In this section I turn to a discussion of the obstacles and opportunities that stand in the way of poverty-first economic development policy, focusing on domestic politics within the LDC. It is noted that economic development plans and policies produce winners and losers. In a poverty-first policy the winners are the poor, whereas the losers are the non-poor, including economic elites. How ever, economic elites generally have substantial political influence, whereas the poor characteristically have little. Reverse-stratified programs are thus politically difficult to implement. I then consider whether the development of more extensive democracy in the third-world, with political empowerment of the poor, is a feasible means through which poverty-first development policies might be introduced.
Arguments above make it credible that "poverty first" development is economically feasible. More over, from a neutral observer's standpoint it seems clear that such a strategy has greater social welfare consequences than "growth-first" strategies. So why is it so difficult to introduce such strategies into domestic and international development planning? The short answer is that development policy is unavoidably politically contentious because it imposes costs and benefits on different groups in different ways. There are winners and losers in any given choice of development policy; so we should expect that groups will mobilize their political resources toward the government decision-making bodies to secure the most advantageous policy mix for themselves. The benefits of a poverty-first strategy are reverse-stratified: the least-well-off receive the greatest benefits, while the best-off receive the least benefits. (I am assuming that it is still true that every group receives some benefits of the policy adopted; but the most-well-off receive smaller benefits from the "poverty-first" strategy than they would under a "growth-first" policy.) We now need to ask, what groups are likely to have the greatest political resources to deploy in defense of their preferred policy? And here the answer, if not wholly unambiguous, is fairly clear: the more advantaged a group is in economic terms, the greater its political resources are likely to be in a typical developing society. This means that the advocates of a "poverty-first" strategy are at a substantial disadvantage within the domestic political system: the primary beneficiaries of such a strategy are the least powerful groups in society.
This rough calculation leads to a conclusion: we should expect that there will be a bias in national development strategy toward the interests of the more advantaged. And these arguments are even stronger when we turn our attention to the feasibility of entitlement reform and agrarian reform. The political obstacles to agrarian reform are obvious, both in theory and in history. For as we have already argued, agrarian reform is directly contrary to the economic interests of the politically powerful. Thus agrarian reform appears to presuppose a dramatic increase in the political power and influence of the rural poor; and in fact successful largescale land reforms have only occurred in politically exceptional circumstances (post-war Taiwan and Korea, post-revolution China). The outcome of a process of rural reform through existing political arrangements will be sharply tilted towards the economic interests of the rural elite. So long as this elite retains decisive political power, the goals of land reform are difficult to achieve. Thus Ronald Herring writes, "Land to the tiller is a direct attack on private property and seems to presuppose an organized and militant peasantry, a revolutionary situation, or some extraordinary concentration of power, perhaps from outside the indigenous political system (as in Japan and Taiwan)" [Herring, 1983, #338, : 50]. This line of reasoning suggests that a successful policy of land reform requires very exceptional circumstances; in any nation in which the dominant political and economic elite is the landowning class, land reform looks very improbable. [1]
In addition to analysis of the property relations defining economic activity and interests it is also necessary to provide an analysis of political power at the local and national level. Given that different strategies affect local interests differently, and given that the strategy chosen will result from a complex political process involving various affected parties, it is crucially important to know what players will be most able to influence the goals and implementation of the development plan. [2]
Thus it is necessary to locate the process of rural development within the broader context of class politics and political power in the LDC. As one particularly salient example, consider the political prospects for a program of land reform within a national politics dominated by the rural elite. Land reform runs contrary to the most fundamental interests of the rural elite, and this elite generally has substantial or even decisive political power. Land reform can only be the outcome of a political process-either through the exercise of state power or through revolutionary action on the part of land-poor peasants. If it is the former, however, the interests of the individuals, coalitions, and organizations involved will play a determining role in the way in which institutional changes are adopted, and the various players have greatly unequal powers. [3] In this context it is worth recalling the situation of land reform in the Philippines today: a popularly elected president who is also a major land owner has put forward a moderate proposal for limited land reform, and expects it to be adopted and implemented by a legislature dominated by a landholding elite. Predictably, the proposal seems likely to die young.
