France: Insurrectionary petit-bourgeois nationalists resist proletarianisation?
Jun 17 2007 13:50
Quote:
A shadowy group in France has issued the French government with an unusual ultimatum: raise the price of wine or blood will flow ... Already, several local supermarkets selling foreign wines have been attacked with small explosive devices, with others graffitied with the Crav's initials. The group has also shot at and hijacked at least one lorry containing wine from abroad
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6759953.stm
reactionary but curious
Jun 17 2007 13:56
#2
Bové?
Jun 17 2007 14:02
#3
He's just one of many, they used to burn Lorries carrying british meat imports etc French Farmers are militant as hell.
Jun 17 2007 14:10
#4
i might have to use this in something i'm writing as an example of how 'defending something positive' in capitalism tends to be reactionary as fuck
Jun 17 2007 14:14
#5
I don't know much about wine growing...actually I know nothing about wine growing...but I wouldn't automatically bracket this as 'reactionary'...the bloke interviewed on the BBC site owns 17 hectares which is around 40 acres...which would be fuck all here...but obviously we don't grow wine here so I don't know for sure what that actually means, but I think the fact that according to the article many wine growers draw the dole may say something...can't see any major social change happening in a place with a significant proportion of small farmers unless it has them on side and I should imagine the folk who put up a good fight when resisting proletarianisation will put up a good fight as proletarians.
Jun 17 2007 14:53
#6
Terry wrote:
I should imagine the folk who put up a good fight when resisting proletarianisation will put up a good fight as proletarians.
yeah maybe, that doesn't mean petit-bourgeois nationalism isn't reactionary though - even if the protagonists are virtually proletarian already
Jun 17 2007 15:47
#7
The post I was writing was lost! Duh!! Joseph K. I'm kinda lost as to what your point is....is it the objective economic category the farmers are in...or is it the fact they are stoping foreign imports....or the both.
On the second issue I think the point is it is big wine plantations with an economy of scale which is undercutting them..logically they would take the same stance on French versions of the same. I don't have a problem with this. I also don't have a problem if it is dressed up in lashings of talk about defending French culture and traditions.
Big difference between small farmers defending their way of life and standard of living and an important part of French culture and say keeping out the immigrants or everything will be great if we have a state of our own.
On 'petit bourgeois' not sure I get the point. I don't subscribe to the view that peasants have to be turned into proletarians though the development of capitalism before we get to the revolution. In fact I would say that narrow land ownership patterns, as in Britain, actually restrict the possibly of revolution, at least in one way. Then there is small capitals grow into big capitals thing...well judging purely on the BBC article it doesn't look like there is much prospect of that happening for most there and indeed that is basically what is being resisted - most farmers being wiped out by imports leaving a few big plantations for international competition.
So I'm all for the jacquerie, unless 40 acres is big time in wine growing terms (doubt it they were supposed to give freed slaves 40 acres and a mule), and unless these guys actually employ a ton of undocumented African migrants or something.
Jun 17 2007 15:57
#8
By which I mean the important thing to me is are these guys owner-operators or are they employers.
You Brits are probably just sore that youse still have a landowning aristocracy. 
Jun 17 2007 16:06
#9
Terry wrote:
On the second issue I think the point is it is big wine plantations with an economy of scale which is undercutting them..logically they would take the same stance on French versions of the same. I don't have a problem with this. I also don't have a problem if it is dressed up in lashings of talk about defending French culture and traditions.
all i know is what's in the bbc article about attacking imports - thought of course the BBC are hardly known for accurately representing the views of armed balaclava-clad militants.
Terry wrote:
On 'petit bourgeois' not sure I get the point. I don't subscribe to the view that peasants have to be turned into proletarians though the development of capitalism before we get to the revolution.
me neither, though that appears to be happening in this case (proletarianisation, not revolution). 'petit bourgeois' as in they're (apparently) defending the ideal of small independent self-owned producers against the reality of capital which often sweeps them away. they seem to want a nice capitalism out of adam smith's fantasies not the real world variety.
