Session 2, part 2 -- Radical Agrarian Populist/ Moral Economy Approach Jun Borras, 9-11 April 2015
Radical Agrarian Populist/ Moral Economy Approach Often referred to as Neo-populists = Neo to refer to being significantly different/significantly related to the Russian populists the Narodniks of the late 19th century that waged anti-tsarist revolution (and had base among the peasantry). [Narodnaya Volya, The SRs ]. back to the people. (rural commune mir = seed for socialism, bypassing capitalism; peasants as the most revolutionary class) populists : everyone getting a place around the table (Neo-)Nardonism/(Neo-)Narodniks
Summary: This approach tend to treat the peasantry as homogeneous/undifferentiated mass. They argue that if there is differentiation among the peasantry, but it is caused by cyclical demographic differentiation (as opposed to Lenin s economic, polarizing and permanent) -- and so there is no long-term, developing trend of polarization of social classes (JH, 1982: 25). The key is rural development is the small family farm (i.e. middle peasant) who is neither capitalist nor proletarian: does not hire in and does not hire out labour. Resorting to self-exploitation, Chayanov s small family farm will survive in harsh conditions where capitalist farmers will go bankrupt. Peasants will not disappear. Key unit of analysis: community/household level of analysis: micro/meso them versus us ; community insiders versus outsiders
The Chayanovian family farm in its pure form: Chayanov s peasant family farm as different from capitalist farm: (a) it does not employ labour/ There is no labour exploitation. (b) it produces for its consumption and not for profit. (c) It is self-provisioning. The Chayanovian family farm in its purist form does not hire in and does not hire out labour. It relies solely on family labour to produce for its own consumption. These are features opposite to those of a capitalist farming. Capitalist farmers engage in hiring in labour, and engaged in commodity production (for the market).
Chayanov s family farm operates consistently on break-even or even at a loss, but continues to survive this cannot happen in the case of capitalist farmers they will go bankrupt! The basic four elements in analyzing capitalist farming (in Leninist tradition): wages, interest, rent and profits (for the main factors of production), cannot be employed to understand family farms. There is no valid way of estimating in money the value of family members work and there is no way of dividing days of labor into quantities of wheat (Thorner)
In response to Lenin s argument of differentiation due to exploitation, Chayanov argues that family farm engage in self-exploitation : members of the family farm household exploit their own labour in order to survive ( less food, more work ; survival through impoverishment ; work longer hours, sell at lower prices, obtain no net surplus ). Drudgery
This explains why they have the ability to persist (not disappear) compared to capitalist farmers who relied on external input (and output) markets for their (re)production needs. Yes, there is a differentiation but not economic, polarizing, permanent class differentiation as in the Leninist sense; instead it is a (i) demographic differentiation ; (ii) it is not polarizing, it is cyclical.
Chayanov was also hostile to Kulaks. He believed (like the SRs) more in peasants undifferentiated socioeconomic advance or decline ( aggregate shifts ) versus capitalist and/or state capitalist economy than in the significance of inter-peasant polarization processes. still on the populist perspective of them versus us, community insiders versus outsiders.
The worker-consumer ratio: Two types of household members: (a) consumer-worker consume food but can work; (b) consumer-nonworker too young or too old or ill to work but consume food.
Households with more members that are b tend to lose out, but then as soon as the workerconsumer ratio changes so that there are more members that are a then the household rebounds. And so, goes on and on this cyclical differentiation that is never long-term, permanent, and developing into a polarization of classes. This explains the phenomenon of poverty and social change applicable to agrarian but also to non-agrarian development themes.
The Lenin-Chayanov competing explanations: underline subsequent debates around small farms versus big farms, debates around the disappearance of the peasantry, and so on. And so, small family farms are more efficient than large farms. The way forward is small family farms. Chayanov was an anticapitalist, not trusting the forces of the free market * Chayanov is often (mis)interpreted as promoting small is beautiful but in fact he was not, as argued by some scholars. Chayanov promoted the notion of vertical integration, realizing the need for some scale in production. Vertical concentration, which is cooperative, may be necessary in some circumstances and these can be run by peasants.
Implications for (rural) development studies. Support the creation and consolidation of small family farms (on most occasions = construed as rural producers or rural poor or farmers in general undifferentiated). The path to development is not industrialization/urbanization, but through the peasant way (the development of family farms), the revival/reinvigoration of vibrant rural communities.
