Which term describes the postwar system where workers were bound to the land through debt?

• A. Migrant labor
• B. Sharecropping
• C. Tenant farming
• D. Shareholding

Answer: (B)

This describes a system where laborers remain bound to the land after a war through debt. In sharecropping, the landowner provides the land and often supplies, and the worker cultivates the crop in exchange for a share of that crop rather than cash rent. Because the amount of debt for supplies and interest can be deducted from the harvest share, workers can end up owing more than they produce, trapping them in a cycle of debt and dependence on the land they work. That debt-bonded, crop-sharing arrangement is what makes it distinct from other labor setups.

Migrant labor involves moving to different places to find work, not being tied to one plot of land. Tenant farming is about renting land for cash or a crop share, but it doesn’t inherently include the debt-binding cycle that characterizes sharecropping. Shareholding is about owning stock in a company, which has no direct connection to farming on land.