Peasant Family Labor Force 71
labor-consumer balance is a theory of an economic unit or, what is the same thing, the economic activity of family labor and not one of peasant agricultural production.
It is self-evident, as we will see from Chapter 4, that the peculiar features of the peasant family labor farm in many instances also considerably influence the organization of peasant agricultural production; but, in general, the peasant production is constructed, like any other, on the principle of the lowest production overheads and according to rules which follow from its technology. Since this production is carried on within the limits of the labor farm, its special features have decisive influence in determining the size of agricultural production, considerable influence on the degree of its labor and capital intensity and on its labor organization, and some influence on the assortment of produce grown on the farm in that on it these items are consumed in kind. For the rest, as will be seen from subsequent chapters, the market, conditions due to natural history, and technology are the determining factors.
You must have all this in mind when surveying our analysis of the economic conduct of the peasant family. You should also remember that by studying peasant farm productivity in the present chapter we are not solving the production problem of agricultural organization, but we are establishing the basis of the economic activity of family labor. This, by the way, together with the influence of the market, natural conditions, and technology, greatly influences the organization of peasant agricultural production.
Peasant labor productivity concerns us as a result of total family economic activity. In this respect, in Table 2-1 we compare some of
TABLE 2-1
Workers
per Average Farm
3.84 618.5 169.0 (12) 1981.0 (6)
3.57 918.9 195.9 (27) 3393.0 (87)
3.09 402.5 123.8 <8) 1141.4 (69)
3.88 1070.0 373.0 (23) 2172.4 (7)
Net Product per Family
Average Lowest Highest
3.84 36L7 100.45 (12) 923.08 (6)
3.57 529.1 91.0 (27) 1554.0 (87)
3.09 226.0 95.7 (8) 663.3 (69)
3.88 512.0 271.7 (23) 1428.6 (7)
Gross Product per Family Average Lowest Highest
Novgorod Guberniya Starobel'sk Uezd ....
Tot'ma Uezd ......
Volokolamsk Uezd .
Novgorod Guberniya Starobel'sk Uezd ....
Tot'ma Uezd.......
Volokolamsk Uezd ..
72
THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
the materials at our disposal and obtain some output rates achieved by our Russian peasant families1 (agriculture, crafts and trades).
Thus, in these four inquiries on Russian peasant families gross incomes—in terms of gold currency and prices of the year of the inquiry, including income in money and kind—fluctuate for individual farms from 123.5 to 3393.0 rubles, and on average from 402.8 to 1070.0 rubles. This is the basic figure for the national economy on which the economic system of the U.S.S.R. is being built. It is clear that the difference noted depends to a great extent on variations in family size. Therefore, in the interests of comparability it is essential to express these figures per full annual male worker, reducing female and child labor to these terms.
Gross Income in Money and in Kind from Agriculture, Crafts, and Trades per Worker (Rubles)
Novgorod budgets ................... 161.1
Starobel'sk budgets ................... 257.5
Tot'ma budgets ..................... 130.0
Volokolamsk budgets ................ 276.1
As is seen from the figures, even the average area gross product figures differ sharply from one another. In order to give our readers a fuller conception of these differences in peasant labor productivity, we allow ourselves to quote two tables showing the distribution of peasant farms within one and the same budget inquiry by different groups of annual budget net labor productivity per average worker (Table 2-2).
It is completely obvious that differences in the worker's annual
TABLE 2-2
Starobel'sk Uezd Volokolamsk Uezd
Annual Output Number Annual Output Number
per Worker of Farms per Worker of Farms
(Rubles) in Group % (Rubles) in Group %
0-50 ..... 5 4.95 0-100 ..... 2 8.0
50-70 ..... 14 13.89 100-150 ..... 9 36.0
70-90 ..... 18 17.85 150-200 ..... 7 28.0
90-110 .... 18 17.85 200-300 ..... 4 16.0
110-130 .... 10 9.91 300-oü ..... 3 12.0
130-150 .... 13 12.90
150-170 .... 9 8.91
170-190 .... 44 3.90
190-oo .... 10 9.91
Total 101 100.0 Total 25 100.0
i Numbers in parentheses indicate the farm number in the budget tables.
Peasant Family Labor Force 73
labor payment depend on two factors which determine his annual productivity. On the one hand is the degree of intensity of his annual work, the quantity of labor energy the peasant worker is able or wants to expend in the course of 12 months. On the other hand is the productivity of each labor unit expended, the economic and technical conditions that assure his labor of a particular productive effect. Often the most intensive daily labor gives insignificant annual income if it is applied to poor soils and in an unfavorable market situation for the produce grown. Conversely, working fertile soils with a rise in the market price of produce grown gives high income with comparatively little expenditure of energy.
In the present work, investigating the internal organization of the peasant farm, we cannot deal with the conditions that determine the level of labor productivity, since they depend not so much on on-farm factors as on general economic factors affecting the farm's existence. Soil fertility, advantageous location of farm in relation to market, current market situation, local land relations, organizational forms of the local market, and the character of trading and finance capitalism's penetration into the depths of the peasantry—these are the chief factors determining peasant labor productivity and pay. By their very nature, all these factors lie outside the field of our present investigation.
We will deal in this connection with the first of these two factors —the degree of intensity or measure of self-exploitation of peasant labor. Unfortunately, study of the organization of peasant labor was started by our statistics only in the last years before the war; due to this, we have very skimpy relevant material. Nevertheless, within the limits of this material we can draw a number of substantial conclusions by comparing the quantity of work time at the disposal of the peasant family in the course of the 365 days of the astronomical year with what it succeeds in spending on productive processes. Table 2-3 and Figures 2-1 and 2-2 give us some conception of the distribution of peasant family labor on different uses in the course of the year.
In Myshkino uezd, Yaroslavl' guberniya, unutilized labor force per peasant household amounted to the percentages in Table 2-4, according to estimates by zemstvo statisticians. In somewhat different forms, a description of a typical Tver guberniya farm, made in 1907 and accurate to one hour,2 gives us a record of the same phenomenon (Table 2-5).
ZNuzhdy derevni [Needs of the countryside], 1907 g. "Trudovoi krest'yanskii god v tsifrakh" ["The peasant labor year in figures"].
