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Starvation and Social Class: AmartyaSen on Markets and Famines

MARK S. PEACOCKDepartment of Social Science, York University, Toronto, Canada

ABSTRACT In his recent work, Amartya Sen assesses markets positively because they

contribute to freedom. His work on famines, however, harbours a critical stance towardmarkets. In this paper, I compare Sens two views of markets and argue that hispositive assessment is untenable. Markets can undermine freedom and, to show this, Iexamine the effects of market-dependence in times of famine; I extend the purview ofSens analysis to include the manner in which subsistence producers who were oncerelatively autonomous from markets for their survival become dependent on markets. Inconclusion, I examine the normative aspects of Sens work on famines.

1. Introduction

This essay examines Amartya Sens writings on markets and famines. Sens com-ments on markets are diverse and hard to capture succinctly. His recent work hasan unmistakeably positive attitude to markets; in it, Sen (1999, p. 142) writes: it isvery hard indeed to see how any reasonable critic could be against the marketmechanism. Yet Sens work also contains different insights into markets. In hiswork on famines, a critical stance towards markets emerges which stands intension to his recent work.

In Section 2, I outline Sens positive assessment of markets and their contri-bution to freedom. Following that, I examine Sens work on famines (Section 3)and focus on market dependence and the effects of famine. Sen makes clear that

the effects of famine on a society are not uniform (e.g. universal death by star-vation) but selective. One must therefore ask not just: How many died?, butwho died, where, and why? (Sen, 1982, p. 120). Vulnerability to famine isrelated to ones degree of reliance on the market for acquiring consumptiongoods, most notably food. Being a wage-labourer in a famine region, for instance,can expose one to risks because, to meet consumption needs, wage-labourers relyon markets. Wage-labourers are therefore in a different position to landed peasantsor share-croppers who retain some or all of what they produce for their own

Review of Political Economy,Volume 22, Number 1, 5773, January 2010

Correspondence Address: Mark S. Peacock, Department of Social Science, Ross Building, YorkUniversity, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, (ON) M3J 1P3, Canada. Email: [email protected]


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freedom of exchange and transaction without let or hindrance (Sen, 1999, p. 26),which freedom he tentatively calls a right (Sen, 1999, pp. 25, 26); if this freedomis curtailed, it must be registered as a loss, he contends, even if the consequence ofsuch curtailment (in terms, for example, of a reduction of negative external

effects) are of net social benefit (Sen, 1999, pp. 2627).Freedom, for Sen, is an end in itself and should not only be valued for its con-

tribution to human well-being. Whereas many economists judge markets in terms ofthe efficiency of the outcomes they engender, Sen attends not just to culminationbut to comprehensive outcomes. Whereas the former take account only of theoutcome arrived at (irrespective how it comes about), comprehensive outcomestake into account the manner in which such outcomes transpire and not merely theend result (Sen, 1999, p. 27). If one is indifferent to comprehensive outcomes, onewill come to counterintuitive evaluations of markets; for instance, an efficient allo-cation brought about centrally by a knowledgeable and benevolent dictator would be

as highly valued (for its culmination outcome) as the same allocation brought aboutthrough the uncentralized choices of market participants. If we take comprehensiveoutcomes into account, however, what distinguishes the two allocations is thefreedom of individuals to exercise human agency in bringing about the latter allo-cation. And this exercise of freedom has a value in itself independent of its conse-quences (Sen, 1993, pp. 522 523). Freedom to transact in markets is alsoinstrumentally important in furthering the welfare of market participants and in pro-moting the process of development. For instance, unleashing market forces canpromote economic growth which not only raises private income but also providesfinances from which social services can be funded (Sen, 1999, p. 40). Furthermore,

womens freedom to participate in markets is not only of intrinsic import but isinstrumental to the process of development; female participation in labourmarkets, for instance, lowers fertility rates amongst women (Sen, 1999, p. 218).

Lest one think that Sen is uncritical of markets in his recent work, one mustnote his criticisms of the activities of interest groups that have the power to influ-ence policy, thereby furthering their own interests at the expense of others inter-ests (Sen, 1999, pp. 120126). Furthermore, he states that the operation of themarket economy can certainly be significantly defective under many circum-stances (Sen, 2006, p. 137). However, he does not present this as a critique ofthe market per se, but as an implication of the institutions (or lack thereof) inwhich markets are embedded. Sen obviously believes that institutions thatremedy the defects of markets are much needed: There are serious argumentsfor [market] regulation in some cases (Sen, 1999, p. 26).

Having outlined Sens generally positive assessment of markets, I turn, in thefollowing section, to a more detailed analysis of the role of markets and relianceupon them in situations of famine. In doing so, I rely on Sens Poverty andFaminesin which Sen assesses markets differently.

3. Famines: Vulnerability and Social Class

Sen stresses the selectivity of the effects of famine on people within one region, that

is, the fact that some parts of the population get wiped out, while the rest do just fine(Sen, 1999, p. 167). An important factor explaining whom a famine affects and how

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severely is social class. That is, the extent of ones reliance on the market in afamine situation can determine who gets wiped out and who does just fine.To comprehend this, we must examine Sens entitlement approach.

