This thesis is a work of theory; it is also historical. It
attempts to provide a critique of the categories through which
the phenomena of agricultural development and land reform are
habitually grasped. It is divided into three parts.
In the first part three main theoretical orientations to the
study of capitalist agrarian development are discussed, both
abstractly and with reference to their accounts of Latin
American rural society in the 1960's. It is argued that all
three are unable to explain adequately the process of social
and agrarian change. This inability is traced to the fact
that all three reduce social totalities to two or more distinct
sub-entities or sub-totalities. The author calls this general
position the social problematic of dualism. Its inability. to
account for social change is, he argues, traceable to the fact
that the existence of the sub-entities into which social
totalities are divided, is posited as theoretically prior to
the relations which connect them. These points are pursued
in the second and third parts of the thesis.
In the second part an alternative to dualism' with pärticular
reference to its variants of the separation of a realm of'
industry from a realm of*agriculture, and of the separation
of a realm of the economic from a realm of the social, is
provided through a detailed theorisation of capitalist social
relations. It is argued that the existence of distinct realms
of agriculture, industry, economy and society is a real effect
of the essential relations of capitalist society, and that
these divisions must be transcended through an elucidation of
the character of such relations. This is done by distinguishingi;
three forms of capitalist development which are produced by
these essential relations. Further examples of a dualist
analysis in contemporary theorisations of petty commodity
production, the world economy and the articulation of modes
of production are discussed.
In the third part the author returns to an examination of the
Latin American context through a discussion of the case of
Chile. The theoretical insights developed in the earlier
parts are systematically applied to various aspects of Chilean
history from the conquest of Latin America to the 1960's, and
to the processes of land reform which covered the decade
1962-1973. It is suggested that the agrarian social transformations
which this country experienced are only explicable in
terms of a position which systematically transcends all dualist
assumptions. / University of Bradford
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/3958 |
| Date | January 1982 |
| Creators | Neocosmos, Michael |
| Contributors | Allen, Sheila |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, Postgraduate School of Studies in Social Analysis. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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