Text  Engine Project  on Social Classes of Agrarian Societies RODOLFO STAVENHAGEN

Social Classes of Agrarian Societies RODOLFO STAVENHAGEN TRANSLATED BY JUDY ADLER HELLMAN ANCHOR ~0 _9_KS ANCHOR PRESS/DOUBLEDAY . GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 1975 The Anchor Books edition is the first English-language publication of Social Classes in Agrarian Societies. A Spanish-language edition was published in Mexico by Siglo XXI publishers in 1969. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stavenhagen, Rodolfo. Social classes in agrarian societies. Translation of Las clases sociales en las sociedades a agrarias. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Underdeveloped areas-Social conditions. 2. Social classes. 3. Peasantry. I. Title. HN980.S7213 301.44'43'091724 ISBN 0-385-00725-6 LI'brary of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-12735 Anchor Books edition: 1975 Translation Copyright © 1975 by Doubleday & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America EDITOR'S STATEMENT This volume is part of a publishing program on Latin America, under the general editorship of Otto Feinstein and Rodolfo Stavenhagen. The purpose of these books is to present an inter-American dialogue on Latin American affairs, from history and culture to economics, politics, and sociology. This program is designed to make the best scholarship from Latin America available to readers in the United States. OTTO FEINSTEIN is Professor of the Science of Society Division of Monteith College, Wayne State University. He is editor of New University Thought. Professor Feinstein has written articles for numerous publications, and is the editor of Two Worlds of Change: Readings in Economic Development. RODOLFOST AVENHAGEN is a Mexican who studied sociology and social anthropology at the University of Chicago, the National University of Mexico, and the University of Paris. Since 1956, he has been teaching at the National University :,f Mexico, and is currently Director of the Department of Sociology at El Colegi.o de Mexico. He is the author of nany articles on Latin America, including "Seven Erroneous fheses about Latin America," which appears in New Uni~ ersity Thought, as well as Agrarian Problems and Peasant \lovements in Latin America, also published by Anchor as ?art of this program. Other titles in the program include The Rape of the r?easantry, by Ernest Feder, and Dependence and Undertevelopment by James D. Cockcroft, Andre Gunder Frank, md Dale Johnson. For Nina Marina Andrea CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Part I: SOCIALC LASSEISN AGRARIASNO CIBTIES Agrarian Societies and Underdevelopment Social Classes and Stratification Social Classes and Under4evelopment The Process of Change Agrarian Societies and Rural Class Structures Agrarian Changes and the Dynamics of Class in Black Africa Agrarian Structure and Social Classes in Latin America Part II: COMMERCIAFLA RMINGA NDC LASSR ELATIONS IN THE IVORY COAST 8. The Agni of the Ivory Coast 9. The Commercial Farm Economy 10. Interethnic and Class Relations 11. Social Class and the Farm Economy Part Ill: INTERETHNIC AND CLASSR ELATIONISN MESOAMERICA 12. The Maya Highlands of Chiapas (Mexico) and xi 3 19 40 53 64 72 94 119 129 137 147 Guatemala 163 13. The Historical Background of Class Relations 170 14. Land and Class Relations 175 15. Commercial Relationships 185 16. Social Stratification 190 17. The Dynamics of Interethnic Relations: Classes, Colonialism, and Acculturation 199 EPILOGUE: Agrarian Structures and Capitalist Development: A Reconsideration 216 NOTES 234 INDEX 257 In every part of the world, generally speaking, peasantry have been a conservative force in social change, a brake on revolution, a check on that disintegration of local society which often comes with rapid technological change. Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture • it is clear that in the colonial countries only the peasantry is revolutionary. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain. The peasant, declassed and hungry, is the exploited one who first discovers that only violence pays. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth INTRODUCTION The discipline of sociology of development is a relative newcomer to the. social sciences; it is hardly more than a generation old. Yet there is already an enormous amount of literature on the subject. Important empirical studies have been carried out in various parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; rural communities . have been researched intensively; country surveys have provided descriptive material; and a number of important and suggestive theoretical essays. have attempted to provide adequate frameworks for the understanding of the processes of social and political development. Underdeveloped countries are mainly agrarian societies because most of their population ustially lives off the land, and because their economies are frequently based on · agriculture. Peasantries, which in the Western industrialized countries were transformed· seve~ generations ago into · the industrialized working class, are· still very much alive in the underdeveloped countries today, atid will probably continue tci be so· for many decades . to come. The process of economic development brings forth profound social and cultural changes in the underdeyeloped nations, and is in tum conditioned by them. What is the role of the peasant populations in these changes? · The rural areas in the underdeveloped countries have usually been treated iii the literature· as being uni,formly ''backward'' or ''traditi5>nal." Change 'is seen as a unilinear process of ''modernization'' or "Westernization." Little· systematic at_. tention ·has been given to social. stratification and social class structures in the rural areas. This is not surprising, because class analysis in sociological literature has traditionally been applied to· highly differentiated urban . industrialized societies. But far-reaching social changes are occurring in · rural societies all over the world, and such changes are by no means recent. Nothing is further from the truth than to consider the xii Introduction rural sector in the underdeveloped countries as being somehow eternally stable and immutable, the passive recipient of stimuli emanating from the modern urban centers. For several centuries now the underdeveloped countries have played their role in the evolution of the world capitalist system. The slave trade produced extensive demographic and economic changes in many areas of Africa, which were accentuated by the political colonization of that continent during the nineteenth century. In Latin America, the contemporary landholding system, which many authors consider to be an important obstacle to economic progress, but which in some countries has begun to fall apart, is itself a product of the colonization of the New World since the sixteenth century. These processes have produced highly stratified rural social systems in many areas, and the progressive social differentiation of the rural community in others. Now that, the colonial and semi-colonial peoples have awakened and the underdeveloped countries are engaged in a worldwide struggle for their economic emancipation, the attention of social scientists in the underdeveloped countries is being increasingly drawn away from the study of tribes, primitives, or "simple peoples" which for so many decades focused much of their interest, to that of the more "modernized" peasantries, the rural populations which belong to the contemporary world and its economic, social and political preoccupations. But who · are the peasants? In what kinds of societies do they live? . Are they basically a conservative force, as Robert Redfield, the anthropologist, maintained? Or are they fundamentally and essentially revolutionary, as Frantz Fanon, the revolutionary theorist, asserted? Are all peasants alike or do they divide up into social classes and strata? How do their societies and social . relationships react to the process of econ<;,mic development? Are they marginalized with respect to the wider society which surrounds them, or are they well integrated with that society? These are just some of the questions that arise when we tum our attention to the study of rural societies in the socalled Third World. Although the literature on rural communities is ·abundant, there are few books which address themselves to these questions in a systematic manner within Introduction xiii a comparative framework and in sociological perspective. The author's interest in rural problems-stemming originally from direct work with Indian peasant populations in Mexicoled him to explore some of. these. issues from a comparative point of view. This book does not provide an answer to all of the questions posed above; many more field investigations are needed for that. Neither is it an attempt to develop a theory of agrarian societies or rural social classes. It is simply a comparative essay based on sociological and anthropological data from underdeveloped countries (mainly Africa and Latin America), in order to advance somewhat the systematic analysis of peasant societies. One of the more useful tools of sociological theory is class analysis, particularly in the study of the dynamics of change in modem societies. The problem of class and social stratification is also one of the key theoretical issues of contemporary sociology. However, in the underdeveloped countries the sociology of class has received only scant attention. This is particularly true as regards agrarian societies. A useful approach to the study of the rural population of underdeveloped countries is the analysis of social classes, which is the purpose of this book. An earlier version, with more of the scholarly trappings required by academia, was presented as a doctoral dissertation in the University of Paris in 1965. It was first published in Mexico in 1969. The present Anchor volume is a revised version of that