An individuals or familys entitlement to consumption goods, in particular

food, is mainly determined by two factors: (i) the endowment of the person orfamily concerned, and (ii) exchange relations (Sen, 1982, pp. 45 46). For aperson living in a region threatened by famine, the most significant parts of theendowment are that persons labour power and landholding. The endowmentcan be converted into consumption goods when its holder sells her labourpower in return for a wage (with which she buys goods) or when she works herown land to produce things for her own consumption. How much food oneobtains by converting ones endowment depends also on exchange conditionsor relative prices; an increase in the price of food or a decrease in the price ofones labour power reduces ones entitlement to foodone cannot buy as much

of it as one was once able to prior to the rise in food prices or the reduction ofthe wage rate. The state of technology also affects entitlements by influencingthe productivity of land and the wage-rate (Sen, 1999, pp. 162163); and govern-ment policy affects entitlements, e.g. via social security arrangements (guarantee-ing benefits to the poor or ensuring the maintenance of a minimum income) andvia the incidence and rate of taxation (Sen, 1982, p. 46).

The constitution of ones endowment depends largely on ones social class. Forinstance, for labourers on a commercial farm, a colonial plantation or in urban indus-try, the most significant part of the endowment is labour power, and ones entitle-ment to food is therefore indirect because one has to transform wages into food

on the market before one can feed oneself. For landed peasants, by contrast, land-holding will be a more significant part of the endowment; land endows peasantswith a direct entitlement to food, namely to the crops they grow and consumethemselves (Sen, 1982, p. 51). Their different positions in the class structureexpose peasants and labourers to different risks. Landed peasants can sufferdirect entitlement failure when they are unable to grow enough to sustain them-selves (Sen, 1982, p. 51); drought, flooding, blight, etc, are all risks to peasants whogrow much of what they consume. On the other hand, a wage-labourer without landand direct entitlement relies on selling a commodity (labour power) to obtainmoney with which to buy food. Unlike landholding peasants, wage-labourers arefree from (namely, divested of) direct ownership of the means of production(Marx, [1867] 1972, p. 742). They are therefore reliant on the market to determinethe extent of the indirect entitlement that their ownership and sale of labour powerconfers on them. Wage-labourers are consequently exposed to trade entitlementfailure (Sen, 1982, p. 51)changes in relative prices, e.g. between the nominalwage and the price of food, which leaves the corresponding entitlement to foodinadequate for survival. Drawing on Sens empirical work on famines, we canascertain which risks carry more severe consequences in famine situations.

3.1. The Evidence

Bengal (1943) and Bangladesh (1974). The Bengal famine of 1943 makes the pre-carious situation of wage-labourers clear. There was no general shortfall in food

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output or availability in Bengal in 1943; starvation occurred as a result of a largeincrease in the price of food relative to wages in some but not all sectors of theeconomy. Inflation had been fuelled by British spending on military and civilconstructions and wages in these sectors were buoyant (Sen, 1982, pp. 75, 77).

Agricultural wages relative to food prices, however, fell sharply, thus leading todestitution and starvation (Sen, 1982, pp. 6465). Because the famine was notcaused by general crop failure, those who had direct access to foodlandedpeasants and share-croppers (who were paid in-kind in proportion to what theyproduced)were the least affected because they could maintain their (direct)entitlement to food. Agricultural labourers, by contrast, were severely affectedbecause they bore the brunt of the change in exchange ratios between wages andfood. They were not, however, alone in suffering as there were other groupssome with different class positionswho were likewise severely affected. Smallbusiness owners (e.g. barbers and craftworkers), unlike agricultural workers, own

their means of production (capital). But given that such means of productionare not the means of securing a direct entitlement to food, small capitalists alsosuffered in the famine as a result of increasing food prices (Sen, 1982, p. 71).

A similar pattern characterizes the famine in Bangladesh in 1974. The faminewas not characterized by national decline in food output or availability in 1974;indeed, the worst hit areas in terms of starvation recorded an increase in rice pro-duction from 1973 to 1974 (Sen, 1982, pp. 137141). Rather, rice prices soaredafter flooding in June 1974, thus exposing to risk those who did not grow theirown rice. Once again, labourers were the worst hit group with agricultural wagesfalling by over 50% in famine areas and by 43% in Bangladesh as a whole

(Alamgir, 1980, pp. 181, 311). Labourers also accounted for nearly half of inmatesin relief camps in 1974. Although farmers made up nearly 40% of inmates, thenumber of farmers in relief camps, as a percentage of their number in the population,was much lower than the number of labourers as a percentage of their number in thepopulation. Hence, the relative frequency of destitution amongst labourers wasgreater than that amongst farmers (Sen, 1982, pp. 142143). The incidence ofdeath amongst wage-labourers (and their offspring) was also higher than amongstpeasants and their progeny (Sen, 1982, pp. 142, 144). And, amongst peasants,those with smaller landholdings suffered a higher rate of destitution than peasantswith larger holdings of land (Sen, 1982, pp. 144145; Alamgir, 1980, pp. 326327). Those with smaller plots presumably were unable to provide for themselvesand their family with food grown on their own land; hence they, like labourers,had to turn to the market and its increasingly unfavourable prices to acquire food.

