PLANTATION SYSTEMS, LAND TENURE AND LABOR SUPPLY:

AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BRAZILIAN CASE

WITH A CONTEMPORARY STUDY OF THE
CACAO REGIONS OF BAHIA, BRAZIL

BY

Gervasio Castro de Rezende

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Economics)

at the

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

1976
 © Copyright by

Gervasio Castro de Rezende

1976
 PLANTATION SYSTEMS, LAND TENURE AND LABOR SUPPLY:
AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BRAZILIAN CASE
WITH A CONTEMPORARY STUDY OF THE
CACAO REGIONS OF BAHIA, BRAZIL

Gervasio Castro de Rezende

Under the supervision of Professor John D. Strasma

ABSTRACT

The thesis discusses the apparent paradox of the rise and reproduction of the dominant
export sectors taking the form of a low-wage, technically-backward but profitable production
in the context of a “naturally” land-abundant, labor-scarce economy, as has been the case
historically in Brazil. This "paradox" is explained by the determined social frameworks of
production, which have included slave labor as well as other forms of “cheap” labor. In this
way it is argued that these capitalist sectors have been able to create for themselves an
“unlimited supply of labor.”
The social relations of production in this capitalist sectors, on the other hand, are
analyzed in terms of what they have in common as means and conditions for production of
surplus labor under determined technical condition, in particular the technical conditions of
production of “necessaries” (or “subsistence goods”). These technical conditions of
production of necessaries, in their turn, are analyzed as an aspect of a fundamenta1 duality
export production/subsistence production that has been found to be a general feature of
capitalist development in the backward countries.
A se1ected survey of a broad range of historical examples is presented in order to
suggest that these structural features seem to have been, rather than the exception, the general
historical pattern. The Brazilian is then discussed against the background of the coffee
economy in the nineteenth century. The role of land tenure is exemplified with an analysis of
the Northeastern sugar economy, in the transition from slave to free labor.
As an empirical contribution to the subject, the “cacao region” of Bahia is analyzed
on the basis of data collected in 1972-73 for a sample of about 3,000 farms. It is
demonstrated the existence of sharp duality between the cacao plantation sector and a petty
production (or “peasant”) sector, where alone the “subsistence goods,” in relatively inferior
technical and economic conditions, are produced.
 This duality, on the other hand, is related to the region’s plantation-dominated
agrarian structure, in a contribution to the problem of agrarian reform in Brazil.
 ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It was thanks to the support received from the Instituto de Planejamento Economico e
Social (IPEA) of the Brazilian Ministry of Planning, as well as from Ford Foundation, that I
was able to come to the University of Wisconsin for graduate work in the years 1971-1973;
after returning to Brazil, IPEA has made possible full-time work on this dissertation, and has
covered my expenses with the field trips to Southern Bahia. In addition, I have been
permitted to come to the United States for thesis defense, and Ford Foundation, again, has
helped finance the trip as well as other expenses.
Professor Donald Harris, formerly at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has
supported this project from its very beginning. Without his reassuring comments and a
permanent interest on this work, it would simply have been impossible for me to continue.
Although he could not remain as the chairman of my committee due to his departure for
Stanford University, we managed to continue discussing crucial issues in this thesis. In an
important sense, therefore, he is also responsible for this work.
Professor Eugene Havens has also strongly supported this project and made some
important comments stressing the need for an historical perspective. Thanks to him, Professor
James O’Connor has also read and presented comments on the original project.
Professors John Strasma, Ralph Andreano, Willard Mueller, Don Kanel and Thomas
Skidmore have read the manuscript and presented valuable comments. Having been asked to
replace my original thesis committee, they have not required from me an adoption of
theoretical or methodological perspectives that they themselves might have preferred;
instead, they accepted the previous work I had developed with Professors Harris and Havens,
and I was always pleased to receive comments that have contributed for improvements in the
presentation of my argument. In particular, I would like to thank Professor John Strasma’s
close scrutiny of the cacao case study, and many of his criticisms and observations have been
considered in the final version. My own capacity to complete this work depended to a great
extent on the support given by the members of my committee, and for this reason I express
my deep gratitude to them.
Professor Emilia Viotti da Costa, now at Yale University, read parts of an earlier
version of the manuscript and presented useful comments as well as a reassuring interest, that
 iii
was also expressed by Professor Celso Furtado. Professor Warren Dean has kindly made
available to me the manuscript of his forthcoming book, whose relevance for this work has
been fundamental. I have also benefited from the interest and penetrating comments of my
friend, Professor Antonio Barros de Castro, of Universidade Estadual de Campinas; it was
thanks to him that I was able to present an informal discussion at Campinas, that proved to be
very helpful. Basic theoretical questions have been discussed also with Pasquale Scandizzo,
of World Bank, as a result of which I decided to introduce in the thesis a more systematic
theoretical discussion. Stahis Panagides, also of World Bank, presented useful comments to
the initial versions of the project; as an expression of a close friendship, he has constantly
reassured me in my efforts to deal with questions that have always deeply concerned him.
Professor Edmar Bacha, of Universidade de Brasilia, was also helpful in criticizing initial
attempts to frame the analysis, as well as some ways to develop the argument. Finally, the
former Superintendent of INPES, Professor Anibal Villela, has also shown a reassuring
interest in my work.
I have benefited particularly from deep discussions with Moacir Palmeira and Afranio
Garcia, of the Master program in social anthropology of the Museu Nacional in Rio de
Janeiro. Palmeira’s own work has greatly influenced my perceptions of basic issues, and it
has been unfortunate that I have not been able to discuss critically some of his propositions.
To a great extent, Hermino Ramos de Souza and Ana Maria Reis, of CEPLAC, must

share in the work on the cacao regions. We managed to establish a friendly work relationship,

on the basis of which a common project for analyzing the data was designed and

implemented. Hermino Ramos, in particular, as the coordinator of CEPLAC's survey, had to

solve almost insurmountable problems related to the processing of the data. The former

coordinator of CEPLAC's project Levy Cruz, of IICA, has made possible my access to the

data; other people at CEPLAC have also been very friendly as well as helpful.
 iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................1
II. LABOR AND LABOR SUPPLY. (I) A SURVEY OF A NINETEENTH CENTURY
EVIDENCE...........................................................................................................................4
III. LABOR AND LABOR SUPPLY. (II) AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK ..................30
IV. LABOR AND LABOR SUPPLY (III) AN ANALYSIS OF THE HISTORICAL
EVIDENCE.........................................................................................................................57
V. COFFEE AND LABOR SUPPLY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BRAZIL ...................72
VI. AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND LABOR SUPPLY IN BRAZILIAN AGRICULTURE
...........................................................................................................................................107
VII. AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF A CONTEMPORARY PLANTATION SYSTEM: THE
“CACAO REGIONS OF BAHIA, BRAZIL.....................................................................119
VIII. SUMMARY AND CONLUSIONS ..............................................................................207
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................210
 1
CHAPTER I

I. INTRODUCTION

The discussion of the problem of agrarian reform in Brazil has taken the form of a
debate on the relationship between agrarian structure and economic development of the
country. To a great extent, this debate centered around the capacity of agriculture to satisfy
the demand for food and raw materials required by the process of industrializition, as well as
for expansion of exports. A hypothesis of “rigidity of agricultural supply” was advanced as a
justification for agrarian reform, as the Three-Year Plan for Economic and Social
Development (1963-65) has stated it:

“The rigidity of the agricultural supply, that results, to a great extent,

from the deficient agrarian structure, entails that the agricultural prices
increase faster than industrial prices (...). The terms of trade (...) force the
industrial sector to transfer part of its income to the agricultural sector (...).
Losing substance, the industrial sector sees diminished its capacity of
investment, while the concentration of income in the rural areas prevent
the masses from contributing to the growth of the national market. (...).
The present agrarian structure constitutes, then, a grave obstacle to the
economic development of the country, and its transformation is a
requirement for the progress of the Brazilian society”.

A contrary view, however, soon sought to “demonstrate”, as Celso Furtado has put it,
“the functionality of the country’s agrarian structure. The agricultural sector would have
performed brilliantly its role in the process of development (...)”1 . Such a conclusion was
mainly based on the evidence that agricultural prices had not increased in relation to
industrial prices, contradicting therefore what should be expected if there were any
insufficient of supply relative to demand for agricultural products; analyses of “price-
responsiveness,” in addition, showed that this result was an expression of a “satisfactory”
capacity of agriculture to “respond” to market incentives.2

1
Furtado, C., “A Estrutura Agraria no Subdesenvolvimento Brasileiro”, in Analise do ‘Modelo’ Brasileiro (Rio:
Civilização Brasileira, 1972), p. 113.

2
For relevant works, see Delfim Netto, A. et alii, Agricultura e Desenvolvimento no Brasil (Sao Paulo: Estudos
ANPES nº 5, 1965); Pastore, A. C., “A Oferta de Produtos Agricolas no Brasil,” in Pastore, J., ed., Agricultura e
Desenvolvimento (Rio: APEC, 1973); Castro, A. B., “Agricultura e Desenvolvimento no Brasil,” in Sete
Ensaios sobre a Economia Brasileira (Rio: Forense, 1969).
 2
The present thesis seeks to contribute to a critique of this “price-responsiveness”
literature, in its attempt to imply, as Furtado has pointed out, that “it would thus be thrown to
the ground the thesis that the present agrarian structure constitutes an obstacle to an authentic
development of the country”. For, still following Furtado, in this implication it is “pushed to
the background the question of whether an agriculture that “responds” to a changing demand
is actually developing, that is to say, if it raises its technical level, if it allows a qualitative
change in the human resources, if it implies an improvement in the standards of living of the
rural population”3 .
The problematic that is focused in this thesis has been largely ignored in the previous
debate, and has only recently been introduced in the discussion by Furtado. It has to do with
the relationship between agrarian structure and the socio-economic conditions of the rural
population, on the one hand, and the structuring of the labor market and the technical level of
agricultural production, on the other hand. An historical argument is presented according to
which, as a necessary outcome of the social relations of production that have constituted
historically Brazilian agrarian structure, expansion of production -- manifesting indeed a high
degree of “price-responsiveness” -- has not implied a “qualitative change in the human
resources”, much less “an improvement in the standards of living of the rural population”.
In addition, the technical backwardness of important sectors of agriculture is shown to have
been related, in a definite sense, to these social relations of production. This historical
analysis, while in itself representing a contribution relevant to the explanation of the
historical roots of Brazilian underdevelopment, is nevertheless intended primarily as a means
to sharpen our capacity to analyze the present conditions. Thus, for instance, while discussing
the structural insertion of petty producers in the coffee economy in the nineteenth century, we
were trying also to learn something that might be relevant for the analysis of the minifundia
sector today; in several other ways, the historical analysis had for ultimate reason-d'etre to
shed light on the present conditions.
This historical argument is restricted to the export sectors, the ones more closely
related to the world economy. It limits itself, furthermore, to the coffee economy in the
nineteenth century. Chapter V presents a detailed analysis of coffee production, bringing to
the forefront of the discussion the structural features of that economy. In Chapter VI, some
general conclusions related to the coffee economy are summarized; at the same time, the
Northeastern sugar economy, in its transition from slave to free labor, is also discussed, as a
 3
particularly illustrative case of the determining role of agrarian structure.
An empirical analysis of the “cacao regions” of Southern Bahia is presented in
Chapter VII; by focusing on a contemporary situation, an attempt is made to strengthen the
proposition that the analysis of the socio-economic conditions that characterize the insertion
of the majority of the rural population in the social relations of production --founded on
definite (property) relationships to the means of production -- is of paramount importance for
the analysis of the technical level of substantial sectors of Brazilian agriculture, as well as for
the analysis of the labor market. It becomes clear then, the concern of this thesis with present
conditions of Brazilian economy and society.
An attempt has been made to present the argument within a theoretical perspective. A
selected survey of a broad range of historical experiences is presented, in Chapter II, in order
to suggest that the incorporation of the backward countries, through their “export sectors”,
into the world economy has been characterized by social relations of production with definite
implications for the labor market as well as for the technical and social conditions of pro-
duction in the “subsistence sectors”. The rise and reproduction of these social relations of
production -- being our contention that the Brazilian case is just a particular instance of this
historical process -- is analyzed in connection with the labor needs of these “capitalist
sector”; while stressing the concrete social forms of insertion of labor in these export sectors,
we tried to pose the analysis of these forms as a theoretical issue, and for this reason we
present, in Chapter III, an exposition of the Marxian theoretical framework for the general
analysis of the capitalist mode of production, stressing, in particular, the connection between
the social conditions of production, labor exploitation and accumulation of capital. In Chapter
IV, in a discussion of direct relevance to the analysis of Brazilian agrarian structure, we try to
argue for the need to analyze the concrete social and economic conditions in those capitalist
sectors in connection with accumulation on a world scale. Some elements for such an
analysis are presented as a contribution to this task, but their tentative character should be
taken into account.

3
“A Estrutura Agraria...”, p. 113.
 4
CHAPTER II

II. LABOR AND LABOR SUPPLY. (I) A SURVEY OF A NINETEENTH CENTURY

EVIDENCE

Introduction

The selective historical evidence that follows has two main purposes. The first is to
document the several non-market, political mechanisms of formation of a supply of labor that
have accompanied the rise and development of the export sectors in the respective areas
surveyed.
It is expected that this admittedly cursory survey of the relevant literature should
serve as a contribution to the development of a critique of the standard conception implicitly
embodied and Lewis-type models regarding the relationship between “capitalist”, or
“modern” sectors, on the one hand, and “traditional”, or “subsistence” sectors, on the other
hand. Such a conception has been aptly characterized in this way by an author:

“(...) the development of capitalism is conceived of not only as an

ultimately beneficial process but also as a spontaneous process in the
sense that it is induced exclusively, or almost exclusively, by ‘market
forces’ (i.e., the free choice of individuals on the market place) with no
or little role assigned to open or concealed forms of compulsion”4 .

The second purpose of this chapter is to use the evidence in order to suggest, in a

preliminary way, how even a “spontaneous” labor supply to such capitalist sectors, rather

than being an expression of freedom of choice of the laborer -- being, in this sense, a market

phenomenon -- is ultimately an expression of absence of choice inherent in the lack of

alternatives of earning subsistence but through wage labor. In this connection, the evidence

is useful in suggesting how the historical processes that led to proletarianization and hence to

several specific forms of wage labor, have been, at the same time, politico-economic

processes that implied the restriction, and in some cases the pure and simple destruction, of

4
Arrighi, G., “Labour supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of the Proletarianization of the African
Peasantry in Rhodesia”, Journal of Development studies, vol. 6, (1969-70), April 1970, p. 199.
 5

the possibilities for autonomous development of the non-capitalist, or “subsistence”, sectors.

With these purposes in mind, the rise of the “migrant labor” system in Africa is discussed in

the first section. In the second section, the general process of capitalist development in the

Caribbean is surveyed in the concrete cases of British Guiana and Puerto Rico. The first

serves for us to understand better indenture labor in its nineteenth century version, while

Puerto Rico provides an important example of forced labor.

The third and fourth sections present the cases of Peru and Mexico, appropriate for a

glimpse at another form of compulsory labor, namely, debt peonage.

Section 1 -- Wage labor in Africa

1.1 -- The “ labor problem”: a general survey

In a general survey of the African colonization by European powers beginning in the

late nineteenth century,5 Greaves contrasts the labor demand for mining, agriculture,

construction works, etc., with the conditions underlying the native’s labor supply decision:

“Under their customary economy natives work regularly and

methodically for the attainment of recognized ends, and what we have to
consider here is how the introduction of capitalistic forms of production
affects their motives for working and the final ends to which their effort is
directed. The scope of the market to which they have access is greatly
enlarged; in place of a choice limited by direct exchange in a particular
environment, indirect exchange and foreign trade bring within their reach
an extended range of both consumption and production a1ternatives. They
may satisfy their usual wants by new means or increase their scale of total
wants; and the purchasing power for these new purposes must be acquired
by changing their production system from direct to indirect, that is, either
by working for wages or by growing crops for sale.

The relative advantages of these two forms of occupation depend

upon how their different degrees of profitability compare with the living
conditions they respectively offer. Through the superior efficiency of its
equipment and organization a plantation may be able to offer a higher rate
of remuneration than the native can earn by independent production; or, on
the other hand, a plantation may find its overhead and management costs
5
For a periodization of African history on the basis of the different patterns of relationship to Europe, see Amin,
S., “Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa -- Origins and Contemporary Forms”, The Journal of
Modern African studies, vol. 10, nº. 4 (1972),pp.503-24.
 6
so high that it cannot afford to pay labour as much as a peasant can obtain by
selling the produce of the same amount of time and labour expended on lis
own account. And besides this difference in the productivity value of his
labour, another determinant in the native’s choice of occupation is the
difference in the conditions under which he will have to work as a wage-
earner and as an independent producer”6 .

“To the extent that the native’s choice excludes foreign

employment, or accepts it only at a rate which the productivity value of
their labour does not warrant, then, if foreign enterprise is to be carried on,
the problem arises of devising expedients which will make the supply of
labour conform to the requirements of employers. (…)”7 .

It is against this background that Greaves discusses “(…) the actual measures for

regulating the supply of labour which are in force in various areas”:8

(1) “The first group of these belong to the category which we

described above as destructive of the basis of native independence. The
outright annexation of all land over which they claimed jurisdiction was
the original method of colonization by the European Powers, and in so far
as they were able to implement their claims they struck at the roots of the
independence of the indigenous race. (…)”9 .

(2) “In most of the territories with which we are dealing foreign
enterprise felt the need of local labour while the natives had not been
deprived of enough of their land to make them dependent upon wage
employment for a livelihood, and the work required from them could only
be secured by imposing political obligations which made it necessary, or
by creating new desires for purchasable commodities which made it
voluntary. (…)”10 .

Greaves presents a brief, but impressive, account of the specific ways compulsion was

used:
“‘The reason why the native works when he is told to’, said the reply of

6
Greaves, I. C., Modern Production Among Backward Peoples (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1935), pp.
112-113. Elsewhere, Greaves contrasts these conditions, in a highly suggestive manner, as “the supervised ranks
of a labour camp”, on the one hand, and “the companionab1e freedom of his village”. (Ibid., p. 162).
7
Ibid., p. 121.
8
For another general survey of these “actual measures”, see the relevant chapters in Kloosterboer, W.,
Involuntary Labour Since the Abolition of S1avery (Leiden, Netherlands. E. J. Brill, 1960).
9
Greaves, Modern Production, p. 131. Elsewhere, the author clarifies her position when she says that, thanks to
the changes in land ownership, the natives “must either earn wages or pay a labour rent to the new landowner”.
(Ibid., p. 124)
10
Ibid., p. 136.
 7
South Africa to the International Labour Office in 1929, ‘is because he is afraid
something worse will happen to him if he does not’. This is probably as
good a description of the basis of forced labour as can be given in a few
words; it is a system that depends upon penalties for non-performance
instead of rewards for performance; and evidence is not lacking that when
the labour did not come up to the expectations of the supervisor
‘something worse’ did happen to the native. It would serve no useful
purpose to recount here the regime of the chicote which was responsible
for the ‘red rubber’ of the Congo Free State, the resourceful atrocities that
accompanied the recruitment of labour in French Africa, nor the abuses of
a ‘modern slavery’ in Portuguese Africa; they were all denounced by
contemporary investigators, and they have been regretted -- or repudiated
-- by the highest authorities, yet they continued, and many existed in only
a modified form until the economic crisis in 1930 reduced the demand for
labour. All these coercive practices had one basic principle, the
determination to show the native that you were prepared to kil1 in order to
enforce your will; and after a few examples he became tractable. One
form of threat which appears to have been both widespread and long-lived
was to send a force of native police to a village where they seized the
women and children as ‘hostages’, and recruited the men as labourers.
Under such a system payment was clearly an irrelevant matter”11 .

An indirect measure, however, was put into practice by the Colonial Powers, namely,

taxation.

“(...) it acts alike upon those who have not been accustomed to
money, those who do and those who do not want more goods, those who
are reluctant to work, and those who dislike emp1oyers; in order to pay the
tax they must all either sell some produce of their own or work for wages.
(...) In all African colonies and protectorates there is now either a poll or
hut tax payable in money besides the labour dues for which the natives are
liable at certain times”12 .

Informing us of the naked violence involved in such methods of creating a supply of labor,

Greaves says:

11
Ibid., pp. l44-145.
12
Ibid., pp. 141-142. Myint has also said that “Sometimes the pressure was applied directly, and the
administrative power of the colonial government or indigenous rulers was used to direct labour into the mines
and plantations. More frequently, the pressure was applied indirectly, by imposing a poll tax or a hut tax which
obliged the indigenous people in the subsistence economy to come out and work in the mines and plantations so
that they could pay their taxes”. The Economics of Deve1oping Countries (New York: Praeger, l97l), p. 61. As
to the role of “indigenous rulers”, Greaves informs us that “(...) When a supply of workers is required, the
district official requisitions a certain number of men from each chief or village headman; chiefs who are
progressively minded (sic) and co-operate with the Government receive some measure of payment in
recognition of their status and their services, while those who cannot meet the demands are fined or imprisoned,
and if they prove unfriendly to the administration eventually removed”. (Modern Production, p.141).
 8

“A tax is, of course, just as much an involuntary contribution as

forced labour and can only be obtained on the same principles. At the
present time if the failure to pay it can be traced to any defection on the
part of the chief he is imprisoned; if the people themselves have omitted to
obtain the money they are required to work the tax off at the discretion of
the Government; but in the earlier stages of development (sic) tax
collecting was accompanied by far more drastic methods of compulsion
than these. The mildest method appears to have been the ‘punitive
expedition’ of the British, which burnt the huts on which taxes had not;
been paid, or the kraa1s of tribes who were in arrears with their poll tax.
The French secured the fulfillment of tax obligations by tournees
pacifiques d’impot, which aimed at intimidating the natives by physical
violence. (…)”13 .

1.2 -- The Rhodesian case

The general picture presented by Greaves can be improved upon thanks to a

detailed study of a particular example, namely, Rhodesia14 . The author purported to show
how

“(...) dualism in Rhodesia (i.e. the technological, economic and political

distance between the two races) was less an ‘original state’, progressively
reduced by market forces, than ti was the outcome of the development of
capitalism itself. (...) market forces did not ab initio favour capitalist
development. Real wages remained at a level which promoted capitalist
accumulation not because of the forces of supply and demand, but because
of politico-economic mechanisms that ensured the ‘desired’ supply at the
‘desired’ wage rate. Before the determination of wage rates and rates of
accumulation could be ‘safely’ left to market forces, the Rhodesian
capitalist system had to undergo the process of ‘primary accumulation’.
(…)”15
13
Ibid., p. l43.
14
Arrighi, "Labour Supp1ies…”.
15
Ibid., p. 221. Another author has also argued, now for the case of South Africa, that “(…) an adapted form of
the traditional subsistence methods provided for hundreds of thousands of Africans a preferable alternative to
wage labour on white colonists’ terms (...). (...) it is suggested that the crucial post-mineral period was one in
which non-market forces predominated; in which discriminatory and coercive means were utilized by the
wielders of economic and political power to disadvantage the African peasantry; and that an economy was
created whose structure was such as to render ‘market forces’ highly favourable to the white, capitalist sector.
The decline in productivity and profitability of African agriculture -- and the corollary of greater dependence by
Africans on wage labour -- is in an important sense the outcome of the nature of capitalist development in Soutb
Africa”. Bundy, C “The Emergence and Decline of a South African Peasantry”, African Affairs, Oct. l972, pp.
370-1. Amin has generalized that, for the “Africa of the labour reserves”, “capital at the centre needed to have a
large proletariat immediately available. This was because there was great mineral wealth to be exploited (gold
and diamonds in South Africa, and copper in Northern Rhodesia), and an untypical settler agriculture in the
tropical Africa or Southern Rhodesia, Kenya, and German Tanganyika. In order to obtain this proletariat
 9

Arrighi starts by explaining the low rate of African participation in the labour
market, in late nineteenth century, by “the ‘discretionary’ character of African participation in
the money economy” and “the low comparative effort-price on income earnable through the
sale of produce”16 . It is against this background, also brought to the forefront by Greaves, that
the author analyses the “measures taken by the Government to eliminate the labour shortage”,
enforcing that “political rather than market mechanisms were to be the equilibrating factor in
the African labour market”17 .
(1) In the first place,

(…) forced wage-labour was an obvious device for closing

gaps between supply and demand in the labour market and it was
widely resorted to in the early days of settlement. (…)

quickly, the colonizers dispossessed the African rural communities -- sometimes by violence -- and drove them
deliberate1y back into small, poor regions, with no means of modernizing and intensifying their farming. They
forced the ‘traditional’ societies to be the supplier of temporary or permanent migrants on a vast scale, thus
providing a cheap proletariat for the European mines and farms, and later for the manufacturing industries of
South Africa, Rhodesia, and Kenya”. Amin, “Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa ...”. p. 519.
16
“Labour Supplies …”p. 206. For the meaning of a “discritionary” or “necessary” participation in a money
economy, as well as the concept of “effort-price”, see Ibid., pp. 206-207. For an earlier analysis of “the factors
that determine whether and for how long an individual African villager will offer his labor for paid
employrnent” on the basis of a similar theoretical framework, see Berg, E. J., "Backward-Sloping Labor Supply
Functions in Dual Economies -- The African Case”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. LXXV, n°. 3,
reprinted in Wallerstein, I., ed. Social Change: The Colonial Situation (New York, 1960).
17
Ibid., p. 207. For Berg, since “Most Africans in the past (and many today) could (...) be regarded as reluctant
(...) it is no surprise that until about 1930 in most of the continent the securing of a labor force in the exchange
sector depended largely on the exercise of direct or indirect coercion. (…)” (op.cit., p. 121). In the case of
Kenya, another author has argued that “(…) African economic structures more or less sufficed for African
societies -- insofar as they ever had done so -- before the British came. European settlers and administrators
eventually discovered, however, that to obtain sufficient numbers of Africans for labor, they would have to
coerce Africans out of their existing economic structure by transforming the structure totally”. More
specifically, “European settlers and officials sought to formulate plans to produce enough African laborers at
the wages the s ettlers deemed necessary. The alternative was failure of the British program of economic
development through European colonization. Beginning in 1902 with the basic commitment to, and first arrivals
of, European settlers, British officials began to evolve a 1abor policy”. Wolff, R. D., The Economics of
Colonialism, Britain and Kenya, 1870-1930 (New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 90, 97. “By
the late 1920’s, they had forced the African population as a whole to play its assigned role in their plantation-
based economic structure. (...)” (Ibid., p. 116) For a discussion of such a policy, see, in addition to Wolff’s
work, Clayton, A. and D. C. Savage, Government and Labour in Kenya 1895-1963 (London: Frank Cass, 1974).
In this last work, the authors conclude that “By 1914 [Kenya] was for almost all purposes divided into white
settled areas where economic development, even if unsound or in debt, was to be protected; along with closely-
administered, efficiently-taxed African reserves, the more densely populated of which were spoken of as the
‘labour-producing areas’. (...) In the reserves economic development was at best only taking place under
criticism and obstacles, more often it was not taking place at all for fears that the labour supply would be
reduced. (...) “(p.65). Wolff’s “labor policy” is taken by Myint to be a “cheap labor policy”, and its “sponsoring
(...) had far-reaching implications. Since peasant production was the main alternative to working for money
wages, it followed that there was a conflict of interest between providing cheap labour for the mines and
plantations and for the government, and the development of peasant cash production. In so far as the colonial
governments regarded the requirement of cheap labour to be of paramount interest, therefore, peasant
agriculture was deliberately discouraged or at least 1argely neglected so as not to spoil the labour market”.
(Economics of Developing Countries, p. 61)
 10

This practice was one of the causes of the African Rebellions of

1896-97 and was subsequently; abandoned, at least in its crudest
forms, in order to avoid a cost1y repressive apparatus. but even as late
as the early 1920’s ‘a hint from the Native Commissioner to some of
the headmen [would] usually bring out the desired number of young
ones to work’. In 1908-9 a ‘hint’ of this sort increased the supply of
labour in two districts by 50 percent, and the abnormally high rate of
African participation in the labour market recorded in 1911 was
largely due to pressures of this sort”18 .

(2) Taxation was another device.

“A hut tax of 10s. for every adult male and 10s. extra for each
wife exceeding one was imposed as early as 1894 and ten years later it
was replaced by a poll tax of £1 on each male over 16 and 10s. upon
each wife exceeding one. (…)

Taxation had, however, some shortcomings. For taxation, by not

discriminating between incomes obtained from sale of produce and
incomes obtained from the sale of labour time, did not alter the
discrepancy between the effort-price of the two types of income. It
could therefore, as it did in many instances, simply lead to the
extension of the acreage under cultivation and/or to more intensive
cultivation of the land. This was not, of course, the case in those areas
which were located far from the centres of capitalist development
(mines, towns and lines of communication) and were not reached by
traders. For Africans living in these areas the only way to earn mone
yto pay taxes was to sell their labour-time”19 .

“(…) The extension of taxation to such territories, the recruiting

activities of various governments and private agencies, and,
subsequently, the spreading of new tastes and wants, soon turned
Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and later Nyasaland (Malawi) and
Mozambique into reservoirs of cheap labour which enabled Rhodesian
employers to overcome the labour shortage of the first two decades of
this century (...) the proportion of extra-territorial Africans in the total
African wage 1abour force rose from less than 50 percent in 1904 to
68 percent in 1922”20 .
18
“Labour supplies...”, p. 207.
19
Ibid., p. 208.
20
Ibid.,p. 210. The connection between Portuguese “recruiting activities” in Angola and Mozambique and the
function of these former colonies as reservoirs of cheap labor for South African mines is analysed in O’Brien, J.,
“Portugal and Africa, A Dying Imperialism, Monthly Review, May 1947, p. 28 “(…) The threat of forcible
displacement under intolerable conditions assures acceptance of the same or worse inhuman wages and working
conditions which either do not involve the worker’s separation from his family or do not degrade him in the
eyes of family and friends or himself. Thus, Africans tend to ‘prefer’ to contract directly with a company at
lower wages, or to work under brutal conditions in the mines of South Africa. (...) the ‘choice’ of one of these
alternatives is a reaction to the threat of forced labor. (…) “In a careful study of the Mocambique Thonga and
their (former) subjection to Portuguese colonial rule, another author has concluded that “(…) the perpetuation of
 11

(3) A third device (non-market force) was land expropriation. Such a measure
“would significantly increase the effort-price of participation in the produce market”. Indeed,
it is to be expected that, dispossessed of his land, the peasant would have no other a1ternative
but to earn his subsistence through the sale of his labor-power. In one stroke, his participation
in the money economy would become “necessary”, taking in addition a specific form,
name1y, wage labor. Arrighi points out, however, that the effects of land expropriation,
contrary to what is “commonly assumed”, materialized in a complex way. Granted that “By
1920 the African people had been expropriated from more than three-quarters of all the land
in the country”, they were allowed, however, to “remain on their ancestral lands upon
payment of rent or commitment to supply labour services”. The problem that Arrighi poses is
then why European production developed on the basis of such institutional devices, rather
than the more conventional capitalist wage-labor. Hhe explains such “semi-feudal relations”
as arising, first of all, under conditions of abundant land and scarcity of labor. “As the Native
Affairs Committee Of Enquiry (1911) pointed out, ‘it would be very short-sighted policy to
remove these natives to reserves, to their services may be of great value to future European
occupants’. Land was abundant and labour scarce, so that land with no labour on it had little
value”. Secondly, he sees the rents and “other payments exacted from African tenants”
valuable to the capitalist economy”. Thirdly, he points out that the capitalist sector continued
to rely heavily upon African supplies of produce, and any reduction thereof would have
seriously hit the dominant mining interests”. Finally, capitalist relations in agriculture were
being hampered by market forces themselves: “the low opportunity cost to the African
peasantry of supplying surpluses of ‘subsistence produce’, the scarcity of cheap wage labour,
and the smallness of the financial resources at the command of would be European farmers,
were all factors that made the latter's economic position precarious. Moreover, capitalist
agriculture was a highly risky enterprise. For the market was relatively small and prices,
being mainly determined by African production of marketable surpluses, fluctuated widely
from season to season”21 .

the Rand migratory current among the Thonga continues to be intimately related to the pressures maintained by
Portuguese colonial policy”. Harris, M., “Labour Emigration among the Mocambique Thonga: Cultural and
Political Factors”, Africa, vol. XXIX n°. 1 (1959), as reprinted in Wallerstein, Social Change: The Colonial
Situation, p. 103.
21
“Labour Supplies...”, pp. 208-209. Such “semi-feudal” relations were also established in South Africa (see
Bundy, op.cit.) and Kenya (see Wolff, op.cit., pp. 125-l26). The Mau Mau revolt of the l950’s in Kenyaq is
analysed by another author as a result or attempts by the European settlers to “elirninate the African squatter as
an independent producer, to be transformed into an agricultural labourer”.Furedi, F., “The Social Composition
 12

Arrighi contrasts these early decades of this century, however, with the period that
followed the early 1920's, when “African responsiveness to wage employment opportunities
increased continuously, irrespective of whether real wages were rising, falling or remaining
constant”22 . With an explicit consideration of the previous “political rather than market
mechanism”, he proposed that
“In analyzing the process whereby the sale of labour-time
became a necessity for the African population of Rhodesia, attention
must be focused upon two tendencies: (a) the transformation of
‘discretionary’ cash requirements into ‘necessary’ requirements; and
(b) an upward tendency in the effort-price of African participation in
the produce market resulting from a growing disequilibrium between
means of production (mainly land) and population in the peasant
sector and a weakening of the peasantry’s competitive position on the
produce market”23 .

1.3 -- The “Migrant Labor” system -- a critical discussion

The selective survey presented before on the actual historical foundations of wage
labor in Africa does not emphasize sufficiently a particular feature of this wage labor, namely
its being migrant wage labor, “(...) men temporarily in paid employment who shuttle between
home villages and employment sites”. Such “migrant labor” is acknowledged to be “the
characteristic feature of 1abor markets in West Africa, as in African generally (…)”24 .

of the Mau Mau Movement in the White Highlands”, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 1, n°. 4, pp. 486-505. A
similar process of proletarianization is described, for South Africa, by Bundy, op.cit.
22
Ibid., p. 22l.
23
Ibid., pp. 210-211. For a detailed account of such tendencies, see Ibid., pp. 211-221. Arrighi points out,
however, that “All this having been said, it is probable that political mechanisms were progressively 1osing
their dominant role in undermining the peasantry’s ability to participate in the produce market and in
strengthening the competitive position of European agriculture. For, once capitalist agriculture has overcome the
initial difficulties related to its competitive weakness in the produce market and to its low productivity relatively
to the market wage rate, market forces themselves tend to widen the gap between productivities in peasant and
capitalist agriculture. The main reason for this is that capitalist producers in reinvesting surpluses tend to chose
those techiniques which increase the surplus itself at some future date rather than current output as the peasantry
can be expected to do. (...) In the second place, capitalist agriculture is not subject to the constraints which we
have seen to hamper certain types of innovation in peasant agriculture. It is therefore free -- and indeed
compelled under tne pressure of competition -- to innovate as trends in market conditions and factor endowment
change. (…)”. (Ibid., p. 221)
24
Berg, E. J., “The Economics of the Migrant Labor System”, in Kuper, H., ed., Urbanization and Migration in
West Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, l965), p. 160. Myint has also said that
“In most African countries the mines and plantations have so far been able to obtain the bulk of their labour
requirements on the basis of the migrant labour system, reinforced by taxation and administrative pressure”.
(op.cit., p. 63). “The peculiar feature of this labour-force is that it is migrant and temporary, returning to the
Reserves in between periods of work, and retains means of production in the African economy or has a claim on
 13
The compulsory measures adopted to extract labor from the African villages, as
well as the politico-economic processes that led to the formation of the “labor reserves” can
not be fully understood unless this specific form of wage labor is discussed.
As it has been put for the case of South Africa,

“The central problem faced by the employers of the Thonga was not to
get them to work for wages, but to employ masses of unskilled workers
under those historical and economically determined conditions peculiar
to the South African mining enterprise and the Portuguese colonial
venture which alone rendered the payment of wages viable
economically and secure politically. These conditions were the wages
paid could not include the cost of sustaining the family of the workers;
that the wage-earner and his family be widely separated in space and
that this separation endure for uninterrupted periods of considerable
duration, yet not so long as to break the ties binding the worker to his
‘tribal’ domain. The problem, in other words, was the very much more
complicated one of converting the male half, and only the male half of a
rural society into a labour force sensitive to the demands of an urban
industrial economy”.25 (ours the emphasis)

In other words, the fact that “(...) the transition process halted where it did (…)”,
that “(…) the peasantry was not completely pro1etarianized (…)”, has the answer in the
fundamental fact that
“(…) the embedding of migrant labour in the economic
structure conferred benefits on all the major interests which had a
political voice in the state. For urban employers, it meant that labour
was kept cheap, unorganized, and rightness, that overhead costs were
kept to a minimum, and the formation of an urban proletariat was
restricted. For white workers, it provided the security of membership
in a labour elite: the protection of white labouring interests meant a
partial solution to the Poor White problem -- Afrikaner squatters were
more fortunate than their black counter-parts. For white farmers, it
meant that low wages and the impermanence of compound life kept
the labour force closer at hand, once the threat of black agricultural
competition had been avoided”26 .

such means. Wolpe, H., “Capitalisrn and cheap labour-power in South Africa: from segregation to apartheid”,
Economy and Society, vol. 1 (1972), p. 433.
25
Harris, op.cit., p. 98
26
Bundy, op.cit., p. 372. Harris has also pointed out that “(…) the fact that migrant wage-earners need not be
expected to supply their families with food has constituted a great saving to European industrial and farm
interests. Free of the responsibility of buying food for their wives and children, the migratory mass has been
able to accept wages below what would be required to maintain a work force patterned after a nineteenth-
century European industrial proletariat”. (op.cit., p. 97) As it was most clearly put by Wolpe, in the case of the
migrant labor system, “(…) the relationship between wages and the cost of the production and reproduction of
labour-power is changed. That is to say, capital is able to pay the worker below the cost of his reproduction. In
the first place, since in determining the level of wages necessary for the subsistence of the migrant worker and
his family, account is taken of the fact that the family is supported, to some extent, from the product of
 14

Seen in a historical perspective, therefore, the migrant labor system becomes the
expression of a structural relation between a capitalist sector and the transformed traditional
African village economies. Analyzed this way, it is clear that the decision of the African to
sell his labor power becomes an expression of objective conditions: first, the impoverishment
of the traditional African economies in the politico-economic processes previously surveyed;
and second, as far as its migratory nature is concerned, such a feature become implicit in the
conditions of wage employment that are imposed upon the worker, in particular a real wage
that only suffices to his individual subsistence.
These objective conditions, however, are conveniently pushed to the background
to the very extent that the migrant labor system is explained as a result of the Africans
seeking “(...) a periodical spare-time activity to earn a certain sum of money in addition to
their claims on the subsistence economy”. The Africans are said to be
“(…) quite willing to accept the low wages offered by the mines
and plantations since these were regarded not as full compensation of
the alternative economic opportunities (which were not sacrificed) but
merely as an additional source of income. But precisely because of
this reason, the migrant labour normally returned to their families in
the subsistence sector after having worked a certain period and having
earned a certain sum of money. (…)”27

What is really an imposition upon the worker is thus made to be an expression of

his choice; indeed, migrant labor is turned into “(...) the most rationia1 economic choice open
to the villager, allowing him a greater family income than if he migrated permanently with
his family. (…)”28 The fact that the African “(…) exercises nothing remotely resembling
freedom of choice when he ‘chooses’ to participate in the system or to leave his family
behind” since “the other alternatives are economically unviable or even more odious than
labor migration”, is thus completely obscured.29 In this way, it becomes also obscured that

agricultural production in the Reserves, it becomes possible to fix wages at the level of subsistence of the
individual worker. (…)”. (op.cit., p. 434). For similar analyses of the migrant labor system, see Legassick, N.,
“South Africa: capital accumulation and violence”, Economy and Society, vol. 3 (1974), pp. 253-291, and
Meillassoux, C., “From reproduction to production”, Economy and Society, vol. 1 (1972), pp. 93-105.
27
Myint, Economics of Developing Countries, p. 58.
28
Berg, “Backward-Sloping Labor Supply Functions …”, p. 135. See also Berg, The Economics of the Migrant
Labor System”, passim.
29
O’Brien, J. and B. Magubane “The Politicsl Economy of Migrant Labor: A Critique of Conventiona1
Wisdom”, Critical Anthropology, Spring 1972, p. 95.To put Things into proper perspective, such a “choice”
would involve, for instance, nothing less than “travel hundreds of miles away from family and friends to live in
squalid conditions and work at dangerously heavy labor in a mine 16 hours a day for a pittance”. Ibid., p. 95. It
 15
“(…) Migratory labor fulfills the needs of the implanted capitalist
economic system, and therefore, the explanation of it must be sought
in the requirements of that system not in the psyches of the individuals
it exploits” 30 .

Section 2 – The Caribbean

A general historical picture of the Caribbean region, in what matters labor supply,

must be quoted here:

“The moment Columbus decided to build a settlement on the
north cost of Espanola (today’s Santo Domingo and Haiti), and to
leave there a reputed thirty-nine crewmen from the sunken Santa
Maria, the conquest, settlement, and ‘development’ -- the word is used
advisedly -- of the Caribbean region began. No part of the so-called
Third World was hammered so thoroughly or at such length into a
colonial amalgam of European design. Almost from the very first, the
Caribbean was a key region in the growth of European overseas
capitalism. The German historian Richard Konetzke has pointed out
that, before Columbus, there were no planetary empires; the Antillean
islands were Europe’s first economic bridgehead outside itself. Nor
were these islands mere points of entry, ports of trade, or ports of call;
in fact they were Europe’s first overseas colonies. As keystones in
ultramarine economic ‘development’, they required labor in large
quantities. For a long time, that labor was African and enslaved; free
men do not willingly work for agricultural entrepreneurs when land is
almost a free good. Philip Curtin estimates that 38 percent of the total
number of enslaved Africans who reached the New World ended up in
the islands alone -- something more than two and one-half-million --
between the first decades of the sixteenth century and the latter
decades of the nineteenth. Before and after slavery, however, other
groups supplied labor -- before slavery: indentured servants, convicts,
whores, petty thieves, labor organizers, the pariahs of Britain and
France, as well as countless native Americans from the Islands
themselves and from the New World mainland; after slavery: contract
laborers from India, China, Java, Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and
elsewhere. Nor have such movements of people ever really ceased.
They help to explain the unusual ethnic and physical heterogeneity of
the Caribbean region; but they also reveal the economically motivated
intents of distant rulers. It would be fair to say that almost no one who
was not European ever migrated to the Caribbean region freely; and
surely no non-European born in the region was ever consulted about
the advisability of additional migration. This demography by fiat was

is not difficult to conclude, therefore, with Amin, that “(…) only ‘the ideo1ogy of universal harmony’ can see in
these migrations anything other than their impoverishment of the departure zones”.(op.cit., p. 523).
30
Magubane and O’Brien, “Political Economy of Migration Labor…”, p. 95.
 16
remarkable, first of all, because it represented the replacement of indigenous
populations by outsiders unlike events in most of in Africa, Asia and
even Main1and Latin America; and secondly, because it was, in the
context of the time, always massive. More than half a million Indians,
both Moslem and hindu, were shipped to the Caribbean region, most
going to Trinidad and Guyana (erstwhile British Guyana), with
smaller numbers to Dutch Guyana, Jamaica and Martinique; about
150,000 Chinese were imported, principally to Cuba, more than
30,000 Javanese, entirely to Surinam (Dutch Guiana); even a few
Indo-Chinese ended tip in the cane fields. Whatever their biases in
other regards, the European planters of the Antilles were apparently
quite free of prejudice when it come to brute labor -- even fellow-
Europeans would do. Spaniards and Portuguese, in particular, reactive
the Caribbean colonies in large numbers in the nineteenth century,
proving -- as if it had to be proved -- that Europeans, too, could cut
cane beneath a broiling tropical sun.”31

2.1 -- British Guiana

The particular case of British Guiana has been studied by an author that tried to
show:
“(...) that the continued production of sugar without slaves had
nothing to do with the operation of blind economic forces. On the
contrary, the surviva1 of sugar was the result of severa1 deliberate
acts of policy. These included (1) the inhibition of the Negro village
economy as a viable way of life; (2) the radical reconstruction of the
plantation labor force through indenture immigration; and (3) the
massive injection of public capita1 into the sugar sector, a kind of
reverse transfer payment through which the Guyanese peasant and
indentured immigrant paid an annual subvention to the planter.

(…) Westminster, having destroyed s1avery in the name of

humanity and free trade, now seemed indifferent to the reconstruction
of some of the worst aspects of the preemancipation agrarian
system”32 .

These “several deliberate acts of policy”, on the other hand, are analyzed in the

31
Mintz S. W., “The Caribbean Region", Daedalus, Spring 1974, pp. 46-47.
32
Adarnson, A. H., Sugar without slaves: the poltical economy of British Guiana, 1838-1904 (New Heaven
Yale Univ. Press, 1972 , pp. 32-33. Adamson has summarized his ana1ysis in “The Reconstruction of Plantation
Labor after Emancipation: The Case of British Guiana, in Engerman, S. L. and E. D. Genovese, eds., Race and
Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies (Princeton Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 457-473.
 17

specific context of post-emancipation British Guiana; they are shown by Adamson to be a

definite response from the planters to the “labor shortage that developed as a result of the

constitution of a independent peasantry:

“(…) by the 1830’s some three to four hundred thousand acres

along the coast were fit for cultivation, and only a small fraction of this
area (sixty thousand acres in 1838) was absorbed by the sugar crop
Abandoned coffee and cotton plantations made up much of the
ba1ance. There was thus ample room for the free man to leave the
estates and set up for himself as an independent peasant. This ought to
have moved the planters to treat the apprentices with greater respect
and humanity. But ‘like the Bourbons, after whom their best cane was
named, they never 1earnt and never forgot’. The apprenticeship code in
British Guiana appears to have been the harshest in the Caribbean, and
their experience of it hardly disposed the ex-slaves to a life of wage
labor on the plantations”33 . (ours the emphasis)

Since a proper understanding of the meaning of “labor shortage”

in conditions similar to Guianese sugar production is very important for our
discussion, it seems worthwhile to quote an author in respect to a similar situation
in Jamaica:

“(...) The situation created by the exodus of the 1840’s presented

the planter with two grounds of complaint; first a general shortage of
wage labourers and second, a particular difficulty in obtaining that
labour at the time it was required. (…).

The general scarcity of labour represented a more fundamental

problem. It was generally assumed even by the planters that the model
for the relations between estate owner and estate worker after
emancipation was to be the contemporary English industrial system. It
was not explicitly recognized how completely the successful working
of the wage system in England had depended upon its social and
economic setting and its historical antecedents. The cardina1 point of
difference between the English and Jamaican situations waas perhaps
not so much the resistance of the Jamaican worker to the discipline
imposed by wage work (for there is ample evidence that the English
rural small-holder derived from a rather different Historical
background an equally strong resistance), but the power given to the
Jamaican by the availability of unoccupied land to establish himself

33
Ibid., p. 31. For additional references on tie “massive exodus” from the estate by the ex-slaves, and the
formation of the peasantry between 1823 and 1850 see Mandle, J. R., The Plantation Economy Poulation and
Economic Change inGuyana 1838-1960 Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1973 pp. 17-24; and also Farley, R.,
“The raise of Village Settlements in British Guiana”, Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 10, n°. 1 (March 1964), and
“The Rise of the Peasdntry in British Guiana”, Social Economic Studies, vol. 2, n°. 4 (1954).
 18
on a basis which made wage work a marginal activity. In this sense the
enclosure movement was the necessary prelude to the setting up of the
english industrial system.

(...) In particular, the part time worker valued the labour services
he sold to the estate according to less simple standards than the whole-
time worker. One can distinguish three separate elements: first, the
economic loss involved in absenting himself from his own cultivation;
second, the social inferiority of the role of wage labourer; third, the
fatigue and tedium of the work performed. His demand for cash
income also presented peculiarities, since particularly during the
period of the early settlements, it was sharply limited to those staple
needs which were not provided by the produce of his own land -- in
effect, clothing and the capital needed to buy the instruments of
cultivation. Neither of these had the pressing week-by-week urgency
of the rent and food bills of the urban worker. (...)”34 .

