Private farmers in the USSR were not slaving for others; they were slaving for themselves. They would grow produce on their plot and take it to the city and sell it on the street, for a profit. Eg Georgians would fly to Moscow with suitcases full of fruit and come back with suitcases full of cash.
--- On Fri, 2/27/09, Peter Ward <nevadabob at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> From: Peter Ward <nevadabob at hotmail.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The SMB in a socialist economy?
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Friday, February 27, 2009, 7:48 PM
> Presumably desire for survival would suffice to motivate
> farmers (assuming farming is a terrible occupation that must
> be taken under duress and not in some ways inherently
> rewarding). I think the problem re: the Soviet examples is
> that the farmers whether on collectives or not were slaving
> for others. Obviously in that situation one would work
> better the better one was remunerated.
>
> Its interesting that capitalist/US farms never get
> mentioned--Chiquita use death squads to keep their Colombian
> farmers motivated, as was reported extensively on
> DemocracyNow! two years ago. Presumably this is the most
> efficient method of all?
>