74 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
TABLE 2-3
Total
Crafts Produc-
Agricul- and tive House Unused Festi-
ture Trades Labor Work Time vals Total
% % % % % % %
Vologda Uezd,
Vologda Guberniya 24.7 18.1 42.8 4.4 33.8 19.8 100.0
Volokolamsk Uezd, v-
Moscow Guberniya 28.6 8.2 36.8 43.2 20.0 100.0
Starobel'sk Uezd,
Khar'kov Guberniya 23.6 4.4 28.0 3.0 42.0 27.0 100.0
TABLE 2-4
Group of Farms with Sown Area (Desyatinas) Proportion Male of Annual Work Female
0-5 ...... 0.25 0.40
5-7 ...... 0.20 0.30
7-10...... 0.15 0.20
10-15 ...... 0.10 0.13
TABLE 2-5
Men Women
Number of hours spent awake .................. .... 5876 17876
Number of hours spent working:on £°wn farm
in factory........ .... 2206 2000 1500
Number of hours remaining unused
for productive labor ......................... .... 3670 14376
We see that of the total number of working days in the year, peasants spend a comparatively small proportion of their labor—in all, only 25-40 percent—on agriculture in the areas we have studied. Even if we add to this all work in crafts and trades, we still have to recognize that peasant labor is far from fully used and gives a use rate not exceeding 50 percent.
The main reason for this undoubtedly lies in the particular features of labor organization in agriculture. In contrast to the processing industry, in which labor processes are not connected with any time of the day or year, a great part of the agricultural process is exclusively seasonal in nature, and some demand particularly favorable weather conditions, which are not always present.
Because of this, the labor intensity curve in agriculture always shows extremely uneven development. Sowing, mowing, harvesting,
Peasant Family Labor Force 75
and some work on specialized crops sometimes demand the exceptional accumulation of a mass of labor in insignificant time periods, while in other, sometimes very lengthy, periods of the farm year agriculture finds no objects on which to use its labor. Figure 2-1 for Volokolamsk uezd clearly illustrates this idea.
FIGURE 2-1
Intensity of Labor Expenditure on Volokolamsk Farm No. 11
J FMAMJ J ASOND
We must add that in different farm periods there are sharp changes not only in the number of working days but also in the intensity of each day's work. Thus, for example, in the already mentioned Tver farm in 1907 the monthly average length of working day in hours of actual work was:
January ............ 6.3
February .......... 2.8
March ............. 4.5
April .............. 6.3
May ............... 6.3
June ............... 9.3
July ............... 9.1
August ............ 7.8
September ......... 7.8
October ............ 2.1
November .......... 3.8
December .......... 6.1
The conclusion, in any event, remains the same: in the labor farm, rates of labor intensity are considerably lower than if labor were fully utilized. In all areas investigated, farm families possess considerable
76 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
FIGURE 2-2
Length of Working Day by Months (Tver Guberniya)
1 I-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-
q|-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-
JFMAMJ JASOND
stocks of unutilized time. Accordingly, labor intensity rates, not being at their limits, can fluctuate one way or another. In Tambov guberniya, A. N. Chelintsev observed fluctuations in utilization of working time (excluding festivals) from 37 to 96 percent for men, from 15 to 55 percent women, and from 8 to 40 percent for half workers.
We can see how far peasant farms of the same area differ in this respect from Table 2-6 which shows annual labor expenditure by each of the 25 Volokolamsk uezd farms we have surveyed.
What factors determine the level of this intensity? For us, analysis of the influence of two factor categories are of the greatest interest. On the one hand are factors that lie in the internal structure of the family itself; chiefly significant is the pressure of family consumer demands on the workers. On the other hand are those production conditions which determine the level of labor productivity. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to record labor processes objectively, and we have almost no statistical materials of this sort at our disposal. Therefore, to measure labor intensity we have to make use not of a direct record of its expenditure in working days but of the results of this expenditure, recording the worker's annual earnings and, quite conventionally, assuming that each unit of value is obtained by approximately equal labor efforts. Furthermore, where our materials allow, we will also confirm our conclusions from the direct record of labor expenditure.
In 1912-13, we studied in detail the influence of the pressure of family consumer demands on the peasant worker's productivity, and
Peasant Family Labor Force 77 TABLE 2-6
Working Days per Year Spent Working per
No 0j Worker (Volokolamsk Uezd)
Farm Farming Crafts and Trades Total
1 ....... 102.2 28.0 130.2
2 ....... 99.0 0.0 99.0
3 ....... 92.4 0.0 92.4
4 ....... 104.1 50.1 151.0
5 ....... 169.5 0.0 169.5
6 ....... 85.6 0.0 85.6
7 ....... 166.7 0.0 166.7
8 ....... 176.0 0.0 176.0
9 ....... 79.5 0.0 79.5
10 ....... 71.9 50.0 121.9
11 ....... 48.5 40.9 89.4
12 ....... 73.8 58.8 132.6
13 ....... 90.0 2.0 92.0
14 ....... 125.8 0.0 125.8
15 ....... 147.1 0.0 147.1
16 ....... 174.0 42.0 216.0
17 ....... 93.8 15.2 109.0
18 ....... 168.4 35.2 203.6
19 ....... 113.4 3.2 116.6
20 ....... 68.8 10.0 78.8
21 ....... 76.0 41.8 117.8
22 ....... 117.0 31.8 148.8
23 ....... 84.5 47.2 131.7
24 ....... 89.6 23.6 113.2
25 ....... 190.9 6.5 197.4
Average 118.1 13.7 131.8
our main conclusions have been confirmed by a number of recent investigations. To measure pressure of consumer demands, we made use of a coefficient relating number of farm consumer units to number of labor force—in other words, the relation of number of consumers to number of workers (cjw). By grouping farms according to this relationship of budget surveys, we obtain the figures in Table 2-7 for annual (net) output per worker.3
3 In relation to these Russian figures, it is interesting to note a corresponding calculation for Hamburg budgets which we have taken from Erhebungen von Wirtschaftsrechnungen minderbemittelter Familien im Deutschen Reich (Berlin, 1909), in which the increase in the burden of consumers on workers in the form of a limitation of the possible expansion of the worker's earnings was expressed not so much in the expansion of his output as in a reduction of the consumption level.
Influence of cjw Ratio on Budgets of Hamburg Workers' Families
c/w ratio .......... 1.01- 1.16- 1.31- 1.46- 1.61- 1.76- 1.91-00
1.15 1.30 1.45 1.60 1.75 1.90
No. of families................ 8 18 14 9 8 6 8
Per worker from personal
budget*.................... 902 953 1020 986 1071 1063 1071
Per consumer from personal
budget*.............<...... 854 802 764 662 652 590 494
* Editors' note.—In marks, presumably. The Russian text does not specify.
