brazil and in the Caribbean.4 On the one hand there are the
laborers of the traditional · sugarcane plantations (ingenios,
or engenhos), owned by patriarchal families who generally
form part · of the "old aristocracy" of these countries. The
relationship established here between the cultivator and the
patron is of a personal and close nature, and social stratification
is rigid. Today these plantations are disappearing and
are being replaced, especially in Brazil, by the modem
104 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
usina: the capitalist, mechanized plantation based on salaried
labor and contractual relationships. The patriarchal family
has generally disappeared, and either the landowners Jive in
the cities or the plantation is owned by a foreign capitalist
corporation. Where this has occurred, a rural proletariat is
forming.
In order to judge to what degree these general peasant
types constitute elements for an analysis of rural class structures
in Latin America, let us look briefly at a number of
particular cases.
MExlco
Until the Revolution of 1910, the pattern of land tenure in
Mexico was characterized by a concentration of landownership
in the hands of a very few large landowners who controlled
almost all of the cultivable land, while the mass of
poor peasants held no land at all. The agrarian reform, formally
initiated by decree in 1915, has moved forward over
the years with stronger or weaker impulse, and has totally
transformed the agrarian structure of Mexico and produced
new social categories in the .countryside. The most important
results of the agrarian reform are the following:
1) A more equal distribution of landownership.fl
2) The disappearance of the latifundio as the predominant
form of land tenure.
3) The appearance of a new form of land tenure called
the e;ido. Under this system of landholdings, possession
but not ownership of the land is given by the government
to an agricultural community, whose members
have the right to cultivate individually a designated plot
of land. While e;idal lands are held collectively by the
entire peasant community, in the strictest economic
sense, most ejidatarios should be considered minifundistas,
that is, farmers of dwarf-sized holdings.o
4) An increase in the number of minifundios. In 1960, 67
per cent of all private landowners held only 6.4 per
cent of the cultivable land.
More than fifty years of agrarian reform have produced
great disparities in the Mexican countryside. One per cent
Social . Classes in Agrarian Societies 105
of the economically active population in agriculture still holds
almost 30 per cent of all arable land, from which they derive
46 per cent of the total income of the non-ejidal agricultural
sector. On the other hand, one half of the active agricultural
population possesses no land whatever, and falls into the categories
of day laborers, sharecroppers, or unpaid family helpers.
A classification of private properties indicates more explicitly
the situation of the peasantry. Sixty-six per cent of all
owners hold less than five hectares of land, On these generally
arid and infertile plots the peasants usually carry on
subsistence farming at low technological levels. From the
economic point of view, these small parcels of land are insufficient
to maintain an average family. Underemployment is
pervasive and in addition to farming their own small plots,
these peasants are generally forced to seek work as salaried
agricultural laborers on larger agricultural properties. They
may also work at handicrafts or trade for small additional
monetary income.
· Above the minifundistas, on the scale of private property
owners, we :find those who own landholdings of five to twentyfive
hectares. In Mexico this group is small and represents
only 17 per cent of all private landlords. The property of
these owners, in contrast to that of the minifundistas, is generally
sufficient to provide for the subsistence of a peasant
family and for the sale of surplus produce in the market,
These people constitute the true middle class of the peasantry.
A third category of landowners includes all those who
hold between twenty-five and two hundred hectares. While
these people represent only 13 per cent of all private landowners,
they receive one third of the total income earned
by the private agricultural sector, Landholdings of this size
are generally worked in a commercially intensive way em-.
ploying · salaried labor and mechanized agricultural equipment.
Part of such landholdings may be rented to landless
peasants. The owners of twenty-five to two hundred hectares
could be characterized as the peasant or rural bourgeoisie.
Aside from agriculture, they may also be involved in commercial
activities such as moneylending, agricultural credit, or
small local trade, any of which may become a principal source
106 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
of income. Such commercial sidelines are also the means
through which the rural bourgeoisie exploits the small minifundista.
The last group of landholders are those who own more than
two hundred hectares of land. The situation of such landowners
is exceptional, because the Mexican constitution prohibits
the ownership of more than two hundred hectares of
cultivable land, except under particular circumstances. Nevertheless,
this group holds 24 per cent of all arable land in
Mexico. Such lands are generally given over to highly mechanized
capitalist farming and a large part of the crop is produced
for export. Strictly speaking this group of cultivators
cannot be classified as part of the peasantry. They belong,
rather, to the Mexican bourgeoisie and form part of the ruling
class of the country. It is only because members of this
group figure prominently within the ranks of the ruling class
that they are able to retain landholdings whose size violates
the agrarian law as set down in the Mexican constitution.
Apart from the ejidatarios and private landholders, more
than half of the active agricultural population is comprised
of landless peasants who generally hire themselves out as day
laborers. Many of them are migratory laborers who work on
the large capitalist agricultural enterprises in northern Mexico,
while approximately half a million to a million seasonal
workers, known as braceros, cross the border illegally into the
United States to supply cheap labor to the farms in the South
and Southwest. The system of contracted bracero labor was
suspended in 1964, but illegal ''wetback" emigrations take
place on a large scale. The migratory agricultural workers
form the beginning of an agricultural proletariat in Mexico.
We have now outlined six different social categories found
in rural Mexico. They are the minifundistaa, the middle peasantry,
the peasant bourgeoisie, and the large landholders in
the private sector; the ejidatarios, who have a special legal
status but whose real-life situation closely resembles that of
the minifundistas or middle peasantry; and, :finally, the landless
peasants or agricultural day laborers, among whom we
find both the migratory workers and the braceros. These
groups and categories are more than a simple arbitrary classification
of the agricultural population. In effect they repreSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies .107
sent dynamic social forces in Mexico. As in other underdeveloped
countries, modem capitalist agriculture coexists with
a traditional, backward peasant sector. These two kinds of
agriculture are found in different regions of the country. The
modem sector is concentrated mamly in the Northwest of
Mexico and on some commercial plantations (sugarcane,
coffee, and henequen) in the South and Southeast. The traditional
sector is found in the mountainous regions of central
and southern Mexico.
While the agrarian reform brought about a more equal distribution
of land and eliminated the latifundio system, it was
unable to modify some essential characteristics of the traditional
rural structure. 7 In the framework of this structure,
the minifundista peasants, who are principally involved in
subsistence farming, are inevitably linked by market and labor
relations to the agrarian bourgeoisie, which, in certain
areas, constitutes truly a regional ruling class. What we have
here, then, are indeed relations of opposition and exploitation
which place these two social classes in positions of confrontation
in precisely the sense that class opposition was described
in Chapter 2. The survival of a regional structure of semifeudal
exploitation also requires the maintenance of the "corporate"
structure of the peasant community. The cultural
content of this community structure is often "indigenous"
(or Indian), and at the level of social relationships the most
noticeable are the interethnic relations between Indians and
mestizos ( often referred to as ladinoa or gente de raz6n).
In this way a stratification system is established which is principally
based on cultural and ethnic factors (see Part m of
this book). Outside of this traditional structure, which still
includes a significant percentage of the Mexican peasant population,
totally capitalist class relations have been established
in the modem agricultural sector. Here medium and ·large
landholders employ salaried labor whose ranks grow at an
increasing rate due to the economic insufficiency of the minifundio
and the ejidal system,' permanent underemployment,
and demographic pressure. As a result, we see the development
in Mexico of a rural semi-proletariat of migratory workers,
who to a large measure· still maintain their ties to the
small landholding or minifundio.s
108 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
CENTRAL AMERICA
Let us look now at the agrarian situation in Central America.
In Guatemala, 9 the latifundio has always been the principal
form of agricultural exploitation. Private property is highly
concentrated and, in addition, there are large expanses of
national territory which are not cultivated at all, or which
are administered by the government Seventy-two per cent
of all land is occupied by only 2 per cent of all agricultural
units, and 13.4 per cent of the land is owned by just
twenty-two estates. From the end of the eighteenth century
and especially during the nineteenth century, commercial export
agriculture became the predominant economic activity.
Coffee at first and later bananas became the principal crops.
Coffee is most often cultivated on large estates owned by
Guatemalans, but bananas were grown almost exclusively on
the immense plantations of the United Fruit Company, a
United States-owned multinational corporation. Foreignowned
properties comprise 25 per cent of the total arable
land surface of Guatemala. After the revolution of 1944 some
efforts were made to carry out land reform. However, this
agrarian reform never really affected the latifundio structure
and was wiped out by the counterrevolutionary governments
that followed the coup of 1954.
Several social categories are found in the Guatemalan
countryside. From the cultural point of view, more than half
of the population is classified as Indian, and in Guatemala,
as in Peru and to a lesser degree southeastern Mexico, the
relations between ladinos (mestizos) and Indians characterize
the social universe. As in other places, the Indians belong
to the exploited classes of society but do not constitute an
undifferentiated homogeneous mass.
1 ) Almost half of the rural population is composed of
minifundista peasants who hold less than seven . hectares of
land. As elsewhere in Latin America the minifundistas live
in great poverty; cultivating their small plots for subsistence.
These peasants are found in the most backward areas of the
country. Instead of a real agrarian reform, the governments
which have followed one another in power since 1954 have
occasionally distributed uncultivated portions of national terSocial
Classes in Agrarian Societies 109
ritory, and in this way the number of minifundistas has grown.
2) In the backward regions populated by Indians, some
forms of communal land tenure still survive. Around 10 per
cent of the rural population are comuneros, that is, peasants
who enjoy the use of communal lands. Their living conditions
are similar to those of the minifundista. Tak.en together, these
two categories of peasants constitute the traditional sector of
subsistence farming in Guatemalan agriculture. It is in this
sector that we :find the corporate communities which form
the basic units of a complex regional system which will be
analyzed in Part III.
3) A considerable part of the rural · population in Guatemala
is landless. One of the most important categories among
these people is the mozos colonos, agricultural workers permanently
attached to the coffee and banana plantations. They
are generally found on plantations of more than one hundred
hectares controlled by absentee landowners. Their shacks
belong to the plantation,10 their salaries are low and paid
irregularly. At times they receive payment in cash, while at
other times they are given the right to work a small plot. Tak.en
as a whole, the poverty in which they live and the exploitation
to which they are subject, together with the possibilities
they have of organizing themselves, make this category of
peasants a potentially revolutionary element in the Guatemalan
countryside.
4) More than 200,000 landless men, women, and children
comprise a migratory labor force that travels the circuit of
agricultural regions each year at the time of the coffee harvest.
Some of these migratory workers clandestinely cross the
border into southern Mexico, where they offer their labor at
a price even lower than that paid to Mexican agricultural
workers (who, as we have indicated, migrate to the North of
Mexico and to the United States, where they, in turn, tend
to depress the level of agricultural wages). The life of the
Guatemalan migratory workers, who are in reality little more
than nomads, is totally disorganized and their income level
is undoubtedly the lowest of all categories of rural population
in Guatemala.
5) Approximately 10 per cent of the rural population is
made up of sharecroppers, tenants, and other kinds of peas110
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies .
ants who farm on an individual basis land that they do not
own. Such people are tied to the landowner through a variety
of contracts or agreements. These peasants cultivate subsistence
crops and, while they live in the same conditions of
poverty as the minifundistas, they are the object of direct,
undisguised exploitation and, as such, they constitute a far
more unstable social group with perhaps greater revolutionary
potential. The number of peasants who work the land as
sharecroppers, tenants, etc., is declining because the government
has initiated a program of agricultural modernization
which tends to increase the number of both minifundistas
and migratory agricultural workers.
6) Another group of independent farmers are those who
hold more than seven hectares of land and who usually employ
no more than five permanent agricultural laborers. These
farmers mainly produce food crops for national consumption.
This category is not very large nor does it play a very important
role in the Guatemalan countryside .
. 7) The peasant bourgeoisie is made up of the owners and
managers of · plantations ( especially coffee plantations) that
employ from five to twenty-five permanent agricultural workers.
This group is similar to its Mexican counterpart. It is
involved in both agriculture and commerce, in finance and
usury. These people represent the other pole of the traditional
agricultural sector.
8) Finally, in Guatemala there exists a stratum of large
(generally absentee) landowners, their administrators and
managers. These people control the greater part of the cultivable
land in Guatemala, which they exploit in the form of
commercial plantation agriculture. Generally, more than
twenty-five permanent agricultural workers are employed on
such plantations and the land is given over to the cultivation
of bananas or coffee. The plantation owners and managers
may be either Guatemalans or foreigners, but this social category
is completely international in its social orientation and
its economic situation depends almost entirely on foreign markets,
especially that of the United States.
In Guatemala, as in other Latin American countries, traditional
subsistence agriculture coexists with commercial farming.
But both sectors are equally responsible for blocking the
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 111
evolution of progressive and national capitalism in agriculture.
In the case of the traditional sector, minifundism, backward
technology, the semi-feudal structure of work and of
local markets, all contribute to the retardation of capitalist development.
In the case of export agriculture, both monoculture
and the dependence of this sector on foreign markets
contribute to underdevelopment. Of the eight social categories
of rural Guatemala, three (the minifunilistaa, the comuneros,
and the sharecroppers and tenants) form the foundation of a
traditional structure similar to that of Mexico. These three
groups are in opposition to the traditional peasant bourgeoisie.
Another two groups, the permanent plantation workers
(mows colonos) and the migratory workers, form the base
of the capitalist sector, in which they are exploited by the
large landowners, both national and foreign, and by their
representatives ( the administrators or managers of the plantations).
The plantation workers, however, do not yet constitute
a modem agricultural proletariat because their working
conditions under the present political system of Guatemala
(since the counterrevolution of 1954) places them in a situation
similar to that of Mexican peons before the Revolution
of 1910. The intermediate category of independent farmers
does not play as important a role as it does in some other Central
American countries.
In Costa Rica the greater part of the rural population traditionally
owned some land. But the extension of the monoculture
of coffee for export stimulated a series of structural
changes. Thus subsistence agriculture began to lose importance
and the larger coffee plantations began to absorb the
smaller landholdings, Today three types of properties exist
in Costa Rica: the large coffee plantation; the middle-sized
independent holding (the owner of which is called a gamonal);
and the minifundio, whose owners actually work as peons
on the large estates. The effects of the extension of monoproductive
agricultural capitalism and. change in the class
structure were studied by two American scholars who indicated
at the time (about 1950) that Costa Rica
appears to be in a transitional phase in which peasant properties
are being progressively suffocated by th~ huge plan112
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
tations and corporations which reduce the status of the
people from that of a peasantry to that of . peonage . . •
an increasing number of persons are transformed into laborers
and work for a subsistence wage as peons. for the
large landowners.u
Altogether in Central America we find landownership extr~
mely concentrated. On the one hand, 90 per cent of all
farms control only 20 per cent of the land; while 1.4 per
cent of the farms control 52 per cent of the total land surface.
12 Marroqwn classifies the Central American rural population
as falling into three large strata: .
1) The dominant class,. which represents 5 per cent of the
rural population and includes both the traditional large
landholders and the agricultural entrepreneurs (including
foreign companies) •
2) The middle class (15 per cent), which is comprised of
small and middle-sized landowners, sharecroppers, and
tenants, as well as rural merchants and government
officials.
3) The lower class (80 per cent), composed of rural wage
workers, mozos colonos, and small craftsmen.
CoNCLUSION
In Latin America four centuries of agrarian history from
the time of the Spanish Conquest have produced a polarization
characterized by the existence of many people who hold
very little land and a few people who control a great deal of
land. This concentration of landownership has determined
the relationship among social classes in the countryside and
has strongly influenced social stratification systems. A recent
study of seven Latin American countries which had not yet
carried out agrarian.reform demonstrated the.4egree to which
the. latifundio-minifundio complex inhibits economic and sociai
development of the agricultural sector, and how the rural
class and power structure is dominated by the large landowners.
is This study distinguished four kinds of agricultural
enterprise· in the seven countries studied. According to the
size of tbe farm units they are:
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 113
1) The sub-family farms, which are not large enough to
provide full employment or an adequate standard of
living to a peasant family which has a capacity for
employment of two man-years of labor ( the minifundio).
2) Family farms, large enough to meet the needs of a
peasant family and provide work for from two to four
persons per year.
3) The middle-sized multi-family farms, which require the
labor of from four to twelve people per year.
4) The large multi-family farms which employ more than
twelve persons per year ( the latifundio).
In the seven countries included in this study the agricultural
units are distributed in the following way:
RELATIVE NUMBER AND AREA OF FARM UNITS
BY SIZE GROuPS
Multi- Multi-
Country Sub-family Family family family Total
Medium Large
ARGENTINA
Number 43.2 48.7 7.3 0.8 100.0
Area 3.4 44.7 15.0 36.9 100.0
BRAZIL
Number 22.5 39.1 33.7 4.7 100.0
Area 0.5 6.0 34.0 59.5 100.0
CHll,E
Number 36.9 40.0 16.2 6.9 100.0
Area 0.2 7.1 11.4 81.3 100.0
COLOMBIA
Number 64.0 30.2 4.5 1.3 100.0
Area 4.9 22.3 23.3 49.5 100.0
ECUADOR
Number 89.9 8.0 1.7 0.4 100.0
Area 16.6 19.0 19.3 45.1 100.0
114 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
Multi- Multi-
Country Sub-family Family family family Total
Medium Large
GUATEMALA
Number 88.4 9.5 2.0 0.1 100.0
Area 14.3 13.4 31.5 40.8 100.0
PERU
Number 88.0 8.5 2.4 1.1 100.0
Area 7.4 4.5 5.1 82.4 100.0
In these seven countries, multi-family farms (which employ
wage workers in addition to family labor) control more
than half the land, but represent less than 25 per cent of all
farms ( except in Brazil, where they represent slightly over a
third of all farms). In five of the countries they account for
less than 10 per cent of all farms and in three of the countries
they represent less than 5 per cent. In two countries these
huge estates control more than 90 per cent of all the land.
In contrast, in three of the countries family farms represent
almost 90 per cent of all agricultural enterprises but control
less than 20 per cent of the land. In the four remaining countries,
land belonging to family farms represents less than 5
per cent of the total area in farms and in two of the countries
it accounts for less than 1 per cent of all the land. We find
the most drastic concentration of land in Ecuador, Guatemala,
and Peru.
In all of these countries landownership conveys great economic
and political power as well as social status. The authors
of the seven-nation survey have classified the agricultural
population into three socioeconomic categories:
1 ) The upper stratum, which includes the operators of
large and medium farms.
2) The middle stratum, composed of the administrators of
large and medium-sized farms and the owners and tenants
of family-sized farms.
3) The lower stratum, which includes the operators of
sub-family-sized farms as well as landless agricultural
workers and "communal" owners.
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 115
The distribution of these strata is given in the following
table:
Argen- Colom- Guate-
Status tina Brazil Chile bia Ecuador mala
Upper 5.2 14.6 9.5 5.0 2.4 1.6
Middle 33.9 17.0 19.8 24.8 9.5 10.0
Lower 60.9 68.4 70.7 70.2 88.l 88.4
(Operators
of sub-family
farms) (25.9) ( 8.6) (23.1) (47.0) (53.6) (63.6)
(Landless
workers) (35.0) (59.8) (47.6) (23.2) (34.5) (24.8)
TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
N .B. The data for Peru were not comparable and were excluded
for this reason. The figures in parentheses are partial percentages
which are included in the category "lower status."
We note that the lower stratum is numerically the largest
in all seven countries, and that the number of landless workers
( day laborers, agricultural wage workers, sharecroppers,
etc.) is high in relation to the bther social categories, especially
in Brazil and in Chile.
However, social stratifications in rural Latin America do
not rest exclusively on the agricultural economy. As we will
see later when we take a closer look at a specific region of
Mesoamerica, other factors (ethnic and cultural) influence
the formation of social stratifications.
In an article which gives a general view of social stratification
in Latin America, Ralph Beals14 asserts that a feudal
system of two opposing classes, whites and Indians ( or, in
other cases, whites and blacks), characterized Latin American
society over a long period. However, with the appearance
of the mestizo this dual scheme was transformed into a system
of three classes in which the mestizo occupies the position
of a middle class. However, as Beals affirms, the attitudes of
a two-class system persist and the mestizo middle class tends
116 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
to identify with the upper .class from which it is generally
descended. ·
This oversimplified view of Latin American society does
not permit us to understand the full complexity of the class
structure and stratification systems of the region. As far as
rural society is concerned, relations of production bring into
confrontation various social categories which cannot be reduced
to simple "upper" and "lower" classes. In addition,
stratification systems in Latin America are multiple and often
contradictory. In these stratifications we :find different cultural
types, physical types, and socioeconomic categories all ordered
hierarchically. Specific cultural and racial types which abound
in Latin America (such as the ladino, the cholo, the caboclo,
the Indian, etc,) do not constitute social classes in the sense
that we have dealt with the concept of class in this book. Nor
do they always represent precise elements in a social stratification
system when we consider that they constitute local,
relative, and subjective categories which vary greatly in content
from place to place.
Racial and ethnic relations in Latin America tend to reflect
class relations. However, they should not be confused with
class relations. Moreover, they have their own dynamic and
can be studied by themselves, although they should not be
considered independently of. their basis in the class .structure.
It is notsufficient to establish "hierarchies of prestige" based
on race as has been done, for example, in Brazil.lo We must
not forget that in Latin America, as Juan Comas has pointed
out, "the idea of race has served,. and unfortunately continues
to serve, as a justification for the socioeconomic and political
exploitation of large sectors of the Latin American population.
"16 In analyzing the rural class structure in Mexico we
have not . taken · into consideration relations between Indians
and mestizos because at this· level of our analysis it would
have distracted us from the determination of the socioeconomic
categories that constitute the true elements of a class_
structure. However, we will return to this question later on.
PART II
Commercial Farming
and Class Relations
in the Ivory Coast
CHAPTER 8
The Agni of
the Ivory Coast
The forest belt of West Africa extends from Guinea to Nigeria
along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. In this entire
region only Liberia has· ceded rights of exploitation to foreign
companies. Along this coastal strip commercial crops have
been grown since the tum of the century. Coffee and cocoa
are the principal crops of the region, but cola nuts, palm,
and bananas are also grown. These crops are produced by
African farmers who have increasingly turned from traditional
subsistence to commercial agriculture. This change bas
modified the class structure of these countries. New social
categories have developed, and new stratifications have been
substituted for the traditional stratifications and hierarchies.
Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and other countries
are undergoing fairly similar processes of socioeconomic
change. However, there are some significant differences from
country to country which are due to variations among the
old traditional structures, the colonial systems imposed by the
English and the French, and other secondary factors. While
we will be drawing on examples from the entire region, we
will focus on the case of the Agni farmers of the lower eastern
part of the Ivory· Coast. The Agni, . who are related to the
Ashanti of Ghana, have been extensively studied by ethnographers.
1
The traditional economy of the West African forest zone
was a subsistence economy whose · characteristics are well
known. Yet even before the introduction of commercial crops,
this . economy was neither closed, isolated, nor self-sufficient.
On the contrary, commercial relations were commonly carried
on among the different tribes in West Africa as well as
with the people of the trans-Saharan region or with European
120 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
commercial houses established on the coast. Among the Agni,
commercial exchange with the Dutch, English, and French
began during the seventeenth century. A caravan route extended
from the Coast to the interior of the Sudan, and over
several centuries traveling traders crossed the region on this
route, until the importance of the caravan was reduced by the
introduction of rail transport from Abidjan to the north. "At
:first," writes G. Rougerie, "this commercial route carried only
iron and tools, and at times, slaves in one direction and gold
dust and cola in the other • • • but it gave to the chiefs of
the comm.unities [ on the banks] of the many rivers that bad
to be crossed, the right to collect tolls and to carry on commercial
activities in the rest stops •••• " (P. 89). The economic
activity of the region first developed toward the end
of the nineteenth century with the growing demand for rubber.
Then the rhythm of life among the Agni changed profoundly.
• • • To the modest transactions of the local markets
which had only provided utensils and cloth for the
family unit, to the organic currents that emerged from
contact between complementary ways of life, to the activity
of the merchants of the Coast, was now added typical
colonial trade. Trading posts were established to acquire
the agricultural products needed by the metropolitan economy
and to begin the spread of European merchandise
throughout the interior of the country. [P. 92]
The collection of wild rubber and, later, the commercial
exploitation of lwilber in the forest regi.on contributed to the
transformation of the life-style of the forest people, even
before the introduction of the plantation economy. "By the
beginning of the twentieth century," Rougerie asserts, "the
plantation economy was about to flourish in the Agni world
••• the men were already pre-farmers" (p. 92).
PoLmCAL ORGANIZATION
Agni society was a warrior society organized into kingdoms
having centralized and strongly hierarchical political power.
The kingdom of Sanwi in the South seems to have been
more centralized than Ndenie in the North. The organization
of the Agni was quite similar to that of the Ashanti of
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 121
Ghana, to whom they are tied by common origin. The Agni
country was conquered by people who came from the east
and northeast probably during the seventeenth century. Several
other groups living in the region were subjected to the
rule of the Agni, as were immigrants who arrived later and
voluntarily accepted the sovereignty of the Agni kingdom.
However, as we will see later, the immigrants who arrived
during the twentieth century did not accept Agni rule, and,
unlike those who had come before them, they have questioned
the ancient rights of the Agni.
The Agni state was not highly structured. The king and his
court were installed in the capital while village chiefs occupied
local "stools" and, one notch below them, lineage chiefs
enjoyed some autonomy and authority over the lands and
populations that fell to their charge. The political integration
of the Agni kingdom was strong at the time of the military
conquests, but had progressively deteriorated throughout the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The bonds of vassalage
between the central power (made up of the king, his council,
three lieutenants, and occasionallythe consanguineous princes)
and the chiefs of the provinces, villages, and lineages underwent
changes over the years. But in general,
the king concentrates in his hands power over the preservation
of tradition, justice, the distribution of land, and of
course, military affairs. He delegates some of his powers,
principally those that have to do with justice and the distribution
of land, to his lieutenants and to the provincial
chiefs who, in turn, o~rate in the same way with respect
to the village chiefs.2
The relatively integrated political structure and the comparatively
pacific colonial penetration of the French permitted
the traditional chiefs to retain some measure of native political
power. As Kobben has pointed out,
The Agni are organized in small solidly constructed states
that offer serious resistance to the destructive work of new
times and that have, as a result, preserved to this day their
true value as political institutions. The French administration
that, in general, does .not apply the system of Indi122
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
rect Rule, here had to recognize the traditional chiefs and
leave them in their posts, although subject to [French]
control.a
So it is that the council of chiefs and the traditional courts
( especially those dealing with litigation over landholdings)
still function today far more effectively than the courts
established by the colonial administration. Like all political
systems, the Agni system contains contradictions and tensions
and, as Dupire has pointed out, "the French administrative
organization, in bringing together new and old authorities, did
nothing more than reinforce the oppositions inherent in the
traditional political system" (p. 153).
The traditional socioeconomic structure of the Agni was a
class structure in which nobles, freemen, and slaves occupied
three distinct positions in a network of social relationships.
The nobles, provincial, village, and lineage chiefs (who occupy
the "stools") express their loyalty to the king through
tribute, gifts, and labor contributions such as the preparation
of fields for sowing. The freemen, who do not occupy "stools,"
are placed under the authority of their chiefs, to whom they
must also provide tribute, gifts, and labor services. Though
subsistence agriculture predominated in the economic life of
the Agni, these labor services were used to increase the wealth
of the lineage, administrated by one of the chiefs, which was
used in turn for ceremonial exchange on the occasion of
weddings, funerals, etc. In some regions, in the absence of a
centralized political structure like that of the Sanwi, the lineage
constitutes the real unit of the social system in which
certain specific hierarchical relations existed. "At the head of
the lineage, the heir of the principal branch held authority
over all members of the lineage; his power has religious,
judicial and economic bases, the symbol of which was the
stool or 'Bya.' "4 But, as we will soon see, when the expansion
of the capitalist system introduced the plantation economy,
the labor services rendered to the lineage or village chiefs
began to express new class relations.
Slaves were generally the descendants of foreign tribes subjected
by military conquest to the authority of the Agni. While
slaves were obliged to perform very hard work and did not
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 123
enjoy the same civil rights as Agni citizens (for example, rights
of inheritance), they were, nevertheless, relatively integrated
into Agni lineages and families, and "their lot is really not
lamentable nor has it ever been."5 Today, now that slavery
has been abolished, the descendants of the slaves still occupy
an inferior social status. "The members of the tribe that were
not uterine descendants . . . were always considered to be
the servants or clients of the noble lineages. Movement from
one social category to another was unthinkable."6
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Traditional Agni society, warlike a,nd based on slavery, was,
like other African societies, a class society. Its wealth, appropriated
by the nobles and the royalty, was the product of
military conquest, labor services of freemen, and the work of
slaves. But military conquests and slavery have disappeared
and a different economy has given a new economic base to
this society. However, the traditional structure was the· basis
for a hierarchy or stratification which still exists today and is
only changing very slowly.
This traditional · stratification-the expression of class relations
that have all but disappeared-is composed of the following
categories:
At the top we :find the royal family, uterine descendants
of the first chiefs of the tribe . . . the class that has the
greatest prestige and possesses the total land surface in
which the Agni world is installed. Directly below this class
come the great men of the kingdom, also uterine descendants,
whether it be of the chiefs of the various groups
which make up the tribe, or of war chiefs. . . . The king
has distributed his territory to these men: under his high
authority they enjoy the prestige linked to his stool, which
is testimony of the nobility of his family, and they possess
rights over the strictly defined portion of territory that has
been conceded to them by the sovereign. Next come those
whom we may consider small nobility; great warriors to
whom the king has given a drum (Abua-panther) as an
insignia, chiefs of small recently arrived groups, and chiefs
of villages that are formed as a result of the breakup of a
124 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
group. These people have some authority and prerogatives,
and, in their circumscription, they enjoy rights to land.
The mass of the Agni population is made up of freemen.
7
The three upper strata mentioned here constitute a traditional
dominant class,
characterized by rights and obligations essentially defined
in order to make the political and administrative organization
function. Its members possess cultivable land, which is
farmed by the obligatory work, on a strict rotational basis,
of the inhabitants of the villages. Income is derived from
the collection of taxes, [the administration of] justice, toll
bridges and fishing.
The freemen, in turn, live from agriculture. At the bottom of
the traditional social stratification we find the descendants of
slaves. The work formerly carried out by slaves is now performed
by salaried agricultural workers, whom we will discuss
later.
Thus the traditional stratification includes five categories.
The three upper strata form a dominant class who exercise
their traditional control over the land, over the work of the
freemen, and over military activities. The majority of the
people form a class of free agriculturists "with no more prestige
than being the head of a family or of a lineage or simply
a member of one or the other," who represent the intermediate
stratum. Finally, there is a lower category of slaves and
their descendants.
While the economic bases of this hierarchy have almost
totally disappeared, stratification, as a system of values that
conditions the social behavior of the members of a society, is
still a living thing. Everyone who has studied the Agni agrees
on this point. Apart from the categories mentioned, the. Agni
area includes among its inhabitants members of foreign
tribes who have settled peacefully within the Agni territory.
Rougerie states that
the installation of a foreigner or a group of foreigners was
carried out with no formalities other than [personal] presCommercial
Farming and Class Relations 125
entation before a local chief or before the king himself
if a significant group was involved. The chief who received
these immigrants ceded to them a territory free of charge,
on which they could henceforth live as free men, equal to
the Agni, but not considered to be Agni subjects. [P. 65]
However, without the right to participate in the political
organization of the society, the . foreigner Qccupied de facto
an inferior position to that of the free Agni in the system of
stratification. We shall see how the increasing immigration of
foreigners into Agni land, under these circumstances, has been
one of the factors in the transformation of the class structure
and traditional system of stratification of Agni society. In
effect, if the foreigner earlier occupied some status, some
place in the society, be it that of slave, client, or an assimilated
person, today "the foreigners arrive en masse, not with
the intention of assimilating, but rather to earn their fortunes."
8 They no longer become integrated, as before, in:
the social structure of the host society.
THE LAND TENURE SYSTEM
Private ownership of land does not exist among the Agni.
Instead, land tenure rights are held collectively. In principle,
the entire Agni society, represented by a king whose authority
is sanctioned by religion, collectively holds the territory
under its control. In fact, it is the village and lineage
chiefs who control the land, who are the "lords of the land."
In societies where individual property is not consecrated by
law, it makes sense to speak of "ownership" · or "possession"
of the land only if we determine the activity with respect to
which this property or possession is established. Traditionally
in Agni society, land was not an object of exchange to be
bought or sold. "One of the essential principles," says Boutillier,
"is that everyone has access to the land, that is to say,
the right to cultivate a piece of land that will permit him to
live decently with his family" (p. 57). Consequently, the possession
of land is established as a function of agricultural
labor. But while not all the land is cultivated, there is never
any ownerless land because the land belongs to the ancestors
and, as such, to the community or the tribe as a whole.
126 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
On the other band, those who till the soil gain certain rights
over the land that they cultivate. While in principle only the
king in accord with his advisors can dispose of the land, in
fact it is the rural community that controls that part of the
territory over which the "stool" bas total authority. Direct
''possession" of the soil is only conveyed by individual or family
use. Thus the Agni recognize three or even four different
levels of land possession which traditionally were never in
opposition, but which are increasingly in contradiction today.
The land rights which overlap among the Agni are: the rights
of the entire Agni society to all the lands of the kingdom
(represented by the king); the right of the village chief
who occupies the "stool"; lineage rights; and finally, the
right of individual usufruct. Family or individual possession
of the land is only possible when the holders recognize the
authority of the village chief. This "possession" or usufruct of
the land can be transmitted despite the fact that the soil itself
is inalienable. The leveling of the forest traditionally conferred
the right of ''possession" over the land and, as such,
this right could be extended over fallow land and uncultivated
forest up to the point where the agriculturist might
find himself infringing upon the lands held by another agri:.
culturist of either the same or a neighboring village. Traditionally
conflicts over land were less frequent within a community
than between communities.
The installation of foreigners on Agni land was a relatively
simple process. To those who requested a plot, the king and
the village chiefs conceded land without rent in exchange for
the customary gifts or a small token payment. This payment
was neither a sale nor a rental of land, but rather a sign of
recognition of the sovereignty of the "stools," not so much
over the soil itself, but over him who cultivated it. Usufruct
rights obtained in this way by the foreigner could be transmitted
only with the consent of the village chief. This situation,
which, in principle, still governs relations between foreign
agriculturists and the Agni, bas been modliied in the
face of increasing immigration and the progressive disappearance
of cultivable land. As we will see later, such modifications
of tradition have created grave problems in Agni soCommercial
Farming and Class Relations 127
ciety. Still, it is clear that it was not the "ownership" of the
soil which conferred on the individual or the family the right
to establish themselves in Agni society. On the contrary, it
was the incorporation of the individual or family into Agni
society ( through pledges of loyalty to the king and recognition
of the sovereignty of the village chief) that conceded
usufruct rights, that is, possession of the soil, on immigrants.
