Towards a class analysis of contemporary socialist agriculture
1982
Sinclair, P.R. (Memorial Univ. of Newfoundland (Canada). Dept. of Sociology)
Since the 1960s, East European agriculture has been undergoing a second revolutionary experience as attempts are being made to 'industrialize' production and to build new complex organizational structures consistent with social and economic goals. Theories of class relations in this contemporalry agriculture usually recognize the intelligentsia stratum and the classes of state agricultural workers and co-operative farmers or peasants. Here I attempt a more refined analysis. Particular occupational categories will be assessed according to (i) legal ownership of productive property and (ii) the scope of their control over the processes of production. I shall argue that the intelligentsia must be divided into a dominant state bureaucratic elite and new middle classes of managers and technocratic specialists. While a substantial convergence between the classes of co-operative peasants and state farm workers has taken place, it is important to recognize the new class of skilled technical workers. Also, the continued significance of the private plot complicates the class situation of the worker's household in that this private activity is often the source of a substantial part of household income. The paper concludes with some speculative analysis on the processes of social change in state socialism.
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