78 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
Number of Consumers per Worker
Starobel'sk uezd, Khar'kov
guberniya c/w ratio ....... 1.00-1.15 1.16-1.30 1.31-1.45 1.46-1.60 1.61-00
Workers "output" (rubles) ... 68.1 99.0 118.3 128.9 156.4
Novgorod guberniya
c/w ratio ................. 1.00-1.25 1.26-1.50 1.51-00
Workers "output" (rubles) ... 91.56 106.95 122.64
Vologda uezd, Vologda
guberniya c/w ratio ....... 1.01-1.15 1.16-1.30 1.31-1.45 1.46-1.60 1.61-00
Worker's "output" (rubles) ... 63.9 79.1 84.4 91.7 117.9
Vel'sk uezd, Volgoda
guberniya c/w ratio ....... 1.01-1.15 1.16-1.30 1.31-1.45 1.46-1.60 1.61-00
Worker's "output" (rubles) ... 59.2 61.2 76.1 79.5 95.5
The materials collected in Volokolamsk uezd in 1910, where labor was recorded for each farm separately, enable us to directly measure the influence of an increase in the cjw ratio on the intensity of peasant family labor (Table 2-8).
TABLE 2-8
Consumers per worker
c/w ratio ........... 1.01-1.20 1.21-1.40 1.41-1.60 I.6I-00
Worker's "output"
(rubles) ........... 131.9 151.5 218.8 283.4
Working days per
worker............ 98.8 102.3 157.2 161.3
The table gives the same picture as does labor intensity expressed by the measure of annual earnings. Looking at the table, we see that, other things being equal, the peasant worker, stimulated to work by the demands of his family, develops greater energy as the pressure of these demands becomes stronger. The measure of self-exploitation depends to the highest degree on how heavily the worker is burdened by the consumer demands of his family. The force of the influence of consumer demands in this case is so great that for a whole series of areas the worker, under pressure from a growing consumer demand, develops his output in strict accordance with the growing number of consumers. The volume of the family's activity depends entirely on the number of consumers and not at all on the number of workers.
Thus, for example, we have the characteristic table (Table 2-9) for Starobel'sk uezd, Khar'kov guberniya.
However, such an exceptional determining influence of the demands of consumption takes place only when other things are equal.
TABLE 2-7
Peasant Family Labor Force 79 TABLE 2-9
Annual Income ("Output") of Family in Rubles
Number of consumers in family..... 0.0-4.0 4.1-6.0 6.I-00
Number of workers:
0.0-2.9 .......................... 198.2 407.5 541.7
3.0-3.9 .......................... 294.8 366.5 639.0
4.0-00 ........................... 238.7 427.0 531.7
More detailed analysis undoubtedly establishes that apart from consumption demands the conditions in which labor is applied also determine the worker's output to a considerable extent. Thus, if we compare the pressure on the worker's output from the increase in the c/w ratio with the pressure from the amount of land the worker holds for this same Starobel'sk uezd, we get the very significant picture in Table 2-10.
TABLE 2-10
Worker's Output Depending on c/w Ratio and Amount of Land Held
Worker's Output Consumer's Personal Budget
Arable per , tio . mtio
Worker --- ---
(desyatinas) 1.00-1.30 1.31-1.60 I6I-00 1.00-1.30 1.31-1.60 I.6I-00
0.0-2.0 ..... 76.4 106.3 107.8 71.1 75.2 71.8
2.1-3.0 ..... 103.5 125.8 136.6 85.1 87.8 72.7
3.I-00 ..... 105.1 128.6 175.8 86.3 85.9 88.7
As is seen from the increase in the series, better conditions for the application of labor gave the workers the opportunity to increase their output considerably, and this, with an unchanged c/w ratio, inevitably brought about an increase in family and consumer well-being. Moreover, it is exceedingly significant and entirely of a pattern that an increase in worker's output caused by an increment in numbers of consumers does not cause a parallel increase in well-being, and in some budget inquiries (Novgorod) even leads to a reduction in it. An increase in annual productivity caused by improved production conditions, however, immediately increases well-being.
Quite clearly expressed series give us a whole number of direct classifications carried out on this principle. See, for example, Table 2-11.
This classification by amount of land held shows us the influence on the worker's output of availability of means of production and expanded opportunity for the application of his labor. According to materials collected by Professor E. Laur on the basis of Swiss peasant
80 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
Novgorod guberniya:
Sown area-consumer ratio .................. 0-0.50 0.50-1.00 1.00-oo
Personal budget per individual, both sexes ... 41.60 57.94 71.60
Worker's "output" ......................... 77.60 105.67 132.10
Starobel'sk uezd, Khar'kov guberniya:
Sown area-consumer ratio .................. 0-1.50 1.50-2.50 2.51-00
Personal budget per consumer.............. 62.4 77.2 94.8
Worker's "output" ......................... 80.6 115.8 151.4
Starobel'sk uezd, Khar'kov guberniya:
Sown area-consumer ratio .................. 0-1.50 1.51-2.50 2.51-00
Personal budget per consumer.............. 96.1 96.2 119.0
Worker's "output" ......................... 186.2 148.4 253.4
farm accounts, we can also note the way in which the increase in productivity of each expended labor unit directly influences the well-being of peasant families4 (Table 2-12).
TABLE 2-12
Payment of working day on
own farm (francs) .......... .. 0-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 •5-00
Personal budget per
consumer (francs) .......... .. 610 699 804 839 886
It follows from the table that incomes influenced by an increase in labor productivity grow considerably; yet, at the same time, the rate of increment of the budget considerably lags behind the rate of increment of labor productivity. The second circumstance undoubtedly indicates to us that the annual intensity of labor declines under the influence of better pay, because to remain the same it is absolutely essential that the productivity of the year's labor (and equally the standard of well-being) should grow in proportion to the increase in the pay of a unit of labor. As we will see below, this fact is very significant for theoretical analysis.
The Swiss budget materials, unfortunately, do not enable us to directly measure labor intensity at different productivity rates per unit. On the other hand, the only material suitable for such treatment showed this decline quite sharply. In this, a detailed record of labor was made for each farm from budget data for Volokolamsk uezd, Moscow guberniya (Table 2-13). Unfortunately, apart from the Volokolamsk budgets, we have no other materials which would allow us to make such a classification.
4 The data that form the basis for calculating this table were extracted by me personally in 1912 from tables of the Swiss Bauernsecretariat, put at my disposal by Professor E. Laur, and I take this opportunity of offering him my sincere thanks.
TABLE 2-11
Peasant Family Labor Force 81 TABLE 2-13
5 Editors' note.—Chayanov introduces this term, tyagostnost', to indicate labor inputs as subjectively assessed by the peasant. The term might be translated by "laboriousness" or "irksomeness," but "drudgery" seems preferable and has the advantage of being etymologically parallel to the Russian form. (Cf. Drudgery of Labor, in Glossary.)