The relations between the Agni and the foreigners were established
directly, not through the land. The reputation and
the power of the Agni kingdoms depended on the number of
people over whom their authority extended, and granting
possession of the land to immigrants was a means to this end.
Royal policy was essentially directed at the growth of the
kingdom through the increase of the numerous clients
whose descendants assured not only the extension of the
communities and the cultivation and enrichment of the
territory, but also the security of the borders, the continuity
of the ancestor cult and, as such, the renown of the
kingdom of Sanwi. 11
The situation was similar in the kingdom of Ndenie.10
However, the introduction of commercial crops has profoundly
changed this state of affairs, as we will see later, and
the traditional principles of land tenure have entered into
conflict with the new socioeconomic situation. At the same
time, foreigners find it increasingly difficult to obtain land
and, as a result, the relations between the Agni and the foreigners
established in their midst have changed.
Agni society is matrilineal and the inheritance of goods and
of the usufruct rights to land takes place collaterally from
mother's brother to sister's son, At the same time, the residential
principle is patrilocal, which contributes to a dispersion
of Iineages.11 These traditional principles of social
organization are currently in contradiction with recent socioeconomic
changes. We will discuss some of the conflicts that
have grown out of this situation in later chapters.
As long as subsistence agriculture predominated in Agni
society, the concept of private ownership of land could not
develop or become the basis of a differentiation into social
128 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
classes. But the changes that have taken place since the beginning
of this century have transformed the relations between
man and land and among men. At the same time, they
have put into question virtually every principle of social
organization among the Agni.
CHAPTER 9
The Commercial
Farm Economy
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLANTATION ECONOMY
In Sanwi, the transition from forest agriculture to commercial
farming did not take place spontaneously. Various economic
and political factors had to intervene before commercial crops
could be definitively established in this region. In 1903, the
status of protectorate was abolished and the French established
their direct administrative rule over the area. The people
were obliged to pay a direct tax to the colonial administration,
and at the same time, a substantial part of the income of the
Agni king was cut back. This led to a power crisis and a progressive
weakening of the royal family. During the First World
War, the price of rubber collapsed, and the effect was immediately
felt by the Agni who lived from gathering latex. At
the same time, the Agni lost their monopoly control of the
caravan routes when the railroad from Abidjan to Bouake
was opened. These events stimulated the emigration of population
to the Gold Coast, a movement which reached considerable
proportions when military recruitment began among
the Agni in 1916 and 1917. From 1915 onward, the French
administration was establishing the cultivation of cocoa as a
new base for a profit economy. At first the peasants refused
to cultivate the commercial crop, and they destroyed the
plants before they could grow to maturity. But commercial
cultivation persisted, and when the emigrants returned to
the country after the war, commercial agriculture spread
throughout the country.
While the same immediate factors did not operate in the
Ndenie area, in Ghana, or in the forest region of Nigeria,!
nevertheless, the same general evolution from subsistence to
commercial agriculture took place. And today, throughout
130 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
this region of western Africa, the cultivation of cocoa and
coffee forms the basis of the national economy of various
countries.
With the establishment of these crops, the subsistence cultivator
was transformed into a commercial farmer or planteur.
2 This process cannot be understood in isolation. Certain
prior conditions were necessary in order to bring about
the metamorphosis of the traditional society. These conditions
were: 1) the opening of the country to the outside
world, through the establishment of commercial enterprises by
the colonial metropolis and the extension of trading activities;
2) the weakening of traditional political organization . due to
the establishment of direct colonial administration (in the
French territories), or the subordination of traditional power
to metropolitan administration (the indirect rule of the British);
and 3) the imposition of a monetary economy, which
stimulated the extension of commercial crops, in the form of
taxation and labor services paid to the colonial administration.
This process of change has produced profound alterations,
not only in the economy itself, but also in the forms of work,
the organization of the family, and the system of values. Let
us analyze in greater detail some of the effects of this transformation
and their relationship to the class structure and
stratification.
Traditional subsistence agriculture was of the itinerant
slash and bum type. In contrast, coffee and cocoa are permanent
crops. Three to four years are needed for these plants
to reach maturity and bear fruit. But once they reach this
stage, if well cared for, they bear fruit for approximately
thirty years. It is clear that this situation totally alters the relations
between man and the land. Commercial crops require
far more abundant labor supply than subsistence food crops.
However, this labor supply is seasonal and concentrated during
the harvest period, generally from October to February.
This is also the time of greatest trade, the season of the year
when economic activity intensifies throughout the region and
commercial exchange accelerates. The people have money,
and they spend it. The rhythm of life throughout the country
is stepped up. Once this period of intensified economic
activity is over, the rhythm slows once again. Thus a new
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 131
annual cycle considerably different from the cycle associated
with subsistence agriculture has evolved in coffee- and cocoaproducing
countries. But perhaps the most important effect of
the commercial farming economy is that which it has had on
the subsistence food crops. During the first years of the preparation
of a coffee or cocoa farm, it is possible to grow the
traditional subsistence crops at the same time on the same
plot of land. But once the farm begins to produce, this is no
longer possible. The farmer has to use other parcels of land
to produce staple crops, or he must abandon their production
altogether. In the cocoa-growing region of Nigeria, the agriculturists
have completely abandoned subsistence farming and
buy food in the market for their own consumption. Here a
monetary economy has completely taken the place of sut,..
sistence agriculture.a In other regions the changes have not
been as radical. In a cocoa growing village in Ghana, most
of the subsistence crops were still produced in the community
during the 1930s.4 And in the Agni kingdom of Sanwi, according
to Rougerie,
traditional subsistence agriculture has remained, underlying
modem farming; there has not been substitution, but
rather superimposition; it even seems that the Agni of
Sanwi have a more balanced regime and are today better
supplied with food products of local origin than are their
brothers in Ndenie.5
But for this to be the case, special conditions were needed
because there exists, after all, a basic contradiction between
commercial and subsistence crops. However, in this region
of the Agni country, the land has been abundant enough, at
least up to the present time, for commercial export crops
and subsistence farming to coexist. In addition, labor has
been supplied by immigrant workers from the North of the
Ivory Coast, from Upper Volta, and even from Mali.
LAND AND FAMILY LABOR
The Agni farmer, exercising his rights to possess and use the
land he has cleared, has generally been able to expand his
farms. However, this expansion is limited by two factors: the
availability of land near the village, and the supply of family
132 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
labor. The agriculturist extends his fields until he finds further
extension blocked by the expansion of other farmers.
Thus he is obliged to move further and further from his village
and to .clear new lands in distant forest areas. When we
take into consideration the distances, the available time, the
multiplicity of tasks that he has to carry out, and the number
of family members who are able to assist in this process, we
see that the average agriculturist finds it difficult to build up
a large number of commercial farms. Small farms still predominate
in this country. In Sanwi, the cultivated area
amounts to 1.8 hectares of commercial crop land per rural
inhabitant. In Ndenie, cultivated surface equals 1.2 hectares
per rural inhabitant. In the Bonguanou region, further west,
the cultivated area is larger, reaching an average of 5.3 hectares.
In Ghana and Nigeria, the small farm of less than one
hectare of land is the average holding. But this situation is in
no way permanent. The average size of the farms rises over
the years, while the variation of size among farms is greata
problem to which we will return later.
The availability of family labor is the second important
factor which affects the new commercial farming economy.
The traditional economic unit of Agni society is the lineage
or the part thereof that occupies a "rectangle" or "compound"
(Auro). The Auro was composed of the chief of the rectangle,
his family, and several subordinate families. In Bonguanou,
a medium-sized compound generally included about
twenty-five people of three different families. Consequently,
there was a sufficient labor supply for the production of subsistence
crops. Once commercial crops were planted, family
labor was dedicated to their cultivation. But a commercial
farming economy is a monetary economy, and the farmer
sells his cocoa and coffee in the market. There he receives
money that he is free to use as he wishes, choosing among a
variety of possible alternatives. Above all he may accumulate
money, invest it, spend it, or purchase consumer goods with
it.
At this point, the cohesion of the lineage as a unit of production
and consumption breaks down .. The young people
realize that with a cocoa or coffee farm, they can receive an
income, money of their own that they can spend as they like,
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 133
thus freeing themselves from the authority of the elders. Given
the ease with which a member of the community can acquire
usufruct of the land, the young men of the village generally
want to establish their own farms and break away from the
rigid organization of the lineages. Once this occurs, the
farmer who is head of a family or a lineage finds himself with
an insufficient supply of family help, and must resort to the
use of immigrant wage labor. His capacity for further expansion
is dependent upon his :financial possibilities. The Agni
farmer is thus transformed into an employer.a The corollary
of this situation is that once agricultural produce is sold on
the market and an income is received by the head of a lineage,
family members who contribute their labor ( especially
those who are also themselves heads of families) realize that
their labor can be measured in monetary terms. At this point,
the relations of production within a single lineage take on the
characteristics of class relations. As long as each Agni farmer
has the right to cultivate a plot of land-that is, as long as
the concept of private ownership of the land has not been established-
he prefers to become an independent farmer rather
than remain in the employ (even if remunerated) of the head
of the lineage. This preference is strengthened by the belief
that, according to the system of values of the traditional
hierarchy, an Agni must never occupy the inferior position
of employee.
THE INHERITANCE OF PLANTATIONS
This new family situation produces other problems-in particular,
problems related to the inheritance of goods. As we have
seen, traditional inheritance is transmitted from the maternal
uncle to sister's sons. However, because residence is partially
patrilocal, at times very close personal relations are established
between fathers and sons. This situation contains the
seeds of conflict (matrilineage versus patrilocality) and creates
a state of crisis in the commercial farming economy. In
effect, while land is not transferable merchandise, the farm is.
Furthermore, the farm represents important capital, given
the years of work that are absorbed in its preparation. The
Agni agriculturist finds it difficult to respect a tradition that
dictates that his farm, which is in such large part the product
134 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
of the labor of his own sons, be passed on not to those same
sons, but rather to a nephew, to whom the farmer feels less
attached. On the other hand, the young men who have participated
in the creation of a farm have no way of knowing if
the farm they will inherit from their uncle will be equal to
the one on which they have labored throughout their youth.
As a result, it is increasingly common that the farmer. gives a
piece of his own farm to his sons during his lifetime, subtracting
this land from the legacy he is obliged by tradition
to leave to his nephew. Aware that this situation is unfavorable
to them, many young men begin to establish farms on
their. own long before the question of inheritance comes up,
and in this way, they limit the possibility for . the expansion
of their father's or their lineage chiefs farms. Among the
Bete of the Ivory Coast, a similar situation has developed.
While the Bete are a patrilineal people, traditional inheritance
takes place collaterally. Here the agriculturist is obliged by
tradition to pass his farm on to his younger brother, rather
than to his son. But in the case of the Agni, this situation has
changed since the introduction of commercial crops. 7 On
the other hand, given that • many legacies are hamstrung with
corresponding familial obligations, here also some of the
young agriculturists openly reject their inheritance and prefer
to work individually on their own farms. Thus we see how
commercial farming breaks down the traditional family organization,
and how this breakdown in tum stimulates the
extension of this form of economy. The process is not simple
and unilateral but rather complex and involved. It contributes
to the formation of a new category of farmers, of individualistic
agricultural entrepreneurs, and thus to the rise of the
spirit of capitalism.
TuE NEW SOCIAL CATEGORY OF COMMBRCi:AL FARMERS
The situation. that we have just described does not occur in
exactly the same way in all the different regions, and the
changes that we have highlighted do not take place in a single
stroke. In fact, while a new economy has come to replace
the traditional subsistence economy, new principles of social
organization have not yet completely replaced the old. Instead,
new principles are found in a state of formation. In
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 135
some places, the traditional chiefs have understood the process
very well-perhaps under pressure from the colonial authorities-
and, taldng advantage of their superior position, they
have been able to build up sizable commercial farms. Boutillier
has written,
Thus, certain structural characteristics of Agni social organization
have favored the category of commercial farmers
that includes village and lineage chiefs. The size of
their family groups and, most important, the free labor
that members of the community, members of the lineage
and descendants of former slaves are traditionally obliged
to render, have made these chiefs masters of a sizeable labor
supply that they were able to utilize before the war, to
create fairly large farms. [P. 67]
In this case the new economic situation has reinforced the
traditional hierarchy. The dominant class in Agni society has
proved capable of adapting to new economic conditions. But
the traditional hierarchy could not persist in the long run because
the traditional social organization was incapable of
adapting to a profit economy without changing dramatically.
On the one hand, after the Second World War, the colonial
administration abolished the practice of traditional obligatory
labor services. On the other hand, students of Agni society
tell us that the Agni do not like to work for wages ( and we
must stress that once we begin to talk of a monetary economy,
the labor services rendered to a traditional chief no longer
have the same social and communal character that they had
formerly).
However, other structural factors have also intervened.
Given the principles of land tenure that characterize Agni
society, although the chiefs control all access to the land, they
cannot prevent a member of an Agni village from taldng
advantage of the right of usufruct he is guaranteed by tradition.
As a result, if at the beginning of the development of
commercial farming, the traditional chiefs ( or at least some
of them) could still exercise some pressure over the servile
labor force within their jurisdiction, eventually these laborers
were able to gain some independence because of their free
access to the land in accordance with the traditional rights of
136 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
land tenure. The very principles of land tenure have thus
prevented the traditional chiefs (with very few exceptions)
from using their dominant position in the traditional hierarchy
to transform themselves into large commercial farmers.
In contrast, in other places the traditional and traditionalist
chiefs, perhaps fearful that the introduction of commercial
farming would sooner or later spell the end of their
authority, refused to become involved in the new form of agriculture.
In these regions it was most often the descendants of
the former slaves and captives, people of inferior status who,
being perhaps more susceptible to the pressures of the French
administration and moved by the desire to gain economic
freedom, managed to build up farms of considerable size. In
these cases, -the old hierarchy has been transformed. The
new agriculturists have adopted the values of a monetary
economy, so much more eagerly because it has succeeded in
emancipating them from _th eir ascribed condition of inferiority.
In this way there developed a category of new men
who "manage to elevate themselves in wealth to a position
higher.· than that of_ the nobility _ and who thereby acquire
gre~t .economic and even s.ocial influence."8 The value system
of · these men is in conflict with that of the old stratification
and a power struggle between the old and the new elites has
been_ unleashed. "As a result, a new social group has been
born, which stands alongside of and in opposition to the old
groups. _ The prestige of this new group is _ not based on birth
but rather on money acquired thanks to commercial crops."9
CHAPTER 10
Inter ethnic
and
Class Relations
THE FOREIGN IMMIGRANT AS COMMERCIAL FARMER
In the last two chapters we have been discussing the internal
changes in Agni society brought about by the development of
a monetary economy. We have also mentioned the immigration
to the Agni region ofpeople from the northern areas of
the Ivory Coast and even from beyond its borders. This migratory
movement affects the economic and social terms of
the. development of social classes.1 We have noted that the
settlement of outsiders in the Agni area is not a recent phenomenon.
However, since the spread of commercial farming
the jfow of migrants to the forest region has reached significant
proportions, and today the · economic activities of the
region are, in large part, based on the foreigners who reside
in the area.
Among the Agni a foreigner is anyone who was not born
in Agni territory and ''who does not have hereditary rights
of access to authority and to the land."2 Two kinds of immigrants
are found here. There are those who have come to
install themselves on a plot of land in order to establish a
commercial crop farm, and those who come as seasonal wage
laborers to work on the farms of the Agni or other foreigners.
The first type of· immigrant is characteristic of the early
stages of the monetary economy, while the second is inseparable
from the present stage, in which commercial crops
have become fully established .
. We have already noted that, in order to establish himself
as a farmer, the foreigner had only to ask permission of the
local chief who distributed land rights. In this way a good
portion of Agni land was ceded to foreigners and requests
138 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
for land became increasingly frequent as commercial farming
spread. Except for certain taxes and gifts, the immigrant
agriculturist had no other obligation to the traditional chiefs.
While the land was free and uncultivated, foreigners came
individually or in small groups to -install themselves, and establish
their own communities or camps in the woods that they
labored to clear. Those who arrived first were soon followed
by their relatives, friends, and other people from their home
villages. Very soon the new immigrants no longer sought permission
from the traditional chief before going ahead to establish
themselves on the land. Instead, they received the
authorization to install themselves from the original immigrant,
who, by now, had become the chief of the new community.
The foreign settlers, generally patrilineal, passed their farms
from father to son. In addition, upon leaving the area they
would sell their farms to other foreigners, although the land,
according to customary law, should have reverted to the
Agni. Thus, in some regions and localities, immigrant farmers
have become an important minority, and in some places
even the majority of the population.a At the same time, in
certain regions land has become scarce and, with the spread
of the commercial farms; it has acquired an exchange value.
Today the Agni find it increasingly difficult to cede land to
foreigners, and in some regions they have completely given
up the practice. But the situation is now out of their hands.
By now the immigrant farmers have become a social force
who demand their own rights and refuse to recognize Agni
supremacy in the area. "Some form of control was adopted
by the natives only after this situation [i.e., foreign immigration]
had become an accomplished fact." The foreigner, "from
a client tied to the fate of his host, has become an equal or an
exploiter because today he usurps the rights that were not
freely given to him."4
The growing social and economic importance of the foreigners
tends to undermine further the traditional structures
of Agni society. The immigrants no longer accept the principles
that govern land tenure. They consider land as private
property, as salable merchandise, as capital. They attempt to
obtain property titles recognized by the national (formerly
colonial) administration. At the same time, in order better to
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 139
defend the rights they demand over the land they occupy, they
refuse to integrate themselves into Agni society, or even to
accept its values, or co-operate with it. Instead, they maintain
their own cultural and social identity. This effort is made
easier by the fact that a multiplicity of cultural characteristics
distinguish the Agni from the other peoples of the Ivory
Coast. Not only does the matrilineal principle of descent of
the Agni contrast with the patrilineal descent of the immigrants,
but a great number of the latter, especially the Mossi
of Upper Volta, are Muslims whose customs and habits clash
sharply with the Christianity . or traditional religion of the
Agni. In addition, the Agni have always. considered the foreigners
to be. their inferiors, even when the latter have integrated
or assimilated into Agni society. · ·
In the face of the separatism of the immigrant communities,
which the Agni consider to be an attack on their sovereigrtty
within . their very own country, the Agni try· at all costs to
maintain their traditional principles· of land tenure. However,
they are unable to make.the foreigners respect them. We have
noted that within Agni sociefy itself, new social and economic
forces are already undermining . the traditional structures.
The foreign agriculturists have come-either consciously or
unconsciously-to take · advantage of the internal conflicts
within Agni society, and the presence of immigrants in their
midst tends to sharpen these internal conflicts, The foreigners,
who have been attracted by the advantages of commercial
agriculture, see in the establishment of commercial farms
the essential reason of their settlement in the Agni country.6
Consequently, they have a strong interest in the establishment
of new principles of land tenure that would definitively recognize
and protect private land ownership. In this sense, it might
be said that the foreigners are moving with the current of
history. In contrast, the native Agni are swimming against
the current and are tied in that position by adherence to principles
which are replete with internal conflict. They try to
reinforce their traditional land tenure system in opposition to
foreign immigrants. However, at the same time, they recognize
the need for new legal principles governing land tenure
and inheritance that would correspond to the requirements
of the new economy. As a result, the immigrant agriculturists
140 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
(Diola, Baoule, and, to a lesser extent, Mossi) tend to form
a new social category. This has led to a growing conflict
between the Agni and the communities of immigrants which
has economic roots, but tends to develop into an interethnic
conflict. '"Ihe cultural divergencies between native and foreign
groups became irreconcilable when the foreigners ceased
to be isolated clients and became sufficiently numerous and
economically independent to demand complete socioeconomic
autonomy."6 In effect, ''the natives and the foreigners have
become two poles that · repel one another because they demand
the same quality of rights in a global society whose
traditional hierarchical values are disappearing" (p. 22).
These same ethnic problems that develop from foreign immigration
into the forest regions where commercial agriculture
has taken hold are found also in other parts of the Ivory
Coast and in Ghana. At times these conflicts grow sharper,
but. in other cases the relations between the immigrants and
natives are more cordial. In the region of Divo, for example, as well as among the Gouro (a neighboring ethnic group),
conflicts arose when immigrants refused to pay for the right
to use the land. In contrast, in the Gagnoa region, the chiefs
sell land easily to the immigrant farmers. Raulin writes,
Thus, we can conclude that tensions are not carried to the
extreme, and the equilibrium between the native population
and the immigrants is not broken except in those regions
where competition for the land has become very sharp and
then only when the agglomeration of the immigrant population
in one place appears to constitute a threat to the
political independence of the native population. [P. 93]
Throughout this part of Africa, the immigrant farmers appear
to be more dynamic than their native counterparts. Their
farms are more productive, and they accumulate more capital
than do the indigenous farmers. In the forest region of
Akim Abuakwa in Ghana, the immigrants were, in fact, the
:first to establish cocoa farms. 7 And among the Gouro, immigration
increased with the extension of commercial agriculture,
and the Mossi immigrants, for example, "are today
found among the largest producers of coffee in the region." 8
Commercial Farming and. Class Relations 141
'fHB FOREIGN IMMIGRANT AS DAY LABORER
While the migratory current we are examining is composed
in part of foreign cultivators who hope to settle among the
Agni, the group also includes a totally temporary and unstable
labor force without which the Agni farms could never
have reached their present stage of development. The migrant
laborers who work the coffee and cocoa farms generally
come alone, unaccompanied by their families, for only
a limited time and with no purpose other than to earn a little
money and return to their homeland. However, during their
stay among the Agni their situation may change. For many
of these "temporary" workers the months turn into years and
some ·even manage to obtain their own farms and settle permanently
in the region. Whether this occurs depends in large
part on the kind of work contract through which the migrants
are brought to the farms. There are several kinds of work
contracts, and they are associated with different types of
work.
1. The Abusan Contract
The most common form of work on the commercial farms is
the abusan contract (abusa in Ghana), the Ashanti term
meaning a "third share." There are several forms of abusan,
and it seems that the term originally referred to a form of
sharecropping in which the agriculturist received from the
"stool" a plot of land in return for which he was obliged to
give over -to the chief one third of his harvest. Today, reduced
to its simplest.form, this-kind.of work contract ties the
worker to the owner of a coffee or cocoa farm. The worker
is committed to cultivate the farm or a part thereof over a
certain period of time ( the length of the contract varies)
until the crop has been harvested. At this point the laborer
is entitled to keep one third of the harvested crop. Under
certain circumstances· he may receive up to one half of the
harvest when the yield has been low and the work particularly
hard. When this occurs, the system is referred to as
abudian, meaning "_divided in halves."
The specific customs governing the abusan system vary. At
times the farm owner works side by side with the laborer. In
142 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
general, the abusan system allows the sharecropper some initiative
and leeway to decide the amount of coffee or cocoa
he will cultivate, the hours he will work, and the way in which
his tasks will be organized. According to local conditions and
particular circumstances, the boss may or may not give food
and lodging to the worker. In Ghana, this type of worker is
called a "caretaker." Among the Agni, he is generally considered
to be a kind of sharecropper (Dupire). However,
this term is not completely accurate, because the worker usually
begins work on a farm that is already producing a crop
and remains there during a single agricultural cycle. At no
time does he take ''possession" of the land, as is the case with
a true sharecropper. On the other hand, the system has also
been characterized as a type of piecework.9 To the degree that
the farm is a capitalist enterprise, we may say that there is a
kind of profit sharing. Owners and workers each find certain
advantages in the system. For the owner this system implies
fewer risks because he closely associates the worker with the
success or failure of the harvest and the :fluctuations of the
market, and the owner is not obliged to spend any fixed sum
of· money to employ the services of his farmhand. Likewise,
the system guarantees that the worker will have an interest
in producing the largest possible crop. This would not be the
case were he working on a salary. In addition, the owner is
relieved of the tasks of control and supervision of the worker's
labor because the latter has his own direct interest in the
product of his work.
The worker, in turn, generally considers the abusan system
to be superior to simple wage labor. He often views
this kind of employment as a stepping-stone to obtaining his
own farm. It gives him the opportunity to develop independence
and initiative. However, when the price of cocoa or coffee
is low, the worker makes very little from this system; and
when the price of these crops is high, then it is the owner who
prefers to hire wage labor, rather than divide his profits ·
with a sharecropper.
The abusan worker is generally allowed to cultivate certain
subsistence food crops on his own. A worker of this type is
guaranteed the produce of two hectares of commercial crops
which, for a season .of from four to six months of work,
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 143
provides him with an income of from forty to sixty dollars.
However, it has been calculated that the workers reduce their
expenses to a minimum during their stay among the Agni
and save an average of 25 per cent of their income to send
or carry with them to their homeland. The abusan contract
generally ends with the sale of the produce, and during the
i,lack season between harvests~ the worker often seeks some
other form of employment.
2. Other Kinds of Contract
There are other kinds of work which are remunerated in
money. In Ghana, under the nkotokuano system, the laborer
is contracted to work through the harvest season and receives
a sum which corresponds. to the weight of the cocoa he has
harvested. In this case, the workers have the same obligations
as those involved in the abusan system, but they are
generally more mobile and less stable, and may be employed
in other work at the same time. The remuneration they receive
varies according to the price of cocoa and the supply of
labor, and it commonly represents from one eighth to one
fifth of the price obtained by the owner for the cocoa harvested
by the worker. As a result the nkotokuano worker
occupies a place on the social scale well below that of the
abusan worker. This situation is essentially due to a surplus
of labor in Ghana, which does not reach the same proportions
in other regions.
· Among the Agni, in addition to the abusan system, there
is another common form of employment in which the worker
is paid according to task, based on a. working day of eight
hours, supervised and controlled by the owner. This system
is most commonly in practice during the period between harvests.
However, it is sometimes substituted for the abusan
system during the harvest itself. A study carried out in the
Ivory Coast has shown that men employed in commercial
agriculture seem to be satisfied with either one of these two
systems. In contrast to what we find in Ghana, the monetary
wages received by these workers are more or less equal to
the income of abusan . laborers. In addition to occasional and
seasonal labor paid by task or by the day (sixty cents per
day or thirty cents if food and lodging are provided), a
144 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
man may also work as a salaried laborer in a far more stable
situation based on a monthly or annual contract. This type of
work is what most workers seek. Unfortunately, it is the hardest
to find.
Aside from the work contracts we have already described,
many immigrants work as "contractors." Contractors are commonly
employed in the establishment of new farms. These
men specialize in leveling and clearing . the land and other
tasks related to the establishment of a farm. They are paid
more than ordinary day laborers because the work they
carry out is considered to be highly skilled. In Ghana, the
establishment of a new farm is a specialized job which may
not be entrusted to just any worker who might come along
seeking employment. In fact, formerly the worker so skilled
as to be able to perform this difficult task was entitled to half
of the harvest on the land cleared for the owner. However,
today it is increasingly common to pay workers who prepare
the land for new farms on a piecework basis.
THE FORMATION OF A NEW SOCIAL CLASS
The number and variety of different work forms illustrates
the complex character of the farming economy and indicates
that the West African forest belt is in a period of transition.
Both the abusan system and the practice of withholding
salary from seasonal workers until the end of the harvest are
due to the fact that during the slack season there is a general
lack of money. It is probable that to the extent that a monetary
economy develops and farmers dispose of more cash
throughout the year, money wages will become increasingly
common. The immigrants tend to prefer the abusan system
to simple wage labor, especially when the latter is seasonal
and occasional. Many immigrants begin as occasional workers,
later manage to get work as abusan laborers, and eventually
come to own their own farms. But if we look· at the
development of the region as a whole, it seems probable
that wage labor will increasingly be substituted for the system
of abusan. This will occur in part because of the increasing
availability of money throughout the year. It will also occur
because continued immigration increases the supply of labor
145
a
--g reat-er .... ~t.
. . . Thanks to favorable concfitR>ns-or--m~~ - _ __ us
group of more dynamic farmers comes to establish sizeable
farms and achieves a high standard of living. [P. 103]
Other agriculturists have attained the same objectives in
the context of the extended family. For example, a group of
_-'='-_'=-_:__~---==~=~- = ~= ....::-_-------=-=----_- -----
I I
....-;-
_ 11.
148 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies e
repayable in coffee or cocoa on the basis of the lowest
rate of the preceding harvest. The merchant makes a good
profit, but the farmer grows poorer and thus, must necessarily
get a new loan to begin the new agricultural cycle.1
Indebtedness is general and represents one factor of the grow-
. · · '' - - ~,.,,"" o farmers. In his study of this probi
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conCHAPTER
12
The Maya Highlands
of Chiapas (Mexico)
and Guatemala
The mountain region of Guatemala and of Chiapas in southeastern
Mexico is the home of indigenous groups whose
various languages (Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Quiche, Chorti, etc.) all
belong to the Maya family. The region has often been characterized
as a cultural unit.· In spite of the political border. that
$eparates · Mexico from. Guatemala, which imposes certain
differences on. the people who live on either side, similarities
in economic, political, and social structures, as well as a common
colonial history, fully justify. treating the two populations
together.
Culturally, the Maya area belongs to the Mesoamerican
region. From the time of the Spanish Conquest, distinctive
characteristics have persisted here; due to the fact that the
social and economic organization of the native Indian population
and that of the Spanish conquistadores was very similar,
"both being based on intensive agriculture and the exploitation
of a huge class of agricultural laborers. Political. and
religious aspects of both cultures not only had local manifestations,
but also were organized into hierarchical bureaucracies.
"1 As a result, the Spaniards were able to establish themselves
in this zone with greater ease, and without provoking
the profound changes that characterized the Spanish conquest
of the plains and the coastal regions. In the Mayan cultural
area-as in all of Indian America-the Spaniards established
their encomiendas and their tributes, and gained complete
control over the labor force. With regard to matters of state,
''they quickly placed themselves at the top of the hierarchy
and governed the mass of the population through native intermediaries
in the lower echelons of the bureaucracy."2
164 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
The Spaniards, writes one author,
as a colonizing people had a clear political vision of the
function that they could play in the process of incorporating
the Indian into the colonizing work of Spain ••• [by]
utilizing the old native hierarchies. They also followed a
policy of gaining control of the most docile chiefs through
corruption and bribery, allowing them to maintain their
personal privileges so that they could be led to serve the
cause of the colonizer.a
Some forms of pre-Columbian and colonial social organization
have survived in these regions to the present day.
THE COMMUNITY AND THE MUNICIPIO
The people of these mountain regions of Mesoamerica live
dispersed in small, more or less self-sufficient communities
tied to one another and to urban or semi-urban centers
through economic relations and political dependency, These
people are only slightly integrated into national structures,
and their dynamic is based on regional forms of economic
and political organization. Ecologically, it is possible to distinguish
three types of community:
1) The dispersed community with a politico-religious ceremonial
center in which public buildings ( a town hall, church,
school, etc.) are located, but in which the population is
small and made up only of those people who are directly involved
in public functions. The greater part of the population
lives dispersed in small villages which surround the ceremonial
center. On market days and fiestas, the center hosts a large
:floating population from the countryside. It appears that this
form of geographic organization has its origin in pre-Hispanic
times.
2) The "compact community," which is undoubtedly the
result of a Spanish policy of regrouping the native population.
The people of such communities live in a village which
is generally laid out according to a geometric plan, divided
into neighborhoods which often have important religious or
political functions. The agricultural fields are located at some
distance from the village. Here the agriculturists often construct
little huts in which they spend the night when work in
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 165
the fields does not permit them to return to the village. The
public buildings stand in the center of the community. Often
the socioeconomic status of members of the community is
made explicit by the specific arrangement of houses in the
village: the people who enjoy high status occupy homes close
to the center, while lower status individuals occupy homes
farther away, with the socioeconomic level of homeowners
decreasing in proportion to the distance of living quarters
from the village center. This type of community also includes
a certain number of non-agricultural specialists like artisans,
merchants, officials, etc. In these communities two ethnic
groups generally reside: the Indians and the non-Indians:
3) The third type of community is a combination of the
two communities described above. · Generally one part of the
population ( often one of the ethnic groups) lives in a concentrated
form, while the other dwells · dispersed in houses
constructed in the middle of small plots of land~ but at the
same time within the administrative limits of the community.4
The Maya highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala have the
peculiarity that each local community constitutes a cultural
and social unit which is distinguished from other similar communities,
and whose limits, furthermore, coincide with those
of modem political-administrative units called municipalities
or municipal agencies. Thus· the Indian population of every
municipality ( or municipal agency) can be distinguished from
others through their clothing, dialect, membership and participation
in a religious and political structure of their own.
This usually involves economic specialization, as well as a
developed feeling of identity with other members of the community,
reinforced by a somewhat generalized endogamous
system. Aside from being an administrative unit integrated in
Mexican and Guatemalan national political structures, the
municipality represents in this region the · framework of the
Indian population's social universe, which has been called
"tribe" by some ethnologists, and which others have even
termed the germ of the "nation."5 This coincidence of modern
municipal· institutions with traditional Indian structures,
resulting from the particular historical evolution of the region,
has allowed the survival of the latter within the framework of
the modem national state.
166 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
INDIANS AND LADINOS
In the entire region and in almost all of the local communities
there coexist two kinds of populations, two different social
groups: Indians and ladinos. The problem of the relationships
between these two ethnic groups has been. approached
in different ways by anthropologists. Only a few of them, however,
have attempted an interpretative analysis within the
framework of the global society.
It is a well-known fact that biological factors do not account
for the differences between the two populations; we
are not dealing with two races in the genetic sense of the
term. It is true, of course, that in a general way the so-called
Indian population answers to biological traits corresponding
to the Amerinds, and equally that the so-called ladino population
shows the biological traits of the Caucasoids. But even
though ladinos tend to identify with whites, in fact they are
generally mestizo. It is the social and cultural factors which
are taken into account to distinguish one population from
the other.a
For a long time it was common practice to draw up a list
of identifiable cultural elements in order to distinguish both
groups: language, clothing, agricultural technology, food,
religious beliefs, etc. The advantages of such a list are that it
allows an easy quantification of Indian and ladino populations,
and that census returns which include some of these elements
-principally the language-can be profitably used. Thus, using
these indices, Whetten was able to speak of the ''Indo-colonial"
population of Mexico.7 Confronted with the obvious insufficiency
of this procedure in terms of a deeper analysis, it
came to be recognized that these cultural elements were integrated
within cultural complexes. Alfonso Caso used as his
point of departure the fact that Indian populations live in
communities which can be easily distinguished from one
another, and he thus offered the following definition: "an
Indian is one who feels he belongs to an Indian community,
and an Indian community is one in which there exists a predominance
of non-European somatic elements, where language
is preferentially Indian, which possesses within its
material and spiritual culture a strong proportion of Indian
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 167
elements, and finally, which has a social feeling of being an
isolated community within surrounding ones, which distinguishes
it from white and mestizo villages."8 This definition
considers the Indian no longer as an isolated individual, but
rather as a member of a well-defined social group. The author
limits the quality of being Indian to a subjective feeling, and
introduces racial considerations when distinguishing the Indian
community from ''white and mestizo" ones. We do not
find in this definition the elements needed for an analysis of
the existing relationships between Indians and ladinos; on the
contrary, Caso's definition stresses the idea that we are dealing
with two autonomous cultural worlds whose coexistence is
almost a matter of chance.
