Quiz: The Agrarian Question

15 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. What do the French wheat figures for 1816–17 and 1821–22 show? Higher yields brought the farmers proportionally higher money incomes per hectare in both years A harvest a third larger brought farmers about a third less per hectare Bad harvests ruined the farmers, while the good harvests made even the smallest of them rich Prices stayed stable in both years because the state bought up the surplus for its granaries
2. Which nationalisation does Kautsky think Social Democracy may demand even in present-day society? Nationalisation of mortgages Nationalisation of the grain trade Nationalisation of forests and waters Nationalisation of all agricultural land against compensation
3. What share of German agricultural enterprises, by Kautsky’s reckoning, had an interest in the corn duties? About three-quarters, since nearly all farms sold some of their corn Only about a quarter, since the smaller holdings had to buy corn Exactly half, divided between the corn-selling east and the west All of them, since corn prices set the price of every piece of land
4. According to Kautsky, what decides whether a farmer belongs with the fighting proletariat? Whether he sells his labour-power or sells food on the market Whether his standard of living has fallen to a proletarian level Whether he is in debt to a mortgagee Whether he employs any wage-labourers
5. To which fields, apart from agricultural industries, does Kautsky say agricultural co-operation had so far almost entirely confined itself? Ploughing and harvesting Stock-breeding and dairying Credit and commerce Drainage and irrigation
6. What difference between industry and agriculture does Kautsky treat as the great obstacle to large-scale farming in countries of small property? Agriculture has no use for wage-labour on a large scale Agricultural machines cannot be patented and so are seldom improved Farm products cannot be exported in quantity from small countries Land cannot be multiplied, so a large farm must absorb existing holdings
7. What part of his capital, according to Kautsky, must the owner-farmer pay to the former landowner for the land? Roughly a third None, since land is bought on credit About a tenth Two-thirds to three-quarters
8. How does Kautsky characterise the American bonanza wheat farms? As intensive mixed farms with heavy stocking of cattle and rotation of crops As peasant co-operatives formed by settlers who pooled their homesteads As a robber economy growing one crop without manure or rotation As state-owned model farms run by the federal Department of Agriculture
9. What, in Kautsky’s account, forces peasants in Russia and India to export grain cheaply? Capitalist farming methods that have lowered their costs Free trade treaties that Britain imposed on both countries in the course of the century A large surplus of grain left over after the peasant families have eaten well Money taxes and usurious debts that compel them to sell at any price
10. According to Kautsky, what does the peasant enterprise’s ability to hold its own against the large one rest on? Its better access to credit Its lower demands Its higher technical performance Its greater use of machinery
11. Why does Kautsky favour state hail insurance more readily than state cattle insurance? Cattle insurance is already compulsory throughout the German Empire Hail strikes all farms alike and is never due to negligence, so it shelters no backward farm Private companies offer hail insurance cheaply in every district Hail is the most frequent and costly of all agricultural losses
12. Which institution does Kautsky, quoting Anton Menger, call the nearest thing to slavery in bourgeois society? The relation of servant to master Military service under conscription The mortgage on peasant land The factory system and its wage contract
13. How had English farming adapted to overseas competition by the 1890s, according to the chapter? Rents fell and land passed from wheat to pasture Farmers switched from pasture to wheat on the best soils Landlords bought out their tenants and farmed the land themselves New corn duties restored the price of wheat
14. What were the “beet holidays” described in Schippel’s account? Days off granted to adult migrant workers between the hoeing and the lifting Festivals held by the sugar manufacturers for their workers after the harvest School holidays given so that children could work in the beet fields Holidays declared in the beet districts when beet prices fell
15. Who made up most of the “Saxon-goers” on the beet estates Kärger examined? Young women and girls Married men with families Discharged soldiers Elderly day-labourers

0 of 15 answered