edition. In light of the newer research and recent theoretical discussions on the peasantry, the temptation was great to rewrite extensively and change some of the chapters; but I staunchly resisted this temptation, which would have led to another kind of book altogether. During the preparation of this work I have received the help and advice, as well as the criticism, of many people, and have been conscious of, and grateful for, the intellectual influence of others. Not being able to mention them all, I would simply like to acknowledge the stimulation, patience, and friendship of Professor Georges Balandier, of the University of Paris, as well as the many useful suggestions of Claude Meillassoux. My interest in the subject which is the concern of this book was aroused several years ago by Proxiv Introduction fessors Ricardo Pozas and Alejandro D. Marroquin. Fran! rOis Chevalier and Mario Ramon Beteta were helpful in obtaining material support for my postgraduate study in Paris, where research for this book was begun. I am also grateful to Bill Whitehead and Carol Goldberg of Anchor Books for their patience and support, and to Judy Adler Hellman for the fine translation into English. PART I Social Classes in Agrarian Societies WHAT Is UNDERDEVELOPMENT? CHAPTER 1 Agrarian Societies and Underdevelopment Thousands of books have been published on the underdeveloped countries and hundreds of definitions have been advanced of . underdeveloped or . backward economies. It is beyond the scope of this introductory chapter to attempt to summarize the wide literature on this subject. But insofat0 as underdevelopment constitutes the framework within which the social processes that are analyzed in this bo0k take place, it will be necessary to look briefly at some of the basic factors involved. Even though a precise definition of underdevelopment is hardly possible and would be quite inadequate, we may mention some of the fundamental criteria which have usually been retained by scholars in their studies of the countries so defined.1 The most common indicators are Gross National Product (G:NP) and Per Capita Income, which are useful measures for cross-national comparisons and allow one to place all the nations in the world on a single "development" scale. Thus the units on the scale might range from a high per capita income of around three thousand dollars per year (in the United States) to a low of sixty dollars (some African countries), with most other countries falling somewhere in between. A number of arbitrary cuts on the scale would then give us the ''underdeveloped" countries at the bottom, . the "developing". countries in the middle, and the "developed" countries at the top of the scale. But statistical averages of this kind ·are only very rough indicators of what they are supposed to measure, for they hide considerable internal variations and different economic and social structures. 4 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies A large number of different criteria have been increasingly used to measure the level of social and economic development, and they cover such various fields as demographic structure, health and nutrition, education, employment, industrial production, housing, communications, and others. A recent attempt at synthesis by the United Nations includes seventythree indicators.2 The combination of these various measures allows one to draw a "profile" of developed or underdeveloped countries. While this "scaling" approach is useful and indeed necessary in somehow ordering the masses of economic and social data from all over the world, it has one major drawback, namely, that -by ranking nations according to their higher or lower positions the implication is drawn that an upward movement by any unit along the scale ( or scales) represents the process of development, and that this process necessarily follows similar patterns wherever it has taken place. Much of the recent literature on the countries of the Third World8 takes this line of reasoning, whether it refers to the "stages" of economic growth, the sociology of modernization, or the process of political development.4 Again, it is not the purpose of this chapter to weigh the relative merits of competing theories of development and underdevelopment, though some theoretical ballast certainly needs to be cleared away before the present problems of the under., developed countries can be adequately understood. 0 Among the aspects associated with underdevelopment which are of particular relevance for our study is the fact that a large part, and quite often the majority, of the population of Third World countries lives from agriculture, and generally the greater part of foreign exchange is derived from the export of agricultural products. With the exception of some underdeveloped countries whose economies are based on mining or petroleum, these nations are essentially composed of agrarian societies. This means that not only their economic activities but also their social institutions, political power structures, value systems, cultural traditions, and settlement patterns as well as their history are directly linked to the use and exploitation of the land as a productive resource. In these countries, economic development takes agriculture and connected activities as its Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 5 point of departure, and the various criteria of underdevelopment are closely associated with the structure of this primary sector. Development produces, first of all, changes in agrarian structures and in the characteristics of the agricultural population. But though it may be taken as one of its principal indicators, the importance of the agricultural sector and of agrarian structures in a ,country does not in itself define underdevelopment. For underdevelopment is not merely the sum of a series of distinct and quantifiable traits. It is a configuration of mutually interdependent elements (structure) which is the result of a particular kind of historical evolution of the countries concerned. Even a cursory glance at their history shows that the countries which are defined today as being underdeveloped were incorporated for a greater or lesser time span into one of the colonial systems which the world has known since the expansion of the European world beginning in the sixteenth century .. This in tum determined the relationships between the world metropolitan centers and the "peripheral" countries, even after the latter's access to political independence. The colonial system established relationships of inequality, dependence, and exploitation between the colonies and the colonial metropolis and created within the former the so-called structural aspects of underdevelopment which are their main characteristics today: · 1) sectoral inequalities in productivity; 2) disarticulation of the economic system, or what is sometimes referred to as the "dualism" of underdeveloped countries; and 3) external domination.8 It is commonly held that the industrialized countries of today were able to develop in their time due to a number of particularly favorable circumstances (natural resources, technological inventiveness, cultural values relating to the positive aspects of hard work, savings, and the achievement motive, and so forth), whereas the underdeveloped countries, lacking these elements, went their own underdeveloped way. What this approach overlooks is that the history of the underdeveloped countries has been inextricably linked to that of the developed nations, not only in the sense that the colonies provided much of the needed capital for the industrial revolution, but particularly in that their own ulterior underdevel6 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies opment has been indelibly marked by this relationship. The traditional view of development, when it does not actually extol the alleged benefits that the backward countries received from the colonial system, at worst considers colonialism as temporarily having inhibited the spread of the benefits of industrialism to the "less fortunate" nations. 7 In fact, however, both the development of the "central" countries and the underdevelopment of the "peripheral" nations are part and parcel of the history of the same worldwide system. This is the history of the expansion of the world capitalist system during its various stages from early mercantilism to today's multinational corporation. Thus underdevelopment as a structure and as an ongoing process can only be understood as the implantation or imposition of a capitalist economy on precapitalist and non-industrialized societies. The underdevelopment of the periphery is as much the result of the world capitalist system as is the development of the central or industrialized nations. The functioning of this global system created the development-underdevelopment dichotomy, and the sets of relationships established among nations within this system gave rise to some of the most severe manifestations of underdevelopment: the destruction of traditional subsistence agriculture and social structures; the depletion of the natural resources of underdeveloped countries; net capital outflow from these countries to the highly developed ones; monetary and financial instability; inflationary processes; artificial growth of the commercial and services sectors; low level of national savings; widespread poverty; and other factors which are often taken as the cause rather than the result of underdevelopment But while the origins and the causes of the maintenance of underdevelopment are to be found in the external relations of the countries of the Third World, it would be silly to blame the problems of the underdeveloped societies exclusively on colonialism and imperialism. Economic backwardness is also linked to certain kinds of social and political structures. While some of these are, to be sure, the result of colonial history, others have their roots in the precolonial society and in the cultures and value systems