Labourers and Landowners in Southern Spain

This book (1971) is a penetrating sociological and economic analysis of Spanish latifundism. The book examines tensions within wage-labour systems and explores the conflicting value systems of both workers and landowners.

Latifundia are a characteristic feature of many underdeveloped agrarian economies. At the time when land reform was a burning issue for most of these countries, Labourers and Landowners in Southern Spain (originally published in 1971), a penetrating sociological and economic analysis of the Spanish experience was particularly opportune. The book examines the tensions within wage-labour latifundism and describes the value-systems of both labourers and landowners. Profit-minded landowners should prefer to become rentier landlords, but this would threaten the legitimacy of their position, which requires owner-operation. The labourers’ behaviour conforms with their image of society: ‘we who work’ are in conflict with the landowning classes, but nevertheless ‘we the poor must work’. Published originally in Spanish, this English edition has been rearranged and includes a new final chapter discussing Pitt-Rivers’ and Hobsbawm’s works on Andalusia, as well as dissecting Warriner’s Land Reform in Principle and Practice.