Given Guiana's similar conditions, one understand then that

“From the planter’s viewpoint, a peasant population living at the

level of subsistence or producing for the market would always, by
merely existing, represent a dangerous attraction to ‘his’ labor. The
ex-slave would always turn his back on the plantation if he could live
independently of it. From the outset, therefore, an inherent
contradiction existed between the peasant and plantation economies,
the essence of which was that the plantation could not tolerate any
threat to its monopoly of land labor and capital.”35 (ours the emphasis)

Against this background, Adamson discusses how the colonial 1egislature raised
the price and the minimum acreage for purchase of crown lands; how it broke up the
communal villages into individual holdings despite drainage and sea defense problem that
could be handled only on a common basis; how it minimized or refused appropriations for
roads, education, drainage, or sea defense; and how it failed to pass tariff legislation to
promote a domestic market for peasant produce. The result was apathy and despair in the
villages, but also a supply of part-time 1aborers for the plantations 36 .
Given such “1abor shortage” in the face of their 1abor needs, the planters “found
their peculiar answer to emancipation and the formation of the peasantry”37 in indenture
1abor. As early as 1838 indenture immigrants arrived in British Guiana, and the period from
1838 to 1854 saw the consolidation of the legal apparatus of a labor-repressive system that

34
Cumper, G. E., “Labour Demand and Supply in the Jamaican Sugar Industry, 1830-1950”, Social and
Econornic Studies, vol. 2, n°. (March 1954), pp. 59-61.
35
Adamson, Sugar without Slaves, p. 57.
36
For a detailed discussion of such policies, see Ibid., pp. 577-103.
 19
was to last sixty years38 .
“Labor-force abundance ultimately was achieved in the forty
years between 1850 and 1890 as the British reversed their previous
hostility to indentured immigration. During this period, 211,643
indenture immigrants were brought to Guiana on the country’s sugar
plantation. (...) This massive influx, averaging about 5,200 laborers a
year in a population which totaled only about 100,000 at the beginning
or the period, reestablished the condition essential for sugar
cu1tivation on plantations: the availability of a mass unskilled
undifferentiated labor”39 .

“Thus, from 1854 on, 1abor bound to the plantations by long

indenture was an essential feature of the Guyanese economy”40 .

One should perceive the nature of this “solution” more precisely. Immigration of
poverty-stricken people from India, in large amounts, in itself constitutes a measure towards
an adequate (from the planter’s viewpoint) solution to the “labor problem”. Indenture,
however, went beyond that, for, under the justification that the laborer had previously signed
“willfully” a “contract”, he was effectively made to work as suited to the planters, including
the real wages. To the immigrant it was denied the possibility of becoming an independent
peasant, or even a vagrant, at least for the period of indenture, usually extended by
reindenture. At the same time, competition among the planters was ruled out, since the
indentured laborer was tied up to a single plantation. Everything depended, of course, on a
highly developed apparatus of enforcement of such a “ legal” basis.41

37
Ibid., p. 56
38
For a discussion of the ambiguous position of the Colonial Office and its ultimate support for the necessary
repressive apparatus as well as the financing of immigration, see Ibid., pp. 46-56. As Mandle put it briefly, “The
British government was generally hostile to such immigration and during the period 1838-44, and again from
1848 to 1850, placed an embargo on the importation of indentured workers from India (…)”. (The Plantation
Economy, p. 24)
39
Mandle, op.cit., pp. 25-26. For similar statistics, see also Adamson, Sugar without slaves, pp. 104-106. As
other authors put it, “While world standards Caribbean migrations remain almost negligible in size, their
significance for population growth within the region is considerable; this is most fully demonstrated in the case
of British Guiana. Within the half a century following emancipation, the inflow of 237,000 was equivalent to
2.4 times the population of 1841 and was equa1 to 88 percent of the population at 1841. (...) between 1861 and
1891 both the total population of the country and its working force increased 1.8 – fold, which migration alone
made possible”. Roberts, G. W., and M. A. Johnson, “Factors Involved in Immigration and Movements in the
Working Force of British Guiana in the 19th Century”, Social and Economic Studies, vol. 23, n°. 1 (March
1974), p 74.
40
Adamson, Sugar without slaves, p. 56.
41
For a detailed account of the working of the system, showing its rea1ly oppressive nature, see Adamson,
Sugar without slaves, pp. 104-159. As Moore put it, “This relationship is nominally contractual, but not
breakable at will. Thus the worker is under a partially coercive system once he enters the relationship, whatever
the situation with respect to the original agreement. (...) Thus whether the ‘contract’ arises out of force and fraud
or out of the pressure of poverty, its performance involves a substantial element of direct compulsion”. Moore,
 20

2.2 -- Puerto Rico

The rise and consolidation of sugar production in Puerto Rico serves as additional
evidence for the forceful, non-market mechanisms of obtaining labor that appear to have
been, rather than the exception, the general pattern in the formation of the export sectors in
the backward areas of the world economy.
We shall begin with a broader characterization of the economic and social
changes brought about by the development of sugar production:
“The period following Emancipation in Jamaica (...) was a
period of recovery from the whole epoch of slavery, marked by the
growth of an independent, largely self-sufficient peasant population.42
Economically, the island was now of much less importance to the
metropolis, but from the point of view of the masses of the Jamaican
people, life unquestionably looked much better than before. The
corresponding period in Puerto Rico was one of vast economic
expansion and of unquestionable prosperity for insular and
metropolitan entrepreneurs. Yet the working population of Puerto
Rico had no cause to rejoice. Squatter farmers were cleared from
Crown and private land, and marshaled on the plantations to work in a
state approximating slavery. Slaves and landless freemen alike could
not leave the plantation without permission. The number of slaves
increased, and colored freemen were warned to show no resistance to

W. E., Industrialization and Labor: Social Aspects of Economic Development (Ithaca, 1951), p. 60. For further
references on indenture labor for several colonial areas see Ibid., pp. 60-61. See also Kloosterboer, W. op.cit.,
for a description of indenture labor indenture labor in Netherland East Indies, as well as other colonial export
areas. While serving as an example of a support for the system’s legal and its repressive apparatus, much first-
hand information is nevertheless presented in Coman, K., “The History of Contract Labor in the Hawaiian
Islands”, American Economic Association, Publications, Third Series vol. IV, n°. 3 (August 1903). For a
comprehensive study of the whole process of emigration From rural India, across the seas to more than a dozen
countries, starting in the early nineteenth century, and continuing up to the 1920’s and 1930’s, see Tinker; H., A
New System of Slavery, The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1830-1920 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press,
1974). According to Tinker, “Only gradually did the accumulation of evidence produce the conclusion that
indenture and other forms of servitude did, indeed, replicate the actua1 condition of slavery. (...)”. (op. cit., p.
xiv). As to the worldwide dimension of this new system of slavery, Myint informs us that “In other
underdeveloped countries, such as Malaya and Ceylon, where migrant labour of the African type was not
available on a sufficient scale, or where the development of peasant cash crops made taxation an ineffective
method of increasing the supply of 1abour to the mines and plantations, a different solution was adopted. This
was to import immigrant labour systematically and on large scale from the overpopulated countries of India and
China. The method of obtaining ‘indentured labour’ from India under which the employers agreed to pay the
passage of the immigrant workers in return for an agreement to work a certain number of years for a certain
wage rates was first adopted in the sugar plantations of the West Indies after the emancipation of the slave
labour. After that, it spread not only to the countries of South-East Asia, but also to places such as Fiji,
Mauritius, or East and Central Africa. Indeed, the immigrant labour from India and China was recruited on so
large a scale that it has been said that these two countries, together with Britain, were the ‘three mother
countries’ of the British Empire. (Economics of Developing Countries, pp. 62-63)
42
For the rise of the Jamaican peasantry, see Cumper, op.cit.; Paget,H., “The Free Village System in Jamaica”,
Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 10, n°. 1 (March 1964); and Cumper, G. E., “Population Movements in Jamaica,
1830-1950; Social and Economic Studies, vol. 5 (1956), pp. 261-280.
 21
the stiffened control of the enslaved population. No wonder that Merivale, in
comparing Puerto Rico and Jamaica in 1839, declared:

‘The tropical colonies of Spain commonwealths in

an epoch when those of most other nations were mere
factories; they are now rapidly acquiring the degrading
characteristics of factories, while ours, we may hope, are
advancing toward the dignity of commonwealths’.

(…) In the case of the Puerto Rico, the demand for plantation
labor in the early nineteenth century destroyed much of the peasant
population which previously had developed there (…).”43

Beginning in 1815, the Cedula de Gracias,

“now famous as a turning-point in Puerto Rico Rican history”,

“energetically encouraged the expansion of the sugar industry by
lowering duties and tariffs, granting new lands to sugar entrepreneurs,
and otherwise favoring and facilitating sugar production. The results
were all that the crown might have hoped for. (…) By the 1830’s,
there was ample evidence that Puerto Rico had embarked on her
sugar-and-lave career. (…).”44

Up to the early nineteenth century,

“(…) during the span of three hundred years through which

Puerto Rico had been lying undeveloped, [she] had taken on a
characteristics form. A substantial population had accumulated, a
population which supported itself principally by squatter farming for
subsistence. This population (…) was mainly of European origin and
was almost entirely free. (…).”45

“In substance, the availability of land on the island meant that a

free laborer was able to produce his own subsistence without entering
into significant relationships of dependence on landowners or the
state. Agricultural entrepreneurs, in turn, found the cost of labor
‘high’, by virtue of its unavailability. (…) Such was the situation in
Puerto Rico at the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century.”46

On the one hand, slaves did not represent more than 10 percent of the population,
and in 1817

“the Crown submitted to British pressure and agreed to abolish

43
Mintz, S. W., “Labor and Sugar in the Puerto Rico and in Jamaica, 1800-1850”, Comparative Studies in
Society and History, vol. I n° 3 (1959), pp. 278-279.
44
Ibid., p. 277.
45
Ibid., p. 276.
46
“Slavery and Forced Labor in Puerto Rico”, chapter 3 of Mintz’ Caribbean Transformations (Chicago: Aldine
Publ. “The Role of Forced Labour in Nineteenth Century Puerto Rico”, Caribbean Historical Review, n° 2
(1951), pp. 134-141.
 22
the slave trade in three years. The subsequent half-century was marked by the
most complicated maneuvers on the part of the Crown, which sought
on the one hand to satisfy the insatiable demands for more slaves on
the part of its Cuban and Puerto Rico hacendados and on the other to
avoid open conflict with Great Britain. (…).”47

Under these conditions,

“The [hacendados’] demands were met by the systematic

legalized coercion of free fellow citizens, whose only real sin was
their landlessness. (...) strict regulation of the labor of free but land
less citizens was initiated in 1824 (...)48 . Between 1824 and 1827, the
number of agregados increased from 14,327 to 38,906 (...). In the
same period, the number of slaves increased from 22,725 to 22,418.
(...) In 1837 the screws were tightened. (...) In 1849, as the planters
further reconsolidated their power, Governor-General D. Juan de la
Pezuela extended the law so that workers were compelled to carry
workbooks (the infamous libretas reglarnentarias) recording their
services, and maintained by the plantation owner or manager who
employed them. Workers were forbidden to change their place of
employment (...)”49 .

The slaves were also getting their lot:

“(...) General Prim’s infamous ‘Codigo Negro’ of 1843

empowered slave owners to punish slaves without recourse to civil
authorities and, for certain offenses such as bearing arms, made
colored freemen and slaves alike subject to severe penalties. It is
interesting that the expansion of the economy and the consequent
increased need for labor should reduce one set of laws which divided
the free population into those who owned land and those who did not
in order to extract labor from the landless, and another set of laws
which treated slave and landless freeman alike and which were
intended to prevent any weaking of the institution of slavery, from
within or from without.”50 (ours the emphasis)

47
“Slavery and Forced Labor...” p. 91.
48
A detailed discussion of the forced labor legislation is presented in “Slavery and Forced Labor ...”, passim.
49
Ibid., pp. 91-92.
50
“Labor and Sugar ...”, p. 278. Mintz finds it “(…) perhaps significant that El Grito de Lares, the revolutionary
spasm of 1868, was marked by a call both for the emancipation of the slaves and for the burning of workbooks –
suggesting that the nature of these twin oppressions was well understood by the revolutionaries. (…)”. Ibid. p.
278.
 23
Under these economic and political conditions, the “slave-and-agregado
plantation period” (1815-1876) saw the expansion of sugar production:51

Year Sugar (tons) Year Sugar (tons)

1812 17,536
1872-28 9,391 1824 22,725
1834-35 21,928 1834 41,818
1846-47 52,089 1846 51,216
1860-61 65,517 1860 41,736

In 1873, slavery and the forced labor legislation were abolished, with the proviso
that the freed slave should enter into “labor contracts” with their previous masters for 14
years; in 1876, then, the “family-type hacienda period” began, to last until 1899; the ex-
slaves and the (formerly compelled) agregados, however,
“Were still bound (...) by the need to eke out their survival on
Soil they did not own. In effect, the end of forced-labor laws and of
slavery brought agregado and liberto into keener competition in the
labor market. (...)

(...) Barring the all important distinction between enslaved and

free labor (...) the family-type hacienda was only a continuation of the
slave and agregado plantation. (.. .)”52 .

The next chapter of Puerto Rican sugar industry and of Puerto Rican sugar workers --
is written in the context of the world-wide competitive situation in the international sugar
market and of the American invasion in 1899. It began the “corporate land-and-factory
combine period”. The formidable process of technical transformation and concentration of
capital that ensued had for its counterpart a radical transformation in the social and economic
position of the worker; having for basis his case study of “Hacienda Vieja”, Mintz
summarizes this process in this way:

“It was in 1905-07 that the lands of Hacienda (now Colonia)

Vieja passed formally into the direct ownership of the American
corporation. We have noted that, among other changes, subsistence-
crop lands and pastures were put into cultivation, a tax was leveled on
agregado livestock, woodlands were cleared, and family management
was replaced with a managerial hierarchy composed mainly of
outsiders. Shortly after the acquisition of the Vieja land, a company
51
The data are from Mintz’ “The History of the Puerto Rican Plantation”, in his Caribbean Transformations, p.
99. This is revised version of the earlier “The Culture History of a Puerto Rican Sugar Plantation: 1876-1949”,
Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 33 (1955), pp.224-251.
52
Ibid., pp. 100-101.
 24
store was set up on the Colonia, and a system of token money introduced. (...)

(...) The ‘ticket system’ was employed in paying company store

bills. Workers purchased goods on credit, and the purchases were
charged against their pay slips at the end of the workweek. (…)

(...) Because so much of the land of Canamelar had been

consolidated under one corporate system, a ‘malcontent’ or ‘agitator’
who lost his job might search in vain throughout the municipality for
another. (…)

The socio-political atmosphere was menacing. (...) The threat of

losing one’s house, one’s job, one’s credit at the company store, hung
over everyone. Dependent on the corporation for credit, housing and
labor, workers could not organize easily. (...)

The maturity of the land-and-factory combine system came

during the First World War. The violent and important sugar industry
strikes of that period have never been forgotten in Canamelar. (...)”53 .

It seems obvious that the previous non-market measures (slavery, forced labor)
have given way to a labor market where indeed 1abor power was sold “spontaneously” by a
proletariat; to make this sale of labor power “flow” from subjective preference and derived
choices, however, can only serve the purpose of obscuring the objectively compelling
condition of economic dispossession of this proletariat.

Section 3 -- Peru

An additional evidence concerning the analysis of the labor market in the export
sectors of the colonial and neo-colonial areas, is provided by sugar production in Peru54 .
Sugar had first based itself on African slavery:
“(…) the total number of slaves introduced during the colonial
period, from 1532 until l82l can be fixed round 90,000. And the
majority of them resided on the coast during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries”55 .

Slavery was abolished in 1855 but a replacement of it had already been found in
the importation of Chinese “contract labor”. “Between 1849 and 1891, 15,294 coolies arrived

53
Ibid., “The History of a Puerto Rican Plantation”, pp. 120-123.
54
Plaza-Jibaja, Orlando E., “The historical Development of Sugar Cane haciendas in Peru:
Historical Data and Sociological Analyses”, M. A. thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
1973.
 25
in Peru. (…)”56
In the period 1862-1874, 61,449 Chinese indenture laborers entered Peru,
corresponding to a booming period for sugar production. “Between 1873 and 1874, the
greatest volume of sugar cane in Peru is produced. During these two years, up to two million
quintales of sugar are exported, which is the maximum exported up to that time. (…)”57
After the crisis years (1874-1884), great technical transformations and
concentration of capital took place; foreign capital strengthens its relative position, including
direct ownership of large sugar haciendas58 .
And yet, when we turn to labor, the by now familiar story happens:
“In order to solve the labor problem (...) the hacendados
attempt to re-contract the free coolies that were left from
previous years. However, this measure does not have the
expected results, and a very important process begins that forms
the base for the configuration of the present-day hacienda. By
means of a system known by the name of ‘enganche’,
indigenous labor is brought to the coast from the sierra. Through
an intermediary called the ‘enganchador’ who knows the
customs of the indigenous people and the places where they can
be found, the hacendado begins to supply himself with the
necessary labor force. The engachador gives the Indian an
advance payment of ten soles to be discounted from his pay. The
Indian signs a contract in which he promises to return the loan
by working, and in case he does not do it, he commits himself to
pay it with all of his goods that he owns and may own in the
future. The ‘contracts’ are for four months, but the enganchador,
and afterwards the hacendado, through a series of mechanisms
tie the Indian to the hacienda”59 .

Besides this form of debt peonage, the “labor problem” seems to have been solved on

the basis of a symbiosis between the Coast and Sierra. The Sierra haciendas, in this

55
Ibid., p. 74.
56
Ibid, p. 79. The role of the coolies in the guano sector, as well as the barbarous conditions
of work and pay, are discussed in detail in Levin, J. V., The Export Economies (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press ),pp.39-41, 85-90.
57
Plaza, op.cit., pp. 83-84.
58
Ibid., pp. 65-66.
59
Plaza, “The Historical Developement …”, p.86. According to another author, “Since the end of the 19th
century, when indigenous labour from the Peruvian highlands began to supplement and later replace the use of
indenture labour from China and Japan in the Peruvian coastal plantation, the system of enganche (literally ‘the
hook’) was the predominant method of recruitment of unskilled field labour, mainly cane cutters (macheteros)
and cane loaders (carreros). Many of the violent labour disputes in the industry in the first three decades of the
20th century were concerned with abuses inherent; in early versions of engache. (…)”. Scott, C. D., “Issues in
the Analysis of the Labour Market of Sugar Cane Cutters in Northern Peru, 1940-69”, mimeo, March 1975
(School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia), p. 4.
 26

symbiosis, perform the role of “producing” labor, becoming then “haciendas de ganado

humano” (human cattle haciendas).60

Section 4 -- Mexico
An additional example of the development or a “capitalist sector” on the basis of

compulsory mechanisms of forming a labor supply is debt peonage in Mexico’s Southeast

during the Porfiriato.61

“The large-scale increase of demand for products of the tropical

lowlands, embracing essentially the states of Yucatan, Tabasco, Chiapas,
parts of Oaxaca and Veracruz, led to a corresponding increase in
production there. From 1877 to 1910 production of rubber, coffee,
tobacco, sisal, and sugar increased sharply (…).

Southern planters resorted to four different methods to increase

output: (1) some increase in the use of machinery; (2) utilization of
outside labor; (3) changes in the mode of utilization of hacienda labor;
and (4) increasing use of laborers from communal villages. (...).

To the southern planters, outside labor meant labor from other

parts of Mexico. European labor was considered too expensive and one
attempt to bring Italian workers to Yucatan was a failure. Chinese and
Korean indentured laborers were brought to Yucatan, but many could not
withstand the climate, the diseases and harsh treatment, and become ill or
died. This alone would not have constituted a sufficient reason for
discontinuing the practice, but foreign labor importation ceased during
the Diaz period because more and more labor from within the country
became available.

Technically, such laborers were divided into two categories,

60
See Oliveira, F., “Para entender a Revolucao Peruana: do modo de producao asiático à crise de 1968”,
Estudos CEBRAP (10), Oct./Dec. 1974, esp. pp. 67-68. A detailed study of an example of such symbiosis is
presented in Miller, S., “Hacienda to Plantation in Northern Peru: The Processes of Proletarization of a Tenent
Farmer Society”, in Steward J. K., ed., Contemporary Change in Traditional Societies (University of Illinois
Press, 1967), pp. 133-221. The author shows how a Sierra hacienda was bought by a coastal sugar planter, that
required from the tenants, in “exchange” for access to land for their subsistence production, to go to work on the
coast. A further process of encroachment developed, destroying their possibilities of satisfying their subsistence
by own production, turning them into part-time wage laborers: “Almost all families at the sierra hacienda have
one or more relatives who live and work permanently on the coast. Land and population pressure in the sierra is
becoming more acute with every passing year, and at same point each family must come to the decision that one
of their member must go to the coast. (…)”. (Ibid., p. 194) The African “labor reserves” found their counterpart
in the Peruvian sierra
61
Katz, F., “Labor Conditions on haciendas in Porfirian Mexico: some Trends and Tendencies”, Hispanic
American Historical Review, Feb. 1974.
 27
deportees and voluntary contract workers. In practice, there was scarcely a
difference between them. The deportees were: (1) members of frontier
Indian tribes who had resisted the confiscation of their lands by Mexican
hacendados, principally the Yaquis of Sonora, thousands of whom were
sent to Yucatan62 ; (2) political dissenters from Central and Northern
Mexico who had resisted the Diaz regime, mostly villagers and urban
workers who were son to the plantations of Yucatan, the Valle Nacional
in Oaxaca, or to Tabasco; and (3) criminals, including genuine criminals
too poor to buy their way out of prison or at least out of deportation, as
well as vagrants and the unemployed considered criminal only by
Porfirian standards.

The contract workers were mainly expropriated peasants and

unemployed workers from Mexico City, as well as from other parts of
central Mexico, lured to the tropics by promises of higher pay or
simply made to sign labor contracts while drunk or drugged. The
enganchado, literally the ‘hooked one’, a contemporary observer
sympathetic to the Diaz regime wrote, ‘was generally a man who was
practically shanghaied from the cities of the temperate and cold zones
of Mexico. Often disease-ridden, almost inevitably soaked with
pulgue, captured and signed up for labor when they were intoxicated,
these men were brought down practically in chain gangs by the
contractors and delivered at so many hundred pesos per head. They
were kept in barbed wire enclosures, often under ghastly sanitary
conditions, their blood vitiated with drink and tainted with disease,
and were easy victims of tropical insects, dirt and infection.

In 1914 Woodrow Wilson’s special representative in Mexico,

John Lind, together with the commander of the American fleet in
Veracruz, Admiral Fletcher, was invited to visit a Veracruz sugar
plantation owned by an American, Sloane Emery, which depended
entirely on contract workers. ‘They were contract laborers’, John Lind
later reported:
‘Who were virtually prisoners and had been sent there by the
government. Admiral Fletcher and I saw this remarkable situation in
the twentieth century of men being scattered through the corn fields in
little groups of eight or ten accompanied by a driver, a cacique, an
Indian from the coast, a great big burly fellow, with a couple of
revolvers strapped to a belt, and a black snake that would measure
eight or ten feet, right after the group that were digging, and then and
the farther end of the road a man with a sawed-off shotgun. These men
were put out in the morning, were worked under these overseers in
that manner, and locked up at night in a large shed to all in tents and
purposes. Both Admiral Fletcher and I marveled that such conditions
could exist, but they did exist.’

62
For an account of the tragic fate of the Yaquis -- as well as their heroic resistance -- see Hu-Dehart, E.,
“Development an Rural Rebellion: Pacification of the Yaquis in the Late Porfiriato”, Hispanic American
Historical Review, Feb. 1974, pp. 72-93.
 28
John Kenneth Turner found similar conditions in the tobacco plantation of the Valle
Nacional of Oaxaca, which he vividly described in his now famous Barbarous
Mexyco. According to Turner, the average life-span of an enganchado in the Valle
Naciona1 was less than a year. ‘The Valle Nacional slave-holder’, Turner wrote,
‘has discovered that it is cheaper to buy a slave for 45 dollars and work him to
death in seven months and then spend 45 dollars for a fresh slave then (sic) it is to
give the first slave better food, work him less sorely, and stretch out his life and
his toiling hours over a longer period of time.’

Contract labor was also widespread in lumber-producing areas

of Mexico’s southeastern state of Tabasco. Workers there were attracted to the
Mejares properties by promises of high wages. These promises were effectively
kept for the duration of one year. After that, instead of being allowed to return
home, the laborer was kept on the properly and forced to work for less than half of
his first year’s wages by the Mejares brothers.”63
After describing the “living and laboring conditions” of the acasillados (a kind of
permanent hacienda workers), that became “more and more similar to those of the contract
workers”, with a “tendency for the acasillados to decline into slave like conditions”64 and
after suggesting the relationship between the operation of the tienda de raya, the company
store, and debt peonage, Katz proposes the broader political context of such a process of
formation of a supply of labor:

“As the system went far beyond traditional types of debt

peonage, new ways of enforcement had to be set up. At the top of the
system were national authorities. The army and the rurales fought the
Yaquis in the north and the Maya in Quintana Roo and were
instrumental in carrying out their deportation.65 At the bottom, s large
number of state and local authorities, private contractors and
haciendas policemen supervised the workings of the system. ‘So
valuable did this labor become’, an observer wrote, ‘that bribery and
government coercion, special detectives and policemen had to be

63
Katz, “Labor Conditions ...”, p. 14-17.
64
Ibid., pp. 17-18.
65
“In Yucatan, the Caste War between Mexican authorities and the Mayan Indians had begun in the 1840’s
simultaneously with the expansion of large scale p1atation agriculture’. John Coatsworth, “Railroads,
Landholding, and Agrarian Protest in the Early Porfiriato”, Hispanic American Historical Review, Feb. 1974, p.
68. A detailed account of the Caste War as “(...) resistance of Maya to further advance of sugar cultivation” is
presented in Cline, H. F., “The Sugar Episode in Yucatan 1825-1850”, Interamerican Economic Affairs, vol. 1,
n°. 4 (March 1948), p. 100. The connection between the Yucatan henequen hacendados’ labor needs and the
“pacification” of the Yaquis is stressed in Hu-Dehart, “Development and Rural Rebellion…” pp. 84-85.
 29
called in to capture and return the peons who ran away from their contracts and
judges and the mayors of towns were induced to arrest the
runaways.’”66

The connection between these “coercive mechanisms” and the expansion of export
production is clearly seen by Katz, when he says:

“These coercive mechanisms facilitated phenomenal increase in

the production of tropical goods during the Porfirian period. The
beneficiaries of this plantation system, outside of Yucatan, were
mainly foreigners: German coffee planters in Chiapas, Spanish and
Cuban tobacco producers in the Valle Nacional, American rubber
planters in the Tehuantepec area. In Yucatan the sisal hacendados
were all Mexican. The principal beneficiaries of the increase in sisal
production up to 1910, however, were not the producers but the
International Harvester Company.”67

66
Katz, “Labor Conditions …”, p. 21
67
“Labor Conditions …” 23. The pervasiveness of debt peonage in the coffee plantations of Mexico’s
Southeast, as well as in Guatemala and Nicaragua, can be seen from the travel accounts of a Brazilian coffee
planter around 1905-07; see Ramos, A., O Café no Brasil e no Estrangeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1923), pp. 287-362.
Interesting1y enought, Ramos complained that “If there was an invariable note to hurt my ears in every place I
have been, was the clamour against insufficient of hands. Wherever I arrived, I was bound to listen: ‘there aren’t
people’!” (Ibid., p. 357).
 30
CHAPTER III

III. LABOR AND LABOR SUPPLY. (II) AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

Introduction

The evidence presented in the previous chapter has included many cases in which
labor was obtained on the basis of open or concealed, as coercion, such as debt peonage in
Porfirian Mexico, the head tax in most of Africa, the enganche system in Peru, the several
forms of legislation enforcing compulsory labor, etc., and last not least, African slavery.
The variety of the situations surveyed -- in time as well as in space -- did not
prevent us, however, from calling attention to some circumstances that were salient in all the
cases studied. In the first place, the laborer was being required to work in a definite manner,
most conspicuously manifested in a long working hours (in cane-cutting, say) and meager
material benefits accruing to such. In the second place, this demand for labor was confronting
a situation where the laborer could satisfy his subsistence needs in alternative ways, this
circumstance being fundamental the understanding of his resistance in such demand that
therefore could only be satisfied in a coercive manner.
As against these cases of forced labor, the evidence surveyed has also depicted
many situations in which the demand for labor the export sectors has been satisfied on the
basis of an “spontaneous” supply of labor, as it was case, for instance, with the labor market
in the Puerto Rico sugar economy after the turn of the century. The most salient feature in
these situations, however, was the fact that actually no other option was available to the
laborer but to engage in wage employment, in order to be able to satisfy his needs. Such a
labor supply, therefore, was founded on a compulsion of a economic nature, since there was
not here possibility for the laborer to confront wage employment with an alternative.
In what follows we will present a general theoretical framework that will be used in Chapter
IV for the discussion of this evidence, as well as for the Brazilian case, to be discussed in
Chapter V-VIII. In Section 3, the Marxian conception of production is contrasted to the
Classical and Neoclassical conception of production, on the basis of a fundamental
distinction between production as a material-technical process and production as a social
process. Correspondingly a distinction is also made between the material-technical or natural
 31
form of labor and the social form of labor.
In Section 2, we will present some concepts and relations relevant for the analysis
of particular social form of production, namely, slave-based production, as it arose in the
modern conditions. The usefulness of these concepts and relations is stressed in Section, in a
critical discussion of the neoclassical analysis of forced labor, as expressed in the so-called
“economics of slavery”.
In Section 4, capitalist production and the corresponding social form of labor,
namely, wage-labor, are discussed.

Section 1 – Relations of Production and Production

… In the social production of their existence, men inevitably

enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will,
namely relations of productions appropriate to a given stage in the
development of their material forces of production. The totality of
these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of
society …68 (emphases mine)

These relations of production constitute the social framework of production; they

give to production a social character, distinct from its material-technical form. That is, over

and above the fact that production is a material-technical process, it is such a process in an

specific social manner. Thus in a slave economy production is carried out under the control

of a non-producer (the master), that is able to organize the labor activity of the slave in an

objectively arbitrary wau from the point of view of the laborer, since his will is ignored.

Production in a slave economy, therefore, is inseparable from the social framework of that

economy. The fact that a specific activity is carried out in one way or another is not

exclusively a technical, or a social matter; for instance, the rhythm of work activity becomes

determined given the master-slave relation. Consequently it becomes impossible to separate

out the material-technical form of production from its social determinants.

For the purposes of exposition, and without losing generally, we shall keep
framing our discussion having for reference a slave economy. Production is in the
first place an appropriation of nature by man: it is a natural process within nature. But
68
K. Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (New York: International Publishers,
1970), p. 20.
 32
since such an appropriation is mediated by social relations, it acquires a specific
social form; it becomes not only a combination of factors of production--human
purposive activity (labor); the soil and all the other natural elements; the materials of
labor; and instruments of labor--but a combination in a specific social manner. Thus
production in a slave plantation shares with production in a peasant holding the
common form of being both a material-technical, or natural process; both the labor
activity of the slave and the labor activity of the peasant perform a natural function;
they are factors of production. But while the peasant exercises a control over his work
activity, the labor activity of the slave is not under the latter’s control--the manner his
labor activity is exercised becomes influenced by the social fact of the laborer being a
slave. The labor activity of the slave, consequently, to the extent that becomes the
expression of a social relation, acquires a socia1 form; It is not any more merely
“labor,” but it is a definite form of labor. The labor of the slave is not any more of the
saire species as the labor of the peasant, because of the distinct social frameworks of
production. 69

Section 2 -- Production and Distribution under Slavery

2.1 A System of Production

Consider a closed economy producing m goods, the first n of them being
capitalist goods (or means of production) and the remaining m-n being consumption goods.
The latter include both “necessaries” and “luxuries.” It is assumed in the following:70
(a) that to each good there is available one and only one method of
production;
(b) that each process produces one kind of output, without any by-product;
(c) that there are no primary factors of production other than labor; labor is
homogeneous;
(d) that all capital goods have the same span of life, which is taken an unity,
so that there are no fixed capita1 goods in the proper sense left over to
the next period for further production after having been used in the

69
For Marx, the reduction of production to its material-technical form ”... rests on the confusion and
identification of the process of social production with the simple labour-process, such as might even be
performed by an abnormally isolated human being without any social assistance. To the extent that the labou
process is solely a process between man and nature its simple elements remain common to all social forms of
develoment. But each especific historical form of this process further develos its material foundations and social
forms ....” Capita1 (New York: International Pub1ishers 1967), vol. III, p. 883. (emphasis mine) The “simple
elements” of the labor-process, as Marx conceptualized them, are presented in Capital, vol. I, chap. 7, sec. 1.
70
The model being proposed here follows closely the one used by Michio Morishima in his Marx's Economics,
A Dual Theory of Value and Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. For a contrast between
this class of models of production and the Neo-c1assica1 (specifically, the Australian) theory of production, see
Wolfstetter, E., “Surplus Labour, in Synchronized Labour Costs and Marx’s Labour Theory of Value,” The
Economic Journal, Sept. 1973
 33
current period;
(e) that all goods have the same period of production, which is taken as one
unit of time;
(f) that each production process is of the point-input point-output type;
inputs are made at the beginning of the production period and outputs are
obtained at the end of the period, so that labor is used only once in each
production period.
Let a unit of good i be produced by aji units of capital good j (j = 1,...n) and li
units of 1abor.
The amount of 1abor embodied in one unit of good i, denoted by λi, is defined as
the sum of the amount of direct labor and the amount of labor embodied in other factors of
production used directly in producing a unit of good i. Evidently aji units of capital good j

embody aji λj units of labor, so that:

λi = a1iλ1 + a2iλ2 + ... + aniλn + 1 i (i = 1, ..., m)
λi (i = 1, ..., m) is defined as the labor embodied71 of good i. In the general case of
n capital goods and m-n consumption goods, the above equations are written more
conveniently, in matrix form, as:

ΛI =ΛI AI +LI (1)

ΛII =ΛII AII +LII (2)

where

a11 ... a1n a1n + 1 ... a1m 

AI =   AII =  
an1 ... ann ann + 1 ... anm 

LI = (l1 , ...,ln ), LII = (ln+1 , ...,lm)

ΛI = ( 1 , ..., n ), ΛII = ( n+1 , ..., m)
by solving (1) for ΛI and substituting in (2), we obtain
ΛI = LI (I-AI)-1 (1’)
ΛII =LI (I-AI)-1 AII +LII (2’)

From (1’) and (2’) it is evident that λi

71
Morishima calls λi the value of commodities. These concepts will be discussed in connections with
capitalist production; at that point, we shall discuss also the assumption of homogeneous labor.
 34
are not more than the employment multipliers discussed by Kahn and later by
Keynes, which can be ca1culated from Leontief’s input-output table, while the
first definition [given by (1) and (2) - GCR] imputes the total increase in
employment caused by an increase in output to the factors of production
utilized.72

In what follows it is assumed further that A1 is productive, in the sense that there
exists a positive vector x0 such that x0 > AIx0 ; then every capital good industry in the society
can simultaneously produce positive net outputs when they are operated at the levels x0 . If AI
is productive, then (I - A)-1 exists and is positive; hence ΛI and ΛII are also positive vectors.73

2.2 Labor exploitation and slavery

Labor, of course, is a human purposive activity. Let us define labor power as

“capacity to work,” embodied in a laborer. Denote by:

bn + 1
. 
 

B= . 
 
. 
bm 

the daily means of subsistence of such a laborer. These daily means of

subsistence are measured, in terms of labor-time, at ΛIIΒ. ΛIIΒ is thus the amount of labor
embodied in the dai1y means of subsistence necessary to the reproduction of the laborer, and
hence of his labor power.

Let T and T be the maximum and the prevailing 1ength of the working day
respectively; let ? = 1/T . Then the worker will work T hours a day, and will receive B/T (=
ωΒ) in means of subsistence per hour of work. The payment ωΒ corresponds to ΛIIωΒ hours
of labor; so that the worker gives one hour of labor and appropriates the equiva1ent of ωΛIIΒ
of labor. We define ωΛIIΒ as paid labor and 1-ωΛIIΒ as unpaid labor.
The rate of exploitation, denoted by e, is then defined as the ratio of unpaid labor
to paid labor, which is:

72
Morishima, op.cit., pp. 18-19.
73
Ibid., chapter 2, where it is shown that “productiveness” of ΛI, given other unrestrictive assumptions,” is
necessary and sufficient for positive ness of ΛII ΛII.
 35
Unpaid labor 1 - ωΛ II Β
e= = (3)
Paid labor Λ II ωΒ

The main point of the above definitions is to characterize a situation in which the
laborer, while realizing one hour of his labor-power, appropriates goods whose labor content
is less than one hour. The amount of labor that he appropriates for one hour of labor is then
paid labor; consequently the difference, if it exists, Is unpaid labor.
It is c1ear that the rate of exploitation is positive if and only if 1 > ΛIIΒ, or T >
ΛIIΒ. Since T ≤ T , we conclude that e is positive If and only if T , T and ΛIIΒ are such that:
N ’ ≥ T, > ΛIIΒ. (4)
Now, the labor embodied vector ΛII is determined by the technologica1
coefficients aijs and lis; these coefficients are not strictly technical data, because they
themselves depend on the intensity of labor, the more or less efficient use of the material
inputs, etc.; for instance, in one hour of labor a greater or smaller amount of goods may be
produced, depending on the intensity of work, so that neither the aijs nor lis are given in
advance, as it were.74 The prevailing working day T is by definition bounded by T the
maximum working day; historica1 experience should warm us to the elasticity of T and
hence of T. By the same token, B is equally elastic: subsistence needs contain a “moral and
historical element,” as we know since Ricardo.
From an economic point of view, the significance of slavery as it arose in the
modern conditions has to do has precisely with the determination of the labor embodied
vectors ΛI and ΛII, the working day T, and the vector of the daily means of subsistence of the
slave Β. These are specifically social matters: given slavery, all of them can be determined so
that e, the rate of exploitation, is positive. To illustrate the point, we may use a recent study
of American slavery in which it is proposed that the higher “geometric index of total factor
productivity” for Southern slave plantations, as against Northern farms, should be attributed,
amount other factors (as economies of scale), to the extraordinary high labor-force
participation rate (share of the population in the 1abor force). In the free economy--North and
South--approximately one third of the population was in the labor force. Amount slaves, the
1abor-force participation rate was two thirds. This was due 1argely to the inability of slaves,

74
Morishima has missed this point when he says that “... it must be noted that [λi ] are determined only by the
technogical coefficients, aij s and li s; they are independent of the market, the class-structure of the society, taxes
and so on.” op. cit., pp. 14-15.
 36
particularly women and children, to choose leisure, education, or work at home, if they
preferred it, to work in fields or other assigned tasks ….

In addition,

Plantations not only brought a 1arger share of the population

into the labor force, but they were also able to move closer to “full-
capacity” utilization of the labor potential than was true of the free
economy.

After ruling out a longer working day, as well as more days week, than free farmers, the
authors stressed the higher intensity of labor:
The higher rate of uti1ization of labor capacity was partly due
to what was, by the usual standards of farmers, an extraordinary
intensity of labor … black plantation agricu1turalists labored under a
regimen that was more like a modern assembly line than was true of
the routine of many of the factories of the antebellum era ….75

Equation (3) enables us to draw the exploitation rate curve

75
R.W. Fogel and S.L. Engerman, Time on the Cross (Chicago: Little, Brown and Co., 1974), pp. 207,208. An
excellent description of the intensity of labor in cotton production is provided by the authors (op.cit., pp. 202-
206). The significance of slavery in what matters the labor-process in further discussed in S.L. Engerman,
“Some Considerations Relating to Property Rights in Man,” The Journal of Economic History, March 1973,
especially pp. 48-56. Regarding the working day Engerman has referred to “the conventional descriptions of the
workday (‘sunup to sundown’ with chores left to be done after field work), the workweek (6 days during much
of the year, with some plantations or a 5 or 51/2 day field week during slack times), and the workyear (generally
only 3 or 4 days off for Christmas holidays) … most indications are that the total labor time of the slave, in
producing for the planter as well as on his own plots, exceeded that of free workers …. Most proslavery
southerners and anti-slavery northerners agreed that slaves worked longer hours than free labor -- that being the
frequent basis for complaints about the poor whites …” Ibid., pp. 51-52. In a recent paper, Fogel has stressed the
intensity of work, arguing that “the fundamental form of exploitation of slave labor was through increasing
 37
Figure 1
The exploitation curve in the (e,ϖ) plane. It traces. out a downward sloping curve,
starting from ϖ=1/ T and ending at ϖ=1/ΛIIΒ. (see Figure 1).
There are three other equivalent ways of defining the rate of exploitation e. If we
express the total amounts of paid labor and unpaid labor per working day we have,
respectively, ΛIIΒ and T-ΛIIΒ. The former is also called necessary labor and the latter surplus
labor. Necessary labor is, the labor expended during that portion of the working-day in which
the workman exerts an amount of labor equal to that embodied in his means of subsistence.
On the other hand, during the second portion of the working day it is extracted surplus labor.
Thus we have an alternative expression of (3):
Surplus labor
e= (3’)
Necessary labor

2.3 Surplus labor and surplus product

A further definition of the rate of exploitation can be given in terms of the
distribution of labor amount ni dustries. Let there be T laborers, who work T hours a day, in

society. In order to maintain them at the subsistence level, there must be produced Β N
amounts of subsistence goods per day. Therefore the total amount of labor time directly or
indirectly required for the production of the necessaries is given by:
TN = LI X I + LIIΒ N (5)

where N is the number of necessary laborers and X I is the vector of capital goods that have
to be produced, after having taken all-around multiplier effects into account. I.e.,

= ΛI X I + ΛII Β N
Surplus
labor
I
Necessary
labor (6)

The rest of the laborers, N - N, are unnecessary and can work either in the capital
goods industry for investment purposes, or in luxury-goods industry for the benefit of the

non-producers. They will, produce surplus-products represented by XII - Β N and X* I - XI,

where XI and XII are gross out-put vectors of the capital goods industries and the
consumption goods industries, respectively, satisfying the condition:
ΛI (XI – X* I) + ΛII (XII - Β N ) = T ( N - N) (7)

intensity per hour rather than through an increase in clock time hours per year …” “Three Phases of Clinometric
 38
while:
X* I =ΛI X I + ΛII XII (8)

The ratio of the total or social surplus labor to the socially necessary labor (T N -
TN) / TN, is shown, in view of (5) and (6), to equal the exploitation rate (3) or (3’) since:

T N - TN T N - [L I (I - Λ I ) -1 Λ II + L II ] ΒN 1 - ωΛ II Β
= =
TN [L I (I - Λ ) -1 Λ II + L II ] Β N Λ II ωΒ

Total surplus labor

Hence, e = = T N - TN (9)
Socially necessary labor TN
Every non-slave income an the system will have for material counterpart surplus
product; in other words, the system must be able to produce a surplus. Given
“productiveness,” the size of this surplus is governed by the size of the surplus labor. The
determination of surplus labor, however, involves (i) the degree of participation in the labor
force, expressed by N , the total number of laborers; (ii) the size of Β; (iii) the duration of the
working day T, as well as the intensity of labor. A new light is afforded, consequently, to the
economic aspect of control over labor.