associated with a precapitalist . economy. It is within the framework of such structures that Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 7 the issues of development and underdevelopment are staked out. Among the many factors noted are family and kinship relations, village community structures, social hierarchies and stratifications, religious values, political power systems, psychological motivations, cognitive orientations, and so forth. When many of these elements are patterned in a certain fashion, then it is said that they constitute "traditional society" as opposed to "modern society," in which a different pattern, more conducive to economic development, is said to exist. Whether or not these traditional structures are obstacles to development is an empirical question to be tested in each case. Yet here again it is necessary to insist that it is not the traditional structures in themselves that make a society "underdeveloped." Only when they begin to play a part in the colonial or semi-colonial capitalist system do they tend to become transformed into "underdeveloped" structures. Such traditional social elements dating from precolonial times are often actually reinforced by the imported capitalist system even as their traditional function changes. This has been the case, for example, with the privileged position attributed by the British to certain castes in India's age-old caste system; or the strengthening of local feudal regimes in certain parts of Africa and Asia by the European imperial powers; or the artificial stirring up of tribal rivalry in Black Africa by colonialist design. Many other examples could be given of so-called "traditional" elements being maintained or actually furthered to facilitate the penetration of the "peripheral" societies by the world capitalist system. On the other hand, the process of modernization in the social, cultural, and political fields has not generally led to economic development; it has, rather, simply modernized or streamlined existing systems of domination which are an inseparable aspect of underdevelopment. Thus the modernization of public bureaucracies as a part of nation building in the colonial or ex-colonial countries has frequently helped to strengthen the economic mechanisms whereby these nations are subordinated to the international system. Or the rise of an entrepreneurial middle class, often heralded as the standard-bearer of economic development, often represents nothing more than the consolidation of a small governing elite which appropri8 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies ates for itself a part of the spoils of underdevelopment. Or the introduction of modem technology in agriculture, while contributing to raise overall output and push the country a notch higher on the development scale which was mentioned above, actually benefits only a minority and increases the impoverishment of great masses of the peasant population. Thus in India the celebrated "green revolution" (the massive introduction of high-yielding "miracle" seeds) is said to pave the way for the coming "red revolution." Or else, as in Latin America, where political instability as measured by the frequency of military coups is often cited as an obstacle to development and attributed to some ancestral Spanish-Indian heritage, the military regimes have actually been the guarantors of the operations of the foreign-owned plantations, mines, oil fields, and other industries which account for a good part of the massive transfer of wealth from the Latin American countries to the industrialized nations, thus aggravating underdevelopment in that part of the world. 'fHE DYNAMICS OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT It should be clear from the brief discussion above that underdevelopment is not a state of non-development or predevelopment. It is a dynamic, ongoing process that occurs in countries which have been incorporated as dependent satellites (mainly as producers of raw materials and suppliers of cheap labor permitting the accumulation of capital on a worldwide scale) into the expanding capitalist world system under the hegemony of a number of developed or . metropolitan countries (successively Spain, Holland, France, Great Britain and the United States) . This externally dependent status has produced increasing internal polarization between rich and poor in the underdeveloped countries. The destruction of traditional precolonial societies has in fact produced dependent, satellite, underdeveloped status. Thus it has been possible to speak of "the development of underdevelopment."8 As is well known and has been amply documented,9 the gap between the industrialized nations and the Third World has increased since the Second World War. This is not only the result of faster overall growth rates in the developed countries. A number of additional factors also play their role. Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 9 The underdeveloped countries mainly rely on their exports of raw materials and primary products to finance their own economic growth. With the foreign exchange obtained by their exports they are able to import consumer and capital goods from the industrialized countries. But the terms of trade between their exports and imports regularly deteriorate. Not only are the prices of primary products subject to sharp shortterm fluctuations on the international markets, but in the long run they tend to fall relative to the prices of the industrial goods. Thus a typical underdeveloped country will have to export increasing quantities of primary products just to maintain a given level of income. In view of the fact that the producers of these raw materials· are many, and the buyers few, and that most of the international trade of these products is ·in the hands of a small number of powerful international corporations, it is the latter who can, in fact, impose on the former the price levels of their export goods. The underdeveloped countries have long demanded better treatment by the industrialized countries, and a number of international conferences sponsored by the United Nations are periodically devoted to discussing these problems. But except in a few cases of special agreements concerning certain commodities the countries that produce primary products have not been able to make much headway. Thus, over a ten-year period (1955-65), the terms of trade deteriorated by 15 per cent for the African countries,10 and between 1950 and 1968 they deteriorated by 30 per cent for Latin Am.erica.U Another important factor contributing to increasing underdevelopment in the Third World is foreign investment. It is often stated that foreign capital is necessary for economic growth in the underdeveloped countries. Recently a high-level international commission set up by the World Bank recommended that private investment flows to underdeveloped countries be increased.12 In fact, however, private foreign investment mainly benefits the investor, not the host country. Its main effect has been to accelerate the outflow of capital from the underdeveloped countries to the industrialized nations through the repatriation of profits, payment of royalties, and so forth. Only as regards its relations with the United States, Latin America's net outflow of capital amounted to JO Social Classes in Agrarian Societies almost seven billion dollars between 1960 and 1968.is Speaking of private investments in the British colonies, Herbert Frankel noted twenty years ago that "it is very common nowadays to suggest that the provision of capital in any form is necessarily advantageous to the recipient society and automatically produces 'income.' Nothing could be further from the truth. The history of such 'investments' in Africa and elsewhere affords many examples of railway lines, roads, ports, irrigation works, etc. in the 'wrong places' which not only failed to lead to income-generating development, but actually inhibited more economic developments which might otherwise have taken place."14 Given the capital requirements of the underdeveloped countries much hope has also been placed on long-term international credits and government-to-government loans to finance exports, investments, and development projects. The result of this foreign aid has · been the increasing indebtedness of the underdeveloped countries, which has led to frequent monetary and balance of payments crises. More and more foreign aid is disbursed simply fo help the underdeveloped countries repay their accumulated debts. The Pearson report states that in 1965-67 debt service amounted to 87 per cent of new loan disbursements in Latin America, 73 per cent in Africa and 52 per cent in East Asia.1° Even as the underdeveloped countries increase their GNP, the combined effect of the factors just mentioned (deterioration of the terms of trade, net private capital outflows, and increasing external public debt service payments) decreases the availability. of internal resources for productive invest .. ment. Thus in Latin America the proportion of domestic resources available for investment fell from 17.5 _ per cent of total product- in 1950 to 14.5 per cent at the end . of the sixties.16 It should not be assumed from the foregoing that if the underdeveloped countries suddenly went without foreign private investments and public aid their level of development would automatically rise. It can be inferred, however, that if certain internal political conditions existed (and this is the important if) the chances of accelerating their rates of capital Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 11 formation in the absence of such foreign investments and aid would improve. Economic growth is usually said to be related to. the level of investment. This, in turn, depends on the available capital and the level of savings in any given society, and may be called the society's actual economic surplus, that is, the difference between society's actual current output and its actual current consumption. The