An analysis of the complexity and contingency of class formation in South Africa
First, the complexity and contingency of class formation
The accumulation of cattle was most pronounced among the workers and peasants, followed by small commodity producers, and then wealthy farmers and business owners earning rent.
Among wealthy farmers and entrepreneurs earning rent, the high number of chickens is due to small-scale broiler breeding for local markets, some of which are run by women.
Pig ownership by worker farmers, as well as wealthy farmers and business owners earning rents, reflect market-oriented enterprises run mainly by women.
Allotment workers averaged only four chickens and one pig and were characterized as "middle class" in agricultural assets.
Discussion and comparative analysis: The results of using class typology illustrate clear patterns between class categories. These differences are not only reflected in the trend of different forms of labour exploitation.
It is also manifested in reproductive strategies, access to different types of income, assets and family composition.
This shows that my revision of labor exploitation rates is valid despite limitations in the use of income data.
Livelihood survey results and life histories have confirmed that in Hiloh and Keskamahuk, there are social class differences in the local communities where these joint ventures are implemented.
However, aspects such as generational differences, gender, religion, race, and ethnicity are intertwined with class in complex ways.
There are also important differences between the two sites in terms of the historical trajectories of class formation, particularly land use and consolidation, which help explain very different results.
At the obvious level, the difference between the results is a function of the size of the beneficiary group and the scale of production.
2. Labor exploitation rate
2,000 cows are kept on 745 hectares of land, and only 35 families receive dividends.
That's in stark contrast to Hilo, who raises 450 cows on 900 hectares and has a huge beneficiary group of 395 households, so there are smaller dividends and fewer joint venture jobs.
The differences in breeding strategies in these case studies partly reflect the way in which the 35 landowners accumulated large amounts of land prior to the joint venture.
The historical process of accumulation and class formation can be partially explained, by a large number of wealthy peasants and business owners and worker peasants more widely engaged in agriculture.
Receiving a larger joint venture dividend could also reinvest the surplus in own agriculture, while affecting its labor exploitation rate.
This is in stark contrast to Shiloh, where most landowners reported abandoning the cultivation of irrigation schemes between 1994 and 1997 when the agricultural parastatal was dissolved.
Except for brief attempts by the government to resume crop production, most of the land is used only for grazing cattle. As a result, access to paid work and social benefits becomes relatively more important for the reproduction of these families.
This explains why in Hilo, the number of wealthy farmers and business owners earning rent is relatively small, while Shiloh's workers and worker farmers who hold quotas rely heavily on wages.
The broader context of Shiloh's unemployment also illustrates the determination of class categories for supplemental food producers, who rely almost exclusively on social subsidies and are supplemented only by small amounts of self-employed agriculture and small trade.
3. Social relations involved in joint ventures
In Shilo, the historical structure of irrigation schemes, the different nature of land rights, small communal lands, and the history of land conflicts all produced very different historical trajectories of class formation.
In the times of the Fatherland, most families received dividends or salaries from collective farms, which was surprisingly continuous with the social relations involved in the joint venture.
Thus, in Hilo, no examples of historical accumulation through land and agriculture are found, and the owners of irrigated landowners accumulated in Hilo mostly do so outside of agriculture, for example, where worker farmers invest their wages in cattle.
In Hilo, most landowners have given all land use rights to the joint venture, and a few have reserved some 1/4-hectare food plots.
This limits the ability of the Shiloh family to continue farming on their own, to the same extent as the family.
In order to understand Shiloh's increased level of conflict relative to within the group, it is instructive to compare the class structure of these families with the situation of irrigated plots.
Clearly, there are differences between these families in these two locations; In Hiloh, however, this differentiation is more extreme.
Especially classes like small commodity producers, who have little or no access to wage labor, and mostly exploit their own domestic labor in small trades.
Families identified as supplementary food producers rely heavily on social grants and can therefore be considered a rather vulnerable class.
In households with irrigated land rights, neither category can be identified.
Shiloh's emerging conflict stems in part from the more severe reproductive squeeze that many families suffer. As poverty deepens, the number of hired labor outside joint ventures decreases.
Families are accumulating fewer and fewer cases in agriculture, and new agricultural investments have become the scene of resource and employment struggles. About 74 percent of Shilo's irrigated landowners are distributed workers and worker farmers.
As a result, Shiloh's irrigated landlords were concentrated in class categories that were "primarily exploited by others" and vulnerable families who were unemployed or underemployed.
Reference: Commodity Research: Fresh Produce Production under Smallholder Irrigation in South Africa
#5,000 years of history ##把地球的故事讲给宇宙 #
