Extrinsic versus intrinsic problems of agricultural cooperation: Anti‐incentivism in Tanzania and China

Peasant willingness to engage in collective farming, and the efficiency of collective farms once established, may be preconditioned on local self‐determination, participatory control, discriminating work incentives, and external manoeuvrability. In the absence of such preconditions, whether or not there exist economies of scale sufficient to offset effectively minimised incentive problems cannot be determined. ‘Anti‐incentivism’, bureaucratic controls, and extractive external environments are identified as factors inhibiting successful collective farming in both Tanzania and China. Explanations of these tendencies in the two countries are sought in their political economies and ideological structures.