New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

Author(s)	Lenin
Written	1917

First published 1917 as a separate pamphlet by the Zhizn i Znaniye Publishers. Published in 1915. Published according to the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, pubdate??, Moscow, Volume 22, pages 13-102

Collection(s): Zhizn i Znaniye

Keywords : Agriculture, Capitalism, Economics, Peasantry, United States

Written in 1915. In early 1916, Lenin, while in Berne, sent the manuscript to Maxim Gorky for the Parus Publishers, but it did not appear at that time. It was published in Petrograd in 1917 by Zhisn i Znaniye. The material for the book–variants of the plan and statistical extracts from the U.S. Census reports for 1900 and 1910–was published in Lenin Miscellany XIX in 1932. Lenin did not realize his intention of writing the second part of the book, which was to have dealt with Germany.

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America[edit source]

A leading country of modern capitalism is of especial interest to the study of the socio-economic structure and evolution of present-day agriculture. The U.S.A. is unrivalled either in the rate of development of capitalism at the turn of the century, or in the record level of capitalist development already attained; nor has it any rival in the vastness of the territory developed with the use of the most up-to-date machinery, which is adapted to the remarkable variety of natural and historical conditions or in the extent of the political liberty and the cultural level of the mass of the population. That country, indeed, is in many respects the model for our bourgeois civilization and is its ideal.

The study of the forms and laws of agricultural evolution is made easier in the U.S.A. by its decennial censuses of population, which are coupled with remarkably detailed descriptions of all industrial and agricultural enterprises. This yields a wealth of exact information that is unavailable in any other country; it helps to verify many popular notions, most of which are very loosely formulated and repeated without criticism, and usually serve to funnel bourgeois views and prejudices.

Mr. Himmer in the June (1913) issue of Zavety gives some data from the latest, Thirteenth (1910) Census, and on this basis reiterates the most popular and thoroughly bourgeois contention—bourgeois both as regards its theoretical basis and political significance—that “the vast majority of farms in the United States employ only family labour”; that “in the more highly developed areas agricultural capitalism is disintegrating”; that “in the great majority of areas . . . small-scale farming by owner-operators is becoming ever more dominant”; that it is precisely “in the older cultivated areas with a higher level of economic development” that “capitalist agriculture is disintegrating and production is breaking up into smaller units”; that “there are no areas where colonization is no longer continuing, or where large scale capitalist agriculture is not decaying and is not being replaced by family-labour farms”, and so on and so forth.

All these assertions are monstrously untrue. They are in direct contradiction to reality. They are a sheer mockery of the truth. Their incorrectness ought to be explained in detail for a very good reason: Mr. Himmer is not the man in the street, he is not a casual contributor of a casual magazine article, but one of the most prominent economists representing the most democratic, extreme Left-wing bourgeois trend in Russian and European social thinking. That is precisely why Mr. Himmer’s views may have, and indeed already have among some non-proletarian sections of the population, particularly wide circulation and influence. They are not merely his personal views, nor his individual mistakes, but are rather an expression—couched in the most democratic terms and heavily embellished with pseudo-socialist phraseology—of general bourgeois views which in the atmosphere of a capitalist society are most readily accepted both by the smug professor, treading the beaten path, and the small farmer who is more intelligent than millions of his fellows.

The theory of the non-capitalist evolution of agriculture in capitalist society, which Mr. Himmer advocates, is really the theory of the great majority of bourgeois professors and bourgeois democrats and also of opportunists in the labour movement of the whole world who are the latest variety of those selfsame bourgeois democrats. It is no exaggeration to say that this theory is an illusion, a dream, a delusion under which the whole of bourgeois society is labouring. In devoting my further exposition to the refutation of this theory, I shall try to give a complete picture of capitalism in American agriculture, because one of the main mistakes made by bourgeois economists is to isolate facts and figures, major and minor, from the general context of politico-economic relations. All my data are taken from official statistical publications of the United States of North America, including above all the volumes Five, devoted to agriculture, of the Twelfth and Thirteenth censuses taken in 1900 and 1910 respectively, and also the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1911. Having mentioned these sources, I shall not give references to pages or tables for each separate figure, as this would only burden the reader and needlessly encumber the text; anyone interested enough will easily find the data in question from the tables of contents in these publications.

1. General Characteristic of the Three Main Sections. The Homestead West[edit source]

The vast area of the United States, which is only slightly smaller than the whole of Europe, and the great diversity of farming conditions in the various parts of the country make absolutely imperative a separate study of the major divisions, each with its peculiar economic status. American statisticians adopted five geographical divisions in 1900, and nine in 1910:

(1) New England—six states on the Atlantic coast in the north-east (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut);

(2) Middle Atlantic (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania)—in 1900 these two divisions formed the North Atlantic division;

(3) East North Central (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin);

(4) West North Central (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas)—in 1900, the last two made up the North Central division;

(5) South Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida)—unchanged from 1900;

(6) East South Central (Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi);

(7) West South Central (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas)—in 1900, the last two made up the South Central division;

(8) Mountain (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada); and

(9) Pacific (Washington, Oregon, and California)—in 1900, the last two made up the Western division.

The excessive patchwork of these divisions prompted American statisticians in 1910 to compress them into three main sections—the North (1-4), the South (5-7) and the West (8-9). We shall presently see that this division into three main sections is really most important and vital, although here, too, as in everything else, there are transitional types, so that on some basic points New England and the Middle Atlantic states will have to be considered separately.

In order to define the fundamental distinction between the three main sections, let us designate them as the industrial North, the former slave-owning South and the homestead West.

Here are the figures on their area, percentage of improved land, and population:

Sections	Total Land Area (000,000 acres)	Percentage of improved land	Population (1910) (000,000)
The North	588	49	56
The South	562	27	29
The West	753	5	7

The U.S.A.	1,903	25	92

The North and the South have approximately the same area, while the West is nearly half as large again as either. The population of the North, however, is eight times that of the West, which, one might say, is hardly populated. How rapidly it is being settled is evident from the fact that in the 10 years between 1900 and 1910, the population in the North increased by 18%; the South, by 20%; and the West, by 67%! There is hardly any increase in the number of farms in the North: 2,874,000 in 1900, and 2,891,000 in 1910 (+0.6%); in the South the number increased by 18%, from 2,600,000 to 3,100,000; and in the West, by 54%, i.e., more than half as much again, from 243,000 to 373,000.

How land is being settled in the West is seen from the data on homesteads, which are parcels of land, mostly of 160 acres, i.e., about 65 dessiatines, allocated by the government free of charge or at a nominal price. In the 10 years between 1901 and 1910, the area occupied by homesteads in the North was 55.3 million acres (including 54.3 million, i.e., more than 98%, in one division alone, namely the West North Central); the area in the South was 20 million acres (including 17.3 million in one division, the West South Central), and in the West, it was 55.3 million acres spread over both divisions. This means that the West is a solid homestead area, i.e., one where unoccupied land is given away practically free—somewhat similar to the squatter land tenure in the outlying districts of Russia, except that it is not regulated by a feudal state, but in a democratic manner (I very nearly said: in a Narodnik manner; the American Republic has implemented in a capitalist way the “Narodnik” idea of distributing unoccupied land to all applicants). The North and the South, however, each have only one homestead division, which may be regarded as a transitional type from the unsettled West to the settled North and South. Let us note, by the way, that only in two divisions of the North—the New England and the Middle Atlantic—were there absolutely no homestead grants made in the last decade. We shall later have to return to these two most highly industrialized divisions, where there is no longer any homesteading at all.

The above figures on homesteads refer only to claims that have been staked and not to those actually settled; we have no figures on the latter for the various divisions. But even if these returns are somewhat exaggerated as absolute magnitudes, they are, at any rate, a faithful reflection of the relative importance of homesteads in the various divisions. In the North in 1910 the farms totaled 414 million acres, so that homestead claims in the last 10 years came to about one-eighth of the total; in the South, about one seventeenth (20 out of 354); and in the West, one-half (55 out of 111)! To lump together data on areas with hardly any land ownership at all, and data on areas where all the land is occupied, would be to make nonsense of scientific investigation.

America provides the most graphic confirmation of the truth emphasized by Marx in Capital, Volume III, that capitalism in agriculture does not depend on the form of land ownership or land tenure. Capital finds the most diverse types of medieval and patriarchal landed property—feudal, “peasant allotments” (i.e., the holdings of bonded peasants); clan, communal, state, and other forms of land ownership. Capital takes hold of all these, employing a variety of ways and methods. For agricultural statistics to be properly and rationally compiled, the methods of investigation, tabulation, etc., would have to be modified to correspond to the forms of capitalist penetration into agriculture; for instance, the homesteads would have to be put into a special group and their economic fate traced. Unfortunately, however, the statistics are all too often dominated by routine and meaningless, mechanical repetition of the same old methods.

How extensive agriculture is in the West, as compared with the other sections, is evident, by the way, from the data on expenditures for artificial fertilizers. In 1909, the expenditure per acre of improved land was 13 cents ($0.13) in the North; 50 cents, in the South, and only 6 cents in the West. The South has the highest figure because cotton demands great quantities of fertilizers, and the South is primarily a cotton-growing area: cotton and tobacco account for 46.8% of the total value of all its farm crops; grain, only 29.3%; hay and forage, 5.1%. By contrast, grain leads in the North with 62.6%, followed by 18.8% of hay and forage, most of which is cultivated. In the West, grain accounts for 33.1% of the total value of all farm crops; hay and forage, with wild grasses predominating, 31.7%, while fruits, a special branch of commercial farming rapidly developing on the Pacific coast, account for 15.5% of the total value.

2. The Industrial North[edit source]

By 1910, the urban population in the North reached 58.6% of the total, as compared with 22.5% in the South and 48.8% in the West. The role of industry is evident from these figures:

	Value of products ($000,000,000)				Workers in industry (000,000)
	Crops	Live- stock	Total	Manufactures less cost of raw materials	Workers in industry (000,000)
The North	3.1	2.1	5.2	6.9	5.2
The South	1.9	0.7	2.6	1.1	1.1
The West	0.5	0.3	0.8	0.5	0.3

The U.S.A.	5.5	3.1	8.6	8.5	6.6

The total crop value is here overstated because a part of the crops, such as feed, recurs in the value of the livestock products. But in any case these figures show conclusively that almost five-sixths of American manufacture is concentrated in the North, and that manufacture prevails over agriculture in that section. The South and the West, on the contrary, are predominantly agricultural.

The above table shows that the North differs from the South and the West by a comparatively greater development of industry, which creates a market and makes for the intensification of agriculture. The North—“industrial” in that sense—nevertheless still remains the largest producer of agricultural products. More than one-half, actually about three-fifths, of agricultural production, is concentrated in the North. How much more intensive farming is in the North, as compared with the other sections, will be seen from the following figures on the per-acre value of all farm property—land, buildings, implements and machinery, and livestock. In 1910, it was $66 in the North, as compared with $25 in the South, and $41 in the West. The per-acre value of implements and machinery alone was $2.07 in the North, $0.83 in the South, and $1.04 in the West.

The New England and Middle Atlantic divisions stand out in this picture. As I have already pointed out there is no new homesteading in these parts. From 1900 to 1910, there was an absolute decrease in the number of farms, and in the total and in the improved acreage of the farms. Employment returns show that only 10% of the population there is engaged in farming, as compared with a 33% average for the U.S.A., 25 to 41% for the other divisions of the North, and 51 to 63% for the South. Only 6 to 25% of the improved acreage in these two divisions is under cereal crops (the average for the U.S.A. is 40%, and for the North, 46%); 52 to 29% is under grasses, mostly cultivated (as against 15% and 18%); and 4.6 to 3.8% is under vegetables (as against 1.5 and 1.5%). This is the area of the most intensive agriculture. The average expenditure for fertilizers per acre of improved land in 1909 was $1.30 and $0.62 respectively; the former being the U.S. maximum, and the latter, second only to that of one division in the South. The average value of implements and machinery per acre of improved land was $2.58, and $3.88—the maximum figures for the U.S.A. We shall later see that in these most industrialized divisions of the industrial North, agriculture is the most intensive and has the most pronounced capitalist character.

3. The Former Slave-Owning South[edit source]

The United States of America, writes Mr. Himmer, is a “country which has never known feudalism and is free from its economic survivals” (p. 41 of his article). This is the very opposite of the truth, for the economic survivals of slavery are not in any way distinguishable from those of feudalism, and in the former slave-owning South of the U.S.A. these survivals are still very powerful. It would not be worth while to dwell on Mr. Himmer’s mistake if it were merely one in a hastily written article. But all liberal and all Narodnik writings in Russia show that the very same “mistake” is being made regularly and with unusual stubbornness with regard to the Russian labour-service system, our own survival of feudalism.

The South of the U.S.A. was slave-owning until slavery was swept away by the Civil War of 1861-65. To this day, the Negroes, who make up no more than from 0.7 to 2.2% of the population in the North and the West, constitute from 22.6 to 33.7% of the population in the South. For the U.S.A. as a whole, the Negroes constitute 10.7% of the population. There is no need to elaborate on the degraded social status of the Negroes: the American bourgeoisie is in no way better in this respect than the bourgeoisie of any other country. Having “freed” the Negroes, it took good care, under “free”, republican-democratic capitalism, to restore everything possible, and do everything possible and impossible for the most shameless and despicable oppression of the Negroes. A minor statistical fact will illustrate their cultural level. While the proportion of illiterates in 1900 among the white population of the U.S.A. of 10 years of age and over was 6.2%, among the Negroes it was as high as 44.5%! More than seven times as high! In the North and the West illiteracy amounted from 4 to 6% (1900), while in the South it was from 22.9 to 23.9%! One can easily imagine the complex of legal and social relationships that corresponds to this disgraceful fact from the sphere of popular literacy.

What then is the economic basis that has produced and continues to support this fine “superstructure” ?

It is the typically Russian, “purely Russian” labour service system, which is known as share-cropping.

In 1910, Negroes owned 920,883 farms, i.e., 14.5% of the total. Of the total number of farmers, 37% were tenants; 62.1%, owners; the remaining 0.9% of the farms were run by managers. But among the whites 39.2% were tenant farmers, and among the Negroes—75.3%! The typical white farmer in America is an owner, the typical Negro farmer is a tenant. The proportion of tenants in the West was only 14%: this section is being settled, with new lands unoccupied, and is an El Dorado (a short-lived and unreliable El Dorado, to be sure) for the small “independent farmer” . In the North, the proportion of tenant farmers was 26.5%, and in the South, 49.6%! Half of the Southern farmers were tenants.

But that is not all. These are not even tenants in the European, civilized, modern-capitalist sense of the word. They are chiefly semi-feudal or—which is the same thing in economic terms—semi-slave share-croppers. In the “free” West, share-croppers were in the minority (25,000 out of a total of 53,000 tenants). In the old North, which was settled long ago, 483,000 out of 766,000 tenant farmers, i.e., 63%, were share-croppers. In the South, 1,021,000 out of 1,537,000 tenant farmers, i.e., 66%, were share-croppers.

In 1910, free, republican-democratic America had 1,500,000 share-croppers, of whom more than 1,000,000 were Negroes. And the proportion of share-croppers to the total number of farmers is not decreasing, but is on the contrary steadily and rather rapidly increasing. In 1880, 17.5% of the farmers in the U.S.A. were sharecroppers, in 1890, 18.4%; in 1900, 22.2%; and in 1910, 24%.

American statisticians draw the following conclusions from the 1910 returns:

“In the South the conditions have at all times been somewhat different from those in the North, and many of the tenant farms are parts of plantations of considerable size which date from before the Civil War.” In the South, “the system of operation by tenants—chiefly colored tenants—has succeeded the system of operation by slave labour. . . . The development of the tenant system is most conspicuous in the South, where the large plantations formerly operated by slave labour have in many cases been broken up into small parcels or tracts and leased to tenants. . . . These plantations are in many cases still operated substantially as agricultural units, the tenants being subjected to a degree of supervision more or less similar to that which hired farm labourers are subjected to in the North” (op. cit., Vol. V, pp. 102, 104).

To show what the South is like, it is essential to add that its population is fleeing to other capitalist areas and to the towns, just as the peasantry in Russia is fleeing from the most backward central agricultural gubernias, where the survivals of serfdom have been most greatly preserved, in order to escape the rule of the notorious Markovs, to those areas of Russia which have a higher level of capitalist development, to the metropolitan cities, the industrial gubernias and the South (see The Development of Capitalism in Russia^[1] ). The share-cropping area, both in America and in Russia, is the most stagnant area, where the masses are subjected to the greatest degradation and oppression. Immigrants to America, who have such an outstanding role to play in the country’s economy and all its social life, shun the South. In 1910, the foreign-born formed 14.5% of the total population of America. But in the South the figure was only l to 4% for the several divisions, whereas in the other divisions the proportion of incomers ranged from not less than 13.9% to 27.7% (New England). For the “emancipated” Negroes, the American South is a kind of prison where they are hemmed in, isolated and deprived of fresh air. The South is distinguished by the immobility of its population and by the greatest “attachment to the land” : with the exception of that division of the South, which still has considerable homesteading (West South Central), 91 to 92% of the population in the two other divisions of the South resided in the same division where they were born, whereas for the United States as a whole the figure was 72.6%, i.e., the mobility of the population is much greater. In the West, which is a solid homestead area, only 35 to 41% of the population lived in the division of their birth.

Negroes are in full flight from the two Southern divisions where there is no homesteading: in the 10 years between the last two censuses, these two divisions provided other parts of the country with almost 600,000 “black” people. The Negroes flee mainly to the towns: in the South, 77 to 80% of all the Negroes live in rural communities; in other areas, only 8 to 32%. Thus it turns out that there is a startling similarity in the economic status of the Negroes in America and the peasants in the heart of agricultural Russia who “were formerly landowners’ serfs”.

