42 SOCIAL SCIENTIST and only an authoritarian political structure could contain the social stresses generated by a highly inequitable growth path. Underdeveloped economies face today a radically different set of conditions, where external markets are not under their control, and export-dependence is fraught with danger in phases of deteriorating terms of trade; nor is there access to open economic frontiers. The tiny islands, ports and peninsulas in Asia can successfully interpose themselves in the interstices of world trade and grow, as some have, but for the large labour surplus economies like India the home market and strategies for its growth is the only rational alternative. It is doubtful whether such economies can afford the luxury of continuing to follow inequitable growth strategies. It follows that the immiserisation of small-scale production is by no means to be thought of as an inevitable historically progressive process, as merely a painful moment in the transition to a rationalised capitalist agriculture. Rather, it is necessary to think in terms of institutional frameworks which will enable the creation of productive assets with employment and income-generating capacity, by and under the control of the rural small and poor producers, while at the same time addressing the long-term problems of the environment. The organisation of landless rural labour to secure minimum wages and better work conditions is a most urgent requirement which has little chance of being realised without the stabilisation of small-scale production, for the latter is a constant source of the undermining of hired labourers' bargaining power with its lack of viability and hence the continuous mobility of small peasant family workers into wage-paid work. Since the Chinese experience of collective production which had such a large positive contribution to make to peasant viability and the creation of an expanding internal market, was the outcome of the Chinese revolution, and no socialist revolution of such a far-reaching nature can be realistically thought of in the foreseeable future in India, what possible content which is at all feasible, can be given to the idea of 'new institutional forms'? This is the question to which the next phase of the enquiry must be addressed. REFERENCES Baran P.A. 1957. The political economy of growth. Monthly Review Press. Bhalla G.S. and D.S. Tyagi 1988/The spatial pattern of agricultural development in India'. Paper presented at the Indo-Soviet seminar on 'Social factors and their influence on agricultural productivity'. Ministry of Agriculture, January, 1988, New Delhi. Bhalla S. 1987 Trends in employment in Indian agriculture. Land and asset distribution', Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics /Conference Number October-December.