Karl Kautsky on The Agrarian Question

Karl Kautsky on The Agrarian Question 

Gaurang Sahay

 

The Theoretical discussion on the agrarian question initiated by F. Engels and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) at the Breslau Congress in 1995 resulted in Kautsky’s Die Agrarfrage (The Agrarian Question) which is deservedly recognized as a Marxist classic. Die Agrarfrage appeared in 1899 (4 years after the Breslau Congress ) and more are less at the same time as the other Marxist classic, Lenin’s Development of Capitalism in Russia.

Die Agrarfrage: a political text in non-polemical style

Though Die Agrarfrage appeared after a heated controversy around the agrarian programme and various issues related to agriculture, Kautsky left out any mention of his Social Democratic opponents in the book. The preface and part II of the book do refer to the Breslau congress but only in passing. Therefore, one can characterize Die Agrarfrage as a polemical book written in a non-polemical style. It was the non-polemical presentation of the book which increased its greatness, and many hail it as volume IV of Capital.

Two forms of discourses on agriculture

Kautsky distinguishes between two forms of discourses on agriculture: the analysis of specific situations and of tendencies. For him the former is essential for formulating agrarian programmes and political strategies while the later is wider in scope. The task of a theorist, according to Kautsky, is to look for general tendencies of development in agriculture. Die Agrarfrage is primarily a theoretical book and it is subtitled as ‘A Review of Tendencies of Modern Agriculture’. In this respect, it is quite different from Lenin’s ‘Development of Capitalism in Russia’ which is a concrete analysis of concrete specific situations. Kautsky goes on to argue that though the tendencies of development in agriculture are the same in all capitalist countries, the form in which they are realized may vary from one country or region to another. The explanations for variations in the form of realization of tendencies have to be looked for in factors such as differences in geographical location, climatic factors, historical conditions and the balance of political forces between different classes.

Industry not agriculture generates preconditions for transition to socialism

But had the book confined itself to doing just that it would not have provoked the controversy which it did. Kautsky argued in the book that it was industrial economy which would generate preconditions for transition to socialism. It was this claim which made the book controversial and it rested on two types of arguments. First, the validity of political calculations does not depend on each sector of the economy. Second, the path of development taken by agriculture is of limited significance in the overall context. For not only is industry the leading sector of the economy, its relative importance would continue increasing over time.

Natural economy: the starting point of Kautsky’s analysis

The starting point of Kautsky’s analysis is not capitalist agriculture, with whose tendencies of evolution he is principally concerned with, but the self-sufficient agricultural economy, grouped under a wider category termed natural economy. A unit of production if regarded as self-sufficient when it itself produces what it consumes. Self-sufficiency confers ‘immortality’ on units of production and social organizations because they themselves reproduce the conditions of production, barring natural calamities and disasters.

A natural economy is the one in which markets for goods and, naturally, also for labour is absent – precisely the features of a capitalist economy. Market relationships not only spin a web of personal interrelationships but also corrode pre-capitalist relationships and organisations and lead to their replacement by capitalist relations and organisations. Kautsky starts with the notion of natural economy to put market relationships at the centre of his analysis of the transformation of pre-capitalist into capitalist economy (market relationships) and accordingly to bring out particular features of capitalism in agriculture.

Agriculture follows same path of development: industrialisation of agriculture, proletarianisation

Nevertheless, for Kautsky, the path of development of agriculture does not diverge from that taken by industry. There is in agriculture, as in industry, a steady extension of capitalist production, proletarianisation and even an increasing concentration of means of production including land. But these processes take a form different in agriculture from that in industry. The extension of capitalist production in agriculture, for example, does not take the form of an extension in the area occupied by large capitalist farms – as it does in industry – but rather a proliferation in the range of activities, including the manufacturing activities like the distillation of alcohol and sugar refining, carried out by large farms. He terms this process ‘industrialisation of agriculture’ and regards it as one of the most important idea of Die Agrarfrage.

Similarly the process of proletarianisation takes a specific form in agriculture. Unlike in industry it does not necessarily take the form of the dispossession of labourers from means of production. In other words, proletarianisation in agriculture is not necessarily coupled with the disappearance of the units of production organized along non-capitalist lines – peasant farms. For Kautsky, the proletarianisation of the peasantry usually takes the form of peasant households not possessing enough land to sustain themselves and thus being forced to sell their labour. For Kautsky, a proletarianised peasant household is characterized by the following two features: it sells labour rather than commodities and the cultivation of land is just a household activity. Therefore, the relation between capitalist and peasant farms is not of competition as of complementarity. The latter sells labour to the former rather than that both types of farms sell identical or similar agricultural commodities and thus competing against each other. The nature of the relationship is of great significance because it implies the absence of market competition by which, as Marx and Engels assumed, capitalist organisations destroy pre-capitalist organisations of production. Thus, in effect, what Kautsky ends up doing is separating the process of proletarianisation from the process of destruction of pre-capitalist organisations and their replacement by capitalist organisations of production.

