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An attempt to develop a general theory of small-scale commodity production, including independent agricultural production in the periphery. Recent contributions to this debate are examined, & a rigorous conclusion is reached, which draws its inspiration from Karl Marx's theories. All forms of independent agricultural production are characterized as petty commodity production. Earlier (eg, functionalist) interpretations are rejected. The rigid analysis of the depth-structure of petty commodity production allows for a variable interpretation of surface phenomena, which will change according to the conditions of capitalist development. Petty commodity producers will show a great variation of political orientation & SC alliances, depending on the concrete historical circumstances. It is also concluded that petty commodity producers are not an exploited class, although exploitive mechanisms may be found within the producing unit, eg, the family. 29 References. Modified HA

This paper is complementary to the author's previous 'Notes on Capital and Peasantry' (Review10). In that article, the role of the state in promoting the commoditisation of peasant agriculture was alluded to, a theme which is pursued further here. This is done through a number of provisional hypotheses which 'map out' three connected areas of contradictions: contradictions in the circuits of peasant economy, in the apparatuses and practices of the state, and in the sphere of state‐peasant relations. These schematic hypotheses are presented with the intention of contributing to current debates about the nature of the agrarian question, and of the state, in contemporary Africa.

Bernstein examines the diverse ways in which capital and the colonial state incorporated rural producers into the production and consumption of commodities as the means of securing their own subsistence. Regulations, services and the monopoly of crop producers have been used to require an often recalcitrant peasantry to organize production to meet the requirements of international capital and the local state for particular commodities, for trading profits, and for revenues and foreign exchange. The peasantry must be analysed in its relations with capital and the state, in varying concrete conditions, which means within capitalist relations of production. These are mediated not through the wage relation, but through various forms of household production by producers who are not fully expropriated, and who are engaged in a struggle with capital/state for effective possession and control of the conditions of production.

The article provides a brief but useful summary of Kay's book, fully acknowledging the importance of its contribution to the current debate. Bernstein does not agree, though, with Kay's emphasis on the category of merchant capital as central to the development of underdevelopment, as he does not think that it explains the changes in the conditions and relations of production in the Third World. He also criticises Kay for omitting any discussion of the internationalisation of capital in the present period of large‐scale industrialisation in the Third World, and of the politics of oppression. The level of abstraction on which Kay's analysis operates is seen as both its strength and its weakness.