The importance attributed by ethnologists to cultural elements
of Indian populations has long concealed the nature of
socioeconomic structures into which these populations are integrated.
Sol Tax, for instance, while studying Indian economy
in Guatemala, chooses a community in which one third of
the population is ladino, Yet Tax describes only the Indian
aspect and leaves aside the mestizo population as though the
community's economy were not a complex and integrated
whole. When he is forced to describe the inevitable interaction
taking place between Indians and ladinos, he does so as
though he were dealing with external relations of Indian
society.0 Siverts, when speaking about monetary exchanges
between Indians and ladinos, even uses the term "foreign
trade."lO The same orientation is found in studies based on
the concept of the folk-urban continuum developed by Robert
Redfield.
Certain recent ethnographic studies, and primarily the needs
of lndianist activity in Mexico, have shown the weakness of
approaches based exclusively upon analysis of cultural factors,
not taking into account historical evolution. Eric Wolf
has declared that "the condition of the Indian does not consist
in a discreet list of social traits; it lies in the quality of
social relationships found among communities of a certain
kind and in the self-image of the individuals who identify
with those communities. The Indian condition is also a distinctive
historical process, since these communities originate
at a given moment, grow stronger, decline again, and main168
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
tain or lose stability in the face of attacks or pressures coming
from the larger society."11 Thus it is no longer the cultural
patterns but the community structure, the relationships
between its different parts, which are significant. The Indian
condition is to be found in the closed "corporate" communities,
whose members are bound by certain rights and duties,
having their own forms of social control, particular political
and religious hierarchies, etc. According to Wolf, these
corporate units are the result of Spanish colonial policy, having
suffered successive transformations under the impact of
external influences. Wolf admits that these units, which are
neither totally isolated nor completely self-sufficient, take part
in wider economic and political power structures. The Indian
communities are related to national institutions and include
groups oriented toward both the community and the nation.
These groups perform roles as political "power brokers" between
traditional and national structures.12
Wolf's analysis of the Indian supplies historical depth and
structural orientation which were lacking among earlier cultural
anthropologists. However, while he clearly recognizes
the existence of the corporate community's· external relations,
the community seems to respond mechanically to impulses
originating in national and regional sources of power. Wolf
does not speak about the relationships between Indians and
ladinos. In our opinion, as long as the problem is placed only
in the context of the community as an autonomous and limited
social system, the analysis is incomplete. Tax and Redfield
do, to be sure, admit the existence of external relations, but
for these authors, the controls imposed upon the population
from outside the local community "have their origin in natural
law."18
Indianist action in Mexico has forced ethnologists to restate
the problem in different terms. There has been a shift from
the sphere of the Indian community to that of the intercultural
region where Indians and mestizos coexist. This region
possesses the characteristic of having an urban center inhabited
mainly by a ladino population and surrounded by Indian
communities which are its economic and political satellites.
Alfonso Caso, in describing the change in orientation, says,
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 169
" ... we speak now, not only of indigenous communities, but
of indigenous regions, that is, of more or less extensive regions
that are characterized ,by their integration of numerous
indigenous or indigenous-mestizo communities that depend
economically, culturally, socially, and politically on a mestizo
town which we call the metropolis of the indigenous region
in which it is located." 14 This new approach allows a better
analysis of socioeconomic structures. and of relationships between
human groups. We no longer speak of acculturation
alone, but of the Indian's integration in the nation, which is
precisely the stated purpose of Indianist policy. The ecological
relationships b_etween the metropolis and its satellites are only
a part of the complex system of social relationships characteristic
of this region. The theoretical frameworks used until
now in the study of these relationships have proved insufficient
for their full interpretation.
Tomin speaks of a caste system in Guatemala which, according
to him, is found in a state of "equilibrium in motion."
15 His interpretation is inspired by the treatment that
some American sociologists give to the relations between
blacks and whites in the United States. For various theoretical
reasons which it is not possible to discuss here, the caste
system approach is inadequate for Mesoamerica, as it is, for
that matter, in discussing the situation in the United States.
Other students of interethnic relations between Indians and
ladinos confine themselves to a description of these relations
without offering a more detailed analysis.16
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
CHAPTER 13
The Historical Background
of Class. Relations
We can understand the class structure of any given society
only through the analysis of its total socioeconomic structure.
Class relations in the Indian regions of Chiapas and Guatemala
cannot be understood simply by examining cultural · differences
between the two ethnic groups that make up the population
or by observing the different social situations in
which the two groups interact. Rather, class relations are
defined by the distribution of land as a means of production
and by the labor, commercial, and property relations that
link one sector of the population to the other.
From the time of the Conquest, the Spaniards' "Indian
policy" laid the basis for the present class structure. For both
military and economic reasons, the Spanish ordered the residential
segregation of Indians into areas known as reducciones.
However, although this policy of segregation facilitated
the political and religious control of the conquered populations,
it was not always rigorously applied. The policy was,
in part, responsible for the survival of the Indian cultural and
social characteristics of this zone.
The Indian communities farmed subsistence crops and
worked at various specialized economic activities which tended
to stimulate the growth of important regional markets (which
had already existed in pre-Hispanic times). Under Spanish
rule, the comuneros were obliged to pay tribute and donate
services to the colonizers. Thus the once autonomous indigenous
communities became labor reserves for the colonial
society. This situation was aggravated by the evolution of a
new system of land tenure. Once the Spaniards gained possession
of huge tracts of land (through the system of the enlnterethnic
and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 171
comiendas and mercedes), the Indians were left with only
relatively scarce communal lands, over which they exercised
usufruct, but not personal ownership. As a result, the Indian
occupied an inferior social position in the rigid stratification
of the colonial world, and he became the subject of specific
tutelary legislation from the Crown. Thus the Indian was never
totally integrated into colonial society, and lived apart from
that society, but always dependent on its colonial authorities.
During the colonial period, the Indian communities were
not homogeneous. The Spaniards maintained the preColumbian
aristocracy in its former position of power and
prestige. They used this nobility to govern the native population,
collect tribute, and carry out the recruitment of a labor
force. Often political and agrarian struggles broke out between
the Indian masses and the privileged aristocracy, whose
effective power was considerably less than it had been before
the coming of the conquistadores. The Spanish authorities
arbitrated these conflicts and, at times, ruled in favor of the
Indian masses. New authorities were named and then progressively
substituted for the old caciques. This marked the
beginning of the evolution of forms of government specifically
designed for the Indian community and comprised of elements
from both Spanish and Indian cultures.1
The old class structure began to lose its economic base
once the Spanish began to appropriate the economic surplus
of the Indian communities through the collection of tribute
and the practice of forced labor. By the end of the sixteenth
century, the native aristocracy had all but disappeared. Under
the Spaniards' "indigenous policy," the Indian communities
became "folk" societies, i.e., relatively closed corporate units.
However, to the degree that these communities participated
in a wider economy, they became integrated into a class
society. The Indians who filled the labor requirements of the
Spanish constituted a working class. Others who managed
to enrich themselves in commerce or handicrafts could be
considered as a class of entrepreneurs. But given the restrictions
of the tutelary legislation applied to the Indian population,
it was difficult for any individual to integrate himself
into a class society and, at the same time, preserve his "In172
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
dianness." Indigenous traits came to be characteristic only
of the traditional subsistence communities. This tendency accelerated
during the Independence period.
The maintenance of the cultural characteristics of the Indian
(language, dress, participation in the corporate community,
etc.) could only take place if, on the one hand, he
remained apart from the new class structure and, on the other
hand, retained his juridical status as an indigenous person,
·· that is, his position of social and legal inferiority. Those Indians
who JDaQaged to separate themselves from the community,
or who were forced to do so by the Spanish, lost
these characteristics and were integrated into the developing
national society as they took part in the process of biological
and cultural miscegenation.
It is not surprising that it turned· out to be almost imposStble
to maintain a rigid stratification based on blood and
social. "condition," or to apply the often contradictory legal
dispositions imposed by the Spanish Crown over three centuries
of colonial rule. Thus the Spaniards as well as the new
social categories (mestizos, ex-slaves, castes, etc.) came to occupy
positions above that of the Indian, who was always
bolind by "protective" legislation. It did not take long for new
social groups to establish themselves in the indigenous communities,
where they soon began to command the dominant
positions.
Thus Indian society, which had been a class society before
the Conquest, ceased being one during the colonial period,
even though it contained a number of stratifications. However,
under certain circumstances, the Indian lived in a class
situation. He was interacting with people who dnfered from
him as much economically as ethnically or juridically. As a
result, throughout the colonial period, the class relations of the
indigenous population retained their interethnic character.
This was due, of course, to the colonial situation. lnterethnic
relations were essentially relations between. the coloniz.ers and
the · colonized. And although a national society· had already
begun. to develop during the colonial period, even today the
marginal indigenous regions display the essential characteristics
of a colonial situation.
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 173
THE PERIOD OF INDEPENDENCE
The political independence of New Spain brought equality
under law for all citizens. The legal obstacles which prevented
the integration of the Indians into national life disappeared
in one stroke. Yet integration did riot take place. The effective
economic and social inferiority of the Indians placed them
in a disadvantaged position, and the acquisition of legal
equality only worsened their situation. The new equality had
two immediate consequences: the Indian was allowed to sell
his labor on the market, and the land he occupied became
his private property.
The economic liberalism that prevailed in the nineteenth
century brought the communal lands of the Indians onto
the open market. The possession of land titles and the freedom
to sell land was thought to be a great benefit to the agricultural
population. In fact it was during this century that
the immense private latifundios were created at the expense
of the Indian population. Property titles held by Indians soon
passed into the hands of the latifundists and even without
legal changes in landownership, the Indians were progressively
despoiled of their communal lands. The scarcity of land forced
the Indians to become peons on the large landholdings of
others. In this way, many independent farmers fell into a state
of semiservitude. Others continued to be recruited as seasonal
forced labor.2 This new trend was consolidated at the end of
the nineteenth century with the political victory of conservative
forces in Mexico as well as in Guatemala.
In the course of the nineteenth century, coffee, the new
commercial crop, reached the indigenous zones of the two
countries. The coffee fincas became work centers for a great
mass of Indians who were recruited from the communities
by both legal and illegal means. At the same time the first
products of industrialism began to penetrate even the most
isolated villages in the form of merchandise carried by ladino
traders who spread these goods throughout the indigenous
region.s Through this kind of trade, new economic relations
were established between the Indians and the rest of the population.
Purely ethnic relations were transformed into class
relations. The Indians, who during the colonial epoch were a
174 Social Classes in Agrarian Societiea
subjugated ethnic group, became a subjugated class of poor
peasants-all without modifying their ethnic characteristics.
During this period, the isolation and self-sufficiency of the
indigenous communities came to an end. Oliver La Farge
writes,
From the conquest to recent times, with only a few lapses,
there has been a constant tendency toward the destruction
of the ownership of the Indian's great land expanses, which
represents the physical and economic basis of the solidarity
of the tribe and of the Indian's · freedom to abstain from
working for the non-Indians ••.. As a result [of the extension
of the coffee economy] two methods have been
employed to gain control over the great supply of labor in
the highlands: violence, and the destruction of the eco.
nomic base that permitted the Indians to refuse to work
in the lowlands.4
PRODUCTION RELATIONS
A. Subsistence Agriculture
CHAPTER 14
Land and Class Relations
The basis of regional production is agriculture, and the basis
of agriculture is maize (com), principally for domestic consumption
.. Even when other crops are cultivated, maize is
the primary agricultural product without which the . rural
family, the productive unit, would not survive. The soil is
poor, agricultural techniques are primitive, and yields are
therefore small. Rainfall allows two harvests a year in some
regions. The farmer devotes a great part pf his time to subsistence
farming with the participation of family labor. Produce
is consumed by the family. Sometimes, when the farmer
needs money, he sells part of the harvest, but later, when
his reserves are exhausted, he must buy his com back again.
In his position as a maize producer, the farmer remains isolated
and does not enter into relations with other sectors of
society.
There are exceptions to this situation. Some communities
in the area have become specialized in maize production to
the exclusion of any other important agricultural activity.
Santiago Chimaltenango, in Guatemala, regularly produces a
surplus of maize which is sold at the local markets.I In this
case, the subsistence farmer becomes, in part, a peasant producing
for the market. I say in part because due to the fact
that the bulk of his production is consumed at home, he remains
within a subsistence economy. It is important to stress
the fact that maize is grown almost exclusively by the Indians.
Even though the majority of the communities also have a
ladino population, these rarely grow maize. When they devote
themselves to agriculture, it is usually to produce cash
crops.
176 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
We :find here a :first element for differentiation of the population
into social classes: one part of the population predominantly
devotes itself to subsistence maize farming-even
while it sells some surplus-and another sector does not participate
in subsistence agriculture.
B. Commercial Agriculture
Almost all of the rural communities also participate in agricultural
activities whose purpose is not domestic use but commerce.
The subsistence farmer is also a producer for the
market. Even while he may not devote the greater part of
his time to this activity, it allows him to obtain the money
he needs. At altitudes lower than 5,000 feet, the maize economy
is complemented with that of coffee, a cash crop par
excellence. There are also cocoa, onions, and vegetables of
all kinds; at higher altitudes there are fruits. All ofthese food
products are destinecl for sale, and the different communiti~
s specialize in production of one or the other. Maize
and coffee (within their geographic limits)_ are found everywhere.
Coffee is destined to national and international markets,
while the majority of the other products appear only
in local markets. The coffee-growing communities are usually
richer than those which, located on higher and poorer lands,
do not grow· it.· But the subsistence farmer who_ grows some
coffee or other products for the market does not neglect
growing his maize, partly because he cannot buy it elsewhere.
Besides com, in Panajachel, Guatemala, the Indians are
able to grow both vegetables and coffee.2 They grow mainly
vegetables, notwithstanding the fact that these pay less than
coffee. Coffee is a perennial plant, and the establishment of
plantations requires time and capital. Since the Indians lack
the means, they prefer· to grow vegetables, with which they
are able to obtain quicker, if smaller, benefits. Sol Tax describes
the Panajachel Indians' economy as being a "penny
capitalism," because they produce cash crops for the market,
because they are oriented toward a profit economy, and because
they like to make "a good deal." Nonetheless, Tax himself
shows · that their economy is dominated by the needs of
maize farming, and that they prefer to grow vegetables rather
than coffee, although coffee pays more. The reason for this
lnterethnic ami Class Relations in Mesoamerica 177
apparent contradiction lies in the fact that the Indians lack
capital. and credit .institutions. As ·Wolf has pointed out,s it
is precisely these two factors-non-existent in Panajachelwhich
define a capitalist system. The Panajachel Indian is
integrated into . the · capitalist system through the. sale of his
coffee and acquisition of industrial products, but not in the
sense suggested by Tax. The subsistence farmer, the Indian,
is not the "capitalist" in this case. On the contrary, . he is
placed at the opposite pole. His agricultural labor is not essentially
a commodity, and the money he earns through the
sale of his vegetables is not reinvested but spent in current
consumption. There is no accumulation of capital.
In contrast to the Indians, Iadinos do. not grow maize but
only cash crops .. They settled in the region in. the course of
the past century, following the expansion of coffee. In the rural
communities the ladino farmers are few in number, and farming
is never their only occupation. In Panajachel, they grow
the greater part of the coffee, ·and their farming is exclusively
commercial. The coffee producer · always employs salaried
labor; he therefore has the necessary capital available. He
is, in fact, a capitalist farmer, and he is able to afford it because,
irl contrast to the Indian, he does not devote his time
to subsistence farming. The growing of coffee, as well as
those who grow it, were introduced from outside. The Indians
have accepted this new kind of farming only as a complementary
economic activity. ·
Here . we have a second element for the differentiation of
social classes. We distinguish, on the one hand, the faniier
devoted to commercial agriculture as · a . complementary · activity,
and who obtains from it only minimal profits which
are wholly destined for consumption; and on the other, the
farmer (especially the coffee. grower) who accumulates capital,
employs labor, and who usually also performs other nonagricultural
activities. Again, the former are Indians and the
latter ladinos. ·
C. The· Agricultural Workers
Until now we have spoken only about independent farmers,
but a large part of the farming population is composed of
day laborers~ In Jilotepeque (Guatemala), day laborers con178
Social Classes in Agrarian Societie5
stitute 90 per cent of the active population, of which only
9 per cent are ladinos. All of the wage laborers work for ladinos;
there is not one Indian in this community who employs
wage labor.4 In the highlands of Chiapas, the peasants regularly
work as wage laborers in the big coffee plantations, where
they spend many months a year. Until recently, this was forced
or semi-forced labor, and the contract and employment conditions
were notoriously bad. At present there exist lab01
unions of Indian workers, and the Mexican Governmen1
has taken measures for the protection of migrant workers.
Nonetheless, recruitment of laborers is still done by pressure!
and coercion which sometimes exceed the legal limits of wha1
is called a free contract. Of an Indian population totalin!
125,000 persons in this area of Chiapas, 15,000 laborers art
employed on a seasonal basis.5 In Guatemala's coffee planta·
tions compulsory labor for Indians existed until recently, UI
to a maximum of 150 days per year, depending upon tht
amount of land which they possessed. The pretext for thil
recruitment was the fight against vagrancy; yet no ladinos
not even those possessing no lands, were forced to. perfom
this kind of work.
These laborers are not separated from the social structur1
to which they belong; they remain subsistence farmers. The~
go in search of wage work only when their com crop is se
cure. Writing about the Chamulas, Pozas says that they de
not like to work in coffee plantations, and that they do so onl)
when compelled by economic needs. 6 In Guatemala, tempo
rary migrations in search of work annually affect 200,00(
Indians,7 and more than one half of the big plantations' la
borers are migratory. "This recruitment," one author says
"is the means by which the plantations have extended thei
influence over virtually every Indian community in Guate
mala."8
Insofar as the monetary needs of these rural communitie
are concerned, wage labor has in some of them the sam1
economic function that commercial agriculture has in others
From the point of view of the global economic structure, th,
self-subsisting community functions as a reservoir of labor.
The degree of economic exploitation inflicted upon this labo
force is shown by the following item: in Jilotepeque, a la
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 145
and reduc1;1sth e land available for new farms. At the same
time effofts have been made in the Ivory Coast, as in other
cocoa~'and coffee-producing countries, to stabiliz.e the prices
of these products and thus reduce the risks run by the agriculturist.
All this inevitably leads to the spread of wage
labor and a relative drop in the participation of the worker in
the profits of the farm ( as is already the case of the nkotokuano
worker in Ghana).
The various forms of work described above represent many
different relationships between the farmers and the workers
they employ. Thus it is not yet possible to speak of a single
social category of agricultural workers, or, much less, of a
rural proletariat. On the Agni farms, the immigrant worker
often has a status similar to that of a "client." "The Agni
are always distant in their relations with their workers because
of their ancestral custom of employing their inferiors
to carry out work which would dishonor an Agni."10 In contrast,
when the laborer works with an agriculturist of his own
ethnic group, the relationship is more familiar, and Dupire
considers that "these personal relationships of a patriarchal
nature have, up to now, impeded the birth of class consciousness
among the rural workers" (p. 41). However, there is no
doubt that the relations between agriculturists and workers are
those of a class situation. Dupire has pointed to the exploitation
of the workers by their employers.
Often the farmer first satisfies his personal and family
needs, leaving for later the payment he owes to his worker,
who, in the hope that he will one day receive the money
he is due, continues in the service of the farmer. [P. 39]
In the Agni region, "there is no trace of a syndical organization
of workers."11 However, in Ghana, there are syndicates
of foreign workers, and these syndicates have demonstrated
the all-important fact that when workers refuse to sell their
labor for low wages, the agriculturists are obliged to raise
their pay.12 The different types of workers thus constitute a
class in formation within which some factions will naturally
develop more rapidly than others. While the opposing
interests of workers and the farm owners who employ them
146 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
are essentially economic, ethnic factors also play their part.
And given that these factors also intervene to distinguish the
farmers themselves from each other, we see that the picture
of new social relationships grows ever more c~~
INDEBTEDNESS
CHAPTER 11
Social Class
and
the Farm Economy
As the administrator of a commercial farm, the Agni farmer
faces problems that he never knew as a cultivator of subsistence
crops. One of the most persistent problems is that of
balancing a budget. The majority of cultivators live on their
projected future income, that is, long before the harvest or
sale of produce, the agriculturist contracts debts which must
be repaid out of the proceeds of the harvest. Approximately
30 per cent of this debt is comprised of the wages that the
farm owner undertakes to pay his workers at the end of the
agricultural cycle.
Once the sale of the harvest is underway, merchants and
speculators from outside the area pour into the region. Among
the people who swell the population at this time are buyers
from the European companies that deal in coffee and cocoa
in West Africa. These firms maintain commercial houses in
the coastal cities of the region, but hardly ever establish
branches in the interior. In addition, the region :fills with
salesmen who peddle manufactured goods to the farming
population. The coffee and cocoa market provides rich profits,
and, therefore, in addition to agricultural labor, many of
the farmers become involved in this kind of trade. Some become
small industrialists by purchasing a small coffee- or
cocoa-shelling mill with which they process the produce of
numerous clients. But these people are only a minority; most
of the farmers never become really independent.
The expenses incurred put some farmers into debt. The
commercial houses provide them with short term loans
148 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
repayable in coffee or cocoa on the basis of the lowest
rate of the preceding harvest. The merchant makes a good
profit, but the farmer grows poorer and thus, must necessarily
get a new loan to begin the new agricultural cycle.1
Indebtedness is general and represents one factor of the growing
differentiation among farmers. In his study of this problem
in Ndenie, Kobben writes:
There is only one factor that brings about the economic
dependence of the less fortunate, and it is their ever increasing
tendency to borrow from the rich which, in the
long run, always places them in the inextricable situation
of debtors with respect to the wealthy. [1956, p. 41].
Only in the Bonguanou region is debt relatively rare.2 In
this region the average size of the farms is larger, and the
standard of living higher than in other parts of the Agni
country. In contrast, debt in Ghana has become a permanent
part of the money economy, and leads the indebted
agriculturist to mortgage his farm in exchange for cash loans.
Thus approximately half of the Ghanaian farmers are also
creditors, while the other half work mortgaged farms.s
In Akokoaso, more than 60 per cent of the farmers are
in debt, and of many of them W. H. Beckett has said,
"their income is such that they can never aspire to escape
from the vicious circle of debt."4 In Nigeria the situation is
eve:n more difficult for the majority of cocoa farmers, and
as a result, usury is very common. Here,
• • • the intermediary occupies a very powerful position;
the cocoa harvest of his debtors is often mortgaged long
before it reaches maturity, and the plantation itself, or
some part of it, may be mortgaged in order that its owner
may meet his obligations. • • • Thus, a good number of
land holdings are acquired by African cocoa merchants,
while the owner of the . property is dispossessed, his sons
becoming servants of the creditor with little or no hope of
salvation.II
THE SIZE OF FARMS
Commerce and debt are the most important factors that· conCommercial
Farming and Class Relationa 149
tribute to social differentiation among African commercial
farmers. In addition to these factors, the- size of farms and
variations in yields make for different levels of income derived
from farming.
We have already noted that some traditional chiefs, taking
advantage of the labor obligations owed to them by the people
of their districts, have been able to build up sizable farms. For
example, in Bonguanou, "the chief of a 'rectangle' who is
favored by the inheritance system, often controls sizeable
farms and disposes of a significant income •••• "8 However,
the chiefs are not the only people able to establish large farms.
Inasmuch as new principles governing land tenure have not
yet been definitively established, the small Agni cultivator
may "increase the size of his farm in the same way that the
new gentry have done, on the condition-and this is an important
restriction-that he devotes to it the same intelligence
and energy."7 Because the purchase and sale of farms is not
yet a common procedure, the older farmers generally hold
the largest farms, which they have built up with their own
labor over the years. In contrast, young men who have freed
themselves of family control necessarily begin with small
farms. However, we have seen how debt and commerce, as
well as the modification of traditional agrarian law, continue
to alter this situation. The Agni country is still in a
stage of development in which personal initiative, individual
capitalist spirit, and progressive attitudes permit the farmerentrepreneur
to acquire a personal fortune. If he knows how,
the commercial farmer can benefit as much from the outside
pressures of ''Western" culture as from the progressive
transformation ( that is, from the progressive weakening of
the traditional social structures) of Agni society. Thus, as
Boutillier points out,
from the mass of farmers arises a type of elite that has a
greater understanding of the mechanisms of the market.
• • • Thanks to favorable conditions of land tenure, this
group of more dynamic farmers comes to establish s~
able farms and achieves a high standard of living. [P.103]
Other agriculturists have attained the same objectives in
the context of the extended family. For example, a group of
150 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
brothers under the direction of a family elder may develop
such a co-operative enterprise.
These large farm units, when they are well managed, combine
the advantages of Western technology and legislation
with traditional work methods adapted to meet local needs:
partial mechanization, permanent and seasonal labor, multiple
cropping, cooperation, and landholding titles, go hand
in hand with the maintenance of family collaboration and
piece work within a system of periodic remuneration .... s
Studies carried out in the Agni region give only general
information and do not provide statistics on the inequality of
property holdings and standards of living. In Bonguanou,
60 per cent of the agriculturists have commercial farms of
less than five hectares, 28 per cent hold farms of from five
to ten hectares, and 12 per cent have farms of more
than ten hectares. Income distribution is similar: 36 per cent
of the farmers have an annual income of less than $300,
51 per cent receive an annual income of $300 to $400, and
13 per cent receive an income of more than $400. In the
Sanwi region, 3.5 per cent of all farmers hold agricultural
units of more than twenty-five hectares and control one fourth
of_ all cultivated land. In contrast, 33 per cent cultivate less
than two hectares of land, which, taken together, accounts
for only 6 per cent of the land area that is farmed. In this
region Dupire has identified three strata of farmers: 1) the
small family farmers who, at times, employ a single agricultural
laborer, hold less than five hectares, and represent 64
per cent of all farm operators; 2) middle-sized farmers who
hold between five and ten hectares of land and represent
22.4 per cent of all farm operators; these people use on the
average two wage workers in addition to their own labor,
but tend not to work when the number of wage laborers increases;
and, finally, 3) a class of cultivators who hold more
than ten hectares and are generally absentee landowners, employing
a large and permanent labor force-these people control
13.6 per cent of all holdings.
In Ghana, as well, the inequality among farmers is great
with respect to both production and income. In certain parts
Commercial Farming and Class Relationa 151
of this country the average amount of cocoa harvested is
twenty-five bushels, while in other regions, the harvest is
more than 100 bushels. On the average about half of all
cocoa farmers produce less than forty bushels each season
while 20 per cent, who harvest more than 100 bushels, account
for more than one third of all cocoa produced. 9
With regard to income, Hill has distinguished four classes
of fa.rmers: 1) the small farmers with a net annual income
(after the payment of wages to agricultural laborers) of less
than £ 100, who represent more than half of all cocoa farmers;
2) medium-sired farmers, with an annual income of
£ 100 to £ 199, who represent a third of all cocoa farmers;
3) the large farmers who enjoy an annual income of from
£200 to £300 and whose proportion varies from one half
to one fourth of all cocoa farmers, according to the region;
and 4) a few very large farmers whose income exceeds
£500. 10
Economic variation within the population is also evident
when we study the distribution of debt. Thus, in Akokoaso
in Ghana, where debt is considerable among the greater part
of the population, one fourth of all indebted families together
share 4 per cent of all the debts in the community, while
10 per cent of the families together account for 60 per cent
of all debts.n
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND CLASS SITUATION OF FARMERS
In what sense can we say that the different categories of
cultivators in the Ivory Coast represent social classes? Several
scholars have indicated that such "classes" of agriculturists
are independent of one another, and that their relative
degree of wealth or poverty depends on nothing more
than the initiative and energy that each one displays.12 However,
if these categories are independent of one another, then
they cannot be called "classes" in the sense that we have
given this word. They would be nothing more than groupings
or strata defined according to the size of landholdings, the
quantity of cocoa harvested, or the total income received.
And if these strata: have quantitative limits, then there is no
a priori restriction on their number and distribution. In order
152 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
to be able to use the term "class," we must consider other
factors in addition, but related, to the quantitative factors.
We have noted that the farmer who obtains a certain level
of monetary income has many different ways of disposing of
his revenue. In general, however, the Agni tend to use their
monetary income to increase their standard of living, spending
money on various forms of consumption. The Agni differ
in this way from other people of the Ivory Coast, for example,
the Bete. Among the Bete, increased monetary income from
the farm economy is spent within the traditional and ceremonial
economic circuits.is For the Agni, on the other hand,
higher monetary incomes lead to higher levels of consumption,
and from the mass of cultivators emerge new social
categories whose distinguishing sign is a higher socioeconomic
status. This is also the case in Ghana, where the prevalence
of debt is due more to high levels of spending than to low
income.
However, the farmer disposes of his income also in other
ways. Many farmers save their money, and prefer to purchase
gold, which represents a symbol of power as well as a
source of prestige.14 But if we wish to describe the elements
of a new social class among African farmers, we do not find
it in current consumption patterns, but rather in the productive
use of savings. Thus, when the farmers' incomes rise,
an increasing proportion is used to establish new farms, the
production from which pushes income up still higher, which,
in turn, stimulates a new cycle. However, reinvestment may
often take the form of mechanization of agriculture, and the
establishment of shelling mills.
Thus some farmers establish small mechanical coffee- or
cocoa-shelling devices and build up a regular clientele. A
similar process leads some of them to become either merchants
who purchase the harvest of several cultivators and
sell the produce to commercial houses established in the cities;
or truckers, when they buy their own vehicles; or moneylenders
who reap profits from the seasonal variations in economic
activity. Because the period of commercial activity
alternates . with a period of economic stagnation, the moneylenders
are able to lend money at high rates of interest and
take as collateral future harvests and, at times, even whole
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 153
farms. It is in this way that groups with high incomes cease
to be· simple statistical categories or social strata and become
social classes. Through the processes of commercial exchange,
milling, and moneylending, "the rich" and ''the poor," originally
independent of one another, become tied through relationships
·of dependency and exploitation. Consequently, there
are categories of agriculturists not only defined according to
the size of their farms, their harvests, or their incomes, or
according to their socioeconomic status measured through
their levels of consumption, but also those whom it is possible
to define according to their position with respect to the
means of production and with respect to other social categories
in the society. The most important means of production
in this case is not land, because up to now everyone has had
free access to it; but rather the available capital to finance
wage labor, commerce, and credit.
On the basis of the arguments given above it is impossible
to determine the number of classes among Agni cultivators
particularly because Agni social structures, as we have seen,
are still in a state of transition, and the classes-if they exist
at all-are still in the process of formation. At the same time,
it seems that studies that have been carried out in the region
are much more explicit when they deal with "strata" and
with "status" than when they deal with groups that are formed
around specific relationships to the means of production. In
each region it is easy to distinguish the large, middle-sized,
and small farmers. The difficult task, however, is to define
classes according to qualitative criteria. We might begin by
placing in one category the farmer-owner who operates
his enterprise with only the help of members of his family,
perhaps adding the farmer who occasionally· employs a wage
worker. According to the statistical studies cited, these agriculturists
represent about half of all farmers, and may hold up
to three hectares of commercial farmland, although the average
is less. It is more difficult to distinguish categories among
all the other agriculturists if we do not wish to fall into a
simple quantitative classification according to the number of
wage workers they employ or the size of their landholdings.
But if we consider the propensity of certain agriculturists to
engage in commerce, moneylending, and mechanization, and
154 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
the specific relations that are established among cultivators
on the basis of these new activities, we can distinguish at
least one more category, We would characterize this category
as a "rural bourgeoisie," similar to its namesake in
other parts of the world. It draws its members principally from
those farmers who possess the largest holdings and employ
the highest number of wage workers.
Finally, there is also an upper stratum of agriculturists
who have become absentee landowners and whose interests
are largely oriented toward urban activities. This group is
not large, but it occupies an . important social and economic
position and represents a link between the village and the
city. We cannot describe the relationships between this stratum
and the urban social classes, and'therefore it is impossible
to define its characteristics as a social class. However, it is
clear that the commercial farmers, taken as a whole, do not
constitute a homogeneous category. Although commercial
farmers differ from subsistence cultivators . ( only a small number
of whom are left in some communities), and from the
agricultural wage workers, it is also possible to distinguish
among them various strata and classes. In addition to the
differentiated groups mentioned above, the immigrant cultivators
who have established themselves among the Agni and
who maintain their distance from the traditional social structures
of the latter, rejecting traditional Agni principles of land
tenure, are likewise differentiated as a social category from
the. mass of Agni cultivators.
However, in the face of the problems associated with production
and marketing, both the Agni and the immigrants
identify with one another as producers, i.e., they react as . a
class. Thus, in the Ivory Coast and in the other cocoa- and
cofl;ee-producing countries, associations of producers have
formed with the object of defending the common interest of
members. Throughout this part of Africa, on several occasions
when th~ price of commercial crops has fallen, the
farmers, as a group, have withheld their produce from the
market in an attempt to boost the market price. However,
these efforts at organization have been local and- temporary.
An analysis of the political and economic action of these
associations and a study of the efforts on the part of governCommercial
Farming and Class Relations 155
ments in each of the countries to organize production and
stabilize prices are beyond the limits of this study.
CLASS STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
AMONG THE AoNI
The economic and social situation described in this study
underlines the fact that certain conflicts and contradictions
are inherent in Agni social structure. These conflicts were already
part of traditional Agni society; but have been aggravated
by the appearance of a monetary economy that has
produced new conflicts and tensions to add to the old. Among
the most significant conflicts are those that arise between
the Agni and the immigrant cultivators. Even when they take
the form of an interethnic conflict (some authors even speak
of the "racism" of the Agni with respect to the foreign immigrant
agriculturists), there is no doubt that these conflicts
have their roots in the economic factors which we have highlighted
earlier. These are: the progressive disappearance of
available land for the establishment of farms, the conflicts
over agrarian rights, and. the growing independence of the
immigrant cultivators which endangers the supremacy of the
Agni and transforms the traditional stratification.
The ethnic character of conflicts in Agni society tends to
be re-enforced by the presence of foreign merchants and
middlemen, who generally live in their own neighborhoods
( called diulacro) within the Agni communities. Another antagonism
which has developed within the Agni society itself
is the contradiction between the needs of the new cash
crop economy and the traditional family structure, that is,
between the group of money-minded farmers and the traditional
elite ( chiefs of extended families, lineages, and villages).
