The Capitalist System of Modern Agriculture

FIRST ARTICLE

Social statistics in general and economic statistics in
particular have made tremendous advances during the last two or three
decades. A series of problems, moreover those most fundamental concerning
the economic system of modern states and its development, which were
previously decided on the basis of general considerations and approximate
data, cannot nowadays be analysed at all seriously without taking into
account the mass of data about the whole territory of a given country
collected according to a single definite programme and summed up by expert
statisticians. In particular, the problems of the economics of agriculture,
which arouse particularly many disputes, require answering on the basis of
exact, mass data, the more so since in the European states and in America
it is a growing practice to make periodic censuses covering all the
agricultural enterprises of the country.

In Germany, for example, such censuses were made in 1882, 1895 and the
last in 1907. The importance of these censuses has often been mentioned in
our press, and it is difficult to find a book or article on the economics
of modern agriculture which does not refer to the statistical data on
German agriculture. The last census has already occasioned a fair amount of
noise in both the German and our own press. Writing in Kievskaya Mysl [2] last year, Mr. Valentinov, it will be recalled, loudly
clamoured that this census allegedly refuted the Marxist doctrine and
Kautsky’s views by proving the viability of small-scale production and its
triumph over large-scale production. Recently, in an article entitled “Tendencies in
Agrarian Evolution in Germany” published in Ekonomist Rossii [3] No. 36 of September 11, 1910, Professor Vobly,
on the basis of the data of the 1907 census, tried to refute the applicability
to agriculture of “the scheme elaborated by Marx in relation to the
development of industry” [4] and to prove that “small enterprises not only do not perish in the struggle against large ones in the
sphere of agriculture; on the contrary, each new census registers their success

We think, therefore, it would be opportune to analyse in detail the data of the
1907 census. True, the publication of the materials of this census is not yet
complete; three volumes containing all the data of the census [1] have appeared, but a fourth volume devoted to an “exposition of the results of
the census as a whole” has not yet appeared and it is not known whether it
will appear soon. But there are no grounds for postponing a study of the
results of the census until this concluding volume has appeared, for
all the material is already available, as well as the summary of it,
and it is being widely used in the press.

We shall merely note that to put the question in the form In which it is usually
put, confining oneself almost exclusively to a comparison of the number of
farms of various sizes (in area) and the amount of land they possessed in various years, is an absolutely incorrect approach to the subject. The real
differences between the Marxists and the opponents of Marxism on the agrarian
question are much more deeply rooted. If the aim is to give a complete explanation of the sources of the differences, then attention must be devoted primarily
and most of all to the question of the basic features of the capitalist system
of modern agriculture. It is just on this question that the data of the German
census of June 12, 1907, are particularly valuable. This census
is less detailed on some questions than the earlier censuses of 1882 and 1895
but, on the other hand, it gives for the first time an unprecedented wealth of
data on wage-labour in agriculture. And the use of wage-labour is the chief
distinguishing mark of every kind of capitalist agriculture.

We shall therefore endeavour first of all to give a general picture of the
capitalist system of modern agriculture, relying chiefly on the data of the 1907
German census and supplementing them with the data of the best agricultural
censuses of other countries, namely: the Danish, Swiss, American and the last
Hungarian censuses. As regards the fact which most of all strikes the eye on a
first acquaintance with the results of the census and which is being most talked
about, namely, the reduction in Germany of the number of large farms (large in
agricultural area) and the amount of land they possess, we shall turn to an
examination of this only at the end of our work. For this is one of the
complicated facts which are a function of a series of others, and it is
impossible to understand its significance without first elucidating several
much more important and basic questions.

