RESUM: Aquest treball qüestiona el declivi de la comunitat camperola a Cantàbria entre 1750-1950, entés com una història de resisténcia frustrada contra la penetració de les forces del mercat i de 1Estat. A partir de noves coordenades teòriques proposa, per contra, que les decisions que es van prendre des de dins de la mateixa comunitat per adaptar-se als canvis econòmics (desenvolupament del mercat) i institucionals (reforma agrària liberal), que es van concretar en un profund canvi técnic en lactivitat predominant (la ramaderia) protagonitzat massivament pels camperols, anessin acompanyades duna redefinició ideològica i organitzativa dallò que era comunitari durant la primera meitat del segle XX.
ABSTRACT: The article questions the conventional view of a decline of the peasant community in Cantabria between 1750 and 1950, seen as a process of failed resistance to the penetration of both market forces and the State. Adopting a new theoretical framework, the author claims, on the contrary, that the decisions to adapt to economic and institutional change (through the development of the market and liberal agrarian reform, respectively) were taken from within the community itself, that they led to a thorough technical change in the main activity, cattle-raising, and that they were accompanied, in the first half of the nineteenth century, by an ideological and organizational redefinition of the community.
