Ronald E. Seavoy

Famine in peasant societies

In this controversial study, Seavoy offers a new approach to the problem of periodic peacetime famine based on the actual behavior of peasants. He maintains that it is possible to increase per capita food production without massive and inappropriate technological inputs. Seavoy shifts the focus from modern development economics to a cultural and historical analysis of subsistence agriculture in Western Europe (England and Ireland), Indonesia, and India. From his survey of peasant civilization practices in these countries, he generalizes on the social values that create what he terms the subsistence compromise. In all of the ages and culture, Seavoy finds a consistent social organization of agriculture that produces identical results: seasonal hunger in poor crop years and famine conditions in consecutive poor crop years. He argues that economic policies have failed to increase per capita food production because economists and government planners try to apply market-oriented policies to populations that are not commercially motivated. Once they understand the subsistence compromise, policy-makers can take appropriate political action.

The Public Service Origins of the American Business Corporation

The corporate charter, so restricted in its use in England, found a constantly broadening range of applications in America from the colonial period onward. The test of importance to the general welfare, originally confined to municipal, benevolent, or at most public-utility enterprises, was being applied to manufacturing ventures by the second decade of the nineteenth century.

Laws to Encourage Manufacturing: New York Policy and the 1811 General Incorporation Statute

Continuing a long tradition, the government of New York attempted to aid domestic manufacturing in various ways during the troubled period of the Embargo, the War of 1812, and the wars aftermath. Among the most important legislative actions was the states general incorporation law for manufacturing, passed in 1811 on a temporary basis and enacted without time limit in 1821.

Social Restraints on Food Production in Indonesian Subsistence Culture

In 1968 David E. Bell, vice-president of the Ford Foundation, said: “Fifteen years ago, many thought it was a relatively simple matter to raise farm output in less-developed countries. All that was needed was to make U.S. technology available to the farmers in those countries by establishing extension services or their equivalent. This notion rapidly proved to be a monumental misconception.” The monumental misconception was that peasants in less-developed countries would be eager to maximize food production in order to overcome perennial food shortages, if they had the opportunity to learn the techniques of Western agriculture. This did not happen. Indonesian peasants, after learning of the techniques of the Green Revolution, rejected full participation in it. Why? Many observers in Indonesia and elsewhere have partially explained this rejection but in my opinion they missed the main reason because they failed to recognize that peasant cultures have social values and institutions that act as strong restraints on food production.

The Emergence of Giant Enterprise, 1860-1914: American Commercial Enterprise and Extractive Industries

The second edition of this guide to basic reference sources in the social sciences contains 2200 entries. In addition to revising and substantially enlarging the chapters on reference sources, the author has added a chapter on geography and one on business that is distinct from economics. Since the publication of the first edition, there have been two obvious developments in information storage and retrieval: the rapid development of online databases and the development of CD-ROM. Instead of devoting a separate chapter to these developments, the book incorporates online databases, CD-ROM and other forms of data sources into the text. In addition, there is a brief introduction to these developments. Although the general deadline for inclusion in the volume was December 1988, quite a few titles published in 1989 are included. The volume consists of two parts: the social sciences in general, dealing with the nature of the social sciences, bibliographical needs and usage of social scientists, research resources and reference sources in the social sciences in general; and sub-disciplines of the social sciences, including cultural anthropology, history, law, political science, psychology, and sociology. Reference sources for each sub-discipline in part two (and some chapters in part one) are broadly classified into four sections: access to sources, sources of information, periodicals, and additional reference sources. Each secion is further divided as follows. Under the access to sources section, headings start with guides, followed in general by bibliographies of bibliographies, bibliographies, theses and dissertations, reviews, indexes, abstracts, and contents reproduction. In the sources of information section, headings are arranged in the following sequence: primary sources, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, directories, biographies, statistical sources, and handbooks, yearbooks and the like. Headings may be further divided by subject, depending on the number of sources. Titles under each heading and sub-heading are arranged alphabetically by title. All titles are suppled with ISBN and/or ISSN number, if known.

The Religious Motivation for Placer Diamond Mining in Southeastern Kalimantan, Indonesia

The principal motivation of the Moslem peasants of southeastern Kalimantan, Indonesia, who engage in placer mining is the hope of finding a large, gem-quality diamond. The sale of the diamond allows the finder to make a pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. The returned pilgrim (haji) becomes a religious teacher who no longer has to engage in the labor of subsistence agriculture.