Yet another contradiction, clearly of a capitalist nature,
arises between the farmer-employers, and those who
labor as wage workers on the holdings of others. This contradiction
is expressed in its clearest form in the class relations
of the new farm economy. Another contradiction which
goes well beyond the limits of Agni society pits the farmers
as producers against the merchants who represent the foreignowned
commercial firms in Abidjan. It is these foreign
companies that establish the prices on commercial crops-or,
156 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
at least, are perceived by the farmers as doing so.15 Finally,
oppositions arise among the farmers themselves because of
debt and other ties of dependency that are an inevitable part
of the development of a monetary economy.
At this point we can list the new social classes that have
emerged in Agni society.
1) The first class is made up .of the small independent cultivators
who rarely or never employ wage labor,· hold less
than three hectares of farmland, and have great difficulty in
making ends meet. These agriculturists live from the proceeds
of future harvests, easily fall into debt, and never manageor
only slowly manage-to raise their standard of living.
2) The· middle-sized and large farmers who regularly employ
wage laborers and productively reinvest a variable proportion
of their income comprise another class. These agriculturists
·· may become merchants and millers, and acquire
social status and a higher standard of living as well as a prominent
economic position in the society. The new elite of
Agni society is recruited from this class, which we have called
the "rural bourgeoisie."
Between this class and the small cultivators there may be
found several intermediate strata that have a higher standard
of living than the former but do not enjoy the prominent
position attained by the latter. On the other hand, an upper
stratum of. ''very large" absentee landowners who have close
ties with the urban bourgeoisie . emerges from this class. At
this level of analysis we cannot differentiate between the native
and foreign farmers, although economic conflicts do
develop between the two groups. In any event, the foreign
agriculturists represent no more than a fraction of either
of these new social classes.
3) The third group is made up of agricultural laborers.
This grouping includes all those foreigners among the Agni
who, while they do not yet constitute a rural proletariat,
hold a position in the socioeconomic structure of the country
sufficiently homogeneous to designate them as a social classCommercial
Farming and Class Relations 157
or at least as a "social class in formation." Generally these
people are immigrants. They rarely sever their ties with the
home community to which they return at times, after a stay
of several years among the Agni. They do not hold land in
the Agni country, although this is what they aspire, and may
some day be permitted, to do. The economic relations that
tie the foreigners to the Agni farmers are many, and determine
the formation of the two strata we find within this class.
The two groups. are the abusan workers, who receive one
third of the harvest, and the wage workers, who, in turn, are
divided into several categories ( contractual workers, seasonal
workers, monthly and annual workers, etc.). Conceivably
these two groups may develop into two distinct social classes.
But we do not anticipate this kind· of development because
the mobility between the two groups is great, and a single
worker may be employed at times as a sharecropper, and at
other· times as a wage laborer. In addition, the tendency of
the economy is toward increasing monetarization: Thus, rather
than · develop into two· distinct social classes, it seems more
likely that this group will become increasingly homogeneous,
and will take · on more· and more of·. the · characteristics of a
social class.
4) The last class is made up of foreign merchants and
middlemen, mainly of Diola ethnic_ stock. (There are also
some Lebanese and a few Europeans.) This class is the inevitable
by-product of the expansion of cash crop farming.
Its composition and activities are foreign: to Agni society itself,
but it has now become an integral part of the new global
society. In describing the anarchical conditions in which the
commercialization of the products of the Bonguanou .region
and, more generally, of the entire Ivory Coast, takes place,
Boutillier writes, ·
The middlemen are very numerous and they run the entire
gamut of buyers from the traveling Diola merchant
who moves from camp to camp with his scale on his back,
to the representative of the commercial or export firm
equipped with several trucks in which he crosses the jungles
to buy the greatest possible quantity [of produce] when
158 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
market conditions are favorable. In addition, there are a
large number of Syrio-Lebanese merchants, commercial
transporters who serve as intermediaries between the agriculturist
and the important firms established in Abidjan
..•• [P. 126]
CONCLUSION
We may conclude that in the rural areas of the Ivory Coast,
capitalism has created four new social classes and several
fractions of classes as well as intermediate strata. The traditional
social structure has been transformed. The specific relations
that are established between the new classes are of
a dynamic nature because they are based on certain oppositions
and conflicts whose resolutions will inevitably lead to
new changes in Agni society. The new economic structure
also tends to produce a new social stratification which likewise
enters into conflict with the traditional hierarchy. New
criteria of stratification have been superimposed over old
criteria identified with the feudal type of stratification that had
formerly prevailed in Agni society. Thus the amount of monetary
income, objective indicators of a higher standard of living
(such as type of house construction, possession of certain
imported goods, etc.), and level of instruction and Westernization
in general, are all indicators in the new system of stratification.
Here conflicts between two systems of values arise.
The traditional chiefs compete for social prestige with largescale
farmers who are of common ancestry. The descendants
of clients and slaves struggle to erase all traces of their former
servile condition through the display of new signs of prestige
like high monetary income, schooling, and so forth. In confronting
foreign immigrants, the Agni (including even the
modem farmers) attempt to maintain certain aspects of the
old hierarchical structure, while the foreigners emphasize the
virtues of the new national society, and adopt the values of
the new stratification system. Of this tendency Dupire has
written,
The refuge that the Agni seek, to resolve this conflict
through both a confirmation of the old traditional principles
and in mechanization designed to replace manual
Commercial Farming and Class Relations 159
labor, testifies, by· its rigidity, to the extent of the conflict.
[P. 226]
The new stratification of Agni society was described by
Rougerie in the following way:
• • • in short, a society composed of a native Agni aristocracy,
in turn divided into classes according to the degree
of success, [ with] foreign cells independent of Agni elements
but easily subordinated and segregated and, finally,
a lower class of foreign wage workers. [P. 136]
If this conception of social stratification among the Agni appears
too simple, we may turn to Dupire's description:
• . . a rural community of the Lower Coast, which is dedicated
to commercial agriculture, may be divided roughly
in the following manner:
At the top of the ladder are some large-scale farmers,
mostly natives, [but including] some foreigners, who,
thanks to the capital that they invest, enjoy an economic
independence that confers on them a preponderant influence
in the social life [of the community]. At the next
level we find the mass of middle-sized and small farmers
who have moved progressively from the level of family
enterprise to that of employers of wage labor, economically
dependent on the African or Syrio-Lebanese merchants
and middlemen, due to the small size and uncertainty of
their income. Next, the workers of foreign origin who are
more or less tied to the life of the community, essentially
unstable because of the interaction of supply and demand,
but not detribalized. Often seasonal, these migrant laborers
send their savings back to their home country, but are
always able to sink roots when the circumstances permit.
Finally, there are the marginal people, those who wander
from one job to the next, the artisans, small peddlers, or
established traders, foreigners of diverse origins, attracted
by the influx of money among the farmers. Three new
professional categories: farmers, workers and intermediaries
among whom no social barriers exist. Movement from
one class to the other depends only on the dynamism and
160 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
the opportunity of these new adventurers of the "jungle
rush." The number of small itinerant or established merchants
who have become commercial farmers is large, as
is the number of workers who have progressively acquired
the status of sharecroppers and, later, farmers. To all, indigenous
or foreign, noble, descendent of slaves or of castes,
access to the highest levels of the new economic scale
was wide open. There is not a single a priori insurmountable
obstacle that separates the small from the large-scale
farmer, and if opportunities at first are unequal, perseverance
and courage can overcome the difficulties. • . •
The breakdown of the hierarchy by the appearance of this
new social scale has followed the adoption of the economic
values imposed by the cultivation of cash crops. [Pp. 224--
25]
This brief analysis of the new social structure of the Agni
differs somewhat from our own, but illustrates the way in
which, on a traditional system of stratification, a "new stratification
system with diametrically opposed principles has become
grafted," to use Dupire's phrase.
PABT III
Interethnio and
Class Relations
in Mesoamerioa
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 179
dino laborer earns 50 per cent more than an Indian laborer,
yet the cost of supporting a mule is even higher than a ladino's
wage110
It can thus be seen that wage work and commerce notwithstanding,
the structure of self-subsisting communities has
not been · wholly broken. In Cantel, a Guatemalan community,
only when the farmer does not possess enough land to
feed his family does he seek work in thefocal textile factory.
The industrial worker remains integrated in the structure and
values of his community. The new class relationships produced
by local industrialization have only partially modified traditional
structure. Here industrial work has the same function as
migratory work and commercial agriculture in other communities.
11 ·
Wage work represents a third element in terms of class
differentiation in the area. The monetary income obtained
by farmers in the manner· described above represents the
complement to a subsistence economy. We find here new
production relations, in which the Indian is always the employee
and the ladino usually the employer. When there are
ladinos. employed by other ladinos, they occupy higher positions
and receive higher salaries than .the Indians.
We are now ready to attempt a first generalization. At the
level of agricultural production, the relationships between
fadinos and. Indians are class relationships. The former produce
exclusively for the market, while the latter produce primarily
for their own consumption; ladinos accumulate capital, Indians
sell their farm products only in order to buy goods for
consumption; .ladinos· a. re employers and Indians are· laborers.
These relationships will be seen with greater clarity when we
consider land tenure.
LAND TENURE
A Traditional Communal Proper'Y.
Ever since pre-Hispanic times have there been communal
landholdings in this region. Though the land reforms of the
nineteenth century did contribute to their progressive disappearance,
several communities . still possess communal lands
at the . present time. There are various forms of collective
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 205
for a ladino, the main point is not the interethnic relationship
but the labor relation. During the decade of the thirties, the
Indians of Chiapas organized to defend their working conditions
in the coffee plantations, not as Indians, but as workers.
During the years 1944-54 there were also labor unions of
Indian agricultural workers in Guatemala. They have also
become organized in their struggle for land, under the agrarian
reform programs, not as Indians but as landless peasants.
These relationships sometimes assume cultural forms. The
struggle for land, for instance, is carried on in the name of
restitution of communal and clan lands, At times there have
also emerged messianic movements against ladinos. Yet it
was always a matter of structural changes within the traditional
community.
lnterethnic stratification no longer completely corresponds
to the new class relationships which have developed along
with a monetary economy. "Colonized" Indians are not a
social class as such. We are not saying that Indians and ladinos
are simply two social classes. This would be oversimplifying
a deeply complex historical situation. During the course
of economic development (or more precisely, of economic
underdevelopment, as a result of a colonial economy), various
new social classes emerge. They are not yet totally
formed, because "colonial" relationships still determine the
social structure at different levels. The Indian participates
in various kinds of socioeconomic relationships. He holds
various occupational roles at the same time, He may be a
small farmer in the communal lands, an ambulant trader, a
salaried worker during different periods of the year, or during
the course of his life. These different kinds of class relationships
contribute to separate the individual from his corporate
community. The community's corporate structure is breaking
up. Should it disappear, interethnic stratification will have
lost its. objective basis.
Nonetheless, the interethnic stratification system which, like
every stratification system, is deeply rooted in the values held
by the members of the society, is an essentially· conservative
force within the social structure. While it reflects ,a situation
of• the past ( the clear dichotomy between Indians and
ladinos in every area of social, economic, and political life,
206 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
characteristic of the colonial situation), it curbs the development
of new class relationships. We should not forget that
the landless peasant and the salaried worker are also Indians.
Even though relations of production will determine future
transformations in the region, ethnic consciousness may weigh
more heavily than class consciousness. Thus, exploited or poor
as a ladino may be, he feels privileged as compared to the
Indians, even those who may have a standard of living higher
than his own. Indians, on the other hand, tend to attribute
all of their misfortunes to· the ladinos as such ( a position
which, incidentally, is shared by certain romantic lndigenista
intellectuals), an attitude which contributes to the concealment
of objective relationships between classes. This range
of problems has been little studied in the region and it represents,
in my opinion, an interesting field of research.
To the extent to which class relationships become more
clearly defined, there emerges a new stratification based on
socioeconomic indices. This stratification already exists among
ladinos, and is progressively expanding to the Indians. The
status symbols of the ladinos are beginning to be valued by
the Indians too. It is no longer sufficient-or even desirablethat
the Indian should become "ladinoized". The situation
will have radically changed when social stratification includes
ladinos and Indians independent of their ethnic characteristics.
Ideally this would mean the maintenance of Indian cultural
identity independent of stratification. To what degree this
situation is workable depends on many special factors. It has
been noted that in Quezaltenango (Guatemala) something
of the sort is taking place, and this also seems to be the
case in Mexico among the Maya of Yucatan, the Zapotec of
Oaxaca, and the Tarascans of Michoacan.
But such a situation would also depend on the attitudes
and reactions of ladinos, whose position is not stable within
the class society. Ladinos have always accepted (at least from
one generation to the other) the admission of acculturated
Indians into their group. It is difficult to foresee reactions of
the ladino community faced with two hypothetical alternatives
of the interethnic stratification system's evolution: on the
one hand, the complete assimilation of Indians (which is
rather unlikely); and, on the other, a general economic rise
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 207
of the Indian ethnic group as such (which would be a challenge
to ladino superiority). Development of a class society
leads toward either of these hypothetic situations. The :final
result will depend on how class conflicts are solved.
Contemporary interethnic relations partly result from past
colonial policy. They also represent the disintegration of that
policy and are a function of present economic and class
structures. As has been shown by various economists, underdeveloped
economics tend to polarize into areas of growth
and· structurally related areas of stagnation. The Maya region
of Chiapas and Guatemala constitutes such an area of stagnation,
as do other Indian areas of Mexico. The "marginal"
populations inhabiting these areas are growing in absolute
numbers, despite national,, economic development.5 The regional
ruling class, represented by ladinos, is not necessarily
the dominant one in the national society. In Guatemala, since
the defeat of the nationalist bourgeoisie in 1954, the regional
and the national ruling groups have in fact become one.
There is no contradiction between landowners, commercial
bourgeoisie (particularly coffee traders), and foreign capital. 6
But in Mexico the situation is different. National power is
held by a bureaucratic, "developmentist" bourgeoisie, a product
of the 1910 Revolution. This bourgeoisie has displaced
latifundists. on a national level, but in more backward regions,
such as Chiapas, it tolerates them while seeking the support of
a new rural bourgeoisie composed of traders, neolatifundists
and public employees. 7 In both Mexico and Guatemala the
regional ruling class is composed of "power seekers"-to use
Wolf's termB-of mestizo origin who have come to fill the
power vacuum left by the old feudal type landowning aristoc
·racy.
For purposes of analysis, four elements may be isolated in
the current interethnic situation: colonial relationships, class
relationship, social stratification, and the acculturation process.
These four · elements constitute interdependent variables and
with them we may attempt to build .a hypothetical model of
interethnic relations at the present time.
A. Colonial Relationships
These relationships are a function of the structural
208 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
development-underdevelopment dichotomy and they tend to
be in force for as long as the dichotomy persists •. As long
as there are areas performing as internal colonies in underdeveloped
countries, the relationships characterizing their· inhabitants
tend to take the form of colonial relationships. These
are strengthened where there exist, as in the Maya region,
marked cultural differences between two sectors of the population,
leading to a rigid. stratification defined in cultural and
biological terms (which is sometimes called caste). Colonial
relations tend· to limit and prevent acculturation, or cultural
ladinoization, and to maintain a rigid stratification. There
exists an obvious interest on the part of the dominant ethnic
group (ladinos) in maintaining colonial relations, especially
when their predominance depends on the existence. of cheap
and abundant labor. This is the case when the possibilities of
expansion of the regional economy are limited, when agricultural
productivity is low, when the labor-capital ratio in agriculture
is high, when there is no, or hardly any, local or
regional industrialiiation, and when regional economic demand
is weak. Consequently, the maintenance of colonial
relations is a function of economic development at the national
level and not merely the result of local or regional decisions.
In contrast to ladinos, the Indians-the subordinate ethnic
group-derive no benefit ·from the colonial situation and may
try various forms of reaction to it. The first is withdrawal
into the corporate. community, both physically and socially.
As Wolf pointed out, this has happened on various occasions
in the history of the region:, and it represents on the part of
the Indian ethnic group a latent tendency which becomes
manifest when the economic and political situation allows
it Next to withdrawal, the Indians also react to the colonial
situation in terms of "nationalism." This form of reaction
may have as its objective the strengthening of the Indian
government (Regional Council), and possibly the struggle for
the Indians' national · political representation. It also shows
in measures adopted to encourage education in the Indian
language and development of Indian culture. It sometimes
comes through an extreme anti-ladinoism and resistance to
ladinoization. Other counter-acculturative factors such as messianism
and, on certain occasions, armed uprisings and other
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 209
forms of violence also play a role here. Finally, there is a
third form of reaction to the colonial situation, and this is
assimilation. It is an individual pro.cess which, as has been
seen, represents a separation from the corporate structure of
the community. From a cultural point of view it represents
ladinoization. From a structural point of view it means that
the individual becomes integrated into the class structure, no
longer as an Indian (that is, colonized person), but rather as
a worker, a laborer, a sharecropper, in other words, in terms
of his relationship to the means of production. Ladinoization,
as we have seen, may be the result of upward mobility in the
socioeconomic scale. But generally there is no such upward
mobility and ladinoization actually means the proletarianization
of the Indian.
Of the three main types of reaction to the colonial situation,
the :first one, withdrawal into the corporate community,
does not appear to be very effective at the present time. While
some of the older, traditionalist members of the community
may prefer it, others know that there are more efficient means
for combating the negative effects of the colonial relationships
upon the Indians. The reaction which we have described as
"nationalistic" (for lack of a better term) appears under various
guises. Some of these are spontaneous and respond to
special circumstances, such as armed uprisings or messianic
movements. Others have been induced by external agents of
cultural change, such as the literacy campaigns in the Indian
languages. Still other reactions may result from an increasing
political consciousness within the Indian communities, and
may lead, for example, to the election of a member of the
civil-religious political hierarchy to a post in the legally recognized
municipal government. At the present time, the main
forms of "nationalistic" reaction have been stimulated unwittingly,
at least in Mexico, by the specialized agencies of the
national government. Measures such as literacy in Indian languages
and the promotion of the adequate political representation
of the Indians in regional government testify to the fact
that the people responsible for the formulation and application
of Indianist policy in Mexico recognize the essentially
"colonial" character of interethnic relationships. Yet officially
the problem has never been stated in these terms by those
210 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
responsible for indigenismo, and even the idea that the Indian
ethnic groups might represent something akin to "national
minorities"· has been severely criticized.9
In fact, these measures ai:e generally considered to be simply
a means to an end which is-their direct opposite, that is, the
incorporation of the Indians into the mainstream of national
life, or the eventual disappearance of the Indians as such.
Formal schooling in the Indian languages is seen simply as a
first step toward the acquisition of Spanish at a later stage.
There are reasons, however, for this seeming paradox. Full
national integration can be achieved only if the inherent contradictions
in the colonial relationships are overcome. And
this can be achieved only by suppressing one of the terms of
the contradiction, or else by qualitatively changing the . content
of the. relationship. When Indianist policy promotes "nationalistic"
measures it attempts to do the latter (i.e., it
attempts to liberate the Indian from colonial domination) .
But in the long run, it will only achieve the former (i.e., the
Indians will disappear).
When the inherent contradictions in. the colonial relationships
between Indians and ladinos are resolved, a larger contradiction
is resolved at the same time, to wit, the contradiction
between the very existence of colonial relationships and
national integration (insofar as the latter cannot really be
achieved without the suppression of the former). In other
words, it should be recognized that national integration may
be achieved not by the disappearance of Indians but only by
their disappearance qua colonized human beings. This means
that Indian cultures must not only not disappear, but can, on
the contrary, flourish within the framework of national development.
Yet despite the timid application of "nationalistic
type" measures by Indianist policy makers, the objectives of
this policy still remain basically "assimilationist."
B. Class· Relationships
We cannot overemphasize that the class character and colonial
character of interethnic relations are two intimately related
aspects of the same phenomenon. They are separated
here only for the purpose of our analysis. Class relationships
have developed parallel to and simultaneously with colonial
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 211
relations and tend to displace them more and more. But the
colonial character of interethnic relations impresses particular
characteristics upon . class relations, and tends to retard their
development. In this context, class relations mean mutual interactions
between persons holding opposed economic positions,
independent of ethnic considerations. These relations
develop together with the region's economic development. As
agricultural production increases, as the market for industrial
products expands, as the monetary economy develops, and as
the labor market expands, colonial relations lose their importance
and give way to the predominance of class relations.
The development of the latter also depends, to a great degree,
upon structural factors of the national economy and is not
the result of decision making at the regional or local levels. At
any rate, the development of class relations between Indians
and ladinos is associated with the development of capitalism
while the ''feudal" or "semi-feudal" aspects, so frequently
indicated in the literature, tend to disappear.
Consequently, measures for local or community development
such as improvement of agricultural techniques, establishment
of production co-operatives, etc., may change colonial
relations into class relations, but will not necessarily do
so. This transformation can take place only if such developments
are accompanied by the parallel development of the
regional economy as a whole, and particularly of its ladino
metropolis. If such is not the case, the likelihood is that the
fruits of local development will enter the traditional socioeconomic
circuits without modifying the regional structure.
It has already been seen that on certain occasions ladinos
are interested in maintaining colonial relations. There also
exist circumstances in which they are interested in strengthening
class relationships over and against colonial relationships.
This happens particularly with the development of the
productive forces: when ladinos are presented with new opportunities
for investment; when they need seasonal labor
which can only be obtained through monetary incentives;
when they require non-agricultural labor (for certain manufactures
or construction work in the cities or on the roads);
or, finally, when they need to develop new regional markets
and strengthen the Indians' demand for industrial goods. The
212 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
ladinos' interest in the development of class relations also
arises when the agrarian reform really manages to break the
land monopoly, and when the possession of his own land can
turn the Indian back to subsistence farming. In this case, class
relations develop particularly through the marketing of crops
and agricultural credit structure.
On the other band, ladinos may be interested, under certain
circumstances, in slowing down the development. of class relations,
as, for example, when the establishment of foreignowned
plantations changes the status quo and attracts the
labor force away from the traditional haciendas by offering
better pay and incentives, as has occurred in Guatemala.
This can also occur when the overall economic development
of the region contributes to the mobility of the Indian laborers,
thus forcing the ladino landowners to apply scarce capital
for the improvement of their agricultural technology.
The Indians, in turn, may benefit from the development of
class relations because these imply better economic opportunities
and alternatives. On the other hand, however, they
also suffer from such a development because it tends to destroy
the subsistence economy,. create economic and psychological
insecurity, and further the proletarianization and the
deculturation of the Indian population.
The development of class relationships implies new forms
of social organization. New social categories and institutions
arise. Class relations tend to weaken the rigidity of traditional
social stratification and modify the bases upon which it rests
( a change from ethnic to socioeconomic indices) ; at the same
time they lead· to the Indians' acculturation (ladinoization).
C. Social Stratification
Insofar as the regional system of social stratification has only
two strata based essentially on ethnic characteristics it tends
to maintain the appearance of a colonial situation. At the same
time, as class relations develop, it tends to change into a clearly
defined socioeconomic stratification. The already existing
stratification among the ladino ethnic group expands to include
both ethnic groups. Perhaps the day will come when
both ethnic groups-:-independent of their cultural . characteristics-
will be included in a. single stratification system, based
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 213
exclusively on socioeconomic criteria, The old stratification
system, based on ethnic characteristics, tends to conflict with
the development of class relations and the socioeconomic
stratification based on them. Thus, for instance, an Indian
trader or landowner receives discriminatory treatment from
ladinos who are in a socioeconomic situation inferior to his
own, while Indian day laborers tend to receive smaller wages
than ladinos who are in the same position. Among the ladinos
there exists an obvious concern over maintaining the bases
of ethnic stratification; this is especially true among the lower
strata of the ladino population, wlio in this way avoid competing
with socially mobile Indians. This is the same phenomenon
as that of the poor whites in the South of the United States.
The Indians' upward vertical mobility in the socioeconomic
scale is accompanied by a certain degree of ladinoization, but,
as has already been pointed out, not all of the aspects of Indian
culture . change at the same rate. Development of class
relations tends to facilitate the Indians' upward mobility, since
an ascent in the socioeconomic scale renders more precarious
the conservation of a low status based upon exclusively ethnic
criteria. Upward rri.obility, as much in the socioeconomic scale
as in the shift from the Indian to the ladino ethnic group, is a
function of the transformation of the colonial situation into a
class situation.
D. Acculturation
The process of acculturation of the Indian is hard to place in
a structual analysis, since it is used in the literature to refer to
processes which are highly varied in content. In a general
sense it means the adoption of ladino cultural elements by
individuals or communities of the Indian ethnic group. Thus
the change in dress, the substitution of scientific medicine for
folk medicine, and the change of occupation, to take only
three examples, are all part of the process of ladinoization.
Yet the structural significance of each of these three examples
is very different. Without considering for the moment the motivational
determinants leading to a change in dress, this by
itself has no consequence for the social structure-except if,
carried out collectively . by the Indians, it should lead to certain
changes in the value systems of both ethnic groups, which
214 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
in turn might influence the systems of mutual action and interaction,
thus affecting social structures. But this kind of
chain argument does not lead to a better understanding of
the phenomena under study. The second example-the shift
from traditional to modem medicine-does not by itself represent
a structural change either. But it may lead to demographic
consequences which will have important structural
results. Change of occupation, on the contrary, can only be
understood within the frame of a structural analysis.
The above shows that· the concept of ladinoization may
mean anything from a simple change in the daily use of an
object ( e.g., using a spoon instead of a tortilla to eat soup) to
a complete change of the Indians' life and world view. Within
· the limits of this study, concern over the process of ladinoization
is meaningful only insofar as it has immediate structural
implications.
· If the problem is seen in this fashion, we may put forth the
hypothesis that the process of ladinoization will not occur if
the colonial situation persists without change (which is of
course not the case, nor has it been so historically). On the
· other hand, it will occur in the class situation and it accompanies
the upward mobility of individuals along the stratification
scale of socioeconomic indices. It may also occur without
upward mobility, and then we speak of the Indians'
proletarianization, or perhaps even of a process of lumpenproletarianization.
This is actually what is happening in
many Indian areas of Latin America where the corporate
community and its accompanying cultural characteristics are
breaking down and the Indian ethnic groups are· becoming
part of the so-called marginal populations of the rural and
urban areas. ·
Yet we may also envisage the possibility that certain aspects
of Indian cultures which are not directly related to changing
structural elements may survive the development of class relations
and the individual's upward social mobility in the stratification
system. Thus ladinoization does not necessarily have
to occur if efforts are deployed not only merely to save Indian
cultures from destruction, but also to stimulate their growth
and development. Up to a point this takes place spontaneously
due to the internal dynamics of Indian cultures, but it might
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 215
also occur, ideally, within the framework of a pluralistic national
structure in which the development of Indian cultures
would be one of the objectives of the Indianist policy. This is
not, unfortunately, the case at present.
In conclusion, it must be repeated that the contemporary
scene involves a complex combination of elements. Using the
analytic concepts of "colonial relationships," "class relationships,"
"social stratification," and "acculturation" helps us understand
the dynamic processes at work, and relate them to
historical antecedents as well as contemporary events.
EPILOGUE
Agrarian Structures
and Capitalist Development:
A Reconsideration
At the end of our comparison of agrarian structures and rural
class systems in Africa and Latin America (with occasional
reference to the Asian situation), what conclusions can we
reach?
Any consideration of the problem of social class in agrarian
societies must necessarily be based on analysis of the structures
of production at the local level within the economic, social,
cultural, and political context of the village community.
But the village level by itself is not a realistic framework, and
we must also consider the regional level, the nation-state, and
even the international system. If a comparison between underdeveloped
countries is to be at all useful in this sense, then it
must also be placed within a historical perspective. Within
this framework, we have seen the various kinds of "traditional
societies" which existed in underdeveloped countries prior to
colonial contact and which may also be referred to as "precapitalist
modes of production." We then reviewed the particular
nature of the colonization process and its effects on some
African and Latin American rural structures. We have seen
the ways in which the expanding capitalist system succeeded
in using, transforming, subordinating, and incorporating the
pre-existing modes of production into new kinds of agrarian
structures, and how this process has affected the changing nature
of social class relationships and the changing dynamics of
social stratification systems in the rural areas. Let us briefly
review these conclusions.
PRECAPITALIST MODES OF PRODUCTION
Aside from nomadic and seminomadic tribes of hunters and
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 217
gatherers or primitive tribal cultivators isolated in their tropi~
cal jungles (which did not concern ris in this investigation.),
precolonial African and Latin American economic structures
were based on the prevalence of self-su:ffici('llt village communities
engaged in subsistence agriculture. While the agricultural
technology was primitive by modern standards, a
variety of production techniqμes did enable many such communities
to produce surpluses over and above_ their need for
subsistence and reproduction.. Whether full advantage was actually
taken of such techniqμes or not, and the use to which
the economic surplus was put, depended· upon the social and
political organization of the people involved. Thus, in speaking.
of precolonial Ghana, Hymer points out that J\frican agricultural
technology was the result of economic choice .ratlier
than ignorance of alternatives. "In point of fact," he states,
''West African farmers used a variety of agricultural techniques
simultaneously, ranging from intensive year-round
cultivation of small plots around the compound, using fertilizer,
.. to extensive bush-fallow cultivation, using much land
and little labor. On numerous occasions, they were easily able
to produce a surplus for the market, when they wished to do
so. There may have been some groups which could just barely
produce enough .food to . support themselves. and where the
possibility of a more complex division' of labor did not exist,
but in the vast majority of cases potential agricultural surplus
existed and was not appropriated only because of the organization
of society."1
In parts of Latin America, sophisticated techniques of irrigation
( as in Mexico) or terracing ( among the Inca), or intensive
horticulture ( as in Venezuela and among some
Amazonian peoples), were able to provide for considerable
surpluses. These allowed for the rise of what have been called
the higher civilizations of pre-Hispanic America with a division
into clearly defined social classes and the emergence, in
·some· parts, of centralized state structures. Among the Inca,
the state drew upon surplus agricultural production not on'ly
to feed the "non~productive" classes, but also to provide. for
the.people in time of need.Jt·also organized the J]lassive forced
labor (mita) of the population for public works and monumental
constructions. Among ·the Aztec a similar situation pre218
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
vailed, with slight variations in the form of political and social
organization.
Among scholars an active discussion has been taking place
for several years concerning the characterization of these various
precolonial modes of production in Africa and Latin
America. A penetrating study by Catherine CoqueryVidrovitch
suggests the existence of an "African mode of production"
prior to European disruption of the African economies.
This system was based, on the one hand, on the
self-sufficient, subsistence village economy which did not in
itself generate any accumulation; and on the other, on the
long-distance trade controlled by a number of well-organized
"states," combined occasionally with raids and direct plunder
of neighboring tribes, which did permit such accumulation
and the emergence of social class divisions.
The specific nature of the African mode of production is
thus to be found in the combination of a patriarchal economic
system and the exclusive control of long-distance
trade by a particular group of people. At a given moment of
time, the form of authority depends on the nature of this
group; if the leaders come from the patriarchal heads of the
self-subsistence economy at the village level, their authority
is then unquestionable: in the case of the Fangs and Bonbanquis,
it was threatened only by the rivalry among the
small groups involved in the same enterprise; in the Middle
Congo, the system only collapsed through external pressure:
the intrusion of Europeans who took over control of the
main trade, to their own profit, thus eliminating the traditional
brokerage of the trade. On the other hand if, withio
a more graded political system, a privileged group fa.
voured through hereditary recruitment on a caste system 01
pn the basis of embryo capital accumulation happened tc
gain control of long-distance trade, the regime reveals E
more or less clear synthesis between the tribo-patriarchal
system and territorial ambitions of a new type.2
But in some parts of Africa (the eastern lake region, Dahomey,
and the Muslim Arab states) some form of feudal
type structures had also emerged before the advent of the
Europeans.
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 219
In pre-Columbian America the situation appears to be quite
different In Central Mexico a complex sociopolitical structure
became necessary for the creation and maintenance of. important
works of irritation managed by a centralized, hierarchical
bureaucracy. In outlying. areas of Mesoamerica, less
important irrigation systems formed the basis of a number of
relatively independent "city-states.'' Here the system has.been
variously described as semi~feudal, ot as an American variant
of the "Asiatic mode of production," or again as falling within
the .general category of the "hydraulic empires" described by
Wittfogel. s
· · Among the Inca, bureaucratic centralization had achieved
an even higher degree t1ian in Central Mexico, but in both
these areaofs p. re-Hispanic America the basis of agricultural
production was the local kinship community over which the
state exercised· some sort of direct control. Of course; in other
parts of America · social organization had not · achieved the
same· degree of complexity, and in these areas the independence
of local units was much greater.
1)m CoLONIZATION JlROCESS
Latin America was conquered and· colonized at a time when
European mercantilism was just beginning its worldwide expansion,
• but feudal elements were still strong in Spain.. The
nature of the colonization process in Spanish America became
. a mixture between the· demands of, the emerging capitalist
· economy and the adaptation of feudal institutions, transferred
from. Spain, to the specific conditions of colonial. production.
As occurred later in <>ther parts of the Third World, the
first phase after colonial contact consisted of the dil:'ect
plunder of the accμmulated wealth of the• conquered peoples.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spaniards
developed a number of institutions in the areas of greate11t
concentrJ!,tion of Indian populations, whereby the surplt!S
·product and labor of-the peasant communities were transferred
to the conquerors without basically affecting the productive.
organizatu>n of the local agricultural communities.
The Spanish encomienda became an important instrument for
marshalling wealth and manpower by·. imposing tribute .and
labor services on the indian peasants to the benefit .of a privi220
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
leged class of Spanish colonizers, the economenderos. Forced
labor was also recruited for mining activities, construction of
churches, public works, and even elementary industrial production
through a system known as repartimientos, whereby
the Indian comm.unities were made to provide periodically · a
certain number of able-bodied laborers according to the
needs of the colonial administration. Similar systems characterized
the early phases of direct colonial administration in
various African territories. The repartimiento was not much
different from the massive labor recruitment which had existed
among the Inca and the Aztecs in pre-Hispanic times
(mita and cuatequitl, respectively), though in this case, of
course, it was managed in the benefit of an externally imposed,
colonial society. It has been argued, indeed, that the relative
ease with which the Spaniards were able to impose such mechanisms
of exploitation on the Indian population was due to
the fact that they simply substituted themselves for a preexisting
ruling class.
Partly as a result of the catastrophic demographic decline
of the Indian populations after the Conquest (it has been
estimated that in New Spain alone the population decreased
from around thirty million at the beginning of the fifteenth
century to one million a century and a half later; and in Pero
the population declined by about 50 per cent within thirty
years of the Conquest), and partly as a result of the
needs of the changing colonial economy, the economienda
and the repartimiento, as well as other similar institutions,
became less important by the end of the seventeenth century .