4. Average Size of Farms, “Disintegration of Capitalism” in the South[edit source]

Having examined the chief distinctive features of the three main sections of the U.S.A., as well as the general nature of their economic conditions, we can now proceed to an analysis of the data most commonly referred to. These are primarily data on the average acreage of farms. It is on the basis of these data that a great many economists, including Mr. Himmer, draw the most categorical conclusions.

Average acreage per farm in the U.S.A.
Years	All farmland	Improved land
1850 1860	202.6 199.2	78.0 79.8

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910	153.3 133.7 136.5 146.2 138.1	71.0 71.0 78.3 72.2 75.2

On the whole, there seems at first glance to be a reduction in the average acreage of all farmland and an uncertain fluctuation—upward and downward—in the average improved acreage. But there is a distinct break in the 1860-70 period and this I have indicated by a line. During that period there was an enormous decrease in the average acreage of all farmland by 46 acres (from 199.2 to 153.3) and the greatest change (from 79.8 to 71.0), also a reduction, in the average acreage of improved land. What was the reason? Obviously, the Civil War of 1861-65 and the abolition of slavery. A decisive blow was dealt at the latifundia of the slave-owners. Further on we shall see repeated confirmation of this fact, but it is so generally known that it is surprising that it needs any proof at all. Let us separate the returns for the North and those for the South.

	Average acreage per farm
	South		North
Years	All farmland	Improved land	All farmland	Improved land
1850 1860	332.1 335.4	101.1 101.3	127.1 126.4	65.4 68.3

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910	214.2 153.4 139.7 138.2 114.4	69.2 56.2 58.8 48.1 48.6	117.0 114.9 123.7 132.2 143.0	69.2 76.6 87.8 90.9 100.3

We find that in the South the average improved acreage per farm between 1860 and 1870 greatly decreased (from 101.3 to 69.2), and that in the North it slightly increased (from 68.3 to 69.2). This means that the cause lay in the specific conditions of evolution in the South. There we find even after the abolition of slavery, a reduction in the average acreage of farms, although the process is slow and not continuous.

Mr. Himmer’s deduction is that in the South “the small-scale family farms are extending their domination, while capital is leaving agriculture for other spheres of investment. . . . Agricultural capitalism is rapidly disintegrating in the South Atlantic states. . .”.

This is an amusing assertion likely to be matched only in the arguments of our Narodniks on the “disintegration of capitalism” in Russia after 1861 in consequence of the landlords abandoning corvée for the labour-service (i.e., semi-corvée!) system of economy. The break-up of the slave-worked latifundia is called the “disintegration of capitalism”. The transformation of the unimproved land of yesterday’s slave-owners into the small farms of Negroes, half of whom are share-croppers (it should be borne in mind that the proportion of share-croppers has been steadily growing from census to census!), is called the “disintegration of capitalism”. It is hardly possible to go any further in distorting the fundamental concepts of economics!

Chapter Twelve of the 1910 Census supplies information on typical Southern “plantations”—not of the old slave period, but of our own day. On the 39,073 plantations there are 39,073 “landlord farms” and 398,905 tenant farms, or an average of 10 tenants per landlord or “master”. Plantations average 724 acres, of which only 405 acres is improved, more than 300 acres being unimproved, not a bad reserve for the gentlemen who were the slave-owners of yesterday to draw on in extending their plans of exploitation. . . .

Land on the average plantation is distributed as follows: “landlord” farm—331 acres, of which 87 is improved. “Tenant” farms, i.e., the parcels of the Negro share-croppers, who continue to work for the master and under his eye, average 38 acres, of which 31 is improved land.

As the population and the demand for cotton increase, the former slave-owners of the South begin to parcel out their vast latifundia, nine-tenths of the land on which is still unimproved, into small tracts which are either sold to the Negroes or, more frequently, leased to them on a half-crop basis. (From 1900 to 1910, the number of farmers in the South who were full owners of all their farmland increased from 1,237,000 to 1,329,000, i.e., 7.5%, while the number of share-croppers went up from 772,000 to 1,021,000, i.e., 32.2%.) And yet an economist has appeared who says this is “disintegration of capitalism”. . . .

I designate as latifundia farms with an area of 1,000 acres and over. In 1910, the proportion of such farms in the U.S.A. was 0.8% (50,135 farms), and they added up to 167.1 million acres, or 19.0% of the total amount of land. This is an average of 3,332 acres per latifundium. Only 18.7% of their acreage was improved while for all farms the figure was 54.4%. The capitalist North has the smallest number of latifundia: 0.5% of the total number of farms accounting for 6.9% of the land, 41.1% of which is improved. The West has the greatest number of latifundia: 3.9% of the total number of farms accounting for 48.3% of the land; 32.3% of the land in the latifundia is improved. But it is in the former slave-owning South that the latifundia have the highest proportion of unimproved land: 0.7% of the farms are latifundia; they account for 23.9% of the land; only 8.5% of the land in the latifundia is improved! Incidentally, these detailed statistics clearly show that there is really no foundation for the common practice of classifying the latifundia as capitalist enterprises, without a detailed analysis of the specific data for each country and each area.

During the 10 years from 1900 to 1910, the total acreage of the latifundia, but only of the latifundia, showed a decrease. The reduction was quite substantial: from 197.8 million to 167.1 million acres, i.e., 30.7 million acres. In the South, there was a reduction of 31.8 million acres (in the North, an increase of 2.3 million, and in the West, a reduction of 1.2 million). Consequently, it is in the South, and in the slave-owning South alone, that the latifundia, with their negligible proportion (8.5%) of improved land, are being broken up on a really vast scale.

The inescapable conclusion is that the only exact definition of the economic process under way is—a transition from the slave-holding latifundia, nine-tenths of which remained unimproved, to small commercial agriculture. It is a transition to commercial farms and not to farms worked by family labour, as Mr. Himmer and the Narodniks, together with all the bourgeois economists who sing cheap hymns to “labour”, love to say. The term “family labour” has no politico-economic meaning and is indirectly misleading. It is devoid of meaning because the small farmer “labours” under any social system of economy, be it slavery, serfdom or capitalism. The term “family labour” is just an empty phrase, pure oratory which serves to cover up the confusion of entirely different social forms of economic organization—a confusion from which the bourgeoisie alone stands to gain. The term “family labour” is misleading and deceives the public, for it creates the impression that hired labour is not employed.

Mr. Himmer, like all bourgeois economists, evades just these statistics on hired labour, although they are the most important data on the question of capitalism in agriculture and although they are to be found in the 1900 Census report, as well as in the 1910 Abstract—Farm Crops, by States, which Mr. Himmer himself quotes (note on p. 49 of his article).

The nature of the staple crop of the South shows that the growth of small-scale agriculture in the South is nothing but the growth of commercial farming. That crop is cotton. Cereals yield 29.3% of the total crop value in the South; hay and forage, 5.1%; and cotton, 42.7%. From 1870 to 1910, the production of wool in the U.S.A. went up from 162 million lbs. to 321 million lbs., i.e., it doubled; wheat, increased from 236 million to 635 million bushels, i.e., less than threefold; corn, from 1,094 million to 2,886 million bushels, also less than threefold; and cotton, from 4,000,000 bales (of 500 lbs. each) to 12,000,000, i.e., threefold. The growth of the crop that is primarily commercial was faster than that of other, less commercialized, crops. In addition, there was in the main division of the South, the South Atlantic, a rather substantial development of tobacco production (12.1% of the crop value in the State of Virginia); vegetables (20.1% of the total crop value in the State of Delaware, 23.2% in the State of Florida); fruits (21.3% of the total crop value in the State of Florida); etc. The nature of all these crops implies an intensification of farming, a larger scale of operations on smaller acreages, and greater employment of hired labour.

I shall now proceed to a detailed analysis of the returns on hired labour; let us note only that the employment of hired labour is also growing in the South, although in this respect it lags behind the other sections—less hired labour is employed because of the wider practice of semi-slave share-cropping.

5. The Capitalist Nature of Agriculture[edit source]

Capitalism in agriculture is usually gauged by the data on the size of farms or the number and importance of big farms (in terms of acreage). I have examined some of these data and shall return to the problem later on, but it must be said that all these are, after all, indirect indications, for acreage is not always an indication, and not by any means a direct indication, that a farm is really big as an economic enterprise, or that it is capitalist in character.

In this respect the data on hired labour are far more indicative and offer better proof. Agricultural censuses taken in recent years, such as the Austrian of 1902 and the German of 1907, which I shall examine elsewhere, show that the employment of hired labour in present-day agriculture—and especially in small-scale farming—is much greater than is generally believed. Nothing so obviously and categorically refutes the petty-bourgeois myth about small “family” farms as do these figures.

American statisticians have collected very extensive material on this, for each farmer’s individual census form asks whether he spends anything on hired labour, and, if he does, exactly how much. In contrast to European statistics—such as those of the two countries just named—no record is made in American statistics of the number of hired labourers employed at the time by each farmer, although that could be easily discovered, and the scientific value of such in formation, in addition to the returns on the total expenditure on hired labour, would indeed be very great. But the worst thing is the very poor tabulation of these returns in the 1910 Census, which is in general presented much more poorly than the 1900 Census. The 1910 Census groups all farms by acreage (as does the 1900 Census) but, by contrast, it does not give any figures on the employment of hired labour by these groups. This makes it impossible for us to compare the employment of hired labour by farms with small and with large acreages. The Census merely gives the average figures for the states and the sections, i.e., data lumping together capitalist and non-capitalist farms.

I shall make a special point of going into the more elaborate data for 1900 later on; meanwhile, here are the figures for 1910; in fact they relate to 1899 and 1909.

Sections	Percentage of farm hiring labour (1909)	Increase of expenditure on hired labour 1899-1909 (%)	Expenditure on hire labour per acre of improved land ($)
Sections	Percentage of farm hiring labour (1909)	Increase of expenditure on hired labour 1899-1909 (%)	1909	1899
The North	55.1	+ 70.8	1.26	0.82
The South	36.6	+ 87.1	1.07	0.69
The West	52.5	+119.0	3.25	2.07

The U. S. A.	45.9	+ 82.3	1.36	0.86

The first thing that is made obvious by these figures is that agriculture is most capitalistic in the North (55.1% of farms employ hired labour); then, follows the West (52.5%) and, lastly, the South (36.6%). That is just as it should be when any densely populated and industrial area is being compared with an area still under going colonization and with an area of share-cropping. It goes without saying that figures on the proportion of farms employing hired labour are more suitable for a precise comparison of the sections than data on the expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved land. For the latter type of data to be comparable, the level of wages in the sections would have to be the same. No information on farm wages in the U.S.A. is available but in the light of the basic distinctions between the sections it is inconceivable that their wage levels are the same

.Thus, in the North and in the West—the two sections which together have two-thirds of the improved land and two-thirds of the livestock—more than one-half the farmers cannot manage without hired labour. The proportion is smaller in the South only because there the semi-feudal (alias semi-slave) system of exploitation in the form of share-cropping is still strong. There is no doubt that in America, as in all the other capitalist countries, a part of the handicapped farmers have to sell their labour-power. Unfortunately, American statistics do not contain any information about this, in contrast, for example, to the 1907 German statistics, in which these data have been collected and worked out in detail. According to the German statistics, hiring themselves out as labourers is the main occupation of 1,940,867 persons, i.e., over 30%, of the 5,736,082 owners of farms (a total which includes the very small “owners”). To be sure, the mass of these farm-hands and day-labourers with a bit of land of their own belong to the poorest groups of farmers

.Let us assume that in the U.S.A., where the smallest farms (of less than three acres) are as a general rule not registered at all, only 10% of the farmers sell their labour-power. Even then we find that more than one-third of the farmers are directly exploited by the landlords and capitalists (24% share-croppers who are exploited by former slave-owners in feudal or semi-feudal fashion, plus 10% who are exploited by the capitalists, or altogether 34%). This means that of the total number of farmers a minority, hardly more than one-fifth or one-quarter, neither hire labourers nor hire themselves out or sell themselves into bondage

Such is the actual state of affairs in the country of “model and advanced” capitalism, in the country with free distribution of millions of dessiatines of land. Here again the famous non-capitalist, small-scale “family” farming proves to be a myth.

How many hired labourers are engaged in American agriculture? Is their number increasing or decreasing in proportion to the total number of farmers and the total rural population?

It is regrettable that American statistics do not provide a direct answer to these highly important questions. Let us find an approximate answer.

Firstly, we can obtain an approximate answer from the returns on occupations (Volume IV of the Census reports). These stalistics are not an American “success”. They are compiled in such a routine, mechanical, incongruous manner that they contain no information on the status of the persons employed, i.e., no distinction is made between farmers, family workers, and hired labourers. Instead of making a precise economic classification, the compilers were content to use “popular” terminology, absurdly bracketing members of farmers’ families and hired labourers under the head of farm workers. As we know it is not only in American statistics that there is complete chaos on this question.

The 1910 Census makes an attempt to bring some order into this chaos, to correct the obvious mistakes and to separate at least a part of the hired labourers (those working out) from members of the family working on the home farm. In a series of calculations the statisticians correct the total number of persons engaged in farming, reducing it by 468,100 (Vol. IV, p. 27). The number of females working out is set at 220,048 for 1900, and 337,522 for 1910 (an increase of 53%). The number of males working out in 1910 was 2,299,444. Assuming that in 1900 the proportion of hired labourers to the total number of farm workers was the same as in 1910, the number of males working out in 1900 must have been 1,798,165. We then obtain this picture:

	1900	1910	Increase (%)
Total engaged in agriculture Number of farmers Number of hired labourers	10,381,756 5,674,875 2,018,213	12,099,825 5,981,522 2,566,966	+16 + 5 +27

That is, the percentage increase in the number of hired labourers was over five times greater than in that of farmers (27% and 5%). The proportion of farmers in the rural population decreased; the proportion of hired labourers increased. The proportion of independent farm operators to the total farming population dropped; the number of dependent, exploited persons, increased.

In 1907, hired farm labourers in Germany numbered 4.5 million out of a total of 15 million persons working on the home farm and working out. Consequently, 30% were hired labourers. In America, according to the estimate given above, the figure was 2.5 million out of 12 million, i.e., 21%. It is possible that the availability of vacant land distributed free, and the high percentage of share cropping tenants tended to lower the percentage of hired labourers in America.

Secondly, an approximate answer may be provided by the figures on expenditure on hired labour in 1899 and 1909. During the same period, the number of industrial wage-workers increased from 4.7 million to 6.6 million, i.e., 40%, and their wages from $2,008 million to $3,427 million, i.e., 70%. (It should be borne in mind that the rise in the cost of living cancelled out this nominal increase in wages.)

On the strength of this we may assume that the 82% increase in expenditure on hired farm labour corresponds to an increase of approximately 48% in the number of hired labourers. Making a similar assumption for the three main sections we obtain the following picture:

Sections	Percentage increase from 1900 to 1910
Sections	Total rural population	Number of farms	Number of hired labourers
The North	+ 3.9	+ 0.6	+40
The South	+14.8	+18.2	+50
The West	+49.7	+53.7	+66

The U. S. A.	+11.2	+10.9	+48

These figures also show that for the country as a whole the increase in the number of farmers is not keeping pace with the growth of the rural population, while the increase in the number of hired labourers is outstripping the growth of the rural population. In other words: the proportion of independent farm operators is decreasing, and the proportion of dependent farm workers is increasing.

It should be noted that the great difference between the increase in the number of hired labourers obtained in the first estimate (+27%) and in the second (+48%) is quite possible because in the former only the professional farm labourers were enumerated, and in the latter, every instance of employment of hired labour was taken into account. In farming, seasonal hired labour is highly important, and it should be the rule, therefore, that it is never enough to determine the number of hired labourers, permanent and seasonal, but that an effort must also be made to determine, as far as possible, the total expenditure on hired labour.

At any rate, both estimates definitely show a growth of capitalism in agriculture in the U.S.A., and an increase in the employment of hired labour, which is proceeding at a faster pace than the growth of the rural population and of the number of farmers.

6. Areas of the Most Intensive Agriculture[edit source]

Having examined the general data on hired labour as the most direct indicator of capitalism in agriculture, we can now go on to a more detailed analysis of the specific forms assumed by capitalism in this particular branch of the economy.

We have taken a look at one area with a shrinking average acreage of farms, namely, the South, where the process signifies a transition from latifundia worked by slaves to small-scale commercial farms. There is another area where the average acreage of farms is diminishing—a part of the North: New England and the Middle Atlantic states. Here are the figures for these divisions:

Average acreage per farm (improved land)
New England	Middle Atlantic States
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910	66.5 66.4 66.4 63.4 56.5 42.4 38.4	70.8 70.3 69.2 68.0 67.4 63.4 62.6

The average farm in New England is smaller than in any other division of the U.S.A. In two Southern divisions the average is 42 to 43 acres, and in the third, the West South Central, where homesteading is still going on, it is 61.8 acres, i.e., almost as much as in the Middle Atlantic states. It is the reduction in the average size of farms in New England and the Middle Atlantic states, “the areas with an older culture and a higher level of economic development” (Mr. Himmer, p. 60), where homesteading is no longer taking place, that has led Mr. Himmer, as it has very many other bourgeois economists, to draw the conclusion that “capitalist agriculture is disintegrating”, that “production is breaking up into smaller units”, that there are “no areas where colonization is no longer continuing, or where large-scale capitalist agriculture is not decaying and is not being replaced by family-labour farms”.

Mr. Himmer arrived at these conclusions, which are the very opposite of the truth, because he forgot a mere “trifle”: the intensification of agriculture! It is incredible, but it is a fact. This matter requires a particularly thorough analysis because quite a few bourgeois economists, almost all in fact, contrive to forget this “trifle” when dealing with small and large-scale production in agriculture, although “in theory” they are all “aware” of and accept the intensification of farming. This is indeed one of the basic sources of all the misadventures of bourgeois (including Narodnik and opportunist) economics on the question of small “family” farms. The “trifle” they forget is this: owing to the technical peculiarities of agriculture, the process of its intensification frequently leads to a reduction in the improved acreage on the farm, and at the same time expands it as an economic unit, increasing its output, and making it more and more of a capitalist enterprise.

