Finding The Middle Path: The Political Economy Of Cooperation In Rural India

Soviet-style socialism has failed; but in Russia, China, and India the transition to capitalism has proven hazardous. Elsewhere, capitalism itself appears to be in crisis, often failing to meet the fundamental needs of workers, small farmers, and even the middle classes. Clearly, the world needs enterprises that are both economically efficient and

B.S. Baviskar is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Delhi. His pioneering study of cooperative sugar factories was published as The Politics of Development in 1980. With Attwood, he co-edited Who Shares? Cooperatives and Rural Development, and he is now editing a book on the sociology of development.

D.W. Attwood is a Professor of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His latest book is Raising Cane: The Political Economy of Sugar in Western India. He is doing comparative research on strategies of production and reproduction among household enterprises in the developing world.

D.P. Apte has now retired as Reader in Agricultural Economics at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. Having directed numerous studies of rural and urban development, he has published a long list of reports and articles. Many of his recent studies have focused on cooperatives.