ABSTRACT
The application of the concept of the “Moral Economy” to the analysis of commercialization in South Asia is problematic for a number of reasons. Except in its original formulation by E. P. Thompson, discussion of the concept has focused primarily on peasant producers and their interaction with pre-colonial and colonial state systems. Based heavily on a vision of the impact of the global extension of capitalism devised by Karl Polanyi, Eric Wolfs rather vague notion of the moral economy rests on a series of assumptions that render it a conceptual tool of dubious utility for most areas in South Asia. One aspect of Wolfs handling of links between capitalist commercialization and the origins of peasant protest that deserves special attention is his concept of the 'middle peasant'. James Scott’s focus on peasant groups who, he argues, subordinate all other concerns to an omnipresent obsession with subsistence is at variance with much of the evidence relating to cultivators in South Asia.