Payment per working day in
agriculture (rubles) ............ 0-1.0 1.0-1.25 1.25-1.50 1.50-oo
Number of days worked annually
per worker per consumer ....... 114.3 100.2 93.1 90.1
Thus, the results of comparing the series lead us to the undoubted conclusion that the energy developed by a worker on a family farm is stimulated by the family consumer demands, and as they increase, the rate of self-exploitation of peasant labor is forced up. On the other hand, energy expenditure is inhibited by the drudgery of the labor itself.5 The harder the labor is, compared with its pay, the lower the level of well-being at which the peasant family ceases to work, although frequently to achieve even this reduced level it has to make great exertions. In other words, we can state positively that the degree of self-exploitation of labor is established by some relationship between the measure of demand satisfaction and the measure of the burden of labor.
A simple consideration enables us to give a certain theoretical foundation to this empirical conclusion. As we know, the economic activity of labor differs from any other activity in that the quantity of values that become available to the person running the farm agrees with the quantity of physical labor he has expended. But the expenditure of physical energy is by no means without limit for the human organism. After a comparatively small expenditure essential to the organism and accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction, further expenditure of energy requires an effort of will. The greater the quantity of work carried out by a man in a definite time period, the greater and greater drudgery for the man are the last (marginal) units of labor expended.
On the other hand, the subjective evaluation of the values obtained by this marginal labor will depend on the extent of its marginal utility for the farm family. But since marginal utility falls with growth of the total sum of values that become available to the subject running the farm, there comes a moment at a certain level of rising labor income when the drudgery of the marginal labor expenditure will equal the subjective evaluation of the marginal utility of the sum obtained by this labor.
82 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
The output of the worker on the labor farm will remain at this point of natural equilibrium, since any further increase in labor expenditure will be subjectively disadvantageous. Thus, any labor farm has a natural limit to its output, determined by the proportions between intensity of annual family labor and degree of satisfaction of its demands.
This statement may be graphically represented very clearly (Figure 2-3). We have a system of coordinates along the abscissa on which is
FIGURE 2-3
0 50 67 100
marked the sum of values (in rubles) earned in a year by the subject running the farm. The curve AB indicates the degree of drudgery attached to acquiring the marginal ruble marked along the abscissa. The drudgery of earning the tenth or twentieth ruble is insignificant, but the further he goes, the more difficult it is for the worker to earn each extra ruble.
The curve CD represents the marginal utility of these rubles for the farm family. The subjective evaluation of the twentieth and thirtieth ruble will be excessively high, since the family that has only these sums available will be able in the year to meet only its most elementary needs and despite great difficulty will, nevertheless, need to do without satisfying the rest. However, with each successive increase in the total sum of annual income the subjective evaluation of the marginal ruble will decline more and more, since it will satisfy the family's less important needs, as they see them.
Peasant Family Labor Force 83
The changes in this subjective evaluation of the marginal ruble are what give us the shape of the curve CD, which cuts the curve AB at point x, corresponding to a sum of 67 rubles received per year. At this output level, the subjective evaluation of the ruble obtained by marginal labor equals the subjective evaluation of the drudgery of this labor. As regards marginal utility, each succeeding ruble will be evaluated lower than the drudgery of winning it. Conversely, each preceding ruble would be evaluated higher than the efforts directed at winning it and would thus stimulate the continuation of work.
Thus, in this case, the sum of 67 rubles is the equilibrium point at which our worker's output naturally stops. It is self-evident that the shape of curves AB and CD are subjective in character and subject to change; and each change, in its turn, also changes the point of intersection, i.e., the output level at which equilibrium is achieved between drudgery of labor and measure of demand satisfaction.
Thus, for example, if we suppose that due to increased prices for agricultural produce labor productivity has doubled, each nth ruble will now be won by efforts which formerly were needed to obtain n/2 rubles. In accordance with this, the curve AB will fall to AiBi (Figure 2-4), and equilibrium will be attained at the new point xlt corre-
FIGURE 2-4
sponding to the increased output. However, output will not double but will increase to a much smaller extent. This is obvious from the drawing which shows that the quantity of labor expended in order to obtain this output (the distance of xt from the abscissa) will be less
84 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
than was formerly expended (i.e., the distance of x from the same abscissa). In other words, a rise in payment for a unit of labor on the labor farm leads to a rise in annual output and in family well-being with reduced intensity of annual labor. This completely corresponds to our empirical observations expounded above.
To the same extent, the effect of an increment in family consumer demands corresponds to the results of our classifications, i.e., change of curve CD (Figure 2-5). In accordance with the increment in the
FIGURE 2-5
c/w ratio, the curve CD will rise to C\DX and C2D2, since now the same degree of demand satisfaction will be attained with the output increase corresponding to the increase in the c/w ratio. This, in its turn, will lead to new points of equilibrium x1 and x2, corresponding to the increased worker output obtained at the cost of raising labor intensity and increased drudgery. It is self-evident that such a rise in output can take place without any change in family composition simply by raising the demand level—for example, by the influence of urban culture.
Such are the simple considerations which theoretically assert the regular pattern of our empirical conclusions. All these theoretical considerations—downward shifting and intersecting curves and the equilibrium of subjective evaluations—have always evoked obdurate criticism from the late A. A. Kaufman and now from S. N. Prokopovich and many other economists, and have been a cause of their numbering me, without appeal, among the adherents of the Austrian school.
Peasant Family Labor Force
85
In the introduction to this book, we have already had occasion to touch on this misunderstanding and have observed that this accusation would be correct only if, like the Austrians, I were to deduce a complete system of the national economy from the equilibrium within the farm which has been noted; but this I do not do. Of course, I might, in expounding my views, avoid the curves and the Austrian terminology and say everything "in my own words"; but I think no one would gain from this manipulation, and my exposition would be more confused and less clear.
The objections of practicing agricultural officers are still more unfortunate; they are always inclined to assert that the labor-consumer balance theory tells them little about solving the problem of how to use chemical fertilizers or about the benefit of introducing early fallows. In this case, we must again observe that our theory is one of the economic activity of family labor and not a theory of production organization. The general conditions of production determine the composition and organization of separate production elements, and the farm principles we have studied are a criterion for the peasant family to include or not include these production elements in its farm composition. The materials we have collected in Chapter 4 indicate in detail the mechanics of this choice.
Summing up all we have said about the factors which establish the level of self-exploitation by the peasant worker, we can undoubtedly state that while the size of the capitalist farm is theoretically unlimited the scope of the labor farm is naturally determined by the relationship between family consumer demands and its work force. It is established at a level in accord with the production conditions in which the farm family finds itself.
According to Russian budget materials, we can establish average rates of net productivity per annual worker in labor agricultural economic units (Table 2-14).
