This analysis of maize in Mexico reveals how technocratic prejudices and modernizing ideologies have had a devastating impact. The tenacity with which the peasantry continues to support traditional social and productive organizations with their own resources is evidence of the currency of their unique vision of society. This vision is leading them to inject new vigour into rural society by diversifying their productive strategies, an approach that has always been a central part of rural survival, but whose significance has been underestimated by social scientists who have largely focused on their productivity in the fields.

The hope for a unique revolutionary actor in the twentieth century evaporated as a result of the weaknesses of social organisations. This paper examines the potential of an almost-forgotten group of revolutionary actors – collectively organised and deliberately involved in processes of social and productive transformation with a legitimate claim to territory – whose present-day activities involve them in concerted processes to consolidate a different constellation of societies on the margins of the global capitalist system. Indigenous and peasant communities throughout the Americas are self-consciously restructuring their organisations and governance structures, taking control of territories they claimed for generations. They are also reorganising production to generate surplus, assembling their members to take advantage of underutilised resources and peoples’ energies for improving their ability to raise living standards and assure environmental conservation and restoration. These communities are not operating in isolation. They coordinate activities, share information and build alliances. Hundreds of millions of people are participating in this growing movement; they occupy much more than one-quarter of the world’s land area. There is great potential for others to join them, expanding from the substantial areas where they are already operational. Global social networks are ensuring that this dynamic accelerates.