It would appear likely, therefore, that the outcome of a process of rural reform through existing political arrangements will be sharply tilted towards the economic interests of the rural elite. So long as this elite retains decisive political power, the goals of land reform are difficult to achieve. Thus Ronald Herring writes, "Land to the tiller is a direct attack on private property and seems to presuppose an organized and militant peasantry, a revolutionary situation, or some extraordinary concentration of power, perhaps from outside the indigenous political system (as in Japan and Taiwan)" (Herring 1983:50). This line of reasoning suggests that a successful policy of land reform requires very exceptional circumstances; in any nation in which the dominant political and economic elite is the landowning class, land reform looks very improbable. [4]
Thus it is necessary to locate the process of rural development within the broader context of class politics and political power in the LDC. As one salient example, consider the political prospects for a program of land reform within a national politics dominated by the rural elite. Land reform runs contrary to the most fundamental interests of the rural elite, and this elite generally has substantial or even decisive political power. Land reform can only be the outcome of a political process-either through the exercise of state power or through collective action on the part of land-poor peasants. If it is the former, however, the interests of the individuals, coalitions, and organizations involved will play a determining role in the way in which institutional changes are adopted, and the various players have greatly unequal powers. [5] It is therefore necessary to provide an analysis of political power at the local and national level. Given that different strategies affect local interests differently, and given that the strategy chosen will result from a complex political process involving various affected parties, it is crucially important to know what players will be most able to influence the goals and implementation of the development plan. [6] In this context it is worth recalling the situation of land reform in the Philippines in the late 1980s: a popularly elected president who was also a major land owner put forward a moderate proposal for limited land reform, and expected it to be adopted and implemented by a legislature dominated by a landholding elite. Predictably, the proposal had little success.
A second illustrative case involves the Indonesian military government's exploitation of the Indonesian economy in the 1960s. In order to retain the loyalty of army personnel the New Order government tolerated a variety of "unconventional" means of financing, including particularly the state oil corporation, Pertamina [Crouch, #1176,, chapter 11]. Revenues from Pertamina were shrouded in secrecy during the 1960s, with the clear implication that they were captured by military personnel. "The funds made available by Pertamina enhanced the power of the army leaders, who were able to distribute rewards according to political requirements" [Crouch, #1176,, : 277]. Likewise, Indonesia's rice logistics agency (BULOG) was controlled by army officers and had substantial control of resources. "Although Bulog's performance in procuring and distributing rice left much to be desired, it was very successful in providing opportunities to raise funds for the army as well as individual officers" [Crouch, #1176,, : 280]. Crouch summarizes his analysis in these terms: "The economic policies introduced by the government in 1966 and afterward brought great benefits to the commercial enterprises with which army officers were associated" [Crouch, #1176,, : 299]. In each of these cases we find instances in which critically important institutions within the Indonesian economy have been captured by elites (the army, in this case), and resources used in ways that primarily benefit those elites rather than the bulk of society.
What sorts of agricultural policies resulted from New Order economic policies? Village studies of rural change in Java indicate an increase in land inequalities as larger farmers benefited more fully from Green Revolution technologies, an accelerated social differentiation among large farmers, smallholders, and landless workers, and a shrinking demand for farm labor as larger farmers introduced labor-saving innovations (Hüsken and White 1989:236). Hüsken and White analyze New Order agricultural strategies in terms of the rural social tensions engendered by unequal access to land in Java. After suppressing the Communist insurgency in the mid-1960s, the New Order regime sought to consolidate its power in the countryside. The state made strenuous efforts to created administrative forms capable of penetrating local society-replacing both traditional village arrangements and the interest-group organizations of the early 1960s [Husken, 1989,, :250]. The New Order regime attempted to increase rice production through a combination of quotas and subsidies imposed on rice cultivators. This program included subsidies on fertilizer prices, subsidized agricultural credit, state purchases of paddy, and subsidy of irrigation water (253); the result was a rough doubling of rice output on a fixed arable land. And Hüsken and White argue that the preponderance of this state support for agriculture-and ensuing income benefits-flowed to the richest 1/3 of Javanese farmers, who produce by their estimate about 75% of Java's rice crop, since the richest 10-20% of farmers control 70-80% of farmland. And they find that "the share of output received by hired laborers in the form of wages has declined proportionately to the much more rapid growth of the farmers' net income from crop production" (254). On the basis of a detailed seven-village study in Java White and Wiradi find that income shares increased substantially more for labor-hiring farmers than hired laborers during the 1970s-though each group showed increases in almost every case [White, 1989, #1195, : 275]. "These data therefore indicate a growing divide between `farmers' on the one hand, and `hired laborers' on the other, in terms of their relative ability to command incomes from paddy production" (274). Moreover, White and Wiradi find that the demand for labor per hectare actually fell in each village sampled (285). But they find that wage rates for virtually all agricultural tasks rose during the period 1971-1981-a fact they explain as the consequence of the increasingly rigid scheduling requirements in modern-variety cultivation. (Though overall demand for labor has fallen, the demand at peak periods has risen; 288.) In short, the picture that we get from village-level studies of Java is one of rising inequalities in land ownership and incomes and slowly rising real incomes to small farmers and landless workers-a finding much less rosy than that of much World Bank assessment. And this picture suggests, in turn, that Indonesia's rural policies are tilted in favor of the rural elites with whom the government hopes to ally itself.
