Sociological Consequences of Commercialization of Agriculture during the Qajar Period

This article investigates the initial confrontation between the Iranian economy and the newly emerged capitalist market relations during the 19th century. In the first step, a descriptive account of the Iranian economy’ transformations during this period and the preliminary requirements for analyzing these transformations is provided. The next step deals with its different economical, political, and social consequences. Our findings show that this process of Iranian economy’s reorientation in response to the new international demands for cash crops resulted in various transformations imposing significant effects on the next course of Iranian history during the 20th century. Some of the outcomes include the emergence of new big merchants who invested substantially in real estate, the emergence of proto-forms of private property through selling the state-owned lands, the disturbance of the subsistence economy’ fragile equilibrium through ecological catastrophes like the Great Famine of the 19th century. Despite how influential they were, neither of these changes could complete a rupture from pre-capitalist social relations of production and pre-capitalist strategies of surplus extraction.