Campesino Movements and Class Conflict in Latin America: The Functions of Exchange and Power

Abstract

This paper will attempt to evaluate the utility of exchange theory for analyzing and interpreting the currently available evidence about emerging campesino movements in Latin America. The focus will be on the transactions and exchanges campesinos engage in both horizontally (with their peers) and vertically (with the landlord and other patrons). My principal thesis is that in the past the gains campesinos could accrue from vertical exchanges have outweighed the actual and potential gains derived from horizontal solidarities within their own community; furthermore, the vertical solidarities between campesinos and landholders served to undermine the precarious horizontal relationships in the campesino community which did exist. As a result, the development of campesino movements, organized or spontaneous, has been directly related to changes in the relative outcomes campesinos obtain in exchanges with one another, with their landlord, or with alternative patrons.