CHAYANOV--D.WILSON

Can "non-capitalist" economic systems co-exist with Gregory's claim that householding was just a phase of history?

Yes and no.

"We shall be unable to carry on in economic thought with merely capitalist categories, because a very wide area of economic life (that is, the largest part of the agrarian production sphere) is based, not on a capitalist form, but on the completely different form of a nonwage family economic unit" (1)

Defining categories:

Categories for capitalism: price, capital, wages, interest, rent, all interdependent (4)

Categories for the quitrent serf system, ex.: commodity prices, interest on borrowed capital, indivisible labour product of the family, serf quitrent/serf rent (see below) (19)

• Quitrent:
  

1. Combination of family-farm and slave farm
2. Serf is different than slave
3. No wages because no hired help
   
4. "Definite" amount of produce from labour given to owner, called "quitrent"
5. Amount determined by equilibrium influenced by "non-economic" forces
6. Equilibrium is between product generated by labour and demand met by labour (am still trying to determine how this equilibrium is realised!)
   
7. Is quitrent rent or tax on serfs by owner? A new form of tribute?

"Today [1923?], our world gradually ceases to be only a European world. As Asia and Africa enter our lives and culture more and more often with their special economic formations, we are compelled to turn our interest again and again toward the problems of a noncapitalist economic system" (28).

Is this form of understanding economic exchange relevant? What is the reach of market economic? I find it very difficult to think of a current system that does not involve the categories listed for capitalism, but also admit to having little knowledge of many economic systems in the world (28). Chayanov shows a great amount of foresight in predicting the rise of Asia, but I don't think he could have predicted how Asian economies would evolve. The powers that come to mind are China, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan (perhaps Saudi Arabia or Dubai? It feels strange to leave out the Middle East). Each has been influenced immensely by Western practices or values, and are involved in global markets, which are driven by prices if that's accurate to say. It seems that yes, this form of economic organisation was a phase of the past, but we can still use it to understand areas that have not been touched by capitalism. Problem is that there aren't many places like that, what with technology and the ability of information to spread quickly.