DYNAMICS OF RURAL TRANSFORMATION 67 the relationship between the economy and state policy, one would view the latter rather differently. It can be quite plausibly argued, for instance, that land reform measures were intended to develop productive forces in agriculture by creating a class of capitalist landlords who will take direct interest in production and produce for the market, using modern methods. The legislation on ^amindari adolitlon and tenancy iciorms, and the numerous escape clauses inland ceiling legislations, all testify to the intention to promote capitalism in agriculture without abolishing landlordism. The evidence on land and assets presented by Kurien confirms this view. From such an understanding of the class character of state intervention in agriculture, one would not see the legislation on minimum wages as "...efforts to protect the interests of agricultural labourers..." (p 125), as Kurien does, nor take the various pieces of legislation on tenancy reforms and land ceilings at face value. The self-conscious avoidance of class analysis leads Kurien to pose the issue in terms of "...whether the material benefits have gone to the rich minority or poor majority...", and to divide the population of rural Tamil Nadu into large farmers, small farmers and non-farmers. Thus the distinction between landlords and peasants is totally absent; the question of remunerative prices for farm produce is not addressed except in passing; exploitation through trade and usury is not dealt with, while that through rent is left to be inferred from the data on leasing-in. The reluctance to see state policy in class terms also leads to ignoring the question of input price trends and the positions of the different^stmta of cultivators in the product market. To be fair, however, one must accept that data limitations in respect of some of these issues are severe. Since the study is based almost entirely on published data from official sources, such things as an enquirty into the forms of existence of labour power might not have been possible. But the theoretical framework in which such questions would arise is absent in Kurien's work. It is again the absence of an analytical framework that conceptualises the economy in terms of classes and class struggle that leads Dr Kurien to view observed change as having been brought about essentially through agricultural modernisation via technological innovation, and to view 'market forces5 as 'social technology'. One* is tempted to recall Marx's famous dictum: "Political economy is not technology". We shall conclude with a reference to a basic question raised by Kurien at the very end: "What are the social forces that enable the few who are rich to benefit from all the measures undertaken for the improvement of 'society as a whole' and what are the socio-economic forces that prevent the many who are poor from taking advantage of even measures specifically designed Tor them? This is the clue to the understanding of rural transformation" (p 146).8 Surely a Marxist approach would have enabled,