ABSTRACT
Vulnerability to centralized State control appears deeply woven into the structure of collectives and into the principles and practice of their operation. Since 1967, significant reforms have been made to extricate collectives from precisely this vulnerability, and their autonomy and independent self-management have been central aims of pos-1967 agricultural policies in Hungary. In practice, the dependence or independence of collectives appears to have two distinct yet interrelated aspects: one considering the collective as a corporation and the other, contained in it, the collective's membership. Collectives as corporations see their economic autonomy limited mainly because agricultural prices still remain set too low in relation to production costs. The mergers were claimed to be justified by the potential advantages of larger enterprises and the strengthening of weaker collectives. The collective determines how the agricultural land of the village is put to use, not only the land under collective farming but also the plots farmed individually.
