Contemporary imperialism and the agrarian question

Abstract

This article argues that the ongoing integration of the peasantry in the South into the monopoly-controlled global agro-food system can only produce mass marginalization and pauperization. On the basis of the global competitiveness promoted by the World Trade Organization (WTO), increases in productivity can only imply labour-saving technologies, without the possibility of absorbing the marginalized into other economic activities, or of outmigration, as was practised by the West in the course of its own industrialization. Thus, an alternative policy is necessary to maintain both peasant producers in the countryside and promote technological change at a rate consistent with non-rural, non-agricultural employment.