Let us first see whether or not there is any fundamental difference in farming techniques, in the general character of farming and degree of its intensification between New England and the Middle Atlantic states, on the one hand, and between the rest of the North and the country’s other divisions, on the other.

The differences in the crops grown are shown in the following table:

Percentage of total crop value (1910)
Divisions	Cereals	Hay and forage	Vegetables, fruits and similar special crops
New England Middle Atlantic	7.6 29.6	41.9 31.4	33.5 31.8
- - - - - - - -
East North Central West North Central	65.4 75.4	16.5 14.6	11.0 5.9

The difference in farming conditions is fundamental. In the first two divisions agriculture is highly intensive; in the other two it is extensive. In the latter, cereals account for the bulk of the total crop value; in the former, they contribute not only a minor part, but sometimes a negligible part (7.6%), while the special “commercial” crops (vegetables, fruits, etc.) yield a greater part of the crop value than cereals. Extensive agriculture has given way to intensive agriculture. Grass cultivation has become widespread. Of the 3.8 million acres under hay and forage in New England, 3.3 million acres were under cultivated grasses. The figures for the Middle Atlantic states are 8.5 and 7.9 million respectively: By contrast, of the 27.4 million acres under hay and forage in the West North Central states (an area of colonization and extensive agriculture), 14.5 million, i.e., the greater part, were unimproved grass lands, etc. Yields are considerably higher in the “intensive” states:

Divisions	Per-acre yield in bushels
Corn	Wheat
1909	1899	1909	1899
New England Middle Atlantic	45.2 32.2	39.4 34.0	23.5 18.6	18.0 14.9
- - - - - - - - - -
East North Central West North Central	38.6 27.7	38.3 31.4	17.2 14.8	12.9 12.2

The same is true of commercial livestock and dairy farming, which are especially highly developed in these divisions:

Divisions	Average number of dairy cows per farm	Average production of milk per cow (gallons)
(1900)	1909	1899
New England Middle Atlantic	5.8 6.1	476 490	548 514
- - - - - -
East North Central West North Central	4.0 4.9	410 325	487 371
- - - - - -
The South (3 divisions)	1.9-3.1	232-286	290-395
- - - - - - - -
The West (2 divisions)	4.7-5.1	339-475	334-470
- - - - -
The U.S.A.	3.8	362	424

This table shows that in the “intensive” states dairy farming is on a considerably larger scale than in all the others. The areas with the smallest farms (in terms of improved acreage) have the largest dairies. This fact is of tremendous importance, for, as everyone knows, dairy farming develops most rapidly in suburban localities and in very highly industrialized countries (or areas). Statistics from Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, which are dealt with elsewhere, improved^[2] also show a growing concentration of dairy cattle. As we have seen, hay and forage in the “intensive” states constitute a considerably greater proportion of the total crop value than cereals. Accordingly, livestock farming there develops largely on the basis of purchased feed. Here are the relevant figures for 1909:

Division	Receipts from sale of feed	Outlays on feed	Excess of receipts or outlays
($000,000)
New England Middle Atlantic	+ 4.3 +21.6	-34.6 -54.7	-30.3 -33.1
- - - - - -
East North Central West North Central	+195.6 +174.4	-40.6 -76.2	+155.0 + 98.2

The extensive states of the North sell feed. The intensive states buy it. It is clear that if feed is purchased large-scale operations of a highly capitalistic nature can be conducted on a small tract of land. Let us make a comparison between the two intensive divisions of the North, New England and the Middle Atlantic states, and the most extensive division of the North, the West North Central:

Division	Improved land (000,000 acres)	Value of livestock ($000,000)	Receipts from sale of feed ($000,000)	Outlays on feed ($000,000)
New England + Middle Atlantic	36.5	447	26	89
West North Central	164.3	1,552	174	76

We find that there is more livestock per acre of improved land in the intensive states (447:36 = $12 per acre) than in the extensive states (1,552:164 = $9). More capital in the form of livestock is invested in a unit of land area. And the total per-acre turnover of the feed trade (purchases +sales) is also very much greater in the intensive states (26+89 = $115 million for 36 million acres) than in the extensive states (174+76 = $250 million for 164 million acres). In the intensive states farming is obviously much more commercialized than in the extensive states. Expenditure on fertilizers and the value of implements and machinery are the most exact statistical expression of the degree of intensification of agriculture. Here are the figures:

Divisions	Percentage of farms with outlays on fertilizers	Average outlays per farm	Average outlays per acre of improved land ($)		Average improved acreage per farm
Divisions	Percentage of farms with outlays on fertilizers	Average outlays per farm	1909	1899	(1909)
The North	New England Middle Atlantic	60.9 57.1	82 68	1.30 0.62	0.53 0.37	38.4 62.6
- - - - - - - - - -
East North Central West North Central	19.6 2.1	37 41	0.09 0.01	0.07 0.01	79.2 148.0
The South	South Atlantic East South Central West South Central	69.2 33.8 6.4	77 37 53	1.23 0.29 0.06	0.49 0.13 0.03	43.6 42.2 61.8
The West	Mountain Pacific	1.3 6.4	67 189	0.01 0.10	0.01 0.05	86.8 116.1
- - - - - - - - - -
	The U.S.A.	28.7	63	0.24	0.13	75.2

This fully brings out the difference between the extensive divisions of the North, with an insignificant proportion of farms using purchased fertilizers (2-19%), and with negligible expenditure on fertilizers per acre of improved land ( $0.01-$0.09)—and the intensive states, where the majority of farms (57-60%) use purchased fertilizers and where expenditure on fertilizers is substantial. In New England, for example, the per-acre expenditure is $1.30—the maximum figure for all divisions (once again a case of farms with the smallest acreage and the largest expenditure on fertilizers!), which exceeds the figure for one of the divisions of the South (South Atlantic). It should be noted that in the South especially large quantities of artificial fertilizers are required by cotton, on which, as we have seen, the labour of Negro share-croppers is most widely employed.

In the Pacific states, we find a very small percentage of farms using fertilizers (6.4%) but the maximum average per farm expenditure ($189)—calculated, of course, only for the farms which used fertilizers. Here we have another example of the growth of large-scale and capitalist agriculture with a simultaneous reduction of the farm acreage. In two of the three Pacific states—Washington and Oregon—the use of fertilizers is quite insignificant, a mere $0.01 per acre. It is only in the third state, California, that the figure is relatively high: $0.08 in 1899, and $0.19 in 1909. In this state, the fruit crop plays a special role, and is expanding at an extremely rapid rate along purely capitalist lines; in 1909, it accounted for 33.1% of the total crop value, as against 18.3% for cereals, and 27.6% for hay and forage. The typical fruit-growing farm has a smaller-than-average acreage but the use of fertilizers and hired labour is much greater than average. We shall later have occasion to dwell on relationships of this type, which are typical of capitalist countries with an intensive agriculture and which are most stubbornly ignored by statisticians and economists.

But let us return to the “intensive” states of the North. Not only is expenditure on fertilizers—$1.30 per acre—in New England the highest and the average farm acreage the smallest (38.4 acres); expenditure on fertilizers is increasing at an especially rapid rate. In the 10 years between 1899 and 1909, this expenditure increased from $0.53 per acre to $1.30, i.e., two and one-half times. Consequently, here intensification of agriculture, technical progress and improvement of farming techniques are extremely rapid. To get a more graphic picture of what this means let us compare New England, the most intensive division of the North, with West North Central, the most extensive division. In the latter division, scarcely any artificial fertilizers are used at all (2.1% of the farms and $0.01 per acre); its farm acreage is larger than that of any other division of America (148 acres), and is growing at a faster rate. This particular division is usually taken as the model of capitalism in American agriculture—and this Mr. Himmer also does. As I shall show in detail later on, this is incorrect. It is due to the crudest, most primitive form of extensive agriculture being confused with technically progressive intensive agriculture. In the West North Central division, the average farm is four times as big as in New England (148 acres as against 38.4), while average expenditure on fertilizers per user is only half as great: $41 as against $82.

Hence, in actual practice there are instances of a substantial reduction in farm acreage being accompanied by a substantial increase in expenditure on artificial fertilizers, so that “small” production—if we continue, as a matter of routine, to regard it as being small in terms of acreage—turns out to be “large” in terms of the capital invested in the land. This is not an exception, but the rule for any country where extensive agriculture is giving way to intensive agriculture. And this applies to all capitalist countries, so that when this typical, essential and fundamental characteristic of agriculture is ignored, the result is the common error of the votaries of small-scale agriculture who base their judgement only on farm acreage.

7. Machinery and Hired Labour in Agriculture[edit source]

Let us consider another form of capital investment in land which is technically different from the form examined above—implements and machinery. All European agricultural statistics provide irrefutable evidence that the larger the farm acreage, the greater is the proportion of farms using all types of machines and the greater the number of machines used. The superiority of big farms in this highly important respect has been established beyond doubt. In this field, too, American statisticians have a rather unconventional approach: neither implements nor farm machinery are recorded separately, only their total value being given. Such data may, of course, be less exact in each individual case, but taken as a whole they allow definite comparisons between divisions and between groups of farms—comparisons which are impossible with other kinds of data.

Below are the figures for farm implements and machinery by divisions:

		Value of implements and machinery (1909)
	Divisions	Average per farm ($)	Average per acre of all farmland ($)
The North	New England Middle Atlantic	269 358	2.58 3.88

	East North Central West North Central	239 332	2.28 1.59
	The South (three divisions) The West (two divisions)	72-88-127 269-350	0.71-0.92-0.95 0.83-1.29

	The U.S.A.	199	1.44

The former slave-owning South, the area of share-cropping, occupies a bottom place in the use of machinery. The value of implements and machinery per acre—for its three divisions—is one-third, one-quarter, one-fifth of the figures for the intensive states of the North. The latter lead the rest and, in particular, are far ahead of the West North Central states, America’s most agricultural area and her granary, which superficial observers still frequently regard as a model area of capitalism and of the use of machinery.

It should be noted that the American statistical method of determining the value of machinery, as well as of land, livestock, buildings, etc., per acre of all farmland and not per acre of improved land, understates the superiority of the “intensive” areas of the North and cannot, in general, be considered correct. The difference between the divisions in regard to the proportion of improved acreage is very great: in the West, it is as low as 26.7% for the Mountain states, and as high as 75.4% for the East North Central states in the North. For the purposes of economic statistics, improved land is undoubtedly of much greater importance than total acreage. In New England, improved acreage in farms and its proportion of the total has decreased substantially, especially since 1880, probably under the impact of competition from the free lands of the West (i.e., free from ground-rent, from tribute to the landowning gentry). At the same time, the use of machinery in this division is very extensive and the value of machinery per acre of improved land is especially high. In 1910, it amounted to $7 per acre, while in the Middle Atlantic States it was about $5.50 and not more than $2-3 in the other divisions.

Again, the division with the smallest farms, in terms of acreage, turns out to have the largest capital investments in land in the form of machinery.

Comparing the Middle Atlantic, one of the “intensive” divisions of the North, with the most extensive region of the North, the West North Central, we discover that as far as improved acreage per farm is concerned, that of the former is less than half that of the latter—62.6 acres as against 148.0—while the value of machinery used is greater—$358 per farm as against $332. The smaller farms are thus larger enterprises in terms of-machinery used.

We still have to compare the data on the intensive nature of agriculture with the data on the employment of hired labour. I already gave these figures in brief above, in Chapter 5. We must now examine them in greater detail by divisions.

	Divisions	Percentage of farms hiring labour in 1909	Average outlays on hired labour per hiring farm	Outlays on labour per acre of improved land ($)		Increase of outlays from 1899 to 1909 (%)
	Divisions	Percentage of farms hiring labour in 1909	Average outlays on hired labour per hiring farm	1909	1899	Increase of outlays from 1899 to 1909 (%)
The North	New England Middle Atlantic	66.0 65.8	277 253	4.76 2.66	2.55 1.64	+86 +62

	East North Central West North Central	52.7 51.0	199 240	1.33 0.83	0.78 0.56	+71 +48
The South	South Atlantic East South Central West South Central	42.0 31.6 35.6	142 107 178	1.37 0.80 1.03	0.80 0.49 0.75	+71 +63 +37
The West	Mountain Pacific	46.8 58.0	547 694	2.95 3.47	2.42 1.92	+22 +80

	The U.S.A.	45.9	223	1.36	0.86	+58

This shows, firstly, that capitalism is undoubtedly much more developed in the agriculture of the Northern intensive states than in that of the extensive states; secondly, that in the former, capitalism is developing faster than in the latter; thirdly, that the division with the smallest farms, New England, has both the highest level of development of capitalism in agriculture and the highest rate of its development. There the increase of expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved land is 86%; the Pacific states come second in this respect. California, where, as I have said, “small-scale” capitalist fruit-raising is rapidly developing, is also the leader in this respect among the Pacific states.

The West North Central division, with the largest farm acreages (an average of 148 acres in 1910, counting improved land only) and with the most rapid and steady growth of farm acreages since 1850, is commonly regarded as the “model” capitalist region of American agriculture. We have now seen that this contention is profoundly erroneous. The extent to which hired labour is used is certainly the best and most direct indicator of the development of capitalism. And it tells us that America’s “granary”, the region of the much vaunted “wheat factories”, which attract so much attention, is less capitalist than the industrial and intensively farmed region, where the indication of agricultural progress is not an increase in improved acreage but an increase in capital investments in the land, together with a simultaneous reduction of the acreage

It is quite possible to imagine that with the use of machinery the improvement of the “black soil” or unploughed virgin lands in general can proceed very rapidly despite a small increase in the employment of hired labour. In the West North Central states expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved land was $0.56 in 1899, and $0.83 in 1909, an increase of only 48%. In New England, where the improved area is decreasing and not increasing and where the average size of farms is decreasing and not in creasing, expenditure on hired labour was not only very much higher both in 1899 ($2.55 per acre) and in 1909 ($4.76 per acre), but had grown during the period at a much faster rate (+86%).

The average farm in New England is one-fourth the size of farms in the West North Central states (38.4 as against 148 acres), yet its average expenditure on hired labour is greater : $277 as against $240. Consequently, the reduction in the size of farms means in such cases that a greater amount of capital is invested in agriculture, and that the capitalist nature of agriculture is intensified; it signifies a growth of capitalism and capitalist production.

While the West North Central states, which comprise 34.3% of the total improved acreage in the U.S.A., are the most typical division of “extensive” capitalist agriculture, the Mountain states offer an example of similar extensive farming in conditions of the most rapid colonization. Here less hired labour is employed, in terms of the proportion of farms employing labour, but the average expenditure on hired labour is very much higher than in the West North Central division. But in the former the employment of hired labour increased at a slower rate than in any other division of America (only +22%). This type of evolution was apparently due to the following conditions. In this division, colonization and the distribution of homesteads are extremely widespread. The area under crops increased more than in any other division: by 89% from 1900 to 1910. The settlers, the owners of the homesteads, naturally employ little hired labour, at any rate when starting their farms. On the other hand, hired labour must be employed on a very large scale, firstly, by some latifundia, which are especially numerous in this division as in the West in general; and secondly, by farms raising special and highly capitalist crops. In some states of this division, for instance, a very high proportion of the total crop value comes from fruits (Arizona—6%, Colorado—10%), and vegetables (Colorado—11.9%, Nevada—11.2%), and so forth

.In summing up, I must say the following: Mr. Himmer’s assertion that “there are no areas where colonization is no longer continuing, or where large-scale capitalist agriculture is not decaying and is not being replaced by family-labour farms”, is a mockery of the truth, and entirely contrary to the actual facts. The New England division, where there is no colonization at all, where farms are smallest, where farming is most intensive, shows the highest level of capitalism in agriculture and the highest rate of capitalist development. This conclusion is most essential and basic for an understanding of the process of capitalist development in agriculture in general, because the intensification of agriculture and the reduction in the average farm acreage that goes with it is not some accidental, local, casual phenomenon, but one that is common to all civilized countries. Bourgeois economists of every stripe make a host of mistakes when considering data on the evolution of agriculture (as in Great Britain, Denmark, and Germany) because they are not familiar enough with this general phenomenon, they have not given it enough thought and have not understood or analysed it.

8. Displacement of Small by Big Enterprises. Quantity of Improved Land[edit source]

We have examined the major forms of the development of capitalism in agriculture, and have seen how extremely varied they are. The most important are: the break-up of the slave-holding latifundia in the South; the growth of large-scale extensive farming operations in the extensive area of the North; the most rapid development of capitalism in the intensive area of the North, where farms are, on the average, the smallest. The facts incontrovertibly prove that in some cases the development of capitalism is indicated by an increase in farm acreage and in others by an increase in the number of farms. In view of such a state of affairs we learn nothing from the returns on average farm acreages summarized for the country as a whole.

What then is the net result of the various local and agricultural peculiarities? An indication is given by the data on hired labour. The growing employment of hired labour is a general process transcending all these peculiarities. But in the vast majority of civilized countries agricultural statistics, paying tribute, intentionally or otherwise, to prevailing bourgeois notions and prejudices, either fail to furnish any systematic information on hired labour at all, or give it only for the most recent period (e.g., German Agricultural Census of 1907), so that it is impossible to make a comparison with the past. I shall show in detail elsewhere that in the elaboration and tabulation of the returns of hired labour American statistics changed markedly for the worse between 1900 and 1910

The most common and most popular method of presenting statistical summaries in America and most other countries is to compare big and small farms by acreage. I shall now proceed to a consideration of these data.

