This is an age of neo-liberalism, in which the advantages and virtues of private property are often taken for granted. Post-socialist governments have privatized and broken up state farms and socialist cooperatives. However, economic outcomes and the social insecurity now experienced by many rural inhabitants highlight the need for a broader anthropological analysis of property relations, which go beyond changes of legal form. A century after Kautsky addressed "The Agrarian Question" in Germany, it is necessary to address a post-socialist Agrarian Question throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and China. The studies collected here derive from the first cycle of projects carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. They are prefaced by a substantial introduction by Chris Hann. Chris Hann is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/ Saale.

First published in 1986. This collection of eight essays begins with a piece that constructs a preliminary argument concerning the position of the peasantry in the twin transitions: the first to industrialisation, and the second, towards socialism. In the poor developing country launching upon both simultaneously, the agrarian question bifurcates into two dichotomous sets of issues.

The Agrarian Question and its resolution in the global context of capitalist development has a protracted scholarship developed over last one century and more. Capitalism in its last two centuries history has evolved through different historical stages since mercantile phase to industrial, national to imperialist and to post-imperialist post-colonial regimes. The agrarian question, understood as a process of transformation of agrarian sector towards capitalist modes, dispensing much of its small and petty producers, producing surplus for the industrial sector and supplying the industrial proletariat, with a clear resolution towards formation of industrial society remained as varied as it could be in the uneven development of capitalist system. The structural transformation that happened successfully for privileged countries in the capitalist centre, proved to be a formidable challenge for a vast number of post-colonial countries in the capitalist periphery. The global and local condition and the political and economic conditions of the contemporary times makes it a considerable challenge for political economists to explain. This reader aims to provide an understanding on range of conceptual and empirical issues of the role of agrarian transformation for capitalist system, with a special focus on Indian agrarian transition. The reader consists of short summaries of fourteen selected works on agrarian question in the Indian and global context. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This collection celebrates T.J. Byres' seminal contributions to the political economy of the agrarian question. Uniting the various themes is the demonstration of the continuing relevance of a critical, historical and comparative materialist analysis of agrarian question.

Capitalism manoeuvres to control agricultural production in developing countries where neoliberalism has already decreased food security. Unless the land rights of small producers are defended, their active resistance will undermine political stability.