I

A General Picture of the Economic System of Modern Agriculture

The German agricultural censuses, like all the European (as distinct from the
Russian) censuses of the kind, are based on information collected separately
about each agricultural enterprise. At the same time the amount of information
collected usually increases with each census. For instance, in Germany in 1907,
although very important information on the number of cattle used in field work
was omitted (this information was collected in 1882 and 1895), for the first
time information was collected on the amount of arable land under various
cereals and on the number of family workers and wage-workers. The information
about each farm obtained in this way is quite sufficient for a
politico-economic characterisation of the farm. The whole question, the whole
difficulty of the task, is how to sum up these data in such a way as
to obtain an accurate politico-economic characterisation
of the different groups or types of farms as a wholes When the summing up
is unsatisfactory, when the grouping is incorrect or inadequate, the result
can be—and this continually happens in the treatment of modern census
data—that unusually detailed, excellent data on each separate enterprise
disappear, become lost or are wholly missing when dealing with the millions
of farms of the entire country. The capitalist system of agriculture is
characterised by the relations which exist between employers and
workers, between farms of various types, and if the distinguishing features
of these types are taken incorrectly or selected incompletely, then even
the best census cannot give a politico-economic picture of the actual
situation.

It is clear, therefore, that the methods of summarising or grouping the
data of modern censuses are of extreme importance. Later on we shall
examine an exposition of all the rather diverse methods used in
the best censuses enumerated above. For the present let us note that the
German census, like the vast majority of the others, gives a full summary,
grouping the farms exclusively according to a single feature, namely, the
size of the agricultural area of each farm. On this basis the census
divides all the farms into 18 groups, be ginning with farms of less than
one-tenth of a hectare and ending with those over 1,000 hectares of
agricultural area. That such detailed subdivision is a statistical luxury
unjustified by politico-economic considerations is felt by the authors of
the German statistics themselves, who provide a summary of all the data in
six—or, by separating a subgroup—seven large groups according to the
size of the agricultural area. These groups are as follows: farms having
less than half a hectare, one-half to 2, 2 to 5, 5 to 20, 20 to 100, and
over 100, the last including a subgroup of farms with over 200 hectares of
agricultural area.

The question arises: what is the politico-economic significance of this
grouping? Undoubtedly the land is the chief means of production in
agriculture; the amount of land is the most accurate criterion of the
dimensions of a farm and, consequently, of its type, i.e., for example,
whether it is a small, medium or large farm, a capitalist farm or one not
using wage-labour. A farm of less than two hectares is usually accounted a
small (sometimes called a parcellised or dwarf) farm; from two to 20 hectares (sometimes from two to 100)—a
peasant farm, over 100 hectares a large —that is to say , a
capitalist farm.

And so, the information on wage-labour collected for the first time by
the 1907 census gives us above all a first opportunity of verifying from
mass data this “usual” supposition. For the first time we see the
introduction in statistical procedure of at least a certain—although far
from adequate, as we shall see later—element of rationality, i.e., an
element taking into account data of the most direct, immediate
politico-economic significance.

In point of fact, much is said about small production. But what is
small production? The most usual answer is that small production is one
that does not use wage-labour. It is not only Marxists who look at it in
this way. Ed. David, for example, whose book Socialism and Agriculture may be called one of the latest summaries of
bourgeois. theories on the agrarian question, writes on page 29 of the
Russian translation: “In all those cases where we speak of small
production, we have in mind the economic category which functions without
permanent outside assistance and without an auxiliary occupation.”

The 1907 census fully establishes first of all that the number of these
farms is very small, that in modern agriculture farmers who do not hire
workers, and who do not hire themselves out to work for others, are an
insignificant minority. Out of the total of 5,736,082 agricultural
enterprises in Germany registered by the 1907 census, only 1,872,616, i.e.,
less than one-third, belong to farmers whose chief occupation is the
independent conduct of agriculture and who have no auxiliary
occupations. How many of them hire workers? On this there is no
information; that is to say, it existed in the most detailed form on the
original cards and was lost during the summarising! The compilers did not
wish to calculate (after performing a mass of most detailed and futile
calculations) how many farms in each group hire permanent or temporary
wage-workers.