TABLE 2-14
Novgorod guberniya .... 100.1
Starobel'sk uezd ........ 122.3
Volokolamsk uezd....... 140.1
Gzhatsk uezd ........... 110.9
Vologda uezd........... 65.1
Vel'sk uezd ............. 69.9
Tot'ma uezd............ 82-2
Tobol'sk guberniya...... 70.7
Sychevka uezd .......... 100.6
Dorogobuzh uezd ....... 97.2
Porech'e uezd........... 115.6
Voronezh guberniya .... 68.8*
Tomsk guberniya ....... 66.5
Poltava guberniya ...... 67.6
Kherson guberniya...... 86.0
Elizavetpol uezd ........ 82.1
* The low figures for Voronezh and subsequent guberniyas and uezds may be explained to some extent by the fact that these budget studies were carried out before 1906 with a comparatively unfavorable market situation for farm produce. Taking them at prices of the 1910's, we would increase them by 10 percent or more.
86 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
Such is the basic economic balance which determines the structure of the whole peasant farm and its annual income. In such a general form, however, it still does not give us the opportunity to understand how a specific economic estimate is made on the peasant farm in each separate case, or how awareness of the basic equilibrium between measure of demand satisfaction and measure of the drudgery of labor reaches peasant consciousness. In other words, we ought to ask ourselves the basic question. Do not the characteristics of the peasant family farm we have disclosed influence the foundations of its economic calculations? Does the concept of advantage in the capitalist economic unit, which is fundamental to the views of A. Smith, D. Ricardo, and the whole of present-day political economy, correspond to the concept of advantage in the family farm?
An economic calculation of a capitalist economic unit may be entirely expressed by the following elementary formula:
Gl - OM - W = NP,
where
GI = gross income OM = outlays on materials
W = wages NP = net profit.
All the elements of this formula are quantities easily expressible in one and the same units—say, rubles—and you need only simple arithmetic to determine precisely the net profit and, if it is higher than zero, to consider the farm is not operating at a loss. If the net profit in relation to capital invested in the farm gives a rate of interest higher than the usual discount rate in the country, it is also profitable.
Can this formula be applied to the family farm? It is not hard to be convinced that it cannot. In fact, it is applicable to the capitalist unit because all its four elements are expressed in like units. But for the peasant farm, only gross income and outlays on materials are expressed in objective units of value. Without wages, the peasant farm can express its labor expenditure only in physical units, which we have indicated by L. Since we cannot subtract days, as such, from rubles and kopeks, labor expenditures cannot be subtracted from the financial elements of the formula and can only be compared with them.
{GI — OM), i.e., the net product of the particular labor expenditure, as defined at the beginning of this chapter may be subjectively recognized by our family as satisfactory or good compared with the subjective evaluation of the drudgery of this same labor,
Peasant Family Labor Force 87
(Gl - OM) ^ L,
or, on the contrary, the result obtained will be considered insufficient compared with the labor expenditure involved. If the subjective evaluation of the labor is higher than the evaluation of its results,
(GI - OM) < L,
then the particular expenditure will undoubtedly be recognized as disadvantageous.6
The most varied factors, both objective and subjective, will influence the results of this comparison. If we compare labor productivity with quantity of labor expended, we can express both by number of labor units and deduce the objective payment of, let us say, a working day,
(GI - OM) = L
GI - OM <
-t-= x>
where
x = the subjective evaluation of the drudgery of one working day.
Further, one and the same objectively expressed payment per labor unit, at one and the same level, will be considered now advantageous, now disadvantageous for the peasant family, primarily depending on the state of the basic equilibrium between the measure of demand satisfaction and that of the drudgery of labor. If in the farm's estimation the basic equilibrium has not yet been reached, then unsatisfied demands are still quite sharp, and the family running the farm is under a very strong stimulus to expand its work and to seek outlets for its labor while accepting a low level of payment. "Due to necessity," the peasant initiates what are, at first sight, the most disadvantageous undertakings.
Conversely, if the basic equilibrium is completely met in the farm's estimation, only very high labor payment will stimulate the peasant to new work. Thus, the marginal (the lowest of those allowed) pay
6 It may be said that in the reality around him the peasant can always evaluate his labor in accord with wages existing somewhere nearby. This is not correct, because hire is for the peasant only one of the possible instances of making use of his labor, and, moreover, in the majority of instances it is not an advantageous one. The subjective evaluation of the drudgery of winning the marginal ruble on his farm will always be almost less than when hiring himself out for work, since payment on his farm is higher than wages.
88 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
ment of a labor unit depends on the farm's general equilibrium and cannot be objectively determined a priori from outside.
The annual labor payment is the main thing for the family farm, but the payment per labor unit is derived according to how the farm's tasks are solved as a whole. Moreover, of course, the rate of payment per labor unit is taken into account in those subconscious, intuitive processes which establish, in their estimation, the moment that determines the annual equilibrium.
In order to make our argument obvious, let us introduce an example to make things clear. Let us suppose that a desyatina of oats gives, excluding seed, a harvest of 60 puds; the price of oats is 1 ruble a pud, the gross income is 60 rubles, outlays on materials for the crop 20 rubles; the number of working days necessary is 25, wages are 1 ruble. Then the elements of the calculation will be:
For a Capitalist Farm For a Family Farm*
Gross income . . 60 x 1 ruble = 60 rubles Gross income . . 60 x 1 ruble = 60 rubles
Expenditure: Expenditure:
Outlays on materials ...... 20 Outlays on materials ...... 20
Wages ................... 25 Obtained for labor payment 40 rubles
Net income ................. 15 rubles Payment per
40
working day .....x = — = 1.60 rubles
* Editors' note.—See p. 273 for an explanation of Chayanov's terminology.
For the capitalist farm, the crop is evidently advantageous; for the peasant farm, it is advantageous if the consumer budget may not be met by other uses of labor that give a payment for the working day higher than 1.60 rubles.
Let us now suppose that the price of oats fell to 60 kopeks a pud.
For a Capitalist Farm For a Family Farm
Gross income...... 60 x 0.6 — 36 rubles Gross income ..... 60 x 0.60 = 36 rubles
Expenditure: Expenditure:
Outlays on materials ...... 20 Outlays on materials ...... 20
Wages ................... 25 Obtained for labor payment .. 16
Loss ....................... 9 rubles Payment per working day .. 0.64 rubles
As is seen from the table, the capitalist farm would have a net loss of 9 rubles a desyatina, and the cultivation of oats would become absolutely disadvantageous to it. For the peasant farm, however, labor payment would fall to 64 kopeks, and this figure would be completely acceptable if the basic economic equilibrium could not be met by directing its labor to occupations that gave a higher payment.
We will not give further examples, since even from these few calculations it can be established that given a deterioration in the market
Peasant Family Labor Force 89
situation negative quantities (losses), thanks to the mechanism of the labor calculation, appear much later on the peasant farm than on the capitalist one (hence, the exceeding viability and stability of peasant farms). Frequently, the family farm's internal basic equilibrium makes acceptable very low payments per labor unit, and these enable it to exist in conditions that would doom a capitalist farm to undoubted ruin.