Section 3 -- The Neoclassical Theory of Exploitation: A Critical Discussion

The content of the theory of exploitation presented previously may be better

understood if we contrast it with the Neoclassical theory of exploitation. Exploitation exists,
in the Neoclassical tradition, if the worker receives less than the marginal revenue product of
labor (in passing, it should be pointed out that the marginal product of a worker can only be
defined if the working day is also defined); such a concept has been originally proposed as
part of the characterization of monopolist situations in the labor market.76
Under slavery, there is necessarily a difference between the marginal revenue
product of labor and the slave’s maintenance costs: this is due to the fact that the labor costs
of individual production unit includes the profit, at the ruling rate, on the capital invested in

Research on slavery and its Aftermath,” American Economic Review, May 1975, p. 40.
76
The Pigouvian original formulation of this concept is discussed in M. Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect:
(London: Heinem, 1968), pp 434-435. Cf.also M. Dobb, Theories of Value and Distribution Since Adam Smith
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 115. It must be noted that in this Neoclassical analysis, the
labor supply curve is not influenced by the demand side of the market; as we shall see, this circunstance makes
the situation of control over labor, being analysed in the thesis, radically different from a situation of
monopsony of labor, since , in our case the supply of labor is controlled. (ore on this point below, p. 75)
 39
slaves. This difference is, according to Neoclassical economics, the measure of exploitation
in the system.
In view of the fact that the marginal product of labor is commonly, if
misleadingly, identified as the “just reward” of labor -- with the implicit consequence that the
marginal product of capital is seen as the “just reward” of the owner of property -- the
Neoclassical theory of “exploitation” is prone of ethical overtones.77
Fogel and Engerman have thus said:
“The labor power of slaves was also utilized without giving
slaves an equivalent return. This aspect of their exploitation was most
apparent in the case of hires. The man who rented a slave paid the full
market value of the slave’s services, but the slave received only part
of that payment. The slave’s income was the expenditure of the renter
of his maintenance; the balance of the value produced by slave went to
the owner of the slave in the form of a rental fee.78 (Emphases mine)

Even more explicitly, the association of the marginal product of labor to what the
slave “should” appropriate is clear in their assertion that.
As previously noted, a part of the income that slaves produced
was expropriated from them … Over the balance of the life cycle the
accumulated or present value of the expropriation mounted, on
average, to a total of $32. This last figure is 12 percent of the average
present value of the income earned by slaves over their lifetimes. In
other words, on average, 12 percent of the value of the income
produced by slaves was expropriated by their masters.79 (Emphases
mine)

In the Marxian theory of exploitation, presented before by means of reference to

the modern slave economy, what is focused is the capacity of the social system to generate
surplus labor on the basis of a definite control over labor in the labor process and a
determination of the subsistence basket of labor. It is apparent that a property income in the
system must somehow be related to this social feature of production, although it has yet to be

77
In its original formulation, J.B. Clark conceived of the marginal productivity theory of distribution “as
meaning that each factor, and by implication those responsible for its supply received the equivalent of what it
‘contributed’ to production: ‘the law itself’ said Clark, ‘is universa1 and hence natural.’ Although this in its
cruder, Clarkian form was subsequently disowned as untenable, some implication of attribution (and even more
of inevitability) still lingered, even in non-popu1ar textbooks, at any rate to the extent that the factor and its
supplier (or owner) were linked by any concept of the type of ‘abstinence’ or ‘waiting’ ...”. M. Dobb, op.cit., p.
176. See also M. Dobb, Po1itical Economy and Capitalism (Westpoint. Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972), pp.
179-183.
78
op.cit., p. 107
79
Ibid., p. 153. One wonders, therefore, about Blaug’s opinion that “the term ‘exploitation’ to describe a
situation in which labor receives less than its marginal value or marginal revenue product conveys the
unfortunate suggestion that labor’s MVP or MRP constitutes its ‘just reward’ … Pigou’s point has nothing to do
with equity…” (op.cit. p. 435).
 40
established the specific character of this relationship. Not only thus Neoclassical
exploitation would have its origin in slavery, i.e., not only the profit on the capital invested in
slaves would come from exploitation, but indeed any profit.80
The focus of the Marxian theory of exploitation, therefore, is the sphere of
production, broadly defined to include the social relations of productions of production that
give to production a definite social form; distribution, consequently, is not made independent,
for distribution becomes implicit in the social form of production, in the manner the several
classes relate in production. Production is thus seen not only as a natural or material-technical
process but also as a social process; as a social intercourse. In the Neoclassical traditional,
however.
Just as the individual is assumed to be a-social, so too is
production. instead of seeing production as a social process in which
human beings combine together within a specific framework of social
relations, vulgar economy sees production as an a-social or natural
process in which inputs of labour, land and means of production …
are mysteriously transformed; into outputs of material and non-
material goods.81

Production is reduced therefore to a technical matter: the technical possibilities

become represented, for instance, by a production function F(.) ; the only additional
information needed is the factor endowments K,L, say. One should only notice that the
amount of labor effectively used involves the determination of the rate of labor force
participation, the working day and the intensity of labor -- whose social character becomes
obvious in the case of a slave economy. It is precisely because production in fully specified
only on condition of specifying its social form that production cannot be considered as a

80
It is striking the ideological side of the matter; the 12 percent referred to in the text is, after all, not that much,
so that not very much was being “expropriated” from the enslaved worker in the U.S. South. On the other side,
even this “expropriation” was the return to a capital investment, and there was certainly “abstinence,” “waiting,”
etc., in the act of investment. Engerman has thus said that “the slaveowners’ ability to exploit, however, need
not imply other than normal profits, since there were costs of acquiring a slave … Thus the beneficiaries of the
currently achieved exploitation may not be those who have received the ultimate benefit from the involuntary
redistribuition of property rights, that benefit being abtained by the initial enslaver.” (op.cit., p 48) (Perhaps the
African chiefs? This is actually the answer provided by R.P. Thomas and R.N. Bean in “The Fishers of Men:
The Profits of the Slave Trade,” Journal of Economic History,December, 1974, pp. 885-914) Domar has also
defended the investor: “The buyer who pays this price, [i.e., “the value of the slave’s discounted net lifetime
marginal product”] will discover that he will earn not much more than the going rate of interest; he will
complain about the high cost of slaves and express doubt regarding the profitability of slavery in general …”
“The causes of Slavery or Serfsom: A Hypothesis” Journal of Economic History, vol. 30 (1970) Nos. 1-2, p. 22
n. 4.
81
R. Rowthorn, “Neoclassical Economics and its Critics - A Marxist View,” Pakistan Economic and Social
Review, Autumn 1973, p. 317.
 41
purely technical, or a-social, matter.82

The point we have just made may be better understood if we take for target
precisely the Neoclassical foundations of a proposed explanation of the rise of slavery. 83
The basic element in Domar’s model is the labor-land ratio. Being land abundant
in relation to labor no diminishing returns in the application of labor to land appear; both the
average and the marginal-productivities of labor are constant and equal, and if competition
amount employers raise wages to that level (as would be expected) no rent from land can
arise, as Ricardo demonstrated some time past ...84 Being the marginal product of land zero
(or near zero), land is, the Neoclassical sense, a free good. Even if land ownership is
monopolized by a class of “non-working land-owners,” says Domar, to the extent that
workers are free to move, competition among the employers will
drive the wage up to the value of the marginal product of labor, and
since the letter is still fairly close to the value of the average product
(because of the abundance of land) lett1e surplus will remain.85

If a class of non-working landowners is to be created, slavery (or serfdom)

becomes necessary:
With labor tied to land or to the owner, competition among
employers ceases. Now the employer can derive a rent, not from his
land, but from his peasants by appropriating all or most of their

82
Fogel and Engerman have thus provided us with excelent descriptions of the labor process in cotton
production, but the theoretical significant of this evidence is completely absent in their work. The same
observation applies to Engerman’s perception that slavery permits “the forcing of laborers off what would be
their desired suplly curve of choice weee voluntary, leading to a larger labor input than would be voluntarily
provided at a market-clearing wage.” (op.cit., p. 46) “The slave-owner is able to obtain higher output from his
labor force than might be obtained where labor is free, because of the ability to manipulating the supply of labor
available.” (Ibid., p. 48); thanks to “forced international migration” “the labor force was made available at
‘wage’ level below that which needed to be paid to attract white labor, and, presumably, below that required if
black African migration were voluntary.” (Ibid., p. 49) Evidently, it is a ,great advancement to see slavery under
this light; after all, one should contrast Engerman’s perceptions with Goodloe’s argument, criticized by
Engerman; according to the former, “slavery merely serves to appropriate the wages of labor -- it distributes
wealth, but cannot create it” (Ibid., p. 47 n. 9)
Findlay has (also acknowledged that”… the labor supply forthcoming from the slaves at each price is larger than
it would be if they were free.” As against a monopsony model, in his model “the coercive power of the slave-
owner increases the supply of labor obtainable at any given price. “Slavery, Incentives and; Manumission: A
Theoretical: Model,” mimeo., Columbia University, May 1974,pp. 8,9.
83
Domar, op.cit.
84
Ibid., p. 19. p The introduction of “capital does not change matters, for, since “per capita income is relatively
high (because of the ample supply of land),” and “the amount of capital for starting a farm is small,” “a good
worker should be able to save or borrow and start on his own in time.” (Ibid., p. 20)
85
Ibid., p. 20. In Chapter VI, we will show how concentration of landownership in the Brazilian conditions --
i.e., precisely in conditions of abundant land and thus of “free land” according to Domar’s Neoclassical theoy --
has been the key to the production of surplus labor, and thus for the existence of Domar’s “non-working
landowners.” What is focused there, however, is the lack. of free land for the rural population, economically
bound to the “plantations.” Our concepet of free land, however, is completely different from Domar’s.
 42
income above some subsistence level…86

Hence Domar’s maxim:

…the three elements of an agricultural structure relevant here --
free land, tree peasants, and non-working landowners -- any two
elements but never all three can exist simultaneously …87

It is our concern here to criticize this hypothesis solely on account of its being a
good example of the Neoclassical theory. In effect, hidden in Domar’s model is the
conception of a production function F (.) and relative factor endowments L/T such that FT is
close to zero; since these factor endowments are given, so must also be given the marginal
products of labor and land; the only relevance of slavery (or serfdom), therefore, becomes the
“exploitation” of labor -- it becomes a matter of “robbing” labor of part of “his” product.
Slavery is thus reduced to this: to allow a class of masters to appropriate a income whose
generation, whose origin, is alien to slavery itself: it has to do with technology and factor
endowments; it is an a-social matter. Production as such is not in the least effected in the
enslavement (or enserfdom) of labor. Domar -- because of his Neoclassical formation -- has
therefore obscured completely the role of slavery in enforcing the production of surplus labor
and of channeling it to the exploiting class; rather, (his) slavery leaves production unaffected,
for it is an a-social process, after all. He explicitly disregarded “the possibly greater reliability
of the slave and the lopper hours he may be forced to work …”88 All of this can only
illuminate further the distinctive features of the theoretical framework being presented in this
chapter.

Section 4 - Wage Labor and Capitalist Production

4.1 The labor theory of value: some elements89

Consider a situation where there is division of labor and privately owner means of
production. Due to specialization, any particular product does not provide utility to its
producer; this product is use-value only to others. This applying to all products, exchange

86
Ibid., p. 20.
87
Ibid., p. 21
88
Ibid.,pp. 22.
89
This section draws particularly on K. Marx, Capital vol. I, Part I, Chapters I-II; I.I. Rubin, Essays on Marx’s
Theory of Value (Detroit: Black & Red, 1972); R. Hilferding, “Bohm-Bawerk’s Criticism of Marx,” in E. Von
Bohm-Bawerk, Karl Marx and the Close of His System, ed. by P.M. Sweezy (New York: Augustus M. Kelley,
1949); and R.L. Meek, Studies in the Labour Theory of Value (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1973), chapters
4-6.
 43
becomes necessary, not only so that all the producers may satisfy their needs, but
furthermore in order that a shoe-maker, for instance, may be able to replace his materials and
means of labor an consequently to reproduce his production cycle.
Exchange in this situation becomes therefore implicit in the social form of
production. The products are produced as commodities: their useful qualities can be realized
only after they have been sold and bought. We are speaking consequently of commodity
production.
The producers confront, one another in the market as (simple) owners of
commodities; every producer is free to dispose of his property, but no individual producer
can affect the terms of exchange. His commodity has an exchange value that is given in the
relation of exchange to any other commodity; a particular relation, in any given moment,
depending upon many factors related to supply and demand.
These producers, therefore, are working for one another. Through the exchange
of their commodities, they are really exchanging their labors. Let us go deeper on this matter.
Any two producers establish relations of exchange only on the condition that they own
commodities qualitatively different; i.e., a cost is not exchanged for another coat equal to
itself. The different natural qualities of commodities, however, are a result of their being
products of qualitatively different concrete labors. Consequently, heterogeneous labors are a
requisite for exchange. But exchange cannot take place unless some relation of equiva1ene is
established: qualitative1y different commodities, in appropriate amounts, are made equal in
exchange. But this entails that some relations of equivalence is also established for the
heterogeneous concrete labors that have produced the different articles. In other words, their
differences are being negated, or abstracted from; these concrete labors become therefore
“labor in general” or abstract labor. Every concrete labor is reduced, or converted, to this
homogeneous substance; only on this condition can exchange take place. This conversion
involves also the reduction of skilled to unskilled labor, as Marx has shown:
Experience shows that this reduction is constantly being made. A
commodity may be the product of the most skilled labor, but its value,
by equating it to the product of simple, unskilled labor, represents a
definite quantity of the latter labor alone. The different proportions in
which different sorts of labor are reduced to unskilled labor as their
standard, are established by a social process that goes on be hind the
backs of the producers and, consequently, appear to be fixed by
custom.90

90
Capital, vol. I, p. 44.
 44
To the commodity as a use value--its natural form -- there corresponds labor in
its concrete form -- the natural form of labor. To the commodity as exchange value there
corresponds labor in its abstract form. Exchange value presupposes the commodity being
placed In a relation to other commodity; abstract labor presupposes that the concrete or useful
labors be placed in relation to each other. Because abstract labor presupposes such a social
process, abstract labor is a social form of labor.
A definite amount of this social substance -- abstract labor-- becomes embodied,
therefore, in a commodity. Consequently, besides having an exchange value, expressed by
the amount of any other commodity exchanged for it, a commodity contains an intrinsic, or
absolute substance: it is a receptacle of a portion of this substance. We define the amount of
abstract labor incorporated an a commodity its (labor-) value
When, at; the beginning of this chapter, we said in common parlance,
that a commodity is both a use value and a exchange-value, we were,
accurately speaking, wrong. A commodity is a use-value or object of
utility, and a value…91

…When looked at as crystals of this social stance, common to them

all, [the commodities] are -- values.92

In a commodity-society, therefore, the exchange of commodities becomes the

means for interconnecting the independent labors of the individual producers; it is through
the exchange of their products that these producers exchange their labors. The social
character of any individual labor takes the form of value, in a commodity. Labor becomes
represented in the value of a commodity because the commodities become the bearers of
social relations.
It is not, therefore because a commodity--as a use-value--requires labor as a
factor of production that labor is defined as its value. It is not the technical, but the social
form of production that is of concern in the labor theory of value.93 It is because the
commodities are produced in a specific social manner that abstract) labor -- the common

91
Ibid., p. 38.
92
Ibid., p. 38.
93
“The use-values, coats, linen, etc., ie., the bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements: matter
and labor. If we take away the useful labor expended upon them, a material substractum is always left, which is
furnished by Nature; without the help of man. The latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing the
form of matter. Nay more in this work of changing the form, he is constantly help by natural forces. We see,
them, that labour is not source of material wealth, of use-values produces by labour. As William Petty puts it,
‘labor is it father and the earth its mother.’” (Ibid., p. 43)
 45
social substance to which the several concrete labors are reduced -- becomes their value.94

4.2 - Definition of value

Consider then the model of production presented in Section 2.1. We call λi the
value of commodity i. These values are define in terms of homogeneous simple (abstract)
labor. It is taken for granted that a social process that “goes on behind the backs of the
producers” has converted the several heterogeneous concrete labors into this (socialized)
homogeneous labor. Any concrete labor activity will count as value-creating only to the
extent that it performs a socially necessary labor.

4.2 - Wage labor and capitalist (commodity) production

In the previous section, we were dealing with simple or petty, commodity
production, where the direct producers own the means of production. In capitalist commodity
production, however, the direct producers do not own the means of production, and for this
reason they cannot carry out production on their own account; rather, they hare to engage in
wage employment.95 The mans of production, on the other hand, are owned by capitalist that
organize the labor process with the purpose of earning profits on the capital invested.
As against slavery, the worker’s labor power is his property; it is not his person
that is object of sale and purchase, but merely his capacity to work, and this for a definite
period. The commodity here is not the worker himself, like in slavery, but only his labor
power. For this reason we depict the labor market as a sphere where the sale and purchase of
labor power goes on. At the same time, it; serves the purpose of denying that it is labor that is
sold by the worker, for “As soon as his labour actually begins it has already ceased to belong
to him; it can therefore no longer be sold by him.”96
In simple (or petty) commodity production, every producer’s participation in the
market consists of disposing of something of no utility to him, in exchange of commodities

94
“Where 1abour is in common, relations between men their social production are not represented as ‘value’ of
‘things.’ Exchange of products as commodities is a certain method of exchanging labour, and of the dependence
of the labour of each upon the labour of others, and a certain mode of social labour or social production ...” K.
Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part III, p. 127, as quoted in Colletti, L., From Rousseau to Lenin, Studies in
Ideology and Society (London: NLB, 1972), p. 78.
95
Marx distinguished the rise of wage labor from its reproduction. The former he locates in the “so-called
primitive accumulation,” a historical process of separation between labor and the means of production. In
Wages, Price and Profit, Marx refers to “primitive accumu1ation” as “original expropriation,” cf. Se1ected
Works (New York: International Publishers, 1968), p. 210; and Capital,vol. I, part III (Chap. XXVI-XXXIII).
The reproduction of the laborer as wage-laborer, however, has to do with the laws of distribution that
correspond to the capitalist relations.
 46
consisting of different use-va1ues. He starts with commodities and ends up with
commodities, but in the process he has gained utility. Circulation in petty commodity
production, therefore, can be summarized by the formula C-M-C’, where C and C’ stand up
for commodities and M for money. The essence of the matter is the fact that C’ is
qualitatively different from C. In capitalist production, however, circulation can be depicted
by the formula M-C-M’, expressing the fact that, after taking into account the process of
production, the capitalist; starts and ends up with money, a homogeneous substance, wht ca
make sense only if D’ is greater than D. The petty commodity producer sells in order to buy;
the capitalist buys (invests, or “advances”) in order to sell (recouping, with a profit, his
capital investment).
An analogy exists between the petty commodity producer and the wage-laborer.
The matter also disposes of a commodity whose use-value he cannot appropriate -- since he
does not own the means of production -- in order to buy commodities of different use-values.
He also, therefore, sells in order to buy. Both wage laborers and petty producers, then, can be
said to spend what they get; in this they differentiate themselves from the capitalists, that get
what they spend (Kalecki).
In a historical sense, it is under capitalism that commodity production attains its
fuller development. The social process of reduction of concrete to abstract labor,
presupposing as it does heterogeneous labors being placed in relation to one another, reaches
under capitalism, therefore, its full maturity.
The indifference to the particular kind of labor corresponds to a
form of society in which individuals pass with ease from one kind of
work to another, which makes it immaterial to them what particular
kind of work may fall to their share. Labour has become here, not only
categorically but really, a means of creating wealth in general and is
no longer grown together with the individual into one particular
destination … It is only here that the abstraction of the category
“labour in general,” labour sans phrase, … becomes realized in
practice. …97

Since the concept of value of a commodity presupposes in the first place the

96
Marx, Capital, vol. I, p. 537.
97
Marx, Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy , p. 210. “This self-abstraction of labor from the
concrete labouring subject, this acquisition by it of independence from man, culminates in the form of modern
wage-labourer. The inversion whereby labour no longer appears as a manifestation of man but man as a
manifestation of labour assumes here a real and palpable existence. … This ‘self-strangement,’ or acquisition by
labour of independence from man, culminates in modern industry, where it is not the labourer who ‘ applies the
conditions of labour, but inversely, the conditions of labour which apply the labourer’ … “Colletti, L., From
Rousseau to Lenin, Studies in ideology and Society (London: NLB, 1972), pp. 85-86.
 47
commodity as such, we conclude that the labor theory object precisely capitalist
production. Only under capitalism the requisite process of conversion of concrete into
abstract labor becomes actual in practice, allowing us to take it for granted in theory.98

4.4 Surplus labor and surplus value

Let us retain Morishima’s model as presented in sections 2.1-2.2. Call λIIΒ the
value of labor power. It is the amount of abstract labor embodied in the wage-goods bought;
by the worker. It is considered that, as any other commodity, labor power has a value given
by the labor time socially necessary for its production (or its reproduction); since the
reproduction of labor power presupposes the reproduction of the laborer, this value becomes
given by the labor time embodied the necessaries, or wage-goods that the worker consumes.
As before, the working day is given by T. The worker will receive per hour
ϖ=1/T of units of the daily means of subsistence, what means the payment ϖΒ in wage goods
per hour of work. In value terms, this is equivalent to ϖΛIIΒ hours of labor. As before, we
define ϖΛIIΒ as paid labor and 1-ϖΛIIΒ as unpaid labor. If we now express the total amount
of paid labor and unpaid labor per working day, we have respectively, λIIΒ and T-λIIΒ. The
former is also called necessary labor and the latter surplus labor. Since this surplus labor will
become embodied, as value, in a commodity, it is called surplus-value.99

4.5 Surplus value and profits

The essence of the capitalist mode of production, its sole driving force, is capital
accumulation, from which derives the “profit motive”:
… The expansion of value, which is the objective basis or main-
spring of the circulation M-C-M, becomes the capitalist’s subjective
aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and more
wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his operation, that
he functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed
with consciousness and will. Use-value must therefore never be
looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; neither must the profit on
any single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-
making alone is what he aims at.100

The distinctive feature of the Marxian economic theory of capitalism, however, is

98
An important contribution to a critique of some ahistorical versions of the labor theory of value -- to which,
actually, Engel’s name has been associated -- is M. Morishima and G. Cathepores, “Is There an ‘Historical
Transformation Problem’?”, The Economic Journal, June 1975, pp. 309-328.
99
Surplus value is thus specific to capitalist production, while surplus labor is of more general character.
 48
not restricted to bringing to the forefront this essential nature of capitalist production; in
addition, it seeks to establish a connection between accumulation and production of surplus-
value; this is for the reason that profits, the funds out of which capital is accumulated, are
definitely connected to surplus value:
The individual capitalist (or all the capitalists in each individual
sphere of production), whose outlook is limited, rightly believes that
his profit is not derived solely from the labour employed by him, or in
his line of production. This is quite true, as far as his average profit is
concerned. To what extent this profit is due to the aggregate
exploitation of labour on the part of the total social capital, i.e., by all
his capitalist colleagues -- this interrrelation is a complete mystery to
the individual capitalist; all the more so, since no bourgeois theorists,
the political economists, have so far revealed it.101

On the basis of the simple model of production that we have been using,
Morishima has proved that he has called a “Fundamental Marxian Theorem,” and as a means
to our discussion we shall summarize it briefly.102
Every good in the economy is produced for the market, being, therefore, a
commodity, the Pi be the price of commodity i, and write the price vectors of capital goods,
and necessaries and luxuries, as
PI = (Pi, …, Pn ), PII = (Pn+1 , …, Pm)
Respectively. These prices must cover, with a profit, the unit costs of production, constituted
by the inputs of capital goods and of labor. The labor costs consist of a exchange value w of
the subsistence goods vector B per hour of work, which is equal to PIIϖΒ. When every

100
Marx, Capital, vol. I, pp. 152-153.
101
Marx, Capital, vol. III, p. 170. The reasons why the “individual capitalist … rightly believes that his profit is
not solely derived from the labour employed by him” have to do with the actual manner profits are distributed,
i.e., as a proportion to total capital, and not merely to the wages. Capital, vol III, chapters I-II.
For an important contribution to a correct interpretation of Marx, on this connection between surplus value and
profits -- and the associated “transformation problem” between values and prices --, see W.J. Baumol, “The
Transformation of Values: What Marx ‘Really’ Meant (An Interpretation),” Journal of Economy Literature,
March 1974, pp. 51-62.
102
Marx’s Economics, chapters 5-6. A brief statement of this theorem, in a manner even more relevant for our
purposes, is presented by Morishima in “The Fundamental Marxian Theorem: A Reply to Samuelson,” Journal
of Economic Literature, March 1974, pp. 71-74; in another mathematical formulation, this “theore” is also
proved in Wolfstetter, op.cit. The relaxation of the assumption of absence of joint production requires new
definition of values, and the “theorem” is shown not to hold anymore; see I. Steedman, “Positive Profits with
Negative Surplus Value,” “The Economic Journal, March 1975, pp. 114-123. See also Morishima’s “Marx in
the Light of Modern Economic Theory,” Econometrica, July 1974, pp. 611-632; in Steedman’s works, the new
“theorem” presented in this recent paper by Morishima has “a distinctly Marxist flavour, [but] by abandoning
the traditional Marxist analysis .” (op.cit., 121, n.2) It must be made clear that there is no intention here to
vindicate Marx’s fundamenta1 proposition on the basis of Morishima’s simple model: rather, it is being
presented merely because it makes clear the nature of the relationship, precisely because it is in this simple
 49
industry earns positive profits, we have inequalities:
PI > PI ΛI + wLI (10)
PII > PI ΛII + wLII (11)
Then we may ask what conditions are necessary and sufficient for the existence
of a set of non-negative prices and wage-rate w yielding positive profits in every industry. It
is found that there exists a set of prices and a set of prices and a wage rate fulfilling (10) and
(11) if and only if the “real-wage rate” ϖ is given such that the rate of exploitation e is
positive.103 In order to prove the sufficiency condition, however, Morishima assumed that
commodities are sold at their values, i.e., that the price vectors PI and PII could be formalized
so that PI = ΛI and PII = ΛII. However, it Is known that equilibrium prices, corresponding to
an equilibrium rate of profits, are equal to values only in the assumption of organic
composition of capital for every industry.104 The question then is to show whether such an
equilibrium rate of profits, determined in the “price system,”105 is positive if and only if the
rate of exploitation is also positive. As Morishima argues, this problem is more than the
problem of finding a relationship of the rate o profit to π to the “rate of real wages” ϖ, in
view of the inverse relationship between e and ϖ (cf. Figure 1). The figure below depicts the
“wage”-profit curve π = g(ϖ), its location below the exploitation-rate curve being due to
Morishima’s additional proof that π is always smaller than e.

form. The actual verification of this proposition -- as it will be argued later in chapter – is not merely formal
matter, but a matter of reality itself.
103
Morishima, Marx’s Economics, pp. 53-54.
104
Marx, Capital, vol III, chapters VIII-IX.
105
I.e., PI = (1+π) (PIΛI + wLI) (12)
PII = (1+π) (PIΛII + wLII) (13)
 50
Figure 2. The “wage”-profit curve

4.6 Labor market and exploitation

The previous theorem establishes a causal relation between exploitation and

profits (“profits derive from surplus-value”) to the extent that the working day T, the value
vectors ΛI and ΛII, and the subsistence vector B are said to be determined outside the price
system; i.e., they are taken as data in that system, and therefore are logically prior to price
and profit determination. It is our purpose now to show that, actually, this corresponds to a
theoretical framework where the social relations of production are explicitly introduced into
the analysis of price and profit determination in such a way that they become the ultimately
determining sphere.
In the case of a slave economy it is transparent that the working day T, the
vectors ΛI and ΛII, and B are determined in the context of the relation between the master and
the slave in production. To say, therefore, that prices and profits are determined only after
those variables are also determined corresponds, at a theoretical level, to asserting the
determining role of the master-slave relation. Distribution becomes therefore inseparable of
the social form of production.
In what sense can we make a similar assertion regarding a capitalist economy?
Let us start this discussion by taking for target an author that tried to deny, at the logico-
mathematical level, the causality that is that theorem’s raison-d’etre. We shall argue the fact
that causality is chosen at the formal level is the result of a substantive theory; if Morishima’s
“fundamental Marxian theorem” is to be accepted, it is because it expresses a causal relation
in the real world. Samuelson has thus “denied,”
… that “surplus value is the source of profit” in any useful
sense. I deny that Marx (or Morishima or Baumol) have anywhere
congently given us reason to believe that one can get to profits only
after we know the laws of surplus value. …106

Samuelson’s main argument, stated elsewhere,107 is that:

106
Samuelson, “Insight and Detour in the Theory of Exploitation: A Reply to Baumol,” Journal of Economic
Literature, March 1974, p. 63.
107
Ibid., “Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation: A Summary of the So-Called Transformation
Problem Between Marxian Values and Competitive Prices,” Journal of Economic Literature, June 1971, pp.
399-431. (The quotations are from pp. 418-419.)
 51
By now the crucial issue is no longer whether volume III’s prices are
more realistic under competition than volume I’s values: critics and
Marxians are agreed that these prices certainly are. The issue has been
narrowed down to whether, as Marx and his modern defenders have
claimed, the profit rate upon which volume III’s Walrasian (sic)
equilibrium depends is itself crucially determined by volume I’s
analysis of surplus values…
First, this section demonstrates that Marx and Engels -- and in
modern times, Dobb and Meek -- are simply wrong in their
identification of what aspect of the labor theory of value is
intrinsically involved in working out a price-profit configuration that
corresponds to the minimum-wage theory of exploitation. The most
clear cut proof is mathematical.

We shall take Samuelson’s mathematical proof and show the source of his
mistaken statement above. Simultaneously, it will become clear why Morishima has
succeeded in establishing what Samuelson has denied so cogently.108
Samuelson’s proof is rather brief; he says:
… from knowledge of technology alone we know the a0 and a
coefficients. After these have been supplemented by specific
subsistence requirements, m, volume III’s prices stand on their own
feet and are defined by
P/W = a0 (1+r) [I-a(1+r)]-1 = A0 (r), mAo (r) = 1.

These relations require no prior consideration of the volume I

value relations ... and no transformation procedure in either direction.
…109

Making explicit reference to Morishima’s theorem, Samuelson considers the

value system and the price system as “alternative accounting systems,” and argues that
… there is complete reversible symmetry between the two
alternative accounting regimes: “profit is the source of surplus value”
is as formally valid as vice versa; “only if the profit rate R* can be
positive [in the matrix sense, R* > 0 in ao (1+r*) [I-a(1+R*)]-1 m = 1],
can the rate of surplus value r* be positive [in the same r* . 0 in ao [I-
a]-1 (1+r*) m = 1]” – this is a valid as vice versa; and preferable to
either is the strengthened Hawkins-Simons condition ao [I-a]-1 m < 1 if

108
The curious thing is that Morishima has replied to Samuelson (cf. Journal of Economic Literature, March
1974. pp. 71-75) restating his theorem using Samuelson’s notation, but the latter still sticks to his position,
saying that “… apparently the challenge must still stand.” (Journal of Economic Literature, March 1974. pp. 76)
109
Samuelson, “Understanding ...,” op.cit., p. 419. In Morishima’s notation (adopted in this chapter), a0 is the
vector of labor input coefficient L = (LI, LII) a the matrix of physical-input coefficients I
AI AII 
A= 0 0 

r the equilibrium rate of profit π and m the subsistence-consumption vector per man-hour B/T.
 52
and only if R* > 0].110

One should notice immediately that Samuelson’s m corresponds, in Morishima’s

model, to B/T. Samuelson’s m, consequently, can only be defined after a prior determination
of B, the vector of the daily subsistence goods of the worker, and T, the working day. 111 To
the extent that in the real world both these variables are determined outside the price system –
specifically in the “value system” – then one can and must assert, at the formal level, that (1)
the competitive price-profit set that is defined by P/W = a0 (1+r) [I-a(1+r)]-1 = A0 (r), mAo (r) =
1, does require consideration of the volume I value relations; and (2) that the transformation
procedure of the rate of exploitation into the rate of profit, and values into prices, is not
reversible, since the price system cannot be defined but after the value system; there is not a
“reversible symmetry” between these systems, that are not, therefore, “alternative accounting
systems.”
The first thing that must be seen is that the amount of work a given worker (i.e., a
given labor-power) can perform depends upon the working day, the intensity of labor, etc.
The substance of Morishima’s Marxian theorem is to contrast the amount of value-creating
labor performed by an individual worker with the amount of labor embodied in his wage-
goods; this surplus value becomes the source of profit. The production of surplus value,
however, becomes enforced in the context of the capital-labor relation, to which we must turn
now.
Value analysis – and the theory of exploitation – among other things, has for
purpose to disclose the reality behind the appearance of equivalent exchange, implicit in the
daily life of a labor market, where the laborer – and the capitalist – are induced to think that
“labor” is being paid the “due” price. Value analysis denies this appearance by saying that
unpaid labor is the reality hidden at the level of the market.112 In order to get at the root of

110
Samuelson, “Insight and Detour...,” op.cit., p. 64.
111
It is interesting to note that there is a tradition, that goes back to the Leontief closed model and von Neumann
model, of framing the problem as Samuelson did. Even avowed defenders of Marx’s causal relation between the
value system and the price system have framed the problem in this tradition, being open consequently, to
Samuelson’s critique. See, for instance, A. Brody, Proportions, Prices and Planning, A Mathematical
Restatement of the Labor Theory of Value (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1970); A. Medio, “Profits and Surplus
Value: Appearance and Reality in Capitalist Production,” in E.K. Hunt and J.G. Schwartz, eds., A Critique of
Economic Theory (Penguin Books, 1972); and WoIfstetter, op.cit. “For the sake of simplicity,” Wolfstetter took
the working day as the labor input’s time unit, so that the vector of the daily means of subsistence per worker
become also the “real wages per labour unit.” Brody and Medio do not have even such a mention of the working
day. All of this only distiguishes Morishima’s formal treatment.
112
“Secondly. Although one part only of the workman’s daily labour is paid, while the other part is unpaid, and
while that unpaid or surplus labour constitutes exactly the fund out of which surplus value or profit is formed, it
seems as if the aggregate labour was paid labour. “This false appearance distinguishes wages-labour from other
 53
the matter, however, we must leave the sphere of circulation, the exchange sphere:
This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the
sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of
the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property
and Bentham. Freedom both buyer and seller of a commodity say of
labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They
contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to is but the form
in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality,
because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple
owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent.
Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And
Bentham, because each looks only to himself. The only force that
brings them together nd puts tem in relation with each other, is the
selfishness, the gain and the private interests of each. Each looks to
himself only, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just
because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the pre-established
harmony of things, or under the auspices of an all shrewd province,
work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in
the interest of all.
On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange
commodities, which furnishes the “Free trader Vulgaris” with his
views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society
based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the
physiognomy of our dramatic personae. He, who before was money-
owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour power
follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking,
intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is
bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but – a
hiding.113

Of course, Marx’s irony has to do with the real inequality that goes along with the
formal equality in the capital-labor relation.
… according to Marx, what makes this relation of equality

historical forms of labour. On the basis of the wages system even the unpaid labor seems to be paid labour.
Which the slave, on the contrary, even that part of his labour which is paid appears to be unpaid. Of course, in
order to work the slave must live, and one part of his working day goes to replace the value of his own
maintenance. But since no bargain is struck between him and his master, and no acts of selling and buying are
going on between the two parties, all his labour seems to be given away for nothing. Take, on the other hand,
the peasant serf, such as he, I might say, until yesterday existed in the whole East of Europe. This peasant
worked, for example, three days for himself on his field or the field allotted to him, and the three subsequent
days he performed compulsory and gratuitous labour on the state of his lord. Here, then the paid and unpaid
parts of labour were sensibly separated, separated in time and space; and our Liberals with moral indignation at
the preposterous notion of making a man for nothing. In point of fact, however, whether a man works three
days a week for himself on his own field and three days for nothing on the estate of his lord, or whether he
works in the factory or the workshop six hours daily for himself and six hours for his employer, comes to the
same, although in the latter case the paid and unpaid portions of labour are inseparably mixed up with each
other, and the nature of the whole transaction is completely masked by the intervention of a contract and the
pay received at the end of the week. The gratuitous labour appears to be voluntarily given in the one system, and
to be compulsory in the other. That makes all the difference.” Marx, Wages Price and Profit, pp. 213-214
113
Marx, Capital, vol I, p. 176.
 54
formal and conceals the real inequality is the fact that the property at the
disposal of the worker (his own laboring capacity) is only property in
appearance. In reality, it is the opposite, a state of need, so that ‘if his
capacity for labour remains unsold, the labourer derives no benefit
from it, but rather he will feel it to be a cruel, nature-imposed
necessity that this capacity has cost for its production a definite
amount of the means of subsistence and that it will continue to do so
for its reproduction.’114

The key point is to understand that, while it is true that, “Unlike the slave or the
serf, [the wage laborer] has some freedom to choose the individual who will control his
labour-power,” and in this sense “can within limits choose the capitalist for whom he
works,” it is an objective fact, imposed upon the laborer, however, that “he cannot free
himself from the despotism of capital as a whole. He must still work for some capitalist.
Hence the formal rather than real nature of his freedom.115
Having bought the commodity labor power, the capitalist, as it happens with any
other commodity-purchaser, acquires the right (power) of appropriating its use-value. He
appropriates the use-value of the commodity labor power by putting the worker to work. But
this means that the capital-labor relation, from one of “Freedom, Equality, Property and
Bentham,” in the exchange sphere, metamorphoses itself into its contrary in the factory,
where no such freedom and equality exists. In the factory, the capitalist is a boss that rules
over the worker. The labor process acquires an specific social form: it becomes a capitalist
labor process. Hierarchical work organization, intensity of labor – and the working day –
rather ten having to do with the material-technical form of production, become the expression
of its capitalist form.116
The fact, however, that production is carried out in this social manner is rooted in
the existence of a proletariat that, in a dispossessed condition, conforms another class that
monopolizes the ownership of the means of production. This proletariat has to supply labor
power in a manner suited to production of surplus value, what involves essentially the

114
Colletti, op.cit., p. 94. Colletti here is quoting Capital, vol I, p. 173. In the Neoclassical tradition, however,
the worker is said to derive utility by not working, so that the supply of labor is reduced to a matter of exchange
of a good (“leisure”) for another (“income”).
115
Rowthorn, “Neoclassical Economics ...” op.cit., p. 334.
116
It is sometimes argued that the working conditions – including the intensity of labor, absence of freedom for
the laborer, etc. – are part of the definition of a method or production, being therefore a-social. Granted that the
individual “firm” has no option but to adopt such a technique – as a condition to earn the average rate of profit –
one nust leave such a microeconomic perspective – the price system, that is to say – in order to see the
connection between control over abor in the labor process and production of surplus value. For a systematic
critique of the conception mentioned in this footnote see S. Marglin, “What do Bosses do? The origins and
Functions of Hierarchy in Capitalist Production,” mimeo., August 1971.
 55
question of the reproduction costs of labor power as well as the working day, the intesity of
labor, etc. These are matters, of course, around which some bloody chapters in the history of
the working calls have been written.

x-x-x-x-x-x

The crucial role assigned to the working day, intensity of labor, etc., in Marxian
economics contrasts with a virtual silence on this matter in classical and Neoclassical
economics. Regarding the former, Marx has said that
the labourer must first be compelled to work in excess of the
necessary time, and this compulsion is exerted by capital. This is
missing in Ricardo’s work, and therefore also the whole struggle over
the regulation of the normal working day.117

A critique of the Neoclassical theory of production, precisely on account of the

failure to make explicit the working day, has been the object of several works by Georgescu-
Roegen; in a recent paper,118 this author has vindicated
Marx’s insistence on the importance of the time of production
and of the working day for the theory of value. By comparison, we
can see how far removed from the basic economic facts standard
theory of production is because of the superficial treatment of such a
fundamental concept as the production process. In the standard theory
of production there is no room for the time of production or for the
working day. …119

The fact that the working day, the intensity of labor, etc., are determined in the
context of an antagonistic relation, on the other hand, is denied to the very extent that the
capitalist labor process is conceived of a expressing the worker’s “preferences,” in a general
equilibrium fashion:
An objection sometimes raised to an analysis like the above [i.e.,
the Jevonian theory of the labor supply as expressing the worker’s
leisure-income preferences – G.C.R.] is that individuals cannot
determine for themselves the number of hours they work: this is an
institutional datum [i.e., determined in the capital-labor relation,
outside the price system -- G.C.R.] which the individual must take or
leave. This objection is entirely specious. In the first place, we have
seen that much of the adjustment may take the form of the fraction of

117
Theories of Surplus Value, vol. 2, p. 406, f. Rowthorn, “Neoclassical Economics …,” p. 341.
118
“Process Analysis and the Neoclassical Theory of Production,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics,
vol. 54, n° 2 (May 1972), pp. 279-293.
119
Ibid., p. 286.
 56
the people in the labor force. In the second place, even at any given time, a
particular individual has some leeway. He can work overtime or not,
take off more or less time during the year, choose the kind of
occupation or employer that offers the number of hours he wants, etc.
But neither of these is the basic fallacy. The important point is that the
individual is like the perfect competitor: to each individual separately,
the number of hours of work per week may be fixed, yet the level at
which is fixed is the result of the choices of the individuals as a group.
If at any moment this level of hours is, say, larger than on the average
people prefer at the given wage rate, this means that any employer
who makes them shorter, who adjusts them to the worker’s
preferences, will make employment with him more attractive than
employment with others. Hence, he can attract the better people at a
lower wage rate. Employers thus have an incentive to adjust working
conditions and hours to the preferences of the workers. (In our earlier
terminology, because of the tie-in character of the transaction,
employers are sellers of conditions of work as well as buyers of
labor.) Competition in this way permit individuals in effect to
determine for themselves the number of hours they work.120

Of course, no one would think that this is actual reality, as against mere fantasy,
in a slave economy; applied to a capitalist economy, this amounts to saying that proletarian is
ultimately sovereign regarding the working conditions; he determines the features of the
capitalist labor process as much as an independent peasant does on his holding. The tirannic
character of the capitalist labor process is thus into its contrary -- consensus, harmony.121

120
Friedman, M., Price theory (Chicago: Aldine, 1971), pp. 204-205.
121
“It may be slightly ironic that na important necessary condition for the indifference-curve model to be
applicable to one of the most fundamental problems of economic choice is inconsistent with capitalism. For the
indifference-curve model to be applicable to goods-leisure choices, control of the hours of work must rest with
the worker. But this is inconsistent with capitalist control of the work process, and hence with capitalis m itself.”
Marglin, op.cit., pp. 45-46.
 57
CHAPTER IV

IV. LABOR AND LABOR SUPPLY (III) AN ANALYSIS OF THE HISTORICAL

EVIDENCE

Introduction

In this chapter the historical evidence presented in chapter II will be discussed with
the help of the analytical framework presented in the previous chapter. In the first section, the
social relations constituted trough slavery, debt peonage, contract labor, etc., are analyzed in
what they have in common as means for a specific mode of production of surplus labor. In
section two, the so-called “labor problem” faced by those capitalist sectors is related to the
specific historical conditions in the countries where such a production of surplus labor was to
be carried out.
In section three, the pervasive doctrine of the “backward-sloping” labor supply curve
in the underdeveloped countries is subjected to criticism; finally, in section four some
tentative elements for the analysis of the specific mode of production of surplus value itself
are presented.

Section 1 -- The evidence and surplus labor: a general perspective

Placing ourselves at the most abstract level, the social re1ations established
through the indenture system, debt peonage, forced labor legislation, taxation, and other
“devices” -- not forgetting African slavery --, can be seen now in terms of what they
represent as means for production of surplus labor: in effect, through every and all these

“mechanisms”, both the necessary labor ΛIIΒ as well as the total labor time T N were being
determined in such a manner that a maximum surplus labor was being extracted frorn labor.
The determination of the necessary labor ΛIIΒ took the form of determining Β, the vector of
subsistence goods of the worker, while simultaneously both the rate of labor force
participation and the working day, intensity of labor, etc. were being stretched to their limits.
A theoretical meaning can be given, in this way, to the South African mines’, or the Peruvian
sugar hacendados’, search for and establishment of a supply of cheap labor: for the means
through which the social costs of labor, i.e., the necessary labor (ΛIIΒ), became determined in
 58
the system took the form of directly determing Β, the subsistence-basket of labor.122 At the
same time, however, one must see that such a “cheapness” was only a part of the story: not
only the laborer should live under “squalid conditions”; but he should also work in the
“supervised ranks of a labour camp”-- in other words, the laborer should subject himself to
particularly oppressive, blood-sucking, working conditions. It was on such basis, and no
others, that surplus labor was extracted in every case surveyed.
Let us take, for instance, indenture labor. The backwardness of the “labor-
exporting” countries (India, China, etc.), together with population pressures on the land,
were, to be sure, fundamental premises for the rise of the system. However, the rise of the
system was also premised on a highly-developed apparatus of repression in the “labor-
importing” countries, such a repressive situation being not at all alien to the political
subjection of the “labor-exporting” areas in a colonial context. Every small detail of this
pervasive labor-repressive system acquires a meaning -- it is our contention -- if we look at it
from the perspective of production of surplus-labor: to begin with, the enforcement (by the
planters) of a “contract” attributed (by the planters) to the immigrant, guaranteed the
subjection of labor to the planter’s understanding of what the labor process should be like;
while this very subjection of the laborer put him at the mercy of any one individual planter --
and therefore also at the mercy of the planter class as a whole in matters relating to the
determination of Β.
Debt peonage is a similar mechanism. To the extent that, either officially or
unofficially, a repressive apparatus is imposed upon a laborer due to the mere fact of being a
debtor to a planter, it is clear that such a relationship is reproduced to the very extent that the
laborer cannot be “mobile” -- i.e., cannot refuse the wages and/or the working conditions
being “offered” by any one hacendado for the reason that he is a debtor! Indeed, it is no
wonder why the hacendados -- assured, preliminarily, of the effectiveness of the repressive
apparatus were so eager to advance money: to do so is to initiate a condition of bondage for
labor. These advances are the exact opposite of “incentives” to labor migration123 : were not

122
In the Neoclassical framework, however, no factor of production can be either “cheap” or “dear”; in
connection to slave labor, this argument has been presented both by Engerman, “Some Considerations…”, and
Domar, “The Causes of Slavery…”, p. 22, n°.4
123
As Scott (op.cit., pp. 10-19) has interpreted the “enganche system” in Peru. He has missed completely that
the true nature on the advances was disclosed in the subjection of the Indian on the coastal sugar plantations: the
latter, in any case, were willing to give only advances as “incentives”, but not increased wages, etc.; they had
good reasons indeed to be so selective as far as “incentives” are concerned. This perspective allows us to
perceive that financing of indenture immigration was also the first step to initiate bondage; in this sense, every
“abuse”, fraud, cruelty, etc., in the field of recruiting was due to the fact that the profits founded on indenture-
 59
for the premise of repression – “catching the run-aways” -- no such advances would have
been made. In this sense, they are equivalents to the purchase prices of slaves, and it is this
the planters’ perception of them. 124
It is clear, therefore, the adequacy of seeing these labor systems as “disguised
slavery”, or “neo-slavery”, or a “new system of slavery”; while serving to characterize them
in this way, the meaning and purpose of slavery itself is well understood, so that we do not
have to show how this “peculiar institution” provides the means for extraction of surplus
labor from the enslaved working population.
As against these mechanisms, in which political subjugation were the very means
through which surplus labor was extracted, we have also surveyed cases where no such
political means were present neither in forcing the laborer to “supply” his labor nor in
“tying” him to an individual plantation or mine. Considering the “migrant labor system” one
such case, we have argued, however, now temporary migration was ultimately an outcome of
a complex mixture of political and economic factors that led to the necessity -- rooted in a
compulsion of an economic character -- of wage labor. Such a “spontaneous” labor supply,
however, was indeed a finding for a South African mine, for the latter had ipso facto
guaranteed its control over labor in the labor process, and consequently the extraction of
surplus labor. Hence the crucial importance of proletarianization, of transforming labor
power in a commodity hence, also, the rationale for all the violence in land expropriation, in
blocking economic development in the Reserves, etc. Such a proletarianization, however, as
we have tried to argue, had a particular character of its own: it was a process of
proletarianization only in part, and clearly this feature made it all the more cruel for the
African population; nevertheless, the necessary labor relevant for the capitalist sector was
being shortened, while surplus labor was being enlarged not only in this extent but also due to
the derived political weakness of labor.125

based labor exploitation would make such activities profitable. There is no such a thing, therefore, as an
independent supply of labor in the system: the form that this supply assumes is endogenous in the system, due to
political factors!
124
It is interesting to see the comparatively large amount of money that the coffee plantations visited by Ramos
(op.cit.) in his journeys to Southeast Mexico and Guatemala considered necessary to carry out production, on
account of needed “advances” to laborers. These advances were condidered by them as investments as much as
the formation of the coffee trees, say. And indeed they are, from the perspective of capital.
125
A useful figure was drawn by Wolpe (op.cit., p. 435) to help make things clear:
“The Relative Proportion of Surplus to Necessary Labour in the Capitalist Sector where:
(a) (b)
The Working Class is wholly dependent upon wages The Working-Class derives a portion of its means of
for its Reproduction Reproduction from the Reserve Economy.
 60
Looked at from a general standpoint, therefore, the extra-economic, political
“mechanisms” of labor control that have arisen in the export sectors in the backward
countries (slavery, contract labor, etc.), as well as particular structural relations such as the
“migrant labor system”, become so many means for labor control so that production of
surplus labor in that specific form becomes possible. In this sense, they would share a
common feature as systems of labor exploitation. Such a common feature can be considered
as identical to Kloosterboer’s “same function”:
“It is indeed not clear why precisely slavery should exist if there
is not sufficient voluntary labour. As labour systems, serfage, debt-
slavery, and even contract labour under penal sanction fulfill exactly
the same function. The form compulsory labour takes will in the first
place depend on the spirit of the times.”126 (ours the emphasis)

Section 2 -- The “labor problem” analysed

Seen from another angle, the demand for labor from those export sectors was
constrained by the requirement of production of surplus labor in that specific mode. To the
extent that the labor process had to satisfy this requirement, it took a definite social form; in
other words, it was the case not only of demanding labor in order to combine it with the other
factors of production, but of making this combination in a particular social manner. From the
African villager it was being demanded not only that he “supply” his “labor services at a
given “price”, but that he enter into a definite social relation of production, whose content
would be to enforce “labor discipline”, “regularity of work”, etc., to name only some features
of the labor process linked to the production of surplus labor. Such a villager had to subject
himself to the overseer; he had to subject himself to the intensity of labor in the “labor
gangs”, etc. Arising out of the need for production of surplus labor, it was therefore not only

S S¹

N N¹

(Note: This figure is not drawn to scale)

Where: S= surplus labour time/product
N = labour time/product necessary for reproduction of labour-power
N¹= the decreased proportion of labour time/product devoted to the reproduction of labour-
power by the capitalist sector where portion of the necessary means of subsistence is provided by the Reserve
economy (N²)
S¹= the increased surplus labour time/product.”
 61
a question merely of a “demand” for labor, but really a question of giving rise to a definite
socio-economic structure; it was not merely a question of producing sugar, diamonds, cotton,
etc. but of producing these use values in a determined social manner.
The fact that a “labor problem” was posed for these export sectors -- perceived by
the planters as a “shortage of labor” for their plantations -- can be tackled now. For besides
the specific social form that the labor process had to assume, there was the crucial
requirement of the labor costs. The African villager was being asked not only to leave “the
companionable freedom of his village” for “the supervised ranks of a labour camp”, but he
should do that at a definite pay, since his pay would be a cost for the plantation

Confronting such a demand, however, was labor not yet dispossessed, not
yet separated from the means of production, able to satisfy his needs independently. Such
was the general feature that encompassed the Yaquis and the Maya in Mexico, the peasantries
in Peru, British Guiana, Africa, Puerto Rico, etc. As Greaves put it for Africa:

“(…) The population is not comparable to a proletariat which

has no alternative to wage labor, for when they are left free backward
people have a choice between the conditions of thoir customary
system of production and the terms offered by the foreign
employer”127 .

