Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century

Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century PDF

Author: Julio Boltvinik

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-08-15

Total Pages: 489

ISBN-13: 1783608455

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Peasants are a majority of the world's poor. Despite this, there has been little effort to bridge the fields of peasant and poverty studies. Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-first Century provides a much-needed critical perspective linking three central questions: Why has peasantry, unlike other areas of non-capitalist production, persisted? Why are the vast majority of peasants poor? And how are these two questions related? Interweaving contributions from various disciplines, the book provides a range of responses, offering new theoretical, historical and policy perspectives on this peasant 'world drama'. Scholars from both South and North argue that, in order to find the policy paths required to overcome peasants' misery, we need a seismic transformation in social thought, to which they make important contributions. They are convinced that we must build upon the peasant economy's advantages over agricultural capitalism in meeting the challenges of feeding the growing world population while sustaining the environment. Structured to encourage debate among authors and mutual learning, Peasant Poverty and Persistence takes the reader on an intellectual journey toward understanding the peasantry.

Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century

Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century PDF

Author: Julio Boltvinik

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2016-08-15

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1783608463

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Peasants are a majority of the world’s poor. Despite this, there has been little effort to bridge the fields of peasant and poverty studies. Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-first Century provides a much-needed critical perspective linking three central questions: Why has peasantry, unlike other areas of non-capitalist production, persisted? Why are the vast majority of peasants poor? And how are these two questions related? Interweaving contributions from various disciplines, the book provides a range of responses, offering new theoretical, historical and policy perspectives on this peasant 'world drama'. Scholars from both South and North argue that, in order to find the policy paths required to overcome peasants’ misery, we need a seismic transformation in social thought, to which they make important contributions. They are convinced that we must build upon the peasant economy’s advantages over agricultural capitalism in meeting the challenges of feeding the growing world population while sustaining the environment. Structured to encourage debate among authors and mutual learning, Peasant Poverty and Persistence takes the reader on an intellectual journey toward understanding the peasantry.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Capital in the Twenty-First Century PDF

Author: Thomas Piketty

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2017-08-14

Total Pages: 817

ISBN-13: 0674979850

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What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

Wealth Creation Approach to Reducing Global Poverty

Wealth Creation Approach to Reducing Global Poverty PDF

Author: Scott Hipsher

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-05-19

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 9811541167

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This book takes a unique approach to the topic of poverty reduction, primarily employing an international business framework as opposed to the usual economic or political lens. Some of the key ideas explored in the book include: poverty is primarily the lack of choices, not the lack of material possessions; attacking inequality of opportunity might be a more effective means to reduce poverty than attaching inequality of wealth; political systems matter, but individuals and for-profit firms also have a vital and indispensable role in helping to create the wealth needed to reduce poverty; and an effective corporate social responsibility strategy to help reduce poverty may include finding innovative and creative ways to operate profitably in areas of the world where poverty is currently robbing too many people of the opportunity to live their version of the good life. Building on such ideas, the book advocates for private companies to expand operations into the least developed regions of the world as part of their corporate social responsibility programs and to reframe the debates away from ones focused on exploitation and economic nationalism to one of creating opportunities across political borders.

The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture

The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture PDF

Author: Tony Waters

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780739107683

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The story told by The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture begins 8,000 years ago as humans began using the land and weather to provide themselves with food, housing, and clothing. Productive farmers took care of most daily needs within the small conservative world in which they lived. This world organized around small-scale subsistence farming is ending as the ancient world of farmers has given away to that dominated by the modern marketplace. This book is about how the modern market world transformed these remote agricultural farmers. Waters uses diverse examples to illustrate how the modern market economy captured persistent subsistence farmers and forever altered life in 18th century Scotland, 19th century United States, 20th century Tanzania, and indeed, the entire modern world.

In the Company of the Poor

In the Company of the Poor PDF

Author: Michael Griffin

Publisher: Orbis Books

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1608333167

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This book reflects intersection between the lives, commitments, and strategies of two highly respected figures Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez joined in their option for the poor, their defense of life, and their commitment to liberation. Farmer has credited liberation theology as the inspiration for his effort to do "social justice medicine," while Gutierrez has recognized Farmer's work as particularly compelling example of the option for the poor, and the impact that theology can have outside the church. Draws on their respective writings, major addresses by both at Notre Dame, and a transcript of a dialogue between them.

Agrarian Extractivism in Latin America

Agrarian Extractivism in Latin America PDF

Author: Ben M. McKay

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-30

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1000390527

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Amid the growing calls for a turn towards sustainable agriculture, this book puts forth and discusses the concept of agrarian extractivism to help us identify and expose the predatory extractivist features of dominant agricultural development models. The concept goes beyond the more apparent features of monocultures and raw material exports to examine the inherent logic and underlying workings of a model based on the appropriation of an ever-growing range of commodified and non-commodified human and non-human nature in an extractivist fashion. Such a process erodes the autonomy of resourcedependent working people, dispossesses the rural poor, exhausts and expropriates nature, and concentrates value in a few hands as a result of the unquenchable drive for profit by big business. In many instances, such extractivist dynamics are subsidized and/or directly supported by the state, while also dependent on the unpaid, productive, and reproductive labour of women, children, and elders, exacerbating unequal class, gender, and generational relations. Rather than a one-size-fits-all definition of agrarian extractivism, this collection points to the diversity of extractivist features of corporate-led, external-input-dependent plantation agriculture across distinct socio-ecological formations in Latin America. This timely challenge to the destructive dominant models of agricultural development will interest scholars, activists, researchers, and students from across the fields of critical development studies, rural studies, environmental and sustainability studies, and Latin American studies, among others.

Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies

Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies PDF

Author: Akram-Lodhi, A. H.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2021-12-14

Total Pages: 744

ISBN-13: 1788972465

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Exploring the emerging and vibrant field of critical agrarian studies, this comprehensive Handbook offers interdisciplinary insights from both leading scholars and activists to understand agrarian life, livelihoods, formations and processes of change. It highlights the development of the field, which is characterized by theoretical and methodological pluralism and innovation.

Poverty Reduction, the Private Sector, and Tourism in Mainland Southeast Asia

Poverty Reduction, the Private Sector, and Tourism in Mainland Southeast Asia PDF

Author: Scott Hipsher

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-10-05

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 9811059489

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This book explores the issue of poverty reduction within mainland Southeast Asia with a specific focus on the impact of the private sector and tourism. Covering Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan, the book discusses how success in poverty reduction has come about largely through innovation in the private sector, foreign investment and the move toward more market based economic policies as opposed to foreign aid, or interventions by international development programs, to reduce poverty in the region.

Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies

Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies PDF

Author: Ian Scoones

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-11-30

Total Pages: 812

ISBN-13: 1040013384

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Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people — in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation — are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world. The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Peasant Studies.