Terry wrote:
Then there is small capitals grow into big capitals thing...well judging purely on the BBC article it doesn't look like there is much prospect of that happening for most there and indeed that is basically what is being resisted - most farmers being wiped out by imports leaving a few big plantations for international competition.
small capitals turn into big capitals in two main ways - growth of small capitals (concentration) and takeover by larger ones (centralisation). if they can't or won't do the former when accumulation requires it, the latter will come calling.
i don't think small producers are essentially any different to big ones - though of course the human consequences may be harsher when it's small producers getting squeezed. like i say i don't know if these people are employers or self-employed small-holders - probably a mixture, but either way their struggle seems petit bourgeois to me because it's demanding a fairer capitalism for small businesses.
Jun 17 2007 16:42
#10
O.K. In my book there is a big difference between owners of shopping malls and small market traders, between peasants and agri-buisness, between self-employed construction workers and Laing O'Rourke. Now there is no difference between having a petit-bourgeios as an employer or having a multi-national. There is a major difference I think if it is a buisness which employs or does not employ. For instance in the last category (construction) you are simply hiring out your labour plus the tools for the job.
There is a vast difference in social power.
Moreover...I don't know if this is the case in France...but it certainly is the case in Ireland...many small farmers basically are working class or semi-working class in that either they work off the farm, or their wives do, or they are on social welfare and would take a job if they got one.
Small holders have been tenaciously holding onto uneconomic plots of land in both France and Ireland for several hundred years. Since before Adam Smith was heard of indeed.
For sure this is a matter of 'a fairer capitalism' so is higher wages or public health care. For sure the objective position of small farmers doesn't make for anti-capitalism, being as they are after all small buisness owners. However I'm sure I have read of peasants making links with the occupations in France in '68. When they are resisting being squeezed it is a good thing, because I think they can be part of an overall alliance led by the working class (on their own no they wouldn't be socialist). Which is important for revolutionary change, especially given their likely importance in a post-revolutionary society (food supply), and their potential to be, on the other hand a reactionary mass.
While proletarianised then hopefully their militant resistance can carry over to their new social environment.
It is different then from people who advocate small buisnesses and co-ops and so forth as the basis of a post-capitalist society...which is a nonsense.
Jun 17 2007 16:45
#11
"While proletarianised then hopefully their militant resistance can carry over to their new social environment."
- by which I mean if they don't hold on to their small holding...or cease producing with it...
Jun 17 2007 17:09
#12
Actually it is not just a matter of employing or not employing....the relative size of the buisness is important also with mechanisation you can have a family run farm of several thousand acres of pasture - the point is the folks who own that are part of the elite running the country...the guy with 40 acres who maybe rents 60, and acres of poorer land, and whose family is also dependant on the wife's wage, isn't. It is a question of who can possibly be allied to the working class and who is for sure on the other side of the barricades. Having never had a peasant revolution in Britain you don't have this issue, but it is different in Ireland, France, Poland, probably other countries in Europe, Italy possibly - I think the Italian peasants union was at Genoa.
Jun 17 2007 17:09
#13
Terry wrote:
O.K. In my book there is a big difference between owners of shopping malls and small market traders, between peasants and agri-buisness, between self-employed construction workers and Laing O'Rourke. Now there is no difference between having a petit-bourgeios as an employer or having a multi-national.
the latter similarity is what i had in mind when i said "i don't think small producers are essentially any different to big ones."
Terry wrote:
For sure the objective position of small farmers doesn't make for anti-capitalism, being as they are after all small buisness owners.
that's what i'm getting at labelling this Crav lot reactionary - as you say it doesn't necessarily mean peasant farmers couldn't be part of a revolutionary movement or that some notionally petit-bourgeois people aren't de facto proletarian, just that their struggles are not ours, but ours may also be theirs.
Jun 19 2007 06:31
#14
Joseph K if Terry is right and these fella's are essentially peasants working their own small plot then I have no problem with them. Yes, the defend french culture blah blah might jar but the same thing goes on when factories are threatened over in England, y'know 'defend british jobs' etc. gotta go out of work now, post more soon.
Jun 19 2007 07:28
#15
yeah tbh i don't know if they're peasants or small businesses - or an alliance of both. i wouldn't say i have no problem with parochial peasant direct action, though certainly i have a lot more time for the material grievance if these aren't small employers whinging big employers do it better.
Jun 19 2007 08:00
#16
This only goes to show that "direct action" is not just an anarchist tactic. After all, the only successful political general strike in Britain was the 1974 Protestant workers strike in Northern Ireland that brought down the power-sharing government there. i.e, it's not the tactic that's important but the objective aimed at. And surely subsidies or a protected market for winegrowers is not what we want.
