Agriculture, work and products: The effects of the market on the economics of an agricultural settlement

Szabó, Árpád Töhötöm (2013) Agriculture, work and products: The effects of the market on the economics of an agricultural settlement. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 58 (1). pp. 163-176. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

In this article I discuss the role of the market on the different branches of the agriculture in a Transylvanian village analysing the complex forms of the market and market behaviour that exist in a peculiar rural settlement. The village once had a sort of regional centre role where families who earned a living from non-agricultural activities lived in high number but this role had faded with socialist modernisation, thus nowadays the main sector is the agriculture. Regarding the links between agricultural production and the market the article delimitates three behavioural patterns, namely self-sufficiency, partial market integration and dominant market integration (differentiating the locations where farmers place their products, too), arguing that in fact these patterns may be found many times in the same households and there are no clear forms of market behaviour. In concordance I argue also that self-sufficiency is not more than a scientific tool used in the description of traditional economies but it does not really exist, and self-sufficiency and market are not opposed, but on the contrary, they complement each other. Consequently the article tries to demonstrate that the peasant farming depends in many ways — both in its consumption and production — on the market and that the market effects in fact mean inequalities.

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