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Story: Class

Canterbury dairy farm, around 1899

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Canterbury dairy farm, around 1899

In 19th- and early 20th-century New Zealand there were many small farmers who owned their own piece of land and provided their own labour. The existence of such people confounded the Marxist distinction between landowners and capitalists, who were owners of the means of production such as land, cows and sheds, and workers who had only their labour to sell.

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Reference: Imperial Album of New Zealand, i.85

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How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Class – Understanding class, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/29710/canterbury-dairy-farm-around-1899 (accessed 14 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 15 April 2011.