Ethiopia (19724) and the Sahel (1973). The remaining two famines towhich Sen directs attention differ from those discussed above in that theyinvolve direct entitlement failure to a greater extent. In Wollo, the province ofEthiopia worst affected by the drought, crop production collapsed, althoughcrop failure was not a nation-wide phenomenon (Sen, 1982, pp. 9092). Peasantsin Wollo thus suffered a fall in their direct entitlement (Sen, 1982, pp. 96, 101).Unlike in famines caused by trade entitlement failure, in those caused by directentitlement failure, access to or ownership of the means of producing food

affords no protection. The consequence of direct entitlement failure for peasantswho leased rather than owned their land was severe, as many were evicted from



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their land, being unable to pay rents (Sen, 1982, p. 99). They therewith crossed aclass boundary, becoming detached from the means of producing food and joiningthe ranks of (unemployed) labourers. Labourers fared little better during the Wollofamine; it is noteworthy that even their non-direct food entitlement offered them

no buffer against destitution. Labourers and craftsmen of all kinds sufferedderived destitution (Sen, 1982, p. 103) as a result of the lack of effectivedemand for their products. The shrinkage was in part due to peasants inabilityto sell their surplus (they had no surplus due to crop failure) with which toacquire money and buy commodities they did not produce themselves. This ledto hardship amongst small business owners and employers who consequentlylaid off workers. Unemployment also increased as a result of landowning peasantsselling land in an attempt to raise money with which to buy food. Peasantlabourers who formerly worked on this land were dismissed. Furthermore,farm servants (Sen, 1982, p. 102), who worked on farms not for a money

wage but in return for food and shelter, were dismissed because the farmerswho employed them had little or no food with which to pay them in kind.

The Sahel famine was likewise a case of direct entitlement failure, whichaffected peasants access to food. Also harshly affected was the nomadic andsemi-nomadic population, which was dependent on markets for obtaining grain inexchange for animals (Sen, 1982, pp. 121122). A comparison of the conditionsof peasants with those of wage-labourers is not possible for the Sahel faminebecause of the limited opportunity for wage-labour in the desert. Nevertheless,the famine tells us something about the role of markets and the effects offamine, for Sen mentions two elements in the Sahel famine to which I attend in

the following section: (i) the necessity of paying taxes in money on the part ofpeasants and nomads; (ii) the use of increasing amounts of land for the productionof cash crops (Sen, 1982, pp. 122, 126). Before looking at these more closely, letus take stock.

The effects of the four famines that Sen studies indicate that in a faminecaused by trade entitlement failure, being a peasant with access to or ownershipof land provides a cushion that was unavailable to wage-labourers. Wage-labourers dependence on the market exposes them to risks from which peasantsare shielded. Indeed, landless agricultural labourers have often been the worst hitby famines in South Asia, and not only in the two 20th century famines Senexamines (Dreze & Sen, 1989, pp. 56; Ravallion, 1987, p. 116). In cases ofdirect entitlement failure, peasants access to or ownership of the means ofproducing food is not a bulwark against the effects of famine, although as thecase of Wollo shows, wage-labourers often fare little better than landed peasants.

4. Monetization, Commercialization and Vulnerability

4.1. From Peasants to Wage-Labourers: The Making of a Working Class

Consider two details that Sen mentions about famines:

(1) In the Sahel famine, people became increasingly vulnerable as they reliedmore heavily on cash crops (and hence on the market) for their livelihood:

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Compared with the farmer or pastoralist who lives on what he grows and isthus vulnerable only to variations of his own output . . ., the grower of cashcrops. . .is vulnerable both to output fluctuations and to shifts in marketabilityof commodities and in exchange rates (Sen, 1982, p. 126).

(2) Regarding the Bangladeshi famine, Sen notes a trend away from payment ofwages in kind (chiefly food) towards money payments (Sen, 1982, p. 150).Again, this increases the vulnerability of wage-labourers thus paid becausethey can no longer secure food directly from their employers (as wages inkind) but have to go through the market where they exchange their moneywage for food. How much food they acquire depends, inter alia, on termsof trade between money and food, and labourers are vulnerable to adversemovements therein.

I call these two developments, to which Sen refers, commercialization and

monetization. They are closely related. Sen (1982, pp. 127, 150) argues thatboth developments increase the vulnerability of peasants. In what follows, I inves-tigate the relation between commercialization and monetization, and the way theyinfluence vulnerability to famine. As an analytical tool, I conduct the analysis inthe context of a colonized territory going through the process of development.The rationale for doing so is threefold:

(a) Most of todays developing countries (including those whose famines Senexamines) underwent processes of monetization and commercializationunder colonial rule.

(b) Colonized regions underwent these processes particularly fast (compared withEuropean countries) and they therefore offer rich material to those interestedin the transformation of peasant life.2

(c) Commercialization and monetization in colonized societies shed light onsimilar processes that occurred in Europe from the 15th century on. Soalthough, historically, European peasants may rightly say de te fabulanarratur (Marx, [1867] 1972, p. 12) to their colonized counterparts of the19th and 20th centuries; analytically, Europeans can be told much of theirstory through the narrative of the colonized.