In grouping farms by acreage, American statisticians take total acreage and not just the improved area, which would, of course, be the more correct method, and is the one employed by German statisticians. No reason is given why seven groups (under 20 acres, 20 to 49, 50 to 99, 100 to 174, 175 to 499, 500 to 999, 1,000 and over) are used to tabulate the returns of the 1910 Census in the United States. Statistical routine must apparently have been of paramount consideration. I shall call the 100-to-174-acre group—medium, because it consists mostly of homesteads (the official size of a homestead is 160 acres), and also because land holdings of this size usually give the farmer the greatest degree of “independence” and require the least employment of hired labour. The groups above that I shall call large or capitalistic because, as a general rule, they do not manage without hired labour. Farms with 1,000 acres and over I shall regard as latifundia—of which three-fifths is unimproved land in the North, nine-tenths, in the South, and two-thirds, in the West. Small farms are those with less than 100 acres; how much economic independence they have is evident from the fact that in three groups, from the bottom up, 51%, 43% and 23% of the farms respectively, are recorded as having no horses. It goes without saying that this characteristic should not be taken in an absolute sense and should not he applied to all divisions or to localities with specific conditions without a special analysis.

I am unable to give here the returns for all the seven groups in the main sections of the United States, for this would overload the text with an excessive number of figures. I shall, therefore, merely outline the basic distinctions between the North, the South and the West, and give the full returns only for the United States as a whole. We should not lose sight of the fact that three-fifths (60.6%) of all the improved land, is in the North; less than one third (31.5%), in the South; and under one-twelfth (7.9%), in the West.

The most striking distinction between the three main sections is that the capitalist North has the smallest number of latifundia, although their number, their total acreage, and their improved acreage are on the increase. In 1910, 0.5% of the farms in the North were of 1,000 acres and over; these big farms had 6.9% of all the land and 4.1% of the improved land. The South had 0.7% of such farms, with 23.9% of the total acreage and 4.8% of the improved acreage. In the West there were 3.9% of such farms, owning 48.3% of the total acreage, and 32.3% of the improved acreage. This is a familiar picture: the slave-holding latifundia of the South, and the even vaster latifundia of the West, the latter being partly the foundation of the most extensive stock-raising, and partly reserve tracts of land occupied by “settlers” and resold or (less often) leased to real farmers improving the “Far West”.

America demonstrates clearly that it would be imprudent to confuse the latifundia with large-scale capitalist agriculture, and that the latifundia are frequently survivals of pre-capitalist relationships—slave-owning, feudal or patriarchal. A break-up, a parcelling out of the latifundia, is taking place both in the South and in the West. In the North, the total farm acreage increased by 30.7 million acres, of which only 2.3 million is accounted for by latifundia, while 22 million belongs to big, capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres). In the South, the total acreage was reduced by 7.5 million. The latifundia decreased by 31.8 million acres. On the small farms there was an increase of 13 million, and on the medium farms, 5 million acres. In the West, the total acreage increased by 17 million; among the latifundia there was a decrease of 1.2 million; on the small farms, an increase of 2 million; medium, 5 million; large, 11 million acres.

The improved acreage increased in the latifundia of all three sections: substantially in the North (+3.7 million acres = +47.0%), very slightly in the South (+0.3 million = +5.5%), and more in the West (+2.8 million = +29.6%). But in the North, the maximum increase in the improved acreage-occurred on the large farms (175 to 999 acres); in the South, on the small and medium; in the West, on the large and medium. Hence, it is the large farms that are increasing their share of the improved land in the North, and the small and in part the medium farms, in the South and the West. This picture fully corresponds to what we already know about the different conditions in these sections. In the South, there is a growth ot small-scale commercial farming at the expense of the disintegrating slave-holding latifundia; the process is similar in the West, except that the break-up of even larger latifundia, which had their origin not in slave-holding but in extensive stock ranches and pre-empted tracts, is not as pronounced. Moreover, American statisticians say the following about the Pacific division:

“The great development of small fruit and other farms on the Pacific coast, due, in part at least, to irrigation projects organized in recent years, is reflected in the increase in small farms of less than 50 acres in the Pacific division” (Vol. V, p. 264).

The North has neither slave-holding nor “primitive” latifundia, there is no disintegration of them, no growth of the small farms at the expense of the large.

The process for the United States as a whole appears as follows:

Size group (acres)	Number of farms (000)		Ditto (%)		Increase or decrease
Size group (acres)	1900	1910	1900	1910	Increase or decrease
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over	674 1,258 1,366 1,422 868 103 47	839 1,415 1,438 1,516 978 125 50	11.7 21.9 23.8 24.8 15.1 1.8 0.8	13.2 22.2 22.6 23.8 15.4 2.0 0.8	+1.5 +0.3 -1.2 -1.0 +0.3 +0.2

Totals	5,739	6,361	100.0	100.0

Thus, the number of latifundia in proportion to the total number of farms remains unchanged. The most characteristic change in the relationship between the other groups in the reduction in the number of medium-size farms and the strengthening of the farms at both ends. The medium-size group (100 to 174 acres) and its smaller neighbor have lost ground. The smallest and the small farms show the greatest gains, and are followed by the large-scale capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres). Let us take a look at the total acreage.

Size group (acres)	All farmland (000)		Ditto (%)		Increase or decrease
Size group (acres)	1900	1910	1900	1910	Increase or decrease
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over.	7,181 41,536 98,592 192,680 232,955 67,864 197,784	8,794 45,378 103,121 204,481 265,289 83,653 167,082	0.9 5.0 11.8 23.0 27.8 8.1 23.6	1.0 5.2 11.7 23.4 30.2 9.5 19.0	+0.1 +0.2 -0.1 +0.4 +2.4 +1.4 -4.6

Totals	838,592	878,798	100.0	100.0

We find above all a very substantial reduction in the share of total acreage held by the latifundia. It should be borne in mind that an absolute reduction is taking place only in the South and the West, where the proportion of unimproved land in the latifundia in 1910 was 91.5% and 77.1% respectively. There was also an insignificant decrease in the share of the top small group in the total acreage (—0.1% in the 50-to-99-acre size group). The greatest increase was shown by the large-scale capitalist groups, the 175-to-499-acre and the 500-to-999-acre groups. There was a relatively small increase in the share of the very small groups in the acreage. The medium group (100 to 174 acres) was practically stagnant (+0.4%). Let us now take a look at the improved acreage.

Size group (acres)	Improved land in farms (000)		Ditto (%)		Increase or decrease
Size group (acres)	1900	1910	1900	1910	Increase or decrease
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over	6,440 33,001 67,345 118,391 135,530 29,474 24,317	7,992 36,596 71,155 128,854 161,775 40,817 31,263	1.6 8.0 16.2 28.6 32.7 7.1 5.9	1.7 7.6 14.9 26.9 33.8 8.5 6.5	+0.1 -0.4 -1.3 -1.7 +1.1 +1.4 +0.6

Totals	414,498	478,452	100.0	100.0

The size of the farming enterprise is indicated with some degree of approximation and allowing for certain exceptions to which I have referred and shall refer again below—only by the improved and not the total acreage. Once again we find that while the share of the total acreage held by the latifundia substantially decreased, their share of the improved acreage increased. In general, all the capitalistic groups gained ground, and most of all the 500-to-999-acre group. The largest reduction was in the medium-size group (—1.7%), followed by all the small groups, with the exception of the smallest, the group under 20 acres, which showed a negligible increase (+0.1%). Let us note in advance that the smallest-size group (under 20 acres) includes farms of less than 3 acres, which are not included in American statistics unless they raise at least $250 worth of products a year. For that reason these tiny farms (of less than 3 acres) have a greater volume of production and a more highly developed capitalist character than the next group up the scale. To illustrate this point here are the returns for 1900—unfortunately the corresponding returns for 1910 are not available:

	Average per farm:
Size groups (1900) (acres)	Improved land (acres)	Value of all products ($)	Outlays on hired labour ($)	Value of implements and machinery ($)	Value of livestock ($)
Under 3 .... 3 to 10 .... 10 to 20 .... 20 to 50 ....	1.7 5.6 12.6 26.2	592 203 236 324	77 18 16 18	53 42 41 54	867 101 116 172

Even the 3-to-10-acre farms, to say nothing of farms with less than 3 acres, turn out in some respects to be “larger” (outlays on hired labour, value of implements and machinery) than the 10-to-20-acre farms.^[3] Consequently, there is good reason to attribute the increase in the share of the total improved land held by farms under 20 acres to an increase in the improved land of the pronounced capitalist-type farms of the smallest-size group.

On the whole, the returns for 1900 and l910 on the distribution of improved land in the U.S.A. between small and large farms warrant this absolutely definite and indubitable conclusion: the large farms are becoming stronger, the medium and the small farms, weaker. Hence, insofar as the capitalist or non-capitalist character of agriculture can be deduced from the data relating to farms grouped by acreage, the United States in the last decade shows, as a general rule, a growth of the large-scale, capitalist farms and the obliteration of small farms.

The statistics on the increase in the number of farms and the improved acreage in each group will confirm this conclusion:

	Increase for 1900-10 (%)
Size groups (acres)	Number of farms	Improved acreage
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over	+24.5 +12.5 + 5.3 +6.6 +12.7 +22.2 + 6.3	+24.1 +10.9 + 5.7 + 8.8 +19.4 +38.5 +28.6

Overall increase	+10.9	+15.4

The largest percentage increase in the improved acreage took place in the two topmost groups. The least increase occurred in the medium-size group and the next smaller group (50 to 99 acres). In the two smallest groups the percentage increase in the improved acreage was less than the percentage increase in the number of farms.

9. Continued. Statistics on the Value of Farms[edit source]

American statistics, unlike European statistics, determine, for each farm and each group of farms, the value of the various elements making up the farming enterprise—the land, buildings, implements, livestock and the enterprise as a whole. These data are probably not quite as accurate as the data relating to acreage, but generally speaking they are equally reliable, and in addition give some idea of the general state of capitalism in agriculture.

In order to supplement the above analysis I shall now take the data relating to the total value of farms with all their agricultural property, and also the data on the value of implements and machinery. I single out implements and machinery from among the various elements of the enterprise because they are a direct indication of the agricultural operations being conducted, and of how they are being conducted i.e., whether more or less intensively, and whether they employ technical improvements to a greater or lesser extent. Here are the figures for the U.S.A.:

Size groups (acres)	Percentage distribution of value
	All property on farms		Increase or decrease	Implements and machinery		Increase or decrease
	1900	1910		1900	1910
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over	3.8 7.9 16.7 28.0 30.5 5.9 7.3	3.7 7.3 14.6 27.1 33.3 7.1 6.9	-0.1 -0.6 -2.1 -0.9 +2.8 +1.2 -0.4	3.8 9.1 19.3 29.3 27.1 5.1 6.2	3.7 8.5 17.7 28.9 30.2 6.3 4.7	-0.1 -0.6 -1.6 -0.4 +3.1 +1.2 -1.5

Totals	100.0	100.0	—	100.0	100.0	—

The absolute figures show that from 1900 to 1910 the value of all farm property more than doubled; it increased from $20,440 million to $40,991 million, i.e., 100.5%. The rise in the prices of farm products and rents put millions and thousands of millions of dollars into the pockets of the landowners at the expense of the working class. What were the comparative gains of the small and the big farms? The above figures supply the answer. They show that the latifundia declined (their total acreage fell from 23.6% to 19.0%, or 4.6%), and that the small and medium-size farms are being displaced by the large, capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres). Adding up the figures for the small and medium farms we find that their share in the total property decreased from 56.4 to 52.7%. Adding up the figures for the large farms and the latifundia we find that their share increased from 43.7% to 47.3%. There were absolutely identical changes in the distribution of the total value of implements and machinery between the small and large farms.

We also observe the phenomenon noted above in the figures relating to the latifundia. Their decline is limited to two sections: the South and the West. It is a decline, on the one hand, of the slave-holding latifundia, and on the other, of the primitive-squatter and the primitive-extensive latifundia. We find a growth of latifundia in the populated industrial North: this applies to the number of farms of this type, their total acreage, their improved acreage, their share in the total value of all farm property (2.5% in 1900; 2.8% in 1910), and their share in the total value of all implements and machinery.

There is moreover a growth of the role of the latifundia not only throughout the North in general but also in both the intensive divisions of the North in particular, where there is absolutely no colonization, namely New England and the Middle Atlantic states. These divisions must be analyzed in greater detail because, for one thing, they have misled Mr. Himmer and many others by the particularly small average size of their farms and a reduction of that size, and, for another, these most intensive divisions are most typical of the older, long settled, civilized countries of Europe.

Between 1900 and 1910, the number of farms, the total acreage and the improved acreage decreased in both these divisions. In New England, there was an increase only in the number of the smallest farms, those under 20 acres, by 22.4% (the improved land on them increased by 15.5%), and in the number of latifundia—by 16.3%, and their improved acreage by 26.8%. In the Middle Atlantic states there was an increase in the smallest farms (+7.7% in the number, and +2.5% in the improved acreage) and also in the number of the 175-to-499-acre farms (+1.0%) and the improved land on the 500-to-999-acre farms (+3.8%). In both divisions, there was an increase in the share of the smallest farms and the share of the latifundia in the total value of all farm property and also of implements and machinery. Here are some figures which give a clearer and fuller picture of each of these divisions:

	Percentage increase from 1900 to 1910
	New England		Middle Atlantic
Size groups (acres)	Value of all farm property	Value of implements and machinery	Value of all farm property	Value of implements and machinery
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over Totals	60.9 31.4 27.5 30.3 33.0 53.7 102.7 35.6	48.9 30.3 31.2 38.5 44.6 53.7 60.5 39.0	45.8 28.3 23.8 24.9 29.4 31.5 74.4 28.1	42.9 37.0 39.9 43.8 54.7 50.8 65.2 44.1

This makes it clear that in both divisions it was the latifundia that gained most ground, showed the greatest economic gains, and made the greatest technical advance. Here the largest capitalist enterprises are displacing the others, the smaller farms. A minimum increase in the value of all property and also of implements and machinery is evident in the medium-size group and in the small group, but not in the smallest. Hence, it is the medium and small farms that mostly lag behind.

As for the smallest farms (under 20 acres), their advance in both divisions is above the average, and second only to the latifundia. We already know the reason: 31 to 33% of the crop value in both these intensive divisions comes from the highly capitalist crops (vegetables, and also fruits, flowers, etc.) which yield extremely great values on very small acreage’s. In these divisions, cereal crops account for only 8 to 30% of the crop value; and hay and forage, 31 to 42%; there is a growth of dairy farming which is characterized by smaller-than-average acreages, but a greater-than-average value of produce and capital outlays on hired labour

.In the most intensive divisions, there is a decrease in the average improved acreage in farms because the average is obtained by combining the acreage of the latifundia and that of the smallest farms, the number of which is increasing more rapidly than that of the medium-size farms. The smallest farms are increasing in number faster than the latifundia. But there is a dual growth of capitalism: it increases-the size of farms worked by old technical methods; and creates new enterprises raising special commercial crops on very small and tiny acreages, with an extremely great volume of production and employment of hired labour

The net result is the greatest gains by the latifundia and the giant farms, the obliteration of the medium and small farms, and the growth of the smallest highly capitalist enterprises.

We shall presently see how the net result of such contradictory—seemingly contradictory—phenomena of capitalism in agriculture can be expressed in statistical terms.

10. Defects of Conventional Methods of Economic Analysis. Marx on the Peculiarities Of Agriculture[edit source]

The grouping of farms by acreage, total or improved, is the only kind of grouping which was used in the American Census reports for 1910, and which is used in the great majority of European countries. Generally speaking, it is indisputable that apart from fiscal, bureaucratic and administrative reasons there are scientific considerations arguing the need and correctness of this kind of grouping. Still it is obviously inadequate for it completely fails to take account of the intensification of agriculture, the increasing expenditure of capital per unit of area in the form of livestock, machinery, improved seeds, better methods of crop cultivation, etc. Meanwhile, with the exception of a very few areas and countries with a primitive or purely extensive agriculture, it is this very process that is most typical for capitalist countries everywhere. For this reason the grouping of farms by acreage in the vast majority of cases gives an oversimplified and entirely inadequate picture of agricultural development in general, and of capitalist development in agriculture in particular.

When the verbose economists and statisticians who express the most popular bourgeois views hold forth on the dissimilarity of conditions in agriculture and industry, the specific nature of the former, and so on and so forth, one is always tempted to say: Gentlemen! You yourselves are most to blame for maintaining and spreading oversimplified and crude notions of evolution in agriculture! Remember Marx’s Capital. In it you will find references to the extreme variety of forms of land ownership, such as feudal, clan, communal (and primitive-squatter), state, etc., which capitalism encounters when it makes its appearance on the historical scene. Capital subordinates to itself all these varied forms of land ownership and remolds them after its own fashion, and if one is to understand, evaluate and express this process in statistical terms, one must learn to modify the formulation of the question and the methods of investigation in accordance with the changing form of the process. Capitalism subordinates to itself all these forms of land ownership: communal-allotment holdings in Russia; squatter tracts or holdings regulated by free distribution in a democratic or a feudal state, as in Siberia or the American Far West; the slave-holding estates in the American South, and the semi-feudal landholdings of the “purely Russian” gubernias. In all these cases, the development and victory of capitalism is similar, though not identical in form. In order to study and understand the precise nature of the process one must go beyond the trite petty-bourgeois phrases about “family farming” or the routine methods of comparing acreage alone

You will also find that Marx analyses the origin of the capitalist type of ground-rent and its relationship to its forerunners in history, such as rent in kind, labour service (corvée and its survivals); money-rent (quit-rent, etc.). But who among the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois, Narodnik, economists or statisticians has given any serious thought to applying these theoretical guiding principles of Marx’s to an investigation of the rise of capitalism from the slave-holding economy of the American South, or from the corvée economy in central Russia?.

