Page 58 - Changing Living Spaces

Žarko Lazarević

turns from agricultural labour. Combined, these phenomena expressed
themselves in the agrarian overpopulation. Jamnik also emphasized that
peasants were not sufficiently educated. His assertions were no excep-
tion, for he was merely repeating what was already the public consen-
sus. Jamnik distinguished himself by emphasizing entrepreneurship, the
principle of which was to become the basis of the peasant economy. He
did not claim that peasants lacked entrepreneurship, but rather that this
quality should be much more emphasized. According to his concept, peas-
ants should use all possible sources of income, regardless of whether these
came from the agricultural or non-agricultural part of their activity.
The analyses have shown that, in general, two types of farms can be
distinguished in terms of the principle of management. Thus, Jamnik dis-
tinguished first the small ‘subsistence’ farms, whose goal was to ensure
the basic survival of the family members, who were the only labour force,
and who had to perform hard, even excessive physical labour. Access to
the market was sporadic and limited to satisfying immediate cash needs
(Jamnik 1931, 10). These farms, prevalent in the contemporary land own-
ership structure, did not have the potential for more because they were
small or even extremely small. Market-oriented production was virtual-
ly impossible on such farms, as they lacked the resources to invest in pro-
ductivity improvements, which were also difficult to justify economically.
The landowners and their families were trapped in a kind of vicious circle
of poverty, i.e. low productivity, low income, low savings and investment,
and slow (nonexistent) capital accumulation.
The second type of farms, according to Jamnik, included those that
were integrated into the ‘monetary economy’, i.e. the economy that was
mainly or at least partially dependent on the market. This type includ-
ed medium-sized (more than ten hectares) and large farms, which were
rare in the prevailing fragmented agricultural land ownership struc-
ture. These farms were to be the protagonists of entrepreneurial farm-
ing. Jamnik set the bar extremely high with his criteria. Thus, he count-
ed only a few farms in the second group because such a farm requires
from its owner a considerable degree of general and professional educa-
tion, skill, ability to divide labour, rationalization, possession of money,
desire to speculate, entrepreneurship, ability to draw up relatively com-
plicated business plans for a very intensive exploitation of all production
possibilities and means, knowledge of commercial circuits, understand-
ing and aptitude for the production of high-value, very valuable and easi-
ly tradable goods (Jamnik 1931, 12).

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