Had they been left free, the imaginary world drawn in Neoclassical theory would
certainly follow: i.e., the plantations and the mines would be able to produce sugar or
gold only if their working conditions satisfied the African “preferences”; only if their
economic and technical superiority -- as it is so often taken for granted -- allowed
them to “bid” the opportunity cost in the “subsistence sector”, etc. Instead of abiding
to these conditions, and consequently materialize on the Peruvian coast or in the
South African mines a world of consensus and harmony, these “foreigner employers”
could only see in these conditions the source of a “labor problem”, producing “labor
shortage”. The crucial point is to realize that indeed a fundamental contradiction
existed between these historical conditions and the specific modes of production of
surplus labor that characterized those “capitalist sectors”, “Establishing a capitalist
system in backward territories”, then, becomes a “problem”, namely that “(...) of
grafting a structure which arose in one place in consequence of a certain set of

126
Kloosterboer, Involuntary Labour, p. 1.
127
Modern Production, p. 59.
 62
conditions on to a completely different set of conditions in another place (...).”128

Section 3 -- The evidence and the hypothesis of “backward-bending” labor supply

curve: a critical discussion

The impressive historical record of the actual means of “grafting” such a

structure, rather than bringing about a serious attempt at going behind the phenomena and
seeking for the crucial factors at work, has merely led to a translation, in academic jargon, of
the ideology of oppresion adopted by the “foreign employers” in justifying their squeezing of
labor from the “subsistence sector”. Extra-economic means are then said to arise due to
“preference for leisure” on the part of the native:
“Few discussions of labor supply in underdeveloped countries
fail to bring up the backward-sloping labor supply function. Wage-
earners in newly developing countries are alleged to have relatively
low want schedules or high preference for leisure as against income,
so that they work less at higher wage rates and more at lower ones. In
the underdeveloped world, and notably in Africa, this has been the
almost universal opinion of foreign employers of native labor, na
opinion shared by outside observers. (...).

The widespread conviction that labor supply functions in

countries in early stages of development tend to be backward-sloping
is no mere intellectual curiosity. (...) It has served as a rationale for
wage and labor policies which influenced the course of economic and
political development not only in Africa but elsewhere as well.
(...).”129

128
Greaves, op. cit., p. 153. Or , as Marx himself has put it, “(...) It is otherwise in the colonies. There the
capitalist regime everywhere comes into collision with the resistance of the producer, who, as owner of his own
conditions of labor, employs that labour to enrich himself, instead of the capitalist. Contradiction of these two
diametrically opposed economic systems, manifests itself here pratically in a struggle between them. Where the
capitalist has at his back the power of the mother-country, he tries to clear out of his way by force, the modes of
production and appropriation, based on the independent labour of the producer. (...)” Capital ,vol. I, p. 765.
Some recent contributions to the analysis of capitalist development in the backward countries, as well as Rosa
Luxemburg’s thesis on the matter, are critically discussed in Bradby, B., “The destruction of natural economy”,
Economy and Society, vol. 4, nº 2 (May 1975), pp. 127-161.
129
Berg, “Backward-Sloping Labor Supply Functions...”, pp. 114-115. Myint has said also that “Wathever its
weaknesses, the doctrine of the ‘backward-bending’ supply curve of labor was used to rationalize the policy of
using negative pressures to squeeze more labour out of the subsistence economy when the voluntary supply of
migrant labour became inadequate for the expanding demand of the mines and plantations. (...).” Economics of
Developing Countries, pp. 60-61. According to Magubane and O’Brien (op. cit., p. 100), “(...) The ‘target
worker hypothesis’, built uncritically by economists upon the analysis of the social anthropologists and accepted
as social reality, formed the basis of government and employer policy, and entered into the folklore as
justification for paying Africans the most paltry wages. (...).”
 63
A clear statement of this argument is advanced by another author precisely in
accounting for the same kind of evidence we have been discussing:
“This recourse to constraint has been based (...) even more, on
the absolute shortage of voluntary labor. In primitive areas, especially
those where nature requires little work for subsistence and where
much of such work as has to be done is performed by women, it is
often impossible to attract labor by means of money, at least at first;
and even such labor as is recruited is relatively unresponsive to
increasing reward (the supply curve bends backwards once income
expectations are fulfilled).”130

If the literature we have surveyed has conveyed anything, it is precisely the fact
that the “foreign employers” did not try to adjust wages and working conditions to the
peasants; instead, they had recourse to forceful means. If this was the case, clearly the
peasant was not given any opportunity to express such a “preference for leisure”. Going more
to the point, what data has been used to infer such a peculiar characteristic of “primitive”
peoples? Which reality has produced this data? flow could this data, after all, have become
real if the “foreign employers” refused to abide to the strong bargaining position implicit in
the alternatives open to labor in the subsistence sector (before the process of encroachment
set in)?131
One wonders, therefore, how could Berg infer from the same evidence we have
been discussing that:
“In these early years (...) the positive elasticity of labor supply
with respect to wage increase tended to be slight. (...) Most villagers
were deaf to the appeal of wages. They went out of the village to earn
money when necessary. Most of them were unconcerned with
marginal differences in income-earning possibilities; they were simple
out of the labor market. (...)”132
130
Landes, D. S., “Some Thoughts on the Nature of Economic Imperialism”, The Journal of Economic History,
vol. XXI, n. 4 (1961), pp. 496-512. The quotation is from the reprint in Boulding, K. E. and M. Tapan, eds.,
Economic Imperialism (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1972), p. 129.
131
This same fallacy has been perceived by Myint (op.cit., p. 60): “(…) It is difficult, therefore,. To accept this
doctrine of the ‘backward-bending’ supply curve of labor in developed countries without further evidence that a
systematic application of wage incentives in favour of extra work, such as bonuses and overtime payments, had
failed to induce a greater supply of labour over the long run.”
132
“Backward-Sloping Labor Supply Functions”, pp. 126-127. Berg has tried to present a more soprusticated
model of the African's labor supply decision “to the exchange sector” by incorporating explicitly his alternatives
in subsistence and/or petty commodity production. “Leisure” then, “p1aced within quotation marks througnout
the discussion in [his] paper, becornes “the sum of village activities not immediately or directly concerned with
production.” (op.cit., p. 133, n. 12) (Perhaps Greaves’ “companionable freedom in [the African’s] village”?) In
this more realistic model, then, he concludes that “(…) The major factors determining the individual’s decisions
therefore are: (1) the intensity of his preference for money income as against ‘leisure’ in the village; (2) the level
of his income from village production; (3) the effort-price of income earnable in the village; (4) the effort-price
of income earnable outside the village.” (op.cit., p. 117) In proposing the “target income hypothesis”, however,
as an explanation for the Africans leaving the village to earn money “only when necessary”, berg has abstracted
 64
Clearly, in all of this the “demand” side is being taken for granted. To the
capitalist sector it is imputed behavior that has been completely absent in its actual record of
enslavement, “recruiting”, transforming self- sufficient peasants into half-proletarians, etc.133
The lack of any attempt at offering the necessary incentives is conveniently overlooked; the
inherently oppressive character of the labor process is turned into “modernity”, “civilization”,
etc. On the other hand, the peasant’s resistance against economic and cultural destruction is
implicitly despised -- not without a touch of racist ideology -- as a “preference for leisure”
over “income-earning possibilities”. The South African mines have their overall oppressive
conditions turned then into “income-earning possibilities”; they are even pictured as
providing “increasing reward” to the peasant.134

completely from the particularly oppressive conditions of wage employment, including the “cheap labor
policy”. The Africans’ supposed “great attachment to their traditional social system”, is then made into the
reason for the Africans’ being” (…) re1uctant-indifferent to the appeals of money income attainable outside the
village; the fact that higher incomes were available (sic) outside was not sufficient to induce them to emigrate.
“For berg, therefore, “(…) it is no surprise that until about 1930 in most of the continent the securing of a labor
force in the exchange sector depended largely on the exercise of direct or indirect coercion. (...).” (op. cit., p.
121) For a thorough critique of berg’s and other authors’ misleading analyses, see Magubane and O’Brien,
op.cit.
133
In passing, one could refer to a 1arge body of literature that seeks to attribute to a situation of “open
resources” (free access to the land, mainly) the rise of compulsory labor; in a very subtle manner, this is a way
to de-emphasize the demand side of the market. For early presentations of this approach see Nieboer, H. J.,
Slavery as an Industrial System (The Hague, 1910), and Thompson, E. T., “The Natural History of Agricultural
Labor in the South”, in Jackson, D. D., ed., American Studies in Honor of William Kenneth Boyd (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1940), esp. pp. 117-122. It is this hypothesis that Domar tried to formalize in
Neoclassical terms, stripping the “openess” of resources of any social content and instead making it a thing of
Nature: the land-labor ratio. Addressing himself specifically to Nieboer’s book, Kloosterboer shows many
instances where there were “closed resources” but nevertheless there was compulsory labor; in a very interesting
summary of his worldwide survey, among other important conclusions, this author points out that” (…) ‘closed
resources’ do not always yield sufficient labour; additional measures being in many cases necessary if the ruling
class are to satisfy their desire for profits.” (op.cit., pp. 213-214).
134
The demand side of the market has returned to its proper place in Greaves’ work (op.cit., pp. 157-169); for
this reason she is able to conclude that “In fact, what is condemned as laziness or dislike of work on the part of
the of the native has often been essentials a reluctance to expend a large amount of effort upon inefficient and
poorly remunerated forms of labor.” (op.cit., p. 162) Or, as “Some investigators have (...) been to conclude,”
“the supposed ‘fixed demand’ of native laborers for money, or for the goods obtainable with money, is more
than likely an erroneous inference drawn for the prevailing ‘fixed supply’ of money represented in low wages
and the cheap-labor policy.” Moore, op.cit., p 82. Moore, however, while conducting an impressive survey that
“(…) testifies to the importance of coercion and poverty as the effective circumstances for the initial transition
from non-industrial to industrial [i.e., capitalist wage-] employments” (op.cit., p. 304), has reduced the problem
to “attitudinal and structural barriers” on the part of the “non-industrial” sectors, leaving aside the very nature of
these “industrial employments.” (op.cit., pp. 302-305.) This demand side is also completely overlooked in
Evans, R., “Some Notes on Coerced Labor”, The Journal of Economic History, vol XXX (1970), pp. 861-866.
For a relevant critique of the “preference for leisure” doctrine, see also Rottenberg, S, “Income and Leisure in
an Underdeveloped Economy,” The Journal of Politic Economy , vol. LX, nº 2 (April 1952), p. 95-101. The
demand side is introduced in Rottenberg’s analysis of the West Indian case by his demonstration that the
supposed “preference of leisure” is peculiarly “confined, generally speaking, to the cane industry. (…) The
explanation for the difference in willingness to work between sugar-cane-estate workers and other wage workers
must therefore be sought in some factor other than aspiration for income and the goods for which income
exchanges or intensity of desire for leisure.” From our previous knowledge of what it meant to be a sugar
 65

Section 4 -- The especificities of capitalist development in the form of “capitalist sectors”:

some elements for analysis

The analysis presented so far has for purpose to present a rationai basis for an
explanation of the particularly oppressive conditions that have been present in the
development of “capitalist sectors” in the backward countries. The pervasiveness of the
phenomenon in itself suggests the operation of forces of a genera1 character. We have tried
to argue, on the basis of the evidence itself, that these specific features have been the result of
equally specific features of the process of production of surplus labor in these capitalist
sectors, namely, a manifest drive for “cheap labor” -- satisfied through a myriad of
“mechanisms” -- as well as stringent working conditions. To say so is tantamount to
concretize capitalist development in the periphery. For, as an author has pointed out:
“The production of surplus value and its appropriation by
capitalists are characteristic of all capitalist societies. This is therefore
significant for the study and understanding of no particular society.
Left propagandists often make this mistake: they present a general
theory of capitalist economy and social classes based on the analysis
of surplus value, and then proceed to try to understand some particular
society on the basis of the general idea. (...).
(...) Without going beyond a general formulation of surplus
value theory, we have no basis for a theory of economy or history.
(…).”135

The foregoing fundamental conclusion specifying the particular mode of surplus

value production that has been reached on the basis of concrete analyses of several cases --
including, as we shall see in the next chapters, the Brazilian “plantation system -- can not be
attributable to a general theory of capitalist production; it can not, in other words, be shown
to derive from a “general idea” of capitalism as a mode of production. This is for the reason
that production of surplus value has not taken this specific form everywhere under capitalism
-- production of relative surplus value being a most fundamental (alternative) basis for

worker in British Guiana, it is not difficult to accept, with Rottenberg, that “Other causes do, in fact, suggest
themselves.” (op.cit., p. 100)
135
O'Connor, J., “The Theory of Surplus Value”, in The Corporations and the State (New York: Harper and
Row, 1974), pp. 16-17.
 66
production of surplus value.136 To be sure, this latter alternative, stripped of the concrete
conditions under which it indeed has taken place can only become just another abstract, or
“general idea”.
We have seen how such a specific feature has implied, necessarily, a “labor
problem” for these export sectors; how “labor shortage” should follow necessarily from the
particular form assumed by the labor needs of these capitalist sectors, confronted as they have
been with historically specific conditions regulating the supply of labor. To the extent that we
emphasize the importance of the specific mode of production of surplus value for the
explanation of the “labor shortage” and hence the extra-economic means devised for solving
such a “labor problem”, we are also ipso facto denying that this evidence can be shown to
derive solely from the needs of capitalist development conceived in its generality, and
therefore also in its abstract form, i.e., in the form or a “general idea”.
The problem becomes then to explain the specificities of the situation. It is not
enough to point out the specific political conditions that were present in the development of
these capitalist sectors; for these political conditions, while fundamental for the enforcement
of the particularly oppressive conditions of production of surplus value, have, themselves,
being created for this purpose; they are not, consequently, independent factors in the
situation, however a premise -- and what a premise! --- they might have been for the several
cases at hand.
Although we consider such an issue -- i.e., what accounts for the particular form
surplus value production has assumed -- of a complexity that goes beyond the self-imposed
boundaries of this thesis, we shall present some tentative elements that may lead to a
satisfactory theoretical solution to the problem.
The starting point of analysis must be the most basic premise that those capitalist
sectors should satisfy, as a sine qua non condition of existence: the capitals invested in one
form op another -- be it in the form of slaves, sugar-processing machinery, and what not --
should earn a profit rate, at least as nigh as the ruling rate of profit; preferably higher. In this
sense, those capitalist sectors should fulfil their role in capital accumulation at the world
level. Another way to put the same thing is to say that those capitalist sectors have arisen
only to the extent that they have contributed for capital accumulation. It is in this precise
sense that they are indeed capitalist sectors, despite the presence of obvious extra-economic

136
For the meaning of production of relative surplus value, as against (production of) absolute surplus value --
the latter being the case in the evidence being discussed -- see Marx, Capital, vol. I, chapter XII.
 67
means in the extraction of surplus labor.137
The issue then becomes to show if there is any connection between this
requirement of production and the specific features the process of production of surplus labor
has taken. For we would have then a way to translate the drive for profits through expanded
productions on those capitalist sectors -- and therefore the actions of the planters and other
capitalists involved -- into a drive for a specific mode of producing surplus value, in the
assumption that from their practical experience they would learn about this connection. The
argument tnen would be as follows: in order to reproduce capital on an expanded scale
incorporating the backward countries, surplus value should be produced in a determined
manner; in other words, only on this condition production in those capitalist sectors could
become part of the overall process of reproduction of capital, and consequently contribute to
it. In this precise sense, we would say then that to produce surplus value in that specific mode
would be a requirement for accumulation and hence profitability -- in those specific historical
conditions. Such an hypothesis has indeed been advanced, emphasizing the determining role
of the material conditions of production, in particular the technical conditions of production
of necessaries. The hypothesis then would be that, given (1) the drive for accumulation in the
historically specific conditions that gave ne to the “capitalist sectors” in the backward
countries, and (2) the material conditions of production in the production of necessaries,
production of surplus value had to assume the particular mode it has indeed assumed. Let us
present this hypothesis.138
The key analitical insight is presented in the following passage:
“The capitalist character of the export sector and its high
productive level does not imply that the rate of surplus value is high.
Such a rate, in effect, is determined in the first place by the value of
labor power, and the value is not directly influenced by the
productivity in the export sector, being determined instead by the
material and social conditions of production of subsistence goods, in
which the productivity of the export sector does not have any
influence. To the extent that the value of labor power is high, the rate
of surplus value of the export sector will be low, no matter its level of

137
A distinction should be made between merchant capital, industrial capital and finance capital. The question
must be raised, then, as to whether the dominance of one form of capital or another -- and in what sense such a
'1dominance" should be characterized -~ has to be made explicit as a condition for establishing really the
connection between the mode of production of surplus value and capital accumulation. (This question bears, for
instance, or the obvious role of merchant capital in the rise of the modern slave Systems.)
138
What follows draws heavily on Corten, A., “Valor de la fuerza de trabajo y formas de proletarizacion,”
Revista Latinoamericana de Sociologia, 1974, nº. 1 (Nueva Epoca), pp. 45-64. For a broader theoretical
discussion relevant to the subject here see Bettelheim, C., “Theoretical Comments”, in Emmanuel, A., Unequal
Exchange (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), Appendix I, pp. 271-322.
 68
productivity.139 This situation allows us to define two fundamental features of
the relations of production of the export sector.

On the one hand, since no increase in relative surplus value can

be obtained, the extraction of surplus value by capital can only take
place by lengthening or intensifying the working day, i.e., increasing
absolute surplus value, or by paying the labor force below [the value
of labor power], super-exploiting it. (...).

The super-exploitation and the increase in absolute surplus value

have limits. The first one is of an absolute character: the physiological
minimum of subsistence and the capacity of the worker to fatigue. (...)
There are also relative limits, whenever the relations between the
proletariat and the semi-proletariat arise. As exploitation becomes
harshest, the population seeks to move to other sectors, in particular,
to subsistence production. This new tendency leads, once more, to
strengthen the social relations in which the semi-proletariat enlist
itself (…).”140

Backwardness in the “subsistence sector”, therefore, to the extent that

“necessaries” are still to a great extent produced there, would be a constant threat to the
ability of the capitalist sector to extract surplus value, for inherent in these material
conditions is the tendency for necessary labor to absorb the totality of labor time allocated in
society; in the absence of transforming these technical conditions, this contradiction can only
be solved by constantly limiting or reducing the size of B, the vector of subsistence goods of
the worker (hence the drive for “cheap” labor); and by stretching to the utmost the time
during which the worker is producing surplus labor -- i.e., produce absolute surplus value.
The fundamental determining role of the material conditions of production in the
“subsistence sector” must have become clear now. It must have become clear, also, how it is
that the value of labor power “(…) is determined dialectically by the level of productivity of
subsistence goods and by the class struggle.”141
The question then is what determines the material conditions of production of
“necessaries”, i.e., what prevents them from being revolutionized, opening for the capitalist

139
This theoretical insight is indeed welcome. For by looking only at what is happening in the export sector, one
could not but be puzzled by the great technical advances in sugar production, for instance -- both in the
agricultural sphere proper as well as in the processing activities -- and yet the permanence of the drive for
“cheap labor”. To have overlooked this fundamental theoretical insight may be the reason for the implicit
(substantive) assumption that the capitalist sector could afford to attract labor from the subsistence sector by
covering the opportunity cost of this labor (Lewis model); on the other hand, the abstraction of these specific
material conditions in the backward countries has led, in the Marxist field, to the “unequal exchange” literature;
see, e.g., Emmanuel, op.cit., and especially Bettelheim’s “Theoretical Comments”.
140
Corten, “Valor de la fuerza de trabajo ...”, p. 56.
141
Ibid., p. 46.
 69
sectors the possibility of producing relative surplus value. Here no abstract theory will do;
if this happens, it is solely due to the concrete forms capitalist development has assumed in
the backward countries. It is, therefore, not an abstract attribute of capitalism as a mode of
production; it pertains to no “general idea”.

The evidence presented in chapter II is suggestive of the nature of the phenomenon.

Indeed, in the several cases surveyed, the development of the capitalist sectors have meant a

definite encroachment upon the non-capitalist sectors, not only so that the best lands could

become avail able for export production, but also -- especially in the cases of mines, say -- so

that the needed labor power be “supplied”. It suffices to recall the formation of the Reserves

in Africa, the “apathetic” situation of the peasantry in British Guiana, etc.; examples are

abundant.142 The back ward countries were inserted in the worldwide process of reproduction

of capita1 as “primary producers”, lot us say, of diamonds, sugar, coffee, etc.; the “capitalist

sectors” were entrusted with the task of fulfilling this mission to begin with, and not in going

to produce manioc, yams, maize, etc. The very fulfillment of this task, in the specific manner

it has actually been carried out, led to the deterioration in the material conditions of

production of “necessaries”, as part and parcel of the encroachment upon the non-capitalist

sectors; as part and parcel of the process of “grafting” the social conditions necessary for this

142
See Corten’s brief discussion of the cases of Haiti and Dominican Republic. (op.cit., pp. 51-53). See also the
impressive accounts of Rosa Luxemburg in her Accumulation of Capital (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1951), chs. XXVII-XXIX. From his studies of the Caribbean area, Mintz has drawn the conclusion that
“Tout au long de cette histoire, le systeme de la plantation a presque
toujourds beneficie de plus grands soutiens officiels que l’agriculture du petit
proprietaire, et cette preference a affecte de maniere significative le jeu de ces
differents modes d’ exploitation agricole. Il est dans la nature de l’economie de
plantation, ou qu’elle se developpe -- et ceci est encore vraie dans une certaine
mesure --, de s’attribuer les meilleures terres, de monopoliser toutes les resources
utiles disponibles, et de retrecir la sphere de l’activite du petit proprietaire.
Particulierement importantes dans la traditionelle domination de la plantation sur la
petite agriculture sont les infiniment plus grandes facilites qu’elle a d’acceder au
capital et les forces politiques qu’elle peut generalement engager dans sa lutte pour
la suprematie regionale ou insulaire.”
“Petits Cultivateurs et Froletaires huraux dans la Region des Caraibes,” Les Problemes Agraires des Ameriques
Latines (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1967, pp. 93-94). See also Beckford, G. L.,
Persistent Poverty, Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World (New York: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1972), where the author shows how the development possibilities of the peasant sector are frustrated by
its weakness in the face of plantation dominance manifested in the distribution of landholding and in control
over credit institutions, transport facilities, price and marketing structures, and so on. For a critique of
Beckford’s important work, from a Marxist standpoint, as well as for the presentation or the case of Java, see
Bernstein, H. and N. Pitt, “Plantations and Modes of Exploitation”, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 1, nº. 4 pp.
514-526.
 70

process to develop. In this sense, “the material conditions of production of subsistence

goods [are] related to the social conditions in which the peasants and laborers insert

themselves in the process of production.” In other words, these material conditions become

inseparable of these social conditions, and both “express the subordination of the precapitalist

modes of production to the capitalist modes (…).”143

The capitalist sectors, therefore, establish the social and economic conditions
necessary for profitable production in sugar, diamonds, etc.; once this is accomplished, and
therefore backward country A becomes integrated in the reproduction of capital at the world
level, by the same token yam or manioc or maize are expelled to marginal lands, with
backward technique etc. (example: “provision grounds” under slavery). Such a situation
determines necessarily an inner drive in the capitalist sectors towards production of absolute
surplus value as well as super-exploiting labor; this tendency, however, would produce an
attempt by the laborers to engage in subsistence production; but these very conditions under
which such a production is carried out explain the reproduction of technical backwardness,
and even a deterioration of the technique.
The fact that capital does not move to the subsistence goods sector, once this
duality has arisen and therefore be comes a visible phenomenon, is a very simple matter to
explain, indeed a trivial one: it is just that the profit rate is higher in sugar, coffee, cacao, etc.,
than in manioc, yams, maize, etc. What is not trivial, however, is the very rise of this duality,
and why there is its reproduction. The explanation has to be sought, as it was suggested
above, in the particular set of social relations that arise and are reproduced as these capitalist
sectors also arise and are reproduced. This means that only by focusing on these social
relations can we locate any tendency for capital to revolutionize the technical conditions of
production of necessaries by making them a field for industrial capital.144 In the absence of
this revolutionizing, the capitalist sectors become able to be fields for capita1 accumulation
only by adopting a distinctive solution: to produce absolute surplus value on the basis of the
“mechanisms” we have surveyed. The essence of these mechanisms becomes now clear: their
function would be to make available suited supply of “cheap” labor. To the very extent,
however, that this “solution” leaves unaffected -- i.e., leads to the reproduction of -- the

143
Corten, “Valor de la fuerza de trabajo ...”, p. 46.
 71
technical conditions of production of “necessaries”, the continued existence and expansion
of those capita1ist sectors is being constantly threatened by an inherent contradiction -- the
source of a “labor problem”, only solved when the paradise of labor abundance becomes a
historical reality (together with underdevelopment). It is against this theoretical perspective
that one must under stand the recurrence, the permanence of the drive for “cheap” labor
(Peru: slaves-coolies-enganchados; Guiana: slaves coolies; etc.) as expressed in the historical
evidence and as manifested also in the Brazilian case, to be tackled from now on.

144
Corten has presented an example of such an analysis for the case of Haiti and Dominican Republic; see
op.cit., pp. 59-63.
 72
CHAPTER V

V. COFFEE AND LABOR SUPPLY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BRAZIL

Introduction
It is our purpose in this chapter to present a detailed account of the experience of the
Brazilian coffee economy in the nineteenth century, focusing on the concrete means on the
basis of which labor was supplied to such a capitalist sector. African slavery is shown, in part
I, to have founded the development of this economy up to the 1880’s; while, in part II, we
attempt to analyze the fundamental social and economic conditions that have allowed a
fantastic expansion of coffee production, after abolition of slavery, in the face of constant or
even falling real wages. (In this sense, we will speak of “development with an unlimited
supply of labor”).
An important additional historical evidence is provided, in this way, for the critique of
the conception of capitalist development in the periphery of the world as a “spontaneous
process,” following Arrighi. This is most clearly seen, before the 1880’s, not only by the
enslavement of Africans as laborers, but, in addition, by the actual means land was taken
away from corn, beans, etc., and “allocated” to coffee. Freedom of contract after abolition, it
will be seen, was just an appearance, denied by the objective conditions of economic
dispossession of free labor; the terms of such a “contract”, furthermore, were determined in a
fundamental sense by a conscious immigration policy designed and implemented, directly or
indirectly, by the planters themselves.

Part I

The Slave-Based Period, 1820’s-1880’s

Section I – Coffee and expansion of the slave economy

Coffee production expanded continuously in the nineteenth century Brazilian

economy, as can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1
 73

Brazil: Coffee exports, 1821-1910

Period Exports Period Exports

(thousands 60 (thousands 60
Kg sacks) Kg sacks)

1821-1830 317.8 1871-1880 3,663.6

1831-1840 974.4 1881-1890 5,332.6
1841-1850 1,712.1 1891-1900 7,449.1
1851-1860 2,625.3 1901-1910 13,059.9
1861-1870 2,884.7

Source: Anuario Estatistico do Brasil (1939), pp. 1381-82.

In areas where coffee production developed – located predominantly in parts of

the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Minas Gerais slave labor had been,
throughout the colonial period (1500--1822), relatively less important in their economies,
where a population of free producers, in conditions of a relatively easy access to the land,
carried out their economic activities geared, for the most part, to their own needs. Only in
some apparently minor cases did coffee replace other slave-based production, as with sugar
cane in Sao Paulo 145 .
As coffee production established itself in these lands, so slave labor became more
important, leading to an absolute as well as a relative increase in their slave population146 . In
addition to this extension of the geographical area of s1ave-based production, coffee led to an
increase in the slave population in nineteenth century Brazil, as can be seen in Table 2: the
absolute increase reported. in the country as a whole, for the period 1823-1872, is to a great
extent accounted for by the coffee provinces, this role of coffee becoming somewhat blurred
in the cases of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro because in both provinces slave-based

145
An author has pictured the rise of the coffee economy in the province of Rio de Janeiro (Paraiba Valley) as a
change from “wilderness to plantation”; see Stein, S., Vassouras, A_Brazilian Coffee County, 1850-1900
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957), Description of the forest zone of Minas Gerais, prior to
the development of coffee production, is presented in Mercadante, P., Os Sertoes do Leste, Estudo de uma
Regiao: A Mata Mineira (Rio: Zahar, 1973). The province of Sao Paulo is analyzed, on the basis of an 1818
registry of landholdings, in Canabrava, A. P., “A repartição da terra na capitania de Sao Paulo, 1818” Estudos
Economicos, vol. 2, n°. 6, pp.77-130; for the particular case of Rio Claro, see Deen W., The Brazilian Plantation
System in Rio Claro, 1820-1920 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, forthcoming) pp. 7-15. The areas where
sugar preceded coffee have been discussed in Petrone, M. T. S., A Lavoura Canavieira Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo:
Difusao Europeia do Livro, 1968)
 74
activities had already developed in the colonial period (in areas other than the ones that
were to become the coffee lands). The case of Sao Paulo, however, appears in full light.
We can say with Furtado, therefore, that the coffee plantation “(...) establishes itself
(...) bringing its own labor force (…);”147 from an economic point of view, inherent in this
social form of coffee production, was a solution to its labor needs: on the basis of African
slavery, this capitalist sector, rather than taking as given, outside itself, the conditions of
labor supply and therefore founding its labor process and labor costs in consonance with

Table 2
Slave Population in Brazil by Provinces in the Nineteenth Century

N°. of slaves (thousands)

Provinces 1823 1872 1885 1887

Imperial Court n.a. 49 n.a. n.a.

Minas Gerais 215 370 226 191
Rio de Janeiro 151ª 293 218 162
Sao Paulo 21 157 128 108
Bahia 238 168 158 77
Pernambuco 150 89 66 41
Sergipe 32 23 20 17
Alagoas 40 36 22 15
Paraiba 20 22 16 9
Maranhao 97 75 48
Parana n.a. 11 5 n.a.
Santa Catarina 3 15 8 n.a.
Rio Grande do Sul 7 68 49 n.a.
Others 174 212 36 17

Total n°. Of slaves 1,148 1,511 1,000 638

n.a.-- not available
ª Rio de Janeiro and Court
Source: Graham, D. H. and S. B. Hollanda F°., Migration, Regional and Urban Growth
and Development in Brazil: A Selective Analysis of the Historical Record 1872-
1970 (Sao Paulo: IPE – USP,1971), p. 31.

these conditions -- constitutes, according to its needs, such a supply. This is accomplished to
the extent that the enslaved laborer is made

146
For the data at the level of the municipios (counties) where coffee production developed, see Costa, E. V., Da
Senzala a Colonia (Sao Paulo: Difusao Europeia do Livro, 1966), pp. 19-64, 148-153; in Rio Claro, for instance,
the slave population rose from 500 in 1822 to almost 5,000 in 1884 see Dean, Rio Claro, p. 86;
 75
“[to go] wherever the master wanted, [to perform any activities that were
attributed to him, [to dwell] wherever the master ordered, [to eat] whatever
was given him, and what was even more important [to guarantee] a
continuity, a permanence, that could not be expected from a free worker
(...)”148 .

Such a capitalist sector, therefore, managed to establish and expand production on the

basis of an absolute control over labor; the significance of this fact must be perceived ni the

light of the objective conditions of nineteenth century Brazilian Center-South, where free

producers had an effective alternative of carrying out independent production149 .

Section 2 -- Structural aspects of the coffee economy

The development of the coffee economy was not only thus based on a social
mechanism by which the economic system was able to determine, in an absolute way, both
the features of the labor process such as the working day, intensity of labor, etc., as well as
the (social) cost of labor -- i.e., ΛIIΒ --; in addition, a latifundia system and a marginalization
of the non-slaveholding, free population, seem to have been the general pattern wherever
cooffee production developed in nineteenth century Brazil.

This general process has been pictured, in this way, for the case of Sao Paulo:

“In general, in Brazil, the easy access to the land made possible
the social adjustment of the poor man through his incorporation to
rural groups relatively self-sufficient. In the Paulista region, whose
settlement was rather widespread, and whose economy had been of
little importance for a long period in Brazilian colonial history, these
small population nuclei -- the bairros -- established and reproduced
147
“A Estrutura Agraria no Subdesenvolvimento Brasileiro”, in Analise do ‘Modelo’ Brasileiro (Rio:
Civilizacao, 1972) p. 100.
148
Costa, Da Senzala, p. 28.
149
The transfer of slaves from decadent mining regions, as well as of free people -- potential masters or
otherwise -- has been emphasized in the literature; see, e.g. Mercadante, P., op. cit., p. 92. Such a transfer, in
view of slavery itself, did not require higher “wages” to the laborer, and therefore the economy’s labor costs had
not to change the effect such a transfer. The crucial role of slavery in making possible this economic feature of
nineteenth century Brazilian plantation system has been over-looked by Furtado in A Economia Brasileira (Rio
de Janeiro: Editora A Noite, 1954), pp. 9l-92; instead, he ascribed coffee economy’s capacity to expand without
increase in social costs of labor (i.e., necessary labor) to the exis tence, in Brazil, of a “large pool of labor
resulting, from the previous colonial cycles,” without specifying clearly the social form of this labor, and the
derived attributed as far as transferability is concerned.
 76
themselves, in a situation where the ecological conditions, the economc life, the
culture and the social organization became integrated in terms of
minimum standards of living, consistent with their autonomous
functioning. This equilibrium was broken up and the corresponding
life style disappeared as a possibility of peculiar social adjustment,
with the development of the profitable exploitation of the land. In this
manner, the independent petty producer disappears, being replaced
instead either by the small landowner (sitiante), or by the morador
(squatter) in alien lands. In this last case, the social category of the
agregado is completely defined as it is consolidated the occupation of
the land in the form of the large landholding and as commercial
agriculture on the basis of slave labor expands”150 .

Associated to the rise and reproduction of such a socio-economic structure, it

must be pointed out, was a fundamental duality export production subsistence production.
Indeed, one could argue that the marginalization of the petty producers was really an
expression of the subordination of subsistence production. This hypothesis is suggested by
the very fact that, while expelling the petty producers and their production of maize, beans,
manioc, etc., to worse lands, so that the best lands could become available for the all-
powerful coffee, the planters attributed to the slaves -- and certainly also the plantation’
worse lands --, the production of necessaries carried out within any plantation unit. This
duality within the plantations sector seems to be just an extreme form of the pervasive duality
export production/subsistence production that would manifest itself socially as the
marginalization of the petty producers, on the one hand, and the hegemony of the planters on
the other hand. Such a duality, and the uneven development of productive forces that follows
from it, will become a permanent feature in the coffee economy, as it will be pointed out
continuously in this chapter.151

150
Franco, M. S. C., Homens Livres na Ordem Escravocrata (Sao Paulo: Editora Atica, 1974), p. 91. For
penetration general discussion of the subordinated insertion at petty producers in the plantation-dominated
coffee economy in Sao Paulo, see Ibid, pp. 91-106. For the case of Vassouras, see Stein, Vassouras, pp. 6, 57-
58. A detailed analysis of the complete process developed in Rio Claro is presented in Dean, Rio Claro, pp. 1-
30; Dean notices connection between their “being marginalized” as suppliers of commodities” -- expropriated as
they were from their lands by the planters -- and their becoming “part-time suppliers of labor, in the condition of
camaradas “a floating population of laborers”, “most obviously dispossessed”; see Ibid., pp. 27-30. In this
subordinated position, some petty producers became the capangas,a private police, “elements of resistance in a
‘system of caution and vigilance’ against possible slave insurrection (…)” Stein, op.cit., p. 60. While pointing
out that these petty producers within the coffee regions were “relegated to activities on the economic system of
production and marketing of coffee”, “residual services that for the most part could not be carried out by slaves
and did not interest men with wealth”, Franco emphasizes very much the fact that they did not constitute a
source of surplus labor the plantations; see Homens Livres, pp. 14, 60.
151
“(...) the slave was expected to shift for himself or do without,” Dean, op. cit., p. 90. This theme of the
duality subsistence production export production, and the systematic domination of the labor over the former, as
a general feature of Brazilian agriculture, constitutes a recurrent issue in the writings of Caio Prado, Jr.; see, for
instance, “Distribuição da Propriedade Fundiaria Rural no Estado de São Paulo,” Boletim Geografico, vol. III,
 77
For an analysis of these structural features, one must realize, first of all, that the
coffee economy, rather than unique, seems to fit a general process whose pervasiveness has
been suggested in the selected survey presented in chapter II.152 The need to make explicit the
coffee economy’s relation to accumulation at the world scale – and hence the requirement of
profitability – become evident once the generality of the process has been established.153
It is ultimately in the context of this relation, in other words, that the phenomena of
expropriation of a land, consolidation of the latifundio, the purchase of slaves (and putting
them to work), etc., acquired a definite meaning, had a rationale: these phenomena were
merely aspects of the more basics process of setting-up, in a specific form, a profitable
production for exports. This specific form included not only the extra-economic compulsion
inherent in African slavery, but also the political means which the petty producers were
expropriated from their lands in order that these lands could be taken away from maize, say,
and be “allocated” to coffee.154
The interconnection between the political and economic spheres manifested itself in a
striking form in the fact that the sesmaria system benefited generally men of wealth, capable
therefore of holding slaves, establishing connections with financiers and traders, and
consequently be responsible for the setting up of plantations155 . The power structure served,

n°. 29 (August 1945); “Contribuicao para a Analise da Questao Agraria no Brasil,” Revista Brasiliense, n°. 28
(March/April 1960), pp. 165 ff.; “Nova Contribuicao para a Analise da Questao Agraria no Brasil,” Revista
Brasiliense, n°. 43 pp. 11 ff.; and The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
Universitv of California Press 1967), esp. pp. 148-194. One could notice, in passing, that the subordination of
the production of necessaries seems to have been just a particular instance of the general subordination of non-
export production, the atrophy of the industrial sector being, of course, a distinctive feature of this economy,
whose dynamics was given in its functioning hacia fuera (of itseif).
152
In addition to all the cases we have already discussed, one could mention the instance of the French and
British Antilles, where na agricultural exploitation of the family type was quickly disloged in favor of slave-
based sugar production. See Furtado, “A Estrutura Agraria …,” pp. 104-105. In the case of Virginia, tobacco
was the crop involved, but the developments were the same. See Novais, F. A., “ Estrutura e Dinamica do
Antigo Sistema Colonial (Seculos XVI-XVIII)” (São Paulo: Cadernos CEBRAP n° 17, 1973), p. 25. It may be
interesting to notice that, for the U.S. South, “In every Census count from 181 to 1860, about forty-five percent
of the population in the lower South were slaves. A large proportion of the white population – about two-thirds
in 1860 – did not own slaves, and substancial number of these whites scratched a bare living from the land in a
manner little different from the ‘self-sufficiency’ (that delightful euphemism for rural poverty) of farmers in the
backward areas of the world today.” Rothstein, M,, “The Antebellum South as a Dual Economy: A Tentative
Hypothesis,” in Genovese, E. D., ed., The Slave Economies (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973) vol. II, p.
160.
153
Dean has concluded that foreign capital played a key role in the setting-up of the coffee plantations in Rio
Claro; see op. cit., pp. 50-54.
154
This interconnection has been very much emphasized by Dean, that recalls “In Sao Paulo, it has been
asserted, ‘The latifundium dates only from the nineteenth century, with the cultivation of coffee’.” (op. cit., p.
71). For data on concentration of production in coffee in Rio Claro, see Ibid., 71-76. See also, in this matter, the
data presented in Mello, P. C., “The Economics of Labor in the Coffee Plantations, 1850-1880,” Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Chicago, 1975, Appendix A, pp. 8-12.
155
Dean has noted that in the case of Rio Claro, “(...) Except for the grant made to the Pereira clan, all were
bestowed upon persons of considerable wealth, with positions in the militia or civil service, all of whom already
 78
therefore, to the reproduction of a given economic base, whose character was dictated in
the relation with the international economy. On the other hand, given the property relations
characteristic of a slave-based plantation system, the very cost-price relationships that were
founded on slave labor implied to petty, non-slave production a competitive disadvantage,
that would result solely on this account, rather than being a matter technical inefficiency156 .
This competitive advantage of slave-based plantation production could only, in this turn,
reinforce the economic and political hegemony on the planters, to the detriment of petty
production.

Section 3 – Suppression of the African slave trade and internal slave trade

While basing itself on slave labor, the coffee economy obtained a supply of this
labor power both from other sectors -- as the decadent mining regions in Minas Gerais -- as
well as from the African slave traffic. With the effective suppression of the African slave
traffic in the early 1850’s, the coffee economy became restricted, for its needs of placement
and expansion of the slave labor force, to an internal slave trade. The first source of this labor
power was the Northeastern sugar plantations. According to one estimate, between 1852 and
1862, 34,688 slaves arrived by sea at Rio de Janeiro from the provinces of the Northeast; in
the 1870’s this traffic was still continuing, which suggests that between 1850 and 1880, the
Northeast provided 90,000 slaves to the coffee provinces.157
A second source of slaves to the coffee regions can be located in the Center-
South itself; in Minas Gerais, for instance, the mining counties, in the period 1874-83, had
their slave population decrease from 150,638 to 99,991, while the non-coffee counties in the

owned plantations elsewhere (…)”. (op. cit, p. 16). Stein has stated, for Vassouras, that “(… The linking of land
and slaves, the pillars of plantation society, was more than fortuituous; not only was slave labor indispensable in
working the land, its ownership in adequate amounts had been a perquisite in obtaining the sesmaria from the
Portuguese crown”. (op. cit., p. 55) More generally, Furtado has observed that “(…) in the condition that
prevailed in the beginning of of occupation, land was a good of hardly any value. The establishment of the agro-
mercantile enterprise depend mainly on financial capacity. It is understood, therefore, why the first land grants
were given to men that had the means to leads the establishment of such enterprises. In this manner, the ruling
class is formed, from the beginning, of economically powerful men (…) that invested considerable amounts in
imported facilities and in slaves no less expensives (…)”. “ A Estrutura Agraria …”, p. 97. in this connection,
another author has also observed that (…)”. Prado, Jr., C. Evolucao Politica do Brasil e outros Ensaios (Sao
Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1957), p. 16.
156
The argument about economies of scale – in abstraction from social form acquired by the labor process under
slavery – has an obvious difficulty, for the counter-example of Colombia is very significant. Dean, However,
has pointed out the different types of coffee produced in Brazil and Colombia; see Rio Claro, p. 77.
157
Galloway, J. H., “The Last Years of Slavery on the Sugar Plantations of Northeastern Brazil”, Hispanic
American Historical Review, vol. 52 (1972), p. 590. Stein refers contemporary estimates according to which the
 79
Rio de Janeiro province, similarly, went from 152,557 to 112,822 in the same period. The
coffee counties in these provinces, as well as in Sao Paulo, have shown, however, a
significant increase in their slave population in this period.158
The development of an active internal slave trade, while representing, a mechanism to
satisfy the labor needs of the coffee plantations, was an expression of the fact that the
production of coffee remained based of slave labor, despite the stoppage of the trade and the
higher slave prices that followed159 . As it will be argued later, however, this permanence of
slavery itself has been an option over some forms of free labor that were actually tried by
planters in this period.
If it is possible to argue that the suppression of the African slave trade did not mean
immediately a “labor problem” for coffee production, one should have in mind, however, the
long run of the stoppage of the trade, in view of the demographic patterns characteristic of the
slave population in Brazil – the African slave traffic had always been indispensable for the
labor needs (replacement and expansion) of the slave economy. A comparison with the
United States helps to shed light on the situation in Brazil. While the Brazilian slave
population remained constant, around 1,500,000, in the period 1798-1871, the slave
population of the United States rew from about 700,000 to nearly 4,000,000 between 1790
and 1860; on the other hand, the total importation of slaves into the United States ha been
estimated at 399,000 between 1701 and 1870, while the total number said to have been
transported to Brazil is 3,646,800. In the period 1800-1860 alone probably 1,600,000 were
imported into the country160 . In a word, not even mere reproduction was possible for the slave

supply of slaves from the Northeast “(…) compensated for the extinction of the traffic because ‘they began to
work immediately in the fields’.” (op. cit., p. 65).
158
Conrad, R., The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1972) p. 29. The absolute increase in the slave population of the coffee provinces, and the concentration of
slaves in these regions after 1850 is discussed in Costa, E. V., Da senzala, pp. 148-153, 203-208. In an
important contribution to the issue, an author estimated that at least 5,000 or 6,000 slaves per year were traded
into the coffee region between 1850 and 1870; on the basis of an analysis of historical records, he found that out
of 978 slaves, 579 came from the Northeastern region and 136 came from non-specified ports north of Rio; see
Klein, H. S., “The Internal Slave Trade in Nineteenth Century Brazil: A Study of Slave Importations into Rio de
Janeiro in 1852”, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 51 (1971), pp. 565-85. In Rio Claro, Dean found
also a growing importance of purchases from other provinces; see op. cit., pp. 91-97.
159
For the rise of the slave prices in the period 1850-1880 see Stein, Vassouras, p. 228; Eisenberg, “Abolishing
Slavery …”, p. 583; Dean, Rio Claro, pp. 90-92. A systematic statistical analysis of several independent series
of slave prices, for this period, is presented in Mello, “The Economics of Labor …”, pp. 58-77.
160
Conrad, op. cit., p. 26. Curtin estimates that between 1811 and 1860 a total of 1,145,400 Africans were
imported into Brazil; cf. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969),
p. 234. Stein presents a total of 371,615 for the period 1840-51; cf. op. cit., p. 25. Furtado, in Formacao
Economica do Brasil (Rio: Fundo de Cultura Econômica, 19612), p. 135, estimates that the number of slaves in
the early nineteenth century was around 1,000,000 and that in the first half of that century 500,000 slaves were
 80
population in Brazil161 .
The stoppage of the African slave traffic, in its turn, was to a great extent exogenous
to the Brazilian plantation sectors; ad as the second half of the nineteenth century unfolded
itself, the centuries-old mechanism of labor control represented by African slavery showed
itself increasingly problematic, as abolition was enacted, peacefully or otherwise, everywhere
in the new World. In this broader context, a “ labor problem” was posed for the coffee
plantations162 .

Section 4 – The “labor problem” and the “Land Law” of 1850

The planters’ perceptions of this “labor problem”, as well as the specific solutions
sought for, became manifest in the discussions that led to the enactment of the “Land Law” of
1850. In the colonial period, land was property of the Portuguese Crown, and private property
in land was a royal grant (a sesmaria). Land appropriated otherwise was said to be a posse;
most of such posses, however, were appropriated by petty squatters163 . With independence in
1822, such a sesmaria system was abolished, leading the large-scale appropriation of land
under the form of posses164 . The need of a “land law” became acute, as an author has keenly
perceived:
“The Imperial government could not go on indefinitely
permitting the private engrossment of crown lands. Posse
fundamentally denied the authority of the state. The crown had to be
able to maintain its rights over public lands and -- even more

probably imported into Brazil; these two estimates he contrasts with the 1872 (first) census, according to which
1,500,000 laves existed in Brazil.
161
A careful analysis of this lack of reproduction in the case of Rio Claro is presented in Dean, op. cit., pp. 103-
117. He stresses the high death rate, due to infant mortality, as well as a “regime of unremitting labor and vile
living conditions (…).” (p. 117). Another author has tried to make this barbarous conditions of existence of the
slaves a rational economic choice on the part of the planters; see Leff, N. H., “Long Term Viability of Slavery in
a Backward Closed Economy”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. V, n° 1 (Summer 1974), pp. 103-108.
Leff’s argument, however, is apparently circular, for he takes as dictating the planters’ decisions conditions
supposedly to follow from their decisions themselves.
162
For discussions of the issues involved in this worldwide movement against slavery, led by the British, and in
particular the British pressures on Brazil for suppressing the African slave traffic, see Conrad, op. cit., pp.20-23;
Stein, op. cit., pp. 62-65; Costa, op. cit., pp. 30-43; Prado Jr., C., Historia Economica do Brasil (Sao Paulo:
Brasiliense, 1963), pp. 145-157; Bethell, L., The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1970); Williams, E., Capitalism and Slavery (New York, 1966). For a classic statement of the
coffee economy’s “lbor problem”, see Furtado, Formacao, chs. 21-24.
163
Dean, W., “Latifundia and Land Policy in Nineteenth Century Brazil, Hispanic American Historical Review,
vol 51 (1971), pp. 606-625; Costa, E. V., “The Brazilian Land Law of 1850 and the Homestead Act of 1962: A
Comp arative Study”, paper presented at the LASA meetings, Madison, 1973; Caldeira, C., Origens e Evolucao
da Propriedade da Terra no Brasil”, mimeo., n.d., pp. 39-42.
164
“(...) squatting became the onlv form of obtaining land. This created an anarchical situation in the system of
land property, since the rights of the squatters were not recognized by law (...)”. Costa, “The Brazilian Land
Law ...”, p. 8.
 81
important it had to establish a legitimate means of a1ienating them. If most of
the land in private hands was illegally acquired, then how was the
state to guarantee any individual’s property rights? If the state
recognized the validity of none of these claims, it would have no basis
for arbitrating disputes, and inevitably, they would be settled
violently. ‘Lamentably, in the interior killings are almost always the
result of claims and disputes over lands’, Carneiro da Cunha dared
remark in the 1850 debates, provoking considerable nervousness in
the Chamber. (...)
(...)
“The absence of a legal means of establishing title, then,
undermined the authority of government, divided the landowning
class, and gave practice to the landless in the employment of weapons
against their social superiors”165 .

