1990년대 이후 한국 농민층 분화의 양상과 그 함의

Abstract

After 1990’s, new aspect of peasant differentiation appeared in rural Korea. Unlike middle class standardization in 1960’s-1980’s, bi-polar differentiation has appeared since 1990’s. On the one hand, there appeared upper class peasants who enlarged their farming acreage or invested in facilities from help of government or financing. On the other hand, there increased lower class peasants or side-job peasants who were less interested in farming. A small number (3-5%) of upper peasants and a large number of sedimented strata(60-70%) are the patterns of peasant differentiation in Korea. Upper peasants’ farming is becoming a entrepreneurial farming, and especially livestock farming has been almost invoked as an enterprise farming. It is thought that the sedimented strata is losing its peasant character. It can be said that the accumulation of sedimented strata is a de-peasantization rather than a re-peasantization. The conflicts have appeared between employer and employed, machine worker and work truster, farmland lease and rental. We can see such conflicts as springing from exploitative relation. But such conflicts within peasantry has been latent, and active peasants including upper peasants has tended to protest against agricultural politics of government and global capital. In these situations, we can pay attention to upper peasants as agents of rural productive force. However, upper peasants has tended to be included in vertical integration and global situation. Against this tendency, active peasants including upper peasants and middle peasants(10-20%) made an attempt to construct networking collectives (or cooperatives) in the fields of production, distribution and processing.