The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 291)
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- The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 291)
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275
money borrowing at usurious rates. This indebtedness inevitably led to the
expropriation of the peasants’ land by the moneylenders, especially in the 1920s
and 1930s. The expropriation of land was hastened by the rapid and intensive
commoditization of land brought about by the insatiable demand of the Jewish
European settlers. The commoditization of land was facilitated by the government’s
legal/political actions such as its facilitation of land transfers and title settlement
drive. Without the rapid commoditization of land, the extent of loss of land, or
access to use of land by smallholders could only have been much limited. It is the
complete or partial alienation from land that forced the peasant to seek wage labor
whenever and wherever it could be found.
Although the question of whether the peasantry underwent a process of
differentiation has been answered, it is useful to directly critique Carmi and
Rosenfeld, as some of their arguments have been used, implicitly or explicitly, by
other writers. This will shed more light on the process of differentiation and deal
with some issues not addressed above.
Carmi and Rosenfeld present the so-called “pull” argument to explain the
“origins of the process of proletarianization.” Their starting point was to prove
“the nonviability of peasant existence.” This they explain by the insufficient size of
the average holding because of population growth and inheritance patterns. Related
to this was that the peasant “was free from work on the land for at least half the
year.” Moreover, “the peasant’s weakness” was to be sought in dry farming and
having to pay debts, interest on loans, and taxes—all of which precluded the
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- The Dispossession of the Peasantry
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- المنشئ
- Riyad Mousa
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