In addition to providing state’s defense of the private property rights, however,

the land law was conceived as an instrument for the solution of the “labor problem” face by
the planters. In the proposal drawn up in the Council of State in 1842, Wakefield’s
“systematic colonization” was a key objective166 .
“It provided that henceforth crown lands could be alienated
only by sale, at prices to be set deliberately above the market value.
The purpose was to create a self-sustaining system for the introduction
of European farm workers. The immigrants would be unable to buy
land upon arrival because of its high price. They would therefore be
obliged to work for a time on the plantations. The income received
through the eventual sale of crown lands would be used to subsidize
further immigration, thus maintaining the flow of field hands and
preserving the existence of the plantations.

“(...) [Wakefield] saw that cheap land diverted laborers from the
great estates, forced up the price of labor, and made it necessary for
the great landowners to import slaves. (...)

“The proposal of the Council of State was presented to the

Chamber of Deputies in June 1843. Rodrigues Torres, as its sponsor,
declared its purpose: ‘We want to keep free workers, who come to us
from other parts of the world, from being able to arrive in Brazil and,
instead of working for the land-owners for some time at least, …
finding crown land immediately’”167 .

165
Dean, “Latifundia...”, pp. 610-11.
166
Wakefield, see Marx, Capital, vol. I. ch. XXXIII; Pappe, H. O., “Wakefield and Marx”, Economic History
Review, vol. IV (1951), n°. 1, pp. 88-97.
167
Dean, “Latifundia ...’, pp. 613-14. Costa (“The Brazilian Land Law …”), after describing the bill’s
provisions and the Parliamentary’ s debates, concludes (p. 12) that “Underlying all these particular arguments,
the bill’s supporters all insisted, was the fact that the law would create conditions under which the planter could
obtain free labor to replace slaves, whose supp1y was threatened by the imminent interruption of the slave trade.
It is obvious that, for them the law was designed to help solve the agonizing problem of manpower.”
 82
While the deputies, “with few exceptions,” agreed with the ministry’s view
that the “problem vias to increase the supply of labor for the plantations, there were two
contradictions that made such a Wakefieldian scheme only a planters dream. First of all,
European immigrants would not necessarily have to come to Brazil, in the terms supply to the
planters. The United States “was emerging as an economic success, attractive to the landless
European immigrant. The Marques de Abrantes, returning from Europe in 1846, gave the
reasons behind the reticence of Europeans in embarking for Brazil: the indignity of working
alongside field slaves, the tropical fevers, the possibility of ruination or death in a rebellion.
Only one incentive could effectively counterbalance these real disabilities -- cheap land”168 .
Secondly, under such a scheme land appropriation, after all, would become very
expensive, while “The arrangement which best suited the possessors of sesmarias would be
unconditional revalidation without any formalities. Those who were engaged in absorbing
more posses desired no new law at all. They would simply insist upon the recognition of
squatter’s rights. These claimants were squatters in the Australian usage, latifundists on a
scale even beyond that of the sesmaria holder, and unrestrained by any legal obligation to
cultivate their claims (...)”. It is no wonder, then, that in the final bill, signed into law on
September 18, 1850, “The Wakefieldian scheme (...) was completely abandoned”169 . After
all, the manner land actually vias appropriated was so interlocked with the socio-economic
structure of the country that a land policy could no more than “(...) facilitate appropriation of
land by the large plantation owners, to the detriment of squatter families. (…)”170 . Consistent
with this, the law reserved to the petty squatters fine and imprisonment up to six months, and
Dean notes that “The support for this clause, in contrast to the other, suggests that it was
intended to be applied against the backwoods ‘intruders’ on private lands, not against the
great squatters on crown 1ands”171 . Although the final bill had it stated that crown land was
to be alienated only by sale, it should be no surprise, however, that “land continued to be
acquired by squatting under the cover of forged documents.”172

168
Dean, “Latifundia ...”, p. 617.
169
Ibid., pp. 608, and 618.
170
Leff, N., “Economic Retardation in Nineteenth Century Brazil,” The Economic History Review, August
1972, p. 491.
171
Dean, “Latifundia ...”, p. 616.
172
Costa, “The Brazilian Land Law ...“, p. 30 n. 40.
 83
Section 5 -- Experiences with free labor and “retreat” to slave labor, 1850-1888

A concrete experience with free labor that has received much attention in the
literature may be taken here as an additional evidence of the specific kind of labor being
demanded by the coffee plantations. The experiment took shape in the early 1850’s, and in its
beginning it seemed as if an alternative labor system had been found by the planters; as it
turned out, however, deep contradictions soon developed, and by the end of the 1850’s it was
already a failure, with the coffee planters “retreating” to slave labor173 . In the discussion of
this issue, one must point out, in a preliminary way, that, side by side with this experiment,
the planters still had the option of African slavery, what means that the economic system had
thus determined a maximum rate of time wages -- or, alternatively, minimum rate of profits --
, as well as specific social forms of the labor process. Any other labor systems, in other
words, should compare favorably with slavery; otherwise it would not be adopted by the
planters.
The scheme was very simple: the Government either lent finance or gave
subsidies for the importation of European colonists174 ; upon arrival in Brazil they were
distributed to the coffee plantations, where they were supposed to cultivate and harvest a
given number of coffee trees. They were paid, for this work, half of the not profits on frio
harvested coffee; as against this credit, they had for debts their transportation expenses not
only to Brazil but also to the interior, plus interest, as well as the cost of their subsistence in
the first year in the “colony.” Within such a system of debt peonage, the planter had
guaranteed the profits on the capital represented by the coffee trees, with the immigrant
sharing in the risks of climate and price vagaries; since the immigrant could move from the
plantation only after paying his accumulated debts, he was compelled to allocate the
maximum of his labor time -- including his family’s -- in such a way so as to earn the most
cash income and simultaneously spend the least possible; he could do that in the cultivating
and harvesting of coffee, on the one hand, and in the production of necessaries on the other
hand, both for own-consumption and sale; these latter activities he developed on a plantation-

173
The most critical discussion of this important experience is to the found in Dean, Rio Claro, Ch. IV; see also
Costa, Da Senzala, pp. 78ff.; Holanda, S. B., “Prefacio do Tradutor, ‘ in Davatz, T., Memorias de um colono no
Brasil: 1850 (Sao Paulo: Livraria Martins Editora, 1972), pr. Xv-xlv; Davatz, op. cit.; Hall, M. M., “The Origins
of Mass Immigration in Brazil, 1871-1914 Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1969, pp. 11-27; Holloway,
T. H, “Migration and Mobility: Immigrants as Laborers and Landowners in the Coffee Zona of Sao Paulo,
Brazil, 1886-1934,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1974, pp. 73-79.
174
Dean, in Rio Claro, p. 170, was probably the first to point out the European background for this immigration
to Brazil -- i.e., the “potato failure;” the subsidies’ policy, moreover, would allow the poorest to come.
 84
assigned plot. Since the labor time allocated to coffee, and the corresponding rate of pay,
would be determined by the alternatives the immigrant had in the production of necessaries, it
becomes apparent that for the planter, and his coffee, the size and the quality of the plot
assigned to the colonist was of key importance the duality export production subsistence
production, once more, invades the plantation sector itself, in a manner now consistent with
the freedom of the laborer175 . To the extent, however, that this restriction of the development
possibilities of the subsistence sector implied the socio-economic subordination of the
immigrants that could very easily be turned into debt peons --, this economic logic of the
p1antation had to face their resistance176 . They could see the whole thing as a trap, and a
process of organizing seen developed among the “colonists”, culminating, in February of
1857, in the so-called “uprising” of Ibicaba, the “model-colony” of the experiment177 . Three
years later, in 1860, throughout Sao Paulo still “vegetated” twenty-nine colonies; in 1870
their number had been reduced to thirteen178 .
While reinforcing slavery, despite the slaves’ higher prices, the coffee planters, in
the aftermath of the “uprising,” turned the surviving free labor systems still into more
oppressive forms;179 contrary to what has been commonly propagated, one must say, with
Dean, therefore, that “(...) The plantations of the Paulista West (...) were at the same time the
most progressive and the most retrograde sector of Brazilian society.”180

175
Interestingly enough, the Bahian sugar planters were trying similar experiments with free labor: the colonos
were asked to plant cane on a certain amount of acreage, to be ground on the plantation mills; in addition, they
should not engage in commercial activities with outside traders. Finally, the size of the plot would depend only
on the number of working-age colonos, regardless of the size of family. See Pang, Eul-Soo, “Bahia’s Planter
Elite and Their Attempt to Modernize Agricultura, 1842-1889,” mimeo., Vanderbilt University, 1974, pp. 18-
19.
176
Dean, in Rio Claro, has tried to argue that in the “sharecroppinq system” “the typical family was able to free
itself of debt within a reasonable period” (p. 175); the prospects for advancement were good (pp. 179-480). On
the other hand, after estimating that the investment per family by the planter would yield 20 percent (pp. 182-
183), Dean concludes for the feasibility oh “liberalizing thee terms of the contracts,” and therefore for the
economic viability of the system. All these calculations, of course, were based on the very conditions that led to
the “uprising,” so that one wonders about their relevance in an analysis of the contradictions inherent in the
“sharecropping system”. What is “feasible”, or “reasonable”, of course, must not be decided by an alien party,
as the planters themselves taught Dean, by refusing to satisfy the demands of the workers, seeking, instead, the
use of force. “(...) The government, however, (...) refused to apply the massive force that would be required, and
the planters retreated to the employment of slaves.” (p. 183).
177
The colonists’ movement is described vividly by Davatz, the colonists’ leader, that was finally expelled from
Brazil, as an “agitator.” The various European governments involved soon barred further immigration to Brazi1.
See Costa, Da Senzala, pp. 93-94.
178
Holanda, op. cit., pp. xxxix-x1. See also Eisenberg, P. and M. Hall, “Labor Supply and Immigration in Brazil
Comparison of Pernambuco and Sao Paulo,” paper present at the LASA meetings, Madison, 1973, p. 110;
Holloway, op. cit., p. 78; Prado Jr., Historia Economica, p. 192.
179
For the evolution, for thc worse, of the experiments, with free labor, see Dean, Rio Claro, pp. 190-203; a
somewhat rosier picture, however, is presented in Holloway, “Immigrants as Laborers,” pp. 79-87.
180
Rio Claro p 05. On the “retreat” to slave labor and its predominance in coffee production to the last minute,
see Ibid., pp. 201-2; Costa, Da Senzala, pp. 148-53; Mello, “Economics of Labor ..., Appendix A, pp. 17-19.
 85
It is interesting, in passing, to refer the implications, for the country’s
immigration policy, of the labor needs of the plantations. To the scarcely attractive
opportunities of employment and socio-economic advancement in a slave-based plantation
system, the planters added all their power to prevent any other kind of immigration but to
solve their labor needs. “(...) They insisted that any immigration scheme must force the
Europeans to contract their labor to them rather than expend it (sic) on their own land in the
West. Nicolau Vergueiro, a shrewd and wealthy merchant-planter of Sao Paulo who began
experimenting with Portuguese colonists in 1842,181 expressed this desire under the guise of
altruism. Crown lands available for small holding were necessarily (sic) frontier lands, where
the inexperienced European family would be without transportation to market and without
capital to begin cash-cropping. Let the colonists; be placed on the plantations instead, he
advised. There they would learn local farming techniques, and would accumulate working
capital, eventually to buy a plot of their own from the plantation owner. (...)”182 .
At the same time the planters sought alternative solutions to their “labor
problem.” Extensive discussions and concrete measures were taken both by the Federal and
Provincial governments to initiate the large-scale immigration of “contract labor” from China
into Brazil. The experiences; of the Caribbean sugar plantations (including Cuba), and Peru
were often mentioned as good examples of a hard-working, cheap labor force. As late as
1883, negotiations were under way to establish the means for large-sca1e importation of the
Chinese; the British pressure, however, as well as domestic reaction against a form of
perpetuating slavery disguised as a “transition” to free labor are mentioned as causes of the
failure of this “solution;” the fact, nevertheless, That an alternative source of labor power for
the plantations was soon found cannot be sufficiently emphasized183 .

Section 6 -- Free Brazilian population and “labor shortage” for coffee

181
Vergueiro was a Senator, and, being a planter in Limeira (Sao Paulo), also had a Company that used the
Government’s money (voted in the Parliament with his and other planters’ representatives’ votes, of course) in
order to import the European “colonists.” The so-called “uprising” took effect, precisely, in one of his fazendas
(Ibicaba).
182
Dean, “Latifundia ...”, p. 613. See also Conrad, op. cit., pp. 34-35; Hall, “The Origins of Mass Immigration
…”, pp. 4-11. An interesting discussion of the imperial Governments policy of “settings colonization” is
presented in Prado Jr., Historia Economica, pp. 137-190.
183
Elias, M. J., “Os debates sobre o trabalho dos Chins e o problema da mao de obra no Brasil durante o seculo
XIX”, Anais do VI Simposio Nacional dos Professores Universitarios_ de Historia (Sao Paulo, 1973), pp. 697-
713; Costa, Da Senzala, pp. 140-44.
 86
In the arras where coffee developed, we have already pointed out, a previous
subsistence economy was dislodged and the petty producers “that did not want to become
depend on the agro-mercantile enterprise, were forced to go to more distant lands, without
immediate commercial interest. These lands would probably be reached some time later by
the moving coffee fronts. (…)”184 .
It would appear that in view of these precarious socio-economic conditions of the
petty producers, the slave-based plantation system should find in the petty production sector a
so-called “labor reservoir,” but this does not seem to have been the case: even the
“agregados” and other social categories whose existence depended completely upon the
planter -- destituted from the ownership of the means of productions as they were --, did not
seem to have constituted a source of labor power.185
The analysis of this problem must start by focusing on the concrete conditions of
wage employment that characterized the slave-based coffee economy. As it has already been
printed out, the slave-master relation, to the extent that it is dominant, becomes of necessity a
pattern for the other labor systems, determining therefore, not only a maximum rate of time
wages that becomes actually the ruling rate of wages but, in addition, the features of the labor
process such as the working day, intensity of labor, etc, enforced, furthermore, in a
specifically authoritarian way (“seigniorial mentality”).
Because these concrete -- and barbarous -- condition; of wage employment in the
plantations are usually left outside the discussion, the absence of a “spontaneous” labor
supply on the part of the free Brazilian population to the coffee plantations is commonly
imputed to misleading factors. Thus, lack of an “efficient transport system,” or the bigness of
the country and the consequently “thinly distributed” subsistence sector would make
“recruiting” difficult or expensive; the subsistence sector would he characterized by a social
organization that “tied” the roceiro; etc.186 All these explanations, evidently, take for granted
the very character of the wage employment of the plantations. To the planters, of course, such
an uncritical perspective was a matter of class’ interests, that could not but take expression in
an ideological form:
“The prevailing opinion was that of the incapacity of the
national labor of keeping a continuous activity. It was common to

184
Furtado, “A Estrutura Agraria ...”, p. 101.
185
Franco, Homens Livres, p. 14.
186
For an interesting critical discussion of those points, see Werneck, R. L. F., “Unsuccessful Export-Led
Development: The Brazilian Coffee Economy (1820-1913),” discussion paper, Harvard University, Spring
1974, pp. 20-23.
 87
characterize him by his aversion to work and his natural idleness. Loiterer, idle,
these were the attributes that are repeated at all times and places. This
is the thought of the majority of the plantations’ representatives at the
Agricultural Congress of 1876. Explanations for this fact were sought
in the climate, in the lack of education of the people, in a matter of
mentality, as if laziness were a national vocation.187
“‘Work’, scoffed deputy Manuel Antonio Galvao; ‘You want to
oblige these simpletons to work? Are these the people the noble
deputy is very seriously going to talk political economy to, inviting
them to pick up a hoe and go to work? For them there are many
forests, full of fruit and game …’”188
“(...) Millions were idle, reported a planter delegation to the
agricultural Congress of 1878 at a time when declining slavery had.
sparked a new interest in the indigent and unemployed Brazilian.
Millions lived in partial or complete barbarity, rarely working because
they were accustomed to deprivation and misery. ‘Six million
persons,’ wrote an inquiring French defender of Brazilian slavery
about 1881, ‘are born, vegetate and die without having served their
country. ‘The back-landers were completely unemployed, said another
foreigner in 1883 with a touch of scorn, ‘beyond being possessors of
redlined ‘ponchos’ and guns to slaughter little birds with.’”189

The translation of the planters’ words into academic jargon, saying that the
petty producers “(...) had a very low level of aspiration which in turn made them consider
relatively small the marginal utility which could be derived from additional income,”190 is of
course entirely fallacious, for it supposes that the petty producers had been effectively offered
the alternative of more work “in exchange” for a higher income; where was this alternative?
In their backward production? Or, within the slave-based plantation?
All these attempts to locate in the petty production sector itself, disconnected to
the plantation sector, the reasons for a lack of supply of free labor to the plantations must fail
for the simple reason that petty production --and therefore the “subsistence economy” in itself
constituted an alternative to the plantation wage labor in its concrete form; to engage in petty
production was a refusal, not “to earn additional income in exchange for leisure, but to enter
into slave-like relations, at the corresponding rates of pay. 191 The petty producers subjective
perceptions, “preferences”, etc., became organically related to the objective world -- for
instance, they presupposed the slave, the master, the fazenda, etc.:

187
Costa, Da Senzala, p. 128.
188
Dean, “Latifundia “, p. 613.
189
Conrad, R., Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, p. 739.
190
Werneck, “Unsuccessful Export-Led Development pp. 24-25.
191
This same conclusion has been reached by Dean, when he says that “The plantations were less attractive to
the rural propertyless population than the alternative of squatting on still unclaimed land (...).“ op cit., p. 340.
 88
“[For the petty producers] to work in a fazenda, in the situation of
camarada, was the same as to accept [their] degrading to the condition
of a slave.”192
“[The camarada] perceived the intention of the plantation
owners to adapt him to unremitting toil in the groves (…).”193

To the extent that this perspective is brought to the problem, one may see,
furthermore, that the mere fact of “abundance” of land cannot account for the absence of a
labor supply to coffee. Such an “abundance” becomes relevant, first of all, only because the
alternative is “to work in a fazenda, in the situation of camarada.” If it is true that “abundant
land” opened a possibility for a free producer not to become a camarada, the realization of
this possibility, however, was an expression of a social relation; it presupposed the other, the
plantation.194 It was only to the extent that “abundant land” made possible independent, petty
production, as an option to the plantation, that it became a factor in the explanation of the
“shortage of labor.” The study of the concrete conditions of access to the land by the petty
producers, not only in the coffee regions themselves, but also within the itinerant subsistence
production in the frontier and in areas outside plantation activity, becomes, however, very
difficult because, having been petty production in actual reality a subordinated sector, its
written history has been equally poor.195

Part II

The Colono System in Coffee, 1884-1914: A Critical Discussion

Section 1 -- Expansion of production and European Immigration

As can be seen in Table 3, coffee exports in the 1910’s reached a level three times
as high as in the 1880’s. Since the coffee tree starts bearing fruit only after the fourth year, it

192
Costa, Da Senzala, p. 128.
193
Dean, Rio Claro, p. 29.
194
“Abundance” must be left in quotes, for as the plantations appropriated the land, nothing “free” was left. As
to the march of the subsistence economy to the frontier, again it presupposes the plantations and their
monopo1ization of the best lands.
195
As a distinguished exception, see Candido, A., Os Parceiros do Rio Bonito (Sao Paulo: Livraria Duas
Cidades, 1971). In this study, a persistent subordination of petty production -- and the petty producers -- to
plantation production is characterized by the author in its several forms, and periods; what is important to learn,
however, is the equally persistent attempt by the petty producers to reproduce their petty production and
therefore remain independent from the plantation. In another very useful work, a concrete case of petty
production is carefully analyzed, including a process of proletarization of the petty producers; see Garcia, L. F.,
“O Sertao de Itapecerica,” in Les Problemes Agraries des Ameriques Latines (Paris: Centre National de la
 89
becomes clear that the expansion began in the late 1880’s, and especially in the 1890’s. As
the last column shows, relatively high prices prevailed during this period of expansion of
productive capacity.
In such a conjuncture of favorable prices, the expansion of coffee was carried out on
the basis of a new social form of labor, as the colono system replaced, virtually over-night,
African slavery. In addition, this great expansion came after important improvements had
been introduced in the means of transportation and in the processing activities.196 Together,
these social and technical changes must have affected the conditions of Supply of coffee,
adding therefore to the favorable market situation. 197

Recherche Scientifique, 1967), pp. 288-292. For a merely descriptive, but nevertheless usefulwork, see also
Muller, N. L., Sitios e Sitiantes no Estado de Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo: Universidae de Sao Paulo, 1951).
196
Detailed discussions of the “1eap” from a primitive pack mule system to the age of the railroad are presented
in Costa, Da Senzala, pp. 154-176; Franco, Homens Livres, pp. 60-61; Stein, Vassouras, pp. 91-110; Dean, Rio
Claro, pp. 63-68. Technical advances in the post-harvest processing of coffee are described in Costa, Da
Senzala, pp. 178-188.
197
For an historical analysis of the coffee market, including the period focused above, see Delfim Netto, A., “O
problema do cafe no Brasil,” in Ensaios sobre cafe e desenvolvimento economico (Rio de Janeiro: IBC, 1973).
 90
Table 3
Brazil – Coffee Exports
Year Volume Value Value Price
(1,000 bags) (in contos) (in 1,000 gold (in gold sterling)
sterling)
1881 3,660 126,134 11,604 3.17
1882 4,081 104,753 9,553 2.34
1883 6,687 122,643 10,817 1.61
1884 5,316 130,083 11,681 2.29
1885 6,238 152,434 13,140 2.10
1886 5,436 124,792 9,671 1.77
1887 6,075 186,925 14,543 2.39
*1887 1,694 74,411 6,958 4.10
1888 3,444 103,205 10,857 3.15
1889 5,586 172,258 18,953 3.39
1890 5,109 189,894 17,850 3.49
1891 5,373 284,167 17,561 3.26
1892 7,109 441,443 22,028 3.09
1893 5,307 452,326 21,712 4.09
1894 5,582 499,615 20,884 3.74
1895 6,720 543,336 22,385 3.33
1896 6,744 524,338 19,663 2.91
1897 9,463 525,682 16,506 1.74
1898 9,267 465,664 13,830 1.49
1899 9,771 470,993 14,459 1.48
1900 9,155 484,342 18,889 2.06
1901 14,760 509,598 23,979 1.62
1902 13,157 409,841 20,327 1.54
1903 12,927 384,298 19,976 1.47
1904 10,025 391,587 19,958 1.99
1905 10,821 324,681 21,421 1.98
1906 13,966 418,400 27,616 1.97
1907 15,680 453,764 28,559 1.82
1908 12,658 368,285 23,039 1.82
1909 16,881 533,870 33,475 1.98
1910 9,724 385,493 26,696 2.74
1911 11,258 606,529 40,401 3.58
1912 12,080 698,371 46,558 3.85
1913 13,268 611,690 40,779 3.07

*Second semester.
Source: Anuario Estatistico do Brasil, 1939, 1940, compiled by Graham, D. H., “Migracao
Estranqeira e a Questao de Oferta de Mao-de-Obra no Crescimento Economico
Brasileiro -- 1880-1930,” Estudos Economicos, vol. 3 (1973), n° 1, pp. 23-24.
 91
This increase in the coffee exports came predominantly from Sao Paulo, where
the “frontier” and “mature” coffee zones were located; there alone, also, arose the colono
system.198 This labor system seems to have developed very quickly, its design and
implementation having taken place at a time when the abolitionist process seemed to be
irreversible, destroying entirely the economic and financial basis of slave-based
199
production. On the other hand, it so happened that at the time abolition was officially
decreed (1888) -- sanctioning a de facto situation -- the planters seemed to have already
initiated the large-scale introduction of “colonos” in coffee. “During 1887, the crucial year of
the labor crisis, it became evident that Sao Paulo, largely because of the provincial
government’s importation scheme, was so well-supplied with immigrants that slaves were no
longer essential to its continued prosperity. Slavery was becoming, in fact, something of a
menace to the planter class because of the disorder accompanying its collapse.”200
Table 4 shows the significant increase in European immigration to Sao Paulo,
beginning in the late 1880’s, and its impact in the total immigration to Brazil. The timing and
size of the immigration inflow has been shown to follow closely the labor needs of coffee,
expanding in periods of booming prices and contracting in periods of depression.201 In
addition, it has been estimated that the amount of labor supply associated with this
immigration alone has exceeded the labor needed for cultivation and harvesting of coffee,
leaving a substantial margin for expansion of coffee-producing trees, in such a way that “after
the first years of rapid expansion, the plantations could not have continued to absorb the inf
low of manpower had there not been a con-current high rate of labor turnover and migration
of workers or of the coffee area.”202

198
For the absence of colonos in the old coffee zones in the Paraiba Valley, see Stein, Vassouras, pp. 250-76.
On the basis of state records of destination of immigrants, Holloway has shown that “The economically stagnant
Paraiba Valley received only a handful [of them].” “Immigrants as Laborers,” p. 245.
199
“(…) The final blow to the planters was the refusal by banks and private lenders to accept slaves as loan
collateral. The last mortgage in Rio Claro based on slave property was dated Dec. 17, 1886.” Dean, Rio Claro,
p. 242. A sharp decline in slave prices in the period 1881-1887, in the face of relatively constant hire rates has
been established by Mello, op. cit., ch. V, such a result, as the author argues, is to be expected in a situation
where slavery is in a process of social disintegration, losing its legitimacy, becoming economically “moribund”.
The role of the slaves themselves in this process has been emphasized, for the case of Rio Claro, by Dean (Ibid.,
ch. 5), in an important contribution to the growing literature on the subject, whose treatment, however, is
beyond the boundaries of this work.
200
Hall, “Origins of Mass Immigration ...”, pp. 109-110. Similar conclusions have been reached by Holloway,
“Immigrants as Laborers ...”, pp. 157-164 and Conrad, op. cit., pp. 257-262; while acknowledging that the
planters had “weathered the storm, Dean stresses, however, that “It was not (...) until slavery was already in
collapse in Sao Paulo that measures were taken by the planters to replace their field labor.” Rio Claro, p. 271.
201
Holloway, op. cit., pp. 169-175.
202
Ibid., p. 225; for the presentation of the analysis that led to this conclusion, see Ibid., p. 248-258.
 92
Table 4
Immigration to Brazil and Sao Paulo, 1882-1914
Year Total Immigration to Brazil Foreign Immigration to Sao Paulo
1882 29,589 2,743
1883 34,015 4,912
1884 24,890 4,868
1885 35,440 6,500
1886 33,486 9,534
1887 130,056 32,112
1888 133,253 91,826
1889 65,246 27,664
1890 103,474 38,291
1891 216,110 108,688
1892 86,203 42,061
1893 134,805 81,755
1894 60,985 44,740
1895 167,678 136,142
1896 158,132 94,987
1897 145,778 94,540
1898 78, 100 42,674
1899 54,529 28, 367
1900 40,300 21,038
1901 85,306 70,348
1902 52,204 37,831
1903 34,065 16,553
1904 46,164 23,761
1905 70,295 45,839
1906 73,672 46,214
1907 67,787 28,900
1908 94,695 37,278
1909 85,410 38,308
1910 88,564 39,486
1911 135,967 61,508
1912 177,387 98,640
1913 192,683 116,640
1914 79,232 46,624
Source: Holloway, “Immigrants as Laborers …,” p. 168.
 93
A policy of subsidization of the immigrants’ transportation costs has been
crucial for such a result. On this premise, any increase in the demand for labor was translated
(...) into increased funding for the recruitment, transport and distribution of workers.”203
These subsidies’ relative financial weight can be appreciated by the fact that the provincial
authorities contracted a loan in London in 1888, whose sum of 7,000 contos (£749,000),
“represented almost twice the annual revenues of the Sao Paulo government”. About three
fourths of the Sao Paulo regular budget for the years 1887-88, in addition, were devoted to
subsidizing immigration.204 The role of the Sao Paulo budget, while of importance in the first
years of the program, was soon taken over by the Federal government, as the Paulista planters
occupied the key cabinet posts.205 Table 5 shows both governments’ expenditures with this
policy.

203
Holloway, op. cit., p. 172.
204
Eisenberg and Hall, “Labor Supply and Immigration …,” p. 12.
205
For detailed discussions of the role of the planters in devising and, on the basis of their political power,
implementing such a policy, first through a provincial government-financed, planter-run, association (the
Sociedade Promotora de Imigracao), then through the state government itself, and finally involving the Federal
government, see Hall, op. cit., pp. 81-115 and Holloway, op. cit., pp. 126-152.
 94
Table 5

Subsidies to Immigration in Brazil, 1885-1913

Amount in £ Sterling
Year Federal Gov. Sao Paulo Gov. Total
1885 80,430.78 28,343.82 180,774.01
1886 160,619.27 88,172.13 194,179.40
1887 251,734.00 299,447.62 551,181.62
1888 405,395.21 304,383.88 709,779.09
1889 703,153.53 17,541.18 720,694.71
1890 327,322.21 83,918.70 411,240.91
1891 1,224,275.18 37,382.66 1,281,657.84
1892 346,374.96 75,565.31 421,940.27
1893 301,319.60 180,554.46 481,874.06
1894 99,067.25 51,318.40 150,385.65
1895 339,878.38 301,398.25 641,276.63
1896 679,561.38 175,406.26 854,967.64
1897 30,887.30 190,619.57 221,506.87
1898 40,485.88 82,039.20 122,525.08
1899 7,942.15 70,607.19 78,549.34
1900 75,213.94 44,685.92 119,899.86
1901 203,601.51 213,326.18 416,927.69
1902 6,953.19 104,444.84 111,398.03
1903 6,465.11 11,882.60 18,347.71
1904 9,616.73 34,001.00 43,617.73
1905 12,863.59 210,056.91 222,920.50
1906 14,144.17 176,027.37 190,171.54
1907 90,363.36 105,180.15 195,543.51
1908 644,364.02 126,363.15 770,727.17
1909 1,000,350.24 164,787.66 1,165,137.90
1910 209,943.90
1911 240,512.47
1912 400,489.20
1913 441,129.34
Source: Grahem, “Migracao Estrangeira …,” p. 35.
 95
Table 6, on the other hand, leaves no doubt as to the relationship between the
upsurge in the immigration into Brazil and the subsidies’ policy.

Table 6

Immigrants that Entered Sao Paulo With Subsidies, 1889-1913

Years Total of Immigrants Number of Subsidized Proportion of Subsidized (%)

1889-1893 298,727 281,18 94
1894-1898 433,625 321,046 74
1899-1903 184,346 96,912 53
1904-1908 195,903 71,2 36
1909-1913 366,847 146,117 40
Source: Boletim da Diretoria de Terras, Colonizacao e Imigracao, nº. 1 (October 1937), as
compiled in Graham, op. cit., p. 49.

Section 2 -- The immigration policy and its conditions

The immigration policy designed by the planters involved the government’s

paying full passages of agricultural workers from Europe to Sao Paulo. The subsidy was
limited to families, and only adults were granted full passage; in addition, there was a
preference for families with a high ratio of working-age members. In this screening process,
strictly enforced, the planters were consciously seeking to guarantee the maximum amount of
labor power while preserving the family unit, a feature that will become crucially important
for the economics of the colono system (see next section); in addition, family units promoted
greater stability of the labor force, and made more difficult to raise the relatively high price of
return passage.206
Upon their arrival by sea in Santos, the almost totality of the subsidized
immigrants (but not the non-subsidized ones) were directed by rail to the Hospedaria dos
Imigrantes in the state capital; this facility, built in 1886 with a capacity for a maximum of
4,000 persons, had to lodge during the early years as many as 10,000 immigrants, “in a state
of confusion, deprivation and frustration;” with scarce knowledge of the concrete conditions
on the fazendas, they were supposed to establish “colono contract” with the planters coming
from all over the state. Strict security measures, on the other hand, “checked to ensure no

206
For detailed exposition of the mechanics of the system as well as its effectiveness in bringing families, see
Holloway, op. cit., pp. 202-223, 238-243. The planters’ immigration program is also discussed in Hall, op. cit.,
pp. 92-103.
 96
immigrants left without authorization and that no one entered without official business.
Immigrants and consuls objected that the security system made the Hospedaria into a prison
from which the only escape was through signing on as a coffee colono and taking a train for
the interior.”207 Available information shows that the great majority of the immigrants
“processed” through the Hospedaria went really to the Western coffee plateau. 208
As one studies every particular aspect of this system, one cannot see it but as a
consistent, principled expression of the drive by the planters to solve their “labor problem” in
a particular way. From beginning to end, this immigration policy showed its coherence in
bringing workers for the plantations; even the “desultory attention” paid to the establishment
of nucleus of small farmers acquired “certain rhetorical usefulness since they permitted the
claim that the immigrants who wished to become small landowners could easily do so.”
Martinho Prado, the planter that led the whole process, did not disguise his hostility toward
the nucleus, stating frankly that “The establishment of nucleus is going to interfere with
satisfying the need for workers on the plantations.”209
The effectiveness of this system, on the other hand, was premised on the
availability of people “who were indigent or nearly so at the time of their departure from
Europe.”210 The connection between this economic condition and their becoming suppliers of
labor power to the plantations was clearly perceived by the planters, and the same Martinho
Prado pointed out that “for the time being, only those individuals without resources, attacked
by necessity in all its forms, emigrate to Brazil, and they do it by seeking free or reduced
passage (...).”211 “Immigrants with money, Martinho Prado frankly stated, ‘are not useful to
us’.”212 The agrarian question and the economic crisis in Italy, significantly, attracted much

207
Holloway, op.. cit., pp. 231-2. Holloway has presented a detailed characterization of the workings of the
immigration service, after the immigrants’ arrival in Santos; see Ibid., pp. 223-248; see also Hall, op.. cit., p.
119.
208
Holloway, op.. cit., p. 245.
209
Hall, op. cit., p. 101. In Holloway’ s words, “The government of Sao Paulo kept its nucleo program alive
partly for propaganda purposes, to provide a visible alternative to colono work. (…).” (op. cit., p. 366)
Interestingly enough, the planters conceived of them as “labor pools” (viveiros de mao de obra) -- see
Holloway, op. cit., pp. 334-368, and Dean, Rio Claro, pp. 317-321. While describing the precarious conditions
of development of these nucleos, Dean adds a further role performed by them, namely, “bailing out influential
but bankrupt members of the ruling elite.”
210
Holloway, op. cit., p. 141. This same author has concluded that (…) the people who went to Sao Paulo
tended to b e from the low economic levels of the groups who emigrated to the new world. The Paulista planters
organized the subsidy program in the 1880’s with the explicit intent to import workers so destitute they would
have no choice but to work on the plantations. (...).” op. cit., pp. 376-7.) Or, as other authors have put it, “Brazil
looked for and received desperately poverty-stricken immigrants -- ones so poor that they could neither buy
their own land nor open small businesses but had to work on the plantations instead. (...).” Eisenberg and Hall,
op. cit., p. 13.
211
As quoted in Holloway, op. cit., pp. 141-142.
212
Hall, op. cit., p. 102.
 97
attention of Prado in his visit to Italy in 1887.213
Table 7 shows that these “indigent” people came pre dominantly from Southern-
Europe. Until the turn of the century Italians preponderated; in March 26, 1902 it was issued
the Prinetti decree, prohibiting pre-paid emigration to Brazil – “a sore point in Brazilian-
Italian relations for many years;” from this time on, other nationalities replaced the
Italians.214

Table 7

Composition of the Gross Annual Immigration

to Brazil, 1884-1913 (%)

Periods Italians Portuguese Spaniards Others

1884-1893 57.8 19.3 11.7 11.2
1894-1903 62.4 18.2 11.8 7.6
1904-1913 19.5 38.2 22.3 20.0
Source: Graham, “Migracao Estrangeira ...,”, p. 22.

Italy had become, since unification, a country of strong emigration; during the
period 1886-1890 alone a total of 1,100,000 emigrants left the country, most of them (60%)
having crossed the Atlantic. In the next five years, between 1891-1895, Brazil took the lead
as a receiving country with 330,000 Italians, while the totals for Argentina and the United
States were 259 and 170 thousand respectively. 215 Given the prolonged economic crisis in
Italy through the 1880’s to 1896, the conjuncture of a recession in the United States and
Argentina, when added to the subsidies’ policy, may have played a crucial role in the massive
immigration to Brazil; the fact, moreover, that the simultaneous decline of industrial and
agricultural activities was pronounced in the North of Italy is highly significant, since,
especially until the early 1900’s, most Italians who migrated to Brazil came from the
Northern part of the peninsula.216
It would seem, therefore, that the planters were “fortunate” in that the Sao Paulo

213
For reference to Prado’s activities in his visit to Italy, see Petrone, T. S., “Imigracao Assalariada,” in
Hollanda, S. B., ed., Historia Geral da Civilizacao Brasileira, vol II, pp. 282-3.
214
Holloway, op. cit., p. 191. As early as 1889, due to reports on the conditions of colonos, “artificial aids” to
emigration to Brazil were banned; this order was rescinded in July 1891 -- to be reissued at the time Prinetti was
Foreign Minister. See Ibid., pp. 189-192.
215
Balan, J., “Migracoes e Desenvolvimento Capitalista no Brash: Ensaio de Interpretacao Histórico-
Comparativa,” Estudos CEBRAP, nº. 5, pp. 15-16. For similar data, see Graham, op.. cit., pp. 21-22.
216
Graham, op. cit., pp. 14-28. For the composition, by region of origin, of the Italian immigrants, see
Holloway, op. cit., p. 186. Additional references to the Italian economic crisis are presented in Hall, op. cit., pp.
119-121; Holloway, op. cit., pp. 187-189, and Dean, Rio Claro, p. 272.
 98
labor crisis coincided with, as an Italian economist has termed, “the most critical years of
the Italian economy.”217 In this way, objective conditions of deprivation and misery in Italy
gave to the planters -- given their unchallenged control over the State apparatus in Brazil --
an almost complete freedom in designing and implementing their immigration policy. As a
result of the particular use they made of this freedom it happened that "on a population base
of some one and one-quarter million people [in 1886], roughly two and a half million
immigrants entered Sao Paulo from that year to the early 1930’s.”218
The numbers acquire importance here, to be sure, only because the large majority
of the immigrants, at least in their first years in Sao Paulo, were actually suppliers of labor
power to the coffee plantations. To the extent that new arrivals of similarly “indigent” people
could be made a permanent feature through the immigration policy, a powerful mechanism of
holding constant real wages, for any given rate of expansion of production, was thus
introduced in the coffee economy, to be handled by the planters themselves. This role of the
immigration policy, and its actual understanding by the planters themselves, has been
emphasized in the literature; thus Hall’s main thesis is that “[Sao Paulo immigration
program’s] major purpose (...) was the broader one of flooding the labor market in a largely
successful effort to keep down wages,”219 while Leff has pointed out that “(...) it would be
misleading to overlook the fact that the greatest effect of large-scale immigration was to
increase the supply of labour and exert a downward pressure on wages.”220 In a similar vein,
Holloway has advanced that, in the face of competition among the planters -- given the
freedom of movement of the laborer in the framework of the colono system – “ample
manpower” became soon a target for the planters:
“Sao Paulo government authorities were well aware of the close
relationship among immigration, repatriation, the size of the labor
pool, and the colono wage levels. From the beginning of the mass
immigration program there was a conscious effort to import workers
in such numbers that competition among them would keep wages
relatively low and provide ample manpower for the expansion of the
coffee industry.”221

217
As quoted in Hall, op. cit.,p. 119.
218
Holloway, “Immigrants as Laborers …,” p. 1. In this period about one million people departed from Santos,
so that the impact of immigration is sometimes reduced to the "net" number of one and a half million. As
Holloway has pointed out, however, this is fallacious, for demographic growth of the immigrant population
must be included in the analysis. See op. cit., pp. 175-181.
219
Ha11, op. cit., p. 165.
220
Leff, “Economic Retardation …,” p. 494.
221
Holloway, op. cit., p. 270. In Hall’s words, “The crux of the Sao Paulo system (...) was not the coercion of
workers but rather the creation of a cheap and tractable labor force by means of the massive importation of
immigrants (op. cit., p. 133).
 99

As Table 8 shows, available information on key wage rates in the task-and-piece

wage rate system that predominated in coffee seems to indicate that indeed such a mechanism
has been highly effective; the coffee economy, in this manner, built for itself an ingenious
mechanism that allowed its fantastic expansion in conditions of an “unlimited supply of
labor.”222

222
See Hall, op. cit., pp. 142-147, for a discussion of this data and additional evidence, that led the author to
conclude that “(...) The very least one can say is that the Italians labored to create a espectacular prosperity in
which they rarely shared. The condition of immigrants in rural Sao Paulo, for example, was quite likely worse
in 1914 than it had been thirty years before. (...).” (Ibid., p. 172). Using actual records of Santa Gertrudes
plantation, Dean has also presented data covering the period 1886-1915; see Rio Claro, p. 291. Further research
is necessary in the analysis of this issue, however, for these are nominal wage rates, whose meaning cannot be
ascertained before the inflationary waves in the period are analyzed more carefully in their implication for real
wages.
 100
Table 8

Wages in Sao Paulo Coffee Plantations, 1884-1920

Year Carpa (per 1,000 trees) Harvest (per 50 liters) Occasional labor, per day
1884 50$ 500$
1886 80 400
1888 50 300
1890 60 300
1895 90 600
1898 90 680
1899 85 650
1901 65 500 2$500
1904 60 450 2$000
1906 80 500 2$000
1909 70 500 2$000
1912 100 600 2$500
1914 80 400 2$500
1915 100 500 2$500
1916 95 500 2$500
1917 95 500 2$500
1918 95 600 2$500
1919 100 600 2$500
1920 120 600 2$500
Source: Hall, op. cit., p. 186, for the period 1884-1914, and Holloway, op. cit., p. 100, for the
period 1915-1920, as well as for the last column (daily wages). Holloway's data,
however, come from “ a single representative fazenda.” (“Immigrants as Laborers
…” p. 99.)
 101
This mechanism of determination of real wages, however, must be seen as but
an aspect of the totality of the socio-economic relations that characterized the post-abolition
plantation system in coffee. The analysis of these relations, that became known as the
“colono system,” constitutes the objective of the next section.

Section 3 -- A structural analysis of the colono system in coffee

The plantation labor needs consisted in the carpa (hoeing of weeds) and
harvesting of the fruit-bearing coffee trees, of developing and planting new fields with coffee
(formacao), processing of the berries, maintenance and construction works, etc.; typically,
however, the colono’s work in coffee was restricted to the carpa and harvesting of the trees
already planted, and for this reason only these activities will be included in the ensuing
discussion. While the activities attributed to the colono were carried out independently, with
only periodical inspection and supervision, the processing of the berries, the maintenance and
construction works, on the contrary, resembling the “labor gangs” of the times of slavery,
were carried out, under close “supervision” by the feitor, by Brazilian-born workers,
freedmen and camaradas. Brazilian-born families worked also as colonos.223
In the coffee system, the carpa was carried out in a task system: for a specified
number of hoeings of an assigned area planted with coffee, the colono received a previously
contracted amount of wages. The harvesting of coffee, on the other hand, was paid in
proportion to the amount of berries picked and delivered to the planter.
At the same time, the laborer -- or better, the family unit -- was given the
possibility of producing, on his own account, on p1antation~assigned land that could be in
between the rows of the coffee groves -, staple food (corn, beans, etc.). Poultry, small
livestock, vegetables, etc., were also developed in this petty production sphere. Housing was
supplied free by the plantation.224

223
This is clearly seen in the description and pictures of Santa Gertrudes plantation as presented in Bassanezi,
M.S.C.B., “Fazenda de Santa Gertrudes, Uma Abordagem Quanti-tativa das Relacoes de Trabaiho em uma
Propriedade Paulista, 1895-1930”, Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Philosophy, Science and Letters of Rio Claro, Sao
Paulo, 1973. See also Dean, Rio Claro, pp. 289-303. An issue that will be left outside our discussion is the fate
of the freedmen vis -a-vis the plantations, as well as the petty producers from the slavery period. In passing, one
could point out that, since they were indeed employed on the plantations, as the evidence shows, it would seem
that avowed “prejudices” on the part of the planters -- the same ones that for more than 300 years led a daily life
with the blacks, while enslaved -- have little to do with a supposed marginalization of these freedmen after
abolition.
224
On the basis of actual records of Santa Gertrudes plantation for 10-12 families, Dean has estimated that on
average in the period 1885-89, a colono family earned an income of 500 milreis, of which 334 milreis came
 102
For the analysis of the rise of this system, as well as the concrete forms it
assumed in different circumstances, some elements of a simple model will be presented in the
following, without attempting a formalization. This model has for premise an “unlimited
supply of labor in the system a structural feature of the post-abolition coffee economy that
has already been discussed --, it takes also as given a drive by the plantation to minimize
labor costs per unit of coffee produced and harvested1 such a drive for “cheap labor”, it must
be recalled, has already been posed, as a theoretical issue, in chapter IV, and it will not be
discussed here.
Given these conditions, any plantation will allocate its resources of labor and land
in a definite pattern; in particular, it will seek for a simultaneous determination of (I) the
number of the coffee trees assigned to each working-age family member, (II) the carpa task
rate, and (III) the harvest piece rate, so that, even by allocating every possible family member
in the carpa and harvesting of coffee, the colono family should not be able to fulfill
completely subsistence needs -- that would have, therefore, to be complemented by
production of a staple food. To the extent, however, that production of food cannot imply a
higher rate of pay to the family unit relative to work in coffee, the size and the quality of the
land plot have to be determined consistently: at the margin, the family must be indifferent in
allocating one labor unit in either sector (coffee or food).225 Premised on the family unit’s
necessity of fulfilling subsistence needs, and while satisfying the above “consistency”
condition, production of staple food must in addition satisfy a further condition: the value of
the staple food produced by the colono family must be greater than the planter’s opportunity
cost, in foregone coffee profits, of the colono’s land plot. This last condition is the key secret
of the colono system, and that it had to be satisfied can be easily shown. The plantations labor
costs consisted in the colono family’s money wages plus the opportunity cost of the colono’s

from cash wages; the other 166 milreis came from sale of corn (46 milreis) and imputed value of production for
own-consumption (120 milreis). Rio Claro, p. 303. Data on the relative importance of these items for the colono
family ’ s income are also presented in Holloway, op. cit., pp. 96-105.
225
Dean has perceived why the economics of the plantation depended crucially on this point: “The provision of
subsistence plots (...) contained the same element of opposing interests that had been present in the parceria
regime. The worker would tend to carry out the hoeing of the trees quickly and superficially in order to devote
as much time as possible to his food and cash crops. (...).” Rio Claro, pp. 310-11. Holloway, on the other hand,
summarized a planter's perception of this contradiction: “(...) The planter’s goal was to maintain his labor supply
and get his coffee cultivated, while the colono’s interest lay mainly in the production of food crops. Ramos
admitted that coffee work, from the colono's point of view, symbolized 'meager, disputed, and at times uncertain
wages.' Corn, on the other hand, symbolized abundance and well being. It meant polenta (the cornmeal mush
staple of the Italian colono’s diet), feed for chickens, plenty of eggs, fattened pigs, salt pork, and smoked meat.
From the sale of his excess food products he bought clothes, wine, and other needs. Coffee was dependence,
subservience, the source of justified but disagreeable conflicts, mistrust, and disciplinary measures. Corn was
 103
plot. On the other hand, the reproduction costs of labor power satisfied by the colono
family's income were given by the colono money wages plus the staple food. It is evident,
therefore, that, in the economic logic of the plantation, the production of staple food by the
family arises, and is reproduced, only to the extent that the value of the staple food is greater
than the opportunity cost of the land plot -- for the plantation, production of staple food
becomes a means to save on wages. Actually, it will allocate land to the family unit until, at
the margin, the value of staple food is equal to the opportunity cost of the land.
One must see that to the coffee plantations it was open the alternative of
allocating the colono family’s available labor power totally in coffee: it was enough to
increase the number of coffee trees to be cared by a working age family member. Evidently,
in this case the totality of the reproduction costs of labor power would have to be satisfied out
of money wages. In the colono system, however, less trees were allocated to each family unit,
so that some labor time might be available for the staple food; for this reason more family
units became necessary. But the labor costs per unit of coffee harvested were lowered in the
process.
This economic logic of the plantation becomes possible, evidently, on the premise
of a definite socio-economic structure. Within this structure, the reproduction of the
“subsistence” activities become related, in a definite manner, to the activities in the capitalist
sector (coffee). It also follows, necessarily, an uneven development of the productive forces
in this duality coffee/food.
It is interesting to see how this analytical perspective of the colono system helps
to clarify some important features of the coffee economy. To the extent that labor
productivity in staple food was higher in new plantations (fertile land), they could evidently
attract workers without incurring higher labor costs. Actually, given the fact that “coffee
seedlings were planted 10 to 15 feet apart to allow for the full development of the trees,”226
interplanting of cereals became possible, in such a manner that the opportunity cost of the
land was zero; in addition, a lower wage was specified for hoeing.227 In older coffee
plantations, on the contrary, the lack of fertile land to be allocated to food production, as well
as absence of young groves, meant higher labor costs to the plantation. This situation may be
clearly perceived in the following quotation of a (possibly) coffee planter:

freedom of action and economic autonomy. (op. cit., p. 264). Of course, the planter could see that corn could not
become all of this, thus the fundamental importance of the size and quality of the colono’s plot.
226
Holloway, “Immigrants as Laborers ...,” p. 261.
227
Dean, Rio Claro, p. 290.
 104

“The expansion of the coffee industry, in its tendency to seek

fresh land in previously unexploited areas, is drawing the workers
now located in the older areas toward the interior. The workers do not
stay in the older zones be cause they can no longer obtain there the in-
come, equal or perhaps greater than their money wages, from the
cereals by which the virgin lands amply repay the labor of those who
cultivate them.

