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Indulgence and Abundance as Asian Peasant Values: A Bengali Case in Point

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Paul R. Greenough
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Abstract

The author questions the assumptions of an “Asian school of scarcity and risk,” of which James C. Scott is the principal exponent, using Bengali peasant history as a case in point. He argues that it is more likely that the subsistence traditions of Bengal derive from locally generated values of abundance and indulgence than from a universal “moral economy” and suggests that detailed accounts of subsistence traditions in other parts of Asia will confound attempts to prove that European experience is a reliable guide to Asian practices.

Type
Articles: Peasant Strategies in Asian Societies: Moral and Rational Economic Approaches—A Symposium
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , August 1983 , pp. 831 - 850
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1983

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