ABSTRACT
This chapter examines critically the value of existing work which has pursued the political economy perspective. The adoption of a political economy perspective to the study of urban and industrial change has undoubtedly been a critical development in the social sciences during the past 15 years. In the study of capitalist agriculture, however, the perspective has been much less well articulated and even by the early 1980s the future direction for marxian political economy of rural space seemed unclear. In a general sense, owner-occupation and family continuity are two such criteria in modern British agriculture. Adopting a modified weberian framework, detailed analyses of the market, work and status situation of the farmer and farm worker led to an examination of modern capitalist agriculture within the context of wider social and economic relations. Empirical evidence focusing on the point of agricultural production suggests the growing significance of family-based production, or the reverse to what is happening elsewhere in the food chain.
