Political economy, class alliances and Agrarian change in Chile

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Abstract
The transformations in the Chilean countryside are analyzed in relation to the country's process of capital accumulation and class struggle, and its insertion within the world capitalist system. Such a perspective sheds new light on Chile's agrarian question and transition. Byres, amongst others, sustains the general proposition that the agrarian transition to capitalism is an essential condition for the solution of the agrarian question. TheChilean case appears paradoxical and has implications for other dependent countries. In the period up to 1930 when pre‐capitalist relations of production were predominant in the rural sector the agrarian question hardly arose as agriculture fulfilled the reproduction needs of the economy and society. But after 1930 as the agrarian transition was in the process of being completed the agrarian question arose as a major problem. The dependent import substituting industrialization process certainly aggravated the agrarian question. The agrarian reforms of 1964 to 1973 were an attempt to resolve the problem. The present agrarian counter‐reform is also attempting to solve the agrarian question by drastically restructuring Chile's insertion within the world system but at a high cost for labour.

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