Finally, you will find throughout Marx’s analysis of ground-rent systematic references to the varied conditions of agriculture engendered not only by the differences in quality and location of the land, but also by the differences in the amount of capital invested in it. Now what does application of capital to land imply? It implies technical changes in agriculture, its intensification, the transition to higher systems of field cropping, increased use of artificial fertilizers, the wider use and improvement of implements and machinery, greater employment of hired labour, etc. A record of the acreage alone will not express all these complex and varied processes, which all combine to make up the general process of the development of capitalism in agriculture

Russian Zemstvo statisticians,^[4] especially those of the “good old” pre-Revolutionary days, won universal respect because they avoided the routine approach and took a certain scientific interest in their business, going beyond its purely fiscal, bureaucratic and administrative aspects. They were probably the first statisticians to notice the inadequacy of grouping farms by acreage alone, and, accordingly, introduced other methods of classification, such as by sown area, number of draught animals, employment of hired labour, etc. Unfortunately, the sporadic and scattered operations of our Zemstvo statistics—in the past ever what you might call an oasis in the desert of feudal obscurity, bureaucratic routine, and every kind of stupid red-tapism—have not yielded any long-term results either for Russian or European economics..

It should be noted that the grouping of the returns canvassed in modern agricultural censuses is not such a purely technical or highly specialized question as may appear at first sight. The returns contain an immense wealth of complete information on each enterprise as a unit, but due to the clumsy, thoughtless, routine approach to tabulation and grouping, this extremely valuable material is all lost, wasted, and discolored, which often makes it practically useless for any study of the laws of agricultural evolution. The returns make it possible to say quite categorically whether a farm is a capitalist enterprise, and to what extent; whether its farming operations are intensive, and to what degree, etc.; but when data relating to millions of farms are tabulated the most essential distinctions, features and characteristics—which ought to be most effectively brought out, determined and taken into account—tend to disappear, so that all the economist gets, instead of a sensible statistical review, is routine, meaningless columns of figures, a kind of statistical “game of digits”

The American Census of 1910 with which we are now concerned is an excellent example of how first-class material of surpassing wealth and completeness has been devalued and spoiled by the routine approach and scientific ignorance of the statisticians. The processing is very much worse than in the 1900 Census, and even the traditional grouping of farms by acreage has not been fully carried out, so that we have no possibility of making a comparison between the enterprises in the various groups, say, as regards their employment of hired labour, the difference in their systems of field cropping, the use of fertilizers, etc.

I am compelled, therefore, to turn to the 1900 Census. It gave, to my knowledge, the world’s only example of the use of three different methods, instead of one, to group or “classify” (as the Americans say) the great abundance of material on more than five and a half million farms, collected in a single country, at a single time, and under a single program.

It is true that here, too, no classification gives all the essential characteristics of the type and size of farm. Still the resultant picture of capitalist agriculture and the capitalist evolution of agriculture is, as I hope to show, very much fuller, and reflects the real situation much more correctly than can ever be the case when the conventional, one-sided and inadequate single method of classification is used. Given the opportunity for a fuller study of facts and trends, which may be safely considered common to all the capitalist countries of the world, the most serious errors and dogmas of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, Narodnik political economy are shown up and exposed.

Since the data in question are so important I shall have to examine them in greater detail and employ statistical tables more frequently than hitherto. Realizing fully that statistical tables burden the text and make reading more difficult, I have tried to keep them down to a minimum, and hope the reader will be lenient with me if I now have to increase that minimum, for on the analysis of the points examined here depends not only the general conclusion on the principal question—the trend, type, character and law of evolution of modern agriculture—but also the general assessment of the data furnished by modern agricultural statistics which are so often cited and just as often distorted.

The first grouping—“by acreage”—gives the following picture of American agriculture in 1900

				Average per farm
Size group (acres)	Percentage of farms	Percentage of total acreage	Improved acreage	Outlays On hired labour ($)	Value of produce^[5] ($)	Value of implements and machinery ($)
Under 3 3 to 10 10 to 20 20 to 50 50 to 100 100 to 175 175 to 260 260 to 500 500 to 1000 1,000 and over	0.7 4.0 7.1 21.9 23.8 24.8 8.5 6.6 1.8 0.8	_ _^[6]0.2 0.7 4.9 11.7 22.9 12.3 15.4 8.1 23.8	1.7 5.6 12.6 26.2 49.3 83.2 129.0 191.4 287.5 520.0	77 18 16 18 33 60 109 166 312 1,059	592 203 236 324 503 721 1,054 1,354 1,913 5,334	53 42 41 54 106 155 211 263 377 1,222

Average for all farms			72.3		656	133

It is safe to say that the statistics of any capitalist country—the inessential particulars apart—would present an absolutely similar picture. This is confirmed by the latest censuses in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland and Denmark. As total farm acreage increases from group to group, there is also an increase in the average improved acreage, the average value of the produce, the value of implements and machinery, the value of livestock (I have omitted these figures) and the expenditure on hired labour (earlier on I pointed out the significance of the slight exception of the under-3-acre farms and in part of the 3-to-10-acre farms).

It would seem that it could not be otherwise. The increase in expenditure on hired labour appears to confirm beyond any doubt that the division of farms into large and small on the strength of acreage is entirely in accord with their division into capitalist and non-capitalist enterprises. Nine-tenths of the usual arguments about “small-scale” agriculture are based on identification in this way and on such data.

Let us now consider the average per acre of (all) land, instead of per farm:

	Per acre of all land in dollars
Size group (acres)	Outlays on hired labour	Outlays on fertilizers	Value of livestock	Value of implements and machinery
Under 3 3 to 10 10 to 20 20 to 50 50 to 100 100 to 175 175 to 260 260 to 500 500 to 1000 1,000 and over	40.30 2.95 1.12 0.55 0.46 0.45 0.52 0.48 0.47 0.25	2.36 0.60 0.33 0.20 0.12 0.07 0.07 0.04 0.03 0.02	456.76 16.32 8.30 5.21 4.51 4.09 3.96 3.61 3.16 2.15	27.57 6.71 2.95 1.65 1.47 1.14 1.00 0.77 0.57 0.29

Allowing for some absolutely negligible exceptions we find a uniform decline in the characteristics of intensive farming from the lower groups to the higher.

The conclusion appears to be incontrovertible that “small-scale” production in agriculture is more intensive than large-scale production, that the smaller the “scale” of production, the greater the intensity and productivity of agriculture, and that, “consequently”, capitalist production in agriculture is maintained only by the extensive, primitive nature of the economy, etc.

In fact, the same conclusions are being drawn all the time, on every hand, in all bourgeois and petty-bourgeois (opportunist-“Marxist” and Narodnik) writings, for when farms are grouped by acreage (which is not only the most common but practically the only kind of grouping done) the picture will be similar for any capitalist country, that is, it will show the same decline in the characteristics of intensive agriculture from the lower groups to the higher. There is, for instance, the celebrated work of the celebrated Eduard David—Socialism and Agriculture—a collection of bourgeois prejudices and bourgeois lies under the cover of quasi-socialist catchwords. It uses just that kind of data to prove the “superiority”, “viability”, etc., of “small-scale” production.

One factor has especially facilitated such conclusions. It is that data similar to the above are ordinarily available on the quantity of livestock; but practically nowhere are data collected on hired labour—especially in such a summarized form as expenditure on hired labour. But it is precisely the data on hired labour that reveal the incorrectness of all such conclusions. In effect, if the increase, say, in the value of livestock (or the total number of animals, which is the same thing) per unit of area down the scale is taken as evidence of the “superiority” of “small-scale” agriculture, it should be borne in mind that as we go down the scale this “superiority” turns out to be connected with increasing expenditure on hired labour! But such an increase in the expenditure on hired labour—notice that we have all along been dealing with values per unit of area, per acre, per hectare, per dessiatine—signifies a growth of the capitalist nature of the enterprise! But the capitalist nature of the enterprise clashes with the popular notion of “small-scale” production because small-scale production implies enterprise which is not based on hired labour.

This seems to create a knot of contradictions. The overall acreage returns for the size groups indicate that the “small” farms are non-capitalist, whereas the big farms are. Yet the very same data show that the “smaller” the enterprise, the more intensive it is, and the larger its expenditure on hired labour per unit of land area!

In order to explain this let us consider another type of grouping.

11. A More Exact Comparison of Small and Large Enterprises[edit source]

As I have already said, American statisticians in this case take the value of the products raised on the farm, less those used as feed. Taken alone, these data, which appear to be available only in American statistics, are, of course, less exact than the figures for acreage or livestock, and the like. But considered as a whole, in relation to several million farms, and especially for the purpose of determining the relative standing of the various groups of farms in the country, these data undoubtedly cannot be regarded as less suitable than the rest. At any rate, these data are a much more direct indication than any others of the scale of production, especially commercial operations, i.e., the value of the produce raised for the market. It should be borne in mind that any discussion of agricultural evolution and its laws centers on a consideration of small-scale and large-scale production.

What is more, in such cases the point is always the evolution of agriculture under capitalism, in connection with capitalism, under its impact, or the like. To evaluate this impact the greatest efforts must above all be made to draw a line of distinction between “natural” and commercial economy in agriculture. It is well known that “natural” economy, i.e., production for consumption on the home farm and not for the market, has a relatively important part to play in agriculture, and is giving way to commercial farming at an extremely slow pace. If the accepted principles of political economy are not to be applied mechanically but intelligently, the law of the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, for instance, can be applied only to commercial agriculture. It is hardly likely that anyone will object to this proposition from the theoretical standpoint. However, it is the rare economist or statistician who will make a special effort to bring out, trace and as far as possible take into account, the characteristics indicative of the transformation of natural into commercial agriculture A great step towards meeting this most important theoretical requirement is made by the classification of farms according to the money value of produce not used for feed

Let us note that, when considering the undeniable fact that small-scale production is being displaced by large-scale production in industry, enterprises are always grouped according to the value of their product or the number of wage-workers employed. In industry, due to its technical peculiarities, the matter is much simpler. In. agriculture, because relationships are so much more complicated and intertwined, it is a great deal harder to determine the scale of operations, the value of the product and the extent to which hired labour is employed. For the last-named item, it is necessary to take account of the total annual employment of hired labour and not merely the amount on hand when a census is taken, for agricultural operations are of an especially “seasonal” nature; in addition, it is necessary to list not only the permanent hired labourers but also the day-labourers who play a most important part in farming. To say that this is difficult is not to say that it is impossible. Rational methods of investigation adapted to the technical peculiarities of agriculture, including classification by output, the money value of the product, and the frequency and amount of hired labour employed, will have to be used on a much wider scale, in spite of the thick maze of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois prejudices and the efforts to embellish bourgeois realities. And it may be safely said that any step forward in the use of rational methods of investigation serve to confirm the truth that in capitalist society small scale production is being displaced by large-scale production both in industry and agriculture.

Let us take the 1900 returns for the groups of farms in America classified according to the value of their product

			Average per farm
Farms classified by value of product ($)	Number Acreage of farms (percentage of total)		Improved acreage	Hired labour ($)	Implements and machinery ($)
0 1 and under 50 50 and under 100 100 and under 250 250 and under 500 500 and under 1,000 1000 and under 2,500 Over 2,500	0.9 2.9 5.3 21.8 27.9 24.0 14.5 2.7	1.8 1.2 2.1 10.1 18.1 23.6 23.2 19.9	33.4 18.2 20.0 29.2 48.2 84.0 150.5 322.3	24 4 4 7 18 52 158 786	54 24 28 42 78 154 283 781

Average for all farms	—	—	72.3	—	133

The farms reporting no income, i.e., with a $0 value of product, probably consist primarily of newly occupied homesteads on which their owners had not yet had time to erect buildings, acquire livestock or sow and raise a crop. In a country like America, where colonization is still in progress on such a vast scale, special importance attaches to the question of how long a farmer has been in possession of his farm.

Leaving aside the zero-income farms, we get a picture quite similar to the one obtained above by grouping the same data according to total farm acreage. As the value of the product raised on a farm increases, there is also an increase in the average improved acreage, the average expenditure on hired labour, and the average value of implements and machinery. By and large, the more profitable farms—in terms of gross income, i.e., the value of their total product—turn out to have the larger acreage. It would appear that the new method of grouping has not yielded anything new-at all.

But now let us take the averages (the value of livestock and implements, expenditure on hired labour and fertilizers) per acre instead of per farm:

	Per acre of all land ($)
Farms classified by value of product ($)	Outlays on hired labour	Outlays on fertilizers	Value of livestock	Value of implements and machinery
0 1 and under 50 50 and under 100 100 and under 250 250 and under 500 500 and under 1,000 1000 and under 2,500 Over 2,500	0.08 0.06 0.08 0.11 0.19 0.36 0.67 0.72	0.01 0.01 0.03 0.05 0.07 0.07 0.08 0.06	2.97 1.79 2.01 2.46 3.00 3.75 4.63 3.98	0.19 .038 0.48 0.62 0.82 1.07 1.21 0.72

The exceptions in some respects are the zero-income farms, which in general are in a very special position, and the farms with the highest incomes, which turn out to be less intensive than the next group, judging by three out of the four characteristics we have chosen. But on the whole we find a uniform increase in the intensity of agriculture with the increase in the value of the farm product.

This result is the very opposite of the one obtained when farms were grouped by acreage.

The same figures yield diametrically different conclusions, depending on the method of grouping.

As the enterprise grows in size the intensity of agriculture declines—if the criterion is acreage, and increases—if the criterion is the value of the product.

Which of these two conclusions is the correct one?

It is clear that if the land is not being improved, acreage gives no idea at all of the scale of agricultural operations (we must not forget that in America farms are grouped not only according to the improved acreage, but also by the total acreage and that in that country the proportion of the improved acreage ranges from 19 to 91% in the farm groups, and from 27 to 75%, in the geographical divisions); it gives no correct idea at all if besides this there are so many substantial differences between farms in the methods of cultivation, the intensity of agriculture, the methods of field cropping, quantities of fertilizers, the use of machinery, the character of livestock farming, etc.

This is known to apply to all capitalist countries and even to all those whose agriculture is affected by capitalism.

We see here one of the most profound and general reasons why mistaken notions about the “superiority” of small-scale agriculture are so tenacious, and why bourgeois and petty-bourgeois prejudices of this type prove to be compatible with the great progress made in the last few decades by social statistics in general, and agricultural statistics in particular. To be sure, the tenacity of these mistakes and prejudices is also a matter of the interests of the bourgeoisie, who seek to cover up the depth of class contradictions in contemporary bourgeois society; and everyone knows that when it comes to interests, the most incontrovertible truths are liable to be questioned.

But we are here concerned only with an examination of the theoretical sources of the erroneous notion of the “superiority” of small-scale agriculture. There is no doubt at all that of all these sources the most important one is the uncritical, routine attitude to the hackneyed methods of comparing enterprises only by their total acreage or the improved acreage.

The U.S.A. is an exception among capitalist countries in that it alone has a great deal of unoccupied, unsettled land, which is given away free. Agriculture still can and indeed does develop here through the occupation of vacant land, through the cultivation of virgin lands never before put to the plough—here it does develop in the form of the most primitive and extensive livestock and crop raising. There is nothing of the kind in the old, civilized countries of capitalist Europe. In these countries, agriculture develops mainly through intensive methods, not by increases in the quantity of land under cultivation, but by improvement in the quality of cultivation, by increases in the amount of capital invested in the original acreage. Those who compare farms by acreage alone lose sight of this principal trend in capitalist agriculture, a trend which is gradually becoming the principal one in the United States as well.

The principal trend in capitalist agriculture is the conversion of small-scale enterprise, which remains small in terms of acreage, into large-scale enterprise in terms of output, in the development of livestock raising, the quantity of fertilizers, the scale on which machinery is used, and the like.

That is why the conclusion drawn from the comparison of the various groups of enterprises by acreage—that the intensity of agriculture declines with the greater size of enterprise—is entirely incorrect. The only correct conclusion, on the contrary, is to be drawn from the comparison of the various farms by the value of their product—the bigger the enterprise, the greater is the intensity of agriculture.

For acreage is only circumstantial evidence of the scale of agricultural operations, and the broader and more rapid the intensification of agriculture, the less authentic is this “evidence”. The value of the product of an enterprise is not circumstantial but direct evidence of the scale of its operations. Moreover, it is true in every case. By small-scale agriculture is always meant the kind that is not based on hired labour. But the transition to the exploitation of hired labour does not depend only on the extension of the acreage of an enterprise on its old technical basis—this occurs only in primitive, extensive enterprises—but also on an improvement of equipment and techniques and their modernization, investment in the same acreage of additional capital in the form of, say, new machinery or artificial fertilizers, or of increased and improved livestock, etc.

The classification of farms by the value of their product brings together enterprises which really have the same scale of production, regardless of acreage. Accordingly, a highly intensive enterprise on a small tract of land falls into the same group as a relatively extensive enterprise on a large tract; both are actually large-scale in terms of production and the employment of hired labour.

On the contrary, the classification by acreage throws together large and small enterprises, because they happen to have a similar acreage; it puts into the same group enterprises with an entirely different scale of operations, those in which family labour predominates, and those in which hired labour predominates. The result is a picture of blunted class contradictions within capitalism, a picture which is basically incorrect and entirely misleading as to the actual state of affairs, but one the bourgeoisie is very fond of. This leads to an equally fallacious embellishment of the condition of the small farmers, which the bourgeoisie is just as fond of. The net result is a vindication of capitalism.