rate of development will then be the result of the size of the actual economic surplus and the way in which it is used. If a good part of the surplus is transferred abroad, as is the case in the underdeveloped countries, then of course the rate of development will be low. But societies also dispose of a potential economic surplus, which is the difference between the output that could be produced in a given natural and technological environment with the help of employable productive resources, and what might be regarded as essential consumption. The potential economic surplus is to be found in a) society's excess consumption, b) the loss of output due to the existence of unproductive workers, c) the loss of output due to the irrational and wasteM organization of the existing productive apparatus, and d) the loss of output due to open and disguised unemployment.17 Consequently the chances for economic development in the countries of the Third World depend upon the ways in which they employ their actual economic surplus and successfully tap their potential economic surplus which at present goes to waste. These are problems directly related to social and political organization. Colonialism and imperialism have not only plundered the wealth of the underdeveloped countries and subordinated them economically to the interests of the metropolitan or "central" nations. They have also stimulated a certain kind of capitalist growth in the "periphery," which we may call underdeveloped or dependent capitalism. The main characteristic of this system is that it tends increasingly to polarize into two principal sectors: a "modern" agricultural, mining, manufacturing, commercial, and services sector directly related to exports, foreign investments, public administration, and so forth; and a ''traditional" sector of backward agriculture, handicrafts, low-productivity services, local trade, and 12 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies small-scale production for domestic consumption. The modem sector includes the mines, railroads, highways, ports, power plants, factories, and apartment buildings that have sprung up all over the Third World. The traditional sector is characterized by the masses of peasants and urban shantytown dwellers living at subsistence levels who make up the majority of the population. When reference is made to aggregate growth rates in the underdeveloped countries as a sign of their progress, it must be borne in mind that these usually refer only to the modem sector. The existence of these two sectors has led some authors to advance "dualistic" theories regarding the evolution of the underdeveloped countries. The main thrust of these theories is that the traditional and backward sector pre-dates the appearance of capitalism, that it exists fairly independently of the modem, capitalist sector, and constitutes an obstacle to the further development of the underdeveloped countries. It is argued that if only the "right formula" is found, the modem capitalistic sector will expand to incorporate the backward one and lead the country into self-sustaining growth.ls The real story is different. Dualism has indeed been the result of the establishment of capitalism, but not because the externally oriented modem sector has left the rest of the country behind. The traditional sector is itself a result of capitalist development. In fact, the externally oriented modem sector has subordinated the backward sector to serve its own interests. British colonial policies destroyed native manufactures and a self-sufficient agricultural village economy in India. Colonial practices in Africa disorganized precolonial tribal societies and created vast, impoverished reserves of labor for capitalist mines and plantations. In Latin America, the so-called "feudal" agrarian structure is the result of over three centuries of colonial rule and incorporation into the world capitalist system. In fact, it is not the backward sector which constitutes an obstacle to the development of a modem economy. It is the modem, dependent capitalist sector which constitutes an obstacle to the development of the backward areas. The dialectic. of dependent capitalism leads simultaneously to the growth of a small modem sector and to the underdevelopment of the backward areas. The two are organiSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 13 cally linked, for the development of the former implies the increasing underdevelopment of the latter. This has been called internal colonialism or metropolis/satellite relationship, for it recreates within the framework of an underdeveloped country the same system which externally ties that country to the world metropolitan centers.19 Some of the mechanisms whereby this occurs will be analyzed in the following chapters. "OBSTACLES" TO DEVELOPMENT Much recent literature on the subject attempts to identify the various "obstacles" to economic growth, as if development were a natural tendency in societies artificially retarded by cultural, social, and political hurdles which should be conveniently placed out of the way. As we have seen, however, the principal obstacles to development are built into the nature of dependent capitalism itself. Consequently, facile comparisons between the historical process of industrialization of the Western nations and the contemporary development of the Third World,· or all-inclusive schemes such as Rostow's theory of the stages of economic growth,20 must be taken with reservation. It is not possible to retain the widely held idea that the underdeveloped <:0untries can simply repeat the road to development that the indus~d nations have taken, and that they even have certain "advantages of backwardness" in that they could simply take over from these nations the latest technological advances without having to pass through the painful stages of industrialization which plagued nineteenth-century Europe. There are several reasons for the impossibility of imitation. In the first place, the preconditions which existed in Europe for the industrial revolution are not generally present today in the underdeveloped countries. Kuznets has pointed to the vast differences in per capita incomes and demographic patterns between the European countries in the nineteenth century and today's underdeveloped areas.21 Others have stressed the fact that Europe already haq a considerable economic infrastructure before the industrial revolution and that the cultural, social, and economic heritage of Europe was quite different from that of today's Third World.22 Similar observations could be made regarding the United States and Japan, 14 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies the latter country being mentioned sometimes as a possible model for underdeveloped countries to follow.2a A further important difference, and a fundamental one in our opinion, is that Europe's development was closely linked to its colonial empires; not only is this kind of expansion no longer possible for today's underdeveloped countries, but, as we have noted above, it is precisely their colonial background which conditioned their underdevelopment. Comparing the underdeveloped South Asian countries and the highly developed Western countries on the eve of their rapid economic growth, Gunnar Myrdal reaches the general conclusion· "that the differences in initial conditions are extremely significant and that they regularly work to the disadvantage of the underdeveloped countries in South Asia. Furthermore, the differences are in many instances of such a nature as to prohibit a pattern of growth analogous to that experienced by the developed Western countries." 24 As regards the adoption of modern technology by the underdeveloped countries, it has been noted that technological transfer under prevailing conditions has been more of an obstacle than a boon to economic development. Thus Myrdal considers that ". • . scientific and technological advance in the West has had, and is having, an impact on the South Asian countries that is very detrimental to their development prospects . • • the dynamics of technological progress will work to the ever greater disadvantage of the underdeveloped countries, increasing difficulties and decreasing their development potential."2° And a United Nations report concerning Latin America concludes that the introduction of modem technology by the multinational corporations not only blocks the kind of development that the Latin American countries need and increases their technological dependency vis-a-vis the industrialized nations, but actually helps to finance the technological development of the industrialized countries themselves.26 The comparison between the underdeveloped countries and nineteenth-century Europe would be nothing more than an exciting intellectual exercise were it not for several theoretical implications which deserve mention. An outstanding feature of European or American capitalist development was the role Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 15 played therein by the bourgeoisie as a social class, a sociological phenomenon which was the basis of Marx's analysis of capitalism as a system. In much of the recent literature it is assumed, expected, or proposed that a middle class of capitalist entrepreneurs plays a similar revolutionary, innovating, and modernizing role in the underdeveloped countries. This does not happen to be the case, however. The "knight of industry" of early capitalism is a storybook character who does not find a place in the world of the billion-dollar multinational corporation with headquarters in London, New York, or Geneva, which extends its operations over three or four continents. Economic decisions of importance for a country's development are no longer made by single financiers or small groups of nationally based businessmen. They are usually taken in corporate offices several thousand miles away. The local entrepreneur, when he exists at all, plays a subordinate or complementary role to these