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in the case of subsistence and semi-subsistence production. This is particularly

true where the actual level of living is close to the minimum subsistence standard

jand where in turn both are very close to the physiologic minimum.

 Behaviourally, the individual strives to attain Sas, the achievement standard

 of living, and to stay above Sms, the minimum subsistence standard of living. The

 closer that the actual level of living, L, of an individual comes to his minimum

 subsistence standard, Sms, the more strongly it affects his behaviour to avoid

 reaching it. Whenever an individual in the social group is at or below the Sms

 for that group, he is aware of it and will strive to get and stay above it.

 The same comments are valid for a "family group" as well as for an individual.

 Since S is minimum subsistence standard of living per person, we can easily con-
 ms
 vert this into a minimum subsistence standard of living per family by taking ac-

 count of numbers in the family or operative social unit where the number of persons

 in the family (the "common pot" definition) is counted using some standardized

 adult unit basis. Thus family "numbers" would not be strictly the number of family

 members, but a composite variable which takes account of such compositional factors

 as age and sex. Thus, when dealing with a typical peasant or smallholder type of

 agriculturist who predominates throughbuthbe underdeveloped world, he and his family

 will have a family minimum subsistence standard of living as well as family achieve-

 ment standard, and a family actual level of living.

 Similarly, each of the standards, Sms and Sas, and level of living, L, can

 be given a valuation per family per specified time period such as the total dollar

 expenditures per year per family for an actual level of living.

 What is particularly relevant for the present discussion are those farmers

 (a) where the bulk of their actual level of income comes out of their farm



 1/ Note similarity to Chayanov's concept of "self-exploitation" [Chayanov,
 1966, Ch. 2].