Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 32)
غرض
- عنوان
- Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 32)
- المحتوى
-
eS Se eee
(Amer,1958; Gozansky,1986). The Ottoman state, it is ciaimed, was
*",..the sole owner of land, while peasantry had only the right of
usufruct over this land..." (Gozansky, 1986:13).
By virtue of being the sole owner of all land, the state, Tamar
Gozansky argues, exercised absolute rights over the production process
as well as over the direct producers. In her words, the state had the
"...last word over all matters concerning the economic and the
political life of the country..." (1986:13-14). As the sole owner of
land, the state was also the sole appropriator of surplus from the
direct producers (Fallaheen) (1) and, as such, it functioned as the
only exploiter of the masses of Palestinian peasantry
(Gozansky,1986:18).
Local economies under the Ottoman rule are described as "natural"
in that they are based on "Self-sufficiency." The Fallaheen, it is
maintained, drew their livelihood by being members of the
village/commune. Terms used to describe the actual nature of each
village/commune vary from one region to the other. Within the context
of Palestine, the term "Musha'ta" (i.e., communal mode of land
distribution) is used to describe what was believed to be the pre-
dominant form of land tenure and of production. This term, as this
study will show, was arbitrarily used in almost all of the literature
on Palestine, including the "modernization," the "development" and
other approaches (Gozansky,1986; Saed,1985; Firestone,1975;
Carmel,1975; Ohana, 1981; Kimmerling, 1983).
An elaborate account of the term “"Musha'‘ta" and its place in
Palestine's agrarian social structure will be dealt with in the next
chapter. It is sufficient to mention here that this communal
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- ١٩٨٩
- المنشئ
- Nahla Abdo-Zubi
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