To understand monetization, we must ask where money comes from. Theanswer in the colonial context is: from the colonial power.3 A colonial statetries to exploit the labour and resources of its dependencies, but in trying toexploit its subjects work, it faces a problem: its colonial subjects often proveunwilling to become wage-labourers and work for a money wage on colonialplantations or in commercial agriculture. Indeed, labour shortages, due to a lackof interest on the part of colonized people to work for the colonial state, are

2Colonial transformation telescoped a process which had taken as much as three centuriesin England or France into a forced march of mere decades (Scott, 1976, p. 9).3Here I follow Wrays (1998, Chapter 3) analysis of the origin of money and Forstaters(2005) important paper on primitive accumulation.



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common. This has led to the colonial prejudice that natives are slothful; DavidLivingstones depiction of Zambezi laziness, ineptitude and moral decadence inthe late 19th century is illustrative (Vail & White, 1980, p. 53). That there arelabour shortages in colonies is well documented, but the explanation lies not in

a mysterious native insensibility to incentives nor in their moral turpitude butrather in peasant landholders preference to work for themselves on their ownland where they can control the labour process and take possession of theproduct, which gives them a direct entitlement to food (Cooper, 1980, pp. 30,37, 70). The problem of labour shortage is thus related to the structure of propertyrights: if the subject population has access to land, they are likely to work on thatland rather than for their colonial masters; a supply of wage-labourers to work,for instance, on colonial plantations might not be forthcoming if peasants haveaccess to land, the cultivation of which is sufficient for their subsistence needs.

To solve the labour shortage problem, colonial states have tried a number of

methods, some predictably, unsubtle:

(i) Making cash-crop cultivation compulsory for peasants;(ii) Banning traditional subsistence (non-market) activities, e.g. hunting;

(iii) Conscripting labour and forcing people to work on public works, mines, etc(Cooper, 1980, pp. 95, 100; Giblin, 1992, pp. 92, 128, 154155; Rodney,1982, pp. 165166; Watts, 1983, p. 174).

A different, and highly effective, way of transforming subsistence peasantsinto wage-labourers is to impose monetary taxes on them. To pay monetary

taxes, peasants in a hitherto non-monetary economy (or in lowly-monetizedsectors of a monetized economy) have to acquire the money with which to paythe tax. There are three sources of acquisition.

(1) From the colonial power which issues money. This is possible for peasantsemployed in public works, state-run plantations or the colonial bureaucracy,who offer their labour in exchange for a money wage paid by the colonialpower.

(2) From private individuals. This is feasible for peasants who hire themselves outas wage-labourers to other peasants with large landholdings, or ex-slaveowners who possess cash balances and seek to hire labourers in return for amoney wage.

(3) By selling produce to private individuals or to the colonial authority. Thisoption was open to landed peasants who produced a surplus.

If peasant landowners are subject to taxation, these three methods of acquir-ing money to pay taxes require that peasants enter either the world of wage-labour(sources (1) and (2)), or that they market their produce (source (3)) in order toacquire the money that they are then to yield to the taxing authority. Whicheversource they tap, peasants degree of self-sufficiency is restricted by the need toacquire money; in acquiring money to pay their taxes, peasants become increas-

ingly reliant on markets, and hence the imposition of monetary taxes stimulatesthe commercialization of society. The connection between monetary taxation

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and commerce was not lost on colonial administrators; Frederick Lugard, forinstance, who became high commissioner of the British Protectorate of NorthernNigeria in 1900, remarked that the native quickly appreciates the advantage ofsecuring sufficient cash to pay his tax, thus promoting the adoption of currency,

which facilitates trade (cited in Watts, 1983, p. 181). Commercializationcaused by monetary taxes increases peasants vulnerability to the effects offamine in various ways, as I explain in the following section.

4.2. Effects of Monetary Taxation on Peasants

Monetary taxation not only brings forth a supply of wage-labourers; its magnitudeand the rigour of its collection can plunge peasants into poverty and reduce theirsurvival chances in times of famine. That peasants have to go through the marketto raise the cash with which to pay their taxes means that those who have landhold-

ings have to market the food they grow. The timing of tax collection is important;collection after harvest means that a glut of grain comes onto the market after it isharvested as a result of myriad peasants trying to raise money to pay their taxes.The glut reduces the price and peasants often have to sell so much grain in order topay their taxes that they have to buy back grain later in the year when prices arehigher in order to meet their subsistence needs (Bose, 1990, p. 716; Cooper, 1980,pp. 234, 265; Giblin, 1992, pp. 90, 128, 156; Popkin, 1979, p. 148; Watts, 1983,p. 208). Taxes collected prior to harvest can, for different reasons, be detrimentalto peasants. A British memorandum from 1937 details the effects of collectingtaxes in the Nigerian cotton belt in November, prior to the harvest and sale of

cotton lint. Peasants could not sell cotton to raise cash to pay taxes. Insteadsome sold a subsistence staple (guineacorn), stocks of which had to be replenishedlater in the year; others sold unripe groundnuts (which were also not ready forharvesting and which therefore fetched low prices); others went into debt toretailers who paid peasants taxes as an advance, but many peasants found itdifficult to free themselves of their debt after harvest and often had to cedewhatever land they had to creditors (Watts, 1983, p. 264).

