Subsistence farming is the simplest form of economic system. Under the conditions of the existence of this form, people independently provide themselves with necessary goods, satisfying their own needs.
Subsistence farming has its own characteristics.
Mainly, this form of economic organization is a closed complex of relations. The society itself, in which these relations exist, includes divorced and fragmented households (regions, estates, communities, families). Moreover, each element of the structure provides itself, relying only on its own forces. Thus, in the conditions of subsistence farming, various work is carried out: from the extraction of raw materials to the manufacture of products ready for consumption.
Subsistence farming is characterized by the presence of manual universal labor. At the same time, any division of it into species is excluded. Each worker, having the simplest equipment (shovel, hoe, rake, etc.) performs all the necessary work. In the old days there were sayings about such "universal workers" ("Jack of all trades", for example).
Subsistence farming is characterized by direct economic ties between the consumer and production. These relationships are evolving in a manufacturing-distribution-consumption pattern. In other words, the separation of products occurs between manufacturers, and then it (products) goes into personal consumption, bypassing the exchange for other goods. This scheme ensures the sustainability of subsistence farming.
The simplest form of economic relations has dominated the world throughout the pre-industrial era - for more than nine and a half millennia. Such system stability is associated with many factors.
The subsistence economy is characterized by some stagnation of the economy. This is due to a very slow increase in production. In addition, manual labor does not contribute to the improvement and consolidation of knowledge and skills.
For economic activity in conditions of subsistence production is characterized by low labor productivity. In many economically backward countries, a rural worker is only able to feed two people. At the same time, subsistence economic activity does not fully satisfy the traditional needs of the bulk of society.
These factors depend on each other and impede the development of this type of economic relations. As a result, in a subsistence economy, cause-effect relationships form a kind of closed system. Specialists call it the "economic stagnation circle."
Under capitalism, subsistence and commodity farming existed. The second was further developed in the capitalist countries. The natural system of management has been preserved to a greater degree in states with a pre-industrial economy. In underdeveloped countries, by the middle of the 20th century, more than half of the population was employed in semi-subsistence and subsistence farming. At present, as analysts note, in these states the economic system is in a critical period.
In Russia, the natural way of farming is observed in the gardens and vegetable gardens of urban residents, as well as in the subsidiary plots of peasants.
In the history of the development of the Russian economy, experts identify a number of paradoxes. For example, from the moment the “move to the market” was announced, the number of household plots with a natural type of management has increased. Thus, development went in the opposite direction. Moreover, instead of striving forward, many areas of the state have increased their economic isolation. In these areas, a ban was introduced on the export of products to other regions. Thus, local leaders sought to increase the supply of the local population.