PEASANTS, CAPITALISM, AND (IR)RATIONALITY

This article takes as its starting point the debate over whether or no t peasants operate according to capitalist rationality. I argue that n either the assumption that peasants operate according to noncapitalist principles, nor the assumption that peasant households operate like c apitalist enterprises can account for the behavior of peasants. The an alysis of subsistence production in a Sudanese peasant community revea ls that market and nonmarket resources, and wage and unwaged labor are inextricably enmeshed. This suggests that we need to rethink not only our notions of ''peasant economy,'' but also some of our assumptions about capitalism.