The issues of equity and stratification that I am raising here have been much discussed in the development literature. But there the question is usually a somewhat different one: do modernization of agriculture and technological innovation all by themselves lead to a worsening of inequalities and the welfare of the rural poor? I suggest, however, that this is not the right question to ask, inasmuch as it emphasizes the technical changes of the Green Revolution rather than the institutional arrangements through which innovation occurs. Defenders of Green Revolution technologies hold that these new techniques confer benefits that are largely neutral across classes, while critics hold that the technologies favor richer farmers. I will make several points on this subject, however: first, that it is the institutional arrangements through which development occurs rather than the technologies themselves that determine the distributive impact of modernization; and second, that within the spectrum of available Green Revolution technologies, some favor large farms and some small.
A number of agricultural economists address the question of whether Green Revolution technologies favor large farms over small. There appears to be a rough consensus that the technologies themselves are largely neutral across farm size, and that they do not inherently have the effect of increasing stratification. Thus Robert Herdt (1987) summarizes the experience of the Green Revolution in the Philippines, [7] and argues that there was no clear bias in these technological changes in favor of large farms. Small farms incorporated green technologies as readily as large; there was no tendency for farm size to increase; real wages for farm labor rose slightly. In a similar vein Hayami and Ruttan (1985) argue that MVs and agricultural modernization do not have the effect of increasing rural inequalities.
However, these authors also conclude that the local institutional arrangements-property and political power-decisively influence the distribution of the benefits of innovation. Thus Hayami and Ruttan write:
The potential gains from technical change set in motion both private and bureaucratic efforts to capture the gains from technical change in the form of institutional rents rather than allowing the market to partition the gains among factor owners and consumers. The possibilities for bias in institutional innovations are greatest in societies with highly unequal distribution of economic and political resources. (Hayami and Ruttan 1985:361)
And in his survey of the rural development experience of Mexico W. Randall Ireson emphasizes a similar conclusion.
While the findings reported here do support [Nicholson's (1984)] general contention that Green Revolution technologies by themselves do not increase inequality, the landholding context in which technologies are introduced is found to affect their relative impacts across farm groups. (Ireson 1987:361)
Most research on Mexico has emphasized an increasing income inequality in the agricultural sector as well as a strong institutional bias in favor of large commercial farms. (Ireson 1987:352)
The importance of land distribution patterns as a crucial element of agricultural structure must be acknowledged. The data analyzed here clearly indicate the effect of land concentration on increasing income concentration and also the influence of landholding inequality on the different effects of technical change. Perhaps, rather than continuing to debate the distributional consequences of technical change, the development community should pay more attention to the effects of resource concentration on technical change and income concentration. (Ireson 1987:363)
Finally, in his major study of the rice economy of Asia, Randolph Barker argues that the Green Revolution technologies themselves do not create greater inequalities, but that unequal ownership of land and capital leads to greater inequalities of income through technical change (1985:157). Barker comments that the decisive factor determining distribution is the set of property relations and institutional arrangements present.
If ownership of these resources is concentrated in a few hands, then their earnings will likewise be concentrated. . . . The effect of resource ownership on the distribution of earnings is so great that any effect caused by technological change is marginal. . . . That does not say that when incomes are increased because of a technological change, all participants benefit equally. On the contrary, they benefit in proportion to their ownership of resources and the earnings of the resources. . . . The important factor determining who receives the direct income benefits is the ownership of resources. (Barker 1985:157)
These observations corroborate the basic point to be argued here. Herdt, Barker, Hayami and Ruttan, and others have shown that modernization and green technologies themselves do not induce inequalities; rather, the inequalities are generated by the institutional arrangements through which these innovations are introduced. Thus new technologies confer benefits and burdens only through the lens of the property relations and relations of political power that exist in a given country. In this sense the technologies themselves are neutral; it is the property relations and political institutions that are the decisive mechanism of distribution.
