Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- The Andean region: relief
- The Andrean region showing ecological levels (after Troll 1968)
- 1 Introduction: Andean societies and the theory of peasant economy
- 2 The role of the Andean ayllu in the reproduction of the petty commodity regime in Northern Potosí (Bolivia)
- 3 Labour and produce in an ethnic economy, Northern Potosi, Bolivia
- 4 ‘Resistance to capitalism’ in the Peruvian Andes
- 5 Production and market exchange in peasant economies: the case of the southern highlands in Peru
- 6 The Andean economic system and capitalism
- 7 Property and ideology: a regional oligarchy in the Central Andes in the nineteenth century
- 8 Multi-levelled Andean society and market exchange: the case of Yucay (Peru)
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology
4 - ‘Resistance to capitalism’ in the Peruvian Andes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- The Andean region: relief
- The Andrean region showing ecological levels (after Troll 1968)
- 1 Introduction: Andean societies and the theory of peasant economy
- 2 The role of the Andean ayllu in the reproduction of the petty commodity regime in Northern Potosí (Bolivia)
- 3 Labour and produce in an ethnic economy, Northern Potosi, Bolivia
- 4 ‘Resistance to capitalism’ in the Peruvian Andes
- 5 Production and market exchange in peasant economies: the case of the southern highlands in Peru
- 6 The Andean economic system and capitalism
- 7 Property and ideology: a regional oligarchy in the Central Andes in the nineteenth century
- 8 Multi-levelled Andean society and market exchange: the case of Yucay (Peru)
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology
Summary
Introduction
At a time when the developed capitalist nations of the world appear to have renounced all interest in the Third World other than interest owed to them on money lent and spent long ago, it may seem strange to attribute any force of economic expansion at all to the capitalist system. Curiously enough, the theories of Lenin, Luxemburg and Bukharin seem now to have been an optimistic overestimate of the power of capitalism to transform the world in its own image (Lenin n.d.; Luxemburg 1951; Bukharin 1972). If there is a point, then, in continuing to use the phrase ‘resistance to capitalism’ in characterizing an area such as the Peruvian Andes, it is not from a belief that there are in existence strong tendencies to capitalize the area which are being resisted, but rather from a wish to start from a position that takes the particular area as outside capitalism – as, in important respects, non-capitalist.
Although this chapter concentrates mainly on exchange relations, then, it does so from a framework which does not equate commodity exchange with capitalism. By whatever criterion, whether in terms of forms of property, relations of exploitation, laws of motion, or the protestant ethic, the predominant social relations in the area I wish to talk about are not capitalist ones; and yet relations of exchange, both among the people of the area, and between them and the outside world, are extensive, and have undergone important shifts, it seems, in recent years.
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- Ecology and Exchange in the Andes , pp. 97 - 122Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
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