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DIE LANDWIRTSCHAFT AUF DEM WEG IN DIE INDUSTRIEGESELLSCHAFT 1
Author(s) -
HARSCHE EDGAR
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
sociologia ruralis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-9523
pISSN - 0038-0199
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9523.1966.tb00529.x
Subject(s) - agriculture , rationalisation , population , productivity , industrial society , industrial policy , business , economy , agricultural economics , political science , economics , economic growth , geography , market economy , sociology , geometry , demography , mathematics , archaeology
Summary Agriculture on the March in an Industrial Society The right way to integrate agriculture in the European industrial system is a problem. Modern techniques enable the farmers in industrial countries to provide more nutrition for the industrial population than is needed. The process of rationalisation is accompanied by strong concentration, both regional and structural. Agricultural productivity is increasing much faster near the big cities and the industrial centres than in the remote marginal zones. Already in the zones of industrial concentration in Western Europe, farms with an industrial character predominate. On the other hand the family farm is still typical of the underdeveloped marginal zones with a weaker economy. As a societas naturalis' the family is beyond human discussion. Man, however, is responsible for the concrete historical realisation of its existence. The smallholding is the form of family existence that is adjusted to the bourgeois‐artisan world of early modern times, prior to the enormous development of industry. In a fully industrialised society, however, it has no chance of surviving. The high financial needs of the industrially organised enterprise with more than one worker requires, also in agriculture, financial structures and entrepreneurial forms corresponding to those of modern industrial society. The number of capital‐owners among agriculturists is increasing. Private ownership of a traditional farm by one family will disappear. An agricultural policy that fixes the inherited structures and privileges of the past does not recognize the dynamic character of the ‘justitia socialis’.