Agrarian Class Structure and Obstacles to Capitalist Development in Iran Farshad A. Araghi* Much has been written during the past two or three decades on aspects of Iranian history, economy, culture, and politics. These studies range from descriptive accounts completely devoid of analysis of social organization (Fasai, 1972; Lambton, 1969), or those implicitly or explicitly slanted in favor of the political establishments (Banani, 1962; Denman, 1973; Jacqs, 1976; Sanghvi, 1969) to analyses which have signifi- cantly contributed to the scientific study of ban---e.g., the works by Abrahamian (1982), HaUiday (1980), Hooglund (1982), and others. With the exception of the latter category, however, little has been done with respect to the analysis of social and economic organization of Iran from an explicitly historico-sociological standpoint. This study examines the domestic obstacles to capitalist development in Iran from this latter perspective. More specifically, it examines the established system of social property prevailing in nineteenth century Iran and, in light of Marx's theory of the "primitive accumulation" of capital, it inquires into the social andeconomic conditions which obstructed the historical transition to capitalism in this country. The view is advanced that these obstacles were primarily obstacles to the process of primitive accumulation of capital in Marx's sense of the concept: the dissolution of the precapitalist relations of production, the elimination of non-market access to the means of production and subsistence on the part of the direct producers, the separation of the labor power from the soil, internal differentiation within the peasantry, and the development...