Peasant proletariat different from industrial proletariat

Not only does the process of proletarianisation as conceived by Kautsky leaves open the possibility of a peaceful coexistence of capitalist with peasant farms, but also the ‘peasant proletariat’ which it creates is not on a par with the industrial proletariat. The ‘peasant proletariat’, unlike the industrial proletariat, is very much interested in preserving the private ownership of means of production particularly land in any situation. Kautsky recognizes this in Die Agrarfrage when he points to the two different personae of the small peasantry: sellers of labour and owners of land. Now the end result of the argument is that though one can speak of the process of proletarianisation taking place in agriculture; one cannot equate with it the effects (either economic or political) which Marx and Marxists have traditionally associated with the process of proletarianisation, one of them is the collectivization of means of production in socialism.

Concentration of property in land but without the replacement of small farms by large farms

The concentration of property in land, according to Kautsky, happens despite the fact that there is no tendency for large farms to replace small farms. Kautsky’s demonstrates this by making a distinction between the concentration of titles (either juridical or effective) to landed property and concentration in the sense of an increase in the proportion of total land area occupied by large farms, and he argues that here the concentration of property in land is concerned with the former rather than the latter. He says that in Germany with the extension of mortgage credit advanced by a handful of banks the proportion of mortgaged land in the total has steadily increased, and accordingly a concentration of titles to landed property has happened in the name of few banks. After separating the two processes – concentration of ownership in land and increase in the size of land – Kautsky opines that the concentration of landed property would make the task of nationalizing land, an essential component of any socialist transformation of agriculture, easier because that would require the nationalsiation of only a handful of mortgage banks. The concentration of landed property thus leaves open the problem of consolidating small farms into large socially owned farms and therefore it does not create all the conditions for transition to socialist units of production.

The important feature of Kautsky’s analysis is not the argument that there is no discernible tendency for large farms to replace small farms but the fact that he separates the question of survival of different types of organisation of production from their relative efficiency. Kautsky always remained committed to the position that large farms (synonymous with capitalist farms) are more efficient than small farms or peasant farms. That the latter survive because of factors specific to agriculture: the finiteness of land, the lack of a complete separation between the household and the farm and the practice of granting the use of a strip of land in lieu of money wages.

Relative technical efficiency of large and small farms is only relevant in the context of capitalism

Under feudalism, Kautsky points out, the methods of cultivation used on large estates are no different from those on small peasant farms. For the former are cultivated by the very peasants who cultivate the latter and with the help of the same tools that they employ on their own farms. But in contrast, he goes on to argue that the methods used on large capitalist farms and on small peasant farms are often not the same. The former, for example, may be more mechanized and better informed about agronomy than the latter. The implication of this argument is that controversy concerning the relative technical efficiency of large and small farms is only relevant in the context of capitalism, and that it is the implanting of capitalism in agriculture which creates the contrast between the farms of different sizes.

The superiority of large over small farms

Kautsky does not just assume but in fact demonstrates the superiority of large over small farms. The demonstration relies on a number of distinct types of arguments. First, there are the arguments which rely on the indivisibility of agricultural machines. The superiority of large farms lies in the more intensive use of machines and since the machines are indivisible they cannot be used on small farms. Second, the larger the size the greater the possibility of specialisation of labour, a classical explanation of the beneficent effect of large scale production. Then, finally, the superiority of large farms lies in the fact that they find it easier to obtain credit and a better price for their produce.

How do small farms manage to survive?

However, Kautsky’s insistence that large farms are more efficient than small farms and the latter cannot overcome their disadvantages raises for him the question: how do small farms manage to survive? It is argued that small farms mange to survive through very hard work and meager consumption. That is why small peasants, the argument continues, are often worse off than agricultural wage labourers. They may be efficient in some technical sense but that they are wretched.

Survival and even the proliferation of small peasant farms are related with the peculiar characteristics of agriculture

One of the main arguments of Die Agrarfrage is that the survival and even the proliferation of small peasant farms have much to do with the peculiar characteristics of agriculture as a branch of production. Besides its heavy dependence on climatic and other natural factors, the peculiarities of agriculture have much to do with the special features of land as a factor of production such as land as a factor of production is non-extendability or the area of cultivated land cannot be increased significantly, location specific or immovability of agricultural land, system of land inheritance and parcellisation of land.

The systems of inheritance which establish a connection between the past and present distribution of land automatically assume a special importance in agriculture because of the relatively limited degree of freedom that there is for changing the distribution of agricultural land. It is relevant to take into account that the formation of joint stock companies in industry and commerce has more or less completely eliminated the influence of inheritance on the structure of companies, something which has not happened on a significant scale in agriculture. What the inheritance of land does, according to Kautsky, is to select individuals for the possession of land not on the basis of their suitability to agriculture but on the basis of the accident of their birth.

