> In message <Pine.GSO.3.94.990929100501.3739A-100000 at rhenium>, Mr P.A.
> Van Heusden <pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk> writes
>
> > After all, which is more
> >progressive? The 'backwards' productive methods of Mexican peasants, or
> >the 'modern' productivity of an industrialised farm? If it is the
> >industrialised farm, then I ask again which is more progressive - the
> >peasants of the Chiapas 'autonomous municipality', or the farmers of the
> >US corn belt?
>
> Oh, without a doubt, the modern productivity of the industrialised farm.
>
> It is inconceivable that six billion people could be fed at the level of
> productivity that obtains amongst Chiapas peasants. Indeed, I think that
> there are few peasants who would not aspire to the living conditions of
> wage labourers in the West.
>
> Of course the form of social organisation of the capitalist farm means
> that the lion's share of productivity gains are translated into profits,
> not wages. But that does not gainsay the increased food production that
> has made it possible to celebrate the birth of the six billionth human
> living human being.
>
> Marx's contemptuous attitude to peasant culture and politics is wholly
> justified. The later romanticisation of the peasantry is not an
> improvement upon Marx, but a falling back from scientific socialism into
> middle class sentimentality.
Jim, you miss the point. You are good at that, you know - maybe you can get a job in the field.
I'm not asking 'should we use industrialised agriculture', or should we farm like peasants? My step-mother-in-law comes from a Zimbabwean peasant family. When it is a bad year, they starve. It's crap.
My question was - should the peasants of Chiapas be farmworkers, or should they be in 'autonomous municipalities', which keep them at peasant level technology, but allow them a form of resistance. Which is the better form of resistance/struggle - to give up and try and eke a living as farmworkers, because 'farms are more productive', or to fight like hell to keep the crappy, inneficient way of life you've got, because at least then you control the rhythm.
The answer to the question arises not from some universal theory of history, but is rather from the state of play in the world at present. It is precisely Trotsky's theory of combined and uneven development that comes into play here (similarly, I think Marx's comments towards the end of his life about the possibility of going directly to socialist forms of production in Russia only make sense given the development of capitalism in the rest of Europe, and the possibility of working class revolt in Europe). It is only because of the capitalist world that the Zapatistas exist in the form that they do - the project in Chiapas, in the fact of the development of capitalism - stops being 'staying the same', and becomes 'holding out till we can defeat neo-liberalism' - where 'neo-liberalism' is another word for imperialist capitalism. I'm not saying it is necessarily quite this clear cut in Chiapas - I'm just painting a possible scenario.
Socialism will not look like a peasant village - but the obliteration of peasants is also not guaranteed to bring you any closer to socialism.
Peter P.S. I've made the point a number of times that you need to distinguish between the Southern struggles and their Northern supporters. The Northern supporters - often NGOs, or various middle class elements - use the Southern struggles to put forward their own agenda. -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower. - Karl Marx
NOTE: I do not speak for the HGMP or the MRC.