Charles P. Loomis

Systemic Differences Between Latin-American Communities of Family Farms and Large Estates

The family-farm and large-estate communities considered here are in sharp contrast. A clear differentiation was also established by a group of judges who used a series of polar variables within the Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft typology to describe strategic subject-object relationships within the two communities. Tentative steps are taken to specify certain basic differences in family-farm and large-estate communities, systems which have long been considered essentially different, especially in their respective power structures. These differences call into question the many unitary programs designed to initiate change without being adapted to these contrasting structures.