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 --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005