The systems of inheritance which divide up the land affect the whole spectrum of the size distribution and in the main what they do is to shift the size distribution towards the lower end. This in terms of Kautsky’s analysis has two effects: a progressive proletarianisation of the peasantry and, second, the proliferation of farms beyond the level needed to sustain a rational cultivation of land. In all the systems of inheritance would freeze the top end of the distribution and lengthen the tail at the expenses of medium sized farms. Given such a system of inheritance and private property in land, the parcellisation of land is much inevitable than its centralization. In addition, the immovable feature of land also makes it difficult to create a large farm out of a number of small ones.

The size of the farm is just one out of a number of distinct axes along which the differentiation of agriculture under capitalism takes place

The incidence of capitalist relations and new agriculture technology does not just depend on the size of the farm. The implanting of capitalism in agriculture may create differences between the farms of different sizes but it also drives a wedge between farms situated in different regions and between farms with different cropping and ownership patterns.

Lessee-cultivation: the paradigm of capitalist agriculture

Kautsky takes lessee-cultivation to be the paradigm of capitalist agriculture. It was very common in England but not so common in Germany where mortgage banks are the real owners of agricultural land. The essential point of the argument is that the mortgage bank stands in the same relation to the ‘owner-cultivator’ as does the landlord to the lessee-cultivator.

Capitalist agriculture cannot develop independently of the existing pre-capitalist agriculture

The development of capitalist agriculture can only take two forms: either the internal transformation of pre-capitalist into capitalist farms or pre-capitalist farms ceding the land in their possession to capitalist agriculture. The details of the actual process of its development aside, the essential point is that capitalist agriculture cannot develop independently of the existing pre-capitalist agriculture.

Peasant farms limit the expansion of capitalist farming

In the case of small peasant farms, their internal transformation into capitalist farms is ruled out because the area at their disposal is too small to support a capitalist enterprise where labour as well as other means of production are imputed costs. Peasant farms by the mere fact of their existence limit the expansion of capitalist farming and thus competition from that source. Finally, peasant farming has a great capacity to adapt itself to market forces.

The change as a result of the development of capitalism takes the form less of a redistribution of land than of change in the composition of what farms of different sizes respectively produce and sell

Survival, however, does not mean the absence of change; it simply refers to the fact of the continued existence of small farms. Kautsky argues that the change as a result of the development of capitalism takes the form less of a redistribution of land than of change in the composition of what farms of different sizes respectively produce and sell, as well as relations between them. Small farms sell labour rather than commodities; and they are thus complementary to large farms which buy labour. This constitutes, for Kautsky, the process of proletarianisation of the peasantry, a process which we discussed earlier and which is premised on the parcellisation of land arising out of an increase in the population dependent on land. Large farms, on the other hand, branch out into ancillary activities like the brewing of alcohol and the refining of sugar; a process Kautsky termed the industrialization of agriculture.

The general question

This more or less finishes the coverage of notable arguments in the theoretical section of Die Agrarfrage. After this Kautsky raises some general questions: what form would the development of capitalist agriculture take, what will eventually happen to the peasantry and, finally, what actual form would the development of socialist agriculture take?

Latifundia: agents of the development of capitalist and the foundation of future socialist agriculture

The term ‘latifundia’ plays an important part in his answers to these questions. Latifudia in Kautsky’s sense are not a feudal relic but a modern development; an industrial and agricultural conglomerate. These, according to Kautsky, started to develop in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in the form of large estate owners acquiring more farms, usually not in order to enlarge the area of the parent farm but to undertake manufacturing activities like brewing and sugar refining. Thus a latifundium was not an integrated unit of production but instead, like a modern corporation, a unit of management and ownership composed of a number of units of production. The reasons for which Kautsky attaches are: first, by bringing a number of farms (covering a fairly large area) under one management they facilitate a rapid diffusion of rational methods of cultivation and lead to mechanization and the employment of specialized labour, in short the effects associated with the economies of scale; second, they bring about an integration of agriculture and industry. For Kautsky the modern latifundia are not only agents of the development of capitalist agriculture but also the foundation of future socialist agriculture. Though he does not spell it out explicitly, Kautsky does conceive of future socialist agriculture as consisting of one giant latifundium enveloping the whole of agriculture and enveloping a wide variety of industrial activities.

Concluding remarks

The peasantry, according to Kautsky’s prognosis, will dissolve itself. Incapable of matching the levels of income offered by industry and modern agriculture, it will shrink as a result of the desertion of the peasants themselves. The essential point is that Kautsky regards peasant agriculture as an obstacle of development of both capitalist and socialist agriculture. Peasant agriculture does not, according to Kautsky, play a positive part in the evolution of socialist agriculture. A socialist government, as conceived by Kautsky, will not expropriate the peasantry but wait for it to dissolve itself voluntarily.

In all, except on particular issues, Kautsky wanted Social Democracy to maintain a neutral but not an indifferent stance towards agriculture. Social Democracy, in his view, ought to be interested in the tendencies of the development of capitalist agriculture but it should not influence the course of that development. He wanted Social Democratic Party of Germany to be candid and recognize that in essence it was an urban and a proletarian party.

Karl Kautsky, The Agrarian Question, Two Volumes, Translated by Pete Burges, Introduction by H. Alavi and T. Shanin