ABSTRACT
Peasants are the majority of mankind. For all but comparatively few countries, ‘the people denotes ‘the peasants’; the specific ‘national culture’ closely corresponds to peasant culture; ‘the army’ means young peasants in uniform, armed and officered by men different from themselves. The chapter aims to define the differencia specifica of the peasantry—the uniqueness by which the peasantry may be defined and selected. The peasantry consist of small producers on land who, with the help of simple equipment and the labour of their families, produce mainly for their own consumption, and for the fulfilment of their duties to the holders of political and economic power. By the advantages of capital concentration, rise in productivity, spread of education, political weight and population growth, the urban society rapidly overtakes the countryside, and becomes the main determinant of social and economic change. The peasants’ small producers’ world becomes, a mere segment of a world very differently structured.