It is also worth noting that, given typical institutional arrangements in many parts of the less developed world-i.e., private ownership of land, stratification of landholdings, and credit through private or semi-private banks-there are sharp differences between different new technological options. Some technological innovations are biased towards large farmers, while others favor small holders' interests, and still others appear to be equally available and beneficial for all strata. New seed varieties are equally available to large and small holders; while expensive capital equipment and irrigation technology is only available to larger farmers and those with substantial credit available. [8] Thus Green Revolution technologies do not form a seamless package of innovations, but rather a differentiated set of options with differential consequences for different classes. [9]
How does the presence of democratic institutions affect the viability of poverty-first strategies? It is in principle possible for a political party representing the interests of the disadvantaged to acquire substantial political influence in a third-world democracy, through its electoral significance. And in countries in which there is such a political party, we should expect that government policy will be accordingly tilted back in the direction of the poor. However, even here there are constraints on the political capacity of such a party. First, there are numerous channels through which elite interests can subvert the political goals of a party of the poor. And second, there are structural constraints on the policies that such a party can advocate, let alone implement, without creating an economic crisis that worsens the condition of the poor.
These arguments suggest two important political conclusions: first, that poverty-first strategies require substantial use of state political resources to implement; and second, that this exercise of state power is most likely to occur in societies in which the poor have an effective political voice. Arguments in the previous section reflect the truism that governments dominated by economic elites may be relied upon to adopt policies that favor those elites. So what prospects are there for the emergence of poverty-first economic strategies? Two general possibilities are most salient. First, a successful revolution based on a competent peasant-based revolutionary party can result in pro-poor strategies (for example, China). But successful revolutions are rare, and revolutionary governments that succeed in sustaining their underclass orientation are even more uncommon. The second possibility is more promising, given the rapid changes in world politics in the late 1980s: the extension of democracy into the governing institutions of LDC governments. This suggests that poverty-first strategies and third-world democratization movements need to flow hand in hand: regimes whose political base depends on support from the rural poor will be the most motivated to pursue a poverty-first program, and the most capable of implementing such a program; whereas the existence of such a program within a developing democracy provides a plausible basis for mobilizing further mass support for the poverty-first party.
The promise of democracy from a poverty-centered approach follows from a very simple argument. The poor are numerous. As parties compete for electoral support they have an interest in adopting policies that favor the interests of the poor. Therefore we should expect a tendency for state policies to begin to accommodate the economic interests of the poor, and to begin to redress the anti-poor tilt that is characteristic of traditional politics. There is a realistic core to this optimistic argument, but it is over-simple in this formulation. More extensive democracy can be a central means of furthering poverty-first economic development. But it is also clear, both empirically and theoretically, that broad-based electoral democracy does not unavoidably result in conferring political influence on the poor.
First, it is a familiar fact in the democracies of the developed world that economic elites manage to retain disproportionate influence within a democratic electoral system. Elites have privileged access to the instruments of political influence-education, literacy, campaign finance. Elites are able to oppose political strategies through the threat of capital strike. And elites are compact groups, so that their collective action problems are more easily handled than those of more numerous groups. [10] These considerations suggest that elites are well-positioned to defend their economic interests within an electoral competition-with the result that they will be able to preserve the benefits of pre-existing anti-poor biases in economic policies.
