Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 16:01:08 +0500
From: Andy Daitsman <adaitsma-AT-mail.cc.trincoll.edu>
Subject: Re: El Salvador 


>Louis Proyect:
>
>Now that I've re-read your original post, I'm still not sure what 
>this has to do with going backward from capitalism to feudalism. The 
>farm you describe sounds like nothing more nor less than an 
>agriculture-based village trying to fend for itself in the midst of 
>capitalist agribusiness. Backwardness and poverty does not equal feudalism 
>the last time I checked.

We might want to think about taking this to email, but here goes.

I'm not citing "California" (the name of the former estate in question) as 
an example of regression from capitalism to _feudalism_, but rather as a 
regression from capitalism to a pre-capitalist mode of production.  
Village-based agriculture should not be construed as feudalist -- which in 
my mind involves large landed estates, single owners, bound resident labor, 
and certain kinds of reciprocity between landowner and serf.  Nor can it be 
considered completely Asiatic, a mode of production which implies a highly 
organized state which mobilizes the resources of many villages in order to 
support a bureaucratic elite and to create and maintain massive public works 
projects which make village agriculture possible.

Village agriculture in the Americas -- especially in Mexico and Central 
America -- is largely self-sufficient.  The village is an autonomous entity 
which organizes access to resources, especially land, through various kinds 
of collective mechanisms.  As far as I know, it is a particularly American 
mode of production -- although I freely confess that I don't know enough 
about southeast asian villages to make this statement with a great deal of 
confidence.

The main point, though, is that it is clearly not capitalist.  Its 
reappearance on what had been a showcase estate of Salvadoran agrarian 
capitalism I think is interesting.

Andy



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