352 UNIT 3 MODERN MESOAMERICA
farms, they would call the person a campesino.Indeed, peasants may depend strongly
on items produced by others in rural towns and in national and international facto-
ries, but it is important to remember that even in feudal and capitalist systems, they
relied on goods produced outside their household.
It is widely believed by scholars that the capitalist system exploits rural produc-
ers. These scholars see the system as dependent on family labor, low costs, and low
prices of products produced by the peasants. When we talk about peasants, then, we
need to qualify the production processes that people are involved with, and specify
their relation to the larger society of which they are a part (Figure 9.2). This is im-
portant because peasants, like other economic actors in Mesoamerica, are impacted
by and interact with capitalism and the larger global economy in multiple ways, not
all of which are exploitative.Rural-Urban Migration
A recent phenomenon observed in Mesoamerica that dates especially to the 1950s
and 1960s is the migration of people from rural areas to the cities. The population
of the cities is increasing at rates that far exceed the possibilities of absorption. Urban
“primacy”—the concentration of people, resources, and services in one central city—Figure 9.2 Day laborers in Chiapas, Mexico. JEFFREY JAY FOXX/NYC©