On the other hand, to a peasant farm in a situation of high rent in the economic sense some applications of labor are often unacceptable. These, although advantageous to a capitalist farm, give a lower labor payment than those by means of which the peasant farm meets its budget.
From what has been said, the particular features characteristic of the labor farm in the understanding of advantage are more or less clear. We consider it absolutely essential to note that this construction of the concept of advantage does not call for the peasant farm to behave in any economically extravagant way. In the majority of cases, the evaluation of comparative advantage based on the principle of net income gives the same result as an evaluation made without using the wage category based on the principle of reckoning the labor payment. And only in certain instances when the interests of the annual labor payment for the peasant farm begin to be particularly dominant over the interests in obtaining maximum payment per labor unit does the nature of the family farm stand out sharply, and then the peasant farm behaves in a way completely different from a capitalist farm in the same conditions. The conditions in which this takes place have been observed frequently enough in the epoch we are living through, and we will fully review them in subsequent chapters.
Professor Ernst Laur, in his review of the German edition of this book, points to the existence of certain peasant groups in Switzerland to which our principles of economic conduct might be extended. He notes that a colossal stimulus to accumulation and to acquisition is characteristic of the majority of the European peasantry, sometimes overcoming consumer demands. Undoubtedly, these same stimuli, though not in such an obvious way, are found in many strata of the Russian peasantry.
However, as we will see below in the chapter devoted to the circulation of capital in peasant farming, taking account of the processes of capital renewal and capital accumulation does not contradict our constructs but merely complicates them.
CHAPTER 3
The Basic Principles of Peasant Farm Organization
The basic principles of the family farm which we have stated do not belong merely to the peasant farm. They are present in any family labor economic unit in which work is connected with expenditure of physical effort, and earnings are proportional to this expenditure, whether the economic unit be artisan, cottage industry, or simply any economic activity of family labor. The peasant farm as such is a much narrower concept and includes, as a family economic unit in agriculture, a number of complications which follow from the nature of agricultural activity. They add to the appearance of its essentially family nature a series of peculiar features in the structure of crop and livestock farming.
In its organization, any agricultural undertaking is described by its system, by which, according to Lyudogovskii's classical definition, should be understood "the kind and manner of combining quantitatively and qualitatively land, labor and capital." By developing this definition, we can show a scheme of the basic elements that form any agricultural undertaking (Figure 3-1).
For any farming system, taking account of local conditions, we may, by a series of organizational calculations, determine both the technically most expedient relationship of its production factors and the absolute size of the farm itself to give the lowest cost for produce and, consequently, the highest income. By comparing elements of agricultural produce costs that declined as farm size increased (use of buildings and equipment, cost of general outgoings, etc.) with elements that increased with growth of farm area (on-farm transport, etc.), the author, with A. L. Vainshtein and I.D. Lopatin,1 was able to establish
1 Optimal'nye razmery seVsko-khozyaistvennogo predpriyatiya, Sbornik Nauchno-Issledovatel'skogo Instituta sel'skokhozyaistvennoi ekonomii [Optimal size of agricultural undertakings, a collection of the Agricultural Economics Scientific Research Institute], M., 1921 g.
90
The Basic Principles of Peasant Farm Organization 91
FIGURE 3-1 LABOR LAND CAPITAL
\
NATURAL CONDITIONS^
MARKET
\
\
AGRICULTURAL UNDER- I TAKING (SIZE OF / ECONOMIC ACTIVITY) /
/
GROSS INCOME /
EXPENDITURE ON RENEWAL OF FIXED AND CIRCULATING ^ CAPITAL
NET PROFIT
that optimal farm size for the long-fallow system varies from 1,500 to 2,000 desyatinas, for three-course with manuring about 400, and for a rotational system about 150 desyatinas.
It is self-evident that both size of farm area and proportions of production factors deployed on it are not limited to one optimal size and relationship. One can conceive of and observe in reality numerous farms where considerable deviation from these optimal norms sometimes takes place. However, the optimal combination gives the highest income, and any deviation from it gives the proprietor a reduced profit rate. Yet, it is also essential to note that this reduction of profit takes place most gradually, and it is this which explains the economic possibility for the existence of farms that greatly deviate from the optimal size and factor proportions.
If an organizer lacks sufficient land, capital, or work hands to develop his farm on the optimal scale, the undertaking will be built on a smaller scale in accordance with the minimum available factor. However, whatever the scale on which the farm is developed, there is always a proportion between its parts and a certain conformity in their relationships peculiar to each farming system. This is determined by technical expediency and necessity. Any violation of this harmony leads to an inevitable and perceptible reduction in the productivity of labor and capital expenditure, since it takes the farm away from the optimal combination of production factors. Thus, while preserving the proportionality of its parts and always striving for optimal size the farm can, in fact, be organized in the most varied sizes. This statement remains fully valid when dealing with the organization of an agricultural undertaking based on hired labor.
When approaching the organization of an undertaking based on the principles of the family labor farm, we first of all find that one of
92 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
its elements—the labor force—is fixed by being present in the composition of the family. It cannot be increased or decreased at will, and since it is subject to the necessity of combining the factors expediently we naturally ought to put other factors of production in an optimal relationship to this fixed element. This puts the total volume of our activity within quite narrow limits. Hence, our diagram takes on a new form (Figure 3-2).
FAMILY
FIGURE 3-2
LAND
CAPITAL
GROSS INCOME /
EXPENDITURE ON RENEWAL OF FIXED AND CIRCULATING CAPITAL
NET INCOME (INCOME FROM WORK)
Thus, in the scheme of the harmoniously developed organic elements of the labor farm undertaking the labor force of the family is something given, and the farm's production elements are fixed in accordance with it in the technical harmony usual among them. Given freedom to acquire the necessary area of land for use and the possibility of having available the necessary means of production, peasant farms are structured to conform to the optimal degree of self-exploitation of the family labor force and in a technically optimal system of production factors as regards their size and relationship of the parts. Any excess of production means available to labor or of land above the technically optimal level will be an excessive burden on the undertaking. It will not lead to an increased volume of activity, since further intensity of labor beyond the level established for its self-exploitation is unacceptable to the family. Its productivity due to an increase in capital intensity naturally cannot be raised once the achieved rate of provision is itself optimal.
