ABSTRACT
The Javanese peasant, while a member of the lowest income group of the farmers in Java, is not so by "necessity." The Javanese peasant economy, nonpriced, marketless, and consumption-oriented, has come about mainly because of a deficiency in communication between peasants' production and the market. The deficiency, if not the absence, of this communication can be attributed to three different factors. Being cut off from the market by the middleman, the peasant has little occasion to react to or profit from price fluctuations. It is a well-known complaint of the civil administration, in newly opened farming areas in Sumatra or elsewhere, that Javanese peasants who have been moved from Java to those areas where they can get land free always remain poor, whereas the collecting merchants become wealthy in a relatively short time. A factor that may open new vistas of economic development in Java's rural areas is the changing attitudes toward life in general among the younger generation.