Jun 19 2007 08:28
#17
Agree with Revol. We need further information before we can pass judgement and the struggle is likely to be contradictory; however smallholders surely are effectively proletarian in France and rent their land and work it to produce shit for Carrefour. That's not exactly the same sort of gig as a group of small factory owners getting put out of business by Sony or something, is it?
Jun 19 2007 10:01
#18
One of the problems is that the small producers are often effectively proletarianised with families working long hours on small plots of land, they are, supposedly, the brake on reform of EU agricultural policy but in actual fact (unsurprisingly) they are not the main beneficiaries of subsidies. Not that I'm backing petit bourgeois against bourgeois but they do work differently, many keep going by cheaply selling stuff to locals on the side.
What might be interesting is if the EU policies are actually reformed (which it is agreed at EU governmental level that they must be) whether they will buy the farmers off or fight them.
I think even Sarkozy might be wary of going to war with the farmers.
Jun 19 2007 11:03
#19
jef costello wrote:
One of the problems is that the small producers are often effectively proletarianised with families working long hours on small plots of land,
Jef, what exactly do you mean by proletarianised? It is not just about whether someone works long hours. It is about their relationship to the means of production. The guy who owns the small shop near me in Ankara is open for 18 hours a day. He runs it with his son, so if it is split evenly they work 63 hours a week each, and probably don't make that much money. They may be impoverised, but they are certainly not proletarianised.
Devrim
Jun 19 2007 11:07
#20
but i guess if they operate as de facto outsourced producers for a monopoly customer (a supermarket) then they're more proletarianised, almost being like workers on a piece-rate
Jun 19 2007 11:24
#21
Quote:
almost being like workers on a piece-rate
I suppose this is pretty much what I mean.
They may technically own the means of production but their capital is so small and the terms under which they can exploit it so difficult that they are no better off than people who own no capital.
Jun 19 2007 11:32
#22
i think there was a discussion of this around the fuel strikes, iirc a haulage driver wrote something about how while they notionally own their own lorries this is basically a cost/risk-shifting exercise by their bosses (sorry, customers).
Jun 19 2007 13:10
#23
That's pretty much it.
Jun 19 2007 14:44
#24
Yeah Devrim, class relations have moved on since the 1860s. I mean, capital responded to Marxism y'know? While proletariat/bourgeois can still be used as a rough sketch, there is a certain degree of nuance. I've had a number of interviews for temporary jobs of late. In many I've been told that I'll be technically self-employed. If lightning were to strike and someone were to be stupid enough to consider me employable, would I be petty bourgeois?
Jun 19 2007 14:50
#25
So all those working class activists, in whatever country and in whatever group they were in, socialist, anarchist or Communist, who lost their jobs and were blacklisted, and then had to do "petty bourgeois" things like be stallholders, newspaper vendors, peddlers, etc were not proletarianised?
Jun 19 2007 14:52
#26
yeah like huge swathes of the IT sector are technically self employed, infact if I moved to Dublin I would most likely end up doing the same job I do now but as a self employed contracter.
And lets remember that the what's important about the 'objective' situation of a class is how it affects a subjective response and we have seen examples of 'self employed' truckers overcoming atomisation and taking up a class opposition to capitalism, even if certain sections of capital may share an interest in it too ie lower tax on fuel.
Jun 19 2007 16:44
#27
Alan wrote:
Yeah Devrim, class relations have moved on since the 1860s. I mean, capital responded to Marxism y'know? While proletariat/bourgeois can still be used as a rough sketch, there is a certain degree of nuance. I've had a number of interviews for temporary jobs of late. In many I've been told that I'll be technically self-employed. If lightning were to strike and someone were to be stupid enough to consider me employable, would I be petty bourgeois?
It is another one talking about 'nuances'. I accept that the 'formal/legal' relationship to the the means of production is not the always the same as the real one.
Nobody here seems to be sure of the position of these farmers. I am not, but I used an example of a local shopkeeper. The farmers may well be proletarianised. My local shopkeeper isn't.
