corrections to primitivist misconceptions on this board

Peasents should be subservient to workers? That sounds fucked up. And I didn'y say that retail workers were not working class, I just can figure out what the hell you are saying most of the time. But you can use words like inverse and cunt. Therefore you are elected as the coolest anarchist on the face of the planet. I have no doubt that your combined approach of intellectual babbling and having a massive hard on for white men should serve us well.

Jack -- how is your attitude to peasants -- that they are reactionary and unable to overcome capitalism -- different to the attitude of someone like username to 'consumers' (that they are reactionary, and unable to overcome capitalism, etc.)

Or is it that peasants are 'objectively' and 'dialiectically' reactionary?

Keep on taking the tablets

I hope you die soon.

Well, for a true return to primitivist living we'll probably need a mass die-off anyway, so no harm in starting one at a time.

Happy Christmas all

Na, if you look at say european population in the feudal period you'd see it clearly fluctuated and at times was reduced in some parts, (and no i'm not talking about the black death coz that was an anomaly), and the population did not increase on a rate in any way comparable to industrial society. In fact if yopu looked at feudal society, you could clearly see that most of the population increase was concentrated in towns and cities.

But anyways, more importantly we're talking about harvests here, a peasant, using backward farming techniques, can only produce goods according to the dictates of the seasonal climate.

john

All peasants isnt backward. Most fairtrade peasant is using as much of good and contemporary eqipment as possible from their circumstances. Peasants has to a much bigger degree sided with anarchists rather than stalinists and leninists. The same couldnt be said about industrial workers.Farmers in the rich world are usualy uppermiddleclass or upperclass people and share the common "values" of their class. They usualy own big landareas or foodfactories/slaughterhouses.

The peasants of the thirld world is working class if any...

Many peasants all around the world are anarchists without knowing it and those who now it usualy dosent have enough money to get to ISM-meetings and stuff like that.

Look it's simple, a quick glance at the Ladybird book of historic materialism will tell you:

Peasant: Owns their own small plot of land, works it to provide for themselves/family, sells off any excess. Which effectively makes them (a) Subject class under feudalism (increasingly rare these days) or (b) Petit bourgeois under capitalism, since in capitalist terms they are effectively running a small business. So, either a reactionary within capitalism, or pitted against a pre-capitalist ruling class.

Worker: Does not own means of production. Must work for someone who does own the means of production in order to provide for self/family. Lives in a capitalist society, therefore one in which modes of production are advanced enough to provide for all humanity on a non-exploitative basis, which can only be achieved by a revolution which establishes the workers, the creators of wealth, as also being owners and controllers of it.

I think, in your misguided individualism, you mean they have sided with bourgeois revolutions and national liberation struggles, which are in their interests, rather than workers' revolutions against capitalism, which aren't.

Do you really think that the fact that someone owns a small plot of land makes them unworthy of the revolution? Especially when Doctors and other rich motherfuckers can waltz around with their big houses and cars and get called working class by a bunch of you folks. That is bullshit. As far as I am concerned a third world farmer has more business in the revolution than a lot of people. Anyone who calls them petty bourgeioise is probally just some dumb marxist fuck.

anarch i think u have a point, redyred is being reductionist as fuck, seriously i wish the CAG lot would grasp the more subtle nuances of marxism

however there is also some validity in pointing out that peasant struggles by themselves can be subsumed within the logic of private property. However against this one has to take into account a multitude of factors, a history of collective ownership, and the sort of self sufficient nature of many peasants that makes them distainful of statist and political methods. Peasants can be a revolutionary, especially when their land is being cleared, and especially cos ideas aren't just static and rooted to a class, ie peasants have heard of communism and collective ownership, they don't walk around in fucking bubbles!

anyway most of what are labelled the peasantry are in fact agriculture workers as well and hence part of the proletariat!

i mean just cos i grow some cherry tomatoes in my green house doesn't mean im not working class

anarch, doctors in this country don't necessarily waltz round with big cars and big houses. Its not mainly the same private/insurance system yet although the government would like to see it be so. I know a doctor who risked his job to stand up for a guy who was beaten badly by police in the Moss Side riots. He testified in court as part of the investigation into the riots. Moss Side was then one of the most economically deprived areas in Manchester and he was respected because he supported, aided and spoke out for people in court against the police.