.Agricultural production became organized in the form of
large estates, base4 ·on a permanent or semipermanent supply
of labor. The Indian peasantry was attached to the. estates
(haciendas) through the system known as peonage (with
many local variants), which has often been likened to medieval
European serfdom. "Free" Indian communities which
were able to maintain their communal lands either were absorbed
by the haciendas and came to lose their · 1ands and
their independence, or else they became dependent upon the
estates as a source of occasional employment and, in fact,
were transformed into labor reserves for the expanding hacilnterethnic
and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 221
encla system, which became the predominant form of
agrarian organization in Latin America (usually known as
latifundismo).
In Brazil, due to the scarcity of a pre-existing Indian population,
the large estate (plantation) was based on slave labor
until the end of the nineteenth century, and also became the
predominant form of agrarian organization in that country.
It has often been stated that the organization of the hacienda
was in fact a feudalsystem in terms of its internal structure
and the relations of production which took place within
its limits. On the other hand, however, while a good part of the
produce generated by the estate was consumed locally by its
own population, the driving force behind the expansion of
the hacienda as a system of production was the demand of the
European market, either directly (as in the case of sugar) or
indirectly ( as in the case of wheat and other products needed
by the population that labored in the mines).
At this point it seems futile to go into the discussion of
whether the Latin American colonial system as a whole should
be characterized as "feudalism" or as "capitalism."4 It seems
clear that feudalism and capitalism interacted at different levels
and at all times during Latin America's colonial history
(and even later, during the nineteenth century), and that the
precolonial modes of agricultural production were :first incorporated
and then transformed by the general system of colonial
exploitation. However, it also seems clear that the colonial
system as a whole played a very important role in the worldwide
process of capitalist accumulation, and that the various
modes of production at the local level (haciendas based on
peonage, slave plantations, small peasant production by Indians
on communal lands, etc.) were ail subordinated to, and
harnessed in the interests of, capitalist development.
At any rate, by the time the Latin American republics
achieved their political independence early in the nineteenth
century, an agrarian structure had developed in which the
large estate based on servile labor had become or was becoming
the predominant form of agricultural production; small
independent peasant farming either on individually owned or
communally held village lands was no match for the dominant
222 Social Classes in Agrarian Societiei
estate system, and was either entirely destroyed or becamc
dominated by the hacienda system during the nineteenth an<
twentieth centuries.
In contrast to the process of agr~ revolution in Lam
America, the expansion of European mercantilism did no
directly produce changes in the forms of agricultural produc
tion in Africa. European commerce; based on the slave trade
modified to a certain extent and competed with traditiona
forms of precolonial trade, but did not basically affect th1
productive organization of the agricultural subsistence com
munity, except insofar as the drain of able-bodied men repre
sented a social and biological loss which many communi
ties were not able in the long run to overcome. While th1
Atlantic slave trade developed, it appears that slavery as ;
mode of production also became more important in the Wes
African interior.
Thus slavery in West Africa was twofold. On the one hanc
it provided the commodities of the Atlantic slave trade; 01
the other the producers of goods involved in the inter Af
rican trade.
Due to the danger of social deterioration inherent in th
selling and exploitation of human beings, slavery came ti
rely in West Africa on two institutions which were at on
and the same time complementary and contradictory-wai
fare and trade. In West Africa, neither free commoneI
nor slaves bom in captivity could be alienated. The onl:
persons who could be sold were those snatched from thei
homes and families through capture. Communities coul1
not sell their own members nor their domestic slaves, no
breed slaves for sale. In these circumstances slaves wer
only produced through war or plunder. In protecting them
selves against the social disintegration which would resul
if they sold their o~ subjects, the slaving communities a1s
found themselves in an inevitably insecure position. • ,
The warrior and the brigand are thus the primary agen1
in the traffic in slave merchandise which fed the Atlanti
and Saharan trade as well as internal requirements • .
Warfare and trade are complementary and opposed. Tb
former feeds the second, uses it as an outlet, yet withdra\11
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 223
men from production. Hence two classes develop which are
both solidary and antagonistic-a class of warrior aristocrats
and a class of merchants. 5
The abolition of the slave trade early in the nineteenth
century had far-reaching effects in West Africa. The patterns
of external and internal trade were modified and, as a result,
changes in the organization of production took place. Slaves
were substituted for cola, palm oil, and other commodities,
and the production of these goods took precedence over the
previous emphasis on war and plunder. Many previously selfsufficient
agricultural communities became producers of cash
crops without any apparent violence to their social and political
organization. In Dahomey, for example, "land was substituted
for warfare. Military aristocrats were converted into
planters, and slave merchandise into producers. At the same
time the mass of the common people were introduced to oil
production and its commerce."6 In other areas, the economic
transformation was associated with a decline of the traditional
ruling classes and the emergence of Muslim traders as an important
social and economic group. However, while the
coastal areas in West Africa came under the domination of
the European economy, trade in the interior remained to a
fairly large extent solely inter-African. This was considered by
the Europeans (particularly the British) as an obstacle to the
conquest of the African market by European goods. Therefore,
"colonial penetration was to be an indispensable instrument
for destroying this autonomous economy which had developed
outside European infl.uence."7
In terms of agrarian systems and production relations in
agriculture, the establishment of colonial administration in
Africa produced some very profound changes in traditional
patterns of social and economic organization. These can be
summarized under three main headings: 1) the emergence of
an itinerant rural semi-proletariat; 2) the emergence of the
cash crop farmer; and 3) the establishment of plantations as
enclave agricultural economies.
1) The introduction of the money economy and the establishment
of monetary taxes by the administration forced an
224 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
increasing number of workers from the subsistence economy
to seek wage labor in the capitalist sector (plantations, mines,
urban centers, etc.). Most villages became dependent upon
the cash income of some of their members in order to fulfill
their obligations vis-a-vis the administration and in order to
satisfy their increasing demand for industrial products.
Whereas at first wage labor outside the community was but a
complement to traditional subsistence agriculture, later subsistence
agriculture itself became simply a complement ( albeit
a necessary one) to wage work in the capitalist sector.
Indeed, in many areas, the subsistence economy functions as
a labor reserve for the capitalist sector, as security for the
non-permanent workers in this sector, and as an instrument
whereby the capitalist sector is able to keep labor and "social"
costs lower than they would be if the subsistence economy
had disappeared altogether. Thus capitalism has had a
contradictory effect upon the traditional agricultural economy.
While on the one hand it tends to destroy it, on the other it
maintains and subordinates it to its own needs and interests.
In a way, the capitalist system in Africa has achieved what
the large estate based on peonage accomplished during an
earlier period in Latin America: it is able to drain off the
surplus labor of the subsistence peasantry. In the African case,
capitalism incorporates the labor force of the subsistence
economy into the monetary circuit without directly expropriating
the peasants' means of production, yet limits them to
such an extent that incorporation has become necessary to
them for survival. In Latin America, on the other hand, capitalism
physically incorporates the peasants into new agrarian
structures.
At the present time temporary labor migrations from the
subsistence to the capitalist sector are widespread all over
Africa and are often cross-national in character. Some countries
( e.g., Upper Volta) actually seem to play the role of
labor reserves with regard to the commercial agricultural
areas of the coastal zones of Western Africa. The actual economics
of temporary labor migrations does not yet seem to be
too well known, but their social effects on the local community
as well as upon the society as a whole have been considerable.
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 225
As a result of temporary· labor migrations, new class structures
have emerged in rural Africa which are rapidly changing
the traditional structure of many agricultural villages.
2) As was noted above, the change from traditional subsistence
agriculture to cash crop farming began to take place
· even before the establishment of the colonial administration,
due to changes in long-distance trading patterns under the
impact of expanding world capitalism. During the colonial
period, the European administration systematically introduced
cash crop farming in many areas. This was at first done by
coercive methods and frequently met with the resistance of
the peasants. It became more and more widespread, however,
through the operation of the market economy and the progressive
transformation of communal tenures into private individual
holdings. In some cases, such as the mailo system in
Uganda, individual freehold was introduced by the British at
an early date.a In other cases, individual title to land was
granted only after the more or less spontaneous growth of
cash cropping made it practically inevitable. In Kenya, the
acute agrarian crisis among the Kikuyu which resulted from
the establishment of the "White Highlands" and the expropriation
of the peasants' land led to a land consolidation scheme
in the early fifties. o In West Africa the development of a cash
crop agriculture in the forest area has not yet systematically
led to the emergence of individual landholdings, but this is
certainly the general tendency and differential access to commercial
farmland as a potent factor in the increasing social
differentiation among West African farmers.
Cash crop farming, being essentially a commercial enterprise,
has modified traditional production relations in agriculture.
The division of labor inherent in the extended family
as an economic unit is breaking up, relations between family
heads or lineage chiefs and the young adult members of
the kinship group are becoming strained; traditional hierarchies
have been upset and new dimensions in social stratification
have arisen; economic gain has become a powerful
drive for individual advancement in competition with, or even
in opposition to, established value systems. Capitalist relations
of production (wage labor, capital accumulation, marketing,
226 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
credit, mortgages, sales of farms and even land, etc.) are progressively
expanding. The commercial farmer represents the
rise of a new social class in African agriculture which is not
only playing an economic and a social role, but in many countries
has a political role to play as well.
Cash crop farming is leading to the emergence of new
agrarian systems with the rise, in some areas, of a landlord
class and the development of a rural proletariat. It would be
premature to say that such a system will lead to a "Latin
American" type of agrarian structure, but such a tendency
should not be discounted beforehand.
3) Plantation agriculture was established by the colonial
administration or directly by foreign capitalist corporations
(e.g., Firestone in Liberia) in some areas only. Plantations
are large, complex business enterprises which involve an advanced
division of labor, a large organized work force, some
sort of structured system of labor relations, the use of modern,
specialized technology, bureaucratic administration,
well-developed accounting systems, and considerable economic
investments, and which presuppose direct involvement
in the capitalist world market. By their very nature and the
fashion of their establishment in colonial or underdeveloped
countries, plantations constitute typical enclave economics.
They represent the "modem" sector in the well-known but
misnamed "dualistic" economies of many underdeveloped
countries.
The establishment of plantations has usually meant the expropriation
of peasant holdings of cultivable tribal lands, and
the alteration of the ecological basis of pre-existing traditional
subsistence agriculture. It has generally had a negative effect
upon this agriculture, and thus upon the liv~lihood of the
populations who depend on it. Plantations, as enterprises, are
usually directly managed by foreign companies and respond
principally to the interests of the metropolitan country. This
"extraterritoriality" has important economic and political consequences
for the country in which they are established, particularly
after independence. The management and higherlevel
specialized personnel tend to be foreigners (expatriates),
and between them and the majority of the locally recruited
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 227
labor force large social and economic differences are characteristic.
The work force may be divided into different categories
according to· occupational specialization and pemianence
on the job. Many plantations have a relatively small
number of permanent employees for specialized tasks but depend
in large measure on a seasonal labor force for essential
agricultural activities. During the early stages of their
development plantations used to recruit labor from nearby;
as they expanded, however, temporary or permanent migrant
labor from outlying regions would become attracted.
Wages are the characteristic form of payment on plantations,
but a certain number of facilities ( such as housing,
for example) may also be provided by the administration.
Work on plantations tends to separate the laborer from subsistence
agriculture, and while cases occur in which a plantation
worker is also able to tend a subsistence plot on the side,
the separation from his means of production becomes increasingly
permanent. Plantations are therefore a characteristic environment
for the development of a rural proletariat, union
organization, and class consciousness among agricultural
workers. While plantation workers represent only a small proportion
of the total labor force in agriculture in African countries,
the importance of plantations is of a special nature because
of the fact that these enterprises belong to foreign
companies which are in an unusually strong bargaining position
vis-a-vis not only their workers, but also the governments
of the nations in which they operate. They occupy not only a
powerful economic position, but a political one as well.
The Development of Agricultural Capitalism
In preceding pages we have already. seen how capitalism had
penetrated the traditional agricultural sector in colonial times.
By the middle of the twentieth century it became obvious on
a worldwide scale that a grave agricultural crisis was occurring
in most of the Third World. Many underdeveloped countries,
which were traditional exporters of primary products to
the industrial nations, were faced with a declining production
of foodstuffs and at the same time with rising populations.
Dire neo-Malthusian predictions of forthcoming famines were
voiced in various quarters, and concentrated efforts were be228
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
gun at all levels to raise agricultural production and productivity
in the underdeveloped countries. The general belief was
that the back.ward subsistence agriculture of these countries
was responsible for such a situation, and that it was necessary
to change this agriculture into modem, technological commercial
farming in order to produce the desired development.
How to change a traditional peasant into an enterprising
market-oriented farmer became the main task of many an international
assistance program.
There were few who pointed out that the "crisis" was perhaps
due not so much to subsistence farming as such, as to
the structural maladjustments produced precisely by the uncontrolled
growth of a primary export sector along capitalist
lines, whose existence has become an obstacle to the balanced
development of an agriculture geared, above all, to satisfying
growing internal demand for foodstuffs and other products.
The drive for a rapid rise in overall agriculture output
inevitably led to an emphasis on "modernization," and inputs
of all sorts were channeled at an increasing rate into the sectors
most likely to respond rapidly and efficiently. This process
has become accelerated over the last few years as a result
of the so-called "Green Revolution," whose effects (both positive
and negative) have been felt principally in Southeast
Asia.
In Latin America, the political and social tinderbox rep,
resented by the hacienda system began to worry policy makers
as the first shock waves generated by the Cuban revolution
reverberated across the continent. At the same time, public
concern regarding the poor performance of the agricultural
sector led many specialists to take a closer look at the Latin
American agrarian structure. Agitation for agrarian reform
became widespread: from below, the peasants demanded land
and the abolition of oppressive systems of exploitation; from
above, technicians and students of agrarian questions suggested
that the main obstacles to agricultural development
were to be found in the institutional arrangements governing
land tenure systems and relations of production on the land.lo
Agrarian reform did not, however, sweep across Latin America,
as had been expected in the early sixties, mainly because
the agrarian oligarchy and its national and international allies
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 229
were sufficiently powerful to block it at various levels. By the
end of the sixties, it became apparent that the land reform
issue was mainly political: for the peasants and their allies
agrarian reform was a political demand, and for this very reason
the ruling classes were against it. It has by now become
clear that the economic crisis of agriculture (low rates of
growth) can indeed be solved by the bourgeoisie within the
framework of the present agrarian structure and at the expense
of the peasants.
This is indeed what has been happening in most Latin
American countries. The modernization of agriculture (including
technification, mechanization, introduction of. highyielding
varieties and other improved inputs, agricultural extension
services, etc.) has been occurring more or less rapidly
in various countries, but ( and this is the important consideration)
it has tended to benefit only a small, privileged proportion
of farms which are increasingly contributing to the rise
of overall growth, and which concentrate the larger part of
agricultural income. This has been happening even in countries
that have already carried out land reform, such as Mexico,
in which agricultural development over the last three decades
has been extremely polarized. The majority of the
smallholders and land reform beneficiaries in that country
have been relegated to a marginal position in this process.
In their efforts to "get agriculture moving" in the aggregate
(i.e., to raise overall output, increase the supply of agricultural
products, and improve the balance of payments of
the countries involved by pushing exports of agricultural products
or at least decreasing the countries' dependence on
imports of such products), the Modernizers are consciously
supporting the large estates at the expense of the smallholders
and the peasant economy. The results of these policies in the
next few years will be disastrous for the majority of the peasant
population. As one expert puts it:
The outlook now for the 1970's is that, in the aggregate,
the status of Latin America's peasants will not change for
the better. In fact, there is strong evidence that it will deteriorate.
Access to land is more closed than ever. Unemployment
appears to be rising. Real wages and incomes are
230 . . Social Classes in Agrarian Societie:t
declining. Security of tenure becomes shakier. Peasant organisations
are not only discouraged, but repressed. Worst
of all, however, is the widespread acceptance by national
governments, private entrepreneurs and international agreements,
of agricultural policies and programs which, in the
name of "agricultural development," only aggravate an already
intolerable situation.11
Such policies are being fostered through two-pronged programs:
"(l) programs to strengthen the latifundio sector by
pumping more modem inputs into agriculture and thereby improving
the poor performance of this sector,· combined with
so-called economic incentive measures to call forth a greater
effort of the landed elite; and (2) marginal or fake programs
of land tenure improvements in an attempt to keep the peasantry
happy."12
The result is the increasing marginalization of the peasantry
and the emergence, on a widespread scale hitherto unknown,
of a sub-proletariat which is being pushed out of agriculture
but cannot be incorporated into productive occupations in the
non-agricultural sectors due to the characteristics of the process
of industrialization in the system of underdeveloped, dependent,
and peripheral capitalism.
In this context, land reforms that simply redistribute land
to smallholders on micro-plots (minifundistas), such as those
in Mexico and Bolivia, will be mainly stopgap measures. To
be sure, land redistribution in favor of the peasantry increases
employment opportunities and agricultural output, given the
essential inefficiency of the large estate (latifundio) system.13
But it is precisely the fear of land reform and of losing their
political and economic power which has pushed the landed
elite, in recent years, to update its operations. Through more
capital-intensive production, easy access to cheap credit, and
control of marketing systems, the landed elite is able to improve
its position even as it becomes willing, for political reasons,
to tolerate certain kinds of land tenure reforms. To what
extent these tendencies will remain politically feasible in Latin
America over the coming years is a matter for speculation.
In Africa the tendencies which strengthen agricultural capitalism,
initiated during the colonial period, are continuing
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 231
after independence. The emphasis placed in most countries
on one or two cash crops for export has created problems
for agriculture which are not easily solved. In the first place,
many countries which could expand the production of foodstuffs
have to import them. In the second place, the deterioration
of the terms of trade has affected negatively the export
sector, and consequently the whole national economy. Thirdly,
the development of the cash crop export sector has favored
an increasingly powerful class of rural, capitalists, linked to
import-export activities and to the government bureaucracies,
and directly or indirectly dependent upon foreign companies
(or governments) for their economic and political support;14
It seems unlikely, however, that this development will lead
to an agrarian structure similar to that of Latin America.
First, land tenure institutions are still largely related to social
organization at the village level. Secondly, governments in Africa
seem to be aware of the dangers inherent in allowing
the process of land concentration in a few hands to go unchecked.
Thirdly, capital accumulation in the cash crop sector
does not require the direct appropriation of land in the form
of large estates by the capitalist class, as long as the control
of capital, credit, and technology under various kinds of flexible
tenure arrangements (sharecropping, tenancy, pledging,
etc.) is possible. Fourth, the articulation of peasant interests
and the political expression of their grievances and demands
are more likely to be effective as a counterweight to such tendencies
at an early stage of capitalist consolidation of landholdings,
than at a time (as in Latin America) when the
agrarian structure has acquired deep historical roots and is
imbedded in the overall social and political institutions of the
country.
Agricultural development in African countries seems more
likely to remain associated ( and become increasingly so) with
regional development plans and settlement or colonization
schemes under government supervision. Into a number of such
areas (e.g., Office du Niger) considerable investments will be
channeled (under international technical assistance, and therefore
control), new land will be opened up for cultivation,
river systems will come under control, irrigation and drainage
works will be carried out, new technology will be used, high232
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
yielding varieties will be introduced ( e.g., rice, wheat, maize),
supervised credit will be provided, etc. This will contribute
to raising overall output and productivity within a relatively
short time. Agriculturists from the target areas or. from other
regions will receive land under various kinds of supervised
tenure arrangements and will, so it is hoped, benefit shortly
from higher outputs.
Aside from the problems inherent in all such regional planning
efforts (including bureaucratization, corruption, and
other avoidable and inevitable factors), it appears certain that
such projects will be able to absorb only a small proportion
of the rural population of the countries involved. Furthermore,
despite specific policies designed to guarantee equal access
to land and resources for all participants, it appears that
an accelerated process of social and economic differentiation
is in fact already taking place in the . areas covered by such
programs. This means that. a minority of well-endowed entrepreneurs
will be able to make rapid progress, while a growing
class of pauperized peasants will become increasingly dependent
upon, and indebted to, the former. A class of large or
medium-sized landowners linked to the development of commercial
capitalism will become the . principal beneficiaries of
such regional development programs.lo
At the other extreme, the large masses of the rural population
will continue to be associated with the subsistence economy,
providing labor reserves for the modem agricultural, and
the non-agricultural, sectors of the economy. Many of these
rural workers will continue to emigrate to the cities, partly
due to increasing population pressures on the land and the
progressive fragmentation of family holdings in many areas.is
Thus the African peasantry is undergoing a process of marginalization
similar to that which, under different historical circumstances,
is taking place in Latin America.
As long as the majority of the countries in these two continents,
linked as they are by historical circumstances ( the triangle
trade of colonial times based on slavery), k~ to a
capitalist development strategy, it is likely that the main problems
of· the rural populations will not be solved, but will, on
the contrary, be aggravated. For such a strategy means
"growth without development" or "extraverted developlnterethnic
and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 233
ment,"17 i.e., it is designed to raise overall growth rates and
output by strengthening the export sector and, at best, by developing
some kind of import-substituting industrialization.
This strategy, as has been amply demonstrated by the Latin
American experience, and by some African cases ( e.g., Ivory
Coast, Zaire), benefits a small but growing ruling class and
its middle-class bureaucratic dependents, but excludes the
large masses of the population. This polarized development
has all the characteristics of an internal colonial situation. Inasmuch
as in the African countries, and in many Latin American
nations as well, the majority of the population is linked
to agriculture and rural life in general, it will be the peasantry
(and its offshoots among the marginal urban masses) that will
suffer most the brunt of this development strategy.
NOTES
Chapter 1
1. For a thorough analysis of the concept of underdevelopment
and its uses, see Jacques Freyssinet, Le Concept de sous-developpement
(Paris: Mouton [Publications de la Faculte de Droit et des
Sciences ~conomiques de Grenoble], 1966).
2. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Contents
and Measurement of Socio-Economic Development, an Empirical
Enquiry (Geneva, 1970). See also Bruce Russett et al.,
World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven:
Yale Univ. Press, 1964).
3. The catchy term "Third World" for the underdeveloped countries
was coined by the French sociologist Georges Balandier. See
his Le "Tiers Monde": sous-developpement et developpement
(Paris: Institut d'Etudes Demographiques, 1956). See also Peter
Worsley, The Third World (London: Weidenfeld, 1964); and
Irving L Horowitz, Three Worlds of Development (New York:
Oxford, 1966).
4. See, for example, Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic
Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1960); David Apter, The Politics
of Modernization (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965); G. A.
Almond and S. B. Powell, Comparative Politics: A Developmental
Approach (Boston: Little, 1966).
5. A good beginning has been made by Andre G. Frank, "Sociology
of Development and Underdevelopment of Sociology,"
Chapter 2 of his Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution,
(New York: Monthly Review, 1969).
6. An important contribution to the study of the world system and
the way it has shaped the underdeveloped economies is Samir
Amin's L'accumulation a l'echelle mondiale. Critique a la theorie
du sous-developpement (Paris: Anthropos, 1970). A pioneering
and by now classical analysis, which has inspired much of the
recent reinterpretation of these problems, is Paul A. Baran, The
Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review, 1957),
which may be usefully supplemented with a collection of pertinent
essays: Robert I. Rhodes, ed., Imperialism and Underdevelopment
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970). On Latin America,
the reader may refer to Andre G. Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment
in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press,
1967); and Celso Furtado, Obstacles to Development in Latin
America (New York: Anchor Bks., 1970); as well as the same
Notes 235
author's Development and Underdevelopment (Berkeley: Univ. of
Calif. Press, 1964).
7. A typical expression of this point of view is the following passage
by an American anthropologist: "The 'developed' and the
'underdeveloped' nations existed side by side through the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries · and into modem times. In tlie developed
societies the industrial revolution became a revolution of sorts
against poverty. However, the pervasive philosophy of colonialism
inhibited its spread to the less fortunate nations. It was not until
after the Second World War that the more fortunate nations of the
world became sensitive to the problems of their underdeveloped
neighbours. Since then, however, certain political and moral imperatives
have emerged to link both in common cause and to draw
attention especially to developmental change" (Art Gallagher, Jr.,
ed., Perspectives in Developmental Change [Lexington: Univ. of
Ky. Press, 1968], p. 2). .
8. See Andre G. Frank, "The Development of Underdevelopment,"
in Rhodes, op. cit., as well as Amin, op. cit., and Rodolfo
Stavenhagen, "Seven Fallacies about Latin America," in J. Petras
and M. Zeitlin, eds., Latin America: Reform or Revolution?
(Greenwich: Fawcett, 1968). ·
9. See, for example, J. L. Zimmerman, Poor Lands, Rich Lands
(N.Y.: Random House, 1965).
10. Pierre Jalee, The Third World in World Economy (New
York: Monthly Review, 1969).
11. United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America,
Economic Survey of Latin America 1969 (New York: United Nations,
1970), Pt. ill.
12. Lester B. Pearson, Partners in Development: Report of the
Commission on International Development (New York: Praeger,
1969).
13. United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America.
Economic Survey of Latin America 1970 (New York: United Nations,
1971), Pt. ill.
14. S. Herbert Frankel, The Economic Impact on Underdeveloped
Societies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), p. 68.
15. Lester Pearson, op. cit., p. 74. The same report concludes:
"The indebtedness of the developing countries imposes a large
burden of debt service. There has already been a sequence of debt
crises in the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's, and even a
cursory inspection of the situation suggests that the debt servicing
problems of the low-income countries will become even more serious
in the years immediately ahead" (p. 72).
16. Raul Prebisch, Change and Development: Latin America's
Great Task (Washington: Inter-American Development Bank,
1970), p. 60.
17. The discussion on actual and potential economic output is
taken from Baran, op. cit., pp. 23-24.
236 .Notes
18. A good review of dualistic theories can be found in Gerald M.
Meier, Leading Issues in Development Economics (New York:
Oxford, 1964), Pt. II.
19. See Frank, ''The Development of Underdevelopment"; and Rodolfo
Stavenhagen, op. cit., and "Changing Functions of the Community
in Underdeveloped Countries," Sociologia Ruralis 4, no.
3/4 (1964).
20. Rostow, op. cit.
21. Simon Kuznets, "Underdeveloped Countries and the PreIndustrial
Phase in the Advanced Countries," in A. N. Agarwala
and S. P. Singh, eds., The Economics of Underdevelopment (New
York: Oxford, 1963).
22. See, for example, Gabriel Ardant, Le Monde en friche (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), Chap. 1; and Paul
Bairoch, Revolution industrielle et sous-developpement (Paris:
S.E.DJU.S., 1963).
23. See, for example, Ronald Dore, "Latin America and Japan
Compared," in John J. Johnson, ed., Continuity and Change in
Latin America (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1964).
24. Gunnar Myrdal, Asian· Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty
of Nations (New York: Twentieth Cent. Fund, 1968)~ 1, pp. 673-
74.
25. Ibid., pp. 698 and 700.
26. United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America,
Economic Survey of Latin America 1970.
27. The importance of a Protestant ethic in capitalist development
was first suggested by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958
[first published in 1904]). A good general review of the Weberian
thesis in connection with the underdeveloped countries can be
found in S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Protestant Ethic and Modernization
(New York: Basic Bks., 1968). The importance of values
in Latin American development is stressed by Seymour M. Lipset,
"Values, Education and Entrepreneurship," in S. M. Lipset and
Aldo Solari, eds., Elites in Latin America (New York: Oxford,
1967), p. 44.
28. Ibid., pp. 44--45.
29. United Nations, Towards a Dynamic Development Policy. for
Latin America (New York, 1963), p. 6.
Chapter 2
1. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, "Some Principles of Social
Stratification," American Sociological Review 10, no. 2
(1945).
2. Alain Touraine, "Classe sociale et statut socio-economique,"
Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie 11 (1951).
3. Talcott Parsons, "A Revised Analytical Approach to the Theory
Notes 237
of Social Stratification," in R. Bendix and S. M. Lipset, eds., Class,
Status and Power (Glencoe: Free Press, 1953).
4. This. is a critique that has been made of the Warner approach.
See Walter Goldschmidt, "Social Class in America: A Critical
Review,'' American Anthropologist 52 (1950). . .
5. This point is made by T. H. Marshall, "A General Survey of
Changes in ~ocial Stratification in the Twentieth Century,'' in International
Sociological Association (ISA), Transactions of the
Third World Congress of Sociology (Amsterdam, 1956).
6. Cf. Kingsley Davis, "A Conceptual Analysis of Stratification,"
American Sociological Review 7, no. ·3 (1942). The term "status,''
however, does not always imply a stratified system. For common
anthropological usage of the term see Ralph Linton, The Study
of Man (New York: Appleton, 1936); and iμso the discussion by
T. H. Marshall, "A Note on Status;'' Ghurye Felicitation Volume
(Bombay, 1954). Some students consider the family, and not the
individual, as the unit of stratification. .
7. A useful synthesis is found in Gerhard Lenski, Power and Privilege,
a Theory of Social Stratification (New York: McGraw,
1966).
8. Max Wel:,er, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization
(New York: Free Press, 1947).
9. Marshall, "A General Survey ••. "
H). See ibid., and also A. Touraine, op. cit., and S. M. Lipset and
.R; Bendix, "Social Status ·and Social Structure: A Re-examit).ation
of Data and Interpretations,'' 1'he British Journal of Sociology 2
(1951). .
11. S. H. Miller, "The Concept .and Measurement of Mobility,'' in
ISA, Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology, 3,
p. 144. .
12. Cf. S. M. Lipset and H. L. .zetterberg, "A Theory of Social
Mobility," in ISA, Transactions of the Third World Congress of
Sociology. ·
13. Much of the empirical literature of American sociology on
social mobility shows how individuals rise in the social scale thanks
to education, economic opportunities, individual effort, and so forth
(and, by implication, thanks to the free enterprise system!). "Social
descent" of many self-employed people to the statusof employee
or manual laborer-so characteristic of capitalist development, particularly
in its early stages-seems to have been ignored in such
studies.·
14. Cf. Lipset and .zetterberg, op. cit.; and also S. M. Lipset and
R. Bendix, Social Mobility in Industrial Society (Berkeley: Univ.
of Calif. Press, 1959).
15. See, for example, F. van Heek, "Some Introductory Remarks
on Social Mobility and Class Structure,'' in ISA, Transactions,
who suggests that such studies should be policy-oriented. The same
implication runs through the essays in N. J. Smelser and S. M.
238 Notes
Lipset, eds., Social Structure and Mobility in Economic Development
(London: Routledge, 1966).
16. See for example, A Boiarski, "A propos de- la 'mobilite sociale',"
P:tudes Sociologiques, Recherches lnternationales (Paris)
17 (1960).
17. See, for example, the "exhaustive definition" given by Georges
Gurvitch, Le Concept de classes sociales de Marx a nos jours
(Paris: Centre de Documentation Universitaire, 1954); as well as
Pitirim Sorokin, ''What is a Social Class?" in Bendix and Lipset,
Class, Status and Power, whose definition does not differ greatly
from that of Gurvitch. However, these definitions leave some of the
principal problems aside, namely, the relationships between classes,
their societal function, their dynamic evolution, and, principally,
the factors that distinguish one class from another.
18. Which are to be found mainly, ·respectively, in Marx's early
writings (till The Communist Manifesto), in Capital, and in his
historical analyses (The Class· Struggle in France, The 18th
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, and The Civil War in France). See
Raymond Aron, "Social Structure and the Ruling Class/' The British
Journal of Sociology 1 (1950).
19. There exist numerous analyses of the Marxist conceptiqn of
class. Some of the more recent are to be found in: Ralf Dahrendorf,
Class and Class Conflict in ln,dustrial Society (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1959), Chap. 1; G. Gurvitch, op. cit.,
Pt. I; R. Bendix and S. M. Lipset, "Karl Marx' Theory of Social
Classes," in Bendix and Lipset, Class, Status and Power; R. Duchac,
"Bourgeoisie et proletariat a travers l'oeuvre de Marx," Cahiers
lnternationaux de Sociologie 30 (1961); E. de Grolier, "Classes
et rapports de classes dans les premieres oeuvres de Karl Marx,"
and "Classes et rapports de classes dans la theorie marxiste ( de
1859 a 1865)," Cahiers lnterrtationaux 6, nos. 55 and 60 (1954);
S; Ossowski, "Les differents aspects de la classe sociale chez
Marx," Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 24 (1958).
20. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization.
Weber, however, did not have the same conception of the economic
order that Marx had.
21. P. Sorokin, toe. cit.
22. For example, Dahrendorf, op. cit.
23. V. I. Leni1i, "A Great Beginning," in Selected Wqrks (Moscow:
Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1952), Vol. Il, p. 224.
24. The development of class consciousness and the transformation
of a "Klasse an sich" into a "Klasse fur sich" is one of the more
difficult problems of the theory of social classes. In the works of
Marx this problem is referred to in concrete historical analyses
but not in a general theoretical manner. The notion of the "latent"
and "manifest" interests of social classes has been developed by
Dahrendorf, op. cit., on the basis of Parsons' theory of action and
the functionalist analysis of Robert K. Merton.
Notes 239
25. The thesis that racial discrimination in the United States constitutes
a system · of economic exploitation was considered for a
long time as anathema, by most American sociologists, who preferred
to look for psychological and cultural factors. Since the rise
of the Black Power movement many sociologists are having second
thoughts. For an ~ly brilliant developD1eilt of this thesis see Oliver
Cromwell Cox, Caste, Class .and Race, a Study in Social Dynamics
(New York: Monthly Review, 1959).
26. There is no contradjction in considering stratification as a social
reality (when it implies certain forms of behavior and determines
standards of living), as a hierarchy of values, and as an
ideology (in the sense of a moral, political, religious, or philosophical
evaluation or interpretation of a social situation). We may take
the .situation in South Africa as an. example, where an ethnic stratification
system places the whites at the top, the "coloured" (East
Indians and mulattoes) in the middle, and the blacks at the bottom.
Here class structure corresponds roughly with social stratification.
The Africans are the exploited proletariat of the mines
and industries and the domestic servants. The system of apartheid
is an instrument used by the white dominant minority to maintain
its exploitation of the black population. The coloured· population
actually· constitute the middle strata of the economic system: the
petite bourgeoisie of manufacturing, commercial and services sectors.
The whites are the owners of the means of production, of .the
country's wealth. and also possess political power. All of this is
held together by a racist ideology which masquerades behind the
concept of cultural relativity, and justifies the legal creation of vast
labor reservations called Bantustans by appeals to the Africans'
"tn"bal traditions."
Another example is given by W. L Warner in his Yankee City
studies. See W. L. Warner and .P. S. Lunt, The Status System of a
Modern Community (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1947), and
W. L. Warner, Social Class in America (Chicago: Soc. Sc. Research
Assn., 1949). Here the system of stratification (to the extent
that it is a social reality and not the product of the author's imagination)
includes criteria as diverse as the antiquity of family
lineage, education, religion, national· origin, area of residence, etc.
All of this is expressed in the dominant hierarchy of values and
sanctified by the ideology of the "ADierican Way of Life.'' But
here the stratification system no longer corresponds to economic
reality and the tendencies of the class structure are increasingly
separated from the established stratification system.