“The result is that the fazendas of the older municipios are

slowly becoming depopulated. And the planter, in order not to lose his
work force, must raise wages and close his eyes to the quality of the
workers luck gives him. On the fazendas where there are new groves
alongside the old, the problem is easier to solve. A small increase in
the rates for the care of the older groves and for the harvest is usually
sufficient to retain the coffee, who is compensated by the allotment of
new trees where he can plant corn and beans. Where there are only old
groves, however, and especially where the soil is exhausted, it is very
difficult to get workers, and the prospects for the future are not
promising.”228

In a word: within the socio-economic mechanism of keeping down unit labor

costs represented by the colono system, opening up new plantations would mean a higher rate
of profits solely on account of their lower labor costs, while simultaneously allowing a higher
real income to the family unit, as compared to the older plantations.229 This contradiction of
interests between these two kinds of plantations may help to explain why the coffee system --
with its peculiar combination of a mobile, but abundant labor pool -- and not any other labor
system, based on some form of extra-economic coercion, has arisen in coffee. The older
plantations that might exist at any moment would perceive the problem as one of “nstabi1ity”
of the work force, to be solved by continuous immigration inflows.230 The other possible
solution coercion would face the opposition of the frontier planters. “(…) Since the planters

228
As quoted in Holloway, op. cit., p. 285.
229
The attraction of colonos to the newer plantations, in these terms, derived from their higher rate of profits
relative to the older plantations. There was thus an incentive of constantly opening-up plantations, so that
colonos would always be moving. Their mobility therefore would reflect the permanently renewed coexistence
of new and old plantations, the ones leading the expansion of coffee and the other in a process of decadence.
Labor mobility, consequently, would not be, as Holloway has tried to argue, the cause for the rise of this moving
frontier, but rather its effect. See Holloway, op. cit., ch. 6; a preliminary version of his argument was presented
in “Condicoes do Mercado de Trabalho e Organizacao do Trabalho nas Plantacoes na Economia Cafeeira de Sao
Paulo, 1885-1915,” Estudos Economicos, vol. 2, n°. 6, pp. 145-177.
230
As one author put it, “(…) In the case of our coffee fazendas, it was striking the instability of its agricultural
workers, were they freed Negroes, Luzo-Brazilians or Italians. One hardly can understand how the coffee
fazenda managed to struggle, and, for some time, overcome such a situation. This instability explains the
fazendeiros’ struggle for continuous arrival in Brazil of new immigrants. It was necessary that their number
were much beyond the actual needs of the crop, that the supply of labor very much exceeded demand, so that the
 105
competed among themselves for workers they were reluctant to allow state intervention in
the rural labor market.231 That the “flooding” of the labor market with “indigent” people was
seen as an alternative to coercion was openly acknowledged by the planters:
“(...) In 1896, at the same time he proclaimed the success of the
immigration program in compensating for worker instability, the Sao
Paulo Secretary of Agriculture saw fit to observe that the system of
constant large in-flows was a more practical means of solving the
problem than trying to coerce the colonos into staying in one place.
Coercion, he warned, would have a negative effect, causing potential
immigrants to avoid Sao Paulo and the governments of supplying
countries to restrict or prohibit emigration to Brazil.”232

This freedom of movement of the laborer, on the other hand, may have been a
crucial factor in the immigrants' fate in Sao Paulo: at the least, they could go back to Italy, if
conditions became unbearable, or go to the urban areas and become factory workers. On the
other hand, competition among sections of the planters for their labor power in itself may
have been a strong factor in making possible, for some colonos at least, to leave the
plantations and become smallholders. This last possibility could have been further
strengthened by the permanent process of decadence of older areas, leading to the bankrupt
plantations being divided up; in addition, the very concept of viveiros shows that
smallholding, in the form of latifundia, was not necessarily antagonistic to planters’
interests.233 And yet, through a continuous immigration inflow, there was an easy

‘colonos’ [become] satisfied with reasonable (sic) wages and could also be replaced easily.” Carneiro, J. F.,
Imigracao e Colonizacao no Brasil (Rio: Universidade do Brasil, 1950), p. 34.
231
Holloway, “Immigrants as Laborers ...,” p. 301.
232
Ibid., pp. 290-1. Hall has quoted Taunay in saying that “It is impossible to have low salaries, without
violence, if there are few workers and many people who wish to employ them." Another meinber of the
Chamber of Deputies could see the solution to this dilemma: “It is evident that we need laborers (...) in order to
increase the competition among them and in that way salaries will be lowered by means of the law of supply and
demand.” (“Origins of Mass Immigration ..., ii pp. 116-117.)
233
These favorable conditions to the socio-economic ascention of the immigrants have been emphasized by
Holloway, op. cit., chs. 6 and 7. A growing importance of landholding in Sao Paulo by foreigners, as shown by
successive censuses taken in the period 1905-1934, was attributed by him to a process of accumulation by the
immigrant while still a colono in the plantation, and not despite the plantation, as some other authors would
prefer. For instance, upon comparison of colonos wages in Santa Gertrudes plantation with average value of
the smallholdings recorded in the 1905 Census, for Rio Claro, Dean points out that they were worth "twelve
years cash wages for the average colono family. On the other hand, a close inspection of the names of the
landowners (...) reveals clearly that the modest success implied by the census belonged not to colonos but
immigrants who were town merchants and professionals from the begin-fling, or who were absentee members of
the haut-bourgeoisie of Santos and Sao Paulo. (...) At least seven of the Italian owners had never been plantation
workers, and their holdings were 54 percent of the value of Italian properties.” (Rio Claro, pp. 323-324.) Dean
also points out that “Remittances from Brazil to Italy in the years before World War I, in the form of money
orders, amounted to no more than 2 milreis per immigrant - one fiftieth of the rate from the United States,
although the two groups of Italians were roughly equal in number by 1910.” (Ibid., p. 328.) This issue,
consequently, is a controversial one among the historians, and further research, of a quantitative nature for
 106
replacement of those that left in these ways. “As far as the government of Sao Paulo was
concerned, there does not seem to have been anything particularly fortuitous about the large
numbers of workers leaving the fazendas. It was, in a sense, an integral part of the system.
The Secretary of Agriculture admitted quite openly that ‘great levies’ of immigrants would
have to be imported from time to time because of what he termed ‘defections’ from the
plantations. (…)234 .

instance, using actual data on colonos’ wages and corn-paring with the capital needed to start on their own not
limited to isolated cases, seems to be necessary. The non-subsidized immigrants, moreover, have also to be
further researched.
234
Ha11, op. cit., p. 174.
 107
CHAPTER VI

AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND LABOR SUPPLY IN BRAZILIAN AGRICULTURE

Section 1 -- The coffee economy and labor: Some general conclusions

In the analysis of the coffee economy presented in the previous chapter, our main
focus has been to show how African slavery, in the period up to the 1880’s, and the
succeeding colono system, that arose concomitantly with the abolitionist process, have
constituted the means through which specific labor processes, as well as labor costs, became
determined in coffee production. The expansion of this capitalist sector, to this extent,
became independent of the conditions regulating the supply of labor inside the areas
incorporated to coffee this being the explanation, in what concerns coffee, for the following
“paradox” noted by Myint, in the incorporation of the “tropical under-developed countries”
into the world economy:
“If we apply the ordinary demand and supply analysis to the
labour market, we should expect to have a generally higher level of
wages in sparsely populated countries than in densely populated
countries. We should also expect the wage level to show a rising trend
over a period of rapid expansion in output requiring more labour.
These results are broadly borne out by experience in the newly settled
regions of North America and Australia. But when we turn to the
tropical underdeveloped countries which also started (...) with sparse
populations in relation to the available land, these expected results
failed to take place. Here the mine and plantation owners complained
about “labour shortage.” But the wages they paid in the sparsely
populated countries were not noticeably higher than those they paid in
the overpopulated countries. Moreover these wages tended to stick at
their initial level in spite of the rapid expansion in the production of
the mining and plantation exports.”235

Development with “unlimited supply of labor,” therefore, has characterized the

coffee economy both before and after abolition of African slavery; on the other hand, it is
fundamental to understand that such a feature has been inseparable of the socio-economic

235
The Economics of the Developing Countries, pp. 53-54. Leff has expressed this way the same paradox:
"Despite an abundant supply of land in natura, and high land-labour ratios, nineteenth-century Brazil did not
develop as a relatively high-wage economy. (...) even in the more advanced agricultural export activities,
production techniques seem to have been extremely primitive.” “Economic Retardation ...,” p.490.
 108
structure that has founded the development of coffee production. 236 Thus it was that,
before the 1880’s, this “unlimited supply” and African slavery were one and the same thing;
and, after the 1880’s, the socio-economic relations constituted in the colono system
represented the ultimate sphere of determination of the labor supply to coffee. We must
consequently understand this “unlimited supply” not as something that is given exogenously
to the “capitalist sector,” but rather as a structural feature of the latter, of its own creation,
one could say. In this, the Brazilian case has been just a particular example of what seems to
have been a general pattern of capitalist development in the backward countries; the evidence
surveyed in Chapter II cannot but lead to this conclusion. 237
This having been the case, one understands why the low labor-land ratio that has
characterized the Brazilian coffee economy not only in the slave-based period, but also after
abolition -- has been irrelevant as far as the real wage and technical level are concerned: for,
independently of the ratio they stood to one another as factors of production -- in their natural
form, that is to say -- what has been crucial is the social form acquired by labor and land. It is
totally off the mark, for instance, to attempt to derive how labor was “priced” in the slave-
based period in abstraction from the slave-master relation -- a relation in the world of men,
not in the world of things, to which pertains the land-labor ratio. Neither can the lack of
alternatives to plantation work be made an inherent attribute of the labor Elsuppliedul by the
colono, rather, this is a historically relative (or social) character, that is completely alien to
the natural form of this labor.
The problem, therefore, cannot be interpreted as merely a matter of exogenous
determination of relative factor endowments, through making labor “abundant;” in this
misleading perception, the attributes of being enslaved, or being dispossessed, are overlooked
in an attempt to restore the applicability of the Neoclassical paradigm -- given the
exogenously-determined “factor endowments,” a Walrasian equilibrium would then come

236
“Agrarian structure,” an expression very popularized in Brazil, and for this reason used in this thesis, is to be
understood as a short for socio-economic structure. For a general definition of the latter, see Chapter III, pp.58-
59. We are subsuming under “agrarian structure” the slave-master relation; for obvious reasons, this relation is
not founded on patterns of landownership, or “land tenure,” what shows that “agrarian structure” is not identical
to “land tenure.” As it will be suggested later in this chapter, it is only after abolition that “ land tenure" became
the foundation for the social relations of production within the plantation system -- i.e., the foundation for the
socio-economic structure (=”agrarian structure”). Names are, of course, important.
237
Such an historical pattern of labor supply to coffee has been of a central concern in Leff, N. H., “Tropical
Trade and Development in the Nineteenth Century: The Brazilian Experience,” Journal of Political Economy ,
vol. 81 (1973), pp. 678-696. On the basis of an "historical inquiry into the sources of export industry labor,”
another author has concluded that '1 from the sixteenth century to the depression of the 1930’s the operation of
most overseas export industries not based on peasant crops was dependent upon the supply of internationally
migrating labor. (...). Levin, The Export Economies, p. 143.
 109
back to analysis.
Thus Leff has reduced the problem to one of [making] for annual increments to
the labor force which were large enough to “swamp” the relatively small “advanced” sector
where productivity was increasing. Moreover, the effects of increasing labor supply from
overseas were especially important for the advanced sector, since most of the imported labor
went to that sector. Thus, because of availability of imported workers, labor was made a
relatively abundant factor in the export sector.” It is obvious that the Africans went to the
export sector, as “import workers,” only because they were slaves; by the same token, were it
not for their dispossessed condition, the large numbers of Italian immigrants would not
necessarily imply “ relatively abundant” labor supply in the export sector.238 4
This discussion allows us to see more clearly now how it is misleading to
interpret Brazilian insertion in the international economy, in the nineteenth century, as
reflecting a more “efficient” allocation of given resource endowments in the face of
increasing trade opportunities, as the story goes in the Neoclassical (Heckscher-Ohlin) theory
of international trade. In this connection, and as a result of his study of the general experience
of the “tropical underdeveloped countries,” Myint has demanded that “the Heckscher-Ohlin
approach in terms of the ‘original endowments of the factors’ has to be suspended.”239
On the other hand, and as Leff has put it, “In a comparative perspective, the Brazilian
experience suggests how relatively unimportant abundant land was per se in the economic
development of the United States.”240 The socio-economic structure, in other words, cannot
be abstracted from, since it is ultimately the sphere of the social relations of production that
will determine the outcome of this or that “endowment,” qua factor of production, of land.
For instance, in the U.S. South, the land having acquired a specific social form within the
slave-based plantation system -- became, evidently, not at all “abundant” for the slave; while
in the U.S. North its “abundance” was an inseparable feature of the socio-economic structure
-- it was at the social level that “abundance” of land, meaning its relatively free access in the

238
“Tropical Trade ...,” p. 688. In passing, one could contrast this experience of the coffee economy with a
claim by Samir Amin that a “fundamental contribution” of the theory of unequal exchange, as presented in
Emmanuel’s Unequal Exchange, is the postulate of “labor inmobility” in the face of “capital mobility.” It is
ironic that this is, rather than a virtue, one of its gravest weaknesses. On the other hand, it appears in full light
the correctness of Bettelheim’s critique of Emmanuel’s method of considering the wage rate as na “ independent
variable.” See Amin, S., L’echange inegal et la loi de la valeur: la fin d’um debat (Paris: Editions Anthropos-
Idep, 1973), pp. 7-13, and Bettalheim’s “Theoretical Comments, “ in Emmanuel’s Unequal Exchange, pp. 271-
322.
239
The Gains from International Trade and the Backward Countries,” Review of Economic Studies, vol. 22
(1955), p. 136.
240
“Economic Retardation …,” p. 491.
 110
form of a “family farm,” was determined.241

Section 2 -- Land tenure and labor supply in the Northeastern sugar economy: the rise of the
morador system

The proposition that the conditions in the labor market in Brazilian agriculture --
and, by implication, of Brazilian economy -- have been inseparable of the socio-economic
structure, may be further clarified by the analysis of a labor system that succeeded African
slavery in the Northeastern sugar economy.
Recent research has confirmed to a large extent the following general
characterization of the historical process by Furtado:
“In the Northeastern region the lands more appropriate to
agricultural use were already occupied practically in their totality, at
the time of abolition. The liberated slaves that left the engenhos met
with great difficulties to survive. A surplus population weighted
already upon the urban regions, constituting since the beginning of the
century a social problem. As to the hinterland the subsistence
economy had expanded to a great distance and the symptoms of
demographic pressure on the semi-arid lands in the agreste and
caatinga clearly manifested themselves. These two barriers limited the
mobility of the mass of the slaves now-freed in the sugar region. The
movements took place from engenho to engenho and only a reduced
fraction left the region. It was not difficult, in such conditions, to
attract and fix a substantial part of the old slave labor force, by means
of a wage relatively low. (…)”242

Not only the ex-slaves were thus “attracted” and “fixed” in the sugar plantations;
it seems also that a process of gradual constitution of a free labor system developed in the
second half of the nineteenth century: while by the 1850’s “slaves had normally outnumbered
free laborers on sugar plantations by ratios of over 3:1,” by 1872 “free workers outnumbered

241
For a systematic comparative analysis of the role on the “frontier in the United States and Brazil, as well as
other historical cases (such as Russia), relating it to the fundamental social determinants, see Velho, O.G.C.A.,
“Modes of Capitalist Development, Peasantry and the Moving Frontier,” Doctoral thesis, University of
Manchester, 1973. In passing, one should mention Hayami and Ruttan's "induced innovation hypothesis,” a
theory of technical change in agriculture based, precisely, on the labor-land ratio. It is evident the relevance of
our discussion to a critique of such a hypothesis, whose claim of generality is denied immediately by the
Brazilian historical case. Cf. Agricultural Development: An International Perspective (Baltimore and London:
The John Hopkins Press, 1971). The problem with this hypothesis, of course, is its abstraction of the socio-
economic structure.
242
Formacao, pp. 159-160. The monopolization of land by the sugar plantations in the zona da mata, and a
detailed analysis of a really impressive case of a Pernambuco municipio (Escada), are discussed in Eisenberg,
P., The Sugar Industry in Pernambuco, 1840-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), ch. 6.
 111
slaves in all occupational categories.”243
To analyze this transition, one must start by realizing that, throughout the long
history of the plantation system in sugar, a free population had increased in numbers but in a
definite socio-economic status: most of these free men were squatters, known as moradores.
“They performed errands and small duties for the planters, they often lived at remote points
on the estates to keep an eye on the planter’s property and in return they were allowed to
build a cabin and to cultivate a small patch of provision crops. (…).”244
While these petty producers and their subsistence production inserted themselves
in such a subordinated manner in the plantation system, the planters, while owning most of
the land of the zona da mata, used productively very little of it. In the 1850’s the planters
probably used no more than one-fifth of available lands (…).”245 (It could perhaps be said
that this situation of precarious access to the land by the moradores reflected, besides
evidently their property less condition, the familiar structural feature of subordination of
subsistence production vis-à-vis, now production of sugar: that this situation of “unused” land
and labor should not be taken to imply an “economic irrationality” on the part of the planter
is suggested by the fact that the planter did rent land but to sugar-cane growing to a class of
slave-holding tenants).246

243
Eisenberg, The Sugar Industry, p. 180.
244
Galloway, “The Last Years of Slavery ...,” p. 592. Eisenberg refers to contemporary estimate that these
moradores constituted 95 percent of the free population; of. The Sugar Industry, p. 183. Detailed descriptions of
the moradores and their insertion in the plantations can also be seen in Galloway, J. H., “The Sugar Industry of
Pernambuco During the Nineteenth Century,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 58, no.
2, pp. 291~2; Eisenberg, “Abolishing Slavery ...,” pp. 588-9; and Andrade, M. C., A Terra e O Homem no
Nordeste (Sao Paulo: Brasiliense, 1964), pp. 78-79, 93-95, 109-110. Their dispossession is illustrated in the
following quotation: “In presidential address of 1862, the president Souza Carvalho, of Alagoas, referred to the
poverty of the rural population: ‘whoever travels through the interior, can see, apart from the extra-ordinary
wealth of the uncultivated lands -- he said -- the miserable huts that this class dwells, the poverty, the nudity, the
deprivation in which it lives. Inertia and idleness is what appeared to the president, but, in reality, a little later he
would point out, although as thought of others, the true cause of the idleness: 'Some attribute in part this
idleness in which they live to the circumstance of living in someone else's property, whose owners refuse to sell
it, even if they cannot cultivate it, and use the arbitry of forcing them to move out at their will.” Diegues Jr., M.,
Populacao e Acucar no Nordeste do Brasil (Rio: Comissao Nacional de Alimentacao, 1954), p. 165. For a
discussion of the “progressive impoverishment” of this free rural population, see Ibid., pp. 151-166. Similar
characterization was presented in Eisenberg, The Sugar Industry, p. 184.
245
Eisenberg, The Sugar Industry, p. 126. Galloway, in “The Sugar Industry ... , p. 290, has informed us that
“These plantations formed parts of large landholdings, to be measured in square miles rather than in acres,
which had their origins in generous grants of land, or sesmarias, awarded to influential or colonial governors as
rewards for services rendered but also in the hope that the new landowners would help settle and develop the
colony. The cultivated land and pasture, in fact the plantation, occupied only a part of these vast estates.
Plantations were often therefore widely separated, particularly to the South of Recife; and the landscape of the
Forest Zone at the beginning of the nineteenth century, even after 250 years of colonization, was still dominated
by forest.”
246
For an extensive account of this “sharecropping system,” see Schwartz, S. B., “Free Labor in a Slave
Economy: The Lavradores de Cana of Colonial Brazi1,” in Alden, D. (ed.), Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil
 112
Premised on these structural conditions, the sugar economy, while managing
to expand production from an “annual average of 61,000 tons in the late 1840’s to 136,000
tons in the late 1880’s,” at the same time that its slave labor force was in sharp decline,247 did
not have to face a “labor crisis,” as it happened with coffee:
“The answer to the threat presented by the abolition of slavery
came not through the introduction of wage labor or immigration, but
through a change in the nature of the long-existent tenant class on
plantations -- the moradores. The moradores were now required to
work in their landlord's fields in return for the use of a plot of land,
and the term morador de condicao became current for such tenants.
The size of this class grew, more men were allowed to settle on the
plantation in return for labor, and some moradores became bound by
indebtedness to the plantation. The transition in the function of the
morador was gradual, and appears to have begun by mid nineteenth
century. As slaves became more difficult to obtain and the labor needs
of the sugar industry grew, so the numbers of moradores de condicao
increased. (...)
“(...) For this system of labor to be effective, it was essential that
the lanters have a mono poly or near monopoly of land in the zona da
mata. where there was abundant unclaimed land, the free men could
settle as small holders and so avoid becoming moradores. The large
land-holdin was thus essential to the reservation of the labor supply.
(...)”248 (ours the emphasis).

The fact that, concomitant with the imposition on the morador of such a
“condição,” a seasonal migration of the corumbas from the Agreste developed,249 seems to
support Furtado’s contention on the existence of “demographic” pressure on the semi-arid
lands in the agreste and caatinga.”250 In the presence of such objective conditions --
dramatized, from time to time, by death and despair as droughts hit the backlands --, and in
face of the dispossessed situation of their moradores, it is only consistent to find that the
plantations were assured virtually constant real wages throughout the period 1850-1900
(Table 1).

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp 147-97. See also Eisenberg, The Sugar Industry, pp. 191-
194.
247
Eisenberg, “Abolishing Slavery ...”, p. 588. For an analysis of the expansion of mills in this period see The
Sugar Industry, pp. 123-126. Galloway, in "The Sugar Indus try …, on the other hand, presents an interesting
comparative analysis of the Northeastern sugar economy vis a vis the Caribbean sugar economies.
248
Galloway, “The Last Years …,” pp. 601-602. A similar picture is presented by Eisenberg; see “Abolishing
Slavery ...,” pp. 588-9, and The Sugar Industry, ch. 8.
249
In “Abolishing Slavery .55, p. 589, Eisenberg suggests that “During peak harvest months, these migrants
may have comprised as much as 45 percent of the plantation work force. (...).” Andrade (op. cit., pp 119-l22)
presents an interesting description of these corumbas.
250
Formacao, p. 160. For evidence that the ex-slaves remained indeed in the zona da mata, see Eisenberg, The
Sugar Industry, pp. 180-182. Velho, ”Modes of Capitalist Development …, pp 186-189, also argues that a
“surplus population” already characterized the main Northeastern regions after 1850.
113
 114
Table 1

Pernambuco -- Daily wages for unskilled rural labor

(in reis)

Year Nominal Real (1852=100)

1802 $160 n.a.
1829 $160 n.a.
1842 $255 n.a.
1855 $580 $330
1856 $652 $295
1857 $978 $459
1859 1$076 $432
1862 1$043 $756
1874 1$000 $625
1876 1$000 $581
1880 $640 $358
1882 $800 $345
1884 $800 $415
1886 $500 $319
1888 $560 $418
1889 $600 $255
1890 $500 $240
1895 1$200 $283
1896 1$200 $334
1897 1$500 $291
1900 1$200 $396
1902 $800 $333
1910 1$030 n.a

Source: Eisenberg, The Sugar Industry, p. 190. For similar data see Reis, J., “The Realm
of the Hoe: Plantation Agriculture in Pernambuco Before and After the Abolition
of Slavery,” mimeo., n.d., pp. 22-23.
 115
Section 3 -- A structural analysis of the morador system

The analysis of the internal logic of the morador sys tern shows that, while
founded on the socio-economic subordination of the laborer, this labor system becomes
responsible, at the same time, for the reproduction of the laborer in this same dispossessed
condition.
Consider, for instance, the economic logic of the plantation in assigning to the
morador a land plot “in exchange,” i.e., on the condition, that he works in the sugarcane
fields, without pay. It is clear that the plantation’s cost of this labor performed in the sugar
fields by the laborer is the Opportunity cost of the land plot. Since the laborer is supposed to
produce his subsistence on such a plot, he has no alternative but to use whatever amount of
land the plantation assigns to him; on this premise, to the plantation becomes possible to
assign a relatively small plot that will be intensively used by the morador.251 The cheapening
of labor costs in sugar is further accomplished by requiring from each morador family the
maximum possible work in sugar, for every unit of labor will thus have its cost minimized
(the opportunity cost is a fixed sum per family). Thus the morador family is faced not only
with the need to produce its subsistence in a tiny parcel what itself means low standards of
living -- but in addition is confronted with the requirement to give maximum amount of labor
to sugar. The result is: (i) low standard of living of the worker, (ii) an extraction of maximum
amount of labor from the family, (iii) definite restrictions of development possibilities of
production of the staple food, but also (iv) minimum labor costs per unit of sugar produced.
This last reason, of course, explains the rise of the system. In this way, the plantation
develops the tendency to employ a large number of families, “collecting” some amount of
labor from each one of them.
It is interesting to notice, in passing, that a similar mode of allocation of slave
labor seems to have been characteristic of the Northeastern sugar economy in its long history.
Slavery itself, evidently, gave to the planter absolute power over this allocation in the cyclical
fluctuations of the sugar market. No such power, on the other hand, seemed to be presenting
the morador system; the analysis of the alternative ways by which the plantation solved this

251
In his model of “hacienda,” Shane Hunt has imputed to the hacienda large size the low opportunity cost of
the land plot, since marginal Productivity of land would thus be negligible. In the minifundio -- the land plot --,
however, Hunt depicts a falling marginal product of labor, what is nothing but an implication of the requirement
of subsistence to be satisfied in this minifundlo. It is this aspect, therefore that is crucial, and it does not take
long until the planter perceives what he must do. See Hunt, S., “The Economics of Haciendas and Plantations in
Latin America,” Princeton University, October, 1972.
 116
problem sheds light on the historically new role the patterns of land tenure started to play
in the sugar plantation system.252
To the extent that the plantation, in view of its control over land use, may to
begin with determine the size and the quality of the land plot, it is, at the same time,
determining the marginal product of labor in the minifundio (the land plot), given the
subsistence needs of the laborer. It becomes able, therefore to satisfy its labor needs by
offering a wage rate given by this marginal product of labor, in such a way that the morador
becomes able to fulfill minimum subsistence needs in both activities, while exercising his
maximum labor capacity. Any change in the labor needs of sugar, in this way, becomes
satisfied, at minimum labor costs, by manipulating the size and the quality of the land plot as
well as the “wage” paid by the plantation for the morador work in sugar.253
It is clear how this system “concentrates In its interior two economies with
competitive interests.”254 It is, therefore, only by an inherently authoritarian way that this
economic logic can be realized. For this reason, it is correct to characterize it as a power
system.255
Once the laborer is free to move, on the other hand, it appears in full light the organic
connection between precarious alternatives outside the plantation system in the minifundio
and in the moving frontier and the reproduction of this “internal” condition in any one single
plantation. Furtado has suggested, indeed, that the determination of the real wages in the
plantation system is founded precisely on these precarious alternatives that are left to the
worker:

252
Furtado, in “A Estrutura Agraria …”, in a general overview of Brazilian agriculture, has stressed very much
the key role the plantation system's control over land use has played in the consolidation of the positions
acquired on the basis of slavery.” (p. 107). It may be interesting to quote an author presenting a similar
perspective of the U.S. South, in the aftermath of the Civil War: “After the war the role of the planter as master
underwent considerable reduction, but his role as landlord became a much more important one. Planter and
laborer in the course of time assumed new relationships to each other based upon the relations of each to the
land. Land began to enter into social relationships and social organization in a new and different manner. In
Southern rural society the land came to be a mass of holdings and tenures of one kind or another that spread like
a net over almost all property and held almost every individual in its meshes. (...) In short, land began to
function in new and different ways in the determination of Southern social organization.” (ours the emphasis ).
See Thompson, E. T., “The Natural History of Agricultural Labor in the South,” in David D. Jackson, ed.,
American Studies in Honor of William Kenneth Boyd (Durham: Duke University Press, 1940), p. 148.
253
Hunt (op. cit.) presents an important contribution toward rigorous formalization of these results. See also, in
this connection, Schejtman, A. Z., “Elementos para una teoria de la economia campesina: pequenos
proprietarios y campesinos de hacienda,” El Trimestre Economico, vol. 42, n°. 166, pp. 487-508.
254
Schejtman, op. cit., p. 503. The contradictory nature of such a symbiosis landlord economy/peasant
economy, as well as the divergent historical patterns that have characterized its evolution, are discussed in Kay,
C., “Comparative Development of the European Manorial System and the Latin American Hacienda System,”
The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 2, nº 1 (Oct. 1974), pp 69-98.
255
Furtado, “A Estrutura Agraria ...”, p. 107.
 117
“(…) The alternatives that are posed to the free worker are to integrate
himself to an agro-mercantile enterprise under one of the multiple
forms of labor system -- as a morador, foreiro, rendeiro, tenant, wage
laborer, colono, etc. that reflect the metamorphoses of the large
landholding in its effort to preserve the monopoly of landownership,
or open a roca on his own account on lands of scarce commercial
value. Since the man that carries out tropical agriculture at a rudi
mentary technical level with low level of capitalization Will
necessarily become an itinerant producer, the precarious living
conditions of the itinerant roceiro, in marginal lands, will be the ones
determining the supply price of rural labor. (...).”

“[The rural population] must choose between the individual roca

in lands of inferior economic yield and the tutelage of the agro-
mercantile enterprise.”256

To the extent that the economic logic of the plantation implies the subjugation of
the laborer and his production of necessaries, its analysis requires a consideration of the
character and level of the reaction on the part of the worker. Thus in the late 1950’s, the sugar
plantations, then embarking in a booming process of expansion, began to expel the moradores
from their land plots; from that time on, the labor needs of sugar have increasingly been
satisfied by means of wage labor; the same moradores that had to leave the plantations and
become town dwellers formed among this rootless proletariat.257 It is usual to connect the rise
of the “peasant leagues in this period to such a process of proletarianization; according to
Furtado, the origin of the process was the need, by the sugar planters, to use the moradores3
land in sugar production,258 but, consistently with our analysis, an author has pointed out that
it was not really the land, but the moradores’ labor, that the plantations needed.259 On the
other hand, since sugar had traditionally been able to satisfy its labor needs by manipulating
the moradores’ access to the land for subsistence purposes, this in itself should not
necessarily account for the expulsion of moradores from the plantations. As it has been
pointed out by Velho, “(…) these expansions were cyclical and had never before produced
such a phenomenon. Consequently, there should be some additional factors operating.” Velho
himself suggests that:

256
Furtado, “A Estrutura Agraria ...”, pp. 106-107, 115.
257
For a description of such a process, and some of its results, see Velho, op. cit., pp. 196-201.
258
See his Diagnosis of the Brazilian Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), pp 132-133.
259
Taylor, K. S., “Brazi1’s Northeast: Sugar and Surplus Value,” Monthly Review, March 1969, p. 26. Taylor
argues quite convincingly that, while owning much of the land in the Zona da Mata, the sugar plantations
utilized only a small percentage (15-20 percent) in cane. It hardly can be under stood, therefore, how could the
moradores’ tiny land plots become necessary, in the first place, and sufficient, in the second place, for the land
needs of king sugar.
 118
“One of the immediate reasons for this transformation seems to have
been State action, coupled with action by the labourers themselves
following the advice of certain lawyers and priests. The creation (or
extension) for the first time of a social legislation for the countryside
led to the paradoxical effect that it became burdensome for the planter
to keep his workers as moradores inside the plantation; particularly
since through orientation from the outside the workers became aware
of their new ‘rights.’ There developed a trend to create a contingent of
‘free labourers’ that with time would be numerically more important
than the traditional moradores. Thus the taking over of marginal
plantation land did not represent simply a cyclical expansion of sugar
cultivation, but also the definite expulsion of morador families by the
landowners in order to avoid the obligations (minimum wage,
limitation of working hours, etc.) put forward by the new social
legislation. Many of these moradores had been on the land for more
than a generation and had never before been affected in such a way by
sugarcane expansion. 260

260
Velho, op. cit., pp. 196-197. In passing, one should say that these transformations, and the tragic fate of the
laborers, did not become restricted to the Northeastern sugar plantations. In the Center-South, at a pace that
became accelerated in the 1960’s and that goes on right now, as newspapers’ accounts constantly inform us, the
volantes, bolas-frias, moradores de corredor -- as these uprooted workers are called, depending on the region --
made their appearance on the Brazilian scene. See Mello, M. C. I., O “Bóia Fria:” Acumulação e Miséria
(Petropolis: Vozes, 1975); also Bastos, M. J. and Gonzales, E. N., “Migração Rural e o Trabalho Volante na
Agricultura Brasileira,” University of Brasilia, Department of Social Sciences, 1974. It is not at all clear,
however, that, in Velho’s words, “This seems to na important and decisive development which marks the
passing of the plantation as a distinct mode of production,” (op. cit., p. 197); neither does it seem correct, in the
light of our analysis of the character of the plantation system – given by its insertion in the process of
accumulation at the world level – to perceive these transformations as reflecting “capitalist penetration” in the
Brazilian countryside; for na insistent allusion to such a “penetration”, see Lopes, J. R. B., “Tipos de Areas
Rurais no Brasil”, CEBRAP, São Paulo, 1974.
 119
CHAPTER VII

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF A CONTEMPORARY PLANTATION SYSTEM: THE

“CACAO REGIONS OF BAHIA, BRAZIL

Introduction

‘The purpose of this chapter is to analyse a Northeastern region whose economic and
social life has been dominated, since the last decades of the nineteenth century, by the
production and export of cacao.
The data that will be used has been gathered by a Federal Government agency --
Comissao Executiva do Plano de Recuperacao Economico-Rural da Lavoura Cacueira
(CEPLAC) -- established in 1957 in order to cope with financial problems of cacao
production, then, as now, a predominantly export crop, being, in addition, highly
concentrated in Southern Bahia. (see appended maps.) As a result of the broadening of its
objectives, this agency developed a sophisticated apparatus for technical and improvements
in cacao production, expanding its activities, furthermore, to other crops. An “economic and
social survey”, supposed to load to concrete policy measures of relevance for regional
development, has been conducted since 1971, convering 89 municipios with na area of
92,000 km² and more than 2 million inhabitants261 . For such a survey, and as a result of
sampling procedures that do not seem to lead to any systematic bias (see comparisons with
the universe in this chapter’s appendix tables), questionnaries were applied to about 3,000
agricultural establishments; thanks to na elaborate regionalization of the survey region -- the
“cacao regions” latu sensu --, the date has been made available by “subareas”, one of which,
the “cacao zone” proper, is for all practical purposes identical to the cacao sector.
Our analysis of this data has been framed in a form suited to disclose the concrete
forms assumed in the particular case of cacao by the duality capitalist sector/”subsistence”
sector that has been discussed in the previous chapters. To the extent that the results confirm
the existence of such a duality in the cacao regions, a contribution to the empirical
characterization of the phenomena is thus accomplished, in a manner that does not seem to
have been done so far. In section 1 we analyse in detail the cacao zone proper, while in
section 2 we bring the other subareas in order to see, in a comparative manner, what is

261
For more detailed information see “Diagnostico Socio-Economico da Regiao Cacaueira do Estado da Bahia”,
prepared by the CEPLAC group in charge of the survey and presented to the X annual meeting of the Brazilian
Society of Agricultural Economists, Brasilia, July 1972.
 120
general and what is peculiar in the cacao sector stricto sensu. Section 3 seeks to add the
empirical aspect of the issue of the greater intensity of land use in smaller-sized
establishments, as compared to the larger-sized ones.
Finally, an attempt has been made, in section 4, to use results in order to
contribute to the analysis of the socio-economic structure in the Brazilian countryside. This
has been done by relating the inferior technical and economic conditions of production in the
“subsistence sector” to the subordinate insertion of the “subsistence” producers and their
“subsistence” crops in the plantation-dominated agrarian structure. Every aspect of the
region’s agricultural sector becomes therefore connected to its dominant capitalist pole --
king cacao.
 121
Map II

Source: Leeds, A., “ Economic Cycles in Brazil: The Persistence of a Total Culture
Pattern, Cacao and Other Cases”, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University,
1957, p. 21.
 122
Map III

Source: Leeds, A., op. cit., p. 37.

 123
Map IV

Source: Leeds, A., op. cit., p. 60.

 124
Section 1 – Plantation production and petty production in the cacao zone

1.1 – Characterization of production by sector according to type and amount of labor used

A production unit (UP) is included in the plantation (or capitalist) sector if more
than 40 percent of the labor effectively used (equivalent man-years) is paid (wage-) labor.
Otherwise it is classified in the petty production sector. The operators of plantation
production are called capitalist producers, distinguishable from the petty producers.
Tables 1-2 present the classification of the Ups according to these sectors and by
size in hectares. Considering the capitalist sector as a whole, an average UP employs 6 wage
laborers, requiring about half of a man-year as “operator labor”. In the plantation s larger than
500 hectares, to be sure, there is an average of 39 wage laborers per unit, but even in the Ups
under 20ha., 1.6 wage laborers, on average, are employed. The circumstance that the
operation of a capitalist UP is carried or with less than a full man-years “operator’s labor”,
helps to explain the high proportion of hired labor in total labor force even in the smaller
Ups. It is interesting to note that in petty production, on the contrary, more than one and a
half man-year in “operator labor” is carried out in the average UP 262 .
It is clear from Table 2 that in the case of the cacao zone the small acreage of an
UP does not mean necessarily that it is a petty production unit; indeed, it is significant that
almost one quarter of the capitalist sector’s wage-earning class works in the units with sizes
smaller than 50 ha., although it is still true that the bigger plantations (above 100 ha.) employ
about 59 percent of the cacao proletariat. Further information on the size distribution of the
capitalist Ups in terms of the amount of labor hired is present in Table 3, where it can be seen
that those employing four or more wage laborers account for almost 88 percent of the total
wage employment. The relatively large number of capitalist units employing less than four
wage-workers, it should be pointed out, adds to the need to consider more carefully the
peculiarities of the cacao plantation system vis-a-vis other plantation systems in terms of the

262
This is, evidently, an expression of the fact that, as one author put it, “Unlike the fazenda, [the petty UP] is a
family-living and -working unit”. Leeds, A., “Economic Cycles in Brazil: The persistence of a Total Culture-
Pattern, 1957, p. 157. The complex hierarchical organization of the cacao fazendas studied by the author, in a
field trip in 1951-52, is described on pp. 184-206, where the role of the “administrator” is depicted.
 125
size of the UP.
 126

Table 1
Cacao zone -- distribution of the UPs by size in hectares and composition of the labor force – petty production sector

(size in hectares)
Total % 0-20 % 20-50 % 50-100 % 100-500 % >500 %
1. Nº. of UPs 532 349 124 49 10 -
2. Area total 10,382 2,121 3.759 3,124 1.378 -
3. Nº. Total
labor force
(man years) 856 100.0 451 100.0 253 100.0 115 100.0 42 100.0 -
3.1 Operators'
labor 823 96.1 438 97.1 239 94.5 109 94.8 40 95.2 - -
3.2 Wage
Laborers'
labor 32 3.7 13 2.9 14 5.5 6 5.2 2 4.8 - -
3.2.1
Temporary
labor 31 88.6 13 100.0 12 85.7 5 83.3 1 50.0 - -
3.2.2
Permanent
labor 4 11.4 - 0.0 2 14.3 1 16.7 1 50.0 - -
Source: CEPLAC Survey.
 127

Table 2

Cacao zone -- distribution of the UPs by size in hectares and composition of the labor force -- capitalist sector

(size in hectares)
Total % 0-20 % 20-50 % 50-100 % 100-500 % >500 %
1. Nº. of UPs 413 98 144 76 83 12
2. Area total 38,212 956 4,533 5,285 15,94 11,499
3. Nº. Total
labor force
(man years) 2,745 100.0 203 100.0 555 100.0 510 100.0 990 100.0 480 100.0
3.1 Operators'
labor 238 8.7 42 20.7 94 16.9 46 6.0 41 4.1 11 2.3
3.2 Wage
Laborers'
labor 2,507 91.3 161 79.3 461 83.1 464 91.0 949 95.9 469 97.7
3.2.1
Temporary
labor 947 37.8 92 57.1 210 45.6 196 42.2 351 37.0 98 20.9
3.2.2
Permanent
labor 1,557 62.1 69 42.9 251 54.4 168 57.8 598 63.0 371 79.1
Source: CEPLAC Survey.
 128

Table 3

Cacao zone -- Distribution of the UPs by sectors and by size and composition of the labor force

Stratification
according to
amount of labor (4) (6)
used, in equivalent (3) Operator's (5) Total labor (7)
man-years, and by (1) (2) Area per UP labor (man- Hired labor used Labor per
sectors Nº. Ups Area (ha) (ha) years) (man-years) % [=(4)+(5)] UP[=(6)/(1)]
I. Petty Prodution 532 10,382 19.5 823.3 32.4 100.0 855.7 1.6
<1 187 1,772 9.5 88.9 2.3 7.1 91.2 0.5
1-2 176 3,120 17.7 219.1 6.4 19.8 225.5 1.3
2-4 130 3,625 27.8 324.0 17.8 54.9 341.8 2.6
4-8 38 1,824 48.0 181.4 5.9 18.2 187.3 4.9
>8 1 42 42.0 9.9 - - 9.9 9.9

II. Capitalist
Prodution 413 38,212 92.5 238.0 2,506.7 100.0 2,744.7 6.6
<1 45 925 20.6 2.7 16.3 0.7 19.0 0.4
1-2 70 2,400 34.3 14.8 74.2 3.0 89.0 1.3
2-4 95 4,818 50.7 50.7 212.4 8.4 263.1 2.8
4-8 112 8,650 77.2 94.4 518.7 20.7 613.1 5.5
8 - 16 51 6,739 132.1 40.5 530.6 21.2 571.1 11.2
16 - 32 31 7,065 227.9 27.4 599.7 23.9 627.1 20.2
32 - 64 6 4,053 675.5 4.5 253.7 10.1 258.2 43.0
> 64 3 3,562 1,187.4 3.0 301.2 12.0 304.2 101.4
Source: CEPLAC Survey.
 129

Table 4 presents the results on off-farm work by the producers in both sectors,
and according to the size of the UP. Looking closer into the petty production sector, one
can see that almost half of the producers work in UPs of an average size close to 3 hectares,
with an intensity of land use significantly greater as compared with the other petty
producers. Already at this point we can say that these smaller petty UPs constitute clearly
the minifundia, the petty producers off-farm work being, most likely, “ out-hiring”, i.e., part-
time wage labor on the bigger plantations. A measure of the insufficiency of their means of
labor -- first and foremost, their land resources -- in relation to their subsistence needs is
presented in this table as the “rate of outhiring”, defined as
Off - farrn work
Off - farrn work + operator labor
the denominator being a proxy for the family’s total labor capacity and also, to a lesser
extent, the family’s size and related subsistence needs. The interpretation of this off-farm
work as part-time wage labor could be strengthened by data on income, that unfortunately
did not become available. However, the results to be further presented in this chapter
support completely this specific characterization of off-farm work by the minifundiarios;
this is, in any case, a widespread phenomenon in plantation systems, in Brazil and
elsewhere.263

263
For a discussion of the precarious economic conditions of a group of petty producers in the cacao zone,
whose “lack of resources makes them work for others in search of their subsistence,” see Landim, A.D.,
“Cooperativa Agricola Mista de Una Resp. Ltda.” , mimeo, CEPLAC, April 1975; in his case study, Leeds
has found part -time wage labor by the petty producers; see op.cit., p. 229; on p. 252 he says: “Many
concurrently or alternately work on their plots and take jobs as laborers on fazendas”. For an overview of the
incidence of minifundios in Brazilian agriculture, see Interamerican Committee for Agricultural Development
 130

A further insight into outhiring in the petty production sector is possible with
the help of Table 5, where the UPs are stratified according to the amount of labor used. The
petty UPs with less than one man-year of labor used show an impressive incidence of off-
farm work. By looking at the increase in the average area of these smaller UPs, however, as

(CIDA), Land Tenure Conditions and Socio-Economic Development of the Agricultural Sector – Brazil
(Washington: Pan American Union, 1966, pp. 81-117, where emphasis is given on the inability of the
minifundio to allow for the subsistence needs of the producer. Just as an example of the abundant literature
on the pervasiveness of part -time wage work in plantation systems other than Brazilian agriculture, see
Handler, J.S., “Small-Sca1e Sugar Cane Farming in Barbados”, Ethnolo gy, vol. V, n° 3, pp. 264-283; the
author analyses a community of petty producers that “cannot depend upon the cash proceeds derived from
cane alone to satisfy all or most of their cash needs. They must seek income from other sources (...) such as
plantation wage labor. (...)”. (p. 280).
 131

Table 4

Cacao zone – off-farm work by sectors and according to sizes in hectares

Stratification (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
by sectors Nº. Total area Average Operator's Off--farm Hired labor Rate of out- Total labor Operator Total labor
and size of UPs (ha) area (ha) labor (m.y.) work (m.y.) (m.y.) hiring (%) used labor per per area
UPs (ha) [=(4)+(6)] UP [=(8)/(2)]
(m.y.) [=(4)/(1)] (m.y./ha)
(m.y.)
I. Petty
Prodution 533 10,407 19.5 826 218 35 20.9 861 1.5 0.079
<1 258 839 3.3 281 124 6 30.6 287 1.1 0.335
10 - 20 91 1,282 14.1 157 33 7 17.3 164 1.7 0.122
20 - 50 125 3,785 30.3 239 49 14 16.9 253 1.9 0.063
50 - 100 49 3,124 63.8 109 13 6 10.6 115 2.2 0.035
> 100 10 1,378 137.8 40 - 2 - 42 4.0 0.029

