The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America

by Alain de Janvry

Overview

The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America epitomizes the emerging tradition of conflict-oriented approaches to problems of economic, agricultural, and rurual development in Third World nations. Drawing on firsthand observations of the agrarian crises in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and ten other Latin-American nations, Alain de Janvry effectively blends Marxist theories of world-wide economic development with empirical analysis and policy recommendations.

De Janvry offers both a careful examination of the conditions of underdevelopment in Latin America and detailed discussions of the achievements and limits of technological change, land reform, integrated rural development, and basic-needs program. The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America is written for both practitioners and academicians. Students of economic development will benefit especially from its intelligent explication of conflict-oriented theory and technique.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801825323
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1981
Series:	The Johns Hopkins Studies in Development
Edition description:	2ND
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alain de Janvry is professor of agricultural and research economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been a consultant for the Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Organization of American States, and the U.S. Agency for Intrnational Development. He is the author of numerous articles on economics, agricultural, and rural development.

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Laws of Motion in the Center-Periphery Structure: The Underlying Forces
Chapter 2. Agrarian Crisis in Latin America: The Facts
Chapter 3. Transformation of the Agrarian Structure and the Pessantry
Chapter 4. Disarticulated Accumulation and Agrarian Crisis
Chapter 5. The Political Economy of Reformism
Chapter 6. Types and Consequences of Land Reform
Chapter 7. The Strategy of Integrated Rural Development
Chapter 8. The Agrarian Question and Change in Latin America: Conclusions
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

The two basic problems addressed in this wide-ranging study are the stagnation of food production and the dynamics of rural poverty. The facts of the agrarian crisis in Latin America show that cheap semiproletarian labor on the vast export-oriented and mechanized landed estates of today leads to destruction of the peasantry. The process is accompanied by ecological collapse, demographic explosion, urban migration, and increasing landlessness. . . This volumeis tightly organized; the material is logically presented with a minimum of professional jargon. It deserves a careful reading.
—Latin America in Books, January 1983

From the Publisher

"The two basic problems addressed in this wide-ranging study are the stagnation of food production and the dynamics of rural poverty. The facts of the agrarian crisis in Latin America show that cheap semiproletarian labor on the vast export-oriented and mechanized landed estates of today leads to destruction of the peasantry. The process is accompanied by ecological collapse, demographic explosion, urban migration, and increasing landlessness... This volumeis tightly organized; the material is logically presented with a minimum of professional jargon. It deserves a careful reading."

January 1983 Latin America in Books