It isn't just about working hard, or being poor. It is about ones relationship to the means of production, and it determining effect on the social consciousness of classes. To put it quite simply, I am in conflict with my employer as my material interests lie in earning more money, and doing less work. My bosses interests are directly opposite to this.
Cengiz, my local shopkeeper, doesn't have the same interests at all. Eventually, I imagine he will be proletarianised as local shops disappear due to the development of supermarket chains.
Battlescarred wrote:
So all those working class activists, in whatever country and in whatever group they were in, socialist, anarchist or Communist, who lost their jobs and were blacklisted, and then had to do "petty bourgeois" things like be stallholders, newspaper vendors, peddlers, etc were not proletarianised?
I think that you are missing the point here. The working class is a potentially revolutionary class. The petty-bourgeoisie are not. There is a tendency for various strata to become proletarianised. It is happening to doctors in Ankara at the moment for example. Proletarianisation is a phenomena, a social process. The tem doesn't apply to a militant who is blacklisted and ends up as a stall holder for example.
The point is that while that militant might be a communist, s/he is not, at the time a proletarian. I think that those militants recognised that the power to change society for the better lay in the working class not amongst stallholders.
Devrim
Jun 19 2007 19:31
#28
Actually I agree with Devrim. The 'putting out' system is an interesting and possibly apt analogy, but workers in the putting out system were not proletarians, at least as far as I remember with that they owned their own machinery. They had to be dispossessed of that to become proletarians, meaning propertyless wage labourers (which would include the 'self employed' as in many of the above examples)
The analogy is possibly apt in the Irish case anyways as far as I have been told a couple of agri-buisnesses have a stranglehold on beef and dairy (and one of them is actually the biggest reciever of agricultural subsidies).
As far as I know each state in the EU has a limit on the ammount of agricultural subsidies they have, so it would not be a matter of more, but of a re-distribution of them...which in this instance I have no problem with...also wouldn't be protectionism, as French wine production is dependant on international markets (incidentally curious as to why protectionism is always a no no). There is no comparasion with the Ulster Workers Council strike against the Sunningdale agreement. I don't think we can really understand what the demands and that are here based just on one BBC report.
Farmers, irrespective of what strata, have almost always formed a reactionary mass in Ireland, and are one of the main reasons why we always have right wing governments (not that irrelevant - it does say something of attitudes)......anything that shows a potential for going away from that is a good thing. I think there is partially a similar story in France, at least since the 1790s.
This doesn't mean the petit bourgeoisie are a potentially revolutionary class, it does mean that one has to be someways cogniscant of where different strata within that are at, as they can basically go either way.
One small farmers group, now AFAIK non-existant, did stand in solidarity with the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs, whose activities are detailed in this book here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72781
Jun 23 2007 00:14
#29
Well it is quite possible that they will carry out attacks There was rioting in Montpellier, Nîmes and Béziers in 2005 and two buildings were attacked with explosive devices.
April 2006 CRAV organied a 'blue night' and sacked (their word) the offices of 12 wine merchants
last years offices of wine merchants and a police car were burnt down
There is a big demo coming up on the 3rd of July so it might all kick off then.
Devrim you might be right when you talk about class interests determining whether someone is proletarian but would you include cultural capital etc?
I don't own any equipment but I can get a salaried job by using qualifications etc, I suppose the difference is that I cannot sell my 'tools' as it were
sorry I can't quite get to my point.
Jun 23 2007 01:03
#30
jef costello wrote:
Well it is quite possible that they will carry out attacks There was rioting in Montpellier, Nîmes and Béziers in 2005 and two buildings were attacked with explosive devices.
April 2006 CRAV organied a 'blue night' and sacked (their word) the offices of 12 wine merchants
last years offices of wine merchants and a police car were burnt downThere is a big demo coming up on the 3rd of July so it might all kick off then.
Devrim you might be right when you talk about class interests determining whether someone is proletarian but would you include cultural capital etc?
I don't own any equipment but I can get a salaried job by using qualifications etc, I suppose the difference is that I cannot sell my 'tools' as it weresorry I can't quite get to my point.
In other words you're talking about 'craft' workers. It used to be common in socialist discourse to refer to someones skill as a form of capital (or rather, that they treated it as a form of capital, although it was not). That was part of the reason that the early IWW folks thought that industrial unionism was revolutionary in-and-of itself.
French farmers have form for stuff like that.