[lbo-talk] Marx's Method, Relevance for his Value Theory

Julio Huato juliohuato at gmail.com
Mon Jul 19 07:19:49 PDT 2010


It seems to me that social formations in which simple commodity production was a strong component while wage labor was fairly limited can be found in various settings. In any case, it is an issue for historians and economic geographers to resolve.

When and where I was born, in the Tierra Caliente de Guerrero (Mexico) in 1960, the economy of the region, largely self-sufficient, was *dominated* by small agricultural and handcraft producers. At the time, the connection between the region's small farms and handcraft shops *and* the urban centers was confined to seasonal cattle and produce sales one way and the purchase of processed food staples, raw materials and implements for the shops and farms the other way. Markets, which convened in the larger towns during the weekends, were very active, especially during the rain (and festive) season. Silver coins were already being pushed out of circulation by fiat money. During the week, there was a fair amount of bartering (and informal gift exchanges), particularly between families tied by blood parentage. The large haciendas with rural proletarian workers (peones) had been largely dismantled by the late-1930s land reform under Lázaro Cárdenas. I believe these conditions prevailed in that part (the more isolated) of the Tierra Caliente at least until the early 1970s. The erosion of these conditions began in earnest with the construction of the Presa del Infiernillo in the early 1960s, a dam to provide power to Mexico City, that the ex president Cárdenas himself managed as head of the Comisión del Balsas (the river dividing Guerrero from Michoacán) under president López Mateos. Many towns, especially on the Michoacán side, were flooded and rebuilt by the Comisión Federal de Electricidad on hills. Various roads that connected the region to Apatzingán, Uruapan, La Huacana, Ario de Rosales, Morelia, the Lázaro Cárdenas port were paved or built back then. (My maternal grandmother, still alive, says that I was 2 when I first heard a truck, a 2nd hand Fargo that my uncle brought to the family farm. I was having lunch and when I heard the noise of the engine, I ran and hid under a bed.) The construction of the steel mill at the Lázaro Cárdenas port in the mid 1970s (and the drug trade since the 1980s) finally swallowed the region into the broader economic context. But back in the 1960s and early 1970s, I believe that the prices inside the regional economy, between small producers, must have been regulated by something closer to the law of equivalent exchange than to the law of production prices. I am sure that I wasn't born in a place and time that was particularly special in human history and geography. So I'm sure many other similar instances can be found here and there.

Off the top of my head, I can also mention the case of the small farm economy of Haiti after the land reform. More on that here (with subscription, which I don't have):

http://harpers.org/archive/2010/04/0082881



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