Who s who? Teodor Shanin, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, et al.
Key critiques: Tendency of some in this camp to treat peasant community as homogeneous/undifferentiated mass. Criticized also as on its small is beautiful argument/tendency (which is of course denied by Teodor Shanin as not Chayanov s message) self-exploitation is basically: exploiting the women members of the household and the children on many occasions basis for why peasant is able to persist?
Implications for the study of peasant/agrarian politics
* Chayanov did not really articulate much on the implications for politics of his theoretical exploration. * It would take subsequent adherents to develop the political component of the Chayanovian perspective = famous among them would be James C. Scott (for an orthodox Marxist critique, see several 1990s JPS articles by Tom Brass on this topic).
Remember The character of the Narodniks, and the criticisms against them: (a petty bourgeois?) romantic/nostalgic conception of the rural commune/villages as basis for a socialist (bypassing capitalist) order; they were anti-capitalist, they were socialist, they employed armed assassination strategy to overthrow the Tsarist regime = and so, quite radical. Parallelism of some neo-populists today (excluding the assassination part of the story of cours!)? Via Campesina and supporters? Via Campesina as champion of modern day neo-narodnism? Although today s radical agrarian populists do not explicitly identify with the early Russian influences. Chayanovian without Chayanov as Teodor Shanin recently commented.
Some basic concepts associated with radical agrarian populism Moral economy of the peasant/ Subsistence ethic as central to understanding peasant politics * Peasants living close to the subsistence margin (exposed to vagaries of weather, claims by outsiders) = little scope for profit maximization (as argued by neoclassical economists )
+ avoid the failure that would ruin him/her, rather than make one big, but risky, killing (in profits) = the risk-averse peasant. = reliable subsistence as the primordial goal of the peasant
= politics: we then examine his/her relationships with others: neighbors, covillagers, elites, state: whether they aid or hinder him/her in meeting his/her subsistence need (hence: patron-client relationship, etc.) = indeed, this is the safety first principle that lies behind many technical, social and moral arrangements (at pre-capitalist agrarian settings).
Explains safety first political behavior of peasants too: take for example: why very radical state reforms at declaring as illegal onerous share tenancy relationships. But peasants themselves will be the ones to violate this state law that is supposed to change the sharing system from 70-30 to 30-70 in favour of the peasants. Why? (from sharing arrangement to fixed rent ) They fear they would lose their right to subsistence traditionally sanctioned by the community and the landlord = and they see it as risky the promises of the state that time and again neglected their needs anyway.
+ Scott warns: not to romanticize the rural village as they are not radically egalitarian = but that ALL are entitled to a living out of the resources within the village, and that living is attained often at the cost of a loss of status and autonomy (patron-client relationships, etc.) = modest but critical redistributive mechanisms -- crucial: to provide minimal subsistence insurance too all community members (making sure no individual member of the community will starve!). For example: access to land is ensured The notion of reciprocity that is so central in this approach s analysis of peasant political behavior.
= subsistence insurance = notion of equality and justice = it is the violation of these standards = to provoke resentment and resistance: not only because needs were not met, but rights were violated. = against the notion of subsistence ethic/moral principle = right to subsistence that we should understand how we understand claims to surplus by landlords = notion of exploitation? Universal standards??
= Is a landlord claim of land rent of 50% share more exploitative than a claim of 33% share??? Or, when is landlord claim of 50% share just Ok, but that a lower claim of 30% not Ok? All depend on whether it violates the moral economy of subsistence ethic; the right to subsistence Often, it is not how much was taken that is critical in the change in peasant political behavior, but more often it is the question of how much was left! Back to the concept of the moral economy of subsistence ethic: sense of equality and justice; back to the concept of subsistence ethic.
Poverty/exploitation is certainly a factor to explain political behavior of peasants (when they decide to rebel, or not). But it is not sufficient to fully account. Otherwise, most developing countries would have seen permanent conflagration of peasant rebellions! Central in explaining peasant politics: moral economy/ subsistence ethic = when this is violated, or when peasants feel it has been violated (e.g. famine itself would not automatically trigger food riots; crop failure in itself will not either high landlord share in crops will not It is the perception of having their right to subsistence was violated that is the trigger for peasant revolt or resorting to contentious politics.
Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance -- at the time when class-based, revolutionary peasant movements were waning & research on such were on downward trend as well, a new thinking in social sciences emerged (early to mid-1980s ): Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance James C. Scott, Ben Kerkvliet, et al. The first most coherent collection of scientific knowledge on this was published in 1986 as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies co-edited by Scott and Kerkvliet the collection first presented publicly at the ISS in 1985! If revolutionary peasant movements: organized, structured, overt this new thinking is the opposite: unorganized, unstructured, covert.
Among the key assumptions of this school of thought is that: peasants are not passive actors they have agency, and most of their resistance to oppression are carried out in forms not legible to the outsiders: Everyday forms of peasant resistance: Foot-dragging Mis-declaring harvest output Pilferage Bad-mouthing ( hidden transcripts songs, etc.) Arson these are the weapons of the weak (J. Scott) (notion of hidden transcript )
One criticism is that this thinking has pushed out more important issues such as class interest and class-based structural transformation. But counter-argument is that, such weapons were used by peasants because they benefit greatly from its use as compared to other methods like the overt and organized ways: For example: they could gain more by pilferage and harvest mis-declaration -- and so why resort to overt confrontation to change the landlord-peasant relations when the risk of doing so are so great and when in fact through everyday forms they do not actually lose as much as some outside observers might thought?
Example: How the everyday politics of peasants transformed national policies in Vietnam by Ben Kerkvliet Pre-revolutionary Vietnam: landlord class-peasantry Revolutionary era: collective farming Peasants work in collective farms in general, and by doing so, they earn points, which can then be exchanged for other goods & services. They were allowed to maintain personal plots to grow vegetables & food. So, e.g. peasants were asked to apply fertilizer in collective farms, & their points were calculated based on those tasks. Peasants went to the collective farms, & resort to everyday forms: footdragging & pilferage they dumped fertilizers in one spot, etc. Then they took much of the fertilizer secretely and applied this to their own individual private plots at home. After years of collective farming, crisis kicked in: production and productivity levels were very low. BUT production and productivity levels of individual plots were very high! A 500 sq.meters of rice plot could even yield equal to that of a hectare of rice field in the collective farm. This condition led to a crisis largely leading to the national government to reform: de-collectivize, and promote individual household production. Everyday forms of resistance that transformed national policy
Moral Economy (of the peasant) (James Scott, Ben Kerkvliet; major influences: Chayanov) Key concept: notion of cohesive peasant community not completely exposed to or transformed within capitalist agrarian relations. Argument: Traditional community structures define the culturally-acceptable form of surplus extraction. If the penetration of market or states changes the form of extraction in ways that undermine year to year collective food security, the subsistence ethic is violated and revolt is likely. (it s not exploitation per se that causes revolt, but the unacceptable changes in pre-existing ways of social relations and the violation of subsistence ethic) Trigger: change in the type of exploitation; violation of subsistence ethic; subsistence crisis Conception of peasant: peasants within cohesive communities that are in precapitalist agrarian conditions (remember the Chayanovian concept ). Concept of social subordination of community members (by dominant outsiders) Key agent of change/revolt = peasants in a cohesive community Setting: Pre-capitalist agrarian communities; community cohesion
But is radical agrarian populism/moral economy limited only to everyday forms of peasant politics? No Barrington Moore Jr is an important inspiration. His classic book Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1967) is a macrohistorical study of peasant politics. Eric Wolf is another is another inspiration. Radical agrarian populists/moral economy takes on forms of collective actions that are: Structured, organized, overt = armed and unarmed, often militant Calls for back to the people Rural world as the future Anti-capitalist Rejection of the Marxist notion of polarizing differentiation, disappearance of the peasantry, and an industrial path to development
Big picture state-society politics of rural development policies -- interested in state policies that provide the right to subsistence -- state has the moral obligation; violation of subsistence ethic is likely to result in peasant protest targeting the state (looting of government food warehouse, etc.) -- land reform (feeding into the petty bourgeoisie aspiration) of peasants is one of the most favoured large-scale state policies. -- farmer first policy advocacies food first framing Convergence between radical agrarian populism and neoclassical/nie positions on some issues on rural, peasant economies, especially on land reform? See Byres critique neoclassical, neo-populist dream in the context of land reform debates (Journal of Agrarian Change, 2004).
Who s who? James C. Scott, Yale Benedict Kerkvliet, ANU et al