ABSTRACT
Dr. Georgescu-Roegen's discussion of the institutional aspects of peasant economies is pitched at the level of the village. This chapter analyzes the history and institutions of peasant economies more fruitfully with other terms that bring out the varying patterns of rights in land and rights to the fruits of the land. There are many aspects of agrarian institutions and agrarian evolution whose study in recent generations has been more rewarding than that of "group property" and "private property" in village communities. The village has the central place in Dr. Georgescu-Roegen's thought, and he attributes special values to it. To him the village is a single, indivisible whole, characterized by harmony and equality of opportunity. For a century from the 1840's onward in Russia there were intellectuals sympathetic to the peasantry to whom Dr. Georgescu-Roegen refers as Populists or Narodniks. He terms economists associated with them the Agrarians, and he calls their doctrine Agrarianism, or the Agrarian doctrine or ideology.