international giants. Nor are his own interests necessarily different or opposed to those of the foreign-owned companies, notwithstanding the theories that regard the ''national bourgeoisie" of the underdeveloped countries as being interested in gaining economic independence from foreign control. In fact, the different entrepreneurial fractions of this bourgeois social class (whether they concern themselves with industry, export-import activities, agriculture, or services) are well integrated into the externally dependent "modem" sector of peripheral capitalism. They are thus hardly likely to become the promoters of independent economic development. A number of special psychological and ethical qualities are usually assumed to exist among the entrepreneurial classes which, it is said, favored economic growth in the West. Among these are the Protestant ethic of hard work and saving so well illustrated in the writings of Benjamin Franklin, the entrepreneurial spirit of innovation and starting out on new paths, the achievement motive of wishing to get something done or to become someone, and the willingness to take risks. · If only these qualities existed among the middle classes of the underdeveloped countries, it is argued, then economic backwardness could be overcome.27 We shall not discuss here what the role of these various factors actually was in the 16 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies development of the Western countries, but as far as the middle classes of the underdeveloped countries are concerned, a closer look would suggest that the emphasis is misplaced. Risk taking, private capital accumulation, and entrepreneurial activity were, if at all, characteristic of the early stages of competitive capitalism. In today's underdeveloped, dependent capitalism, these individual qualities are not necessary for the system to function. The · economic structure does not require them nor does it promote them. The absence of such widely recommended values in the economic field is therefore not an obstacle to growth at all; it is, if anything, simply an obstacle to the growth of the kind of competitive free-for-all capitalism which characterized nineteenth-century Europe and America. When scholars argue that these values should be fostered through "modernizing ideologies" or the educational system, they seem to recommend that the only possible road to development is that which was taken by the Western nations. But, as we have seen, this road is impossible. When such values are fostered within the prevailing system, they actually contribute to strengthen "underdeveloped development." Thus, speaking of Latin America, Lipset argues that "modernizing societies require either strong values or rules sustaining · achievement and universalism. They need not reject their traditional value system if they can work out mechanisms to guarantee that a large section of the elite will be composed of men who are highly motivated and able to achieve. However, much of Latin America and some other nations in the less developed parts of the world have not succeeded in doing either." 28 But who are the elites in the underdeveloped countries? They are precisely those social groups who have sustained and benefited the most from underdeveloped, dependent capitalism. Thus the modernization of the ·elites, so assiduously propounded by the development sociologists, will only reinforce the internal polarization and the external dependency of the underdeveloped countries, in the absence of profound and thorough structural transformations. External dependency and internal colonialism, that is, the metropolis/satellite chain that characterizes peripheral, underdeveloped capitalism, subsists not only because of the international hegemony exercised by a small number of imperialist Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 17 world powers, but also-and principally-because of the role played within the underdeveloped countries themselves by national power structures and local ruling classes. It is frequently argued among development economists that inequalities of income are a necessary feature of economic growth, because the higher-income strata are thus able to accumulate the necessary capital to further economic development. In the underdeveloped countries, however, the bipolarized class structures have contributed to nothing of the sort. The ruling elites have accumulated enormous wealth and have maintained luxurious standards of living which have not favored capital formation at all, but have, rather, increased their own external dependency even as they have become more and more isolated from the great masses of their own countries' populations, In Latin America, the average consumption per household among the upper strata (5 per cent of the population) is fifteen times higher than that of the lower strata (50 per cent of the population). A United Nations report estimates that if this ratio were reduced to 11: 1, the annual rate of growth of per capita income could rise from 1 per cent to 3 per cent; and if the ratio were brought down to 9:1, the rate of growth might reach 4 per cent or even more.20 From the foregoing we may conclude that the prospects for economic development in the underdeveloped countries are closely related to the social and political structures associated with dependent capitalism, and particularly to their class structures. For economic development implies not only an increase in investments, but also changes in the nature of these investments; not only certain average rates of growth, but also the adequate distribution of increased growth rates among different sectors; not only the availability of capital, but also the fashion in which it is employed; not only the channeling of foreign aid, but a complete alteration of a country's foreign relationships; not only higher average incomes, but also greater participation of the great masses of the population in the benefits derived from higher incomes; not only the modernization of certain political structures and certain elite values, but changes in the political system and in the concept of elites itself. It has become increasingly apparent that economic development is not a technical problem, 18 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies but more than anything else, a political problem. As such it involves not only changes in power relationships among social classes but also changes in the nature of the state. This book is concerned with social classes in the agrarian societies of underdeveloped countries. As we shall see in later chapters, dependent capitalism has penetrated even into the most "traditional" of these agrarian societies and has brought forth profound and lasting transformations in them. These changes affect the whole gamut of social life: family, marriage, and kinship; work and property; consumption and standards of living; prestige and stratification; political value systems and religion. These various elements are interwoven through the functioning of the class structure. But before we carry the analysis further, it will be necessary to discuss briefly the various conceptions and theoretical implications of "social class," a concept that has been much and ambiguously used in sociological studies. CHAPTER 2 Social Classes and Stratification The analysis of class structures and stratification is a methodological tool which has been developed by Western sociologists in the study of their own societies. Efforts to apply these concepts to the study of non-Western societies and to underdeveloped countries have not been very systematic. Even in the industrialized countries class analysis has often been limited to the industrial arid urban social environment. In comparison with the number of works that deal with· social class in industrial societies, studies of rural classes are few and patchy. Before proceeding to the study of social classes in the agrarian. societies of underdeveloped countries, it is useful to analyze briefly the methodological and theoretical problems facing scholars in this field, particularly as regards problems springing from a general confusion between social class and stratification. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION By social stratification we generally mean the process whereby individuals, families, or social groups are ranked on a scale, some in higher and others in lower positions. There are several · problems with this conceptualization. (a) According to Davis and Moore,1 stratifications are universal and represent the unequal distribution of. rights and obligations in a society. Society, according to these authors, must assign to all individuals a place somewhere in the social structure, and the basis for this assignment constitutes the differential prestige of various positions in society and of the people who occupy them. 20 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies The question which immediately emerges is this: What are the bases of the prestige of certain social positions? We may see certain difficulties in establishing them. Do we deal with the prestige that the investigator attributes to the various positions or with the prestige that an individual attributes to his own position? With the prestige that an individual attributes to the position of others or rather with that of a given position whose worth is accepted by the whole of society? The panorama of stratification varies according to the choice made in each case. For example, the sociological school of W. Lloyd Warner, who has studied stratification in the United States, has been criticized, with some justification, for failing to distinguish clearly between the different aspects of "prestige" as a basis for stratification. Warner, who developed a schema of five social classes, at times uses his own evaluation of the prestige of certain social positions and at other times takes the opinion of some of his informants about the prestige of other members of the community. He also combines these criteria with certain objective indices which we will consider later in this chapter. A. Touraine, among others, has shown the limitations of this approach. 