Journal of Iranian Social Studies

Abstract Background and aim: This article examines the formation of the “surplus population” within the context of the prebendal state in Iran, using the village of Salmaniyeh–Ordougah. Drawing on economic sociology and political economy, the study employs the concepts of patrimonialism and prebendalism (Weber and Joseph), economic disembeddedness (Polanyi), and Bourdieu’s theory of the state, field, and habitus to analyze state intervention and its consequences for livelihoods, economic morality, and local social relations. Data and method: The research adopts a critical ethnographic approach. Data were collected through researchers’ field observations based on ten years of intermittent presence in the region and through in-depth semi-structured interviews with twenty village residents. Findings: The findings indicate that the extension of the state’s prebendal logic through patron–client networks, rent-seeking development projects, and inconsistent agricultural and natural resource policies has contributed to the disintegration of the previous socio-economic order, the weakening of social solidarity, and the disembedding of economic life from its social foundations. In this process, a new economic morality has emerged, characterized by individualization, the dominance of monetary values, and the belief in individual effort as the primary path to success. Conclusion: The ultimate outcome has been the production of a group of “abandoned” actors who, lacking economic, social, and institutional capital, have been excluded from resources and opportunities and transformed into a surplus population. The article argues that, at least in this case, the surplus population cannot be reduced to mere mismanagement but is rooted in the structural intersection of prebendalism and dominant economic policies in contemporary Iran.