V. I.

Lenin

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

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the country which practices the free distribution of vast
tracts of unoccupied land, and which the
Manilovs [1] consider a country of “family” farms, more than one-half of the
total agricultural production is concentrated in about one-sixth
of the capitalist enterprises, whose expenditure on hired labour is four times greater than the per-farm average
(69.1% on 17.2% of the total number of farms), and are half as
great again as the per-acre average (69.1% of the expenditure on
hired labour on farms owning 43.1% of the total amount of
land).

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

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

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Notes:
[1]

[ PLACEHOLDER.]