In effect, the fundamental and principal trend of capitalism is the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, both in industry and in agriculture. But this displacement should not be interpreted merely as immediate expropriation. Displacement also implies the ruin of the small farmers and a worsening of conditions on their farms, a process that may go on for years and decades. This deterioration assumes a variety of forms, such as the small farmer’s overwork or malnutrition, his heavy debts, worse feed and poorer care of livestock in general, poorer husbandry—cultivation, fertilization and the like—as well as technical stagnation on the farm, etc. If the researcher is to be absolved from the charge of wittingly or otherwise playing up to the bourgeoisie by giving a false impression of the condition of the small farmer, who is being ruined and oppressed, his task is, first and foremost, to give a precise definition of the symptoms of this ruination, which are not at all simple or uniform; his next task is to determine these symptoms, to analyze and, as far as possible, to define the extent to which they have spread and how they change with time. But present-day economists and statisticians hardly pay any attention to this vital aspect of the matter.

Just imagine that to a group of 90 small farmers who have no capital to improve their farms, who lag behind the times and are gradually being ruined the statistician adds 10 farmers who have all the capital they need and on equally small tracts of land start large-scale operations based on hired labour. The net result would be an embellished picture of the condition of all the hundred small farmers.

The U.S. Census of 1910 produced just that kind of embellished picture—and one that, objectively, favored the bourgeoisie—primarily because it discarded the method used in 1900 of comparing the acreage grouping and the value-of-product grouping. We learn, for instance, only that expenditure on fertilizers increased immensely, namely, by 115%, i.e., more than double the previous figure, while the expenditure on hired labour went up by only 82%, and the total crop value by 83%. This is tremendous progress. It is the progress of national agriculture as a whole. And, I dare say, some economist is likely to draw—if indeed has not yet drawn—the conclusion that this is the progress of small-scale family farming, for, generally speaking, the returns for the size groups by acreage indicate that “small-scale” agriculture has a much higher per-acre expenditure on fertilizers.

But we now know that such a conclusion would be fallacious, because the one thing the grouping of farms by acreage does is to lump together farmers on the way to ruin, or at any rate the indigent small farmers who cannot afford to buy fertilizers, and capitalists (even if they are small-time capitalists) who, on small tracts of land, start large-scale farming operations with the use of up-to-date, intensive methods and the employment of hired labour.

If small-scale agriculture is being generally displaced by large-scale agriculture, as the figures for the total value of farm property in 1900 and 1910 show; if, as we shall presently see, the raising of highly capitalist crops on small tracts developed at an especially fast rate in this period; if, according to the general statistics on small and large enterprises grouped by the value of their product, expenditures for fertilizers increased proportionately with the scale of the enterprise—then the conclusion inevitably follows that the “progress” in the use of fertilizers from 1900 to 1910 went to increase the preponderance of capitalist agriculture over small agriculture, which was displaced and suppressed to an even greater extent.

12. Different Types of Enterprises in Agriculture[edit source]

What I have said above about the intensive, large-scale capitalist enterprises on small tracts raises this question: is there any reason to believe that the intensification of agriculture leads to a reduction of farm acreage? In other words, are there any conditions relating to modern farming techniques as such that require smaller farm acreage for greater intensity of farming?

No answer is provided either by general theoretical reasoning or by examples. In each case it is a matter of the concrete technical level of agriculture under a given set of conditions, and the actual amount of capital required by a given system of farming. In theory, any amount of capital can be invested in any acreage in any possible way, but it is obvious that “this depends” on the existing economic, technical, and cultural conditions, etc., and the whole point is the kind of conditions prevalent in a given country at a given time. Examples serve no purpose at all, because in the sphere of such complex, varied, interwoven and contradictory trends in the economics of modern agriculture, any number of examples will be found to support opposite views. What this calls for above all—and more so than in any other sphere—is a picture of the process as a whole, with all the trends taken into account and summed up in the form of a resultant

.The third method of grouping used by American statisticians in 1900 helps to find an answer to this question. It is classification according to the principal source of income. Accordingly, farms fall into one of the following groups: (1) hay and grain as the principal source of income; (2) miscellaneous; (3) livestock; (4) cotton; (5) vegetable; (6) fruit; (7) dairy produce; (8) tobacco; (9) rice; (10) sugar; (11) flowers and plants; (12) nursery products; (13) taro; and (14) coffee. The last seven groups (8-14) together make up only 2.2% of the total number of farms, i.e., such an insignificant share, that I shall not consider them separately. These groups (8-14) are similar to the preceding three groups (5-7) in economic characteristics and significance and constitute a single type

.Here are the data characterizing the various types of farms;

				Average per acre of all land ($)
Groups of farms by principal source of income	Percentage of total number of farms	Average acreage per farm	Total improved	Outlays on labour	Outlays on fertilizers	Value of implements and machinery	Value of livestock
Hay and grain Miscellaneous	23.0 18.5	159.3 106.9	111.1 46.5	0.47 0.35	0.04 0.08	1.04 0.94	3.17 2.73

Livestock Cotton	27.3 18.7	226.9 83.6	86.1 42.5	0.29 0.30	0.02 0.14	0.66 0.53	4.45 2.11

Vegetables Fruits Dairy produce	2.7 1.4 6.2	65.1 74.8 121.9	33.8 41.6 63.2	1.62 2.46 0.86	0.59 0.30 0.09	2.12 2.34 1.66	3.74 3.35 5.58

Average for all farms	100.0	146.6	72.3	0.43	0.07	0.90	3.66

It is clear that the first two groups of enterprises (hay and grain, and miscellaneous) may be classified as average both as regards the degree of their capitalist development (their expenditures for hired labour are nearest the average—0.35 to 0.47, as against an average of 0.43 for the U.S.A.) and the intensiveness of agriculture. All the characteristics of intensive operations—expenditures for fertilizers, the per-acre value of machinery and livestock—are nearest to the general average for the U S.A.

There is no doubt that these two groups are especially typical of the majority of agricultural enterprises in general. Hay and grain, followed by a combination of various farm products (“miscellaneous” sources of income), are the chief types of agricultural enterprises in all countries. It would be extremely interesting to have more detailed data about these groups, such, for instance, as a breakdown into more and less commercialized enterprises, etc. But, as we have seen, the American Census, having made one step in that direction, did not go forward, but went back.

The next two groups, livestock and cotton, are an example of farms with the least capitalistic development (the expenditures for hired labour: 0.29 to 0.30 as against the average of 0.43), and the least intensive methods of agriculture. Their values of implements and machinery are the lowest and considerably lower than the average (0.66 and 0.53 as against 0.90). Farms whose principal source of income is livestock naturally have more livestock per acre than the average for the U.S.A. (4.45 as against 3.66), but appear to be engaged in extensive livestock raising: their expenditures for fertilizers are the minimum, they have the largest average acreage (226.9 acres) and the smallest proportion of improved acreage (86.1 out of 226.9). The cotton farms have a higher than-average figure for fertilizers, but other indexes indicative of intensive agriculture (the per-acre value of livestock and machinery) are very low.

Finally, the last three groups—vegetables, fruit, and dairy produce—include farms which are, first, the smallest in acreage (33 to 63 acres of improved land, as against 42 to 86 and 46 to 111 in the other groups); secondly, the most capitalist: they have the heaviest expenditure of hired labour, from 2 to 6 times the average; and thirdly, the most intensive. Almost all the indexes of intensive agriculture are above the average: the expenditure on fertilizers, the value of machinery, the value of livestock (a minor exception are the fruit-growing farms which lag behind the average, but are well ahead of the farms which derive their income chiefly from hay and grain).

Let us now see what is the share of these highly capitalist farms in the country’s economy. But we must first examine their intensive character in somewhat greater detail.

Take the farms whose main income is derived from vegetables. It is well known that in all capitalist countries the development of towns, factories, industrial settlements, railway stations, ports, etc., stimulates a demand for this type of product, it pushes up their prices, and increases the number of agricultural enterprises raising them for the market. The average “vegetable” farm has less than one-third of the improved acreage of an “ordinary” farm deriving income chiefly from hay and grain: the former is 33.8 acres, and the latter, 111.1. This means that this particular technical level with this particular accumulation of capital in agriculture requires “vegetable” farms of smaller acreage; in other words, if capital invested in agriculture is to yield a not less-than average profit, a vegetable-raising farm should have, technology being what it is, a smaller acreage than a hay-and grain farm.

But that is not all. The growth of capitalism in agriculture consists above all in a transition from natural agriculture to commercial agriculture. This is being constantly forgotten, and must be brought up again and again. Commercial agriculture, it should be noted, does not develop along the “simple” lines imagined or projected by bourgeois economists, namely, through an ever greater output of the same products. Not at all. Commercial agriculture very frequently develops by shifting from one type of product to another, and the shift from hay and grain to vegetables is very common. But what bearing does it have on the question before us, that of farm acreage and the growth of capitalism in agriculture?

Such a shift signifies the split-up of a “large” 111.1-acre farm into more than three “small” 33.8-acre farms. The old farm produced a value of $760—the average value of its products, less the feed raised on the farm, whose chief source of income is hay and grain. Each of the new farms produces a value of $665, or a total of $665 x 3 = $1,995, i.e., more than double the original figure.

As large-scale production displaces small-scale production, farm acreage is reduced.

The average expenditure on hired labour on the old farm was $76; on the new farm it is $106, or almost half as much again, while acreage is one-third or even less. Expenditure on fertilizers has gone up from $0.04 per acre to $0.59, an increase of almost 15 times; the value of implements and machinery has doubled from $1.04 to $2.12, etc.

There will, of course, be the usual objection that the number of such highly capitalist farms with specialized “commercial” crops is negligible, as compared with the total. The answer is that, first, the number and the role, the economic role of such farms, are much greater than is generally realized; and secondly—and this is the most important point—it is such crops that are developed more rapidly than others in the capitalist countries. That is just why a reduction in farm acreage with the intensification of agriculture so often implies an increase and not a reduction in the scale of operations, an increase and not a decrease in the exploitation of hired labour.

Here are the exact American statistics for the country as a whole. Let us take all the special, or “commercial”, crops listed above under heads 5-14, namely, vegetables, fruit, dairy produce, tobacco, rice, sugar, flowers, nursery products, taro, and coffee. In 1900, these products were the principal source of income for 12.5% of all farms in the U.S.A. This is one-eighth, a very small minority. Their acreage was 8.6%, or one-twelfth, of the total. But to continue. Let us take the total value of the products of American agriculture (less feed). Of this value the farms in question accounted for as much as 16%, i.e., their share of the value was almost double their share of the acreage.

This means that the productivity of labour and land on these farms was almost double the average.

Let us take the sum total of expenditure on hired labour in American agriculture. Of this total, 26.6%, i.e., over one-quarter, fell to the farms in question. This is more than three times their share of the acreage, and more than three times the average. This means that these farms are very much more capitalist than the average.

Their share of the total value of implements and machinery is 20.1%, and of the expenditures for fertilizers, 31.7%, i.e., slightly less than one-third of the total, and nearly four times the average.

Consequently, an incontrovertible fact is established for the country as a whole. It is that the especially intensive farms have an especially small acreage, especially great employment of hired labour, and especially high productivity of labour; that the economic role of these farms in the nation’s agriculture is two, three and more times greater than their proportion of the total number of farms, to say nothing of their share of the total acreage.

As time goes on, does the role of these highly capitalist and highly intensive crops and farms increase or decrease in comparison with other crops and farms?

The answer is provided by a comparison of the last two census reports: their role is unquestionably increasing. Let us take the acreage planted to the various crops. From 1900 to 1910, the acreage under grain increased by only 3.5% for the U.S.A.; under beans, peas, and the like, 26.6%; hay and forage, 17.2%; cotton, 32%; vegetables, 25.5%; sugar-beets, sugar-cane, etc., 62.6%.

Let us examine the crop returns. From 1900 to 1910, the grain crop went up only 1.7%; beans, 122.2%; hay and forage, 23%; sugar-beets, 395.7%; sugar-cane, 48.5%; potatoes, 42.4%; grapes, 97.6%; there was a poor crop of berries, apples, etc., in 1910, but the orange and lemon crops, etc., were treble those of 1900.

Thus, the apparently paradoxical but nevertheless proven fact bas been shown to apply to U.S. agriculture as a whole that, generally speaking, small-scale production is not only being displaced by large scale production, but also that this displacement is taking place in the following form:

Small-scale production is being crowded out by large-scale production through the displacement of farms which are “larger” in acreage, but are less productive, less intensive and less capitalist, by farms which are “smaller” in acreage, but are more productive, more intensive, and more capitalist.

13. How the Displacement of Small-Scale by Large-Scale Production in Agriculture is Minimised[edit source]

The objection may be raised that if the displacement of small-scale production “also” proceeds in the form of the intensification (and “capitalization”) of operations on the smaller-size farms, is the grouping by acreage of any use at all? Is this not a case of two contradictory tendencies which make any general conclusion impossible?

This objection can be met by a complete picture of American agriculture and its evolution; to meet it we must try to compare all three methods of grouping which present, as it were, the maximum of information social statistics has produced in the sphere of agriculture in recent years.

Such a comparison is possible. All it calls for is a table which may at first sight appear to be so abstract and complex that it may “scare” the reader away. However, it takes only a little bit of concentration to “read”, understand and analyzes the table.

To compare the three different groupings we need take only their percentage ratios. All the necessary calculations are given in the American Census report for 1900. Each grouping is tabulated under three main heads. By acreage we have: (1) small farms (under 100 acres), (2) medium (100 to 175 acres), and (3) large (175 and over). By value of product we have: (1) non-capitalist farms (under $500), (2) medium ($500 to 1.000), and (3) capitalist ($1,000 and over). By the principal source of income we take (1) slightly capitalist (livestock, cotton), (2) medium (hay and grain; and miscellaneous), and (3) highly capitalist (the special “commercial” crops listed above, in Chapter 12, under heads 5 to 14).

For every group we first take the percentage of farms, i.e., the number of farms in a given group expressed as a percentage ratio of the total number of farms in the U.S.A. We then take the percentage of all land, i.e., the total acreage in a given group expressed as a percentage ratio of the total acreage of all farms in the U.S.A. The acreage serves as an indicator of the extensive character of the enterprise (unfortunately, the only figures available are for total acreage, instead of the improved acreage only, which would have been more exact). If the percentage share of the total acreage is higher than the percentage share of the number of farms, for example, if 17.2% of the farms have 43.1% of the land, it is evident that we are dealing with large farms, larger-than-average farms, which are besides more than double the size of the average farm. The reverse is true if the percentage of land is lower than the percentage of farms.

Next come the indexes of intensiveness of agriculture: the value of implements and machinery, and the total expenditure on fertilizers. Here, too, we take the value and the expenditure in the given group expressed as a percentage share of the totals for the country as a whole. Here again, if the percentage is higher than the percentage of land, the conclusion is that intensiveness is above the average, etc.

Finally, in order to determine exactly the capitalist character of the enterprises, the same method is applied to the total expenditure on hired labour; while in order to determine the scale of production this is done in relation to the total value of the agricultural product for the entire country.

This has produced the following table, which I shall now proceed to explain and analyze:

Comparison of the Three Groupings (figures are percentages of total, sum total of each horizontal row of three figures = 100)

Number of farms		By principal source of income			By farm acreage			By value of product
		Slightly capitalist	Medium	Highly capitalist	Small	Medium	Large	Non-capitalist	Medium	Capitalist
		46.0	41.5	12.5	57.5	24.8	17.7	58.8	24.0	17.2	Index of extensiveness of agriculture
Total acreage		59.2	38.5	8.6	17.5	22.9	59.6	33.3	23.6	43.1	Index of extensiveness of agriculture
Constant capital	Value of implements and machinery Outlays on fertilizers	37.2 36.5	42.7 31.8	20.1 31.7	31.7 41.9	28.9 25.7	39.4 32.4	25.3 29.1	28.0 26.1	46.7 44.8	Index of intensiveness of agriculture
Variable capital	Outlays on hired labour	35.2	38.2	26.6	22.3	23.5	54.2	11.3	19.6	69.1	Index of capitalist character of enterprise
Scale of production	Value of product	45.0	39.0	16.0	33.5	27.3	39.2	22.1	25.6	52.3	Index of capitalist character of enterprise

Let us consider the first grouping—according to the principal source of income. Here farms are grouped, so to say, according to their line of farming, which is to some extent similar to the grouping of industrial enterprises by branches of industry. But the picture is immensely more complex in agriculture.

The first column shows the group of slightly capitalist farms. It comprises almost one-half the total number of farms—46%. They own 52.9% of the total a acreage, i.e., they are larger than average (this group includes both the very large, extensive, livestock farms and the smaller-than-average cotton farms). Their shares of the value of machinery (37.2%) and the expenditure on fertilizers (36.5%) are lower than their acreage percentages, which means that their intensiveness is lower than the average. The same thing is true of the capitalist character of the enterprise (35.2%) and the value of the product (45%). Hence, their productivity of labour is lower than the average.

The second column shows the medium farms. Because farms which are “medium” in every respect fall into the medium group by all three methods of grouping, we find here that all their percentage ratios are closer to each other than in any of the other groups. The fluctuations are relatively small.

The third column shows the highly capitalist farms. I gave above a detailed analysis of what the figures in this column mean. Be it noted that only for this type of farm do we have accurate and comparable data both for 1900 and 1910—data testifying that these highly capitalist crops have a faster than-average rate of development.

In what way is this more rapid development evident in the ordinary classification in use in most countries? This is shown in the next column: the small farms grouped by acreage.

This group consists of a great number of farms (57.5 por cent of the total). Its acreage is only 17.5% of the total, i.e., less than one-third of the average. Hence, this is the “poorest” group, the most “land-starved” group. But then we and that it has a higher-than-average intensiveness of agriculture (the value of machinery and expenditures for fertilizers); that it is more capitalist (expenditures for hired labour); and that it has a higher-than-average-productivity of labour (value of product): 22.3 to 41.9% with 17.5% of the acreage.

