The economics of inequality in an agrarian society: Land ownership, land tenure, population processes and the rate of rent in 1930's China

This research bridges historical economics, rural sociology, demography, anthropology and geography. Three models, linked by a quantified landownership distribution (LOD), explain major features of peasant societies with private ownership of land and partible inheritance. They are derived from 1930's data for China, especially J. L. Buck's survey of 16,786 farms (1937). Data from Bangladesh, India, and Russia supplement the analysis.;Part One explains how intergenerational transmission of land leads to a skewed LOD with limited variability. Moreover, accumulation of land by the wealthy is balanced by the dispersal of estates at inheritance due to over-reproduction by the wealthly: while marriage and reproduction for poor men are constrained by high male-to-female sex ratios, due to female infanticide and female child neglect. Downward social mobility for individuals predominates (cf. T. Shanin) but the LOD remains near equilibrium and constant relative to the average, with 30%-70% of population owning 65-75% of all land.;Part Two explains how the LOD leads to land tenure patterns varying with population density. Extending the proposal (A. V. Chayanov) that peasants avoid drudgery beyond subsistence (220 kg. grain-equivalent per capita), it is seen that if a landowner can obtain sufficient comfort (about 400 kg.) in profits on hired labor or in rents, then he will substitute others' labor for his own. But removal of agricultural surplus is inhibited by transport costs. The outcome: the extent (%) of land tilled by non-owner is proportional to the surplus per ha., cf. E. Boserup (1965). Also, tenants replace hired labor as population density increases. Implications for core-periphery differentiation in labor markets, occupational structures, and population processes (adolescent and adult sex ratios, age at marriage, fertility pattern) follow from land tenure variation.;Part Three solves the absolute rate of rent, based on the supply of rented land by large owners and the aggregate subsistence demand for rented land by the land-short. Though the framework is Marxist, it is found that rent does not equal surplus; at product per capita under 400 kg., rents exceed surplus, and above that the surplus of renters exceeds rents. Moreover, total extraction (rent x rented land) may leap from low to high states with increasing population density.