Monetary taxes also lead to a reallocation of productive resources, which canbe deleterious to peasants. If landed peasants grow cash-crops to raise cash to paytaxes, they must dedicate less land to the cultivation of crops for their ownconsumption. To make up for this, peasants can extend their area of cultivation,but this means cultivating subsistence crops on increasingly marginal land, thusincreasing the risk of crop failure (Davis, 2001, p. 307; Giblin, 1992, p. 128;Scott, 1976, p. 87; Watts, 1983, pp. 305). In the Sahel famine of the early1970s, herders destocked herds as they sold animals in an attempt to raisemoney to meet their tax obligations (Watts, 1983, p. 385).

The processes I describe have three effects on peasants:

(1) They remove peasants from subsistence farming and make them dependincreasingly on markets.

(2) Following from (1), these processes increase the vulnerability of peasants to

famine because, by requiring that peasants market produce to raise cash,they reduce peasants direct entitlement to food.



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(3) These processes also lead peasants into debt and the sale or loss of land. Thiseffectively expropriates peasants who become detached from the means ofsubsistence (land). Note that, through the instrument of monetary taxation,the colonial state can facilitate expropriation without forcibly confiscating

land (although this did happen). If tax collection is rigorously enforced, thestate can rely on peasants taking the necessary steps to raise cash, whichleads to their expropriation. Rigorous enforcement of tax collection, ofcourse, presupposes some form of sanctions for non-payers. These includeconfiscating land of non-payers (thus expropriating them from their land),confiscating grain or other possessions (thus reducing their direct entitlementto food), and randomly murdering non-taxpayers (Davis, 2001, p. 204) (thus,as it were, expropriating the land of its owners). If, however, enforcement isnot rigorous and tax evasion is easy, peasants do not have to produce cash-crops or engage in wage-labour. The alleged reluctance to work amongst

natives, as bemoaned by a Spiritan missionary in Tanganyika in the1920s, was, according to the missionary, to blame on the governmentslaxity in enforcing tax and labor obligations (Giblin, 1992, p. 143). If taxcollection was laxly enforced, peasants could continue to work on theirown land and not on colonial plantations or for private capitalists in returnfor a money wage, for the laxity of tax collection obviated their need toacquire money to pay their taxes. Consequently, colonial powers oftenenacted harsh punishments for tax evasion and enforced tax collectionrigorously (as I further explore in the following subsection).

These effects of taxation are not, however, the only connection betweentaxation and famine. Peasants are particularly endangered when the twotaxationand faminevisit them simultaneously.

4.3. Taxation during Famine

A repetitive refrain in studies of colonialism concerns both the magnitude of the taxburden on peasants and its rigidity. In 1934, for instance, the tax burden on peasantsof Hausaland (northern Nigeria) was about 40% of total peasant income (Watts,1983, p. 317). Not only were taxes high, they were collected without respiteduring times of hardship. Part of the problem lay in bureaucratic inefficiency,which led to tax impositions bearing little relation to taxable capacity (Watts,1983, pp. 258263). When terms of trade turn against cash-crops, peasants mustsell more grain to meet their unchanging tax obligation, unless the colonial powergrants remissions. Remissions were often given in pre-colonial, village systemsin times of crop failure, epidemic disease or other hardship (Watts, 1983, p. 369).Colonial tax systems, however, were bound by a different logic. Taxes remainedunchanged or could even increase when cash-crop prices fell. In the Hausavillage of Maska, for instance, cotton prices fell by 70% in 1921 whilst directtaxes increased by 10%. Consequently, peasants had to produce and market moreof the cotton cash-crop if they were to meet their tax obligation. Increasing the

supply of a commodity whilst its price falls might seem to be perverse economiclogic, but if cotton is the main cash-crop, the cultivation and sale of which is the

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sole way of acquiring cash, an unchanged monetary tax burden necessitates anextension of supply when prices fall (Watts, 1983, pp. 301, 306).

Worse still was the rigidity of taxes in times, not of falling prices, but offamine. In the Egyptian famine of 1878, taxes were collected by the British in

full, just as they were 20 years later in the Indian Central Provinces from whichgrain was exported and tax remissions refused (Davis, 2001, pp. 104, 153). Like-wise, in German-controlled Tanzania from 18981900, the effects of famine wereworsened by peasants need to sell food to pay taxes; under British control, thesame territory suffered similarly when, in 1925, famine coincided with more rig-orous tax collection, thus requiring peasants to sell grain reserves and livestock(Giblin, 1992, pp. 125, 155). Such pressures increased the need for peasants toturn to the market. Under such conditions, smallholders sold land or had theirland foreclosed and came thereby to rely on wage-labour to survive. Unrelentingtax collection might have spelt ruin or starvation for many, but it seemed to be

prudent fiscal policy colonial administrators who were interested in increasingyields and transforming the peasant economy; this is shown by the British gover-nor of Zungeru (Nigeria) who suggested during the famine of 1905 that theexperience of hunger will stimulate the people to cultivate larger areas (citedin Watts, 1983, p. 276). That larger areas might include marginal land scarcelyable to grow crops (which had failed to grow adequately on less marginal landalready cultivated) might not have occurred to the governor; the result was, ofcourse, the starvation of those who might have been saved if tax remissions hadbeen granted.