It does not follow from this, however, that family size also arithmetically determines farm size and the composition of all its elements. The literature of zemstvo statistics has more than once noted instances of clearly expressed overburdening of peasant farms—now with equip
The Basic Principles of Peasant Farm Organization 93
Khar'kov Guberniya Kostroma Guberniya
Farm Net Product Farm Net Product
Sown per Worker Sown per Worker
Areas in Farming Areas in Farming
<3 57 <1 43
3-7.5 102 1-3 156
7.5-15.0 125 3-4 131
>15 203 4-6 135
>6 206
Vel'sk Uezd,
Vologda Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Farm Net Product Farm Net Farm
Sown per Worker Sown Product per
Areas in Farming Areas Consumer
<2 63 <5 92
2-3 63 5-8 108
3-4 61 8-11.5 109
4-6 83 11.5-18.0 120
>6 80 >18 275
The table shows us clearly enough that farming incomes rise and fall in parallel with the increase and decrease in land held, and can be one of the measures of volume of farm activity. In looking at these tables, we consider it essential to note that L. N. Litoshenko classified the farms by size of sown area per family, while it would have been more correct to classify by sown area per worker2 in order to elimi
2 Editors' note.—Sic. From Table 3-2, it will be seen that perhaps Chayanov meant to write "per consumer."
ment (Volokolamsk uezd), now with buildings (Starobel'sk uezd), now with workstock.
Apart from this, it is essential to note that very frequently, due to constant or chance causes, land or means of production available is less than the optimum demanded and is insufficient for full use of the farm family's labor. Then, it is natural that the production element, the availability of which is less than the norm demanded by technical harmony, becomes to a considerable extent a determining factor for the agricultural undertaking. As long as the farm does not succeed in transferring this factor from the minimum to the optimum, the volume of activity will closely conform to its size.
Table 3-1, calculated by Professor L. N. Litoshenko in the collection, On the Land (M., 1922), quite clearly demonstrates this feature.
TABLE 3-1
Starobel'sk Uezd,
94 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
Per Worker More than 1 0.50-1 Less than 0.50
Gross income from
farming ......... 176.95 125.34 71.33
Farm expenditure .. 111.64 67.82 44.25 Annual labor
payment from
farming ......... 65.31 57.52 26.58
Fixed capital ...... 622.32 418.52 283.61
ingly. But the work hands of the farm family, not finding a use in farming, turn, as we will see below, to crafts, trades, and other non-agricultural earnings to attain the economic equilibrium with family demands not fully met by farm income or by receipts from crafts and trades.
Yet, it is essential to note that the volume of agricultural activity is not a simple arithmetic derivative of the size of area used, and its growth rate considerably lags behind the development of the area. Thus, if we take as 100 the figures for sown area, farm expenditure, and income for farms with small sown area, the increment of these elements as the sown area increases will be as shown in Table 3-3.
TABLE 3-3 Novgorod Guberniya
Sown area (desyatinas)
per consumer ......... 0.0-0.50 0.51-1.00 >1.00
Sown area per worker . . . 100 184 340
Farm expenditure per
consumer ............. 100 145 200
Farm income per
consumer ............. 100 176 248
Incidentally, all these phenomena have long ago been disclosed by both Russian and European agricultural statisticians, who have adequately studied the influence of land use areas on the farm.
nate the influence of family size on the figures. However, in view of the more or less equal results from both ways of classifying we restrict ourselves to these inquiries, quoting, as an example of correct method, Table 3-2 for Novgorod guberniya.
Looking at this material we see that, proportionately, as land is insufficient and becomes a minimum factor the volume of agricultural activity for all farm elements is reduced at varying speeds, but unfail-
TABLE 3-2 Novgorod Guberniya
Sown Area (Desyatinas) per Consumer
The Basic Principles of Peasant Farm Organization 95
Data on the influence not of agricultural endowment but of the supply of capital on farm structure and income are much more novel for us; these we can obtain from new Russian budget inquiries. By studying the influence of amounts of capital available in the peasant farm, we will at the same time be studying the consequences for the farm which follow from a violation of the harmony of factors characteristic of the optimum. We have worked on the two most adequate budget investigations—for Novgorod and Tambov guberniyas—and in a system of combined tables have compared the influence of family size (number of workers) and availability of fixed capital (buildings, livestock, and equipment) with the volume of economic activity. In making use of this combined classification to study the influence of capital and family size, we must remember that in comparing these factors in absolute figures on the farm we inevitably come into conflict with the fact that the capital intensity of labor falls sharply with an increase in number of workers given the same amount of capital. Conversely, with increased capital, given unchanged family size, there will be an increase in this capital intensification. This is seen from the following tables.
TABLE 3-4 Fixed Capital (Rubles) per Worker
Novgorod Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Number of Family Fixed Capital Family Fixed Capital
Workers 500- 1,000- 1,500- 500- 1,000- 1,500-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1J00 00 0-500 1,000 1J00 00
0-2 ... . 187 349 — — 154 360 — —
2-4 ... . 122 202 355 692 120 243 385 747
4-00 71 146 213 309 86 139 208 368
Because of these differences in capital available, Table 3-4, while allowing us to analyze the influence of capital intensification with constant family size, does not allow us to trace the influence of family size on the farm, given the same rate of capital intensity. In carrying out our analysis in this form of comparison, this circumstance obliges us to repeat it subsequently in a somewhat changed form. Having made this reservation, we can now pass on to an analysis of the essence of our material. We will begin with an explanation of the influence of family size and amount of capital on the size of the family agricultural undertaking, for which sown area may be a measure.
Looking at Table 3-5, we see that the family holding a greater and greater quantity of capital naturally develops a greater and greater
96 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
TABLE 3-5
Influence of Capital and Family Size on Sown Area
Novgorod Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Family Fixed Capital (Rubles) Family Fixed Capital (Rubles)
Workers 500- 1,000- 1,500- 500- 1,000- 1$00-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1$00 00 0-500 1,000 1$00 2,000
0-2 ... . 1.7 2.1 — — 3.4 3.6 — —
2-4 ... . 2.3 3.3 4.5 5.1 3.1 4.6 7.7 8.1
4-oo . 2.9 3.7 5.1 6.9 4.6 6.1 8.6 14.1
volume of agricultural activity. On the other hand, the table equally clearly shows that as the peasant family's work force increases it succeeds in developing a greater and greater volume of agricultural activity with the same amount of captial, covering its lack of capital by its labor intensity. In this instance, we clearly see that capital is not an arithmetic determinant of volume of activity but merely one of the conditions in which the family determines this.
As we know from the classification, with amount of capital remaining the same as the family increases, its workers are in a worsening situation as regards availability of fixed capital. Naturally, the equilibrium of the basic economic factors is attained at a lower level of the worker's economic activity, as is seen from Table 3-6.
TABLE 3-6
Influence of Family Size and Fixed Capital on Sown Area (Desyatinas) per Worker
Novgorod Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Number of Family Fixed Capital (Rubles) Family Fixed Capital (Rubles)
Workers 500- 1,000- 1J00- 500- 1,000- 1J00-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1J00 00 0-500 1,000 1J00 00
0-2 ... . 1.01 1.17 — — 1.91 2.02 — —
2-4 ... . 0.83 1.01 1.35 1.66 1.01 1.48 2.49 2.53
4-oo . 0.56 0.75 0.89 0.98 0.94 1.23 1.56 2.38
As we see, the worker, falling into ever worse conditions, starts to reduce his output. By comparing this table with Table 3-7, which shows the fall in amount of means of production available to him, we can observe that the fall in sown area per worker takes place more slowly than the fall in capital available to him. This may be manifestly seen by comparing the course of these functions, for convenience, taking the first group as 100.