As for who is a peasent and who isn't . redyred will probably rule the world by next tuesday

oops forgot. anarch, good post

petty bourgeioise, good post

marxist fucks, good post

Peasants, good post.

Good posts, lucy.

I not sure I really approve of all this post count competitiveness. You should know better lucy

<lucy looks at her feet and shuffles>

but then she says:

but they've been reallly boring Thora.

they've been talking about corrections to primitivist misconceptions on this board on this thread since September 2004. and now we're supposed to care what some person defines peasentry as when they've swallowed to much Marxism.

Are we not supposed to go mad?

cantdocartwheels wrote:

Population growth overall increased throughout the feudal period.

Agreed, i didn't suggest the rate was comparable to the industrial period.

The populations of towns and cities could only maintain their density levels (let alone increase) through continual migration from the countryside, with it's excess population (in relation to land availabilty).

Non seasonal food only accounts for a small fraction of total food production in industrialised countries and even less in world terms. Not all peasants use "backward farming techniques".

Jack wrote:

Your concept of petit-bourgeosisie is comparable to orthodox marxist useage. Especially your using it as a term of abuse (Marx would have been proud). The petit-bourgeoisie are one of the most economically-(over) determined groups in marx's theory, but (along with the peasantry) also one of least satisfactorily defined.

Your understanding of class struggle is far too reductionist. And it often sounds like a marxist mantra rather than an 'objective, marerialist,' analysis.

They are really boring. I don't care about peasants and doctors and whatever else it was and... Wait a minute! Was this just another attempt to bump up your post count? I feel so used

Another example of your reductionist, objective, materialist, marxist logic.

Go stand in the corner, your a very naughty boy.

Thora

yeay, i just wanted someone else to say it was boring. don't care about the post count.

worthy marxist rhetoric does nothing for me and quite possibly for the other 99.9% of the population also.

jack and jason, if you can agree on how the rate of population growth increased throughout the feudal period, and whether the petit-bourgeoisie were or were not satisfactorily defined in marx's theory, then (and only then) do i think you are ready to actually have a conversation with a working class person (not revol68 because i believe he has issues)

good post jack and if you change my post again using your admin powers i really will have you killed.....

For the record, when I qualify... I'll give you all free drugs?

Can you do that lucy? I guess I will have to get on your good side somehow, I would hate to endure the wrath of professional Anarchist ninja assassins. I am assuming that is what you would use to off Jack, I would do it with a wood chipper. Or beat him half to death with the communist manifesto and then dip him in salt plus lemon juice a few more times, and then beat him further to death with Capital and then wood chip/burn/eat what was left.

(The wink is here cuz I dont want to be blamed when these things happen to Jack, so you all remember I winked, I am clearly not guilty of anything, nor could I be, if in fact something was to occur... )

nah. i'd just kick him in the goolies but only if he deserved it

No ninjas? That sux. Well do what you must...but I would caution you to not engage Jack w/out proper support. At least a gun. You never know what these Reds will do. You might just want to bomb his house or something. If you show up and let him know who you are, his commie goons are likely to kill you, because they WILL use Ninjas. That is how they won the Russian Revolution and the 2004 election.

I agree.

Also many of them dosent even own a land, they are just working as peasants on the plantations of companys like united fruit. They are in other words not owning their means of production. If they have some land then it usualy only big enough for them to get what they need and maybie sell a little on the market. If they have created a fair trade network and have enough machinery to make their own production then more power to them.

One of the main reasons probably that Marx had something against peasants is that they are antiauthorian, something that shouldnt upset to many people on this forum.

Lucy82 (is that your age BTW) wrote:

Sorry, if you found it boring. I was just trying to get some people to stop hiding sloopy thinking behind marxist terminology. Not very successfuliy, i admit.

If i'm being boring just ignore me, i'll go away eventually (after 20 or so more posts).

I'm off now to till mother earth by direct physical labour with no intervening technology getting in the way. She will reward my efforts with bountiful plenty. And i shall make you a pie as a apology.