The term penny capitalism was first used in 1953 to describe indigenous economies in which there is land tenure

Land tenure

Land tenure is the name given, particularly in common law systems, to the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land . The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants...

 over tiny plots of land, where farmers produce crop surplus and engage in small-scale trading. Microfinance

Microfinance

Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients or solidarity lending groups including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services....

 evolved in penny capitalist economies.http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_02_2_maccallum.pdf

Sol Tax

Sol Tax

Sol Tax was an American anthropologist. He is best known for his studies of the Meskwaki, or Fox, Indians, for "action-anthropological" research titled the Fox Project, and for founding the academic journal Current Anthropology. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1935.Tax...

published a book entitled Penny Capitalism ISBN 0374977852. He is said to have coined this term.http://www4.ncsu.edu/~twallace/Guate2003%20LaShone%20Gibson.pdf