Description
Book SynopsisBitter Harvest, a historical ethnographic study, examines the property changes prompted by the early post-socialist neoliberal reforms designed to build capitalism in Poland. Historically, the book traces the halting but steady emergence of privatization and liberalization, even under socialism, and how these anticipated the reforms of the post-socialist period. Contrary to the view that the 1989 post-socialist policy represented a radical departure from former state socialist policies via the importation of Western shock therapy reforms, including the key economic institution of private property, this book dispenses with the sharp divide between the socialist past and capitalist present and argues the lasting importance of these historical antecedents in shaping both post-socialist policy and responses to it. Ethnographically, the book provides a detailed account of the different yet interdependent ways the post-socialist reform program influenced existing agricultural property formss
Trade ReviewOnly a few years after the fall of communism, Polish peasants and farmers have emerged as major opponents of economic transition policies and played an important role in toppling the Solidarity government. Why would private property owners, who fought bitterly against the communist regime, and now finally stood to gain from privatization, offer resistance to the capitalist transformation of the socialist economy? This book is the best available analysis of the social origins of the peasants’ disaffection. Based on in-depth ethnography and an innovative theory of socialist property as 'conjoint property' with the state, the author shows that Polish farmers’ capacity to exercise their private property rights relied on a whole network of state institutions meant to protect them from adverse outcomes. It was precisely this network that got dismantled by the reformers. This is an empirically rich and theoretically nuanced analysis of one of the most profound transformations of our times, replacing facile answers with sustained and careful analysis. -- Gil Eyal, Department of Sociology, Columbia University
Exiting communism has proved a mixed blessing. Reenvisioning the transition in Polish agriculture, Zbierski-Salameh delves into the complex evolution of divergent property forms—private, cooperative, and state—to show just how the past constrained the future. Bitter Harvest represents theoretically engaged ethnography at its best. -- Michael Burawoy, professor of sociology and President of the International Sociological Association, University of California
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: The Mystery of Property. Chapter 1: The Post-Socialist Transition and Formation of Post-Socialist Property Relations. Chapter 2: Continuity of Reform Policies: From Conjoint Ownership to Exclusive Ownership Reform. Chapter 3: Private Agricultural Property Owners in the Post-Socialist Transition. Chapter 4: Cooperatives in the Vise of Information Constraints and Ownership Ambiguity. Chapter 5: The Privatization of State Farms: Slow or Illusory? Conclusions
