Approaches to the Peasantry

Abstract

The umbrella term ‘peasant’ is much used and abused to describe the many rural societies which, until recently, comprised about half the population of the world. It has become common in recent years to argue about what ‘peasantry’ actually means, but in general the term has come to denote an underclass of small rural cultivators from whom a surplus has been extracted (rent in the form of free or cheap labour or product) to underwrite the living standards of a more powerful upper class and the needs of the state.¹