What is the explanation? Obviously that an especially large number of highly capitalist farms—see the preceding vertical column—fall into this “small”-acreage group. A minority of rich, capital-owning farmers conducting large scale capitalist operations on small tracts of land are added to a majority of really small farmers who have little land and little capital. Such farmers make up only 12.5% ( = the percentage of highly capitalist farms) of the total in America, which means that even if they were all to be put into this one group of small-acreage farms, 45% of the farmers in that group (57.5—12.5) would still be short of land and capital. Actually, of course, a part of the highly capitalist farms, even if only a small one, consists of medium and large-acreage farms, so that the figure of 45% in fact understates the actual number of farmers who have little land and no capital.

It will be easily seen how the condition of these 45%—a minimum of 45%—of the farmers who are poor in land and capital is embellished by the inclusion into the same group of some 12,10 or so per cent of farmers who are supplied with higher-than-average amounts of capital, machinery, money to buy fertilizers, hire labour, and the rest of it.

I shall not dwell separately on the medium and large farms of this grouping, for this would be to repeat, in slightly different words what has been said about the small farms. For instance, if the data on the small-acreage farms put a better complexion on the oppressed condition of small-scale production, the data on the large-acreage farms obviously minimize the actual concentration of agriculture by large-scale production. We shall presently see an exact statistical expression of this minimized concentration.

We thus arrive at the following general proposition which may be formulated as a law applicable to the grouping of farms by acreage in any capitalist country:

The broader and more rapid the intensification of agriculture, the more the classification by acreage serves to give a rosy picture of the oppressed condition of small-scale production in agriculture, the condition of the small farmer who is short of both land and capital; the more it serves to blunt the real sharpness of the class contradiction between the prospering large-scale producer and the small-scale producer going to the wall; the more it serves to minimize the concentration of capital in the hands of big operators and the displacement of the small.

This is graphically confirmed by the third, and last, classification, according to the value of product. The percentage of non-capitalistic farms (or not very profitable farms in terms of gross income) is 58.8%, i.e., even somewhat more than the “small” farms (57.5%). They have much more land than the group of “small” farmers (33.3% as against 17.5%). But their share of the total value of the product is one-third smaller : 22.1% as against 33.5%!

What is the explanation? It is that this group does not include the highly capitalistic farms on small tracts which have artificially and falsely inflated the small farmers’ share of the capital in the form of machinery, fertilizers, etc.

Thus, the oppression and dispossession—and hence the ruin—of the small producer in agriculture turn out to be much more advanced than one would suppose from the data on small farms.

The returns for the small and large farms, grouped by acreage, take no account of the role of capital, and the failure to reckon with this “trifle” in capitalist enterprise distorts the condition of the small producer, puts a false colour on it, for it “could be” tolerable “but for” the existence of capital, i.e., the power of money, and the relationship between the hired labourer and the capitalist, between the farmer and the merchant and creditor, etc.

For that reason the concentration of agriculture as shown by the large farms is much lower than its concentration as shown by large-scale, i.e., capitalist, production: 39.2% of the value of the product (slightly more than double the average) is concentrated on 17.7% of “large” farms, while 52.3% of the total value of the product, i.e., more than three times the average, is concentrated on 17.2% capitalist farms.

In the country which practices the free distribution of vast tracts of unoccupied land, and which the Manilovs^[7] consider a country of “family” farms, more than one-half of the total agricultural production is concentrated in about one-sixth of the capitalist enterprises, whose expenditure on hired labour is four times greater than the per-farm average (69.1% on 17.2% of the total number of farms), and are half as great again as the per-acre average (69.1% of the expenditure on hired labour on farms owning 43.1% of the total amount of land).

At the other pole, more than one-half, almost three-fifths, of the total number of farms (58.8%) are non-capitalist. They have one-third of the land (33.3%) but on it they have less than the average quantity of machinery (25.3% of the value of machinery); they use less fertilizers than the average (29.1% of the expenditures for fertilizers) and so its productivity is only two-thirds of the average. With one-third of the total acreage, this immense number of-farms, which suffer the greatest oppression under the yoke of capital, produce less than one-quarter (22.1%) of the total product and of its total value.

Consequently, we arrive at a general conclusion concerning the significance of classification by acreage, namely, that it is not entirely useless. The one thing that should never be forgotten is that it understates the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, and that the understatement increases with the pace and scope of intensification of agriculture, and with the gap between the amounts of capital invested by the farms per unit of land. With modern methods of research, which produce an abundance of sound information about each farm, it would, for instance, be sufficient to combine two methods of classification—say, each of the five acreage groups could bo broken down into two or three subgroups according to the employment of hired labour. If this is not done it is largely because of the fear of giving a much too naked picture of reality, a much too striking picture of the oppression, impoverishment, ruin, expropriation of the mass of small farmers, whose condition is so “conveniently” and “unnoticeably” made to look better by the “model” capitalist enterprises, which are also “small” in acreage and which are a small minority within the mass of the dispossessed. From the scientific standpoint no one would dare deny that not only land, but also capital has a part to play in modern agriculture. From the standpoint of statistical techniques, or the amount of statistical work involved, a total number of 10 to 15 groups is not at all excessive in com parison, for instance, with the 18 plus 7 groups based on acreage given in the German statistical report of 1907. This report, which classifies an abundance of material about 5,736,082 farms into the above number of acreage groups, is an example of bureaucratic routine, scientific rubbish, a meaningless juggling of figures, for there is not a shadow of any reasonable, rational, theoretical or practical ground for accepting such a number of groups as typical.

14. The Expropriation of the Small Farmers[edit source]

The question of the expropriation of the small farmers is immensely important to an understanding and assessment of capitalism in agriculture in general, and it is highly characteristic of modern political economy and statistics, which are saturated through and through with bourgeois notions and prejudices, that this question is either practically not considered at all or is given the least attention.

The general statistics in all capitalist countries show that the urban population is growing at the expense of the rural, that the population is abandoning the countryside. In the U.S.A., this process is steadily advancing. The proportion of the urban population increased from 29.5% in 1880, to 36.1% in 1890, 40.5% in 1900, and 46.3% in 1910. In every part of the country the urban population is growing more rapidly than the rural population: from 1900 to l910, the rural population in the industrial North-went up by 3.9% and the urban by 29.8%; in the former slave-holding South, the rural population increased by 14.8%, and the urban, by 41.4%; in the homestead West, the figures were 49.7 and 89.6%, respectively.

One should think that such a universal process would also have to be studied in the taking of agricultural censuses. A most important question from the scientific standpoint naturally arises as to what sections, strata or groups of the rural population provide the fugitives from the countryside and in what circumstances. Since highly detailed information about each agricultural enterprise and about each animal in it is collected every ten years, it would be no trouble at all to include questions as to how many and what kind of farms were sold or rented with an eye to moving into town, and how many members of households abandoned farming temporarily or for good, and in what circumstances. But no such questions are asked: the investigation does not go beyond the official stereotyped statement: “The rural population decreased from 59.5% in 1900 to 53.7% in 1910.” The census-takers seem to have no inkling of the mass of misery, oppression and ruin concealed behind these routine figures. As a general rule, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois economists turn a blind eye to the obvious connection between the night of the population from the countryside and the ruin of the small producers.

There is no alternative, therefore, but to try and bring together the relatively meager and very badly compiled data on the expropriation of the small farmers gleaned from the 1910 Census report.

There are the figures on the forms of farm tenure: the number of owners, subdivided into full and part owners; and the number of share-cropping tenants and cash-paying tenants. These figures are tabulated for the various divisions but not the farm groups.

Here is the first picture we get from the totals for 1900 and 1910:

Total rural population increase Total number of farms increased Total number of owners increased Total number of full owners increased	11.2% 10.9% 8.1% 4.8%

This picture is a clear indication of the growing expropriation of small-scale agriculture. The rural population is increasing more slowly than the urban. The number of farmers is increasing more slowly than the rural population; the number of owners is increasing more slowly than the number of farmers; the number of full owners—more slowly than the number of owners in general. The proportion of owners in the total number of farmers has been decreasing steadily over a period of several decades, as follows:

1880 1890 1900 1910	74.0% 71.6% 64.7% 63.0%

There is a corresponding growth in the proportion of tenants, with the number of share-cropping tenants going up faster than that of cash-paying tenants. The number of share-cropping tenants was 17.5% in 1880; then it rose to 18.4% and 22.2%, and finally to 24% in 1910. It is evident from the following figures that the decrease in the proportion of owners and the increase in the proportion of tenants is, on the whole, an indication of the dispossession and displacement of the small farmers:

	Percentage of farms owning
Class of farm	domestic animals			horses
	1900	1910	+/-	1900	1910	+/-
Owners Tenants	96.7 94.2	96.1 92.9	-0.6 -1.3	85.0 67.9	81.5 60.7	-3.5 -7.2

According to all the returns for both census years the owners are economically stronger. The condition of the tenants is deteriorating more rapidly than that of the owners.

Let us examine separately the figures for the sections.

The greatest number of tenants, as I have already said, is in the South, and there tenancy has the fastest rate of growth: it rose from 47% in 1900, to 49.6% in 1910. Capital defeated slavery half a century ago, merely to restore it now in a new form as share tenancy.

In the North, the number of tenants is considerably smaller and is growing at a much slower rate: it went up from 26.2% in 1900, to only 26.5% in 1910. The West has the smallest number of tenants, and it is the only section where tenancy, instead of increasing, decreased: it fell from 16.6% in 1900 to 14.0% in l910. “A very low proportion of tenant farms,” says the Census report for 1910, “is also shown for the Mountain and Pacific divisions, [the two divisions constituting “The West”]^[8] , where it is doubtless attributable mainly to the fact that those divisions have been only recently settled and that many of the farmers in them are homesteaders who have obtained their land from the Government” free or for a very small price (Vol. V, p. 104).

This is a striking example of the peculiar characteristic of the U.S.A., to which I have repeatedly referred, namely, the availability of unoccupied, free land. This explains, on the one hand, the extremely rapid and extensive development of capitalism in America. The absence of private property in land in some parts of a vast country does not exclude capitalism—our Narodniks should make a note of this!—on the contrary, it broadens its base, and accelerates its development. Upon the other hand, this peculiarity, which is entirely unknown in the old, long-settled capitalist countries of Europe, serves in America to cover up the expropriation of the small farmers—a process already under way in the settled and most industrialized parts of the country.

Let us take the North. We get the following picture:

	1900	1910	+ or - %
Total rural population increase (000,000) Total number of farms increased (000) Total number of owners increased (000) Total number of full owners increased (000)	22.2 2,874 2,088 1,794	23.1 2,891 2,091 1,749	+3.9 +0.6 +0.1 -2.5

We see not only a relative reduction in the number of owners, not only a decline in their proportion of the total number of farmers, etc., but even an absolute decrease in the number of owners, against a background of growing production in the main section of the U.S.A., which embraces 60% of the country’s improved acreage!

It should, besides, be borne in mind that in one of the four divisions making up the North, namely, the West North Central, the allotment of homesteads continues to this very day, and that 54 million acres were allotted in the 10 years from 1901 to 1910.

The tendency of capitalism to expropriate small-scale agriculture is so strong that the American “North” shows an absolute decrease in the number of landowners, in spite of the distribution of tens of millions of acres of unoccupied, free land.

Only two factors still serve to paralyze this tendency in the U.S.A.: (1) the existence of the still unparcelled slave-holding plantations in the South, with its oppressed and downtrodden Negro population; and (2) the fact that the West is still partly unsettled. Both these factors tend to widen the future base of capitalism, and so prepare the conditions for its even more extensive and more rapid development. The sharpening of contradictions and the displacement of small-scale production are not removed but are transferred to a larger arena. The capitalist fire appears to be “damped down”—but at the price of an even greater accumulation of new and more inflammable material.

Furthermore, on the question of the expropriation of small-scale agriculture, we have the returns for the number of farms owning livestock. Here are the figures for the U.S.A.

Percentage of farms owning	1900	1910	+ or -
Domestic animals in general Dairy cows Horses	95.8 78.7 79.0	94.9 80.8 73.8	-0.9 +2.1 -5.2

These figures show, on the whole, a reduction in the number of owners in proportion to the total number of farmers. The increase in the percentage of those who owned dairy cows was smaller than the drop in the percentage of those who owned horses. Let us now examine the figures for farms grouped in relation to the two major kinds of livestock.

Size group (acres)	Percentage of farms owning dairy cows
Size group (acres)	1900	1910	+ or -
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over	49.5 65.9 84.1 88.9 92.6 90.3 82.9	52.9 71.2 87.1 89.8 93.5 89.6 86.0	+3.4 +5.3 +3.0 +0.9 +0.9 -0.7 +3.1

Average for the U.S.A.	78.7	80.8	+2.1

We find that the greatest increase was in the number of small farms with dairy cows, then came the latifundia, and then the medium-size farms. There was a decrease in the percentage of farms reporting dairy cows among the big owners, with 500 to 999 acres of land. On the whole, this seems to indicate a gain for small-scale agriculture. Let us recall, however, that in farming the ownership of dairy cattle has a twofold significance: on the one hand, it may generally indicate a higher living standard and better conditions of nutrition. On the other hand, it signifies—and rather more frequently—a development of one branch of commercial farming and cattle-breeding: the production of milk for the market in the towns and industrial centers. We saw above that farms of this type, the “dairy” farms, were classified by American statisticians under a special head, according to the principal source of income. A characteristic of this group is that it has a smaller-than-average total and improved acreage, but a greater-than-average value of output, and a double-the-average employment of hired labour per acre. The increasing importance of small farms in dairy farming may simply mean—and most likely does mean—a growth of capitalist dairy farms of the type described, on small tracts of land. For the sake of comparison here are some figures on the concentration of dairy cattle in America

Sections	Average number of dairy cows per farm		Increase
Sections	1890	1900	Increase
The North The South The West	4.8 2.3 5.0	5.3 2.4 5.2	+0.5 +0.1 +0.2

Overall average	3.8	4.0	+0.2

We find that the North, which is richest of all in dairy cattle, also showed the greatest increase in wealth. Here is a distribution of this increase among the groups:

The North Size group (acres)	% increase or decrease in number of dairy cows from 1900 to 1910
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over	-4 (+10.0 in the number of farms) -3 (-12.6 in the number of farms) + 9 (-7.3 in the number of farms) +14 (+2.2 in the number of farms) +18 (+12.7 in the number of farms) +29 (+40.4 in the number of farms) +18 (+15.4 in the number of farms)

Overall increase	+14 (+15.4 in the number of farms)

The more rapid growth in the number of small farms with dairy cattle did not prevent its more rapid concentration in the large enterprises. Let us now turn to the figures on the number of farms reporting horses. This information about draught animals is an indication of the general pattern of farming and not of any special branch of commercial farming.

Size group (acres)	Percentage of farms reporting horses		Decrease
Size group (acres)	1900	1910	Decrease
Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over	52.4 66.3 82.2 88.6 92.0 93.7 94.2	48.9 57.4 77.6 86.5 91.0 93.2 94.1	-3.5 -8.9 -4.6 -2.1 -1.0 -0.5 -0.1

Average for the U.S.A.	79.0	73.8	-5.2

We find that as we go down the size-group scale there is a rising number of farms not reporting horses. With the exception of the smallest farms (under 20 acres) which, as we know, include a comparatively greater number of capitalistic farms than the neighboring groups, we observe a rapid decrease in the number of horseless farms and a much slower increase in their number. The use of steam ploughs and other engines on the rich farms may partly compensate for the reduction in draught animals, but such an assumption is out of the question for the mass of the poorer farms. Finally, the growth of expropriation is also evident from the returns on the number of mortgaged farms

Sections	Percentage of mortaged farms
Sections	1890	1900	1910
The North. . . . . The South. . . . . The West . . . . .	40.3 5.7 23.1	40.9 17.2 21.7	41.9 23.5 28.6

Average for the U.S.A.	28.2	31.0	33.6

The percentage of mortgaged farms is on a steady increase in all sections, and it is highest in the most populous industrialized and capitalist North. American statisticians point out (Vol. V, p. 159) that the growth in the number of mortgaged farms in the South is probably due to the “parceling out” of the plantations, which are sold in lots to Negro and white farmers, who pay only a part of the purchase price, the rest being covered by a mortgage on the property. Consequently a peculiar buying-up operation is under way in the slave-holding South. Let us note that in 1910 Negroes in the U.S.A. owned only 920,883 farms, i.e., 14.5% of the total; between 1900 and 1910, the number of white farms increased 9.5%, and that of Negro farms, twice as fast—19.6%. The Negro urge to emancipation from the “plantation owners” half a century after the “victory” over the slave-owners is still marked by an exceptional intensity.

The American statisticians also point out that the mortgaging of a farm does not always indicate lack of prosperity; it is sometimes a way of obtaining capital for land improvement; and the like. This is indisputable, but this indisputable observation should not conceal the fact—as is much too often the case with bourgeois economists—that only a well-to-do minority are in a position to obtain capital for improvements, etc., in this way, and to employ it productively; the majority are further impoverished and fall into the clutches of finance capital assuming this particular form.

Researchers could—and should—have paid much more attention to the dependence of farmers on finance capital. But although this aspect of the matter is immensely important, it has remained in the background.

The growth in the number of mortgaged farms in any case means that the actual control over them is transferred to the capitalists. It stands to reason that apart from officially recorded and notarized mortgages, a considerable number of farms are steeped in private debt, which is not covered by strict legal instruments and is not recorded by the census.

15. A Comparative Picture of Evolution in Industry and Agriculture[edit source]

American census statistics, for all their shortcomings, compare favorably with those of other countries because of the completeness and uniformity of the methods used. This makes it possible to compare the returns for industry and agriculture for 1900 and 1910, and to contrast the over all picture of the structure of both sectors of the economy and the evolution of this structure. One of the most popular ideas in bourgeois economics—an idea, incidentally, which Mr. Himmer repeats—is to contrast industry and agriculture. Let us see, in the light of a mass of precise data, what truth there is in such a contrast.

