A typology of agrarian production systems by relations of reproduction in the Pacifico Sur Region of Costa Rica

Abstract

<p>Commoditization, the process of dependency reproduction through market mediated relations of production, underlined the construction of a typology of agrarian producers and their social class situations. Questionnaire data from 996 rural producer households of the South Pacific Region of Costa Rica were used to test 18 theoretical propositions as nominal and graduated parameters that characterized the properties of the typology. The combined and uneven development effects on the division of labor process affecting these producers were identified through their confirmed labor market specialization. The capitalist employees were identified as specializing in the full time, permanent rural employment jobs, the simple commodity farm workers concentrate their labor force participation in the journeyman, day to day, occasional labor market and the semi-proletarian peasants specialize in the seasonal labor force. A logit regression model was used to predict the odds that the simple commodity heads of households had of participating in off-farm work.;Proletarianization as the process of affecting the simple commodity producer's labor force participation was verified. The odds of proletarianization were predicted to increase as the educational level increased the amount of landed property decreased and the level of technological mechanization of the farm decreased. In conclusion, the findings suggest that for the properties of asymmetry and transitivity of the typology to hold true, the typology should be reduced to its three principal categories of capitalist, simple commodity and peasant producers. From the theoretical perspective of social formations, the typology identifies the different rural social classes of producers distinguished by their degree of articulation to market mediated process of reproduction.</p>