DYNAMICS OF AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATION AND RESISTANCE

Henry Veltmeyer

doi:10.47946/rnera.v0i17.1350

Abstract

The paper analyses in the Latin American context the dynamics associated with the capitalist development process, namely, the productive and social transformation of an agrarian society and economy into a modern industrial capitalist system. This process implies a process of primitive accumulation (separation of the direct producers from the land) and the proletarianization of the peasantry. The project of development with international cooperation was designed and serves to assist the dispossessed rural poor in adjusting to the forces of progressive change released in the process, rather than resisting them. The paper also deals with the resistance of the rural landless workers and other elements of the peasantry against the neoliberal model of capitalist development that threatens the viability and sustainability of their livelihoods.

Highlights

The capitalist development of the forces of production is associated with a process of productive and social transformation that includes the separation of the direct producers from their means of production, and their conversion into a proletariat, available for hire and forced to migrate to the cities in search of alternative more sustainable forms of livelihood and employment opportunities
On the other side are the dynamics of resistance against this development - a class struggle against the capitalist development of agriculture - and a struggle for ‘genuine agrarian reform’ or social transformation
On this side can be found the diverse class- and community-based political organizations formed in the popular sector of society, and here none are as important as the peasantry and landless rural workers who have led the fight - the long class war - against the most recent incursion of capitalism in the countryside, defending an economy of small scale agricultural production and demanding the redistribution of land from the ravages of capitalist development

Summary

Introduction

The capitalist development of the forces of production is associated with a process of productive and social transformation that includes the separation of the direct producers from their means of production, (dispossession of the peasantry of small-scale farmers), and their conversion into a proletariat, available for hire and forced to migrate to the cities in search of alternative more sustainable forms of livelihood and employment opportunities. As for the NGO networks they were located within the ‘middle strata’ of the urban centres, and formed primarily to the purpose of providing support to, and solidarity with, the struggles and social movements of grassroots organizations in the popular sector These linkages bring together a broad range of concerns, from the protection and enhancement of political and human rights, diverse environmental issues of concern to neighbourhood groups, women or minority groups of various sorts, to shared concern with the impact of government policies in the context of the processes of globalization and structural adjustment. The MST itself, in seeking to move beyond the politics of land occupation to the politics of production on the land, to an extent has been converted into an NGO, with the inevitable consequence of an implicit agreement to abide by the rules of the game decreed by the political class

Conclusion

Findings

Washington DC