Second, to the extent that non-elite groups emerge as politically significant it is possible, perhaps likely, that the groups that stand to gain the most political influence through democratization are not the poor, but the near-poor: urban workers and consumers, better-off farmers, and the like. And the interests of these groups are not identical with those of the poor. Consider one example of a process that is almost ubiquitous in the developing world: the political influence of civil servants, urban workers, and urban consumers. These groups have an interest in securing food price policies that guarantee lower food costs; they have an interest in development strategies that enhance urban amenities (transportation, sanitation); and they have an interest in wage policies that favor them. Further, these groups are well-positioned to back up their demands with effective political action: mobilization around political parties, personal and political relationships with government officials, and the threat of urban unrest. So it is common to find that LDC policies reflect an urban bias: food price policies, provision of infrastructure, and wage policies that favor urban workers and civil servants. These politically-created benefits have the effect of improving the material welfare of these groups-but at the expense of the rural poor. The result of these policies is to depress the market-determined incomes of farmers, to reduce the level and quality of amenities flowing to the rural sector, and to further exacerbate the wage differentials between rural and urban sectors. A consequence of this line of analysis, then, is to raise the possibility that more democracy may in fact reduce the amount of attention the poor (and particularly the rural poor) receive within the politics of development policy. [11]
Consider one final question-mark on the role of democracy within development. Electoral democracies are reasonably effective in mobilizing groups in defense of their economic interests, and the results bear the mark of this process: it is difficult to implement policies within an electoral democracy that impose economic hardship on politically effective groups. But development (and economic reform more generally) unavoidably involves hardship for various social groups. So the question arises: Do effective political demands within the context of an electoral democracy paralyze development? The answer to this question depends a great deal on institutional variables below the current level of discussion: the political competence of existing parties, the ideology and commitments of the governing party, the quality and effectiveness of leadership, the level of confidence the electorate has in a regime's intentions and competence, the character and goals of existing sub-party organizations, and the details of parliamentary institutions. [12] The strongest conclusion that can be drawn on the basis of the recent experience of Poland, for example, is that it is possible to implement an aggressive program of reform through democratic means, but that the political pressures build substantially as the reform program begins to impose hardships on the populace. Moreover, there are instances elsewhere in Eastern Europe (Hungary, for example), in which governing parties have not succeeded in putting together strong electoral support for a unified program of reform; in these cases, gridlock appears to be a very possible outcome.
These arguments are not intended to discredit the significance of democratic institutions in furthering a poverty-first economic strategy. Indeed, it is unlikely that such a strategy will emerge except through an effective, politically competent demand for such a strategy by the rural poor, supported by an effective and administratively competent party strongly committed to its interests. But democratization is not the only ingredient of a successful poverty-first policy, and arguments in preceding paragraphs are designed merely to show that it is quite possible for democratic electoral mechanisms to lead to outcomes that neglect the poor or are positively biased against them.
Atul Kohli's The State and Poverty in India (1987) provides a basis for understanding the political conditions in which democratization is likely to result in poverty alleviation. On the basis of a comparative study of three Indian states (West Bengal, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh), Kohli argues that poverty alleviation requires positive policy efforts on the part of the state; the normal workings of a market system do not inevitably or commonly lead to improvement of the condition of the poor. However, some states in India have done better than others in poverty alleviation. What are the social and political factors that influence the welfare of the poor in the process of third-world economic development? Kohli finds that the critical variable is the type of regime in power during the process of economic development: regimes formed by strong, competent political parties of the left succeed in tilting the process of development towards poverty alleviation, whereas weak regimes and regimes dominated by the propertied classes have a poor record of performance in poverty reform. Poverty reform requires a political regime that has both the will and the means to implement it, and a regime that is relatively autonomous from the political reach of economic elites. The Communist Party, Marxist (CPM) in West Bengal succeeded in bringing tangible benefits to the poor through poverty reforms including tenancy reform, rural credit programs, and rural employ ment schemes. CPM is a leftist party with a coherent redistributivist ideology, competent party organization extending down to the village level, and effective leadership. The Urs regime in Karnataka also possessed a redistributivist ideology, but lacked effective political organiza tion and had a fragmented leadership; its efforts at poverty reform were not successful. And the Janata party in Uttar Pradesh was dominated by the rural landowning class and lacked the will to implement poverty reforms. Kohli explains the presence or absence of poverty alleviation in a state, then, as the result of the presence or absence of a regime which has both the will and the means to implement poverty reform.
This line of thought suggests, then, that effective state policies aimed at poverty alleviation are most likely to come into place within a context of effective electoral democracy, in the presence of an administratively competent party of the poor.
Turn now to the international development agencies. These groups too have constituencies, including large business interests and foreign policy departments of the industrialized countries. The economic interests of large businesses and of industrialized economies are affected by alternative development processes. And there are good reasons to suppose that "poverty first" development goals are not as beneficial for these interests as "growth first" goals. Compounding this economic bias is the effect of Reaganism on international development planning. The anti-government, pro-market bias of the conservative revolution of the 1980s is wholly unsympathetic to the poverty-first goal. Economists and policy makers from this perspective mistrust such a policy orientation as an effort to reimpose a "dirigiste" imprint on economic planning.
