Marx and Chayanov at the margins: understanding agrarian change in Java

Starting from the notes which Marx made on Java in 1853 and 1881, this contribution explores the history of research and debates on the survival, reproduction and differentiation of Java's peasant communities. Rural differentiation and concentration of landholdings are long-standing, established facts; however this has produced not a capitalist large-farmer class but growing numbers of share tenants, as the landowning masters of the contemporary countryside' parcel out their land in minuscule plots to share tenants. Understanding the continuing existence of this highly productive and pluriactive mass of micro-farmers requires concepts derived from both the Marxist and the Chayanovian traditions.