To conclude this section, if taxation and the concomitant market dependence

of peasants were not enough to cause them to become wage-labourers, taxation intimes of famine and worsening terms of trade for agricultural products are oftensufficient, at least for those who did not starve to death. Cash-crop cultivationbecomes a necessity for landowning peasants, wage-labour for those who losttheir land. Relatively well-off peasants might be able to prevent their proletaria-nization, yet even such peasants, as evinced by Hausa peasants in the 1930s,struggled to pay taxes by selling cash-crops, and hence they became overwhel-mingly dependent on off-farm revenue to fulfil other cash demands (Watts,1983, p. 317). It is thus, from the ranks of the peasantry, that wage-labourersare recruited; they have little or no direct food entitlement, are therefore dependenton markets, and are highly vulnerable to price movements and the effects offamine. This is the pre-history of Sens analysis of famine.

5. Peasant Transformation: Moral or Political Economy?

In peasant studies, there are two competing approaches to the transformation ofpeasant life. One goes under the name moral economy, the other politicaleconomy. I do not compare all aspects of these approaches here but instead con-sider each in the context of taxation and its effects on peasants via monetizationand commercialization. Which approach one adheres to has implications for the

degree of agency that one ascribes to peasants, and this is relevant to the questionof whether markets may be said to promote freedom.



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The moral economy approach was canonized by Scott (1976) and sees pea-sants as risk-averse: peasants are solicitous to acquire a minimum subsistencefrom which they can survive, and they are less concerned about enriching them-selves if striving to do so reduces the chance of attaining this minimum; peasants,

that is, have a safety-first attitude to economic activity (Scott, 1976, pp. 45,1519). Consequently, peasants prefer a low but secure return on their activitiesto a higher average return involving higher risks. Markets, in the moral economyapproach, are conceived as risky institutions, partly for reasons outlined by Sen. Ifone compares a subsistence farmer who owns a plot of land with a peasant whomarkets much of his crop to meet his needs, the formers direct consumptionof food crops insulates her from price fluctuations. If the crop suffices forsubsistence, the peasants claim to it, and hence to the means of life, is secure.For a peasant who goes through the market, however, there is no such security(Scott, 1976, pp. 36, 58).4 Consequently, peasants are wary of market activity;

they try to establish institutions that better safeguard their survival thanmarkets. Examples of such village institutions are: (i) access to common landon which peasants have grazing and gleaning rights; (ii) work-sharing schemes;(iii) fringe benefits from landlords to tenants, e.g. payment of medical expenses,granting of pre-threshing rice allowances and credit; (iv) remission of village taxesin cases of hardship; (v) flexible rents and taxes which vary with the size of theharvest (Scott, 1976, pp. 3, 41, 50). Such institutions, if established and enforced,help to ensure peasants a minimum level of subsistence even when their directentitlement to food does not suffice to guarantee survival.

In the moral economy approach, the colonial state is held to undermine such

institutions and expose peasants to greater risks. In the Sahel, for instance,peasants sold food to earn money and this undermined the custom of storingfood communally as insurance against poor harvests (Barry et al., 1977, p. 87).Indeed, beyond petty trading of craft goods and surplus crops, peasants onlybecome dependent on markets, according to the moral economy approach, ifthey have no alternative, i.e. when they are forced into market exchange toraise cash to pay taxes.

The view that peasants are forced into market exchange is characteristic ofthe moral economy approach. Scott (1976, pp. 64, 110, 142) writes of forcemany times, and he writes that the imposition of monetary taxes drove peasantsinto cash crops or into the labor market (Scott, 1976, p. 97). Many sources I havecited above likewise write of force or a semantic equivalent in this context.Cooper (1980, p. 234) writes of Kenyan peasants under British rule in the1920s that taxation forced them to sell grain too quickly to get a good priceand in too great quantities to avoid having to buy back grain later. Giblin(1992, p. 91) writes of the villagers in Mpwapwa (Tanzania) that they wereforced to leave their villages to pay taxes levied by the German colonialregime in 1902. Also writing of German-controlled Tanzania, this time duringthe murderous drought of 18981900, Davis (2001, p. 204) writes that the

4Although they differ terminologically, Scotts and Sens analyses are similar, with Scottsdirect food consumption being equivalent to Sens direct entitlement to food.

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introduction of monetary taxes in 1898 was designed to hammer autonomous pea-sants into malleable wage-labourers on German plantations. Watts (1983, p. 297)writes of smallholders in Hausaland during the First World War that they hadlittle choice but to plunge headlong into commodity production and that the dou-

bling of taxes in 1917 projected peasants inexorably into the complex circuits ofcolonial capital. These passages attribute peasants little agency or choice butsee them rather as victims of colonial policy who have no option but to turn to themarket to pay taxes. Dreze & Sen (1989, p. 173) avail themselves of this termino-logy as well; they write of coercion and force moving peasants into cash-cropcultivation. This picture of peasants as victims of colonial policy who are left noalternative but to become ever more dependent on markets is challenged by thepolitical economy approach.

