Unequal commoners and uncommon equity: Property and community among smallholder farmers

Ecologist

Volumn 27, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 28-33

  Netting, Robert McC ^a  

^a INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRARIAN SOCIETY; COMMON PROPERTY; COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCES; COMMONS ENCLOSURE; EQUITY; PROPERTY RIGHTS; SMALLHOLDER SECTOR; SMALLHOLDERS;

EID: 0030721652     PISSN: 02613131     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Oakerson, R.J., "A Model for the Analysis of Common Property Problems" in Proceedings of the Conference on Common Property Resource Management, National Research Council, Washington, National Academy Press, 1986, p.13.
2. Ostrom, E., Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, New York. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
3. Oakerson, R.J., "Analyzing the Commons: A Framework", (manuscript) undated, p.2.
4. Karl Marx, for instance, believed that "in most primitive communities work is carried out in common, and the common product, apart from that portion set aside for reproduction, is shared out according to current needs". Cited in Meillassoux, C., "From Reproduction to Production: A Marxist Approach to Economic Anthropology", Economy and Society, Vol. 1, 1972, p.145. Some European peasants, according to Frederick Engels, still reflected a transitional state where woodlands, pasture and wasteland remained common land, whereas cultivable soil was held as private property. See Engels, F., The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, International Publishers, New York, 1972 (first published 1884).
5. Karl Marx, for instance, believed that "in most primitive communities work is carried out in common, and the common product, apart from that portion set aside for reproduction, is shared out according to current needs". Cited in Meillassoux, C., "From Reproduction to Production: A Marxist Approach to Economic Anthropology", Economy and Society, Vol. 1, 1972, p.145. Some European peasants, according to Frederick Engels, still reflected a transitional state where woodlands, pasture and wasteland remained common land, whereas cultivable soil was held as private property. See Engels, F., The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, International Publishers, New York, 1972 (first published 1884).
6. Such a grand evolutionary trajectory is simplistic. Common property among smallholders is not a precursor to private property, but nor is it functionally unconnected. Indeed, as use of scarce land and water is intensified, so resources from the commons become more vital and increasingly subject to regulation. The institutionalization of secure private and communal claims to resources was thus coordinate and interdependent. As Meg McKean points out, "more systematic use of the commons increased the need to manage it well, define eligible users and uses, and exclude ineligible users. Sound resource management required cooperation by all villagers, and became the impetus to solidarity (and occasionally democratic) self government by village units." In the classic three-field system of medieval Europe, for example, scattered arable strips, which produced winter wheat in successive years and the summer crops of oats, peas, beans and barley, were managed and inherited by individual households, whether of freeholders, tenants or serfs. During the third-year fallow and when stubble was available, the unfenced strips were opened for common grazing. The oscillation from private arable land to communal pasturage had to be carefully scheduled and enforced by the community so that standing crops were not damaged, grain fields were manured, and the largest possible number of cattle and sheep were fed. See McKean, M.A., "Defining and Dividing Property Rights in the Commons: Today's Lessons from the Japanese Past", paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), 26-29 September 1991, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg; Hoffman. R.C., "Medieval Origins of the common Fields" in Parker, W.N. and Jones, E.L., (eds.) European Peasants and Their Markets: Essays in Agrarian Economic History, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1973, p.25.
7. Such a grand evolutionary trajectory is simplistic. Common property among smallholders is not a precursor to private property, but nor is it functionally unconnected. Indeed, as use of scarce land and water is intensified, so resources from the commons become more vital and increasingly subject to regulation. The institutionalization of secure private and communal claims to resources was thus coordinate and interdependent. As Meg McKean points out, "more systematic use of the commons increased the need to manage it well, define eligible users and uses, and exclude ineligible users. Sound resource management required cooperation by all villagers, and became the impetus to solidarity (and occasionally democratic) self government by village units." In the classic three-field system of medieval Europe, for example, scattered arable strips, which produced winter wheat in successive years and the summer crops of oats, peas, beans and barley, were managed and inherited by individual households, whether of freeholders, tenants or serfs. During the third-year fallow and when stubble was available, the unfenced strips were opened for common grazing. The oscillation from private arable land to communal pasturage had to be carefully scheduled and enforced by the community so that standing crops were not damaged, grain fields were manured, and the largest possible number of cattle and sheep were fed. See McKean, M.A., "Defining and Dividing Property Rights in the Commons: Today's Lessons from the Japanese Past", paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), 26-29 September 1991, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg; Hoffman. R.C., "Medieval Origins of the common Fields" in Parker, W.N. and Jones, E.L., (eds.) European Peasants and Their Markets: Essays in Agrarian Economic History, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1973, p.25.