2 For the American sociologist Talcott Parsons,s stratification is a result of the differential evaluation of the objectives of social action, that is to say, all stratification represents a hierarchy of values. Such an approach assumes, at least implicitly, a system of values common to the whole society. Because of their essentially subjective nature, these methods fail to lead to a deeper analysis of social structures, and some authors have discarded the phenomenon of stratification from their discussion of social classes. (b) But if we accept that social stratification is based on real and objective criteria, then the problem is simply to know what these criteria are. Davis and Moore note the existence of two factors which, according to them, determine the rank of an individual within a hierarchy of different positions in society. These factors are (i) the individual's importance to society, that is to say, his function, and (ii) the training or talent necessary to hold such a position. Thus stratification is usually established with respect to religion, government, wealth, property, occupation, and technical skill. In empirical Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 21 investigations the following criteria are generally taken as indices for the .establishment of stratification systems: amount of income, source of income, wealth, education, occupational prestige, residential area, race or ethnic group, and other secondary criteria. In the majority of studies of stratification these criteria are considered either in isolation or in combination. But it is clear that a social stratification based on only one of these criteria (income or. occupation, for example) would not correspond to social reality. For that reason it is increasingly common to elaborate multiple indices by means of statistical calculation and to talk of "multistratified" systems. When we consider the various criteria of stratification, we have to distinguish clearly between those that are quantitative and can be represented on graphs as ,gradations or curves (such as amount of income or education) and those that are qualitative. The latter, in turn, fall into two categories: objective criteria (such as the possession or lack of certain goods, .the type of work carried out, the performance of managerial or subordinate functions, etc.) and criteria which, though objective, are based on subjective evaluations such as the prestige of certain occupations, racial or ethnic groups ( criteria which are particularly important in societies which have minority group problems). Another important problem related to the criteria of stratification is that of defining the social universe for which any given stratification system is valid. The ideal system of stratification would be that which could be applied to an entire society. But very few authors have tried to establish general systems of this nature; Empirical· studies usually take a specific community as their universe. However, communities are not representative of society as a whole, and such schemes turn out to be invalid when applied to general cases.4 In fact national societies taken as a whole are not really true units as far as stratification is concerned. We must distinguish at least two regional sectors, each of which has its own stratification. These are the rural sector and the urban sector.5 ( c) The third problem is to determine which is the smallest unit of a stratification system: the individual or the social group. This becomes one of the fundamental problems of 22 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies stratification because it means establishing the difference between taxonomic description and structural analysis of society. An individual's position iμ a system of stratification, determined according to a series of personal attnoutes, is usually considered to be his social status. e Often the study of stratification becomes nothing more than the investigation of individual statuses, and systems of stratification are frequently referred to also as status systems. Nevertheless, a large number of the studies of stratification recognize not only a scale of individual statuses, but also the objective, hierarchical existence of a series of more or less homogeneous social categories. The individuals who comprise these categories share certain common indices of stratification or indicators of social position. These categories or discrete groups are called social strata or-and here is the major cause of the confusion-social classes. Generally, these terms only refer to statistical categories (that is, a congeries of persons who have a specific number of common, quantifiable characteristics or a "common status"), or to groups of people characterized by similar behavior, common attitudes and opinions, or a certain level of interaction and mutual association, In almost all of the contemporary sociological literature the term "social classes" has this meaning: discrete groups arranged in a system of stratification. The consideration of classes as simple statistical and hierarchically arranged strata has led to the elaboration of an almost infinite number of bipartite, tripartite, quadripartite, and quintupartite schemes. At the extremes of such schemes we inevitably find two classes called ''upper'' and "lower," while a variety of ''middle" classes or layers occupy the space in between. The majority of American scholars have discovered five or six classes in the United States, while the more orthodox sociologists (among them the majority of Latin American sociologists), favor the Aristotelian model of three social classes. According to the indicators or indices employed, a system of stratification will be represented either by a continuum on which individuals are arranged without marked delineations, or by a hierarchy of discrete and clearly defined characteristics, Quantitative criteria produce a continuum, while qualiSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 23 tative criteria produce a step~by-step scaled hierarchy. A combination of any of the various criteria would produce one of these two possibilities, according to the preference of the investigator. The studies of st:r:atification have yet to give us more definitive schemes or more precise techniques for conceptualizing stratification. 7 ( d) What then are tl;ie relations between stratification and the social structure? Max Weber made the now famous distinction among the three dimensions of society: the economic order, represented by class; the sgcial order, reprC$en~ 1:>y status or station (Stand); and the poUtical order, represented by the party.s Bach of these dim~nsions has its own stratification: the economic, represented by income and the goods and services. which an individual possesses; the social, represented by the prestige and honor he enjoys; and the political, represented by the power he exercises. According to Weber's schema;· class based on the ecQnomic order would be no more than one aspect of the social structure, an aspect which, according to T. H. Marshall, is losing its importance in modem society as status becomes the key element in social strati- :ficationD. · . . It·· is difficult to see how stratificatio~. schemas composed of "upper," "middle;'' and ."lower'' classes, or strata, with all their many variations, can be. integrated into a social structure if other factors are not taken into consideration. The principal critique made of such stratification studies is that stratification never goes beyond the level of immediate experience, that it is little more than a seriC$ of simple statistical descriptions that lead to stereotypes but not to an understanding of structures.10 Marshall asserts that what is needed is a dynamic analysis of tensions and adjustments as well as of process. And Lipset and Bendix call for a historical perspective that would take into account the factors of social process and change. For the phenomenon of stratification to acquire this dynamic and structural aspect it must . be linked t(? the analysis of the structure of social classes._ S<;>CIALM OBll.ITY But before. examining. the problem we ought to mention yet another important aspect of stratification . studies. This aspect 24 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies is sometimes presented as the "dynamic" treatment in the analysis of stratification, and deals with studies of social mobility. Social mobility may be considered as "a significant movement in an individual's or stratum's economic, social and political position."11 While changes in the position of strata have to do with social evolution or development, studies of social mobility are concerned with the movement of individuals. Mobility studies are based on the notion that systems of stratification in the modem world are not rigid, and that they permit the movement of an individual from one status or "class" to another. In the context of stratification, social mobility is vertical mobility, as contrasted with horizontal and geographic mobility. Scholars generally take changes in an individual's occupation as the point of departure. The numerous studies of mobility, carried out principally by students of industrial societies, have a number of theoretical implications which should be examined briefly. (a) Two types of mobility have been noted: 1) the supply of empty statuses ( ''the demographic vacuum" of the upper classes), and 2) the interchange of ranks (for every move up there is a corresponding move down).12 However, in practice, most studies of mobility concentrate on upward mobility and ignore downward movement.is The practice of examining one but not the other tends to distort reality. (b) A large number of studies of mobility have a totally psychological tendency by treating the problems of motivation, attitudes, class