II. Capitalist
Prodution 412 38,185 92.7 235 42 2,504 15.3 2,740 0.6 0.072
<1 47 220 4.7 12 14 55 53.4 67 0.3 0.304
10 - 20 51 736 14.4 30 5 106 14.8 136 0.6 0.185
20 - 50 143 4,507 31.5 94 12 461 11.6 555 0.7 0.123
50 - 100 76 5,285 69.5 46 4 464 8.1 510 0.6 0.096
> 100 95 27,437 288.8 53 7 1,418 11.0 1,470 0.6 0.054

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 132

well as to their relatively lower use of labor per area -- confirmed, parenthetically, by the
lower amount of labor per UP -- one may conclude that two different situations (“types”)
seem to be associated with outhiring in the petty production sector. In one case, land is
intensively used, concomitantly with outhiring -- this is the typical minifundio; in the other
case, however, other factors rather than land shortage cause outhiring. Further research
would be very helpful in going deeper in this last case, whose relevance has to be
established yet.
In contrast to petty production, “off-farm work” as appears in the capita1ist
sector can not be interpreted in the same terms. First of all, the high “rates of outhiring”
appearing for instance, in Table 5, cannot be considered as meaning the same thing (i.e., an
indicator of the inability of the producer to meet his subsistence needs by working solely on
his own account): one can see immediately that the high “rates of outhiring” reported on
column 6 of Table 5 are in part caused by the small amount of operator labor in the
capitalist UPs, that by definition are based on wage labor. Further results on the economic
and technical conditions of production of these capitalist UPs, to be presented later in this
chapter, will strengthen this contention. In particular, it will be shown that the capitalist
sector is typically characterized by multiple-property holding, what in itself implies
activities in more than one UP by the capitalist producers. This is not, however, the case in
petty production. 264

264
The data being presented here as “off-farm work” corresponds to an item in the questionnaire enquiring on
“work on another land;” this item, in turn, was itself an attempt to capture, among those producers that were
engaged in income -earning activities in addition to their own UPs that happened to be interviewed, the
minifundistas’ part-time wage labor, a phenomenon whose prevalence was considered of interest to study. To
the extent, however, that the producer was asked if he had "worked on another land,” in general (i.e., without
specifying: as a wage laborer, as originally intended), capitalist producers also answered it.
 133

Table 5
Cacao zone -- off-farm work by sectors and by size of the labor force

Stratification (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
by sectors Nº. of Area per Operator Off--farm Hired labor Rate of out- Total labor Total labor Total labor Operator
and size of Ups UP (ha) labor (m.y.) work (m.y.) (m.y.) hiring (%) used used per UP used per labor per
labor force [=(3)+(5)] [=(7)/(1)] area UP
(m.y.) (m.y.) [=(8)/(2)] [=(3)/(1)]
(m.y.) (m.y./ha)
I. Petty
Prodution 532 19.5 823.3 218.3 32.4 21.0 855.7 1.6 0.08 1.5
<1 187 9.5 88.9 118.0 2.3 57.0 91.2 0.5 0.05 0.5
1- 2 176 17.7 219.1 48.6 6.4 18.2 225.5 1.3 0.07 1.2
2- 4 130 27.8 324.0 47.2 17.8 12.7 341.8 2.6 0.09 2.5
4- 8 38 48.0 181.4 4.4 5.9 2.4 187.3 4.9 0.10 4.8
>8 1 42.0 9.9 - - - 9.9 9.9 0.24 9.9

II. Capitalist
Prodution 413 92.5 238.0 42.4 2,506.7 15.1 2,744.7 6.6 0.07 0.6
<1 45 20.5 2.7 11.8 16.3 81.4 19.0 0.4 0.02 0.06
1- 2 70 34.3 14.8 5.2 74.2 26.0 89.0 1.3 0.04 0.21
2- 4 95 50.7 50.7 9.7 212.4 16.1 263.1 2.8 0.05 0.53
4- 8 112 77.2 94.4 9.9 518.7 9.5 613.1 5.5 0.07 0.84
8 - 16 51 132.1 40.5 3.3 530.6 7.5 571.1 11.2 0.08 0.79
16 - 32 31 227.8 27.4 2.1 599.7 7.1 627.1 20.2 0.09 0.88
32 - 64 6 675.5 4.5 0.4 253.7 8.2 258.2 43.0 0.06 0.75
> 64 3 1,187.4 3.0 - 301.2 - 304.2 101.4 0.09 1.0
Source: CEPLAC Survey.
 134

1.2 - Patterns of concentration of landholding

A final important observation should be made on the results presented so far. In
view of the predominance of wage labor in the region under study, it is obvious that an
analysis of concentration cannot limit itself to operators, since the landless proletariat --
being precisely the social group having no property at all -- is in this way swept away from
the picture. 265
The analysis of concentration to be presented in the following, with the help of
Tables 6 and 7, therefore, has the only purpose of contrasting the two sectors; it should
never be taken as an analysis of concentration among the families composing the region’s
socio-economic structure.
In the aggregate, the distribution of the UPs according to their acreage shows
the standard pattern of concentration. The UPs under 50 ha. represent more than 76% of the
total number (48% alone in the class under 20 ha.), and comprise 24% of the area (the Ups
under 20 ha. holding less than 7%), while, in the other extreme, the UPs larger than 100 ha.,
being only about 11% of the total number, represent more than 58% of the total ares.
The classification of the UPs by sectors makes it clear that these patterns of
concentration in the aggregate are largely explained by concentration between sectors, since
62% of the UPs in the size classes under 50 ha. (72% of the UPs under 20 ha.), representing
49% of the are~ in these classes (64% in the classes under 20 ha.), are petty production
units, while capitalist units dominate in the size classes above 100 ha., representing about
85% of the number and holding 95% of the area of the larger UPs classified in these
classes. It is important to note, however, that almost 59% of the capitalist units are smaller
than 50 ha. (almost one quarter are smaller than 20 ha.), pointing to the need to analyse

265
This gross mistake was made by Alencar, N.H., “Aspectos da Concentracao da Producao de Cacau e da
Estrutura Fundiaria na Regiao Cacaueira do Estado da Bahia”, CEPLAC, March 1970. For some specific
attempts at incorporating the landless laborers in the analysis of concentration of means of production, the
land in particular, in Brazilian agriculture, e.g., Hoffman, R. and Silva, J.F.G., “A Estrutura Agraria
Brasileira”, Piracicaba, 1975; and Frank, A.G., Capitalism Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1969), esp. pp. 248-252.
 135

concentration within the capitalist sector itself. For this reason, it is necessary to observe
that a relatively small number of large plantations the ones larger than 100 ha., representing
23% of the sector’s UPs -- comprise almost 72% of the capitalist sector’s land area. These
are the large plantations that in the region as a whole -- i.e., pooling together both sectors –
 136

Table 6
Cacao zone -- Distribuition of UPs by sectors and by sizes in hectares
Stratification by size in hectares
Items and sectors Total % 0-20 % 20-50 %
1. Total number of UPs 997 100.0 482 48.3 281 28.1
1.1 No. petty production UPs 532 100.0 349 65.6 124 23.3
1.2 No. capitalist UPs 413 100.0 98 23.7 144 34.9

2. Total area of the Ups (ha) 49,639 100.0 3,330 6.7 8,717 17.6
2.1 Area in petty production 10,382 100.0 2,121 20.4 3,759 36.2
2.2 Area in capitalist production 38,212 100.0 956 2.5 4,533 11.9

Table 6 continued
Cacao zone -- Distribuition of Ups by sectors and by sizes in hectares
Stratification by size in hectares
Items and sectors 50-100 % 100-500 % > 500 %
1. Total number of UPs 128 12.8 94 9.6 12 1.2
1.1 No. petty production UPs 49 9.2 10 1.9 - -
1.2 No. capitalist Ups 76 18.4 83 20.1 12 2.9

2. Total number of the Ups (há) 8,582 17.3 17,512 35.3 11,499 23.2
2.1 Area in petty production 3,124 30.1 1,378 13.2 - -
2.2 Area in capitalist production 5,285 13.8 15,940 41.7 11,499 30.1

Source: CEPLAC Survey. Petty production and capitalist production do not have to add to the total, since not all the UPs could be
classified in either sector.
 137

represent less than 10% of the total number of the UPs, holding nevertheless more than
58% of the total land area.
Table 7, on the other hand, is highly suggestive of the insufficiency or an
analysis of concentration based on the distribution of the UPs alone, in cases like the region
under study where the number of proprietors is much smaller than the number of UPs, this
phenomenon of multiple-property holding being as much relevant for the reason that it
restricts itself to the capitalist sector and therefore also to the larger size classes.266 This
differential incidence of the phenomenon, of course, can only give strong support to our
framing of the analysis of concentration of the means of production (indicated here by
distribution of landholding) within the context of the 8nalysis of the duality plantation
sector/petty production: indeed, it is the case that petty producers not only hold smaller
UPs, but in addition they own nothing else, while in the plantation sector, not only do the
planters own larger UPs, but their greater economic strength is expressed by their holding
several Ups, evidently, a complete picture must include the cacao proletariat, for not a
single UP they are able to hold, even less, therefore, than the petty producers.

266
Alencar, M.H., op.cit., has failed to take into account this phenomenon of multiple -property
holding, a serious shortcoming of a study striving to present a rosy picture of the region’s patterns
of concentration. Much emphasis has been given, in the literature, to the prevalence of this
phenomenon in Brazilian agriculture, but to our knowledge no empirical evidence has been
provided, up to now, in support of this claim. See, for instance, CIDA, op.cit., pp. 101-107, where a
specific reference to the cacao zone is made.
 138

Table 7
Cacao zone -- Multiple-property holding by sectors and by sizes of the UPs

Stratification by size in hectares

Total 0-20 20-50 50-100 100-500 > 500

1. Total number of other UPs 701 163 215 130 166 27

1.1 Owned by petty producers 102 57 27 11 8 -
1.2 Owned by capitalist producers 566 95 184 110 149 27

2. Total area of other UPs 97,809 4,868 17,243 19,562 39,707 16,428
2.1 Owned by petty producers 2,470 930 568 197 801 -
2.1.1 Area "other UPs”/area “sampled UPs" (%) 23.8 43.8 15.1 6.3 58.1 -
2.2 Owned by capitalist producers 90,578 3,613 16,305 18,345 35,862 16,428
2.2.1 Area "other UPs"/area "sampled UPs" (%) 237.0 377.9 359.7 347.1 225.0 142.9

3. No. of producers with more than one UP 279 84 87 47 52 9

2.1 Petty producers 68 37 20 7 5 -
3.2 Capitalist producers 199 40 64 39 46 9

Source: CEPLAC Survey. Petty production and capitalist production do not have to add to the total, since not all the Ups could be
classified in either sector.
 139

1.3 - The technico-economic conditions of production in the two sectors

We shall begin now, with the help of Tables 8 and 9, the discussion of the
different technical and economic characteristics of productions in these two sectors.
The “cacao zone”, indeed, deserves its name, for monoculture is a striking
phenomenon. It 18 clearly small, however, the share of the petty cacao producers --
denominated locally as the burareiros -- in the total production of cacao. Most of the
capitalist units, on the other hand, are cacao fazendas: indeed, almost 78 percent of the Ups
in the capitalist sector, absorbing more than 80 percent of this sector’s area are fazendas
where cacao represents close to 97 percent of the (gross) output value. In contradistinction,
the buraras represent less than 32 percent of the total number of the petty UPs, and absorb
less than 36 percent of the total area under petty production .267
If cacao is for all practical purposes a sphere dominated by capitalist
production, manioc, on the other hand, is clearly a petty production domain: it is significant
that almost 32 percent of the petty producers -- as many as the burareiros -- derive most of
their income from manioc production, while it is virtually absent the presence of capitalist
UPs specializing in manioc production, precisely the sphere where, in sharp contrast with
cacao, a basic staple food of the proletariat is produced. Thus, while the capitalist sector
accounts for more than 90 percent of cacao production, leaving little more than 6% for the
petty production sector, with manioc the situation almost inverts itself, since only the petty
production UPs reported as percent of this crop's production, while the capitalist sector's

267
In the area he studied, Leeds has found that petty production’s chief crops were “ manioc,
aipim (a type of yam), sugar cane, corn, and other fruits and vegetables. Cacao frequently
provides an additional small income, occasionally the chief income ”. (op.cit., p. 230).
 140

similar share is lower than 20 percent.268

268
Further investigation of the conditions of production of even this small share reported in the
capitalist sector may show it to be, rather than “capita1ist”, actually “subsistence production”
carried out by permanent laborers on plantation-assigned plots, being, therefore, a marginal activity
within the capitalist sector. CEPLAC’s survey, however, has not made possible the analysis of this
issue. It should be pointed out that, in view of relative shortage of cacao land, the worker’s access to
the land plot seems to become restricted, since the opportunity cost of land is greater. Leeds has
referred, in his case study, to fazendeiros’ forbidding even of “[growing] little gardens and [raising]
pigs and chicken about the [worker’s] house.” (op.cit., p. 207).
 141

Table 8
Cacao zone -- main economic activities by sectors

Sectors and economic activities No. Of UPs Labor use Total land area
No. % m.y. % ha. %
A. Zone's total 997 100.0 3,600 100.0 49,639 100
B. Petty production 533 53.5 856 33.8 10,382 20.9
1. cacao UPs 168 16.8 290 8.0 3,698 7.5
2. manioc UPs 169 16.9 279 7.7 2,895 5.8
3. other specialized UPs 45 4.5 73 2.0 1,185 2.4
4. all specialized UPs 382 38.3 643 17.7 7,778 15.7
C. Capitalist production 411 41.2 2,745 75.2 38,212 77.0
1. cacao UPs 319 32.0 2,372 32.0 30,646 61.8
2. other specialized UPs 28 2.8 182 5.0 4,163 8.4
3. all specialized UPs 347 34.8 2,554 70.5 34,808 70.2

Source: CEPLAC Survey. Only de UPs that have shown to be “specialized” in properly defined “main economic activity (ies)” have
been analysed in more detail in CEPLAC’s survey.
 142

Table 9
Cacao zone -- structure of production by sectors and main economic activities
Total value of output Value of output of cacao Value of temporary crops
Cr$ % Cr$ % Cr$ %
A. Zone’s total 24,325,434 100.0 22,095,325 100.0 696,906 100
B. Specialized petty UPs
1. cacao UPs 946,334 3.9 892,385 4.0 37,174 4.9
2. manioc UPs 356,858 1.5 44,338 - 301,944 43.3
3. other specialized UPs 191,913 0.8 73,179 0.3 45,628 6.5
4. all specialized UPs 1,495,105 6.2 1,009,902 4.6 381,746 54.8
C. Specialized capitalist UPs
1. cacao UPs 20,626,095 84.8 19,966,621 90.4 84,487 12.1
2. other specialized UPs 844,907 3.5 413,934 1.9 15,181 2.2
3. all specialized UPs 21,471,002 88.3 20,380,555 92.2 99,668 14.3
 143

Table 9 continued
Production of cacao Production of manioc Own consuption Rate of out-hiring
arrobas % Tons % (% total output) in petty production
A. Zone’s total 366,979 100.0 5,516 100.0 1.2

B. Specialized petty UPs 19,604 5.3 263 4.8 2.6 18.2

1. cacao UPs 961 0.3 2,659 48.2 19.6 21.2
2. manioc UPs 1,696 0.5 303 5.5 15.2 19.7
3. other specialized UPs 22,261 6.1 3,224 58.5 8.3 19.9
4. all UPs
C. Specialized capitalist UPs
1. cacao UPs 324,806 88.5 737 13.4 0.6
2. other specialized UPs 9,535 2.6 289 5.2 3.3
3. all specialized UPs 334,139 91.1 1,025 18.6 0.7

Source: CEPLAC Survey. (see observation in Table 8).

 144

A few additional observations must be made in connection with the analysis of petty production in the region. First, it is
predominantly commodity production, as the data on own consumption shows. Secondly, the buraras (the cacao petty units) larger
gross output value per UP as compared to the manioc UPs, for instance, not necessarily means that the burareiros form an upper strata
within petty production, for the reproduction costs of their activity -- “depreciation”, that is to say -- have no counterpart in the petty
manioc units. The prevalence of outhiring accross all petty production activities, anyway, is an indirect evidence that such a
differentiation does not really exist. A study of such a differentiation within petty production, one could say, loses much of its
importance in view of the much greater differentiation between petty production as a whole and capitalist production. It is to the extent
that the petty producers as a whole are contrasted with the capitalist producers also as a whole that a basic homogeneity can be
attributed to the petty production sector. 269 Table 10 is useful in bringing home this proposition.
The virtually identical sizes of the petty UPs, in dependently of the particular crop produced (it should be recalled the point
made above regarding the comparison between the petty cacao units and the petty manioc units) can be seen from the table. Their
being equally small, that is to say, becomes clear when they are contrasted with the capitalist units.
As Table 11 shows, furthermore, the petty UPs are not only smaller than the capitalist UPs: they are distinctly inferior than the
latter, as the several indicators of resource endowments presented in the table, all consistently and significantly --, suggest. In
particular, a piece of information appearing in the table is very important: as indicated by the significantly greater incidence of
capoeira land in petty production, the quality of the land in this sector, by comparison with the capitalist sector,

269
This same conclusion has been re ached by Leeds when he says that “When [burareiros and roceiros] are contrasted to the fazenda, their typological similarity
becornes apparent. The contrast shows the essential opposition between the fazendas and all of the small establishments.” (op.cit., p. 245).
 145

Table 10
Cacao zone -- indicators of size of specialized UPs by sectors

Area per UP (ha.) Gross output per UP Total labor per UP Cacao arrobas per UP
(Cr$) (m.y.)
A. Zone’s total 49.8 24,399 3.63 368.1
B. Specialized petty UPs
1. cacao UPs 22 5,633 1.72 116.7
2. manioc UPs 17.1 2,112 1.65 5.7
3. other specialized UPs 26.3 4,265 1.62 37.7
C. Specialized capitalist UPs
production
1. cacao UPs 96.1 64,659 7.43 1,018.2
2. other specialized UPs 148.7 30,175 6.50 340.2

Source: CEPLAC Survey. (see observation in Table 8).

 146

Table 11
Cacao zone -- indicators of size of specialized UPs by sectors

(1) (2) Capital-labor Capital-land

Land-man Capoeira land/total land ratio ratio
(ha./m.y.) area (Cr$/m.y.) (Cr$/ha.)
(%)
A. Zone’s total 13.7 19.0 35,999 2,629
B. Specialized petty UPs
1. cacao UPs 12.8 31.0 17,393 1,364
2. manioc UPs 10.4 43.0 5,607 423
3. other specialized UPs 16.2 37.6 17,288 1,065
C. Specialized capitalist UPs
1. cacao UPs 12.9 14.8 43,449 3,363
2. other specialized UPs 22.9 6.9 31,205 1,364

Source: CEPLAC Survey. (see observation in Table 8).

 147

is worse270. Again, this is a distinct feature of every crop under potty production, what
suggests that this is a general feature of petty production as such, having little to do,
therefore, with particular technical conditions of production of crops the petty producers
might “specialize” relatively more on271.
A contrast between the technico-economic conditions of petty cacao
production, vis-a-vis capitalist cacao production is presented, in greater detail, in Table 12.
The lower productivity per area of cacao, of course, involves in its study the
whole technical production process; the lower quality of land in petty production, it must be
noted, may be an important factor here. The relative lack of processing facilities, in its turn,
and the probably inferior marketing conditions facing the petty producers -- not only on
account of their smaller crops, insufficient processing, etc. but also due to the very
precariousness of their economic situation -- must be important factors in the explanation of
the significantly lower average price received by the petty cacao producers.272

270
The meaningfulness of this piece of evidence is greatly strengthened by an information
provided personally in an extensive presentation centered particularly on the relative
position of petty producers in the cacao region by a CEPLAC agronomist, with an old
acquaintance with the region, that the petty production that exists in the region is for the
most part restricted to scattered small areas, with poorer soils (“capoeira land,” in his
words), truly marginal areas as far as the dominant economic activity is concerned. It has
been impossible for us to use data on land value since the survey we are using was a failure
on this generally troublesome data, especially so in the cacao region, where the tradition of
identifying “cacao land” with “land with cacao” -- since most of the “cacao land”, anyway,
is already planted with cacao -- makes it very difficult to obtain information on value of
land proper, without including the value of the cacao trees. This fact was confirmed by the
author in view of his access to the files of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s office in charge
of collecting and publishing information on land prices all over Brazil. An idea of the
differential between “cacao land” and other land can be seen in Leeds’ reference to a petty
producer’s purchase of land to plant manioc, in 1952, for 300 cruzeiros a hectare, while a
hectare of “cacao land” was sold, on average for Cr$17,000. See op.cit., p. 237.
271
Again using Leeds’ field work on the cacao zone, one encounters his saying (op.cit., p.
234) that “Buraras are plots of land organized on a peasant-like, non-industrial basis and
scattered throughout the more marginal areas among the industrially organized cacao
producing plantations. (…)” His descriptions of the buraras visited included one with
“ragged, inferior orchards”, “a barcaça [a cacao processing facility -- GCR] in bad repair”.
(op.cit., p. 50); another one had been formed by an acquisition of “20 hectares from Pedro
Ferreira in a part of the latifundium not suitable for cacao. (…)”. (op.cit., p. 237).
272
Leeds has noticed another factor in addition to lack of processing: the burareiros’ lack of mules,
so that they had to deliver their cacao, at a lower price, to the nearby fazenda or to an intermediary.
See op.cit., p. 242.
148
 149

Table 12
Cacao zone -- technico-economic characteristics of cacao production by specialized UPs and sectors

Share of cacao in Value of output of productivity of cacao Average price Value of cacao
total gross output cacao per cacao area per cacao area received for cacao processing facilities
(%) (Cr$/ha.) (arrobas/ha.) (Cr$/arroba) per cacao produced
(Cr$/arroba)
A. Zone's total 90.8 1,282 21.3 60.2 163.9
B. Specialized petty UPs
1. cacao UPs 94.3 786 17.3 45.5 69.0
2. manioc UPs 12.4 159 3.4 46.1 380.8
3. other specialized UPs 38.1 446 10.3 43.1 222.3
C. Specialized capitalist UPs
1. cacao UPs 96.8 1,426 23.2 61.5 167.1
2. other specialized UPs 49.0 892 20.5 43.4 197.1

Source: CEPLAC Survey. (see observation in Table 8).

 150

The relative lack of processing facilities in petty production, to be sure, is only

an aspect of the general relative dearth of means of production in this sector; as it has been
indicated in Table 11, petty production shows a significantly lower aggregate value of
means of production (excluding land) per labor and per area. If the previous evidence on
differential quality of land in the two sectors is added, it becomes easy to understand why
output per labor differs so markedly in the two sectors, as shown in Table 13.
As to the significantly higher output per area in the capitalist cacao UPs, vis-à-
vis the petty cacao UPs, the different qualities of this “area”, as well as the other technico-
economic inferiorities of petty production, are obviously to be considered for an
explanation. (In the cacao zone, it is interesting to notice, production in the petty sector is
not at all characterized by a greater use of labor per area as compared to production in the
capitalist sector. In both sectors, however, the smaller units show significantly greater use
of labor per area and also larger output per area as compared with the larger units. See
columns 10 in Tables 4 and 5, column 1 in Table 11 and lines H in Table 15 and L in Table
16, to be presented next. We shall return to these issues in section three or this chapter.)
In the following Tables 14 to 16, holding constant the size (in hectares) of the
UPs -- through a stratification of the UPs according to their area -- it is shown that a
significant differentiation still takes place according to sector of classification of the UPs, in
terms of (i) economic size (Table 14), (ii) the technico-economic conditions of production
(Table 15), arid finally, (iii) in terms of productivity of labor and land (Table 16). Such a
differentiation, in view of our previous discussion, is to be interpreted as a result not only
of the different “crop mix” in the two sectors, but also of the poorer technico-economic
conditions of petty production in cacao.
 151

Table 13
Cacao zone -- output per labor and per area by specialized UPs by sectors

Total output per labor Total output per area

(Cr$/m.y.) (Cr$/ha.)
A. Zone's total 6,714 490
B. Specialized petty UPs
1. cacao UPs 3,263 256
2. manioc UPs 1,279 123
3. other specialized UPs 2,629 162
C. Specialized capitalist UPs
1. cacao UPs 8,696 673
2. other specialized UPs 4,642 203

Source: CEPLAC Survey. (see observation in Table 8).

 152

Section 2 - The duality plantation-petty production as a general phenomenon: the “survey

region”

The petty production that one encounters in the cacao zone, including its
distinct technico-economic conditions vis-a-vis the plantation sector, can be shown now to
be no more than a particular instance of a seemingly substantial sector of Brazilian
agriculture, whose common denominator is precisely a subordinated socio-economic
position expressed in the technico-economic conditions that we have been analysing. The
results to be presented in the following, for the other subareas that, together with the “cacao
zone”, formed CEPLAC’s “survey region”, can not but support this contention.
Another important aspect whose analysis becomes possible with the
presentation of the tables that follow is the specificity of the cacao zone vis-a-vis the other
subareas. The cacao plantation sector can, in this way, be contrasted to the other dominant
sectors in the survey region.
Table 17 allows us to see that throughout the survey region the petty producers
not only own significantly much smaller production units, vis-a-vis the capitalist producers,
but in addition, in sharp contrast with the latter, they own very little else.
Closer examination of Table 17 suggests that the first two subareas show a
greater importance of capitalist production vis-a-vis petty production, as indicated by the
respective amounts of land (this greater importance is expressed, also, in terms of amount
of labor used, as shown in Table 21, below);273 the cacao zone, in addition, manifests its

273
A satisfactory comparative analysis of the several subareas cannot be carried out without
developing a deeper study of each one of them, what is beyond the objective of this chapter. It is
current understanding in CEPLAC quarters, however, that Pastori1de Itapetina is
 153

specificity in e significantly smaller average area of the UPs in the capitalist sector, as
compared to the other subareas’ capitalist sectors. In an attempt to stress even

characterized by an important livestock activity, forming with the cacao zone the
economically dominant subareas. It would seem to be consistent, therefore, to find that
these are the subareas where petty production is relatively less important. (The particular
case of Planalto de Jagua quara should be analysed with the qualification that one single UP,
with more than 8,500 ha., happen ed to be included in the sample; since it. alone repres ents
more than 50 percent of the sample ’s total area, an overestimation of the importance of
capita list production, no doubt, is present.)
 154

Table 14
Cacao zone -- economic analysis of production by sectors and size of the UPs in ha.
(I). Indicators of size.
Size classes (ha.)
Items Totals 0 – 10 10 - 20 20 - 50 50 - 100
A. N° of UPs
1. Cacao region 997 326 156 281 128
2. Petty production 532 258 91 124 49
3. Capitalist production 413 47 51 144 76
B. Area per UP (ha.)
1. Cacao region 50 3.5 14 31 67
2. Petty production 20 3.2 14 30 64
3. Capitalist production 93 4.7 14 31 70
C. Gross output per UP (Cr$)
1. Cacao region 18,750 1,796 6,301 11,519 30,152
2. Petty production 2,998 1,570 3,545 4,145 4,697
3. Capitalist production 40,898 3,417 12,547 18,656 46,326
D. Labor used per UP man-year)
1. Cacao region 3.61 1.08 1.92 2.88 4.89
2. Petty production 1.61 1.11 1.80 2.04 2.35
3. Capitalist production 6.65 1.43 2.67 3.86 6.71
E. Total capital per UP (Cr$)
1. Cacao region 130,816 9,217 30,830 83,165 156,155
2. Petty production 20,174 7,733 21,556 29,606 43,630
3. Capitalist production 286,616 18,904 52,976 133,671 230,346
 155

Table 14 continued.
Size classes (ha.)
Items 100-200 200-500 500-1000 > 1000
A. N° of UPs
1. Cacao region 55 39 7 5
2. Petty production 7 3 - -
3. Capitalist production 47 36 7 5
B. Area per UP (ha.)
1. Cacao region 130 266 646 1,396
2. Petty production 109 205 - -
3. Capitalist production 132 271 646 1,396
C. Gross output per UP (Cr$)
1. Cacao region 57,801 80,010 115,285 584,441
2. Petty production 10,291 15,566 - -
3. Capitalist production 65,400 85,380 115,285 584,441
D. Labor used per UP man-year)
1. Cacao region 8.76 14.10 18.43 70.12
2. Petty production 3.81 5.06 - -
3. Capitalist production 9.70 14.86 18.43 70.12
E. Total capital per UP (Cr$)
1. Cacao region 388,968 609,498 1,728,137 4,398,253
2. Petty production 82,311 141,980 - -
3. Capitalist production 437,436 648,458 1,728,137 4,398,253

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 156

Table 15
Cacao zone -- economic analysis of production by sectors and size of the UPs in ha.
(II). Resource endowment.

Size classes (ha.)

Items
Totals 0 - 10 10 – 20 20 - 50 50 - 100 100-200 200-500 500-1000 > 1000
F. Capital/labor ratio (Cr$/m.y.)
1. Cacao region 36,229 8,448 16,032 28,923 31,929 44,384 43,219 93,775 62,653
2. Petty production 12,543 6,953 11,961 14,533 18,527 21,580 28.078 - -
3. Capitalist production 43,128 13,203 19,822 34,657 34,306 45,116 43,635 93,775 62,653
G. Capital/land ratio (Cr$/ha.)
1. Cacao region 2,627 2,620 2,203 2,681 2,329 2,989 2,296 2,676 3,152
2. Petty production 1,031 2,378 1,530 970 684 755 693 - -
3. Capitalist production 3,098 4,039 3,671 4,246 3,312 3,316 2,397
H. Man/land ratio (m.y./ha.)
1. Cacao region 0.07 0.31 0.14 0.09 0.07 0.07 0.05 0.03 0.05
2. Petty production 0.08 0.34 0.13 0.07 0.04 0.03 0.02 - -
3. Capitalist production 0.07 0.31 0.19 0.12 0.10 0.07 0.05 0.03 0.05
I. (Matas+capoeiras)/total area
(%)
1. Cacao region 36.0 21.0 33.0 41.0 42.0 34.0 41.0 48.0 14.0
2. Petty production 55.9 23.7 37.7 57.9 65.1 69.2 61.5 - -
3. Capitalist production 30.0 8.0 17.0 24.0 29.0 29.0 39.0 48.0 14.0

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 157

Table 16
Cacao zone -- economic analysis of production by sectors and size of the UPs in ha.
(III). Productivity.

Size classes (ha.)

Items Totals 0 - 10 10 - 20 20 - 50 50 - 100 100-200 200-500 500-1000 > 1000
J. Output per man (Cr$/m.y.)
1. Cacao region 5,913 1,654 3,277 4,006 6,165 6,596 5,673 6,256 8,325
2. Petty production 1,851 1,412 1,967 2,035 1,995 2,698 3,078 - -
3. Capitalist production 6,154 2,386 4,695 4,837 6,899 6,745 5,745 6,256 8,325
L. Output per area (Cr$/ha.)
1. Cacao region 377 510 450 371 450 444 301 178 419
2. Petty production 152 483 251 136 74 94 76 - -
3. Capitalist production 442 730 869 593 666 496 316 178 419

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 158

Table 17
Survey region – distribution of the UPs by sectors and subareas
Sampled UPs Other UPs
Total Area Average area Total Area Average area
Subareas and Sectors N° of UPs % (ha.) % (ha.) N° of Ups (ha.) (ha.)
A. Cacao Region 945 100.0 48,593 100.0 51 668 93,047 139.3
1. Petty production 532 56.3 10,382 21.4 20 102 2,470 24.2
2. Capitalist production 413 43.7 38,212 78.6 93 566 90,578 160.0
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 342 100.0 46,954 100.0 137 162 36,251 223.8
1. Petty production 125 62.9 5,428 11.6 25 26 1,693 65.1
2. Capitalist production 127 37.1 41,527 88.4 327 136 34,558 254.1
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 338 100.0 10,622 100.0 31 107 4,802 44.9
1. Petty production 265 78.4 3,905 36.8 15 55 919 16.7
2. Capitalist production 73 21.6 6,717 63.2 92 52 3,883 74.7
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 202 100.0 15,847 100.0 78 49 4,480 91.4
1. Petty production 163 80.7 2,642 16.7 16 25 226 9.0
2. Capitalist production 39 19.3 13,205 83.3 339 24 4,256 177.3
E. Planalto Conquista 467 100.0 35,457 100.0 76 148 30,468 205.9
1. Petty production 380 81.4 16,345 46.1 43 65 3,305 50.8
2. Capitalist production 87 18.6 19,112 53.9 220 83 27,164 327.3
 159

Table 17 continued

Sampled UPs Other UPs

Total Area Average area Total Area Average area
Items N° of Ups % (ha.) % (ha.) N° of Ups (ha.) (ha.)
F. Interiorana E.S. 299 100.0 25,064 100.0 84 81 12,139 149.9
1. Petty production 230 76.9 11,194 44.7 49 42 4,805 114.4
2. Capitalist production 69 23.1 13,871 55.3 201 39 7,334 188.0
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 129 100.0 9,264 100.0 72 43 5,359 124.6
1. Petty production 111 86.0 5,078 54.8 46 5 133 26.6
2. Capitalist production 18 14.0 4,186 45.2 233 38 5,226 137.5
H. Litoranea B.E.S. 220 100.0 15,246 100.0 69 48 7,807 162.6
1. Petty production 191 86.8 9,374 61.5 49 30 1,723 57.4
2. Capitalist production 29 13.2 5,873 38.5 203 18 6,084 338.0
F. SURVEY REGION 2,942 100.0 207,047 100.0 70 1,306 194,353 149
1. Petty production 2,087 70.9 64,348 31.1 31 350 15,274 44
2. Capitalist production 855 29.1 142,703 68.9 167 956 179,081 187
Source: CEPLAC Survey.
 160

further this peculiarity, we present in Table 18 the distribution of landholdings within the
several capitalist sectors. A completely independent set of data seem to con firm this
characteristic of the cacao sector: as it can be seen in Table 19, the “Humid Southeast” (line
F) -- corresponding exactly to CEPLAC’s “cacao zone proper” --, as compared to all the
other Northeastern regions, shows the greater importance of the middle ranges (100-500
ha.), and the lesser amount of land in the sizes larger than 500 ha. The specificity of the
cacao zone, to be sure, manifests itself also in a significantly greater incidence of multiple
property-holding in its capitalist sectors vis-a-vis the other subareas’ capitalist sectors; there
would seem to be, therefore, no smaller degree of concentration in the cacao zone: what is
different is the form that concentration takes.274

274
While mentioning in passing, for his case study, that “the largest [fazendas] are a couple
of thousand hectares”, (op.cit., p. 158 Leeds has found intense “business connections” in
the cacao sector -- bankers, merchants, “corporations”, etc., often being the owners of
fazendas. (op.cit., pp. 170-172, 263-4.) On the other hand, not only did he find widespread
multiple-property holding, but -- interestingly enough -- any one single property unit
consisted, actually, of more than one “plantation center”, i.e., independent subdivision with
complete processing facilities and geared to a nearby cacao roca. One particular fazenda,
for instance, had four such “centers” (see op.cit., pp. 44-52, 158-163). It would seem,
therefore, that the cacao sector, unlike sugar and coffee, is characterized by a high degree of
“divisibility” of its processing facilities, and this factor might be, ultimately, crucial for the
absence of a tendency to form a single continuous big plantation, and instead holding many
scattered, smaller ones.
 161

Table 18
Survey Region – Size distribution of the UPs in the capitalist sectors by subareas

Stratification by size in ha.

Capitalist sectors by subareas Total % 0-10 % 10-20 % 20-50 %
A. Cacao Zone
N° of UPs 413 100.0 47 11.4 51 12.3 144 34.9
Total Area (ha.) 38.212 100.0 220 0.06 736 1.9 4,533 11.9
B. Itapetinga
N° of Ups 129 100.0 9 7.0 5 3.9 13 10.1
Total Area (ha.) 41,526 100.0 36 0.009 69 0.002 459 1.1
C. Tab. Valenca
N° of Ups 73 100.0 19 26.0 7 9.6 12 16.4
Total Area (ha.) 6,717 100.0 64 0.9 81 1.2 375 5.6
D. Plan. Jaguaquara
N° of Ups 38 100.0 2 5.3 6 15.8 7 18.4
Total Area (ha.) 13,114 100.0 8 - 87 -- 251 1.9
E. Plan. Conquista
N° of Ups 85 100.0 16 18.8 1 1.2 12 14.1
Total Area (ha.) 19,032 100.0 65 -- 10 - 338 1.8
F. Interiorana E.S.
N° of Ups 68 100.0 4 5.9 1 1.5 15 22.1
Total Area (ha.) 13,825 100.0 26 - 17 - 547 4.0
 162

Table 18 continued

Stratification by size in ha.

Capitalist sectors by subareas 50-100 % 100-200 % 200-500 % > 500 %
A. Cacao Zone
N° of UPs 76 18.4 47 11.4 36 8.7 12 2.9
Total Area (ha.) 5,285 13.8 6,200 16.2 9,740 25.5 11,499 30.1
B. Itapetinga
N° of UPs 18 14.0 24 18.6 36 27.9 22 17.1
Total Area (ha.) 1,234 3.0 3,238 7.8 11,513 27.7 24,979 60.2
C. Tab. Valenca
N° of UPs 16 21.9 8 11.0 8 11.0 3 4.1
Total Area (ha.) 1,055 15.7 1,050 15.6 2,528 37.6 1,564 23.3
D. Plan. Jaguara
N° of UPs 6 15.8 9 23.7 6 15.8 2 5.3
Total Area (ha.) 502 3.8 1,298 9.9 1,769 13.5 9,200 70.2
E. Plan. Conquista
N° of UPs 12 14.1 14 16.5 21 24.7 9 10.6
Total Area (ha.) 766 4.0 1,940 10.2 6,111 32.1 9,802 51.5
F. Interiorana E.S.
N° of UPs 14 20.6 13 19.1 13 19.1 8 11.8
Total Area (ha.) 1,035 7.5 1,765 12.8 3,365 24.3 7,072 51.2

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 163

Table 19
Size distribution of the UPs in the cacao zone compared to othe Northeastern regions

% distribution according to sizes in hectares

(totals = 100.0%)

Regions 0-9.9 10-49.9 50-99.9 100-199.9 200-499.9 500 up

A. Relative Demographic Emptiness
N° of Ups 22.6 34.3 13.7 11.8 9.5 8.1
Total Area 0.5 5.4 6.1 10.1 18.4 59.4
B. Middle North
N° of Ups 14.2 26.0 15.3 21.4 13.5 9.6
Total Area 0.2 3.1 4.7 13.2 19.0 59.8
C. Semi-arid Sertao
N° of Ups 29.0 37.7 14.2 9.4 6.3 3.4
Total Area 1.6 11.6 11.4 15.0 20.4 39.9
D. Semi-humid Southeast
N° of Ups 16.6 48.3 17.2 8.2 5.2 4.6
Total Area (ha.) 0.7 11.0 11.6 10.6 13.7 52.5
 164

Table 19 continued

% distribution according to sizes in hestares

(totals = 100.0%)
Capitalist sectors by subareas 0-9.9 10-49.9 50-99.9 100-199.9 200-499.9 500 up
E. Humid East
N° of Ups 49.1 34.7 7.5 3.4 3.1 2.3
Total Area 1.9 9.2 5.6 21.8 8.9 52.7
F. Humid Southeast
N° of Ups 25.5 39.4 12.3 13.7 6.0 3.0
Total Area 1.9 13.9 11.3 25.4 23.1 24.6
G. Agreste
N° of Ups 59.1 27.1 5.7 3.8 2.3 1.6
Total Area 6.2 16.1 9.3 11.9 15.5 41.2
NORTHEAST
N° of Ups 32.0 35.1 12.5 9.8 6.4 4.2
Total Area 1.4 9.0 8.7 14.0 18.6 48.3

Source: World Bank/SUDENE Survey (1973-74). (Unpublished)

 165

As far as petty production is concerned, however, the cacao zone has no

specificities, as shown in Table 20: the average size of the UPs, both in hectares and -- even
more significantly -- also in terms of amount of labor used, is the same across subareas,
allowance being made for particular ecological and economic conditions.275

275
This allowance would explain, perhaps, the greater average size of the petty UPs in
subareas E to G, the relatively most backward subareas in the survey region.
 166

Table 20
Survey Region – Indicators of size of the UPs by sectors and subareas
Gross output per UP Labor used per UP Total capital per UP
Subareas Average area (ha.) (Cr$) (man-years) (Cr$)
A. Cacao Region 51 19,550 3.8 136,619
1. Petty production 20 2,978 1.6 20,174
2. Capitalist production 93 40,898 6.6 285,969
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 137 25,519 2.6 150,824
1. Petty production 25 4,121 1.7 53,443
2. Capitalist production 327 61,745 4.1 315,687
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 31 4,331 2.3 41,284
1. Petty production 15 1,741 1.8 15,287
2. Capitalist production 92 13,732 4.3 135,656
D. Planalto Jaguara 78 14,859 3.0 94,606
1. Petty production 16 1,356 1.5 6,938
2. Capitalist production 339 71,295 9.5 461,014
E. Planalto Conquista 76 5,649 2.5 32,015
1. Petty production 43 2,243 2.2 11,954
2. Capitalist production 220 20,528 3.6 119,636
F. Interiorana E.S. 84 8,940 2.8 43,804
1. Petty production 49 4,016 2.4 20,933
2. Capitalist productio n 201 25,352 4.2 120,042
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 72 3,125 2.2 13,911
1. Petty production 46 1,617 2.2 8,008
2. Capitalist production 233 12,423 2.7 50,311

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 167

Table 21 shows that the significantly smaller amount of “operator’s labor” in

the capitalist sector reported for the cacao zone is a rather general phenomenon. The
importance of wage labor in every sub-area’s capitalist sector is another established fact:
wage labor represents never less than 77 percent of the total labor used in these sectors. In
view of the uneven development of capitalist production across subareas, however, the
importance of wage labor within the subareas’ total agricultural sector differs significantly,
from less than 14 percent in sub-area G to more than 70 percent in cacao zone. (The
capitalist sector in the cacao zone alone employs, consequently, more than 60 percent of the
survey region’s wage labor.) Correspondingly, petty production’s relative importance as far
as “labor absorption”" is concerned varies from a low of about 24 percent in the cacao zone
to a high of more than 83 percent in the sub-area G (Litoranea A.E.S.).276
An important additional evidence in support of the proposition that the
technico-economic characteristics of

276
The comparative analysis of the capitalist sectors across subareas must take into account, in addition, the
particular economic activity carried out; this is suggested by a contrast between the cacao zone and subarea B
(Pastoril de Itapetinga), the latter’s livestock activity requiring of course, much less labor per output and area
than cacao production.
(For the need of qualifications of the results for subarea D see footnote page27l).
 168

Table 21
Survey Region -- Composition of the labor force by sectors and subareas

(1) Total labor used (2) Operator's (3) Hired (4) Proportion (5) Off-farm (6) Petty (7) Operator
(man- labor (man- labor (man- of hired labor labor (man- sector’s rate of labor per UP
Subareas and sectors years) % years) years) (%) [=(3)/(1)] years) outhiring (%) (man-years)
A. Cacao Region 3,600 100.0 1,061 2,539 70.5 261 1.1
1. Petty production 856 23.8 823 32 3.7 218 21.0 1.5
2. Capitalist production 2,745 76.3 238 2,507 91.3 42 0.6
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 885 100.0 418 467 52.8 75 1.2
1. Petty production 360 40.7 339 22 6.1 64 15.9 1.6
2. Capitalist production 525 59.3 79 445 84.8 11 0.6
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 778 100.0 495 284 36.5 105 1.5
1. Petty production 465 59.8 448 18 3.9 98 18.0 1.7
2. Capitalist production 313 40.2 47 266 85.0 7 0.6
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 608 100.0 260 348 57.2 50 1.3
1. Petty production 237 39.0 231 6 2.5 48 17.2 1.4
2. Capitalist production 371 61.0 29 342 92.2 2 0.7
 169

Table 21 continued

(1) Total labor used (3) Hired

(2) Operator's labor (4) Proportion (5) Off-farm (6) Petty (7) Operator
Capitalist sectors by (man- labor (man- (man- of hired labor labor (man- sector’s rate of labor per UP
subareas years) % years) years) (%) [=(3)/(1)] years) othiring (%) (man-years)
E. Planalto Conquista 1,157 100.0 873 284 24.5 133 1.9
1. Petty production 857 73.2 815 32 3.8 120 12.8 2.1
2. Capitalist production 309 26.7 58 257 81.6 13 0.7
F. Interiorana E.S. 834 100.0 574 260 31.1 39 1.9
1. Petty production 547 65.6 516 31 5.7 31 5.7 2.2
2. Capitalist production 288 34.5 58 230 79.9 9 0.8
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 288 100.0 248 40 13.9 19 1.9
1. Petty production 240 83.3 237 3 1.3 16 6.3 2.1
2. Capitalist production 48 16.7 11 37 77.1 2 0.6
H. Litoranea B.E.S. 510 100.0 409 101 19.8 40 1.9
1. Petty production 392 76.9 383 9 2.3 36 8.6 2.0
2. Capitalist production 118 23.1 26 92 78.0 4 0.9

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 170

petty production in the cacao zone are not unique to that zone is the incidence of outhiring
across subareas. This incidence of outhiring in petty production is to be seen as merely
another expression of the subordinated socio-economic position of this sector: as Table 22
demonstrates, it is precisely those petty producers whose means of labor as indicated by the
significantly smaller acreages of their UPs -- do not allow them to fulfill subsistence needs
solely on the basis of independent, petty, production that become part-time wage Iaborer3.
It is important to note, in addition, that these smaller petty UPs, constituting, no doubt, the
minifundia, represent actually the majority of this sector in the terms of the number of the
UPs.
Table 23 presents an additional evidence concerning the analysis of petty
production throughout the survey region. It is confirmed the importance for the petty
producers of manioc as an income-earning activity. The character of petty production
across subareas, on the other hand -- in contrast with capitalist production --, is clearly
expressed in the greater incidence of non-commercial production; in the rel atively
advanced subarea B (Pastori1 de Itapetinga), non-commodity production constitutes almost
50 percent of total production, what is really impressive.
 171

Table 22
Survey Region -- Incidence of outhiring in the petty production sector according to the size of the UPs by subareas

Rate of Operator Total labor

Stratificationof the UPs by Total area Average area Operator Outhiring outhiring labor per UP per area
size in hectares N° Ups (ha.) (ha.) labor (m.y.) (m.y.) (%) (m.y.) (m.y./ha.)
I. Cacao zone 533 10,407 19.5 826 218 20.9 1.5 0.079
< 10 258 839 3.3 281 124 30.6 1.1 0.335
10 - 20 91 1,282 14.1 157 33 17.3 1.7 0.122
20 - 50 125 3,785 30.3 239 49 16.9 1.9 0.063
50 - 100 49 3,124 63.8 109 13 10.6 2.2 0.035
> 100 10 1,378 137.8 40 -- -- 4.0 0.029
II. Tab. Valenca 265 3,904 14.7 448 98 17.9 1.7 0.115
< 10 160 570 3.6 197 66 24.9 1.2 0.346
10 - 20 43 534 12.4 98 17 15.0 2.3 0.184
20 - 50 39 1,188 30.5 103 12 10.7 2.6 0.087
50 - 100 20 1,253 62.7 41 3 6.7 2.1 0.033
> 100 3 360 120.0 8 -- -- 2.7 0022
III. Plan. Jaguaquara 164 2,733 16.7 234 48 17.1 1.4 0.086
< 10 96 272 2.8 122 31 20.4 1.3 0.449
10 - 20 24 324 13.5 38 6 14.5 1.6 0.117
20 - 50 28 838 29.9 51 8 13.6 1.8 0.061
50 - 100 12 802 66.8 19 1 5.8 1.6 0.024
> 100 4 496 124.0 4 1 22.9 1.0 0.008
 172

Table 22 continued
Rate of Operator Total labor
Stratificationof the UPs by Total area Average area Operator Outhiring outhiring labor per UP per area
size in hectares N° Ups (ha.) (ha.) labor (m.y.) (m.y.) (%) (m.y.) (m.y./ha.)
IV. Itapetinga 215 5,427 25.2 339 64 15.0 1.58 0.062
< 10 113 276 2.4 136 34 20.0 1.20 0.493
10 - 20 28 385 13.8 52 7 11.6 1.86 0.135
20 - 50 37 1,123 30.4 91 8 7.6 2.46 0.081
50 - 100 28 1,934 69.1 43 12 22.2 2.1 0.022
> 100 9 1,710 190.0 16 3 17.4 1.78 0.009
V. Conquista 382 16,425 43.0 817 120 12.8 2.1 0.050
< 10 126 417 3.3 197 51 20.6 1.6 0.472
10 - 20 49 634 12.9 85 23 21.3 1.7 0.134
20 - 50 106 3,137 29.6 257 29 10.0 2.4 0.082
50 - 100 50 3,100 62.0 117 9 7.1 2.3 0.038
> 100 51 9,138 179.2 162 8 4.8 3.2 0.018

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 173

Table 23
Survey Region – main economic activities and own consuption by sectors and subareas

N° producers specialized in
Cacao Manioc Livestock Own consuption
Subareas and sectors N° % total n° producers N° % total n° producers N° % total n° producers (%gross output)
A. Cacao Region 507 53.7 237 25.1 60 6.3 2.1
1. Petty production 185 34.8 219 41.2 29 5.5 11.8
2. Capitalist production 322 78.0 18 4.4 31 7.5 1.2
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 18 5.3 99 28.9 135 39.5 5.9
1. Petty production 13 6.0 87 40.5 46 21.4 45.5
2. Capitalist production 5 3.9 12 9.5 89 70.0 2.5
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 41 12.1 152 45.0 11 3.3 6.2
1. Petty production 24 9.1 143 54.0 5 1.9 14.1
2. Capitalist production 17 23.3 9 12.3 6 8.2 2.6
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 16 7.9 94 46.5 23 11.4 27.2 (*)
1. Petty production 11 6.7 84 51.5 10 6.1 21.4
2. Capitalist production 5 12.8 10 25.6 13 33.3 27.6 (*)
 174

Table 23 continued

N° producers specialized in
Cacao Manioc Livestock Own consuption
Subareas and sectors N° % total n° producers N° % total n° producers N° % total n° producers (%gross output)
E. Planalto Conquista 30 6.4 123 26.3 123 26.3 10.9
1. Petty production 23 6.1 116 30.5 71 18.7 23.1
2. Capitalist production 7 8.0 7 8.0 52 59.8 5.0
F. Interioran E.S. 12 4.0 45 15.1 138 46.2 11.6
1. Petty production 8 3.4 39 17.0 92 40.0 19.9
2. Capitalist production 4 5.8 6 8.7 46 66.7 7.2
G. Litoranea A E.S. 7 5.4 35 27.1 20 15.5 20.1
1. Petty production 3 2.7 34 30.6 13 11.7 38.8
2. Capitalist production 4 22.2 1 5.6 7 38.9 5.1
H. Litoranea B.E.S. -- -- 82 37.3 64 29.1 (*)
1. Petty production -- -- 80 41.9 44 23.0 (*)
2. Capitalist production -- -- 2 6.9 20 69.0 (*)

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

(*) In cases livestock production was recorded as negative
 175

Table 24, finally, presents some indicators of the technico-economic duality

petty production/capitalist production. The first two columns show that, not only the 1and-
man ratio is significantly greater in the capitalist sectors -- with the striking exception of the
cacao zone --, but that, in addition, the quality of petty producers’ land, as indicated by the
incidence of capoeira-land, is also lower. The relative poverty of petty production in means
of labor is further dramatized by the results on the capital labor ratio in both sectors. The
cacao zone, here, is no exception, of course. It is no wonder, then to see the significantly
higher output per labor in the capitalist sectors in all subareas.

