File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9712, message 260


Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 17:30:34 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Was Marx for capitalism?


On Mon, 15 Dec 1997, boddhisatva wrote:

> Workers, especially women  leave such communities in great numbers because
> they prefer working for wages than being under the thumb of their fathers in
> the villages.  That capitalism may create more hardship for villagers,
> thereby creating a sort of imperialist pressure on simple agrarian life,
> cannot be assumed, as Proyect does in his analysis.
> 

I have no idea what country or what period in history Mr. Boddhisatva is
talking about. The problem is not that people voluntarily leave their
village to go become wage-workers. The problem is that agribusiness buys
the land from under the peasant's feet and he or she has no choice except
to go to the city. In the city there are few jobs today and most of these
disenfranchised peasants live in utter misery. They sell chewing-gum on
the streets or become prostitutes or beg. Mexico City, Lima, Rio De 
Janiero are not absorbing ex-farming populations. The reason for this is
that the material conditions do not exist in these places for capital
formation. The native capitalist class has neither the funds nor the will
to spawn industry as the 19th century European bourgeoisie did. 

> 
> 	Finally we should remember that small farmers are petit bougeoisie. 
> This is not the 1800's, comrades.  We live in an age where the dominant mode
> of production os industrial capitalism.  Making peasants into individual
> land-owners is no more a valid way towards revolution than making them into
> members of the industrial proletariat.  
> 

Socialists are for land reform, as Lenin was. The breaking up of vast
agribusinesses in Mexico that are producing strawberries, mangoes and
flowers for North American tables would be progressive. Small
individually owned farms, co-ops and state farms would try to mix
production of food for the local market and cash crops for export. This is
the approach of Cuba today as it was under Sandinista Nicaragua. What you
are for is capitalist farming, as is your pal Heartfield. You should go
pay a visit to Great Britain and look these people up. You are exactly the
sort of leftist yuppie they are looking for.

Louis Proyect



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