Let us begin with the number of enterprises in industry and in agriculture.

	Number of enterprises (000)		Increase (%)	Growth of urban and rural population (%)
	1900	1910	Increase (%)	Growth of urban and rural population (%)
Industry Agriculture	207.5 5,737	268.5 6,361	+29.4 +10.9	+34.8 +11.2

The enterprises in agriculture are much more numerous and much smaller. That is an expression of its backwardness, parcellization, and dispersion.

The number of enterprises increases much more slowly in agriculture than in industry. There are two factors in the United States which do not exist in other leading countries, and which greatly intensify and accelerate the growth in the number of enterprises in agriculture. They are, first, the continued parceling out of the slave-holding latifundia in the South and “buying-up” by Negro and also by white farmers of small parcels from the “planters”; secondly, the availability of an immense quantity of unoccupied, free land, which is distributed by the government to all applicants. Nevertheless the number of enterprises in agriculture is increasing at a slower rate than in industry.

The reason is twofold. On the one hand, agriculture to a rather large extent retains the character of a “natural” economy, and various operations once performed by members of a peasant household are gradually branching off from agriculture—for example, the making and repair of various implements, utensils, etc.—and now constitute separate industries. On the other hand, there is a monopoly which is peculiar to agriculture and unknown to industry, and which cannot be eliminated under capitalism—the monopoly of land ownership. Even when there is no private property in land—in the United States none actually exists on very large areas to this very day—monopoly is created by the ownership of land and its occupation by individual private operators. In the country’s most important regions all the land is occupied, and an increase in the number of agricultural enterprises is possible only when existing enterprises are broken up; the free formation of new enterprises alongside the old is impossible. The monopoly of land ownership is a drag on the development of agriculture, and this monopoly retards the development of capitalism in agriculture, which, therefore, is unlike industry in this respect.

We are unable to make an accurate comparison of the amounts of capital invested in industrial and in agricultural enterprises because ground-rent forms a part of the value of the land. Accordingly, we have to compare the capital invested in industry and the value of industrial products with the total value of all farm property and the value of the major farm product. Only the percentages showing increases in the total values on both sides are strictly comparable.

		$000,000		Increase (%)
		1900	1910	Increase (%)
Industry	Capital of all enterprises Value of products	8,975 11,406	18,428 20,671	105.3 81.2
Agriculture	Value of all farm property Value of all cereal crops Production of cereals in bushels (000,000)	20,440 1,483 4,439	40,991 2,665 4,513	100.5 79.8 1.7

We find that during the 10 years from 1900 to 1910 the value of capital invested in industry and the value of all farm property have doubled. The great and fundamental difference between the two is that in agriculture the major product, cereals, increased by an insignificant 1.7%—while the total population increased 21%.

Agriculture lags behind industry in development; this is a feature of all capitalist countries constituting one of the most profound causes of disproportion between the various branches of the economy, of crises and soaring prices.

Capital liberated agriculture from feudalism and drew it into commodity circulation and thereby into world economic development, lifting it from medieval backwardness and patriarchal stagnation. But capital, instead of eliminating the oppression, exploitation and poverty of the masses, produces these calamities in a new guise and restores their old forms on a “modern” basis. The contradiction between industry and agriculture, far from being eliminated by capitalism, is, on the contrary, further extended and sharpened by it. The oppression of capital, seen primarily in the sphere of trade and industry, weighs more and more heavily on agriculture.

The insignificant increase in the quantity of agricultural produce (+1.7%) and the enormous increase in its value (+79.8%) shows clearly, on the one hand, the role of ground-rent, the tribute extorted from society by the landowners. Because of their monopolist position, they are able to take advantage of the backwardness of agriculture, which does not keep pace with industry, and to fill their pockets with millions and millions of dollars. In the 10 years, the value of all farm property increased by $20,500 million, of which only $5,000 million constituted the increase in the value of buildings, livestock and equipment. The value of land—capitalized ground-rent—increased in the 10 years by $15,000 million (+118.1%).

On the other hand, the difference in the class status of the small farmers and the hired labourers is here thrown into especially sharp relief. To be sure, both labour; to be sure, both are subject to exploitation by capital, though in entirely different forms. But only vulgar bourgeois democrats will for this reason put the two different classes together and speak of small-scale operations by family farms. To do so is to cover up and disguise the social system of the economy—its bourgeois nature—and push into the foreground a feature common to all earlier formations, namely, the necessity for the petty farmer to work, to engage in personal, physical labour, if he is to survive.

Under capitalism, the small farmer—whether he wants to or not, whether he is aware of it or not—becomes a commodity producer. And it is this change that is fundamental, for it alone, even when he does not as yet exploit hired labour, makes him a petty bourgeois and converts him into an antagonist of the proletariat. He sells his product, while the proletarian sells his labour-power. The small farmers, as a class, cannot but seek a rise in the prices of agricultural products, and this is tantamount to their joining the big landowners in sharing the ground-rent, and siding with the landowners against the rest of society. As commodity production develops, the small farmer, in accordance with his class status, inevitably becomes a petty landed proprietor.

There are cases even among wage-workers when a small part of them side with their masters against the whole class of wage-earners. But this is merely a small fraction of a class uniting with its antagonists, against the entire class. It is impossible to imagine any improvement of the condition of wage-earners as a class, without an improvement in the living standard of the masses, or without a sharpening of the antagonism between them and capital, which rules contemporary society, the antagonism between them and the entire class of capitalists. But it is quite possible, on the contrary, to imagine a state of affairs—indeed, such a situation is even typical of capitalism—where an improvement in the condition of the small farmers, as a class, results from their alliance with the big landlords, their participation in exacting a higher ground-rent from society as a whole, the contradictions arising between them and the mass of proletarians and semi-proletarians, who depend, entirely or at least mostly, on the sale of their labour-power.

Here is a comparison of American statistics on the number and position of wage-earners and of small farmers

		1900	1910	Increase (%)
Industry	Number of wage-earners (000) Their wages ($000,000)	4,713 2,008	6,615 3,427	40.4 70.6
Agriculture	Number of wage-earners (000) Their wages ($000,000)	? 357	? 652	c. 47.1 82.3

	Number of farmers (000) Value of their major product, cereal crops ($000,000)	5,737 1,483	6,361 2,665	10.9 79.8

The workers in industry lost, for their wages went up by only 70.6% (“only”, because almost the same quantity of cereals, 101.7% of the old quantity, is now 179.8% of the old price!), while the number of workers in creased all of 40%.

The small farmers gained, in their capacity of petty landowners, at the expense of the proletariat. The number of small farmers increased by only 10.9% (even if the small commercial farms are singled out, the increase is still only 11.9%), and while the quantity of their product hardly increased at all (+1.7%), its value went up 79.8%.

Naturally, commercial and finance capital took the lion’s share of this ground-rent, but the class status of the small farmer and the wage-earner, vis-à-vis each other, is entirely akin to the status of petty bourgeois and proletarian.

The numerical growth of wage-earners outstrips the growth of population (+40% for the former as against +21% for the latter). There is growing expropriation of the petty producers and small farmers. There is growing proletarization of the population.^[9]

The increase in the number of farmers—and to an even greater extent, as we already know, in the number of proprietors among them—lags behind the growth of the population (10.9%, as against 21%). The small farmers are increasingly converted into monopolists, into petty landed proprietors.

Let us now take a look at the relationship between small-scale and large-scale production in industry and in agriculture. In respect of industry the figures are not for 1900 and 1910, but for 1904 and 1910.

Industrial enterprises are divided into three main groups depending on the value of their products, the small being those with an output of less than $20,000; the medium, from $20,000 to $100,000, and the large $100,000 and over. We have no way of grouping agricultural enterprises except by acreage. Accordingly, small farms are those up to 100 acres; medium, from 100 to 175; and large, 175 and over.

	Groups	Number of enterprises (000)				Increase (%)
	Groups	1900	%	1910	%	Increase (%)
Industry	Small Medium Large	144 48 24	66.6 22.2 11.2	180 57 31	67.2 21.3 11.5	25.0 18.7 29.1

	Total	216	100.0	268	100.0	24.2
Agriculture	Small Medium Large	3,297 1,422 1,018	57.5 24.8 17.7	3,691 1,516 1,154	58.0 23.8 18.2	11.9 6.6 13.3

	Total	5,737	100.0	6,361	100.0	10.9

The uniformity of evolution proves to be remarkable.

Both in industry and agriculture the proportion of medium establishments is reduced, for their number grows more slowly than that of the small and large enterprises.

Both in industry and agriculture the small enterprises increase in number at a slower rate than the large.

What are the changes in the economic strength or economic role of the various types of enterprises? For the industrial enterprises we have the returns on the value of their products, and for the agricultural, on the total value of all farm property.

	Groups	$000,000		$000,000		Increase (%)
	Groups	1900	%	1910	%	Increase (%)
Industry	Small Medium Large	927 2,129 11,737	6.3 14.4 79.3	1,127 2,544 17,000	5.5 12.3 82.2	21.5 19.5 44.8

	Total	14,793	100.0	20,671	100.0	37.9
Agriculture	Small Medium Large	5,790 5,721 8,929	28.4 28.0 43.6	10,499 11,089 19,403	25.6 27.1 47.3	81.3 93.8 117.3

	Total	20,440	100.0	40,991	100.0	100.5

Once again the uniformity of evolution is remarkable.

Both in industry and agriculture the relative number of, small and medium enterprises is decreasing, and only the relative number of the large enterprises is increasing.

In other words, the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production is under way both in industry and in agriculture.

The difference between industry and agriculture in this case is that the proportion of small enterprises in industry increased somewhat more than the proportion of medium enterprises (+21.5%, as against +19.5%), while the reverse was true for agriculture. Of course, this difference is not great, and no general conclusions can be drawn from it. But the fact remains that in the world’s leading capitalist country small-scale production in industry gained more ground in the last decade than medium-scale production, whereas the reverse was true for agriculture. This fact shows how little importance is to be attached to the current assertions of bourgeois economists that the law of the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production is confirmed, unconditionally and without any exception, by industry, and refuted by agriculture.

In the agriculture of the U.S.A. the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production is not merely under way, but is proceeding with greater uniformity than in industry.

In considering this, the fact demonstrated above should not be forgotten, namely, that the grouping of farms by acreage understates the process of displacement of small-scale by large-scale production.

As for the degree of concentration already achieved, agriculture is very far behind. In industry, more than eight-tenths of all production is in the hands of the large enterprises that constitute only 11% of the total number. The role of the small enterprises is insignificant: two-thirds of the total number of enterprises account for only 5.5% of the total production! By comparison, agriculture is still in a state of dispersion: small enterprises, comprising 58% of the total number, account for one-quarter of the total value of all farm property; while 18% large enterprises account for less than one-half (47%). The total number of agricultural enterprises is over 20 times greater than the number in industry.

This confirms the old conclusion—if the evolution of agriculture is compared with that of industry, capitalism in agriculture is at a stage more akin to the manufactory stage than to the stage of large-scale machine industry. Manual labour still prevails in agriculture, and the use of machinery is relatively very limited. But the data given above do not in any way prove the impossibility of socializing agricultural production, even at the present stage of its development. Those who control the banks directly control one-third of America’s farms, and indirectly dominate the lot. In view of the modern development of associations of every kind and of communications and transport, it is undoubtedly possible to organize production under a single general plan on a million farms raising more than one-half the total value of the product.

16. Summary and Conclusions[edit source]

The agricultural censuses taken in the United States in 1900 and 1910 are the last word in social statistics in this sphere of the economy. It is the best material of any available in the advanced countries, covering millions of farms and allowing precise well-founded conclusions on the evolution of agriculture under capitalism. One other particular reason why this material can be used to study the laws of the evolution is that the U.S.A. has the largest size, the greatest diversity of relationships, and the greatest range of nuances and forms of capitalist agriculture.

We find here, on the one hand, a transition from the slave-holding—or what is in this case the same, from the feudal—structure of agriculture to commercial and capitalist agriculture; and, on the other hand, capitalism developing with unusual breadth and speed in the freest and most advanced bourgeois country. We observe alongside of this remarkably extensive colonization conducted on democratic capitalist lines.

We find here areas which have long been settled, highly industrialized, highly intensive, and similar to most of the areas of civilized, old-capitalist Western Europe; as well as areas of primitive, extensive cropping and stock-raising, like some of the outlying areas of Russia or parts of Siberia. We find large and small farms of the most diverse types: great latifundia, plantations of the former slave-holding South, and the homestead West, and the highly capitalist North of the Atlantic seaboard; the small farms of the Negro share-croppers, and the small capitalist farms producing milk and vegetables for the market in the industrial North or fruits on the Pacific coast; “wheat factories” employing hired labour and the homesteads of “independent” small farmers, still full of naïve illusions about living by the “labour of their own hands”.

This is a remarkable diversity of relationships, embracing both past and future, Europe and Russia. The comparison with Russia is especially instructive, by the way, in regard to the question of the consequences of a possible transfer of all land to the peasants without compensation, a measure that is progressive but undoubtedly capitalist.

The U.S.A. offers the most convenient example for the study of the general laws of capitalist development in agriculture and the variety of forms these laws assume. A study of this kind leads up to conclusions which may be summed up in the following brief propositions.

In agriculture, as compared with industry, manual labour predominates over machinery to an immeasurably greater extent. But the machine is steadily advancing, improving farming techniques, extending the scale of operations and making them more capitalist. In modern agriculture, machinery is used in the capitalist way.

Hired labour is the chief sign and indicator of capitalism in agriculture. The development of hired labour, like the growing use of machinery, is evident in all parts of the country, and in every branch of agriculture. The growth in the number of hired labourers outstrips the growth of the country’s rural and total population. The growth in the number of farmers lags behind that of the rural population. Class contradictions are intensified and sharpened.

The displacement of small-scale by large-scale production in agriculture is going forward. This is fully proved by a comparison of the returns for 1900 and 1910 on total farm property.

However, this displacement is understated, and the condition of the small farmers is shown in bright colors because statisticians in America in 1910 confined themselves—as in fact they did almost everywhere in Europe—to grouping the farms by acreage. The wider and faster the intensification of agriculture, the higher is the degree of this understatement and the brighter the colors.

Capitalism grows not only by accelerating the development of large-acreage farms in extensive areas, but also by creating in the intensive areas enterprises on smaller tracts whose operations are on a much larger scale and are much more capitalist.

As a result, the concentration of production in the large enterprises is actually much greater—and the displacement of small-scale production actually goes farther and deeper—than is indicated by ordinary data about farms grouped by acreage. The returns of the 1900 Census, compiled with greater care and in greater detail, are more scientific and leave no doubt at all on this score.

The expropriation of small-scale agriculture is advancing. In the last few decades, the proportion of owners to the total number of farmers declined steadily, while the growth in the number of farmers lagged behind population increase. The number of full owners is declining absolutely in the North, the most important section, which yields the largest volume of farm products and has neither any vestiges of slavery nor any extensive homesteading. In the last decade, the proportion of farmers reporting livestock in general decreased; in contrast to the increased proportion of owners reporting dairy cattle there was an even greater increase in the proportion of operators without horses, especially among the small farmers.

On the whole, a comparison of corresponding data on industry and agriculture for the same period shows that although the latter is incomparably more backward, there is a remarkable similarity in the laws of evolution, and that small-scale production is being ousted-from both.

↑ See present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 585–90.—Ed.
↑ See The Agrarian Question and the “Critics of Marx”, Vol. 13. —Lenin
↑ For 1900 we have returns by size groups for the number of high income farms, i.e., farms with a product valued over $2,500. Here are these figures: among farms of less than 3 acres, the proportion of high-income farms was 5.2%; 3 to 10 acres—0.6%; 10 to 20 acres—0.4%; 20 to 50 acres—0.3%; 50 to 100—0.6%; 100 to 175—1.4%; 175 to 260—5.2%; 260 to 500—12.7%; 500 to 1,000—24.3%; 1,000 and over—39.5%. We find the proportion of high-income farms in all the under-20-acre groups to be greater than in the 20-to-50-acre group. —Lenin
↑ [PLACEHOLDER.]
↑ Excluding produce used as feed. —Lenin
↑ Less than 0.1%. —Lenin
↑ [PLACEHOLDER.]
↑ Interpolations in square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated.—Ed.
↑ The number of wage-earners in agriculture, or rather the growth in their number, is obtained from the following ratio: 82.3:70.6 =x : 40.4, hence x=47.1. —Lenin

[1] See present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 585–90.—Ed.

[2] See The Agrarian Question and the “Critics of Marx”, Vol. 13. —Lenin

[3] For 1900 we have returns by size groups for the number of high income farms, i.e., farms with a product valued over $2,500. Here are these figures: among farms of less than 3 acres, the proportion of high-income farms was 5.2%; 3 to 10 acres—0.6%; 10 to 20 acres—0.4%; 20 to 50 acres—0.3%; 50 to 100—0.6%; 100 to 175—1.4%; 175 to 260—5.2%; 260 to 500—12.7%; 500 to 1,000—24.3%; 1,000 and over—39.5%. We find the proportion of high-income farms in all the under-20-acre groups to be greater than in the 20-to-50-acre group. —Lenin

[4] [PLACEHOLDER.]

[5] Excluding produce used as feed. —Lenin

[6] Less than 0.1%. —Lenin

[7] [PLACEHOLDER.]

[8] Interpolations in square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated.—Ed.

[9] The number of wage-earners in agriculture, or rather the growth in their number, is obtained from the following ratio: 82.3:70.6 =x : 40.4, hence x=47.1. —Lenin

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

Template	Form
BrowseTexts	BrowseTexts
BrowseAuthors	BrowseAuthors
BrowseLetters	BrowseLetters