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the transformation of agrarian patron‐client relations: illustrations from India
Author(s) -
MICHIE BARRY H.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1981.8.1.02a00020
Subject(s) - demise , polity , agrarian society , politics , state (computer science) , power (physics) , economy , political economy , economic system , economics , political science , sociology , market economy , law , history , agriculture , computer science , physics , archaeology , algorithm , quantum mechanics
A multipurpose patron‐client system vertically integrates people of disparate status, wealth, and power within an autonomous local polity and subsistence economy. It is well documented that the demise of this system is associated with the penetration of national and state institutions such as competitive politics and a commercial economy. The problem remains, however, of explaining why a multipurpose patron‐client system is incompatible with these new circumstances. The necessity of the demise of such a form and its replacement with some other form are explained in this paper in terms of the changing properties and attendant shifts in substantive logic, rationale, and imperatives of the politicoeconomic system on which the patron‐client system is based.