Development Paradigms, Concept of Surplus and the Agrarian Question

be made scarce In the great United States, for example, hardly 4 per cent of the total labour force are in the farm sector; their scarcity permits them to dictate terms to the rest of the nation; that is the secret of their economic prosperity. Once the majority of our peasants are squeezed out from agriculture, that point of fulfilment would be reached here too. A big farmer, with the support of the handful of his family members, would henceforth be able to manage a holding which stretches to 200 or 300 or 500 acres; the state-of- the-art tractors and harvester combines would be put to use, farming operations would be fully automatised, the efficiency of Indian agriculture would thereby attain international standards. Exports would then constitute no problem.