The political economy approach was canonized by Popkin who appliestheories of individual decision making, as taken from modern economic

theory, to peasants (Popkin, 1979, p. 18). He argues that peasants are not as riskaverse and not as easily satisfied fulfilling their static, traditional needs as themoral economy approach holds (Popkin, 1979, p. 21). Neither, according to thepolitical economy approach, are peasants inherently averse to markets; they canturn to markets, not as a last-gasp response to declining situations but [as] aresponse to new opportunities (Popkin, 1979, p. 33), that is, because they seemarkets as means of enriching themselves; the expansion of markets, Popkin(1979, p. 35, cf. pp. 9, 801) boldly states, invariably benefits landless labourers(but not only the landless) whose labour mobility in markets allows them to escapethe bonds of fealty to, and their exploitation by, landlords.5

The cleft between the political and the moral economy approaches is,however, shallower than Popkin believes. For instance, although he holds peasantsto be risk-friendlier than the moral economy approach holds, Popkin portrays pea-sants preferences as lexically ordered, i.e. peasants are willing to innovate andgamble in order measurably to enhance their position, but only when theirinitial position is secure and hence not threatened by risk taking (Popkin, 1979,p. 21). This is compatible with the moral economy approach, which stresses pea-sants risk-aversion. Furthermore, when it comes to applying his approach to con-crete cases of commercialization and monetization, one would expect the politicaleconomy approach to accentuate the element of choice and initiative manifestedby peasants in contrast to the lack of choice and force that the moral economyapproach emphasises. In light of this expectation, Popkins discussion of monetarytaxation is noteworthy. He analyzes the causal connection between taxation andcommercialization (much as I have analyzed it above); but his depiction ofthese processes is far closer to that which one would expect from a proponentof the moral economy approach (MEA). He writes of desperate peasants inVietnam seeking to acquire cash to pay taxes; monetary taxes fell heavily onthe subsistence-level peasants, who lacked cash reserves (Popkin, 1979, p. 148;emphasis added), and [i]n addition to the uncertainties of production they had

5Sen (1999, p. 30) likewise sees markets as a way of escaping relations of bondage andtherefore as a way of enhancing freedom, a point which critics of markets should heed.



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always faceddrought, flood, locuststhe peasants were now forcedto bear theadded uncertainties of local markets and international demand for rice (Popkin,1979, p. 149, emphases added).6

This analysis could have come from the pen of a proponent of the moral

economy approach, as could other parts of Popkins work (e.g. 1979, p. 97).Popkins remarks do not bespeak peasants willingness to take risk but ratherstress the greater risks of market involvement that peasants would rather avoid.Neither do the peasants Popkin depicts enter commerce of their own initiativeand from a motive of self-enrichment as one would expect from a proponent ofthe political economy approach. Hence, Popkins analysis of monetary taxationdoes not cohere with his theoretical approach. Consequently, he poses no challengeto the depiction of peasants being forced into market dependence (be it in the formof cash-crop cultivation or wage-labour) as a result of the imposition of monetarytaxes on them. The issue of force and peasants agency in the transformation of their

livelihoods is important to Sens claims about freedom, to which I now return.If peasants dependence on markets makes them more vulnerable to the

effects of famine, one cannot argue that markets promote freedom. A sympatheticcritic of Sen would have to conclude that his favourable assessment of markets bevalid at best for societies in which there are secure and developed social securitysystems that prevent those with a low entitlement to food from starving. However,in the intermediate stages of development (Dreze & Sen, 1989, p. 6), when theclass of landless wage-labourers is large but social security systems are weak,dependence on markets might not enhance freedom.

Furthermore, if one assesses markets with respect to their contribution to

freedom, one must ask not just whether peoples de facto market participationfurthers their freedom; one must also ask how people have come to depend onthe market to earn their livelihood and whether this dependence was voluntarilyentered into; that is, have they freely entered into the market relations in whichthey stand? Some market involvement of peasantse.g. trading of surpluses,which complements subsistence farming, is plausibly conceived as freely under-taken. But market participation in the form of near full-time wage-labour orcash-crop cultivation (that is, dependence on the market to meet ones needs) isnot plausibly conceived as freely undertaken, for the element of force in bringingpeasants into markets precludes the judgement that they enter into these activitiesvoluntarily. Often markets are a last resort to which peasants are compelled. Thepre-history of famines, which I have detailed above, should lead a scholar likeSen to criticize markets for two reasons:

(1) Recall that when judging social states of affairs, Sen (1999, p. 17) urges us toconsider comprehensive outcomes (see Section 2 above). If one does so andexamines the processes through which peasants come to depend on markets,one sees that the process is one that divests peasants of freedom and forces

6Elsewhere, Popkin (1979, p. 151) writes that peasants were often forced to work outside

their village when communal land in or around the village was sold and the peasants effec-tively expropriated of the use of communal land.

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them to participate in commerce. This must weigh negatively against marketswhen judged by their contribution to freedom, irrespective of the (culmina-tion) outcome of peasants dependence on markets.

(2) When analyzing social change, Sen advocates democratic change and adopts a

deliberative conception of democracy (Sen, 1999, pp. 153, 224, 226; Crocker,2006). The peasant transformations I have described above cannot bedescribed as democratic. The legitimacy of non-democratic social changemust be questioned from Sens perspective, for only if a transition is demo-cratic can it be consideredcomprehensivelyto be legitimate. Conse-quently, one would expect Sen to temper his positive assessment of markets.

6. Conclusion: The Normative Content of Sens Entitlement

Approach

One might think that Sens work on famines is devoid of normative content, for hecharacterizes the entitlement approach as a general framework for analysingfamines (Sen, 1982, p. 162). As such, it has minimal substantive content. The sub-stantive content is filled by Sens empirical study of famines (cf. Devereux, 2007,p. 68). Hence,quageneral framework and empirical study, Sens work on faminesseems to be an exercise in positive analysis. This appearance, however, beliesnormative aspects of Sens work.

