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Abstract

The author discusses the process of differentiation among family units of small-scale agricultural production where salaries are absent. He collected his material using anthropological techniques of observation and draws his conclusions on the basis of a comparison of two case studies. The first is taken from the soya and wheat region of Rio Grande do Sul, and the second from the semi-arid region of Bahia which produces cattle and agave apart from subsistence.

The two regions are characterized on the basis of the different ways in which the land is occupied; of the ecological conditions which make possible different technologies and specific forms of income distribution; of technical and financial state intervention; of circuits of commercialization and of the producer's organizational structures.

These conditions define distinct possible strategies of accumu lation in small-scale production. The autor calls these strategies "petit bourgeois", "peasant" and "partial proletarian". These three forms, in spite of their specificities, are characterized by the inexis tence of salaried labour and by their inclusion in the theoretical field defined by simple mercantile production. For the author, simple mercantile production constitutes the conceptual framework through which it is possible to understand the accumulation and differentiation within small-scale production as a process which is determined not only by the presence of adequate conditions but also by logics which are present in the small-scale production process itself. These logics, in interaction with other conditions already present or brought about by state intervention, determine the diverse forms of accumulation and the differentiation within small-scale production.

Starting with this conceptualization, the author discusses some of the categories and properties frequently used to define small-scale production and developes alternative understandings. In this context, the often used characterization of the units of small-scale production as uninterested in profit is seen as not defining of the area in question and as an obstacle for the understanding of these simple mercantile units.