8. Any generalized, functionalist model of the relationships between smallholder agricultural production and household organization tends to attribute an idealized, ahistoric stability to the smallholder household. Feminist critics have pointed out the lack of neat congruence of production, consumption and reproduction within the household's co-residential domestic group. Those who focus uncritically on the household tend to presume sharing and "joint utility functions" within a household where there may, in fact, be great inequality. patriarchal dominance, and exploitation of women and the young. A highly integrated and complementary division of labour, implicit contracts that provide for long-term reciprocities in care for children and the elderly, and enduring relations to crucial productive property do not guarantee a spirit of harmony. As economist Nancy Folbre points out in her criticism of the neoclassical economists' concern with household behaviour as motivated by efficiency, i) altruism in the family coexists with conflicts of interests over the distribution of goods and leisure time, ii) individual shares of family income are determined in part by individuals' bargaining power within the household; and iii) the relative bargaining power of men, women and children changes in the course of economic development. See Netting, R. McC., Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1993, pp.80-81; Folbre, N., "Household Production in the Philippines: A Non-Neoclassical Approach". Economic Development and Cultural Change, 32, 1984, pp.303-30.
9. Any generalized, functionalist model of the relationships between smallholder agricultural production and household organization tends to attribute an idealized, ahistoric stability to the smallholder household. Feminist critics have pointed out the lack of neat congruence of production, consumption and reproduction within the household's co-residential domestic group. Those who focus uncritically on the household tend to presume sharing and "joint utility functions" within a household where there may, in fact, be great inequality. patriarchal dominance, and exploitation of women and the young. A highly integrated and complementary division of labour, implicit contracts that provide for long-term reciprocities in care for children and the elderly, and enduring relations to crucial productive property do not guarantee a spirit of harmony. As economist Nancy Folbre points out in her criticism of the neoclassical economists' concern with household behaviour as motivated by efficiency, i) altruism in the family coexists with conflicts of interests over the distribution of goods and leisure time, ii) individual shares of family income are determined in part by individuals' bargaining power within the household; and iii) the relative bargaining power of men, women and children changes in the course of economic development. See Netting, R. McC., Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1993, pp.80-81; Folbre, N., "Household Production in the Philippines: A Non-Neoclassical Approach". Economic Development and Cultural Change, 32, 1984, pp.303-30.
10. Ibid., pp. 197-207.
11. McGuire, R. and Netting, R. McC., "Levelling Peasants? The Maintenance of Equality in a Swiss Alpine Community", American Ethnologist, Vol 9, 1982, pp.269-290;
12. Park, T.K., "Early Trends Toward Class Stratification: Chaos, Common Property and Flood Recession Agriculture", American Anthropologist, Vol. 94, 1992, pp.90-117.
13. Meg McKean lists several methods such as limited open periods, rotating access by households, limiting harvesters and reallocating bundles of harvested material by lot that Japanese villages used to distribute fuel, thatching grass and fodder from the commons. Egalitarian rules of distribution were applied to commons resources for which all households had approximately equal requirements. See McKean, M.A., "Success on the Commons: A Comparative Examination of Institutions for Common Property Resource Management", Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 4, 1992, pp.256, 268.
14. Netting, R.McC., Balancing on an Alp: Ecological Change and Continuity in a Swiss Mountain Community, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981.
15. McKean, M.A., op. cit. 10, p.262.
16. Hunt, R.C., "Common Property: Irrigation in Mexico", paper presented at the IASCP Annual Meeting, 26-29 September 1991, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.
17. Stone, G.D., Netting, R.McC. and Stone, M.P., "Seasonality Labor Scheduling and Agricultural Intensification in the Nigerian Savannah", American Anthropologist, Vol. 92, 1990, pp.7-23.
18. See Ostrom, E., op. cit. 2, p.98.
19. Singleton, S. and Taylor, M., "Common Property, Collective Action and Community", Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 4, 1992, p.311.
20. O'Neill, B.J., Social Inequality in a Portuguese Hamlet: Land, Late Marriage and Bastardy, 1870-1978, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987, pp.171-172.
21. Ibid., p. 136.
22. Ibid., pp.172,11.
23. Ibid., p. 143.
24. Personal communication with Glenn Stone.
25. Ostrom, E., op. cit. 2,1990, pp.93-102.
26. Behar, R., Santa Maria del Monte: The Presence of the Past in a Spanish Village, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1986.
27. Geertz, C., "The Wet and The Dry: Traditional Irrigation in Bali and Morocco", Human Ecology, Vol, 1, 1972, pp.23-40.
28. Ibid., p.29.
29. Lansing, S.J., Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991.
30. Hoffman, R.C., op. cit. 5, p.62.
31. Roseberry, W., "Potatoes, Sacks and Enclosures in Early Modern England" in O'Brien, J. and Roseberry W., (eds.) Golden Ages, Dark Ages: Imagining the Past in Anthropology and History, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1991, p.22. See also McKean, M., op. cit. 10, p.267; Glaser, C., "Common Property Regimes in Swiss Alpine Meadows", paper presented at the Conference on Comparative Institutional Analysis at the Inter-University Center of Postgraduate Studies, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, 19-23 October 1987.
