ABSTRACT
What are the conditions which encourage or compel subsistence farmers to undertake cash cropping? And what are the consequences for their subsistence security? There are two main schools of thought on these questions: one maintains that new markets and technologies have, on balance, brought more benefits to village cultivators; and the other maintains that such changes have done far more harm than good. Western market economists form the core of adherents to the former school, while dependency and world-system theorists are among those committed to the latter. Market economists tend to assume that villagers are independent decision-makers, seizing on new entrepreneurial activities as opportunities arise, while dependency and world-system theorists tend to assume that villagers are coerced into new productive activities by powerful landlords, merchants, industrialists, or state officials (see, e.g., Wallerstein 1974, 1980).
