Introduction: Rural Equality and Inequality

In this chapter I focus on land, as a form of property, and its importance in a site in rural Romania in slowing down, or countering, the emergence of various market oriented forms of inequalities.

The socialist period in Romania was marked by significant and broad sweeping transformations to rural society, which had important implications for rural forms of equality and inequality. Collective farms were developed after the 1950s. Small peasant owners became proletarianized, and industrialization absorbed many peasant immigrants. At this time goals for equality were implemented from the top down primarily by the state, and inequality arose from the bureaucratic and political structures which were inevitable consequences of the state planning projects. Equality was also created ideologically through the disenfranshisement of kulaks or allegedly rich peasants. Trends of equality and inequality were often regionally specific and distinctive, in response to the particular emphasis placed upon collectivisation, maintenance of family farming, communal undertakings and local resources.

After socialism inequality emerged as the main characteristic of an excluded rural population. The devolution of land has taken place in the context of a population alienated from the labour market, of agricultural production alienated from the consumer market, and of a complete lack of credit allocation for rural industry or technological innovation.

Land restitution after 1989 had two main consequences: devolution in terms of the landholding patterns prior to socialism, and devolution according to the demands of the labourers under socialist collectivisations.