Date: Mon, 29 Apr 96 6:45:15 EDT
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: Capitalist collectivization. (fwd)









		Ken,



	I believe that the peasants have always been unhappy, and thus likely
to act up.  For the peasant, Marx prescribed (in a debate with Bakhunin)
"steps which will embyonically facilitate the transition from private
ownership of the land to collective ownership, so that the peasant will
himself come to this by economic means."  This would "bring him over to the
side of the revolution".  The reason for the change in property relations was
that "the peasant proprietor does not belong to the proletariat; even when
his situation places him in it he thinks he doesn't belong to it".  Now
quoting Marx is really no proof of anything, except insofar as it
demonstrates that he saw the conflict to which I allude.  Remember, that was
when the number of peasants was huge.  Remember also that, throughout the
first volume of capital, Marx makes a clear distinction between peasants and
farmers, making farmers agricultural capitalists.  Marx also pointed out (in
'Capital') that agricultural products were perfectly commoditized under
capitalism.  



	Putting all this together, we see that both the peasant and farmer
are wedded to private property.  They will therefore resist any incursion on
property rights, as we have seen both in Nicaragua (through Mr. Proyect) and
here (through the wise-use movement).  Marx does not dispute the
revolutionary energy of the peasantry, only he points out that social policy
which aids them in making the most of their property can pull them away from
the proletarian revolution.  Furthermore, threats to the property rights by
which they make their living (environmentalism, e.g.) also tends to widen the
gulf.  Peasants and farmers can deny they are part of the proletariat even
when they are clearly victims of it because of the logic inherent in the way
they make their money.  Unless you can convince farmers and peasants that
they should get a government check, and abandon the freedom to sell their
goods privately, you should not count on them to develop socialism.  If you
substitute the government check for production for market, I believe that you
risk instituting a dangerous and deformed kind of socialism.  Peasants 
and farmers produce for the most commoditized area of the economy.  
Trying to somehow deny the existence of capitalism in agriculture is 
pointless.   



	Finally Marx spoke of incrementalism in the approach - 100 years ago!
Those days are over.  History has shown that many peasants can be drawn to
industrial production (as well as forced) by capitalism.  The concept should
be to draw them to the freedom and benefit (and reality) of producing for the
market, without wage labor.  The co-operative substitutes wage labor with
shareholder reward, and re-introduces the role of the "commons" to the
community.  Ultimately that co-op community has to be broadened, but the 
first step is to rid the world of wage labor as a norm.  





	peace





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