Subsistence (Natural) Economy, a type of economy in which products are produced for internal consumption. "Under natural economy, society consisted of a mass of homogeneous economic units (patriarchal peasant families, primitive village communities, feudal manors), and each such unit engaged in all forms of economic activity, 347 from the acquisition of various kinds of raw material to their final preparation for consumption" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 3, pp. 37-38). In a subsistence economy, production is closed, limited, traditional and dissociated in character, stagnant technology is used and development is slow. The subsistence form of production prevailed in pre-capitalist formations. This is explained by the relatively undeveloped productive forces and social division of labour, the dominant position of agriculture and the direct consumption character of production. As the productive forces developed, the subsistence economy was pushed out by commodity production, based on a social division of labour, which created the conditions for a swifter growth of its productivity and for the application of better tools. Although capitalism is a form of commodity production, elements of the subsistence economy survive, particularly in the countryside. In many developing countries, subsistence forms of economy make up a considerable part of the national economy as a whole and, in some of them, it is still the prevailing form.