AGRICULTURAL MODERNIZATION AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE.

This paper argues that production must be organized to ensure people's economic viability and policy must direct change toward equality from the start. Considerable concern has been voiced about the impact of economic growth on inequality and distribution in developing countries. Of concern here is why economic inequality increases and the relationship between production organization and distribution. The referent is the impact of agricultural modernization policies favoring capital intensive agriculture on production organization in India, where land and capital are scarce and their ownership unequal. The untenable assumption common to the literature is that production and distribution are separate issues. That production must increase first, and distribution only means providing surpluses for those who need them, is another questionable assertion. This paper begins with a discussion of the political, social, and economic bases of development. Next it presents a discussion of two Indian villages which shows how public policy can change the interdependence between landowners, tenants and agricultural laborers, rendering the latter two groups obsolete. It concludes by suggesting ways to organize production more equally without lessening output.