In order to determine approximately the number of farms that do without
wage-labour, we shall single out those groups in which the number of
farms is less than the number of wage-workers. These will he
groups with less than ten hectares of land per farm. These groups include 1,283,631 farmers who regard
agriculture as their chief concern and have no auxiliary occupation. These
farmers have a total of 1,400,162 wage-workers (if it is assumed that
only those farmers who regard agriculture as their chief concern
and have no auxiliary occupations maintain wage-workers). Only in the
groups of farms with two to five hectares is the number of independent
farmers without an, auxiliary occupation greater than the number
of wage-workers, namely: 495,439 farms and 411,311 wage-workers.

Of course, cultivators who have auxiliary occupations sometimes have
wage-workers and, of course, there are some “small” farmers who hire not
one but several wage-workers. But nevertheless there can be no doubt that
farmers who do not hire workers and who do not hire themselves out to work
are an insignificant minority.

From the data on the number of wage-workers three basic groups
of farms in German agriculture are immediately distinguishable.

I. Proletarian farms. These include groups in which the
minority of farmers regard the conduct of independent agriculture as their
chief occupation, groups in which the majority are wage-workers, and so
on. For example, there are 2,084,060 farms of less than half a hectare. Of
these only 97,153 are independent cultivators, and 1,287,312 are
wage-workers (in all branches of the national economy) by their
chief occupation. The farms with one-half to two hectares of land
numbered 1,294,449. Of these only 377,762 are independent cultivators,
535,480 are wage-workers, 277, 735 carry on small-scale industry,
handicrafts or trade, 103,472 are employees or represent “various and
unspecified” occupations, Clearly, both these groups of farms are in the
main, proletarian.

II. Peasant farms. The bulk of the farms included here are
those of independent cultivators; moreover, the number of family workers in
them is greater than that of wage-workers. These will be groups with two to
20 hectares of land.

III. Capitalist farms. Here we include farms with more wage-workers than family workers.

The following are the total figures for these groups:

| Groups of farms | Total number of farms | Of which | Farms subdivided according to the number of
workers |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Independ- ent culti- vators | wage- workers | Total num- ber of | The workers in them being |
| total | family workers | wage- workers |
| I. Less than 2 ha. . | 3,378,509 | 474,915 | 1,822,792 | 2,669,232 | 4,353,052 | 3,851,905 | 501,147 |
| II. 2–20 ha. . . . . | 2,071,816 | 1,705,448 | 117,338 | 2,057,577 | 7,509,735 | 5,898,853 | 1,610,882 |
| III. 20 ha. or more . . | 285,757 | 277,060 | 737 | 285,331 | 3,306,762 | 870,850 | 2,435,912 |
| Total . . . | 5,736,082 | 2,457,423 | 1,940,867 | 5,012,140 | 15,169,549 | 10,621,608 | 4,547,941 |

This table gives a picture of the economic system of modern German
agriculture. At the bottom of the pyramid is a vast mass of proletarian
“farms”, almost three-fifths of the total number; at the top is an
insignificant minority (one twentieth) of capitalist farms. Let us point
out, anticipating a little, that this insignificant minority has more than
half of all the land and arable area. They have one-fifth of the total
number of workers engaged in agriculture and over half the total number of
wage-workers.

---
Notes:
[1]
Statistik des Deutschen Reichs , Band 212, Teil 1  a , 1  b and 2  a .
Berufs- und Betriebszählung vom 12. Juni 1907. Landwirtschaftliche
Betriebsstatistik, Berlin 1909 und 1910. ( Statistics of the German State , Vol. 212, Part 1  a , 1  b and
2  a . Census of occupations and enterprises of June 12,
1907. Statistics of agricultural production, Berlin, 1909 and
1910.— Ed .) — Lenin

[2]
Kievskaya Mysl ( Kiev Thought )—a daily bourgeois-democratic newspaper published in Kiev from 1908 to 1918,
Mensheviks were among its most active contributors.

Lenin is referring to the article by the liquidator N. Valentinov,
“Concerning the Recent German Census”, published in Kievskaya Mysl No. 308.

[3]
Ekonomist Rossii ( Russian Economist )—a weekly bourgeois journal devoted to economic and financial questions in Russia and
abroad; it was published in St. Petersburg from 1909 to 1912.

[4]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 600–863.