The ‘Prussian road’ of agrarian development: a reconsideration

Third World agrarian studies have recently been concerned with a more rigorous conceptualization of certain unitary features that characterize the development of capitalism in the agricultures of these countries. Where this has entailed the retention and modernization of large units of production, as in much of Latin America, numerous attempts have been made to view this process within the framework provided by Lenin's discussion of the main paths of transition to capitalist agriculture, and the so-called landlord or Prussian path in particular. This paper begins with an appraisal of a few recent studies that have begun to reassess the historical experience of estate agriculture in Prussia as a model for conceptualizing agrarian development elsewhere. Concluding that a more detailed examination of certain fundamental questions is needed, the paper proceeds to argue that the system of estate agriculture in Prussia can be of analytical value for the study of forms of backward agrarian development, particularly when viewed in the context of Marx's distinction between the formal and real subsumption of the labour process by capital. It is necessary to view the internal organization of estate production historically, however, and to bring into focus the structural connections between the large capitalist farms and the underdevelopment of the wider economy.