Commentaries

Extract

For one who lacks the knowledge, as well as the wish, to challenge Andrew Pearse's account of the facts of the Latin American rural scene, the only useful form of comment is to raise questions and perhaps thereby to express some minor doubts concerning the inference he makes from the facts. It might be most useful to start from the end opposite Pearse's. He has looked at the evidence, crystallized the diversity of the changes he sees into a discrete set of trends, illustrated them with illuminating and convincing details, and tentatively forecast their implications. Instead, let us start at the other end with a question that rests on a clear value premise, and ask whether the trends Pearse indicates are “for the better” or “for the worse.” I would choose the question: “what chances are there of a substantial and sustained increase in agricultural production?”