27. The more a stratification system: ceases to be congruent with
the underlying class relationships, the less it is accepted as a value
system by all . the strata, some of which will attempt to impose
their own values. Thus there arises a multiplicity of conflicts between
different value systems in a society which is at the same time
multistratified and divided into social classes. See W. F. Wertheim,
240 Notes
"La societe et les conflits entre systemes de valeurs," Cahiers Internationawr:
de Sociologie 28 (1960). ·
28. This tendency is represented by A. L. Kroeber, "Caste," Encyclopaedia
of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, 1930),
as well as by such authors as w. L. Warner, A. Davis, and G. Myrdal,
who regard the race relations in the United States as a kind of
caste system. The Indian sociologist G. S. Ghurye also takes this
position; see his Caste and Class in India (Bombay, 1957). The
British anthropologist S. F. Nadel expresses the same ideas in his
Foundations of Social Anthropology (London: Cohen & West,
1957).
29. This tendency is represented mainly by Cox, op. cit., in the
United States, and by Louis Dumont in France; see his "Caste,
racisme et stratification," Cahiers lnternationawr: de Sociologie 29
(1960).
30. E. R. Leach, ed., Aspects of Caste, in South India, Ceylon
and North-West Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,
1960), Introduction; and also F. G. Bailey, "Social Stratification
in India" (Mimeographed paper University of Manchester, 1961).
31. P. L. Van den Berghe, "The Dynamics of Racial Prejudice:
An Ideal Type Dichotomy," Social,Forces 37, no. 2 (1958). The
anthropological criteria of race are of course quite different.
32. Marvin Harris, "Caste, Class 1and Minority," Social Forces
37, no. 3 (1959). In general, Am~rican sociology includes races
among minorities. ·
33. The numerical connotations of the terms "minority" and "majority''
are unfortunate. In fact these terms refer to groups that
participate more or less in a dominant culture, independently of
their numbers. For Harris, the sequence caste-minority-class forms
a continuum. Thus a caste system in which the castes begin to
compete with each other will become a system of minorities which,
in turn, will change into a class system. According to the author,
this is happening in India and occurred in feudal Europe.
Chapter 3
1. See, for example, Jacques Lambert, ''Les Obstacles au developpement
provenant d'une societe dualiste," in Centro Latino
Americano de Pesquisas em Ciancias Sociais, Resist2ncias tl Mudtmfa
(Rio de Janeiro, 1960).
2. For the various usages of these terms, see Jean Cazeneuve, "Le
concept de societe archaique" in G. Gurvitch, Traite de sociologie
(Paris, 1960), Vol. Il, as well as Claude Levi-Strauss, "La.notion
d'archaisme en ethnologie" in Anthropologie structurale (Paris:
Pion, 1958) (English translation available) Structural Anthropology
(New York: Basic Books, 1963); and Emilio Willems, "Primitive
Gesellschaften" in Rene Konig, ed., Soziologie (Frankfurt:
Fischer Lexikon, 1958).
3. A number of institutions that carry out this function have been
Notes 241
reported in ethnographic literature. In Africa, Balandi~r has studied
the Malaki and the Bilaba systems, which serve to strengthen social
ties in a society and to prevent the formation of a social class with
superior economic power within the social group. Through these
systems, economic superiority of a Un,eageo r an individual is transformed
into social prestige. See Georges Balandier, "StnicttJres
sociales traditionnelles et changements economiques," Cahiers
d'£tudes Africaines 1 (1960); and also "Phenome'nes sociaux totaux
et dynamique social~," Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie
30 (1961). - _
4. Research in Africa provides examples of such pre-eminent
statuses, _ even though .the systematic analysis of stratification in
classless societies does not occupy an important· place in most
studies. See M. Fortes and B. E. Evans-Pritchard, African Political
Systems (London: Oxford, 1950); J. Middleton and D. Tait, Tribes
Without Rulers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957); and
Georges Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de l'Afrique Noire (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1955) (English translation available)
The Sociology of Black Africa, London, 1970.
5. Karl Marx, Grundrisse der K.ritik der Politischen lJkonomie
(Rohentwurf) 1857-1858 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953) (English
translation available: Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations [New
York: Int. Pubs., 1965]). ·
6. Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale Univ.
Press, 1957). · ·
1. See the French journal La Pensee, no. 114 (April 1964).
8. Maurice Godelier, ''La notion de 'Mode de Production Asiatique'
et les schemas marxf,stes d'evolution des societes" (Paris:
Centre d'~tudes et de Recherches Marxistes, n.d.), p. 28, italics
added.
9. Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (New
York: Int. Pubs., 1947), p. 35.
10. With respect to Mexico, see Friedrich Katz, Sitμaci6n social y
econ6mica de los az.tecas durante los siglos · XV y XVI (Mexico:
UNAM, 1966); Manuel Moreno, La organizaci6n social y politica
de los az.tecas (Mexico: _Instituto Nacional de Antropologia, 1961);
and Mauro Olmeda, El 4esarrollo de la sociedad inexicana (Mexico:
M. Olmeda, editor~ 1966). ·
11. Katz, op. cit., Chap. 13. See also Sally Moore, Power and
Property _in Inca Peru (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 19.58);
and Alfonso caso, lnstituciones indfgencis en la epoca precolombina
(Mexico: Instituto Nacional indigenista, 1954).
12. Katz, op. cit., and "The Evolution of Aztec Society," Past
and Present, a Journal .of Scientific History 13 (1958).
13. See A. R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism
(Bombay:-Popular Book Depot, 1959). In his letter to Karl Marx
of June 6, 1853, F. Engels writes: "The key to the whole East is
the absence of private property in .land. . • ." See Marx and En242
Notes
gels, On Colonialism (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House, n.d.).
14. Karl Marx, in his Capital, wrote: ''Those small and extremely
ancient Indian communities, some of which have continued down
to this day, are based on possession in common of the land, on the
blending of agriculture and handicrafts, and on an unalterable
division of labour. , ." (Karl Marx, Capital [New York: Modem
Lio.J, p. 392).
15. D. D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History
(Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1956).
16. K. A. Antonowa, "Die Hauptformen des feudalen Grundbesitzes
im Mogul-Indien des 16. Jahrhunderts," in W. Ruben, ed.,
Die Okonomische und soziale Entwicklung lndiens 1 (Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 1959).
17. E. N. Komarow, "Zur Einfii.hrung der stiindigen Veranlagung
durch das Semindari System in Bengalen," in Ruben, op. cit. See
also R. P. Dutt, India Today (Bombay: People's Publishing House,
1949).
18. See Dutt, op. cit., who points out, however, that: "In practice,
through the process of sub-letting and through the dispossession
of the original cultivators by moneylenders and others securing
possession of their land, landlordism has spread extensively and
at an increasing pace in the Ryotwari areas . . • This extending
chain of landlordism in India, increasing most rapidly in the modern
period, is the reflection of the growing dispossession of the
peasantry and the invasion of moneyed interests, big and small,
which seek investment in this direction, having failed to find effective
outlets for investment in productive industry" (p. 221).
19. Desai, op. cit., p. 37.
20. Pierre Boiteau, Madagascar. Contribution a l'histoire de la nation
malgache (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1958).
21. S. F. Nadel, A Black Byzantium. The Kingdom of Nupe in
Nigeria (London: Oxford, 1942).
22. See the following studies: J, Beattie, Bunyoro, an African Kingdom
(New York: Holt, 1960); K. Oberg, "The Kingdom of Ankole
in Uganda," in Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, op. cit.; J. Maquet,
"Le probleme de la domination tutsi," Zaire 6 (1952).
23. In Ruanda, after independence, the tutsi overlords were overthrown
by a hutu rebellion in the early sixties. In Burundi, the
tutsi ruling class bloodily suppressed a hutu uprising in May 1972.
A similar feudal structure, but different in that the cattle owners
occupied an inferior position to the dominant cultivators, existed in
Dahomey. See J. Lombard, "Un systeme politique traditionnel de
type feodal: les Bariba du Nord-Dahomey. Aper~u sur !'organisation
sociale et le pouvoir central," in Bulletin de l'IF AN, Serie B.,
nos. 3-4 (1957); and ''La vie politique dans une ancienne societe
de type feodal: les Bariba du Dahomey," Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines
3 (1960).
Notes 243
:Chapter 4
1. Presence · Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire (Paris:
Presence Africaine, 1952), chapter on "Travail, salaires et prix."
2. For a statement on the importance of the monetary economy in
development see B. F. Hoselitz, "The Market Matrix," in W. E.
Moore and A. S. Feldman, eds., Labor Commitment and Social
Change in Developing Areas (New York: Social Science Research
Council, 1960).
3. In some parts of Black Africa and Latin America it is still possible
to find transitional forms between tribal tenure and private
property of land, particularly the private appropriation of trees
such as the coconut palm tree, whose produce is exportable. See
Rene F. Millon, "Trade, Tree Cultivation and the Development
of Private Property in La.lid," American Anthropologist 57 (1955).
4. Jack Woddis, Africa, the Roots of .Revolt (London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1960).
5. Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," American Journal
of Sociology 44, no. 8 (1938). For a recent examination of Wirth's
theories, see R. N. Morris, Urban Sociology (London: G. Allen,
1968).
6. W. Bascom, "Urbanization among the Yoruba," American
Journal of Sociology 60, no. 5 (1955).
7. Daniel McCall, "Dynamics of Urbanization in Africa," The
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
1955.
8. See, for example, Darryl C. Forde, ed., Social Aspects of Industrialisation
and Urbanisation in Africa South of the Sahara
(Paris: UNESCO, 1956); Kenneth Little, "West African Urbanization
as a Social Process," Cahiers d'~tudes Africaines 3 (1960),
and West African Urbanization (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1970). On Latin America, see P. M. Hauser, ed., Urbanization
in Latin America (Paris: UNESCO, 1961); Glenn H. Beyer,
ed., The Urban Explosion in Latin America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
Univ. Press, 1967); Richard M. Morse, "Recent Research on Latin
American Urbanization: a Selective Study with Commentary,"
Latin American Research Review 1, no. 1 (1965); and J.E. Hardoy
& C. Tobar, La urbanizaci6n en America Latina (Buenos Aires:
Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1969).
9. Dutt, op. cit., Pt. Il.
10. Pierre Naville, "La structure de l'industrie et du commerce,"
in Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire.
11. Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America.
12. I. Wallerstein, "Ethnicity and National Integration in West
Africa," Cahiers d'P,tudes Africaines 3 (1960).
13. Roger Bastide, "Les mythes nationaux en Amerique Latine,"
Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 33 ( 1962); Helio Jaguaribe,
Desenvolvimento Economico e Desenvolvimento Politico (Rio de
244 Notes
Janeiro: Fundo de Cultura, 1962); Alain Touraine, ''La :industrializaci6n
y los movimientos sociales," :in Anthony Leeds, ed.,
Social Structure, Stratification and Mobi1ity, (Washington: Pan
American Union, 1967), Studies and Monographs, vm.
Chapter 5
1. For a classic anthropological appraisal of such communities see
Robert Redfield, The Little Community (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago
Press, 19S3).
2. Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: Univ.
of Chicago Press, 1956).
3. See A. V. Chayanov, The Theory of Peasant Economy (New
York: Irwin, 1966). For an analysis of Chayanov's theory, see
B. Kerblay, "Chayanov and the Theory of Peasantry as a Specific
Type of Economy," :in T. Shan:in, ed., Peasants and Peasant Societies
(London: Penguin, 1971). · .
4. Eric Wolf, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PrenticeHall,
1966).
5. See Henry Mendras, La Fin des paysans (Paris: s.E.D.E.I.S.,
1967), for a discussion of this process :in France.
6. Shanin, Peasants and Peasant Societies, Introduction.
7. Eric Wolf, ''Types of Latin American Peasantry: A Preliminary
Discussion,'' American Anthropologist 51, no. 3 (1955).
8. L A. Fallers, "Are African Cultivators to Be Called 'Peasants'?"
in Current Anthropology 2, no. 2 (1961).
9. John S. Saul and Roger Woods, "African Peasantries," in
Shanin, op; cit.
10. Arthur L Stinchcombe, "Agricultural Enterprise and Rural
Class Relations," American Journal of Sociology 67, no. 2 (1961).
11. See Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and D-emocracy;
Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).
12. G. K. Hirabayashi and L. Armstrong, "Social Structure and
Differentiation bl Rural Lebanon," bl ISA, Transactions of the
Third World Congress of Sociology.
13. Ralph Beals, "Social Stratification in Latin America," American
Journal of Sociology 58, no. 4 (1953). For the situation m
Peru, see Richard N. Adams, "A Change from Caste to Class :in a
Peruvian Sierra Town," Social Forces 31, no. 3 (1953), and
F. Bourrlcaud, "Quelques caracteres originaux d'une culture
metisse en Amerique Latino-'lndienne;'" Cahiers lnternationaux
de Sociologie 18 (1954). As regards Mexico, an early statement is
by Andres Molma Enriquez, Los grandes problemas nacionales
(Mexico, 1908).
14. Charles Wagley, ed., Race and Class in Rural Brazil (Paris:
UNESCO, 1952).
1S. See, for example, Kenneth Little, "Social Change and Social
Notes 245
Class in the Sierra Leone Protectorate," American Journal of Sociology
S4, no. 1 ( 1948).
16. Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de l'Afrique Noire.
17. Desai, Social Background of- Indian Nationalism.
18. Kathleen Gough, "Caste in a Tanjore Village" in Leach, Aspects
of Caste in South India, Ceylon and North-West Pakistan.
19. See Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de l'Afrique Noire, and
Kenneth Little, "Structural Change in the Sierra Leone Pi:otectorate,"
Africa 2S, no. 3 (19SS).
20. See Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris, "A Typology of Latin
American Subcultures," American Anthropologist S1, no. 3 (19SS).
Chapter 6
1. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, London, 1938, Chap. 2.
2. V. Liversage, Land Tenure in the Colonies (Cambridge: Cambridge,
1949); Daniel Biebuyck, ed., African Agrarian Systems,
(London: OXford, 1963), p. 14; Raymond Barbe, ''Les problemes
agraires dans les ex-colonies fran~aises d'Afrique Noire,'' in Recherches
Intemationales (Paris) 22 (1960); Henri Labouret,
Paysans d' Afrique Occidentale (Paris, 1941), Chap. 2.
3. Fenner Brock.way, "Les revendications agraires africaines au
Kenya,'' in Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire; and
Kenyatta, op. cit.
4. I. Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life (London: Oxford,
1947).
S. S. Ardener, E. Ardener, and w. A. Wormington, Plantation and
Village in the Cameroons (London: Oxford, 1960).
6. See Barbe, op. cit.; and Pierre Gourou, Les Pays Tropicaux
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), who writes: "The
large concessions of French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian
Congo and the forced collecting activities which they imposed on
the dispersed native populations, impoverished and depopulated the
areas in which· they were established."
7. For example, the head tax, the hut tax, the tax on ,cattle, on
polygamic marriage arrangements, on the right to a place in the
market, etc. .See Werner Maas, "Die Besteuerung der Eingeborenen
in Afrika," in H. A. Bernatzik, ed., Afrika, Hanbuch der angewandten
Volkerkunde (Graz, n.p., 1947).
8. Labouret, op. cit., p. 243.
9. Jean Suret-Canale, "La Guinee dans le systeme colonial,"
Presence Africaine 29 C-19S9-60).
10. In some countries, private landownership was introduced by
the colonizers earlier than in others. In Uganda, the mailo system
of private ownership was established by the British in 1900, and
has been the basis for a new hereditary ruling class. See Audrey L
Richards, "Some Effects of the Introduction of Individual Freehold
into Buganda," in Biebuyck, op. cit.
11. Majhemout Diop, Contribution. a l'etude des problemes politi246
Notes
ques en Afrique Noire (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1958). For similar
approaches, see also Osende Afana, "Les classes sociales en
Afrique Occidentale," Partisans (Paris) 10 (1963); and Raymond
Barbe, Les classes sociales en Afrique Noire (Paris: Economie et
Politique, 1964). For a sociological discussion of the problem of
social classes in Africa, see Georges Balandier, "Problematique des
classes sociales en Afrique Noire,'' Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie
38 (1965); and Claude Riviere, "De l'objectivite des
classes sociales en Afrique Noire,'' Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie
47 (1969).
12. W. H. Beckett, Akokoaso, a Survey of a Gold Coast Village
(London: London School of Economics, 1956) (Monographs on
Social Anthropology, 10).
13. J. Boyon, Naissance d'un etat africain: le Ghana (Paris: Armand
Colin, 1957), p. 112.
14. Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire, p. 196.
15. International Labour Office, Labour Force Projections 1965-
1985, Pt. II (Geneva, 1971).
16. Bureau International du Travail, Les Problemes du Travail en
Afrique, (Geneva, 1958).
17. Institut International d'Etudes Sociales, Problemes sociaux et
du travail en Afrique Noire francophone. L'homme au travail
(Geneva, 1971); and Babatunde Williams, "The African Revolution,''
New University Thought 1, no. 3 (1961).
18. Henri Labouret, "Sur la main d'oeuvre autochtone," in Presence
Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire, pp. 128-29.
19. Van Velsen, "Labour Migration as a Positive Factor in the
Continuity of Tonga Tribal Society,'' in Aidan Southall, ed., Social
Change in Modern Africa (London: Oxford, 1961).
20. Jean Rouch, "Second Generation Migrants in Ghana and the
Ivory Coast,'' in Southall, op. cit.
21. Labouret, "Sur la main d'oeuvre autochtone."
22. Schapera, op. cit. This study was published before Botswana
and South Africa became independent countries, and the data collected
by the author refer to the period before the Second World
War. In summarizing the situation we use the ethnographic present,
even though the overall situation does not seem to have
changed appreciably.
23. Ibid., p. 141.
24. Ibid., p. 204. The same role is played at present by the Bantustan
reserves set up by the white supremacist government of
South Africa.
25. Ibid., p. 163.
26. One expert on African questions has written: "From the point
of view of the employer and of the economy which he represents,
the migrant labour system has several advantages. First of all, it
provides a large reservoir of unskilled labour from which the employer
can select the able-bodied ancl the fit and reject the aged
Notes 247
and infirm. Secondly, the labour force is too unstable to exert an
effective collective bargaining power. Thirdly, it has a supplementary
source of income in village subsistence production, which can
be used to support the worker's family or the labourer himself
when unemployed or on holiday, and this may permit the individual
to accept less than a full living wage. Fourthly, the tn'bal
connexions provide an independent system of social security which
enables the employing economy to avoid direct liability for maintaining
the unemployed or retired worker'' (Lord Hailey, An African
Survey Revised [London: Oxford University Press, 1957], pp.
1277-78).
27. George Brown, Economic History of Liberia, quoted in
Georges Balanclier, "La main d'oeuvre chez Firestone-Liberia,"
in Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire.
28. Ibid., p. 347-48.
29. Ibid., p. 351.
30. See Ardener, Ardener, and Wormington, op. cit.
31. Edwin Ardener, "Social and Demographic Problems of the
Southern Cameroons Plantation Area," in Southall, op. cit.
32. Labouret, Paysans d' Afrique Occidentale, p. 238.
33. Doyon, op. cit., pp. 11-12. On the problem of cocoa in Ghana,
see Bob Fitch and Mary Oppenheimer, Ghana: End of an.Illusion
(New York: Monthly Review, 1966).
34. Pierre Goqrou, "I.es plantations des cacaoyers en pays yoruba:
un exemple d'expansion economique spontanee," Annales. Economies,
societes, civilisations (Paris) 15, no. 1 (1960),
35. Reported in Doyon, op. cit., p. 112.
Chapter 7
1. A good summary of Spanish colonial policy is to be found in
Charles Gibson, Spain in America (New York: Harper Totchbooks,
1966). For the situation in Brazil see Manuel Diegues
Junior, Populafao e propriedade da te"a no Brasil (Washington:
Pan-American Union, 1959).
2. Wolf, "Types of Latin American Peasantry."
3. Ibid. For a model of the social relationships in the open peasant
communities as against the corporate communities, see George Foster,
"The Dyadic Contract: A Model for the Social Structure of a
Mexican Peasant Village," American Anthropologist 63, no. 6
(1961).
4. An overview of the plantation in America is to be found in
Plantation Systems in the New World (Washington: Pan-American
Union, 1959), particularly in the article by J. H. Steward, "Perspectives
on Plantations."
5. In 1960, 42 per cent of the labor force in agriculture was
composed of farm owners or title holders in land reform communities,
as against only 5 per cent before the Revolution.
6. Ejidatarios own an average of 6.8 hectares of cultivable land.
248 Notes
They represent 25 per cent of· the agricultural labor force, and
possess 43 per cent of the arable land.
7. See Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, Democracy in Mexico (New
York: Oxford, 1970), who analyzes the "marginality" of the rural
population in Mexico.
8. For a fuller treatment of land reform in Mexico, see Rodolfo
Stavenhagen, "Social Aspects of Agrarian Structure in Mexico,"
in R. Stavenhagen, ed., Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements
in Latin America (New York: Anchor Bks., 1970).
9. See Mario Monteforte Toledo, Guatemala, monograffa sociol6gica
(Mexico: UNAM, 1959); Inter-American Committee for
Agricultural Development (CIDA), Tenencia de la tierra y desarrollo
socioeconomico del sector agricola: Guatemala (Washington:
Pan-American Union, 1965).
10. During the democratic period of 1944-54, the land reform program
gave the agricultural workers ownership rights to these shacks.
The counterreform after 1954 returned them to the landowners.
For an analysis of revolution and counterrevolution in Guatemala
see Thomas and Marjorie Melville, Guatemala-Another Vietnam?
(Penguin, 1971).
11. Charles P. Loomis and Reed M. Powell, "Class Status in Rural
Costa · Rica: a Peasant Community compared with an Hacienda
Community," in Materiales para el estudio de la clase media en
America Latina, 5 (Washington: Pan-American Union, 1950).
12. Alejandro Marroqufn, "Cambios en la agricultura y sus repercusiones
sociales," America Latina 8, no. 3 (1965). See also Tenencia
de la tierra y desa"ollo rural en Centroamerica (San Jose,
Costa Rica: EDUCA, 1973).
13. See the studies of the Inter-American Committee on Agricultural
Development on land tenure and the social and economic
development of the agricultural sector in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia,
Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Pern, published in seven
volumes by the Pan-American Union, Washington, 1965-66. For
a critical appraisal of the results of these studies see Ernest Feder,
The Rape of the Peasantry (New York: Anchor Bks., 1971).
14. Beals, "Social Stratification in Latin America."
15. See Wagley, Race and Class in Rural Brazil.
16. Juan Comas, ''Latin America," in International Social Science
Journal, 8, no. 2 (special number on recent research on race
relations [II]) (1961).
Chapter 8
1. The analysis of West African rural society is based on the following
studies:
Ivory Coast
J. L. Boutillier, Bongouanou, Cote d'Ivoire (Paris: Berger Levrault,
1960).
Notes 249
J. Causse and J. Gauthier, Enqu§te agricole due ]Bf' secteur
de la Ctite d'Ivoire, 1957-58 (Abidjan: Republique de la C6te
d'Ivoire, Ministere du Plan).
M. Dupire, Planteurs authochtones et etrangers en basse Ctite
d'Ivoire Occidentale (Abidjan: Etudes Ebumeennes, 8, 1960).
A. Kobben, "Land as an Object of Gain in a Non Literate Society.
Land Tenure among the Bete and Dida (Ivory Coast,
West Africa)," in Biebuyck, African Agrarian Systems (1963).
A. Kobben, Le planteur noir (Abidjan: Etudes Eburneennes,
5, 1956).
Claude Meillassoux, Anthropologie economique des Gouro de
Ctite d'Ivoire (Paris: Mouton, 1964).
Henri Raulin, Problemes fonciers dans les regions de Gagnoa
et Daloa (Paris: Mimeographed paper, 1957).
G. Rougerie, Les pays Agni du Sud-Est de la Ctite d'Ivoire
forestiere (Abidjan: Etudes Eburneennes, 6, 1957).
Ghana
Beckett, Akokoaso, a Survey of a Gold Coast Village.
Boyon, Naissance d'un etat africain: le Ghana.
Polly Hill, The Gold Coast Cocoa Farmer (London: Oxford,
1956).
Polly'Hill, "Three Types of Southern Ghanaian Cocoa Farmers,"
in Biebuyck, op. cit. (1963).
Nigeria
D. C. Forde and R. Scott, The Native Economies of Nigeria,
(London: Oxford, 1946).
Pierre Gourou, ''Les plantations des cacaoyers en pays yomba:
un exemple d'expansion economique spontanee,'' Annales.
Economies, societes, civilisations (Paris) 15, no. 1 (1960).
2. Rougerie, pp. 62-63.
3. Kobben 1956, p. 37.
4. Boutillier, p. 31.
5. Kobben 1956, p. 38.
6. Dupire, p, 224.
7. Rougerie, p. 64.
8. Dupire, p. 22.
9. Dupire, p. 158.
10. Kobben 1956, Chap. 8. The same situation existed among the
Ashanti of the Gold Coast.
11. Boutillier, p. 32.
Chapter 9
1. Among the Yomba commercial farms developed spontaneously.
See Gourou, op. cit. In southern Ghana groups of immigrants
settled freely, having been attracted by the posSI'bilities of gain
with cocoa farming. See Hill 1963.
250 Notes
2. The French word for commercial crop farmer, planteur, was
used as an officially recognized title by the French colonial administration,
and was given to all those cultivators who planted at
least four hectares of coffee or cocoa. See Rougerie, p. 96. We
will use the term farmer here to refer to cash crop agriculturists.
3. Forde and Scott, pp. 86-87.
4. Beckett.
S. Rougerie, p. 98. In nearby Bonguanou, cash crops also displaced
subsistence agriculture, and nowadays local cultivators spend
more than 30 per cent of their income on foodstuffs. See Boutillier,
p. 85.
6. Among the matrilineal families of southern Ghanaian cocoa
farmers, Polly Hill noted that there was no co-operative labor
among the members of the lineage (p. 212). Among the Gouro,
families do co-operate for cash crop farming and this eases the
transition to wage labor. See Meillassoux, p. 328.
7. Kobben 1963.
8. Kobben 1956, p. 9.
9. Ibid., p. 40. Among the Gouro, "however, this tendency towards
the generalization of commercial farming takes place very
unevenly, and there occurs a process of differentiation which is
based in large measure on the social and political hierarchy· inherited
from traditional society, which has been reinforced or altered
by colonial institutions and which now becomes perpetuated
through material success based on the establishment of new relations
of production" (Meillassoux, p. 336).
Chapter 10
1. These migrations must be seen as part of the large-scale, extensive
labor migrations of the African continent to which reference
was made in a previous chapter, and which can only be understood
within the framework of the colonial situation and the continent's
underdevelopment. However, for the purposes of this analysis,
we shall consider migration only in terms of its effects upon
Agni society in the Ivory Coast.
2. Dupire, p. 21.
3. In one area of the Agni country, foreign farmers represent 30
per cent of all cultivators (Dupire), and altogether the immigrants
(farmers, laborers, traders, and craftsmen) make· up about one
third of the population of the Sanwi kingdom (Rougerie).
4. Dupire, pp. 182, 185.
S. For the moment we are not considering foreign immigrants who
are not commercial farmers.
6. Dupire, p. 208. An example of conflict that may influence the
formation of social classes is provided by mixed marriages. If, for
example, a Diola man (of patrilineal tradition) marries an Agni
woman (matrilineal), the couple's children would, in principle,
Notes 251
inherit from both parents. On the other hand, if a foreign woman
from a patrilineal group marries an Agni man, the children may
be in danger of not inheriting anything. Consequently, the accumulation
of wealth through inheritance is distributed very unequally.
Mixed marriages do not appear to be very common, but the conflicts
they generate are not rare.
7. Hill 1963.
8. Meillassoux, pp. 52, 59.
9. Causse and Gauthier, p. 22.
10. Dupire, p. 40.
11. Boutillier, p. 182.
12. Hill, Chap. 2 (1956).
Chaper 11
1. Rougerie, p. 126.
2. Boutillier, pp. 98-99.
3. Hill, Chap. 5 (1956).
4. Beckett, Chap. 5.
5. Forde and Scott, pp. 252-53.
6. Boutillier, p. 108.
7. Kobben (1956), p. 41.
8. Dupire, p. 193.
9. A bushel of cocoa weighs sixty pounds.
10. Hill 1956, Chap. 8.
11. Beckett, Chap. 5.
12. Kobben (1956), p. 41; Rougerie, p. 135.
13. See Kobben 1956, Chaps. 5--7. But among the Yomba conspicuous
consumption seems to be the rule. See Gourou, op. cit.
14. Boutillier, p. 99.
15. The important role of the traders has been underlined also
among the Yomba by Gorou, op. cit., and among the Gouro by
Meillassoux, op. cit.
Chapter 12
1, Elman R. Service, "Indian-European Relations in Coloriial Latin
America," American Anthropologist 57 (1955), p. 416.
2. Ibid., p. 418.
3, 1. M. Ots Capdequi, El regimen de la tierra en la America
eapaiiola durante el perfodo colonial (Santo Domingo: Montalvo
1946), p. 102.
4. Sol Tax, "The Municipios of the Midwestem Highlands of
Guatemala," American Anthropologist 39 (1937); Gonzalo Aguirre
Beltran and Ricardo Pozas, lnstituciones indtgenas en el Mexico
actual (Mexico: lnstituto Nacional lndigenista, 1954).
5. Tax, op. cit., and Henning Siverts, "Social and Cultural Changes
in a Tzeltal (Maya) Municipio, Chiapas, Mexico," Proceedings
252 Notes
of the 32nd. International Congress of Americanists (Copenhagen,
1956).
6. Aguirre Beltran states emphatically that "the Ladino does not
belong to White stock." See Formas de gobierno indigena (Mexico:
UNAM, 1953), p. 112. See also Julio de la Fuente, "Ethnic and
Communal Relations," in Sol Tax, ed., Heritage of Conquest
(Glencoe: Free Press, 1951), who writes, referring to Mesoamerica
in general: " ••• race is a construct derived predominantly out
of cultural differences, racial terminology is vague and inconsistent,
and many Ladinos are not categorized within any race" (p. 77).
7. Nathan Whetten, Rural Mexico (Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press,
1948).
8. Alfonso Caso, ''Definici6n del indio y lo indio," America
lndigena 8, no. 5 (1948).
9. Sol Tax, Penny Capitalism. A Guatemalan Indian Economy
(Washington: Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology,
1953).
10. Siverts, op. cit., p. 183.
11. Eric Wolf, "The Indian in Mexican Society," The Alpha Kappa
Deltan 30, no. 1 (1960).
12. Eric Wolf, "Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society:
Mexico," American Anthropologist 58 (1956).
13. Robert Redfield and Sol Tax, "General Characteristics of Present
Day Mesoamerican Indian Society," in Tax, Heritage of Conquest.
14. Alfonso Caso, "Los fines de la acci6n indigenista en Mexico,"
International Labour Review 72, no. 6 (December 1955).
15. Melvin Tomin, Caste in a Peasant Society (Princeton: Princeton
Univ. Press, 1952).
16. B. Colby and P. Van den Berghe, "Ethnic Relations in Southeastern
Mexico," American Anthropologist 63, no. 4 (1961).
Chapter 13
1. See Jose Miranda and Silvio Zavala, "Instituciones incligenas
en la Colonia," in Metodos y resultados de la polftica indigenista
en Mexico (Mexico: Memorias del Instituto Nacional Indigenista,
VI, 1954).
2. See Calixta Guiteras Holmes, Perils of the Soul (Glencoe:
Free Press, 1961), who writes: "As the years went by more than
half of the lands belonging to the Pedrano Indians were acquired
by wealthy and influential outsiders. • • • The man who purchased
the land acquired the right to exploit those residing on it" (p. 14).
And: ''By 1910, Indians on their own lands had not only lost them
but had become moms (serfs)" (p. 16).
About another community, Siverts writes: ''The legal backing
allowed them ( the Ladinos) to expropriate great areas of arable
land and force the original owners to work for them as peones
Notes 253
or tenants" (op. cit, p. 183). The same process has been reported
in Guatemala by Tax (Penny Capitalism), Tomin (op. cit.), and
Charles Wagley, Santiago Chimaltenango (Guatemala: Seminario
de Integraci6n Social Guatemalteca, 1957).
3. S. A. Mosk, "Economfa cafetalera de Guatemala durante el
perfodo 1850-1918," in Economta de Guatemala (Guatemala:
Seminario de lntegraci6n Social Guatemalteca, 1958).
4. Oliver La Farge, "Etnologfa maya: secuencia de culturas," in
Cultura Indtgena de Guatemala (Guatemala: Seminario de Integraci6n
Social Guatemalteca, 1959).
Chapter 14
1. Wagley, Santiago Chimaltenango.
2. Tax, Penny Capitalism.
3. Wolf, "The Indian in Mexican Society."
4. Tomin, op. cit.
5. A. D. Marroquin, "Consideraciones sobre el problema econ6mico
de la region tzeltal-tzotzil," America lndfgena 16, no. 3 (1956).
6. R. Pozas, Chamula, un pueblo indio de los Altos de Chipas,
(Mexico: lnstituto Nacional lndigenista, 1959).
7. Monteforte Toledo, Guatemala, monografia sociologica.
8. A. Y. Dessaint, "Effects of the Hacienda and Plantation Systems
on Guatemala's Indians," America lndigena, 22, no. 4 (1962),
p. 338.
9. Dessaint, op. cit., writes: "obtaining an adequate labor supply to
work cash-crop fields has been of prime importance ever since the
Spanish Conquest" (p. 326).
10. Tomin, op. cit.
11. Cf. Manning Nash, Machine Age Maya: The Industrialization
of a Guatemalan CommunitY (Glencoe: Free Press, 1958).
12. See Antonio Goubaud's intervention in the discussion of Sol
Tax's paper "Economy and Technology," in Tax, Heritage of Conquest,
p. 74.
13. Ibid.
14. Guiteras Holmes, op. cit.
15. Tomin, op. cit.; John Gillin, San Luis Jilotepeque (Guatemala:
Seminario de Integraci6n Social, 1958).
16. Tax, Penny Capitalism.
17. Wagley, Santiago Chimaltenango, p. 67.
18. Pozas, op. cit.
19. "La situaci6n agraria de las comunidades indfgenas," Accion
Indigenista, no. 105 (March 1962).
Chapter 15
1. In the sense given to this sociological term by Charles Wagley
and Marvin Harris in their Minorities in the New World (New
York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1958).
254 Notes
2. Robert Redfield, "Primitive Merchants of Guatemala," The
Quarterly Journal of Inter-American Relations 1, no. 4 (1939).
3. Tax, Penny Capitalism, p. 13.
4. A. Marroquin, "Introducci6n al mercado indfgena mexicano,"
Ciencias Politicas y Sociales, no. 8 (1957).