This chapter turns to the international politics of development. Development takes place within an international environment. The international economy sets firm constraints on economic development within the LDC through prices and world demand for LDC products. International financial agencies-banks and multilateral and bilateral lenders-provide scarce access to credit, with consequent leverage on LDC development policy. And advisory and donor agencies, again multilateral and bilateral, exert a fair amount of influence on the direction and character of LDC development policy. Arguments above were offered to show that it is desirable that LDC development policy should be biased toward the poor. This chapter discusses some of the ways that international institutions might be employed to encourage this bias on the part of LDC governments. It also discusses the security implications of continuing rural poverty for the industrialized nations of the North.
International agencies
These groups too have constituencies, including large business interests and foreign pol icy departments of the industrialized countries. The economic interests of large businesses and of industrialized economies are affected by alternative development processes. And there are good reasons to suppose that "poverty first" development goals are not as beneficial for these interests as "growth first" goals. Compounding this economic bias is the effect of Reaganism on international development planning. The anti- government, pro-market bias of the conservative revolution of the 1980s is wholly unsympathetic to the poverty-first goal. Economists and policy makers from this perspective mistrust such a policy orientation as an effort to reimpose a "dirigiste" imprint on economic planning.
[1] Somewhat different analysis is needed for a large and complex nation such as India. In this case there is a much broader range of political powers and interests at work, with a substantial urban sector whose interests may sometimes join with those of the rural poor against the rural elite.
[2] In what is otherwise a stout denial of the claim that the Green Revolution has exacerbated inequalities, Hayami and Ruttan write, "It is a common observation that, in a society characterized by extreme bias in economic and political resources, it is difficult to bring about institutional reforms that are biased against those who possess substantial economic and political resources. A disproportional share of institutional credit and subsidized inputs will, in such situations, be directed into the hands of the larger farmers. . . . It is extremely difficult to implement institutional changes that are neutral or biased toward the poor in a society characterized by extreme inequality in economic resources and political power" (Hayami and Ruttan 1985:360).
[3] "Although land reforms are universally argued for in terms of social justice and economic efficiency, the political reality in South Asian societies is that such reforms are promulgated by ruling elites largely composed of, or structurally or electorally dependent on, agrarian elites" (Herring 1983:3).
[4] Somewhat different analysis is needed for a large and complex nation such as India. In this case there is a much broader range of political powers and interests at work, with a substantial urban sector whose interests may sometimes join with those of the rural poor against the rural elite.
[5] "Although land reforms are universally argued for in terms of social justice and economic efficiency, the political reality in South Asian societies is that such reforms are promulgated by ruling elites largely composed of, or structurally or electorally dependent on, agrarian elites" (Herring 1983:3).
[6] In what is otherwise a stout denial of the claim that the Green Revolution has exacerbated inequalities, Hayami and Ruttan write, "It is a common observation that, in a society characterized by extreme bias in economic and political resources, it is difficult to bring about institutional reforms that are biased against those who possess substantial economic and political resources. A disproportional share of institutional credit and subsidized inputs will, in such situations, be directed into the hands of the larger farmers. . . . It is extremely difficult to implement institutional changes that are neutral or biased toward the poor in a society characterized by extreme inequality in economic resources and political power" (Hayami and Ruttan 1985:360).
[7] Herdt's study is based on an IRRI research project consisting of a 15 year study of two wet rice areas in the Philippines. The project surveys patterns of land tenure, technology, yields, and income distribution and changes in each of these over the period of the study (during which time the green revolution technologies became available).
[8] "It is critical to recognize that modern technologies are not homogeneous in their effects on agrarian structure. Advances in mechanical technology are usually accompanied by scale economies, resulting in economy in management effort as well as in the use of labor in production. . . . Biological technology, in contrast, is generally embodied in divisible inputs such as improved seed and fertilizer and requires intensive on-the- spot supervisory management decisions. Its effect is to raise the relative efficiency of small family farms and promote a unimodal farm-size distribution" (Hayami and Ruttan 1985:332).
[9] "Although the Green Revolution is usually considered to be a package of changes, its different components interact with landholding patterns to produce different effects, some of them contradictory, on income inequality. The political context of farm-level decision making and resource allocation is a third area crucial to understanding the dynamics of technical change" (Ireson 1987:363).
[10] See Miliband 1969, Miliband 1977, Miliband 1982, and Cohen and Rogers 1983 for developed analysis of these points.
[11] See Michael Lipton's Why Poor People Stay Poor (1976) for extensive analysis of some of these mechanisms.
[12] These issues have been most actively discussed in the past few years in the context of the reform processes currently underway in Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. See Przeworski (1990), Kornai (1990), Cohen (1989), and Nove (1983).