32. Roseberry, W., "Potatoes, Sacks and Enclosures in Early Modern England" in O'Brien, J. and Roseberry W., (eds.) Golden Ages, Dark Ages: Imagining the Past in Anthropology and History, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1991, p.22. See also McKean, M., op. cit. 10, p.267; Glaser, C., "Common Property Regimes in Swiss Alpine Meadows", paper presented at the Conference on Comparative Institutional Analysis at the Inter-University Center of Postgraduate Studies, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, 19-23 October 1987.
33. Roseberry, W., "Potatoes, Sacks and Enclosures in Early Modern England" in O'Brien, J. and Roseberry W., (eds.) Golden Ages, Dark Ages: Imagining the Past in Anthropology and History, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1991, p.22. See also McKean, M., op. cit. 10, p.267; Glaser, C., "Common Property Regimes in Swiss Alpine Meadows", paper presented at the Conference on Comparative Institutional Analysis at the Inter-University Center of Postgraduate Studies, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, 19-23 October 1987.
34. Malayang, B.S., "Tenure Rights and Exclusion in the Philippines", Nature and Resources, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1991, pp.18-23.
35. Local population growth may mean that some new households are deprived of rights in the commons, as they were in some seventeenth century English villages. See Spufford, M., Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1974, pp.21, 133.
36. Meg McKean points out that "In Japan, when the disenfranchised are sufficiently numerous, they can pose a serious threat to the commons simply by invading it, yet without assurance of a long-term share, they have no motivation to be disciplined in their use of it. Thus there comes a point when it is in the interest of the senior household to award right to the commons to junior households in order to 'buy' their cooperation with the rules for using the commons". See McKean, M. op. cit. 10, p.264.
37. McKean, M., op., cit. 10. p.263.
38. The Ecologist, "The Commons: Where the Community Has Authority", The Ecologist, Vol. 22, No. 4. 1992, pp. 123-130.
39. Ciriacy-Wantrup, S.V. and Bishop, R.C., "'Common Property' as a Concept in Natural Resources Policy", Natural Resources Journal, Vol. 15, 1975, pp.713-727; McCay, B.J. and Acheson, J.M., (eds.) The Question of the Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1987, p.25.
40. Ciriacy-Wantrup, S.V. and Bishop, R.C., "'Common Property' as a Concept in Natural Resources Policy", Natural Resources Journal, Vol. 15, 1975, pp.713-727; McCay, B.J. and Acheson, J.M., (eds.) The Question of the Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1987, p.25.
41. Levine, D., Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism, Academic, New York, 1977; Hoskins, W.G., The Midland Peasant, Macmillan, London, 1957; Skipp, V., Crisis and Development: An Ecological Case Study of the Forest of Arden, 1570-1674. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978.
42. Levine, D., Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism, Academic, New York, 1977; Hoskins, W.G., The Midland Peasant, Macmillan, London, 1957; Skipp, V., Crisis and Development: An Ecological Case Study of the Forest of Arden, 1570-1674. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978.
43. Levine, D., Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism, Academic, New York, 1977; Hoskins, W.G., The Midland Peasant, Macmillan, London, 1957; Skipp, V., Crisis and Development: An Ecological Case Study of the Forest of Arden, 1570-1674. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978.
44. Thirsk, J., English Peasant Farming, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1957; Spufford, M., op. cit. 30; McKean, M.A., op. cit. 10, citing Jodha, N.S., "Rural Common Property Resources: Contributions and Crisis", paper presented at the IASCP Annual Meeting, 27-30 September 1990, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
45. Thirsk, J., English Peasant Farming, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1957; Spufford, M., op. cit. 30; McKean, M.A., op. cit. 10, citing Jodha, N.S., "Rural Common Property Resources: Contributions and Crisis", paper presented at the IASCP Annual Meeting, 27-30 September 1990, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
46. Thirsk, J., English Peasant Farming, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1957; Spufford, M., op. cit. 30; McKean, M.A., op. cit. 10, citing Jodha, N.S., "Rural Common Property Resources: Contributions and Crisis", paper presented at the IASCP Annual Meeting, 27-30 September 1990, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
47. Thirsk, J., English Peasant Farming, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1957; Spufford, M., op. cit. 30; McKean, M.A., op. cit. 10, citing Jodha, N.S., "Rural Common Property Resources: Contributions and Crisis", paper presented at the IASCP Annual Meeting, 27-30 September 1990, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
48. Wade, R., Village Republics: Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988.
49. Fernandez, J.W., "The Call to the Commons: Decline and Recommitment in Asturias, Spain" in McCay, B.J. and Acheson, J.M., (eds.) op. cit. 33, p.268.
50. Turner, M., Enclosures in Britain, 1750-1830, Macmillan, London, 1984, p.74.
51. Ostrom, E., op. cit. 2, p.244.
52. Partial exclusion of members or abrogation of their rights denies their common interest and turns them into enemies who shirk their obligation and refuse to conserve the common pool of resources. Great inequality of income, wealth or class weakens the community necessary for viable common property institutions. See Singleton, S. and Taylor, M., op. cit. 26.