consciousness, etc., of the mobile individual and ignoring the social and economic conditions which are part of the phenomenon of mobility. For this reason such investigations do not contribute very much to the study of social structures. ( c) On the basis of such studies, many authors affirm that the United States, for example, is a highly mobile society. But it has been demonstrated recently that it is much less so than was supposed in the past and in fact offers less possibility for mobility than do several Western European societies.14 In general it is asserted that the increased mobility provided since the nineteenth century by Western industrial society has brought about the disappearance of class antagonism in Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 25 these societies, and for this reason the "old" concepts of class (that is, Marxist theory) are said to be no longer valid. ( d) In general, we ought not to underestimate the political implications of the studies of social mobility.15 It is the purpose of many of them to show that Western society is egalitarian, that every individual has precisely the same opportunity to ascend the social scale, and that movement from one class to another has been substituted for "conflict" among classes. This aspect of the mobility concept has frequently been criticized.16 Social mobility is an important fact in every society, especially when it is studied in relation to the structures of power, political behavior, and changes in social structures. But the study of social mobility is not a substitute for studies of class structure, and mobility cannot be taken alone, as some scholars would have it, as an index of specific modifications in the class structure. SOCIAL CLASSES We have already seen that the various strata in a system of stratification are commonly referred to as "classes." But this terminology has little to do with the structural-functional and dynamic conception of classes that we are going to develop in this section. However, this conception, despite having placed well-defined limits on the idea of class, and despite the very precise distinction made between class and stratification, has not yet come up with a unanimously accepted definition of social class. While formal definitions have been put. forth, none of them manage to incorporate all the varied aspects of this complex phenomenon.17 However, a complete and exhaustive definition is not really necessary in order to give to the concept of class a content specific enough to allow us to use it in the analysis of social structures. Rather than concentrate on simple definitions, it is more useful to demonstrate what kind of concept we are working with and how that concept forms part of sociological theory. We will try to · determine the place of "class" in sociological theory because the concept of social class is only valid as part of a theory of social classes. · The structural and dynamic conception of social classes 26 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies was developed by Marx and Engels. The Marxist approach is generally present in those studies of social classes in which the concept of class has not been completely absorbed by the concept of stratification. However, it is well known that nowhere in Marx's work do we find an exhaustive definition of class, and the systematic analysis of the subject remained incomplete in the final volume of Capital. In Marx's various works we can pick out different interpretations of the phenomenon, definitions which do not always coincide, but which are in no way contradictory. They are, on the contrary, applied to social phenomena in a dialectic way, in different types of analysis, and show how Marx gradually matured the idea in his own mind. For Marx the concept of class has three aspects: philosophical, economic, and historic.is But in all three there is a single approach which we might call structural-functional and dynamic.19 This approach implies a number of problems. {a) If strata (or "classes"), as we have been examining them in the context of stratification, constitute descriptive, static categories, social classes, according to the present conception, constitute analytical categories. That is, they form part of a social structure with which they have specific relationships. The study of social classes leads to an understanding of the moving forces of society and of social dynamics, and they permit us to move from description to explanation in the study of societies. As we have already noted, the idea of class only acquires analytic value when it forms part of a class theory. (b) Social class is, at the same time and more than anything else, a historical category. That is, classes are tied to the evolution and development of society. They are found in historically constituted social structures. The various classes exist in specific socio-historical formations. Every epoch is characterized by its own social classes. For this reason, there is not much point in talking, as do the sociologists of the stratification school, of upper, middle, and lower classes in every society, in every epoch. Classes have a specific sociological content; the social categories to which they refer can always be described in specific terms. Thus, Marx speaks in his analyses of "proletariat" and "petite bourgeoisie," or "flSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 27 nancial aristocracy," and these terms in each case have a specific, concrete meaning which corresponds to the historical moment to which they refer. This is not to say that classes do not change over time. They form, develop, and are modified by transformation in the society in which they exist. They represent the principal contradictions in society. They grow out of these contradictions, and in turn contribute to their development. Between classes and society and among the various classes themselves there is a constant dialectical movement, the details of which in each case can only be described through empirical investigation, Classes are driving forces in the transformation of social structures. They form an integral part of the dynamics of the society and are moved, at the same time, by their own internal dynamics. Classes develop from specific structural conditions in a society and at the same time constitute structural elements of the society. ( c) The problem which has most often divided sociologists who study classes is the question of the criterion or criteria that should be used to distinguish one class from another. Ever since Max Weber described -the economic, political, and social dimensions of society, some scholars recognize only the economic basis of class, and this is generally the position that is mistakenly attributed to Marx.20 For some scholars the cultural, mental, moral, and behavioral similarities among members of a social class are due to similarities in the objective occupational, economic, and legal positions of its members. 21 Others, who wish to eliminate all economic implications from the concept of class, take into account only the political basis of class, and this political factor is taken in its widest meaning, that is, as relations of power and domination. 22 The Marxist position is clear in this respect. It is not occupation, or income, or life-style that constitute the principal criteria in the definition of a social class, although these secondary factors may be extremely important in certain cases. Together with power ot political authority (which has its own determinism) these are dependent factors that express or reflect to a greater or lesser degree the fundamental criterion. This criterion has been clearly set forth by Lenin. 28 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies Classes are large groups of people which differ from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimension and mode of acquiring the share of social wealth of which they dispose. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labor of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy.23 This definition of social class does not exhaust all aspects of it which are to be found in Marxist literature. But it shows what is, for Marxism, the economic base of the constitution of social classes and the fundamental criterion for their integration: the relation to the means of production. We are not dealing here with an arbitrary criterion, chosen according to the whim of the author ( as occurs with the criteria of stratification). We are dealing rather with a logical result of the structural analysis of society. If the relations of men to the means of production determine the existence of those human groups that we call classes, it is because the forces of production on the one hand and the relations of production on the other give to each socioeconomic structure, to each historical stage, its content and form, its own physiognomy. The mode of production of a given society, which is what distinguishes one socioeconomic structure from another, determines the specific characteristics of certain human groups and the type of relations that they will have with other groups of the same kind. These groups are classes, and these relations are class relations. Only if we take the relation to the means of production as the fundamental criterion for the determination of social class is it possible to link these classes to the social structure and to arrive at a structural analysis of society and at sociological and historical explanation. Scholars who take other single or combined criteria for their analysis, and ignore this fundamental criterion may talk of "classes," but they never manage to establish an analytical concept which would enable. them to carry out structural analysis and historical explanation. It is for this reason that schemas of upper, Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 29 middle, and lower "classes" have no specific sociological content or any relation to historic and concrete socioeconomic structures. Lenin's