The Classical Agrarian Question: Myth, Reality and Relevance Today

This article traces a particular view of the classical agrarian question in Marxian political economy which has sustained the myth of industrialization as the basic objective of transformation. The idea was born in the late nineteenth century among the European vanguard, then consolidated as an axiom during the Cold War, only to be resurrected in the neoliberal period by a professionalized discipline of ‘agrarian studies’. This article argues that such a view fails to acknowledge the historic importance of the national question and its land and peasant components, which are irreducible to industrialization. The article restores national sovereignty to its proper place in the classical agrarian question and argues that it remains the cornerstone of all other dimensions of the agrarian question, including gender equity and ecological sustainability.