Section 3 - The duality plantation/petty production and the issue of the decreasing land use
intensity according to size

As we focus on the indicators of means of production per area and output per
area, however, it should be seen that they do not suggest -- except for the cacao zone -- as
clear cut a contrast between the two sectors (see Table 24). In this connection, it is
noteworthy the fact that petty production in the aggregate shows a distinctly greater
intensity of land use -- as shown by the greater use of labor per area – in comparison with
capitalist production, with the single exception of the cacao zone. Upon closer examination,
however, it is shown that the greater use of labor per area is not peculiar to petty production
as such, but seems rather to be a feature of the smallness of the UP, no matter the sector to
which this UP pertains. Table 24 leaves no doubt that this is the case.
 176

Table 24
Survey Region – Resource endowment, resource use and productivity, by sectors and subareas

Matas & Capital labor Gross output Gross output

Land-man Capoeira (% ratio Capital land Labor use per per labor per area
Subareas and sectors ratio (ha./m.y.) total area) (Cr$/m.y.) ratio (Cr$/ha.) area (m.y./ha.) (Cr$/m.y.) (Cr$/ha.)
A. Cacao Region 13.5 35.7 35,859 2,657 0.07 5,131 380
1. Petty production 12.2 55.8 12,543 1,031 0.08 1,851 153
2. Capitalist production 13.9 30.3 43,128 3,098 0.07 6,154 442
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 53.1 19.8 58,284 1,099 0.02 9,862 186
1. Petty production 15.1 41.6 31,917 2,117 0.07 2,461 163
2. Capitalist production 79.1 17.0 76,365 965 0.01 14,936 189
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 13.7 57.6 17,936 1,314 0.07 1,881 138
1. Petty production 8.4 60.8 8,712 1,037 0.12 992 118
2. Capitalist production 21.5 55.7 31,639 1,474 0.05 3,203 149
D. Planalto Jaguara 26.1 43.5 31,432 1,206 0.04 4,937 189
1. Petty production 11.1 51.6 4,772 428 0.09 933 84
2. Capitalist production 35.6 41.8 48,462 1,362 0.03 7,495 211
 177

Table 24 continued

Matas & Capital labor Gross output Gross output

Capitalist sectors by Land-man Capoeira (% ratio Capital land Labor use per per labor per area
subareas ratio (ha./m.y.) total area) (Cr$/m.y.) ratio (Cr$/ha.) area (m.y./ha.) (Cr$/m.y.) (Cr$/ha.)
E. Planalto Conquista 30.6 53.3 12,922 422 0.03 2,280 74
1. Petty production 19.3 66.0 5,363 278 0.05 1.006 52
2. Capitalist production 61.9 42.6 33,684 545 0.02 5,780 93
F. Interiorana E.S. 30.0 20.8 15,704 523 0.03 3,205 107
1. Petty production 20.5 26.8 8,802 430 0.05 1,689 83
2. Capitalist production 48.2 16.0 28,760 597 0.02 6,074 126
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 32.2 48.8 6,231 194 0.03 1,400 44
1. Petty production 21.1 56.0 3,704 175 0.05 748 35
2. Capitalist production 87.2 40.1 18,867 216 0.01 4,659 53

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 178

The greater intensity of land use by size of the UP -- independently or its sector --
becomes expressed also in the data on output per area for the subareas and sectors. Table
26 presents the results for all the survey region’s subareas.
An additional significant result regarding the analysis of resource use according
to the size of the UPs is presented in Table 27. It is seen that capital per labor rises
according to size of the UP throughout the survey region, and independently of the sector of
production. Some decrease in the capital-land ratio, on the other hand, seems to be the case,
as Table 28 suggests; therefore, the rise in the capital-labor ratio is largely the result of a
faster decrease in the man-1and ratio as the size of the UP increases.
Given the increasing resource use per labor according to size, it is no wonder to
read in Table 29 the significantly greater output per labor in the larger size classes
irrespective of the sub-area or the social form of production.
 179

Table 25
Survey Region – Labor per area according to size of the UPs in ha. by subareas and sectors
(man-years/ha)

(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
A. Cacao Region 0.07 0.31 0.14 0.09 0.07 0.07 0.05 0.0417
1. Petty production 0.08 0.34 0.13 0.07 0.04 0.03 0.02 -
2. Capitalist production 0.07 0.31 0.19 0.12 0.10 0.07 0.05 0.0417
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 0.018 0.478 0.134 0.073 0.030 0.022 0.015 0.007
1. Petty production 0.066 0.511 0.143 0.083 0.027 0.016 - 0.003
2. Capitalist production 0.013 0.389 0.145 0.063 0.040 0.024 0.015 0.007
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 0.07 0.32 0.15 0.08 0.05 0.03 0.037 0.023
1. Petty production 0.119 0.353 0.187 0.093 0.036 0.025 - -
2. Capitalist production 0.047 0.359 0.136 0.081 0.066 0.043 0.037 0.023
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 0.04 0.44 0.12 0.06 0.04 0.02 0.027 0.024
1. Petty production 0.088 0.0456 0.120 0.063 0.026 0.008 - -
2. Capitalist production 0.028 0.375 0.172 0.048 0.066 0.024 0.027 0.024
 180

Table 25 continued
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
E. Planalto Conquista 0.032 0.460 0.136 0.080 0.044 0.027 0.014 0.005
1. Petty production 0.052 0.475 0.139 0.084 0.041 0.028 0.014 0.005
2. Capitalist production 0.016 0.446 0.100 0.101 0.070 0.025 0.014 0.005
F. Interiorana E.S. 0.032 0.735 0.146 0.075 0.040 0.025 0.016 0.008
1. Petty production 0.049 0.822 0.179 0.083 0.040 0.021 0.012 0.018
2. Capitalist production 0.020 0.154 0.05 0.071 0.058 0.032 0.020 0.007
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 0.028 0.533 0.176 0.068 0.023 0.22 0.010 0.005
1. Petty production 0.047 0.533 0.196 0.082 0.026 0.028 0.012 -
2. Capitalist production 0.011 - 0.25 - 0.018 0.017 0.017 0.005
H. Litoranea B.E.S. 0.03 0.65 0.216 0.08 0.03 0.03 0.01 0.005
1. Petty production 0.042 0.700 0.216 0.070 0.035 0.024 0.011 -
2. Capitalist production 0.020 0.125 - 0.155 0.032 0.045 0.012 0.005

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

 181

Table 26
Survey Region – Gross output per area according to size of the UPs in ha. by subareas and sectors
(Cr$/ha.)
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
A. Cacao Region 377 510 450 371 450 444 301 324
1. Petty production 152 483 251 136 74 94 76 -
2. Capitalist production 442 730 869 593 666 496 316 324
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 184 369 203 131 235 140 215 172
1. Petty production 163 370 168 87 274 85 - 2
2. Capitalist production 189 431 489 265 201 164 215 177
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 132 271 191 87 133 117 152 69
1. Petty production 118 256 226 82 58 69 - -
2. Capitalist production 149 655 177 135 233 152 152 69
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 187 300 188 95 87 49 276 221
1. Petty production 89 280 118 97 49 15 - -
2. Capitalist production 210 1264 498 110 147 66 276 221
 182

Table 26 continued
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
E. Planalto Conquista 74 495 84 96 91 52 79 50
1. Petty production 52 335 83 67 62 34 22 28
2. Capitalist production 94 1007 200 427 224 95 115 53
F. Interiorana E.S. 104 666 85 120 54 99 85 131
1. Petty production 85 650 100 112 27 85 89 119
2. Capitalist production 124 773 - (+) 187 154 121 86 132
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 40 (*) 141 107 42 20 76 20 (*)
1. Petty production 35 148 100 48 21 59 4 -
2. Capitalist production 53 (*) - 218 - 33 102 73 (*)
H. Litoranea B.E.S. 24 (*) 334 73 47 77 96 (*) 79 34
1. Petty production (*) 348 74 46 40 (*) 10 -
2. Capitalist production 111 171 - 63 230 76 144 34

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

(+) no output reported. (*) value of livestock output negative.
 183

Table 27
Survey Region – Capital-labor ratio according to size of the UPs in ha. by subareas and sectors
(Cr$/m.y.)
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
A. Cacao Region 36,229 8,488 16,032 28,923 31,929 44,384 43,219 71,076
1. Petty production 12,543 6,953 11,961 14,533 18,527 21,580 28,078 -
2. Capitalist production 43,126 13,203 19,822 34,657 34,306 45,116 43,635 71,076
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 58,383 + 3,320 (+) 9,730 23,463 37,256 77,174 126,817
1. Petty production (+) 2,989 (+) 6,723 22,099 31,976 - 32,435
2. Capitalist production 76,365 5,644 20,360 18,861 24,640 38,043 77,174 127,181
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 18,125 5,528 7,850 14,335 24,878 35,941 45,578 23,550
1. Petty production 8,713 4,547 6,749 10,745 22,431 30,144 - -
2. Capitalist production 31,641 9,814 17,599 24,588 26,453 37,638 45,578 23,550
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 31,481 2,760 6,368 8,802 11,685 19,749 40,182 64,828
1. Petty production 5,075 2,560 4,637 7,115 12,367 22,013 - -
2. Capitalist production 48,739 9,498 10,515 15,788 11,215 19,454 40,182 64,828
 184

Table 27 continued
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
E. Planalto Conquista 13,245 3,587 3,580 6,513 10,037 11,210 33,943 66,505
1. Petty production 5,360 2,267 3,167 4,622 7,607 5,825 12,094 51,827
2. Capitalist production 34,047 11,258 35,236 12,903 15,072 24,220 46,539 68,444
F. Interiorana E.S. 15,938 1,330 3,656 7,522 12,416 22,880 25,337 71,244
1. Petty production 8,717 1,168 2,923 6,489 10,662 19,593 29,468 21,341
2. Capitalist production 29,678 8,052 4,948 11,468 14,947 25,877 21,995 80,991
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 6,374 878 1,745 (++) 2,709 5,969 15,693 9,469 14,028
1. Petty production 3,704 855 1,500 2,299 4,174 9,562 9,496 -
2. Capitalist production 18,867 - 1,121 - 40,167 28,544 8,998 14,028
H. Litoranea B.E.S. 11,916 (+) 849 1,173 2,338 64,466 + 13,115 24,291 105,538
1. Petty production (+) 831 1,073 2,280 (+) 13,932 6,548 -
2. Capitalist production 26,229 690 - 2,543 28,188 10,977 38,993 105,038

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

(+) there seems to be a mistake in CEPLAC’s data. (++) the two sectors do not add to the subarea’s aggregate capital stock.
 185

Table 28
Survey Region – Capital-land ratio according to size of the UPs in ha. by subareas and sectors
(Cr$/ha.)
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
A. Cacao Region 2,627 2,620 2,203 2,681 2,329 2,989 2,296 2,964
1. Petty production 1,031 2,378 1,530 970 684 755 693 -
2. Capitalist production 3,098 4,039 3,671 4,246 3,312 3,316 2,397 2,964
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 1,090 (+) 1,588 (+) 716 714 806 1,166 846
1. Petty production (+) 1,527 (+) 563 594 518 - 98
2. Capitalist production 965 2,195 2,951 1,192 978 928 1,166 866
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 1,269 1,768 1,199 1,198 1,198 1,240 1,682 544
1. Petty production 1,038 1,603 1,264 995 806 754 - -
2. Capitalist production 1,474 3,527 2,390 2,229 1,755 1,613 1,682 544
 186

Table 28 continued
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 1,192 1,205 792 495 483 367 1,093 1,587
1. Petty production 448 1,167 558 450 324 178 - -
2. Capitalist production 1,364 3,562 1,813 755 737 465 1,093 1,587
E. Planalto Conquista 421 1,648 487 523 739 297 460 359
1. Petty production 278 1,076 440 389 309 162 172 275
2. Capitalist production 546 5,023 3,524 1,298 1,063 612 647 370
F. Interiorana E.S. 513 978 517 565 502 565 399 549
1. Petty production 431 960 523 536 427 404 351 380
2. Capitalist production 597 1,239 291 818 866 821 431 561
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 179 445 307 185 140 346 99 71
1. Petty production 175 455 293 190 110 268 113 -
2. Capitalist production 216 - 280 - 730 474 150 71
H. Litoranea B.E.S. (+) 552 238 187 (+) 363 278 529
1. Petty production (+) 581 231 159 (+) 337 70 -
2. Capitalist production 527 86 - 394 913 492 477 529

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

(+) there seems to be a mistake in CEPLAC’s data.
 187

Table 29
Survey Region – Output per Labor according to size of the UPs in ha. by subareas and sectors
(Cr$/ha.)
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
A. Cacao Region 5,193 1,654 3,227 4,006 6,165 6,596 5,673 7,776
1. Petty production 1,851 1,412 1,967 2,035 1,994 2,698 3,078 -
2. Capitalist production 6,154 2,386 4,695 4,837 6,899 6,745 5,745 7,776
B. Pastoril Itapetinga 9,866 771 1,521 1,786 7,712 6,464 14,257 25,803
1. Petty production 2,461 725 1,175 1,038 10,200 (+) 5,277 - 725
2. Capitalist production 14,936 1,108 3,371 4,201 5,071 6,716 14,527 25,946
C. Tabuleiro Valenca 1,891 848 1,253 1,035 2,769 3,378 4,119 2,984
1. Petty production 992 725 1,209 883 1,618 2,750 - -
2. Capitalist production 3,203 1,823 1,305 1,485 3,509 3,546 4,119 2,984
D. Planalto Jaguaquara 4,941 686 1,514 1,688 2,099 2,625 10,168 9,025
1. Petty production 1,008 615 977 1,540 1,875 1,870 - -
2. Capitalist production 7,517 3,370 2,886 2,310 2,235 2,747 10,168 9,025
 188

Table 29 continued
(sizes in ha.)
Subareas and sectors Total 0-10 10-20 20-50 50-100 100-200 200-500 > 500
E. Planalto Conquista 2,328 1,076 621 1,190 2,088 1,967 5,793 9,203
1. Petty production 1,002 705 599 793 1,533 1,216 1,531 5,217
2. Capitalist production 5,852 2,258 2,000 4,244 3,173 3,773 8,250 9,730
F. Interiorana E.S. 3,217 906 584 1,601 1,335 3,993 5,374 16,967
1. Petty production 1,721 791 557 1,351 672 4,107 7,451 6,692
2. Capitalist production 6,172 5,026 - 2,623 2,659 3,801 4,399 18,993
G. Litoranea A.E.S. 1,418 278 607 617 839 3,425 1,930 (*)
1. Petty production 748 277 514 584 785 2,210 379 -
2. Capitalist production 4,659 - 873 - 1,800 6,124 4,404 (*)
H. Litoranea B.E.S. 731 (*) 514 359 588 2,453 3,477 (*) 6,878 6,844
1. Petty production (*) 498 345 662 1,136 (*) 948 -
2. Capitalist production 5,506 1,369 - 407 7,110 1,688 11,791 6,844

Source: CEPLAC Survey.

(*) negative output (livestock) reported. (+) there seems to be a mistake in CEPLAC’s data.
 189

These results on the decreasing land use intensity according to the size of the
UPs are important because they confirm what it seems to be a general pattern in Brazilian
agriculture.277
In this connection, a recent survey, drawing a sample covering the entire Brazilian
Northeast, conducted by World Bank and the Brazilian government’s regional development
agency for the Northeast (SUDENE), leaves no doubt as to the greater intensity of land use
in the smaller UPs; Tables 30-33 summarize the results. (Zone F -- Humid Southeast --
corresponds to the cacao zone in CEPLAC’s survey. It, is very interesting, therefore, to see
confirmed the specificities of this plantation area.)
It is outside the problematic of this chapter to analyse this issue; however, this
result seems only to be

277
This general pattern of resource use has been established, on the basis of a broad sample data, by Cline,
W.R., Economic Consequences of a Land Reform in Brazil (Amsterdam and London: North Holland Pub. Co,
1970); for analyses based on Census data, see hoffman, R., and J.F.G. Silva op.cit., and Jnteramerican
Committe for Agricultural Development (CIDA), op.cit., pp. 333-373. This “CIDA report” presents also
analyses of case studies on pp. 395-532. For a systematic statistical analysis of the agrarian structure in an
advanced agricultural region in Sao Paulo, demonstrating the duality petty production/capitalist production,
including the differenti~1 patterns of resource use, see Molina Fliho, J., “Classificacao e Caracterizacao
Socio-Economica dos Agricultores,” paper presented at the XII annual meeting of the Brazilian Society of
Agricultural Economists (SOBER), Porto Alegre, July 1974.
 190

Table 30
Brazilian Northeast – Labor per area according to size of the UPs in ha. by regions (man-years/ha.)

(sizes in ha.)
Zones 0 - 9.9 10 - 49.9 50 - 99.9 100 - 199.9 200 - 499.9 500 up
A. Relative Demographic Emptiness .43 .08 .03 .02 .01 .01
B. Middle North .22 .08 .03 .01 .01 .01
C. Semi-Arid Sertao .23 .14 .04 .02 .02 .01
D. Semi-humid Southeast .23 .08 .04 .02 .01 .01
E. Humid east .42 .09 .05 .03 .04 .01
F. Humid Southeast .25 .16 .09 .10 .07 .10
G. Agreste .49 .10 .05 .04 .03 .02

Source: World Bank/SUDENE Survey (1973-1974), unpublished.

 191

Table 31
Brazilian Northeast – Output per area according to size of the UPs in ha. by regions (US$/ha.)

(sizes in ha.)
Zones 0 - 9.9 10 - 49.9 50 - 99.9 100 - 199.9 200 - 499.9 500 up
A. Relative Demographic Emptiness $129 36 15 9 5 3
B. Middle North 86 37 14 8 6 5
C. Semi-Arid Sertao 65 41 29 19 16 13
D. Semi-humid Southeast 18 55 44 15 14 12
E. Humid east 352 56 46 36 47 16
F. Humid Southeast 224 250 269 310 243 227
G. Agreste 171 64 46 30 30 22

Source: World Bank/SUDENE Survey (1973-1974), unpublished.

 192

Table 32
Brazilian Northeast – Equipment per labor according to size of the UPs in ha. by regions (US$/m.y.)

(sizes in ha.)
Zones 0 - 9.9 10 - 49.9 50 - 99.9 100 - 199.9 200 - 499.9 500 up
A. Relative Demographic Emptiness $ 30 16 78 31 179 94
B. Middle North 13 109 326 49 229 136
C. Semi-Arid Sertao 15 46 115 116 103 307
D. Semi-humid Southeast 8 43 84 73 56 179
E. Humid east 170 128 97 241 226 146
F. Humid Southeast 0 11 38 38 56 2
G. Agreste 12 53 85 197 282 239

Source: World Bank/SUDENE Survey (1973-1974), unpublished.

 193

Table 33
Brazilian Northeast – Output per labor according to size of the UPs in ha. by regions (US$/m.y.)

(sizes in ha.)
Zones 0 - 9.9 10 - 49.9 50 - 99.9 100 - 199.9 200 - 499.9 500 up
A. Relative Demographic Emptiness 291 422 400 491 489 477
B. Middle North 378 510 426 671 993 2490
C. Semi-Arid Sertao 376 589 850 1224 1081 1745
D. Semi-humid Southeast 113 653 943 695 1074 1526
E. Humid east 856 737 963 1197 1265 1526
F. Humid Southeast 1048 1684 3240 3911 3521 2348
G. Agreste 545 756 879 825 1080 1731

Source: World Bank/SUDENE Survey (1973-1974), unpublished.

 194
consistent with an agrarian structure characterized by an overcrowded petty production
sector, on the one hand, and a 1and-abundant plantation sector, on the other hand. That this is
the case is suggested by the very fact that the social form of labor per se -- i.e., be it “family
labor” or wage labor -- is not connected with significant differentiation, for instance, in labor
use. In other words, since in both sectors taken separately, there are significant trends, the
size variable cannot be said redundant; the “peasant” or “capitalist” character of production,
conceived of abstractly, has no relevance for the problem. 278
Petty production in the aggregate shows a greater intensity of land use, therefore,
because it is a sector concentrated on the smaller size classes, while the contrary happens in
the plantation sector; in this sense, the greater intensity of land use in petty production vis-a-
vis plantation production is merely another expression of the duality we have been
discussing; it has to do, in other words, with the distinct relationships to the means of
production that define petty producers’ and planters’ insertions in the social process of
production. That intensity of land use in petty production sector is organically tied to its
subordinated insertion in the agrarian structure -- being rooted, there-fore, in the objective
socio-economic conditions of the petty producers, within which alone the particular laws that
govern production in the petty sector can be analyzed -- is further illuminated by seeing that
not only petty production is relatively concentrated in the smaller sizes; but the reason why it
is so (i.e., its insertion in the agrarian structure) is further confirmed by a significant contrast
with the capitalist production that has showed up also in the smaller size classes: indeed, the
resource endowment per labor and associated productivities differs significantly between
these two sectors throughout the survey region and across all size classes (see Tables 26-29).
It is seen, consequently, that one cannot, on the other hand, reduce the problem to a question
of size alone, since for any given size there is still a sharp differentiation as between sectors.
(One should only recall, by the way, the results on multiple property holding shown in Table
7.)

278
Sen first proposed that the greater intensity of land use in the smaller farms in Indian agriculture might be
ultimately the expression of a basic differentiation in maximizing behavior in the peasant economy vis -a-vis
capitalist production (supposedly prevalent only in the larger size classes). See Sen, A.K., “Peasants and
Dualism with or without Surplus Labor,” Journal of Political Economy , vol. 74, n°. 5 (Oct. 1966), pp. 425-450.
This hypothesis was mechanically applied to Brazilian agriculture by Cline, W.R., op.cit., in what amounted to
as an identification of the plantations to (merely large) capitalist “farms”. Cline himself was confronted with
difficulties in the testing of this hypothesis, but could not solve them (see, for instance, op.cit., pp. 114-115,
122-125). The results reported for CEPLAC’s survey region are definitive in the rejection of this hypothesis,
since there is no greater intensity of land use between “family farms” and “capitalist farms” in any given size
class.
 195

Section 4 - A summing-up of the results and an analytical perspective

Summing up the results presented in sections I to 3, it is clear that the relatively

small fraction of the regions relatively large population of petty producers that, in their
buraras, are responsible for the almost insignificant share of petty production in total cacao
production, carry out their activity under distinctly inferior technical and economic
conditions, vis-a-vis the dominant capitalist production of the same crop. Their production is
as much poor, therefore, as their lands: this is the most that is allowed to petty production in
cacao. This fact, when added to the previously established evidence that the majority of the
petty producers are already completely outside the cacao sector, anyway -- but for the sale of
their labor power leads to one more fundamental conclusion, namely, that the general
phenomenon of exclusion of petty production from the dominant economic activities of
Brazilian agriculture finds in cacao a Particularly illuminating concrete case. The petty
producers as a group -- included those that produce cacao -- are expelled to lands that are
marginal as far as cacao is concerned. In their capoeira-land they can find an income-earning
activity in manioc, that becomes therefore a “democratic”, or “poor man’s crop” -- a
denomination that implicitly discloses the petty producer’s relationship to the means of
production. The elaboration of this lost point, in the following, represents the crucial
proposition of this chapter.
Petty production in the survey region differentiates itself from capitalist
production not only in terms of the size of the UPs, the technico-economic conditions of
production, the particular use-values produced, or the different social forms of labor in either
sector. More basically, petty production differentiates itself from capitalist production in the
sense that it represents a distinct sector not only in the region1 s agricultural sector, but also in
the region's socio-economic structure -- in the region’s agrarian structure, for short --. More
precisely, the fact that production in the petty sector is carried out predominantly on the basis
of “family 1abor”, in other words, is but an indication of this sector being the concrete sphere
and social space -- of the semi proletarian in his struggle to establish independent production,
away from wage labor in the plantation sector. The circumstance of being an expression of
the specific insertion of the semi proletarian in the social relations of production -- on the
basis of a specific relationship to the means of production -- endows petty production with a
totality of technical and economic conditions that are organically tied to the totality of the
 196
socio-economic conditions of the petty producers (the semi proletarians), of which this
sector is composed. Their dispossession, their poverty -- vis-a-vis the planters -- becomes the
poverty of their sector, its shrunk (and poor) land basis; their lack of property of means of
production and related lack of access to credit becomes their under capitalized production;
their lack of education and poor health conditions, reinforce (but clearly are not alone,
detached from everything else, to be blamed for their poverty, as some analysts constantly try
to convince us) the precarious conditions of their production. The consequent inability to
fulfill subsistence needs in their petty production makes this sector a “labor reservoir” for the
plantations.
This structural feature gives to production carried out in the petty sector a specific
driving force: the requirement of profitability that is present in the capita list sector, its sole
motive and reason d’etre, is replaced, in the petty sector, by the sufficient condition of the
satisfaction of the subsistence needs of the producer and his family. Leeds has keenly
perceived this when he says:
“
The nature of land USC shows that it is a means of maintenance
or subsistence comparable to the worker's labor for wages. The
similarity of these two subsistence techniques stands out clearly when
contrasted with the land use of the fazendeiros to increase capital
resources.”279

It is this structural feature of petty production, moreover, that accounts both for its
tendency for “dissolution” -- as the plantation expands and absorbs its lands -- as well as for
its “conservation” -- as the semi-proletarian seeks subsistence independently from wage
labor.280 Leeds has perceived an implication of this contradictory tendency for
dissolution/conservation of petty production in the phenomenon of “interchangeability”
between the petty producers and the wage laborers:
279
Leeds, A., op.cit., p. 262. This feature of petty production in Brazilian agriculture has been disconnected to
its structural determinants and attributed to the deus ex machina “market imperfections”. See Cline, W.R.,
op.cit., 25ff., and Alves, E.R.A. and G.E. Schuh, “Agricultura de subsistencia: teste de um modelo de equilibrio
subjetivo nas condicoes do Brasil”, in J. Pastore (ed.), Agricultura e Desenvolvimento (Rio: APEC - ABCAR,
1973), pp. 150-172. These two works constitute mechanical applications to Brazilian conditions of the main
ideas expressed in the bourgeoning literature on the theory of the “peasant economy”, as developed in
Chayanov, A.V., The Theory of Peasant Economy (Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin,1966); Georgescu-
Roegen, N., “Economic Theory and Agrarian Econornics”, Oxford Economic Papers, vol. 12, pp. 1-40; Sen,
A.K., op.cit., Nakajima, C., “Subsistence and Commercial Family Farms: Some Theoretical Models of
Subjective Equilibrium”, in Wharton Jr., C.T. (ed.), Subsistence Agriculture and Economic Development
(Chicago: Aldine, 1963), pp. 165-185.
280
These terms (“dissolution” and “conservation”) are used in the same sense, and purporting to capture the
same phenomenon, as in Bettelheim’s “Theoretical Comments” to Emmanuel’s Unequal Exchange; see also
Corten, A., op.cit., passim. Mintz has interpreted petty production in the Caribbean as a form of resistance to the
plantation. See “The Caribbean,”in Daedalus, Spring 1974, pp. 61-62. For an analysis of a concrete process of
proletarianization in the Malayan rubber production, that, in a general form, may be re1evant for an
understanding of a tendency for dissolution of petty cacao production in Bahia, see Lee, G., “Commodity
Production and Reproduction amongst the Malayan Peasantry”, Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 3, no. pp.
441-456.
 197
“As has been suggested, [the petty producers] are (...) interchangeable
with the laborers (...). The four groups, burareiros, roceiros,
contractors, and 1aborers, are therefore functionally identical when
opposed to the fazendeiro industrialist. When the people of the zone
speak of o lavrador pequeno or o trabalhador rural (‘the small
cultivator’, ‘the rural worker’), they are referring to these groups and
recognizing their general equivalency.”281

From another angle, this “interchangeability” means that the petty producer
should not be perceived as in a transition process to become a proletarian, for this is not the
only force at work. Mintz has expressed this idea when he proposed, as a general feature of
plantation systems, that:
“The plantation worker who is also a peasant appears to be
straddling two kinds of socio-cultural adaptation, and may represent a
cultural type which is not necessarily transitional but in a kind of flux
equilibrium.”282

To the very extent that a “flux equilibrium” petty production/plantation

production (Mintz), or, from another angle, an “interchangeability” within the ranks of the
rural semi proletariat, takes place, a mechanism of determination of the real wage rate would
seem to follow. In this manner we are able to add some strength to Furtado’s hypothesis,
presented in chapter VI (see p.225), according to which the "reserve price” of rural labor is
given by the precarious conditions of production in the minifundia and in the moving frontier.
It must be seen that the relatively 1arge population of petty producers throughout CEPLAC's
“survey region” seems to be a strong empirical evidence in this direction, becoming therefore
justified the need for further research along these lines. This “flux equilibrium” and
“interchangeability”, on the other hand, has to be organically related to the fact that capitalist
production in Brazilian agriculture presents a pattern of unevenness, expressed, for instance,
in the virtual absence of wage labor in manioc: the fazendeiros, it seems, do not find such a
basic staple food of the semi proletariat sufficiently profitable. Again, we reencounter the

281
Leeds, A., op.cit., p. 253.
282
Mintz, S.W., “The Rural Proletariat and the Problem of Rural Proletarian Consciousness”, The Journal of
Peasant Studies, April 1974, p. 321. See also Mintz’ “Petits Cultivateurs et Proletaires Ruraux dans la Region
des Caraibes”, in Les Problemes Agraires des Ameriques Labines (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche
 198
issue of the duality export production/subsistence production that has become a constant
theme in this thesis.

Scientifique, 1967), pp. 93-100. Another relevant work is work is Frucht, R., “A Caribbean Socia1 Type:
Neither ‘Peasant’ nor ‘Proletarian’”, Socia1 and Economic Studies, vol. 16, n° 3, pp. 295-300.
 199

Appendix Table 1
Percentage distribution and average area of the UPs according to size, for the sample and universe

A. Cacao Zone
Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 32.8 2.3 3.5 18.7 1.4 4.6
10 - 20 15.6 4.4 14.0 20.1 4.4 13.6
20 - 50 28.2 17.6 31.0 32.2 15.8 30.5
50 - 100 12.8 17.3 67.0 16.3 17.6 66.6
100 - 200 5.5 14.4 130.0 7.6 16.0 130.9
200 - 500 3.9 20.9 266.0 3.9 18.0 288.0
500 - 1000 0.7 9.1 646.0 0.9 9.4 640.1
1000 up 0.5 14.0 1,396.0 0.4 17.4 2,771.9
Totals 100.0 100.0 50.0 100.0 100.0 61.8

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970).

 200

Appendix Table 2
Percentage distribution and average area of the UPs according to size, for the sample and universe
B. Pastoril de Itapetinga

Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 35.1 -- 2.6 14.9 0.5 4.7
10 - 20 10.2 1.0 13.7 15.1 1.4 13.6
20 - 50 15.0 3.5 31.5 25.6 5.3 30.9
50 - 100 13.6 7.0 69.2 15.8 7.3 69.1
100 - 200 9.3 9.4 134.5 10.8 10.0 138.5
200 - 500 10.2 24.3 319.8 10.5 21.7 310.1
500 - 1000 3.4 16.8 663.8 4.6 21.3 688.9
1000 up 3.1 37.3 1,606.7 2.6 32.5 1,854.8
Totals 100.0 100.0 134.0 100.0 100.0 149.3

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970).

 201

Appendix Table 3
Percentage distribution and average area of the UPs according to size, for the sample and universe
C.Tabuleiro de Valença

Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 54.1 6.3 3.6 47.2 6.4 3.8
10 - 20 14.0 6.5 14.2 18.7 8.4 12.6
20 - 50 15.2 15.4 30.8 21.0 21.3 28.6
50 - 100 10.2 21.3 64.5 8.4 19.2 64.2
100 - 200 3.3 14.1 132.1 2.9 13.2 126.5
200 - 500 2.2 22.5 316.0 1.4 14.7 300.2
500 - 1000 0.8 13.9 521.3 0.3 5.9 629.5
1000 up -- -- -- 0.1 11.0 2,513.8
Totals 100.0 100.0 30.5 100.0 100.0 28.1

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970).

 202

Appendix Table 4
Percentage distribution and average area of the Ups according to size, for the sample and universe
D. Planalto Jaguaquara

Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 47.6 1.8 2.9 42.3 4.3 4.4
10 - 20 15.4 2.7 13.6 21.1 6.5 13.3
20 - 50 17.8 7.2 31.1 23.2 15.9 29.7
50 - 100 8.7 8.1 72.5 7.1 11.0 67.1
100 - 200 6.7 11.8 135.6 3.0 8.9 130.8
200 - 500 2.9 11.0 294.8 2.2 14.6 290.4
500 - 1000 0.5 4.1 650.0 0.7 9.7 636.7
1000 up 0.5 53.3 8,551.0 0.5 29.1 2,595.7
Totals 100.0 100.0 77.1 100.0 100.0 43.4

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970). For the case of this subarea, see text, p. 271.
 203

Appendix Table 5
Percentage distribution and average area of the UPs according to size, for the sample and universe

E. Planalto Conquista
Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 31.0 1.3 3.2 10.3 0.5 5.0
10 - 20 10.3 1.8 12.8 16.6 2.2 12.4
20 - 50 25.7 10.2 29.2 34.6 10.7 29.1
50 - 100 13.4 11.3 62.4 17.2 11.7 64.1
100 - 200 10.3 17.6 125.7 10.7 14.3 125.9
200 - 500 7.1 27.2 282.4 7.3 22.1 284.5
500 - 1000 1.2 10.6 645.3 2.2 14.7 645.5
1000 up 1.0 19.9 1,450.1 1.2 23.9 1,881.1
Totals 100.0 100.0 74.0 100.0 100.0 94.3

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970).

 204

Appendix Table 6
Percentage distribution and average area of the UPs according to size, for the sample and universe

F. Interiorana Extremo Sul

Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 28.4 0.8 2.3 9.0 0.3 4.4
10 - 20 4.1 0.8 14.8 7.6 0.9 13.2
20 - 50 26.8 10.5 32.1 28.7 7.9 31.2
50 - 100 20.0 17.5 71.9 24.4 14.4 67.2
100 - 200 10.7 17.7 134.6 16.6 19.1 131.8
200 - 500 7.3 23.5 264.9 10.3 25.9 286.7
500 - 1000 2.2 17.1 630.9 2.2 12.7 653.3
1000 up 0.6 12.2 1,580.5 1.3 18.9 1,154.3
Totals 100.0 100.0 81.7 100.0 100.0 114.0

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970).

 205

Appendix Table 7
Percentage distribution and average area of the UPs according to size, for the sample and universe

G. Litoranea A E.S.
Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 28.2 1.1 2.8 3.6 0.1 4.7
10 - 20 10.6 2.1 14.6 6.4 0.7 14.1
20 - 50 19.7 8.0 29.4 29.6 7.2 31.7
50 - 100 18.3 16.9 66.9 27.4 13.9 65.9
100 - 200 14.1 25.7 132.3 20.3 19.5 124.7
200 - 500 7.0 24.2 248.3 8.7 19.0 284.4
500 - 1000 1.4 12.2 628.0 2.5 12.6 647.7
1000 up 0.7 9.7 1,000.1 1.6 27.0 2,235.6
Totals 100.0 100.0 72.4 100.0 100.0 129.6

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970).

 206

Appendix Table 8
Percentage distribution and average area of the UPs according to size, for the sample and universe

H. Litoranea Baixo Extremo Sul

Sample Universe
Size classes (ha.) N° Area Average area N° Area Average area
(%) (%) (ha.) (%) (%) (ha.)
0 - 10 36.2 1.1 2.0 14.0 0.8 4.6
10 - 20 7.9 1.4 12.1 11.9 1.9 13.7
20 - 50 16.2 7.3 30.8 32.3 12.0 31.0
50 - 100 15.3 15.2 67.3 21.6 17.1 66.1
100 - 200 15.7 28.6 123.3 11.5 17.9 129.5
200 - 500 8.3 36.1 294.3 6.6 23.2 293.5
500 - 1000 -- -- -- 1.5 11.6 646.7
1000 up 0.4 10.3 1,596.0 0.7 15.6 1,888.3
Totals 100.0 100.0 67.7 100.0 100.0 83.5

Source for the Universe: IBGE, Censo Agropecuario da Bahia (1970).

 207

CHAPTER VIII

VIII. SUMMARY AND CONLUSIONS

The basic theme of this thesis has been the analysis of the role played by the
social relations of production, and the associated property to the means of production, in
the determination of (i) the conditions of labor supply to the dominant sectors of
Brazilian agriculture and (ii) the technical conditions of production of necessaries283 . A
definite connection between the backwardness of the “subsistence sector” and the
conditions of labor supply to the “capitalist sectors” has been proposed; on this basis, it
has been shown how an “unlimited supply of labor” has been an outcome of capitalist
development in Brazilian conditions: in this, as the historical record – selectively
surveyed in Chapter II – shows, Brazil seems to have been just a particular example of a
general historical process. A critique of the Neoclassical (Heckscher-Ohlin) theory of
international trade is shown to follow necessarily from this reality.
The argument has been developed by means of an analysis of particular
plantations systems for particular historical periods; the cacao plantations system, in
addition, has been analyzed on the basis of a contemporary set of data. The entire
conception of the analysis of the cacao regions, however, as well as the particular ways
framing the analysis of the data, have been suggested to us by the historical analyses;
for instance, it was the experience of the coffee economy that posed the issue of a
duality defined not only in terms of a socio-economic structure, but also in economic
and technical terms, as expressed in the contradiction coffee/food, analyzed throughout
Chapter V. For this reason, particular methodological steps – for instance, the
classification of the agricultural establishments according to the social form of labor –
have adopted in order to capture a specific reality, whose particular forms of existence
were to be investigated. This empirical analysis, therefore, did not have for purpose the
“testing” of hypotheses derived from abstract models. Nowhere in the thesis such
“modeling” is to be found. As a consequence, the consistency as well as the significance
of the statistical results cannot be taken to “support” this or that abstract theory; rather,

283
It has been left as an open question the problem of the technical level of export production itself;
Furtado has presented an hypothesis that seeks to locate in the agrarian structure what he conceives as a
general technical backwardness of Brazilian agriculture; this seems to be an inappropriate starting point
for analysis, since it leaves no room for unevenness of technical progress, what is an actual reality. See
 208

the reasons why a duality exists, in those particular forms, has to be located in concrete
social and economic forces, the character of which may have become more illuminated
of the coffee economy, as well as the selected survey of other historical experiences
presented in Chapter II and analyzed in Chapter IV, where the argument has been
presented that no general, or abstract conception of capitalist development can
“generate” those concrete and economic forces.284 To the extent that the very rise and
reproduction of this duality have been made analytical issue in this thesis, we have been
able to criticize authors that, while taking this duality for granted, have proceeded to
analyze partial aspects of it, disconnecting them from the totality of the situation, and
trying to “explain” them mechanically – i.e., by postulating, at the abstract or
“theoretical” level, this or that behavioral pattern; or else seeking refuge in the deus ex
machina “market imperfections.”285
While emphasizing the connection between the rise and reproduction of this
duality, in its particular social and technical forms, and insertion of the plantation
system in the capitalist accumulation on a world scale, an a attempt has been made to
propose that partial aspects of this duality should be seen, in their interconnection, to
derive from, and at the same time lead to the constitution of, a totality represented by a
“plantation system”. In particular, we have been able to reach the same conclusion
proposed by Corten in his analysis of Haiti and Dominican Republic, according to
Which the “unequal distribution of landholdings while being a fact that is reproduced, in
the present, “in the complex of social relations”, at the same time, “contingent within
the overall process of production”:
This contingency, that becomes expressed in the variety
and in the undefined character of the forms of property, prevents
us from taking the relation of property to the land and the
associated labor relations as the decisive criterion for the analysis
of the predominance of a mode of production”286 .

Furtado, “A Estrutura agraria ...”, and a critique of his model in Rezende, G. C., “Estrutura e Nivel
Tecnico da Agricultura segundo Furtado”, Peasquisa e Planejamento, vol. nº 1 (June 1975), pp.219-230.
284
There is no reason to believe, therefore, that our empirical analysis has been framed in order to
“prove” this or that proposition regarding “family farms” or “capitalist farms”, in general. It is utterly
inappropriate to analyze the particular features of the Brazilian plantation system in the light of some
general propositions – developed for Europe and the Northern U. S., especially – related to capitalist
development, associated, with the names of Lenin and Kautsky, to which, actually, no reference has been
made in this thesis, however familiar the present author may be with their work on the matter.
285
Thus both Alves (“Agricultura de Subsistencia ..”), and Cline (Economic Consequences of na Agrarian
Reform in Brazil) have taken for granted the duality capitalist-petty production, and yet both of them
sought to “explain” it, ultimately, as “market imperfections”!
286
Corten, “Valor de la fuerza de trabajo”, p. 53. This generalization to the Brazilian case of Corten’s
remark is of direct relevance for the debate feudalism-capitalism in Brazilian agriculture; see Frank, A.
G., Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, pp. 219-277, and, especially, Palmeira, M.,
 209

The case of coffee in Sao Paulo, in nineteenth century, is highly suggestive

of the “contingent” character of the relations of property to the land “within the overall
process of production”: the latifundium arose, appropriating the best lands, only to the
extent that a profitable production for exports was to developed – up to that time, Sao
Paulo had been luring “undeveloped” for the most part, and no “monopoly of land” had
confronted its free population. On the other hand, such a “monopoly of land”, in view of
outright slavery, remained redundant, at least until the 1880’s, as far as production of
surplus labor is concerned. The case of the cacao regions, on the other hand, is also
illuminating in showing how the hegemony of the planters, on the one hand, and the
subordination of the semi-proletariat, on the other hand, cannot be reduced to the
respective relations of property to the land, since these relations are themselves merely
na aspect of a more fundamental duality that has at one pole the capitalist production of
cacao and the other pole the rural semi-proletarians and their production of necessaries.
The “contingency” of landed property in Brazilian agriculture can be seen
another angle, as the prevalence of the “profit motive” and the related operation of
“market forces” that are so dear to the “price-responsiveness” literature referred to in
Chapter I (Introduction). Such a “price-responsiveness”, to be sure, has been a
necessary outcome of the relation to accumulation on a world scale, and yet it has been
precisely i order to “respond” to market incentives that some of the most brutal labor-
repressive systems – as African slavery – have been instituted. Clearly, a more
fundamental problematic is in order, and we hope to have contributed to it with some
elements of an empirical and theoretical nature.

“Latifundium et Capitalisme: Lecture Critique d’um Debat”, 3rd Cycle thesis presented to the Faculté de
Lattres et Sciencies Humaines, University of Paris, 1969; in this trully remarkable work, Palmeria offers
an exhaustive presentation of this debate, as well as a consistent principled methodological critique. As it
turned out, an original project to include in this thesis our own remarks on this debate, including
Palmeira’s propositions, had to be given up. In this thesis, we restricted ourselves to the export sectors;
some authors, however, have attempted to relate the reproduction of forms of property ( and
corresponding technical level) of an apparently “feudal” or “semi-feudal” nature, outside the plantation
sectors, to specific insertion in the overall process of capitalist accumulation. See Oliveira, F., “A
Economia Brasileira: Critica da Razao Dualista”, Estudos CEBRAP nº 2, October 1972, pp. 3-82; and for
a work addressed to concrete analyses of this connection, see Sá Jr., F., “ O Desenvolvimento da
Agricultura Nordestina e a Função das Atividades de Subsistência”, Estudos CEBRAP no. 3, January
1973, pp. 97-1ary 1973, pp. 97-147.
 210

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 223

TITLE OF THESIS Plantation Systems, Land Tenure and Labor Supply:

An Historical Analysis of the Brazilian Case with a Contemporary Study of the Cacao

Regions of Bahia, Brazil

Major Professor John D. Strasma

Major Department Economics

Minor(s) Option B -- Ag Econ and Rural Soc

Full Name Gervasio Castro de Rezende

Place and Date of Birth Mirai, Minas Gerais, Brazi1,Apri125,1943

Colleges and Universities: Years attended and degrees

Universidade do Estado da Guanabara, 1963-66, B.A. (Economics)

EPGE--Fundacao Getullo Vargas, 1967-68

University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1971-73, M.A. (Economics)

University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1971-76, Ph.D. (Economics)

Membership in Learned or Honorary Societies

American Economic Association

Publications “Estrutura e Nivel Tecnico da Agricultura segundo

Furtado”, Pesquisa e Planejamento (Rio de Janeiro), Vol. 5, n°. 1 (June

1975), pp. 219-230.

Date February 9, 1976

1