ABSTRACT
Peasant communities constitute a social category distinct from the urban, bourgeois societies upon which both orthodox and Marxist theories were molded. Consequently, in order to understand the problems that beset the peasant class in many parts of the world and to increase our chances of improving the lot of the vast masses of the unfortunate, it is absolutely necessary to arrive at some understanding of the peculiar institutions by which most peasant communities still live. The historical side of peasant institutions with particular emphasis on Europe has been covered elsewhere. The chapter focuses upon peasant institutions at the community or village level, examined with a substantial amount of pure economic analysis so that these "strange" institutions may become more intelligible to students formed at the school of traditional economic theory. Students of peasant communities repeatedly emphasize the relationship between the peasant and the land.