5. Cf. B. Malinowski and J. de la Fuente, La economia de un
sistema de mercados en Mexico (Mexico: Acta Anthropologica,
ENAH, 1957); Alejandro Marroquin, La ciudad mercado (Tiaxiaco,
Mexico: UNAM, 1957); G. Aguirre Beltran, El proceso de
aculturaci6n (Mexico: UNAM, 1957).
6. Lately, the Indians who come to the market no longer use the
traditional footpaths but ride on buses over newly built roads which
link their villages to the city. The atajadoras are thus conveniently
eliminated.
7. Pozas, op. cit., p. 111.
8. Guiteras Holmes, op. cit.
9. On the "rural-urban conflict" in this area see the controversy
between B. Colby and P. Van den Berghe, op. cit., and V. Goldkind,
"Ethnic Relations in Southeastern Mexico: A Methodological
Note," American Anthropologist 65, no. 2 (1963); as well as
the formers' "Reply to Goldkind's Critique of 'Ethnic Relations in
Southeastern Mexico,"' American Anthropologist 66, no. 2 (1964);
and also R. Stavenhagen, "Further Comment on Ethnic Relations
in Southeastern Mexico," American Anthropologist 66, no. 5
(1964).
Chapter 16
1. See Chapter 2.
2. Aguirre Beltran, Formas de gobierno indigena.
3 F. Camara Barbachano, "Religious and Political Organization,"
in Tax, Heritage of Conquest.
4. Aguirre Beltran; Formas de gobierno indigena.
5. Pozas, op. cit. In an interesting essay, F. Cancian shows that
in Zinacantan (Mexico), the prestige of a position depends on
various factors which are difficult to measure, among them the
cost of the. position, the authority it conveys, and "idiosyncratic"
factors, Cf. F. Cancian, "Informant Error and Native Prestige
Ranking in Zinacantan," American Anthropologist 65, no. 5 (1963).
See also his Economics and Prestige in a Maya Community (Stanford:
Stanford Univ. Press, 1965), for a detailed analysis of the
system.
6. Cancian, loc. cit., suggests that in Zinacantan there does
exist a rudimentary "economic stratification."
7. Aguirre Beltran, Formas de gobierno indfgena, p. 103.
8. Ibid.
9. In Chiapas, Mexico, the lnstituto Nacional Indigenista (a government
department) is training young Indians as municipal secreNotes
255
taries for the positions held by the ladinos. In Guatemala, the
penetration of the national political parties into the Indian communities
during the democratic regimes of the 1944-54 decade
modified the traditional structure. See: Political Changes in Guatemalan
Indian Communities (New Orleans: Tulane Univ. Press,
1957). .
10. Richard N. Adams, Encuesta sobre la cultura de los ladinos
en Guatemala (Guatemala: EMEP, 1956).
11. Tumin, op. cit.
12. Tax, Penny Capitalism.
13. Colby and Van den Berghe, op. cit.
14. Ibid.
15. Robert Redfield, "The Relations Between Indians and Ladinos
in Agua Escondida, Guatemala," America lndigena 16, no. 4
(1956).
Chapter 17
1. Angel Palerm, "Notas sobre la clase media en Mexico," Ciencias
Sociales (Washington) 14, no. 15, and 16, no. 17 (1952).
2. For a general discussion of the colonial system see Gibson,
Spain in America. ·
3. On the concepts of relation of dependence and relation of order
and their· application to the study of class structures, see S. Ossowski,
Class Structure in the Social Consciousness (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963).
4. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova also brings forth the existence of internal
colonialism in Mexico. The present essay presents a particular
case, which may be considered within Gonzalez Casanova's
general approach. See his study "Internal Colonialism and National
Development," Studies in Comparative International Development
1, no. 4 (1965), as well as Democracy in Mexico. See also
R. Stavenhagen, "Seven Fallacies about Latin America"; and "Estructura
social y subdesarrollo," Dialogos (Mexico) 16 (1967).
5. Cf. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, "Sociedad · plural y desarrollo:
el caso de Mexico," America Latina 5, no. 4 (1962).
6. Jaime Diaz Rozzotto, El caracter de la revoluci6n guatemalteca
(Mexico: Horizonte, 1958). Also see Richard N. Adams, "Social
Change in Guatemala and U.S; Policy," in R. N. Adams (ed.),
Social Change in Latin America Today (New York: Random
House, 1960). ·
7. Cf. Stavenhagen, "Social Aspects of Agrarian Structure in Mexico."
8. Eric Wolf, Sons of the Shaking Earth (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1959).
9. See Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, Regiones de Refugio (Mexico:
Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, 1967).
256 Notes
Epilogue
1. Stephen Hymer, Economic Forms in Pre-Colonial Ghana. (New
Haven: Yale University, 1969) (Economic Growth Center, Center
Discussion Paper No. 79).
2. Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, "Research into an African Mode
of Production," (Dakar, 1969 [IDEP/Reproduction/251/1971]),
3. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism.
4. For recent discussions on these problems see, for example,
Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America; Ernesto
Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America./' New
Left Review, no. 67 (May-June 1971); Enrique Semo, ''Feudalismo
y capitalismo en la Nueva Espana (1521-1765),'' Comercio
Exterior (Mexico) 21, no. 5 (May 1972).
5. Claude Meillassoux, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade
and Markets in West Africa (London: Oxford, 1971), pp. 54,..:.55.
6. Ibid., p, 59.
7. Ibid., p. 60.
8. Richards, "Some Effects of the Introduction of Individual
Freehold in Buganda," in Biebuyck, op. cit
9. M. P. K. Sorrenson, Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country
(Nairobi, London: Oxford, 1967).
10. Stavenhagen, Agrarian l'roblems and Peasant Movements in
Latin America. See also Solon Barraclough, Agrarian Structure in
Latin America (Lexington: Heath, 1973). ·
11. Feder, The Rape of the Peasantry.
12. Ibid., pp. 278-79.
13. International Labour Office, Agrarian Reform and Employment
(Geneva, 1971). ·
14. Samir Amin, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa (Middlesex:
Penguin [Penguin African Library], 1973); Rene Dumont, Notes
sur les implications sociales de la revolution verte en quelques
pays d'Afrique (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for
Social Development, 1971).
15. See Dumont, op. cit, for more information on the Office du
Niger development scheme.
16. For a study of Eastern Nigeria, see, for example, William P.
Huth, Traditional Institutions and Land Tenure as Related to Agricultural
Development Among the Ibo of Eastern Nigeria (Madison:
University of Wisconsin, 1969) (Land Tenure Center Research
Paper No. 36). ·
17. Amin, L'accumulation a l'echelle mondiale.
Abi,san contract, 141-43
Acculturation
in dynamics of· interethnic. relations,
213-15
factors opposing, 2011c-9
μpward mobility as pro~ of,
197-98
Actual economic surplus, defined,
11
Adams, Richard N., 197
Agrarian reform in l.,@.tinA merica,
l04, 107, 108, 181
.Agrarian societies, rμral class
structures an4. 65-71
.Agrarian structures
. capitalist development and, 215-
33
colonization ,process, 219-33
development of agricultural
capitalism, 227-33
precapitalist modes of production,
216-19
defined, 67
.Agricultural capitalism; · · development
of, 227-33
.Agricultural economy; ~ill social
classes and, 67-70
Agricultural enterprise, Central
American, 112-13
Agricultural proletariat
African, 83-87
Central American. 111
in formation, 104
.Agricultural worken
African
INDEX
foreign immigrants as, 141-44
growth of, 77
land use among .Agni,and, 125
on plantation, 83-87, 141-46
seasonal, 83-86
~ social class, 156-57
Latin American, i09-12, 177-79
distribution of, 115
· interethnic relations and, 204-
5
.Agijculture
African commercial, see Plantation
economy
capitalist
extensive, 69
in In~ 46, 47
See also Agrarian structures
commercial, see· Coniniercial
· · agriculture; Monoculture;
Plantation· economy
family farms,. 113
pre-Columbian, 45
subsistence, see Subsistence agriculture
techniques in, providing for surpluses,
217-19
See also Land
Archaic societies, 41-42
Aristocracy
pre-Columbian, 171
bureaucratic aris~, 44
Spanish colonial, 100
See also Nobility
Asiatic mode of production, 43,
219
Assimilation, 209-10
258
Beals, Ralph, 115-16
Beckett, W. H., 148
Beltran, Aguirre, 193
Bendix, R., 23
Bourgeoisie
African, 85
Latin American, 207
national, 15
peasant, 110, 111, 153-54, 156
as Western social class, 14-15
Boutillier, J. L., 125, 135, 149,
157-58
Boyou, J., 75
Capital (Marx), 26
Capital, finance, family smallholding
and, 69
Capital formation
accelerating rates of, 10-11
ruling elites and, 17
Capitalism
agrarian structures and, 215-33
colonization process, 219-33
development of agricultural
capitalism, 227-33
precapitalist modes of production,
216-19
capitalist agriculture
capitalist extensive agriculture,
69
in India, 46, 47
colonialism, see Colonialism
dependent
growth of dependen~ 11-13
middle class and, 15
modernization of elites and,
16-17
factors blocking evolution of,
110-11
transformations wrought by,
18
"penny," 176
and structural analysis of social
classes, 40 .
and subsistence agriculture, 76,
82-83
underdeveloped countries and
history of, 5-7
underdevelopment and development
of world, 40-41
See also Mercantilism; Monetary
economy
Cardenas, Lazaro, 181
Caso, Alfonso, 166-69
Index
Castes, 35-37
African, 48
Latin American, 169
Centripetal organization, 191
Class conflict
conflicting value systems and, 35
and fossilization of stratifications,
34
Class consciousness, 30-31
Class struggle, 31-32
Clergy, pre-Columbian, 44
Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB),
90
Colonialism, 5-6
in Africa
Agni and, 121-22
compared with colonialism in
Latin America, 94-95
compulsory labor abolished,
135
expropriation of land under,
74
in Liberia, 83-85
plantation agriculture under,
69, 83-87
class societies modified by, 51-
53
effects of, 11
internal, 204
and introduction of money economy,
53-54
introduction of private landownership
and monoculture under,
55-56
in Latin America
class relations undermine,
201-2
compared with colonialism in
Africa, 94-95
development of agricultural
capitalism and, 227-33
in dynamics of interethnic relations,
207-10
evolution of colonialism, 94-
104
historical background, 170-72
process of, 219-33
and migration of workers and
rural exodus, 56-58
new social categories arising
from, 76
urbanization and, 58-59
See also Dependent capitalism;
Spanish Conquest
Index
Comas, Juan, 116
Commercial agriculture
in Africa, 119-60
in Latin America, 110-11
cyclical development of, 101-
2
development of, 176-77
peasantry and, lOOr-3
See also Monoculture; Plantation
economy
Commercial-capitalist system, free.
ing the land and expansion
of, 182
Commercial relations, 18S-S9
· regional markets and interethnic,
18S-87
Commoners, pre-Columbian, 44
Communal property
brought into market, 173
traditional, 179-81
Community
Indian
class relations and, 202
compact and dispersed, 164-
6S
corporate, 191-92
defined, · 166-67
interethnic stratifications and,
205-6
ladinoization and, 197-98
of Maya bjgblands people,
164-6S
redistn"bution of wealth in,
192-93
Spanish Conquest and, 200-1
and weakness of cultural factors
as analytical tool, 167-69
Constitutional Council, · 193
Consumption
class and patterns of, 1S2, 1S3
per household average, in Latin
America, 17
Contractors,. iminigrants as, 144
Coparenthood, ritual, 187-88, 197
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine,
218
Cox, Cromwell, 36
Cultural factors
conceal socioeconomic structures,
167 ·
to distmgujsh populations, 166
as essential to stratification, 196-
98
maintenance of, 172
259
weakness of, as analytical tool,
167-69
Culture, Indian, 202, 208
Indianness, 171-72
Davis, Kingsley, 19, 20
Day laborers, foreign iminigrants
as, 141-44. See also Agricultural
workers
Debt service, 196S-67, 10
Dependent capitali$m
growth of, 11-13
middle class and, 1S
modernization of elites and, 16-
17
transformations wrought by, 18
See also Colonialism
Development-underdevelopment dichotomy,
colonial relationships
and, 207-8
Diop, Majhemout, · 7S
Discrimination
against blacks, 33
against Indians, 196
Dobb, Maurice, 43
Dominant class
distribution of, 114-lS
in rural population,· 112
Dual· societies, underdeveloped
countries as, 41
Dumont, Louis, 36
Dupire, M., 122, 142, 14S, 1SO,
158-60
Economic surplus, actual, defined,
11
Engels, Friedrich, 2S-26, 31-32, 43
Entrepreneurs in colonial period,
171
Expropriation of land, 74-7S
Extended · family in plantation
economy, 149-SO
Fallers, L A., 66-67
Family
extended, in plantation economy,
· 149-50
use of land and Agni, 125-27
Family farms, Central American,
113
Family labor
in family-size tenancy, 68
in family smallholding, 68
260
land and, among Agni, 131-33
in peasant economy, 65-66
Family-size tenancy, 68
Family smallholcling, 68-69
Farmers
African
class structure and social
stratification in plantation
economy, 155-58
commercial, 88-91
social differentiation and si7.e
of farms of, 148-51
socioeconomic status and class
situation of, 151-55
commercial, 137-40
African, 88-91
Latin American, 176-77
See also Commercial agriculture
distinguished from peasants, 65-
67
Latin American, 100, 110
commercial, 176-77
subsistence farmer, 175-76
Farm si7.e, social differentiation
and, 148-51
Farm units, relative number and
area of, by si7.eg roups, 113-
14
Feudalism, 43
African
based on cattle herds, 73
in Lake kingdoms, 50-51
in Madagascar, 47-49, 52
in Nigeria, 49
European, 67-68
in India, 46-47, 52
Latin American
colonial system as, 221
of opposing classes, 115-16
Spanish Conquest and, 200
Finance capital, family smallholding
and, 69
Firestone Rubber Company, 83-
84
Folk societies, 171
Folk-urban continuum concept,
167
Forces of production, class struggle
and, 31-32
Foreign investment increasing underdevelopment
in Third
World, 9-11
Frankel, Herbert, 10
Index
Franklin, Benjamin, 15
Freemen, Agni, 122, 124
Godelier, Maurice, 43
Gross National Product (GNP), as
indicator of underdevelopment,
3
Holmes, Guiteras, 188
Hydraulic societies, 43, 219
Hymer, Stephen, 217
Immigrant workexs, 87
as commercial farmers, 137-40
as day laborexs, 141-44
and formation of a new social
class, 144-46
as social class, 156-57
Imperialism, effects of, 11; see also
Capitalism; Colonialism
Income
per capita, 3
in plantation economy, 151
Indebtedness in plantation economy,
147-48
Independence, national, 173-74
lndo-colonial population (Mexico),
166
Industrialization, 59-61, 179, 203-
4
Industrial proletariat
in Africa, 81, 83
industrialization and, 60
Inheritance of plantations among
.Agni, 133-34
Interetbnic relations, 163-215
among .Agni, 137-46
commercial relations and, 185-
89 .
constellation of regional markets
and, 185-87
dynamics of, 199-215
acculturation, 213-15
class relationships, 210-11 ·
colonial relationships, 207-10
contemporary processes, 204-
15
historical trends, 199-204
social stratification, 212-13
historical background of class
relations and, 170-74
colonial period, 170-72
period of independence, 173-
74
Index
land and class relations, 175-84
land tenure, 179-84
production relations, 175-79
among Maya . highlands people,
163-69
community and municipio,
164-65
Indians and ladinos, 166-71
social stratification in, 190-98
interethnic stratification and
mobility, 194-98
intraethnic stratification, 190-
94
Kenyatta, Jomo, 73
Kinship organization, pre-Columbian,
4345
Kobben, A., 121-22, 148
Kuznets, Simon, 13
Labor
in capitalist extensive agriculture,
69
for commercial food crops, 130
family
in family-size tenancy, 68
in family smallholding, 68
land and family· 1abor among
Agni, 131.;.33
in peasant economy, 65-66
forced, 98, 171, 220
abolished, 135
Indian, 9&-101, 220-21
in manorial system, 68
Mexican, 107
peonage, 68, 98-100, 220, 224
in plantation agriculture, 69
Spanish Conquest and, 200
See also Wage labor; Workers
Labor unions, 145-46, 178, 205
Labouret, H., 75, 78, 88
LaFarge, Oliver, 174
Land
in Africa
Agni, 121, 124-28, 137-38
commercial farms and, 88-90
expropriation of, 74-75
family labor and, 131-33
in family-size tenancy, 68
in family smallholdin& 68-69
lack of demographic PJ'C!lllure
on, 7'2-73
social classes defined in terms
of (in peasant societies), 71
261
in capitalist extensive agriculture,
·69
introduction of private ownership
of, 55-56; see also Private
property
in Latin America
Central America, 108-14
class relations and, 175-84
communal lands brought into
market, 173
encomiendas, 9&-97, 163,
170-71, 200, 219-20
grants in, 97, 170-71
individual property in land,
203
multi-family farms, 113, 114
process of accumulation of,
9&-100
private property in, 97-100;
see .also Private property
production relations, 175-79
Spanish gain possession of,
170-71
in manorial system, 67-68
in pre-British India, 46
in primitive societies, 42
relative number and area of
farms, by size groups, 113-
14
social differentiation and farm
size, 148-51
sub-family farms, 113, 115
Landowners
absentee, in plantation economy,
154, 156
in Central America, 110
emergence of, 97-100
in family-size tenancy, 68
introduction of private ownership
and, 55-56; see also
Private property
in manorial system, 68
in Mexico, 104-7
in plantation agriculture, 69
Land reform, 104, 107, 108, 181
Land tenure
in Africa, 47
Agni, 125-28, 139
new social category of commercial
farmers and, 135-
36
in Latin America, 100, 179-84
Central America, 108-12
colonial, 95
262
interethnic relations and, 179-
84
in Mexico, 104-7
in manorial system, 68
Leach, E. R., 36
Lenin, Vladimir L, 27-29
Lipset, Seymour M., 16, 23
Lower class, 112, 114-15
Marroqufn, Alejandro, 112, 186
Marshall, T. H., 23
Marx, Karl, 15
asiatic mode of production outlined
by, 43
and economic basis of class, 27
history of class struggle and, 31-
32
social classes and, 25-27
Marxism
class analysis in, 38-39
and social classes, 25-28
Matrilineal society, 127
Means of production
class, plantation economy and,
153
class struggle and, 31
in social class, defined, 28-30
Mercantilism, 219, 222
spread of, 200-1
Merchants
as class in plantation economy,
157-58
Madagascar, 48-49
p~lumbian, 44, 45
primitive, 185, 186
Merlna society, 48
Metropolis/satellite chain, 12-13,
16
Middle class
in Central American rural population,
112
distn"bution of, 114-15
effects of rise of, 7-8
as integrated into dependent cap,
italism, 15
in social stratification, 115-16
of Western and underdeveloped
countries, compared, 15-16
Migration, colonialism and work.er,
56-58
Migratory workers
African, 77-83
abusan contract for, 141-43
seasonal, 79-83
lndt!l
Latin American, 109, 111, 178
Mine Natives' Wages Commissioll
(1944, South Africa), 81-82
Minorities, 37-38
Mobility
interethnic stratification and,
194-98
social, 23-25
Mode of production
asiatic, 43, 219
precapitalist, 216-19
Monetary economy
emancipatory qualities of, 136
established, . 132-33; see alsG
Plantation economy
indebtedness in, 147-48
introduction of, 53-54, 223-24
stimulates extension of commer,
cial crops, 130
Monetary exchange, developmenl
of, 54
Monoculture
development of, 74-75
introduction of, 55-56
in Latin America, 108-12
penetration by, 173
See also Plantation economy
Monopolistic structure of Indim:
markets, 185, 186
Moore, Wilbert E., 19, 20
Morgan, Lewis H., 43
Multi-family farms, 113, 114
Municipio, 164-65
Mutual savings associations, 87
Myrdal, Gunnar, 14
Nadel, Siegfried F., 49
National integration, 61-62, 207-
10
Nobility
African, 91
.Agni, 121-24
in Lake kingdoms, 50-51
Madagascar, 48
and new social category o:
commercial farms, 134-36
Nigerian, 49
Latin American, p~lumbian
..44, 45
pre-British Indian, 46
See also Aristocracy
Parsons, Talcott, 20
Pearson report, 10
Index
Peasant bourgeoisie, 110, 111, 153-
54, 156
Peasantry
African
changing, 65-67
distinguished from tribal cultivators
and farmers, 65-67
essays of classification, 75-76
in family-me tenancy, 68
in family smallholding, 68-69
in Lake kingdoms, 50-51
Madagascar, 48
new categories among, 73-74
Nigerian, 49
seasonal workers and, 79-83
Latin American
Central American, 108-12
Indian, 98-101, 173-74
and introduction of private
landownership and monoculture,
55
Mexican, 104-7
peasant defined, 66
types, 102-4
in manorial system, 68
in pre-British India, 46, 47
,in underdeveloped countries, 70-
71
"Penny capitalism," 176
Peonage, 68, 98-100, 220, 224
Per capita income, as indicator of
underdevelopment, 3
Plantation economy
agricultural workers in, 83-87,
141-46
in Central America, 109-12
class structnre and social stratification
among the Agni in,
155-58
colonialism and, 69, 83-87
commercial farmers in, 88-91
in commercial farming, 76-77
development of, 129-31
cyclical development, 101-2
established, 120-21
foreign immigrant as commercial
farmers in, 137-40
foreign immigrants as day laborers
in, 141-44
formation of a new social class
in, 144-46
indebtedness in, 147-51
inheritance of plantations, 133-
34
263
land and family labor in, 131-33
new social category of commercial
farmers in, 134-36
peasantry in, 103
socioeconomic status and class
situation of farmers in, 151-
55
Political organization of Agni.
120-23
Political-religious hierarchy, 191
Potential economic surplus, defined,
11
Pozas, R.; 178, 183, 187
Precapitalist mode of production,
216-19
Prestige, stratification and, 20
Primitive societies, 41-42
.Private property, 203
among Agni, 125
introduction of, 55-56
in Latin America, 98-100, 108,
181-84
Producers' associations, formed, in
plantation economy, 154-55
Production
asiatic mode of, 43, 219
forces of, class struggle and, 31-
32
interethnic relations and, 175-79
precapitalist mode of, 216-19
See also Means of production
Production relations
among Agni, 133
in interethnic relations, 17 5-79
land and, 175-79
social class and, 31-32
Proletarianization of Indians, 214
Proletariat.
agricultural
African, 83-87
Central American, 111
in formation, 104
industrial
in Africa, 81, 83
industriali7.ation and, 60
Property
communal
brought into market, 173
traditional, 179-81
concept of, in black Africa, 73
See also Private property
Protestant ethic, 15
Public bureaucracies, effects of
modernizing, 7
264
Race relations, 37-38
in Latin America, class relations
and, 115-16
Races, defined, 37
Racial criteria in stratification, 33,
195, 197
Racism, and plantation economy,
155
Raulin, Henri, 140
Redfield, Robert, 167, 168, 185,
186, 196
Regional markets, 185-87
Rentier capitalists in family-size
tenancy, 68
Ritual coparenthood, 187-88, 197
Rostow, Walt W., 13
Rougerie, G., 120-21, 124-25, 131
Rural bourgeoisie, 110, 111, 153-
54, 156
Rural exodus, 56-59
Rural proletariat. See Agricultural
proletariat
Rural villages, common features of,
65-66
Saul, John S., 67
Schapera, I., 81-83
Serfs, 50-51
Shanin, T., 66
Sharecroppers
and abusan contract, 141-42
in Latin America, 109, 111, 115
Siverts, Henning, 167
Slavery, 43
African
under Agni, 122-24
in Madagascar, 48
Latin American, 45, 69, 94, 100,
221
in plantation agriculture, 69
in pre-British India, 46
Slave trade, 48, 222-23
Social classes, 19-41
consecutive phases in development
of, 31
as defined in contemporary sociological
literature, 22
mobility and disappearance of
antagonism in, 24-25
stratification and, 26
relations between class structure
and, 32-35
in underdeveloped countries,
40-41
Index
See also Stratification
structural and dynamic conception
of, 25-32
See also Aristocracy; Bourgeoisie;
Castes; Commoners;
Dominant class; Farmers;
Freemen; Landowners;
Lower class; Merchants;
Middle class; Nobility; Peasantry;
Peonage; Serfs;
Sharecroppers; Warriors;
Workers; Working class
Social factors
in definition of community, 166-
67
to distinguish populations, 166
Social :fixations (projections}, 33
Social mobility, 23-25
Socioeconomic categories of Latin
American agricultural population,
114-15
Spanish Conquest, 44, 45, 95, 96
ease of Spanish establishment
after, 163
historical development of, 199-
204
Indian segregation policy and,
170
State, the, 32, 43-45
Stinchcombe, Arthur L., 67
Stratification
in Africa, 73
of Agni, 123-25
class structure and, 155-60
in Lake kingdoms, 50-51
land tenure and Agni, 125-28
mutual adaptation between
new class structure and old,
91
in precolonial Nigeria, 49
castes as systems of, 36
defined, 19-23, 195
in Latin America
among ladinos, 193-94
breakdown of interethnic,
204-5
colonial character of, 202-3
in dynamics of interethnic relations,
212-13
of Indian society, 172
interethnic stratification and
mobility, 194-98
intraethnic stratification, 190-
94
Index
oversimplified views of, 11S-
16
in primitive, tn"bal or archaic
societies, 42
racial, 70-71
racial criteria in, 33, 19S, 197
social class and, 26
relations between class structure
and, 32-3S
in underdeveloped countries,
40-41
See also Social classes
social mobility and, 23-2S
Sub-family farms, 113, US
Subsistence agriculture
Agni, 73, 76-77, 86
capitalism and, 76, 82-83
communal land used for, 180
cycle of, differentiated from that
of commercial farming,
130-31
expropriation of land and, 74-
7S; see also Land
of Indians, 170
indigenous traits and, 171-72
Latin American, 108-11
nutl7.e in, 17S-76
peasantry in, 102; see also Peasantry
as traditional economy, 119
wage work and, 179
Subsistence cultivators, 66-67
transformed into commercial
farmers, 130
Tax, Sol
and cultural elements in analysis,
167, 168
and Indians in capitalist system,
176, 177
and ladino classes, 194
and land use, 180, 182
and market system, 18S, 186
Taxes and money economy, S3, 74
Technology, economic develop.
ment and, 13, 14
Tenants in Central America, 109,
111
Touraine, A., 20
Trade
slave, 48, 222-23; see also Slavery
terms of, deteriorating for African
and Latin American
265
countries (19S0-68), 9
Traditional structures, 41-Sl
Tribal cultivators, 66-67
Tribal life, effects of seasonal
workers on, 80-83
Tribal societies, 41-42
Tumin, Melvin, 16!>, 1!>4, l!>S, 1!>7
Underdevelopment, 3-18
defined, 3-8
dynamics of, 8-13
obstacles to development, 13-18
United Fruit Company, 108
Urbanization, S8-S!>
Urban-rural confilct, 189
Usufruct right, 126, 127, 13S
Value systems, stratifications and,
20, 3S
Wage labor
African
abusan contract compared
with, 142
in African commercial farms,
88
spread of, 144-4S
Latin American, 178-79
for Central American agricultural
workers, 109
Indian, 203
money economy and, S4
Wagley, Charles, 182-83
Warner, W. IJoyd, 20
Warriors, pre-Columbian, 4S
Weber, Max, 23, 27
Whetten, Nathan, 166
Wittfogel, Karl, 43, 21!>
Woddis, J., S7
Wolf, Eric, 103, 167, 168, 177, 207,
208
Woods, Roger, 67
Workers
African agricultural
foreign immigrants as, 141-44
growth of, 77
land use among .Agni and, 12S
on plantation, 83-87, 141-46
seasonal, 83-86
as social class, 1S6-S7
in capitalist extensive agriculture,
69
immigrant, 87
266
as commercial farmers, 137-
40
as day laborers, 141-44
and formation of a new social
class, 144-46
as social class, 156-57
Latin American agricultural,
109-12, 177-79
distribution of, 115
interethnic relations and, 204-
5
Latin American landless, 115
Index
migration of, 56-58
migratozy
abusan contract for African,
141-43
Latin American, 109, 111, 178
seasonal African, 79-83
in plantation agriculture, 69
See also Labor; Proletariat;
Wage labor
Working class, 171
World Bank, 9
Lo
SOCIAL CLASSES
IN
AGRARIAN SOCIETIES
RODOLFO STA VENHAGEN is a Mexican citizen who is
currently director of the Department of Sociology at El Colegio
de Mexico. He is the co-editor of Doubleday's publishing
program in Latin America, and is the author of the Anchor
Press book, Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in
Latin America.
180 Social Classes in Agrarian Societiei
tenure and the legal nature of these lands is not always clearll
established. Sometimes the land belongs legally to the muni,
cipio; at other times it is nationally owned land over whicll
the community exercises traditional usufruct rights, but with,
out actually holding a title. Occasionally the lands do indeec
belong to the community as such, through legal title given. m
colonial times which may have been revalidated by succes,
sive national governments. Exact :figures are dfflicult to come
by, but it seems that communal landholdings of the traditiona:
type are not very numerous in the region. In western Guate
mala a survey of eighty communities showed that only om
still had communally owned lands.12 In Mexico, the agra.riaI
reform has modified the nature of the collective landholding:
in a large number of communities.
The still existing collective property is generally compose<
of poor soils, hardly useful for farming, and of minimal pro,
ductive and commercial value. These lands are usually use<
for pasture, and for gathering wood and wild fruit. All mem
hers of the community have a right to use these lands.
Sometimes communal· 1ands are also used for subsisten~
farming. Where this occurs, the size of the communal land
holding is never enough to satisfy the needs of all the loca
peasants. Therefore, it can only absorb a part of the avail
able manpower. On rare occasions communal lands may be
used for cash crops, but when this occurs the developmen
of commercial farming tends to destroy communal tenure
Sol Tax mentions the case of privately owned fruit tree:
planted on communal land, which may be bought or sold evei
though the land itself rem.ams inalienable.18 In a comm.uni~
in Cbiapas the Indians collectively bought a private haciendi
and incorporated the land into the commwμtl holdings of th1
lineage.14 Generally, however, communal landholdings ar1
very old.
A community still possessing communal lands. is also a tra
ditional community, relatively well integrated from a socia
point of view and more or less homogeneous from an etbni1
point of view, for if land cannot be sold, it is unlikely tha
ladinos will be allowed to use it. It is also a poor comm.unit;
with a subsistence economy, since fertile soils and the possibil
ities of commercial agriculture attract the ladinos and ten1
lnterethnic and Class Relations in M esoamerica 181
to transform collective property. In other words, traditional
collective lands are infrequent and do not perform an important
role in the economy and social organization of the Indian
i::ommunities of this region.
B. The Ejido
Agrarian reform in Mexico reached the Indian region of
Chiapas during the regime of President Cardenas (1934-40).
[n some communities traditional collective lands were transformed
into ejidos; in others, some of the latifundia were expropriated
in behalf of the peasants. In general, the distribution
of ejidos respects ethnic differences, so that each ejido
includes in effect members of a homogeneous and socially
integrated ethnic group, which accentuates its character of
Jeing communal property. .
In Guatemala the existence of communal lands may be
:onsidered as a tenacious defense of traditional Indian comillunities
against the economic system represented by private
,roperty and by the ladino group. In Mexico, on the con~
ary, the new communal lands, the ejidos, are the result of
m active struggle for the land by the Indians against the
arge landowners, a struggle which has often taken the shape
>f an interethnic conflict.
Though they are collective property, ejidal lands are tilled
ndividually, or rather by the family group. In Chamula, where
ill of the land is ejidal, the families control their plots as
hough they were private property, yet by law are not allowed
:o sell them. These plots can be inherited by sons and daughers
alike, and this has produced a progressive atomization of
'amily "property," the result of which has been the emigraion
of a large number of .. Chamulas in search of lands in
he neighboring municipalities. In other communities, the
'armer is entitled to· the use. of ejido lands only as long as he
·egularly works them. This condition is characteristic of tradiional
communal organization and follows the Mexican naional
agrarian reform legislation.
~. Private Ownership of Land
l"his is the more usual form of land tenure. It was introduced
,y the Spaniards and spread greatly after the nineteenth
182 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie
century's liberal reforms. Under that legislation Indian com
munities were forced to transform their communal lands int
individual property, which often led to the loss of their land
to outsiders.
Private property means that land has an economic valu
and that it has been transformed into a commodity. It als
means the emergence of social and economic inequalities o:
the basis of different farm sizes, and new social relationsbip1
the basis of which is private property of land: sharecroppini
tenant farming, wage labor, sale, mortgage, etc. In Panf
jachel, writes Tax, the land is fully integrated in the comme1
cial cycles which characterize "penny capitalism." But th
process is not yet :finishedT. ax states that in this comm.unit
land is not considered to be a capital investment but only
consumption good. In Chamula, as we have seen, the Ian
is collectively owned ( ejido), yet the concept of private pro1
erty ( even without its juridical manifestations) is developinJ
The land can be inherited and divided, but not sold. It doc:
not produce rent, but it can be mortgaged under certai
special conditions .
. . In the Indian area, private landownership has stimulate
ladino penetration. First attracted by the new coffee cro
during the past century, ladinos later took to other kinds c
commercial agriculture. Freeing the land in fact accelerate
the expansion of the national commercial-capitalist systen
In Jilotepeque, eastern Guatemala, the Indians have progrei
sively lost. their lands to such a degree that now only 5 p€
cent of the Indians possess enough land to satisfy their need
while 95 per cent of them must rent land from the ladino
Seventy per cent of the land belongs to the ladinos, wb
represent only 30 per cent of the population; this land is pr
marily tilled by Indian sharecroppers or hired laborers. n
ladinos own an average of 57.3 acres of land, and the Ii
dians 13.2 acres.1° In Panajachel, the Iadinos represent or
third of the population, but they own 80 per cent of the lan4
The average ladino owns more than eight times as much Ian
as the average Indian. In addition, the ladino often owi
lands in other municipalities.16 How did it come about th:
the ladinos have been able to take possession of such a lari
amount of land? Charles Wag).ey tells us: "The inevitab
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 183
result of the series of laws extolling private property in compliance
with modem conceptions was that many Indians who
were unable to seize the meaning of the · new private documents
failed to register their lands, and these were often sold
to the big plantations as non-validated lands.''11
Pozas cites the case of a governor of Chiapas who took
advantage of the reform laws during the nineteenth century
to claim non-validated communal Indian lands and thus
became their legal proprietor.is
These examples show that private landownership benefits
the ladinos and harms the Indians. The private appropriation
of land by ladinos is a one-way process. However, in Mexico
it has been possible to slow it down partially through the
agrarian reform legislation.