Consider the term entitlement. Sen conceives entitlement in a legal sense:the focus on entitlement has the effect of emphasising legal rights (Sen, 1982,

pp. 165166); alternatively, entitlement relations concentrate on rights withinthe given legal structure (Sen, 1982, p. 49). Sen makes the point that chronicmalnutrition and death by starvation can occur without any transgression ofentitlements in a market economy (Sen, 1999, p. 66). That is, mass starvation iscompatible with the observance of everybodys legal rights: Starvation deathscan reflect legality with a vengeance (Sen, 1982, p. 166). At first sight, thisappears to be nothing more than a factual (i.e. positive) statement about the func-tioning of market economies. Yet it is, I argue, a case of entanglement of factand value to which Putnam (2003) and Walsh (2003) have recently drawn attentionin the pages of this Review. What makes the legality of mass starvation anentangled fact rather than a (mere) positive one, can be traced out as follows:

(a) The normal functioning of market economies, whereby nobodys legal rightsare violated, can lead to situations of mass starvation and death.

(b) Avoiding malnutrition and premature death due to starvation are humanneeds.

(c) The legally valid functioning of markets is not always responsive to humanneeds.

In any economic system, if human needs are neglected (whether this neglecttakes the form of mass starvation or something else) without anyone being subject

to legal censure or being legally obliged to alleviate the suffering of those affected,we cannot divorce this finding from the thought that the economic system in



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question be morally wanting. A particularly stark example of the indifference tohuman needs in market economies is given by Sen, namely that, during famine,food is often exported from regions worse hit by famine to other regions that donot suffer food shortage; although those in famine regions may be said to be in

the greatest need, food, like all commodities in markets, goes to those with theability to pay, and people outside the famine region are likely to be able to exercisethis ability better than those within it. Such food countermovements were appar-ent in the Irish famine of the 1840s and the Ethiopian famine of the 1970s (Sen,1982, p. 94; 1999, pp. 167, 171172; Scott, 1975, p. 87; Giblin, 1992, p. 126).These alleged positive facts about markets can hardly leave even the mostdispassionate reader untouched by the feeling that this indifference to humanneed reveals a defect in markets which ought to be remedied. This is becausethese alleged facts are entangled with values from which it is difficult to detachourselves.

The normative force of Sens approach here stems from two senses of theterm entitlement. As I have stated above, Sen associates entitlements with de

facto legal rights in an economic system. But even if the system of entitlementrelations is legally valid, it is not beyond normative censure for the reason thatlegal validity is not coterminous with moral validity. The legality of starvationand death implies nothing about their morality; simply because an economicsystem confers no legal entitlement to food on those who are starving does notimply that the starving and malnourished have no moral right to survive.

References

Alamgir, M. (1980)Famine in South Asia: Political Economy of Mass Starvation (Cambridge, MA:Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain).

Barry, L., Campbell, D. & Emker, I. (1977) Trends in man-land interaction in the West AfricanSahel, in: D. Dalby, R. Harrison Church & F. Bezzaz (Eds), Drought in Africa 2, pp. 8391(London: International African Institute).

Bose, S. (1990) Starvation amidst plenty: the making of famine in Bengal, Honin and Tonkin,194245,Modern Asian Studies, 24(4), pp. 699727.

Cooper, F. (1980) From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar andCoastal Kenya, 18901925 (New Haven: Yale University Press).

Crocker, D. (2006) Sen and deliberative democracy, in: A. Kaufman (Ed.), Capabilities Equality,pp. 155197 (London: Routledge).

Davis, M. (2001) Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World(London: Verso).Devereux, S. (2007) Sens entitlement approach: critiques and counter-critiques, in: S. Devereux

(Ed.),The New Famines, pp. 6689 (London: Routledge).Dreze, J. & Sen, A. (1989) Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon).Forstater, M. (2005) Taxation and primitive accumulation: the case of colonial Africa,Research in

Political Economy, 22, pp. 5164.Giblin, J. (1992) The Political Economy of Environmental Control in Northwestern Tanzania,

18401940 (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press).Harvey, D. (2005)The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Marx, K. ([1867] 1972)Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Okonomie, Vol. 1 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag).Popkin, S. (1979) The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam

(Berkeley: University of California Press).Putnam, H. (2003) For ethics and economics without dichotomies, Review of Political Economy,

15(3), pp. 395412.

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Ravallion, M. (1987) Markets and Famines (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Rodney, W. (1982) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington, DC: Howard University

Press).Scott, J. (1976) The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia

(New Haven: Yale University Press).

Sen, A. (1982) Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press).

Sen, A. (1993) Markets and freedoms: achievements and limitations of the market in promotingindividual freedoms, Oxford Economic Papers, 45, pp. 519541.

Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Sen, A. (2006) Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (New York: W.W. Norton).Vail, L. & White, L. (1980) Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique: A Study of Quelimane

District(London: Heinemann).Walsh, V. (2003) Sen after Putnam, Review of Political Economy, 15(3), pp. 315394.Watts, M. (1983) Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (Berkeley:

University of California Press).Wood, E. (1999) The Origins of Capitalism(New York: Monthly Review Press).

Wray, L.R. (1998)Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).



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