Here, too, we see that in agreement with our theory expounded in Chapter 2 the reduction of means of production influences the vol-
The Basic Principles of Peasant Farm Organization 97 TABLE 3-7
Capital and Sown Area per Worker by Family Size
Number of
Workers Sown Sown Sown Sown
per Family Capital Area Capital Area Capital Area Capital Area
Novgorod Guberniya
0-2 ....... 100 100 100 100 - - - -
2-4 ....... 65 82 58 87 100 100 100 100
4-oo ....... 38 55 42 64 60 66 45 59
Tambov Guberniya
0-2 ....... - - 100 100 - - - -
2-4 ....... 100 100 53 73 100 100 100 100
4-oo ....... 72 93 30 61 54 63 50 94
ume of activity, not mechanically but by affecting the basic economic equilibrium, and makes the worker reduce his output due to the increasing drudgery of his work. And this ought to inevitably lead to a reduction in the family's well-being, i.e., lower the degree of satisfaction of its demands (consumer's budget), despite the possibility of making use of earnings from crafts and trades. We see this clearly from Table 3-8.
TABLE 3-8
Satisfaction of Personal Demands (Consumer's Budget) by Family Size and Amount of Fixed Capital (Rubles)
Novgorod Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Family Fixed Capital Family Fixed Capital
Workers 500- 1,000- 1,500- 500- 1,000- 1,500-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1$00 00 0-500 1,000 1,500 00
0-2 ... . 93.5 143.0 — _ 90.0 100.1 — —
2-4 ... . 67.8 74.9 104.1 152.9 85.8 97.2 113.9 129.2
4-oo . 52.4 78.6 82.9 125.3 76.4 85.3 91.6 124.0
Thus, at the cost of reducing the labor productivity of the annual worker and the satisfaction of demands of the peasant family as it increases in size, it is possible with the same amount of capital to increase the volume of its agricultural undertaking.
Lowering the moment when economic equilibrium is attained, which we have pointed out, leads to the fact that despite the development of earnings from crafts and trades, given low agricultural incomes, the gross income of our family follows, in its general tendency, the sown area (Tables 3-9 and 3-10). We see that gross income reacts to the influence of family growth and increase in capital in the same way sown area does.
98 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
Family Gross Income by Family Size and Amount of Fixed Capital (Rubles)
Novgorod Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Number of Family Fixed Capital Family Fixed Capital
Workers 500- 1,000- 1$00- 500- 1,000- 1,500-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1J500 00 0-500 1,000 1J00 00
0-2 ... . 373.5' 528 — _ 347 551 — _
2-4 ... . 434.5 542 810 1131 434 713 1295 1411
4-oo . 524.0 710 999 1386 661 882 1229 2695
TABLE 3-10
Gross Income per Family Worker by Family Size and Amount of Fixed Capital (Rubles)
Novgorod Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Family Fixed Capital Family Fixed Capital
Workers 500- 1,000- 1J00- 500- 1,000- 1,500-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1J00 00 0-500 1,000 1J00 00
0-2 ... . 216 293 — — 192 306 — _
2-4 ... . 154 168 244 364 140 229 420 441
4—00 . 102 142 176 194 135 177 223 454
As regards analysis of gross income, comparison of its amount with amounts of capital are particularly interesting (Table 3-11).
TABLE 3-11
Gross Income per One-Hundred Rubles of Fixed Capital by Family Size and Amount of Fixed Capital
Number of
Novgorod Guberniya Family Fixed Capital
Tambov Guberniya Family Fixed Capital
Workers 500- 1,000- 1J00- 500- 1,000- 1J500-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1J00 00 0-500 1,000 1J00 00
0-2 ... . 116 84 — — — 65 — —
2-4 ... . 126 83 69 53 117 94 107 59
4-oo . 142 96 82 63 155 126 108 124
We see that as the family labor force and the relative labor intensification of the farm increases it becomes possible for the family to extract a greater and greater amount of gross income from each unit of capital. On the other hand, reading across, we see that as the capital intensification of the farm grows and its relative labor intensification falls the productivity of capital expenditure continually declines.
In order to dismiss the supposition that this increase and decline takes place because of earnings from crafts and trades, we have repeated this same analysis as regards size of sown areas per ruble of capital and have obtained the same tendencies, though less clearly
TABLE 3-9
The Basic Principles of Peasant Farm Organization 99
marked (Table 3-12). We see that as in the case of gross income the size of sown area per 100 rubles fixed capital falls as the farm's capital intensity increases. By forcing up its labor intensification, the peasant family is in a position to make fuller use of the capital at its disposal the less it has.
TABLE 3-12
Sown Area (Desyatinas) per One-Hundred Rubles of Capital
Novgorod Guberniya Tambov Guberniya
Family Fixed Capital Family Fixed Capital
Workers 500- 1,000- 1J00- 500- 1,000 1,500-
in Family 0-500 1,000 1J00 00 0-500 1,000 1J00 00
0-2 ... . 0.54 0.33 — — — 0.43 — —
2-4 ... . 0.68 0.50 0.38 0.24 0.84 0.61 0.65 0.34
4-oo . 0.78 0.51 0.42 0.31 1.08 0.87 0.75 0.65
As we have already noted, though enabling us to exhaustively analyze the influence of its capital intensity on the farm, the comparisons we have made give us little with which to make a comparative study of the influence of family growth and of increases in capital intensity. For an analysis of this comparison, we gave our combined tables a somewhat different form. We divided the whole of the material into groups by farm's capital intensity (the relationship of amount of fixed capital to number of workers) and broke it down within each group by family size (number of workers).
In this case, it became possible for us to trace, by reading across, the reaction of capital intensification given a constant composition of the family labor force and, reading down, the influence of family growth given a constant level of capital intensity. This comparison gave the results in Table 3-13.
TABLE 3-13
Total Family Income in Relation to Fixed Capital per Worker (Rubles) and Family Size (Novgorod Guberniya)
Fixed Capital per Worker Number of Workers _
in Family 0-100 100-200 200-300 >300
0-2 ......... 169 352 426 528
2-4 ......... 334 478 579 835
>4 ......... 523 749 923 1584
We can see that family growth gives a most clearly expressed reaction. Comparing it with the development of the factor, we ought to acknowledge, as we would theoretically expect, that the increase in
100 THE THEORY OF PEASANT ECONOMY
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