There is a basic difference in the way Indians and ladinos
conceive of land. The Indian is integrated in his traditional
community, which is tied to the land. The Indian tills the
soil; culturally and psychologically he ceases to be an Indian
when he becomes separated from it. The tilling of the soil is
intimately related to the group's social organization (lineage
or tribe), and to its religious organization and belief. The
Indian needs the land because without it he loses his social
and ethnic identity. It does not matter whether this land is
communal, ejido, or private. In any case, it will be property
but not merchandise, It is a means of production, but it is
not capital. It is a source of income, but not of rent.
For ladinos, the private ownership of land has a different
meaning. It is associated with commercial farming ( especially
coffee), with a monetary economy, with wage labor (including
a type of servitude) of the Indians, and, finally, with prestige
and personal power. For the ladinos land has a commercial
value, independent of the group's own family and
religious organization. The ladinos' primary goal is to accumulate
land and to work it through the use of wage labor. The
ladino is contemptuous of manual labor; his property serves
the purpose of obtaining an income which allows him to devote
himself to commerce and politics. We have already seen
that the majority of the lands now belonging to the ladinos
were obtained by them at the time of the coffee boom, during
184 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
the past century. Ladinos use their accumulation of lands to
obtain and control cheap labor.111
This brief analysis has shown that the private ownership
of land has different economic and social functions among the
Indians and the ladinos. It is a social institution linked to the
capitalist development of the region. But it primarily benefits
the ladino group, and is used by them as an instrument of
exploitation of the Indians, The private ownership of land,
introduced by the liberal regimes who, ironically, wanted the
greatest good for the greatest number, has only served to
dispossess the Indians of their lands, thus forcing them to go
in search of wage work. The private ownership of land,
therefore, constitutes one more element for the differentiation
of the social classes of the region.
There are also important differences within the owners'
group, but we do not have the data which would enable us
to study them in relation to ethnic differences. The ladino
owners generally possess more lands than the Indian owners.
Yet within each of these ethnic groups, the size of properties
varies a great deal. Minifundia are many in number, and
latifundia, though small in number, comprise the greatest part
of private lands. The great latifundists are always ladinos,
of course, and the Indians cluster along the base of the pyramid.
But there are some ladinos who own only very small
parcels of land, while, on the other hand, there are a few
Indians who possess, as in Chimaltenango, fifty times more
land than others. The greater part of Indian owners do not
possess enough land to meet their basic needs, and there
are those who sell their minute properties and become day
laborers in order to earn a little more.
CHAPTER 15
Commercial Relationships
The · Indian economic world is by no means closed. Indian
communities are isolated only in appearance. They participate
in regional systems and the national economy. Markets and
commercial relationships represent the primary link between
the Indian community and the ladino world, between the subsistence
economy and the national economy. It is · true that
the major part of the Indians' agricultural produce is consumed
by them. It is also true that the · income generated by
the Indians represents only a minimal part of the gross national
product· ( even in Guatemala, where the Indian population
comprises more than one half of the total). However, the
importance of these relationships should be measured not by
the . amount of com.mercialized products or by their monetary
value, but rather in terms of the quality of commercial relationships.
· These are the relationships which have transformed
the Indians into a "minority''l and which have placed
them in the condition of dependence in which they now find
themselves,
Markets and commerce in the region have their background
in the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods. Their importance in
some places is such that Redfield even speaks of a "primitive
merchant society;"2 Tax calls the system "capitalist" because
it rests on a . "monetary economy organized around
single · households which are units of production and consumption,
with a strongly developed· market which tends to
be perfectly competitive."3 Such does not seem to be the
case in other areas of the region, where the Indian market
shows strongly marked monopolistic elements.4
THE CONSTELLATION OF REGIONAL MARKETS
Indian markets and the "constellation of regional markets"
have been described in· many contexts ( especially in Mex186
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
ico) .5 The role of the Iadino city as the center of a region,
and its position of economic, political, social, and religious
dominance with respect to satellite Indian communities, is
very well known. Between the city and the communities there
develops a network of close and complex commercial relationships.
In the city there is a weekly market of regional
importance, and regular and perm.anent commerce in the
stores and in the daily marketplace. At the weekly marketplace
there is an influx of thousands of Indians from the surrounding
region who come to sell their handicraft and farm
products, and to buy manufactured and handicraft goods at
the commercial establishments of the city. Some Indians are
full-time traders who participate in the cycle of regional markets;
it is these traders whom Redfield has called "primitive
merchants."
But the majority of Indian producers carry their products
to the market themselves, usually accompanied by their families.
Commerce is so organized that the Indian always leaves
behind his small monetary income. He sells cheaply and must
buy dearly; thus the ladino trader gets a double profit. Ladinos
not only cater to the Indian's immediate and individual
needs but also provide the services and goods necessary to
satisfy the requirements of the Indian's political and religious
organization.
Despite Tax's :findings in Panajachel, there seems to be a
general tendency toward a monopolistic structure in the Indian
markets, in which the Indian producer-seller is in no
way able to influence the price level. Trading of food products
( the basis of Indian production) is controlled by a few
ladino monopolists from the city. As Marroqufn has pointed
out, the well-known bargaining of Indian markets is an instrument
used by ladinos in order to depress price levels of
Indian products. In San Crist6bal las Casas, Chiapas, for instance,
the same effect is achieved through the performance
of the atajadoras, the ladino women who place themselves at
the city's entrance on market days and almost violently force
the submissive, incoming Indians to sell them their wares at
prices that they impose and which are lower than those
which prevail at the market These varied forms of exploitation
which victimize the Indian trader, both as seller and buyer,
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 187
are due to economic and political dominance of the urban
ladinos. This power is reinforced by their cultural superiority
as expressed by their knowledge of price-building mechanisms,
of the laws of the country, and above all, of the Spanish
language. It is obvious that under these conditions the
Indian has no access to national legal institutions to protect
his individual rights. o
OTHER KINDS OF CoMMERCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
Not only in the city but also in the "satellite communities"
commerce is usually in ladino hands. Ladinos are also moneylenders,
which is an important function in societies where
there is no accumulation of capital and where political and
religious life demands considerable expenses. In order to pay
their debts, Indians often mortgage their harvest (but seldom
their property) and go to work on the coffee plantations.
Among the different kinds of relationships which take place
between Indians and ladinos, commercial relationships are
the most important. The Indian participates in these relationships
as producer and consumer; the ladino is always the
trader, the middleman, the creditor. The majority of the Indians
enter into economic and social relationships with ladinos
at the level of commercial activity, not at the level of
wage labor. It is precisely the commercial relationships which
link the Indian world to the socioeconomic region in which
it is integrated, and to national society as well as to the world
economy.
Often commercial relationships go together with other kinds
of social relationships such · as interfamily relations. Pozas
writes that ''inter-dependence between Indian and Ladino
individuals and families constitutes the real basis of relationships
between the Ladino urban complex and the Indian rural
village."7 These relationships between families can take the
form of compadrazgo (ritual coparenthood). Although at first
sight compadrazgo may appear to be an institution in which
Indians and ladinos face each other on a level of equality,
in fact it contributes to accentuate the Indians' condition of
inferiority and dependence. Compadrazgo is one among many
institutions in a complex system which keeps the Indian subordinated
to the ladino in all aspects of social and economic
188 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
life. In fact, compadrazgo between Indians and ladinos is
purely a patron-client relationship. Indians seek out ladino
godfathers for favors, loans, gifts, and protection. Ladinos like
to surround. themselves with a number of Indian proteges and
clients to enhance their prestige and political power. Indian
coparents and godchildren also provide cheap or free services
when so required. Visiting anthropologists in Indian villages
are often asked to become godparents to local children,
and are then expected to provide help and gifts over the years.
Many .ladino traders in the city surround themselves with
a permanent_ clientele of Indian families who. come to them
not only to trade, but also for help, advice, credit, lodging,
and other minor services. Guiteras Holmes found that contact
between Indians and ladinos in one peasant community
was generally limited to commercial relationships.8
CONCLUSIO?ITS
The conjunction of all these commercial relationships allows
us to carry our analysis further. It is obvious that Indian communities
are not economically self-contained. On the contrary,
they are linked to regional. structures by means of which they
participate in the national and world economy. They are
the weakest link of the national economy. On the other hand,
these commercial relationships are only a part of the Indian
community's economic system, but they are the part which
places the Indians in a specific -and special situation with respect
to the ladino population: a class situation. Commercial
relationships between Indians and ladinos are not relations
between equals. The Indian, as a small producer, small seller,
small buyer, and :finally as a small consumer, can influence
neither prices nor market tendencies. The ladinos, on the contrary,
hold a privileged situation in the region. The ladinos,
small in number, are the traders and middlemen. The city,
populated . by ladinos, is monopolistic. Regional production
and distribution are concentrated there. True, these activities
are a function of regional cities throughout the world. But
here the economic inequalities between the city and the
region are accentuated by the low level of agricultural production,
the high cost of goods brought from other regions,
and by all the other means of political, religious, and social
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 189
power which the city exerts over the neighboring rural environment.
There may be those who see in this situation only an ecologic
relation, an "urban-rural" conflict. Others will see only
a situation . of contact between two cultures, between two
ethnic groups with different economic resources, which would
explain or even justify the pre-eminence of one ethnic group
over the other. Yet these would both be mistaken views. The
city's privileged position has its origin in the colonial period.
It was founded by the conqueror to fulfill the very same
function it still fulfills: to incorporate the Indian into the
economy which the conqueror had brought and his descendants
developed. The regional city was an instrument of conquest
and is still an instrument of domination. It is not only
a matter of "contact" between two populations: the Indian
and the ladino are both integrated within a single economic
system, in a single society. It is for this reason that inter.
ethnic relations, insofar as cemmercial activities are concerned,
bear the characteristi~. of class relations. The
ecologic· aspect of interaction between city and countryside,
or between urban metropolis and community, in fact conceals
specific social relationships between certain kinds of
persons who hold differential positions with respect to the
means of production and the distribution of wealth.9
CHAPTER 16
Social Stratification
There are essentially two ways in which to consider the social
relationships between Indians and ladinos: that which
considers only two ethnic groups, two cultures brought to
relatively close contact, which might be called the culturalistic
perspective; and that which talces as its point of departure
the existence of the total society, of a single socioeconomic
structure in which these two ethnic groups perform differentiated
roles, and which might be called the structuralist
perspective. The analysis made thus far is from the latter
perspective. Yet this does not mean to deny the value of the
culturalist approach. On the contrary, the perspective of cultural
anthropology is valid when the analysis of social classes
is set aside in order to consider other aspects of the relationships
between the two ethnic groups.
In every society there may exist various systems of social
stratification ( that is, hierarchies of prestige and authority
defined by cultural values) .1 Here it is possible to distinguish
three systems of social stratification, that is, three social universes
with respect to which stratification may be studied:
the Indian group, the ladino group, and the total society in
which Indians and ladinos participate ( that is, the interethnic
system). We may speak of two kinds of stratification: intraethnic
and interethnic.
INTRAETHNIC STRATIFICATION
Indians and ladinos represent two different cultural communities.
Each has its own value system. To the extent that the
value systems of these two communities are different, so too
their systems of stratification will be different.
A. The Indian~ Social Hierarchy
The Indian community is not stratified. All of its effective
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 191
members equally participate in the same value system, and
they are all equal with respect to each other. To participate
in an effective manner in the Indian community means that
Indians fulfill their duties in the community's political and
religious structure.
The corporate Indian community controls its members
through control of its resources and the periodic redistribution
of wealth. This is brought about by the cycle of religious
festivities and the structure of local government. Community
government has traditionally been in the hands of principales,
family and lineage chiefs who enjoy special prestige due to
services rendered to the community, and sometimes due to
special supernatural powers which are attributed to them by
other members of the group.2 The council of principales
is a group of elders who enjoy an individual pre-eminence; it
is not a social stratum. This form of government is linked
to the original kinship organization, which is now disappearing.
Its real power is decaying, and effective government is
in the hands of the so-called Regional Council. This is the
pinnacle of the double political-religious hierarchy (also
called centripetal organization),3 in which individuals climb
to higher status by alternately holding civil and religious positions
in the course of their lives.
The individual named by his peers to hold a public position
within this system is forced to accept it under the threat
of strong social ostracism. Public functions imply a series of
very heavy duties and monetary expenses. The selected individual
(who always tries to escape from his functions before
having been elected, but must rigorously submit to his
duties once he bas forcibly been sworn in) must not only
abandon his farming, leaving it to the care of his family
or even hired laborers, but must also spend large sums for
festivities and ceremonies. Passing through the hierarchy
means years of indebtedness for many. When the public position
is well performed it is a source of prestige and moral
authority, but it does not bring material rewards. Personal
power is strictly limited by the collectivity; authority is exercised
for the benefit of the whole community and not for
any restricted particular group.
It has been said that the expenses involved in festivities
192 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
and ceremonies represent a prestige economy, that distribution
of wealth ( similar to Canadian potlatch and African
bilaba) is the source of prestige.4 Another author offers an
opposite interpretation, which seems closer to reality: it is
not wealth as such, but services rendered to the community
which create prestige, yet a certain amount of wealth is necessary
to carry out these services adequately. Thus there is not,
strictly speaking, a prestige economy, since economic preeminence
is not automatically translated into prestige. On the
contrary, if. a poor man performs his public functions well,
he may achieve a status of great prestige in the communitythat
is, if he finds the means to finance the festivities and
· ceremonies which are his charge, even when this may mean
running into debt.5
Apparently economic pre-eminence of individuals is not
favored by the community. We have seen that the means
available to the Indian for accumulating capital are strictly
limited. Also limited are the possibilities of investment. Basically,
it is the corporate community itself which limits the
economic possibilities of its members. In Chamula, members
of the Council sometimes purposefully choose for the presidency
individuals whose relative wealth is well known. This
is obviously justified by the fact that wealthy persons can
more easily perform their duties. But the social consequence
of this act is the redistribution of wealth and maintenance of
. the "principle of equality" in the group's social organization.
Under these conditions it is impossible for a social stratum
that stands out among the rest of the population to emerge in
the traditional corporate community.a Individual economic
pre-eminence is not transformed into prestige. It arises, individually,
through positions held in the political-religious
structure, The political organization of the community is a
way to redistribute wealth and channel people's energy into
service to the community.
It is important to qualify the phrase ''red.istnbution of
wealth." In effect, a fictitious redistribution occurs. It is nothing
but elimination of likely economic pre-eminence of those
individuals who for some reason have been able to accumulate
a greater amount of goods than their peers. This wealth
is not reabsorbed by the community. It is consumed in liquor,
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 193
ceremonial clothing, fireworks, and in hundreds of articles
employed in what one observer has called "institutionalized
waste."7 These expenses required by the ceremonial pattern
associated with the functioning of the political and religious
organization are transformed into income for those who provide
these articles for the community. The purveyors are urbanized
Iadinos, many of whom are craftsmen specializing
in the kinds of articles consumed by Indians. Aguirre Beltran
even states that trading of these ceremonial articles is, in
Chiapas, "the real source of life" in a city of 18,000 inhabitants.
a We may thus conclude that the structure which
maintains equality within the Indian community, preventing
the emergence of social classes, also contributes to the whole
Indian community's dependence on the city, that is, to the
differentiation of social classes between Indians and ladinos.
There exists in the region yet another form of government:
the Constitutional Council, which is a part of the national
political regime and the only "legal" government, from the
point of view of the national constitution. This is the link
which unites the community to other political institutions such
as political parties, regional and national legislatures, and
national executive power. It is the means employed by national
governments to extend their administrative and political
control over Indian populations.
The Constitutional Council is generally controlled by ladinos,
even though the municipal president may be an Indian.
Local Indian government will surely disappear in time, to be
substituted by the Constitutional Council. To the extent· to
which the Indians participate more and more in national
politics and in official governmental organisms, the Constitutional
Council is likely to become a means of social differentiation
within the Indian community, perhaps creating a
higher stratum of "court clerks" and functionaries.9
B. Social Strata Among Ladinos
Ladino society, like every ''Western" society, is stratified.
This stratification is influenced by such factors as landownership,
income, occupation, education, and family lineage. The
ladino city is highly differentiated in terms of these diverse
criteria, even having its own local "aristocracy" descending
194 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
(in fact or in fiction) from important colonial families. The
status indices are correlated with one another. The family
line, large landownership, big business, and participation in
locai politics go together. But on the other hand, a high level
of education ( especially university) is more typical of the
"new rich," the professionals (physicians, lawyers, engineers)
who are new to the region but are developing some traditional
interests, and thus frequently associate with the older families
through marriage.
The number of strata used in describing ladino society is
an arbitrary matter. For Guatemala, Adams uses five "primary
economic types" and four general strata or "classes."10
On the other hand,. in describing the ladinos of Jilotepeque,
Tomin uses a statistical index of standard of living to delimit
three "classes," but then adds that the populace itself recognizes
but two levels: the elite, called "society," composed of
twenty families (less than 20 per cent of the ladino population),
and the "people.,. At the lowest level of the ladino
ethnic group, it is difficult to distinguish clearly a ladino from
an Indian.11 Tax also speaks of two ladino classes in Panajachel:
the ''upper urban bourgeoisie" and the "lower rurai "1 2
Ladinos place high value on wealth and property, which
are one of their raisons d'etre. These values constitute the
foundation of all of their economic activity, and there is no
competing system of politico-religious offices to equalize property
and prestige. Ladino society is mobile; and opportunities
for upward mobility exist, in principle, for everyone. In contrast
to the Indian, the ladino. perceives his own sodety as a
stratified system. Certain activities, especially manual occupations,
belong to an inferior order and must be avoided; there
are others, especially commerce, to which they aspire. Finally,
the position of landowner is the most envied. "Good family"
background plays an important part in these provincial societies,
and the fact of being related, through kinship, marriage,
or compadrazgo, to important families is obviously a way of
acquiring a high social status. Ladino culture, as opposed to
Indian, is highly competitive and authoritarian.111
INTERETHNIC STRATIFICATION AND MOBILITY
Stratification means that certain characteristics or variables
lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 195
are unequally distributed among individuals. The combination
of some of these characteristics and the value attributed to
them by members of society account for the existence of a
scale or continuum in which individuals occupy higher or
lower positions with respect to one another. If a set of individuals
have in common a set of these characteristics which
distinguish them from other groupings, and if this is recognized
as such by society, we may then speak of a stratum.
Ladinos and Indians hold different positions in the stratification
scale, according to such well-known variables as income,
property, degree of education, standard of living, etc.
Given the fact that ladinos concentrate along the scale's upper
ranks and Indians along the lower ones, the two ethnic groups
may be considered as separate strata within one stratified
system. They are in effect the only strata in this system, because
in the value systems of both groups ethnic characteristics
( cultural and sometimes even biological) play a more
important part in stratification 'than do other criteria. Ladinos
not only hold a higher position in the objective scale of socioeconomic
characteristics, but they also consider themselves,
qua ladinos; as being superior to Indians. They are contemptuous
of the Indian as such. The latter, on the other hand, are
conscious of their social and economic inferiority. They know
that those traits which identify them as Indians place them
in a position of inferiority with respect to ladinos.
Even while stratification is objectively presented as a scale
or continuum, it in fact functions socially as a· system with
only two strata which are characterized in cultural and biological
terms. Ladinos make use of physical stereotypes to
affirm their ''whiteness" in contrast to the darker Indians.
As TUmin has pointed out, it is a matter of ideal types, since
the ladino population is in effect a mestizo one. This fact notwithstanding,
one of the most valued criteria among the higher
ladino strata is that of their supposed "Spanish blood."
Other observers have noted that, in San Crist6bal las Casas,
there appears to be a coincidence between the socioeconomic
scale and the biological continuum,14 Racial criteria, nonetheless,
do not perform a crucial role, precisely because it is
impossible to classify the population in either ethnic group on
an exclusively physical basis.
196 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
Cultural indices are essential to stratification:. most important
are language and dress, followed by self-identification
and personal classification by others. Thus mastery of Spanish
and changes in dress do not ipso facto tum the Indian
into a ladino, Essentially the Indian;s condition lies in bis
being integrated into his Indian (corporate) commuμity, and
participating in the traditional social structure (kinship groups,
civic-religious hierarchy). It is the "cultural" and not the
"biological" Indian who constitutes the lowest stratum. The
Indian is conscious of this situation. Learning Spanish represents
for him not only a means of upward mobility, but also
an instrument of defense in bis daily relationships with ladinos.
The adoption of ladino dress styles also reduces the
stigma of.bis inferior condition in his relationship with ladinos.
The • definition of the two ethnic groups depends upon
stri~tly cultural factors which, due to their historical importance
in the region, subsume and impose themselves upon
all other factors of stratification. While it dichotomizes social
relationships, ethnic stratifica.tion diminishes the importance
of the socioeconomic. scaie .· or continuum based on quantitative
indi~, so that· many Indians and ladinos share the same
socioeconomic level without the disappearance of ethnic stratification.
Robert Redfield noted that in a Guatemalan village,
"the greater the Ladinos' upward . mobility, the more they
tended to be contemptuous of the Indians and . to identify
lower-class Laqinos with Indians.••15 And, naturally, those
"lower-class" ladinos considered themselves superior to Indians.
These cultural values are reflected jn interethnic relations.
Ladinos always behave in an authoritarian or paternalistic
manner toward Indians. The latter are treated with familiarity,
yet it is expected that they show · signs of respect· and s1,1bmission
.. Unskilled manual labor is considered an attribute
of the ·India>nN. otwithstanding legal equality proclaimed in
the Constitution, Indians are subject to discriinination, particularly
in the cities, where they are exposed to all kinds. of
. arbitrary and humiliating behavior by the . ladino population.
Effective social contacts between Indiap.s and ladinos, with
the exception of the already-mentioned economic relations,
are very limited. There exists no real social interaction beJnterethnic
and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 197
tween the two ethnic groups. Traditional religious and political
activities are performed separately; common participation
at parties and sports is almost non-existent The only
non-economic relationship in which Indians and ladinos formally
participate is compadrazgo, yet as has akeady been
pointed out, here too the Indian's inferiority is obvious, and
here too there are economic implications.
There is some upward mobility from the Indian stratum
to the ladino; but its nature and characteristics are by no
means simple and they vary from region to . region. A public
opinion poll carried out by Tomin in Jilotepeque showed that
there are relatively more Indians than 'ladinos who believe
that movement from one group to the other is possible. Indians
tend to believe they can achieve this through the accumulation
of wealth, while ladinos believe that the modification
of cultural characteristics is needed. Given the ladinos'
superiority, they 'have an interest in checking ,the Indians'
mobility, Adams has pointed out that in a community where
cultural differences between Indians and ladinos are small, the
latter resort to a whole series of ruses in order to maintain
their superiority-even the invocation of "racial" factors where
no biological differences exist.
Upward mobility among Indians represents a process of
acculturation. But learning Spanish and adopting ladino dress
styles are insufficient. The Indian· must also become socially
(generally meaning physically) separated from his community.
In order to become a ladino, the mobile Indian must cut
his ties with the social structure of his corporate community.
He must not only modify his cultural characteristics, but also
his "social;' condition as an Indian. It is very difficult, if not
impossible, for an. Indian to become a ladino in the midst of
his own community, for the ''ladinoized" Indian is a marginal
man.
The Indian's upward mobility means both a process of acculturation
and an elevation · in the socioeconomic scale. It
is neither the poorer Indians nor the subsistence farmers who
become ladinos. To become a ladino in a cultural sense also
means being a trader or regularly producing for the market
and, in general, acquiring a higher standard of living. This
does not mean that all of those who become traders or sell
198 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
their produce in the market or who achieve a better standard
of living necessarily become ladinos. Nor does it mean that
ladinos who descend the socioeconomic scale become Indians.
In effect, a ladino will always be a ladino, low as he may
fall in the socioeconomic scale. But an Indian, provided that
he ascends the socioeconomic scale, may become a ladino;
what is more, he will never be a ladino unless he does ascend
the socioeconomic scale.
According to the point of view one wishes to take, interethnic
stratification may be seen as a scale composed of a
number of steps or as a continuum of quantitatively different
positions, or else as a dichotomy. In real life these perspectives
cut across each other. For the upwardly mobile Indian,
interethnic mobility represents both a gradual or quantitative
evolution (his income rises, his standard of living improves,
he learns to read and write in Spanish) and a radical change,
a qualitative "leap" (he leaves his community, he becomes a
wage worker in town, he marries a ladino woman, he denies
his Indian origins). At what point in the individual's cultural
evolution does this metamorphosis take place? This varies
according to the circumstances. When the upwardly mobile
Indian starts at a high socioeconomic level the ethnic transformation
may be accomplished with relative ease. If, on the
other hand, the upwardly mobile individual begins at a lower
level, the process may be accelerated if he breaks once and
for all with his community and, say, moves to another area.
But in this case he places himself outside of the local stratification
system and his transformation may not, strictly speaking,
be considered as upward mobility within a given system
of social stratification. The frequency and speed of the rate
of mobility vary also according to other factors: the rigidity
of traditional communal social structure, the rigidity of the
ethnic barrier maintained by the ladinos, the economic situation
of the region, and last but not least, the effectiveness of
Indianist action by the national governments.
CHAPTER 17
The Dynamics ·of Interethnic Relations:
Classes,. Colonialism, and Acculturation
Let us pull together the different threads in this analysis and
attempt a general formulation of the system of relationships
between Indians and ladinos. Our historical point of departure
-will be the Spanish Conquest, although we do not deny
the importance of pre-Hispanic social processes in the subsequent
character of the Mayan region. The Spanish Conquest
was a military enterprise, part of the. political and economic
expansion in post-feudal and mercantilist Europe. The
Conquest was fundamentally influenced by commercial factors-
the lust for gold and spices. As a military enterprise the
Spanish Conquest was a violent confrontation of two societies,
two different cultures. The weaker one-the Indian-succumbed.
HlsTORICAL TRENDS
At first, the Indians received from the conqueror the treatment
accorded to the vanquished since ancient times: looting,
· dispossession, slavery, even extermination. Yet the Conquest
of the New World was not like preceding ones. In Spain,
deep transformations -were taking place due to the expulsion
of the Moors. The American continent was to perform an
essential-role in Europe's new economic development, and the
native populations were necessary to that role; for various
political and economic reasons, the destruction and enslavement
of the Indians had to stop. The military conquest was
transformed into a colonial system. As in other colonial systems
which the world has known since then, this one was
managed over three centuries on behalf of the interests of
certain powerful social classes of the mother country, and
their ·representatives in New Spain. The Crown's policy reflected
these changing and often conflicting interests.
200 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
At first the Indian chiefs and aristocracy were kept in their
positions, which suited the colonial administration's Realpolitik.
But toward the end of the sixteenth century the Indian
communities had become socially and economically homogeneous.
Their internal social differentiation was no longer
in the interests of the colonizer, Residential segregation of
Indians (through settlements of converted Indians and other
mechanisms) and the encomiendas (lands which the Crown
granted as trusteeship to the conquistadores) were the first
instruments used by the conquerors to levy taxes and services.
Part of the Indian society's wealth was · simply transferred
to the conquering society. The Indian communities
were transformed into labor reserves of the colonial economy.
Serfdom and forced labor in plantations, mines, and workshops
constituted the basis of the economic systems.
Colonial society was the product of mercantilist expansion:
of the dawning of the bourgeois revolution in Europe. Its
structure still retained much from the feudal era, especially
in the nature of human relationships. Some researchers even
affirm that feudalism grew stronger in America after it had
begun to decline in Spain, and that America ''feudalized"
Spain once again.1 Exploitation of the Indian population constituted
one of the main goals of colonial economic policy.
In order to maintain the labor reserve, it was controlled
by a complex of laws, norms, restrictions, and prohibitions
which kept accumulating during three centuries of colonialism,
and which resulted in the corporate "folk" communities.
Under the Legislation of the Indies strict control was
exercised by the colonial administration over all aspects of
Indian life: communal land tenure, local government, religion,
technology of production, economic activity, trade, residential
patterns, matrimony, education, dress, and even the
use of language. Whereas in Spain the nobility, the landowners,
the financiers, and the petite bourgeoisie of the towns were
struggling over their respective interests, sometimes in conflict,
sometimes in association with each other, in New Spain
a rigid social hierarchy based upon centralization of political
and economic power and validated by law kept the natives
in their position of inferiority with respect to all of the other
social strata.2
Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 201
The colonial system worked on two levels. The restrictions
and economic prohibitions which Spain imposed upon. her
colonies ( and which later had the effect of fomenting the
independence movements) were repeated, often aggravated,
in the relations between the colonial society and the Indian
communities. The same commercial monopolies, the same
restrictions on production, the same political controls which
Spain exerted upon the colony, the colonists imposed upon
the Indian communities. As Spain was to the colony, so the
colony was to Indian communities: a colonial metropolis.
Thus mercantilism penetrated even to the most isolated villages
of Spanish America.
The social groupings in New Spain which took part in the
process of production and circulation of economic goods and
services that sustained the Spanish empire participated in the
class structure of the colonial system. Likewise, the Indian
population participated in the clas.s structure of the colony.
Thus it may be said that colonial relationships as well as
class relationships underlay interethnic relations, but in different
ways.
In terms of colonial relationships, the Indian society as
a whole confronted colonial society. Contact was defined .by
ethnic discrimination, political dependence, social inferiority,
residential segregation, economic subjection, and juridical
incapacity. But class relationships were defined in terms of
labor and property relations. These relations were not defined
in ethnic, social, or residential terms. Judicial coercion
(supported by military power) as well as other economic and
extra-economic. pressures intervened in the establishment of
labor. relations. Labor relations were not between two societies,
but only between two specific sectors within one society.
Colonial and. class relationships appear intermixed throughout
this period. While the former primarily answered to mercantilist
interests, the latter met the emerging capitalist ones,
and conflicts developed between them. The development of
class relations undermined the maintenance of the colonial
relationships. Indian communities were constantly losing members
to the emerging national society. Despite tutelary legislation,.
biological and cultural mixing was a constant process
which kept producing new problems for colonial society. Those
202 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
Indians who for various reasons were absorbed by the larger
society, therefore, quit the colonial relationships to become
integrated into the class structure. In consequence, they were
no longer Indians, but simply peasants or workers.
These two kinds of socioeconomic relationships in which
the Indian ethnic groups were involved received moral sanction
through the rigid social stratification in which the Indian
(biologically, culturally, and juridically defined) was always
at the bottom (with the exception of the slave). From these
conditions there emerged the corporate community and the
formation of Indo-colonial cultural characteristics, which
we today call Indian culture. Ethnic relationships of the
period thus· presented three main aspects: two kinds of relationships
of dependence ( colonial and class) and one kind of
relationship of order (stratification).8
The dynamics of these systems of relationships were varied.
The colonial relationships between Indian communities and
the larger society tended to strengthen the Indian communities
and foment their ethnic identity. The subordinate group
usually reacts to a dominant-subordinate relationship of the
colonial kind with a struggle for liberation, and in fact the
colonial period was not devoid of native rebellions. But conversely,
class relations contributed to the disintegration of
the Indian community and its integration within the larger
society. Both kinds of relations complemented each other in
terms of the Indian's oppression. But the opposed tendencies
which they engendered explain why certain Indian communities
survived, while others were transformed into enclaves of
peasants in the haciendas which displaced the encomiendas
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Colonial relationships
usually dominated class relationships. It may be
argued, of course, that within a wider perspective colonial rela.
tionships were only one aspect of the class structure that the
mercantilist system was creating on a worldwide scale. Indeed
the class relations between Indians and Spaniards generally
took the form of colonial relations due to the nature of the
colonial · economy. The social stratification system (which,
because of its rigidity, has been called a caste system) reflected
· more the colonial character than the class character of the
Indian's subjugation. The stratification system, in turn, exerted
lnteretlznic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 203
its own influence upon the development of class relationships.
Political independence· from Spain in the early nineteenth
century did not basically change the relationships between
Indians and the national society. Despite the legal equality
of all citizens (including Indians), various factors joined to
maintain the "colonial" character of these relations. There
were internal struggles which lasted many decades, and there
was economic depression during the :first half of . the nineteenth
century. Both helped to keep Indian communities marginal,
isolated from the outside world, and turned inward.
Another reason should also be taken into account. At the
beginning of the colonial period tutelary laws were established
because it was considered that Indians were inferior
beings. But by the end of three centuries of colonialism,
these laws had served to maintain and fix that inferiority.
In consequence, when legal equality was. declared, the Indian
was effectively in a condition of inferiority to the rest
of the population, in every area of. economic and social life,
and thus unable to act as a free and equal citizen.
The first effective changes occurred during the second half
of the nineteenth century: :first with the Reform Laws stressing
individual property in land, and later with the introduction
of new cash crops (principally coffee) into the Indian region.
Both phenomena, of course, are closely related· to
one another. Legal equality of men and the breakup of communal
land had two immediate consequences: the Indian
could now freely dispose of himself in the labor market, and
the land he held could become private property. In fact, this
did not take place in the abstract, but in the specific situations
that have already been mentioned: extension of commercial
farming; penetration by ladinos into communities inhabited
by Indian ethnic groups; appropriation of land by Iadinos;
formation of great haciendas .and the Indian's wage labor on
these properties. Coffee plantations became working centers
for a considerable mass of Indians, legally or illegally recruited
from their communities. At the same time the first
products of industrialization penetrated into the more distant
villages of the Indian region in the form of goods carried by
ladino traders. In this way new economic relationships were
204 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
established between the Indians and the rest of the population.
Expansion of the capitalist economy during the second half
of the nineteenth century, together with the ideology of economic
liberalism, once again transformed the quality of
ethnic relationships between Indians and ladinos. We consider
this stage a second form of colonialism, which we
will call internal colonialism. Indians of traditional communities
found themselves once again in the role of a colonized
people: they lost their lands, were forced to work for the
"strangers," were integrated against their will into a new
monetary economy, and fell under new forms of political
domination. This time, colonial society was national society
itself, which progressively extended its control over its own
territory.4 Now there were not only isolated Indians who,
abandoning their communities, joined the national society;
but Indian communities themselves, as groups, were progressively
incorporated into expanding regional economic systems.
To the extent to which the national society extended its control,
and the capitalist economy dominated the area, relations
between colonizer and colonized, between ladino and Indian,
were transformed into class relationships.
CONTEMPORARY PROCESSES
The corporate community has been characteristic of traditional
colonial society in Indian America. Corporative social
structure has an ecologic and economic basis. When colonial
society is transformed into ''underdeveloped" society, when
the economic structure of the corporate community is modified
(loss of lands, wage labor, commercialization of agricultural
produce, etc.), then it is rather unlikely that the corporate
quality of the community's internal social relationships
can survive for long. As we have seen, some of the Indians'
cultural characteristics are bound to the highly structured
-corporate community. If this structure should progressively
disappear, these cultural characteristics would become weaker.
Ethnic stratification in the region is the result of this historical
evolution. It reflects the "colonial situation" which
has been maintained to present times. Behind interethnic
relationships, which show themselves as a stratification system,
there is a social class structure. When an Indian works