ABSTRACT
Professor Rogers synthesizes what is presently known about the motivations, values, and attitudes of subsistence farmers by outlines a subculture of peasantry and providing some evidence for the central elements of this subculture. The identification of a peasant subculture, presupposes that one knows the broader culture of which it is a part and one is able to isolate special aspects not shared by most members of a society. The nature of Rogers' ten central elements in the subculture of peasantry makes it extremely difficult to identify the concrete data which are subsumed under each element. Furthermore and most important, these elements were all presented as negative, inhibitory factors to economic development. The subculture of peasantry presents a real danger that it might serve as a conceptual "trap," with each element explaining away the other elements, with the likely consequence that change agents no longer need to look for facilitators and inhibitors of change outside of this subculture to explain underdevelopment.