definition is not concerned with the classification :if any given person, the identification of a specific individual with a specific social class. Nor is it meant only to distinguish, for example, those who control the means of production from those who do not, nor those who labor from those who do n.ot. These distinctions, which are generally accepted by other authors as well, represent only a part of the general concept :if social class. What is important is that these and other ::listinctions occur within a specific socioeconomic system in which the classes in opposition (dominant-dominated) are dso complementary and dialectically linked ( exploiters~ xploited) as integral parts in the functioning of a whole. ( d) One of the fundamental aspects of the concept of class is that classes are never found in isolation, but only as part of 1 class system. A social class exists only in relation to other ;lasses. What define and distinguish the various classes are :he specific relations they establish among themselves. Indeed, 1 social class exists only as a function of others. The relations ,etween the different classes take many different forms, but .vhat stand out are those we can consider as fundamental or ;tructural relations. Such relations are determined by the obective interests of the classes which, in turn, result from the ipecific positions they occupy in the production process, and he specific situation of each class with respect to the means >f production. These differential positions which, according o Lenin's formulation, permit one class to appropriate the ruits of the labor of another, determine that the objective nterests of the classes are not merely different, but contrary md opposed. Accordingly, the fundamental relations estabished between classes are relations of· opposition. We say hey are fundamental because it is these relations which bring Lbout the transformation of social structures. Relations of ,pposition are asymmetrical: the classes do not confront each ,ther on an equal plane. The differential positions occupied by he classes in the socioeconomic structure imply that some vill have greater wealth, economic power, and political auhority than others, and this power and authority will be 30 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies exercised against the interests of those classes that lack such strength. As such, the two classes in opposition are the dominant and the dominated; and the relations of opposition become relations of domination and subordination. But these relationships constitute only one aspect of the opposition. The opposing classes, the dominant and dominated, not only represent two distinct social phenomena, but also two facets of the same social phenomenon. In a specific socioeconomic structure, social classes in opposition are, at one and the same time, complementary classes in that they form an integral part of the functioning of the system; and antagonistic classes in that they represent the basic internal contradictions which bring about the radical transformation of the system. The basis of the antagonism, of the contradiction, is inherent in the differential position of the classes with respect to the means of production. The difference in power and resources between the classes is what permits the surplus produced by one class to be appropriated by another. In other words, the classes in opposition are the exploiting and the exploited classes, and their relations are relations of exploitation. Thus we have it that classes are complementary, opposed, and antagonistic and that their relations may be described, in the framework of the total socioeconomic structure, in terms of function, opposition, and contradiction, which lead inevitably to the transformation of all their constituent elements and of the structure as a whole. (e) Class opposition is not simply an academic matter. It occurs at all levels of social action, in class conflict and class struggle, and, above all, in the political and economic :field. As such, classes not only constitute structural elements of society, but also specific politicoeconomic interest groups which, under special economic circumstances, acquire consciousness of themselves and of these interests, and tend to organize for political action with the goal of capturing the power of the state. Class consciousness is the link· that allows the transformation of a class "in itself," a grouping with objective, "latent" interests, into a class "for itself,'' or a powet group which tends to organize itself for political conflict ot struggle and whose interests at some point become "manifest. "24 !ocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 31 But class consciousness does not emerge automatically from ~e "class situation," nor does every group organized for ,olitical conflict have social· class as its basis. The · specific elations between the position of a class in a certain socioconomic order and its conscious political action (the purpose ,f which may be the radical transformation of the social tructure or the maintenance of existing structures} vary acording to the particular historical circumstances and should, 1 each case, be the object of concrete empirical investigation. There are, then, two consecutive phases in the develop- 1ent of class. In the first phase, a class constitutes a class nly with respect to other classes, as a function of its position 1 the socioeconomic structure, and the specific relations that row out of this position. In the second phase, a class has ained consciousness of itself, its interests, and of its historical mission," and constitutes a class "in the truest sense of the rord." It is a political action group that intervenes as such 1 social struggles and economic-political conflicts, and conibutes as such to social change and the development of Jciety. Although the two phases are consecutive from the istorical point of view, because men's social conditions de, rmine their consciousness, the move from one to the other epends on a number of concrete historic factors. In any 11Sei,t is necessary to bear in mind as far as possible the istinction between these two phases or aspects of developtent of social classes. (/} Class struggle and conflict are the expression of the ttemal contradictions of specific socioeconomic systems. The rincipal contradiction, that which constitutes the fundamenil force behind class struggle, is the contradiction between te forces of production and the relations of production. 1ther contradictions also exist, but this one is the cause of the rincipal antagonisms between opposing classes. The dominant ass that holds power and controls the means of production :presents the established relations of production in the soety, and the dominated class, whose labor is appropriated f the former, represents the forces of production which ,oner or later come into conflict with this system of relations. hus Marx and Engels could say that the history of mankind 18 been · a history of class struggle, because the structural 32 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies transformation of society implies that relations of production that no longer correspond to the forces of production in development will be eliminated and replaced by others that do. And this change means the substitution of the class in power by another. The developing ascendant class is that .which corresponds to the· developing forces of production. Once this class has captnred political power it establishes a new system of production relations, and enters into contradiction with the new forces of,production liberated by its own seizure of power. This has been the history of classes up to our time. It is the dialectical process of the evolution and development of society and of opposing classes. This process, which can be taken as a theoretical model, is changed and modified in each particular case, in each historic stage, by other· political and social factors, Thus a specific class is always linked to a specific socioeconomic structure, and all structural change in society is accompanied by transformations in the nature of the· classes that characterize it. The relations between . classes and sO(:iety at any one time are reflected in the power structure and the state.-If the statE generally represents the. interests of the dominant class, iII practice it may, at times; express a compromise between various classes. But as long as contradictions exist between thE forces of production and the relations of production, tha1 is to say, between social classes, the political struggle of classei will always have as its objective the control of the power oJ the state. RELATIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND CLASl Smucnnm Class opposition. in society is asymmetrical. This means· th.a those who hold power, wealth, and the means of productio1 are confronted by. those who control none of these things that those who control the means of production employ th1 salaried labor of others to work them. Clearly some individ ua1s in society could be said to be· "at the top" and other "at the bottom." Therefore, the different classes in societ: indeed form a stratification system. But this stratification i neither a continuum of indivi!iual statllses nor a series o superimposed strata. The hierarchies that form . in socie~ !Jocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 33 ::luster at two extreme poles into opposing classes or blocks t>f classes, while intermediate groups fall somewhere in the middle. But this tendency cannot be reduced to a single universally valid scheme. The specific characteristics of each stratification system depend directly on the specific relations md opposition between classes. Stratifications are based on the relations between classes and tend to reflect them. There are stratifications which, at first sight, do not seem to rest on class relations-for example, occupational prestige ~ategories or certain hierarchies based on racial or ethnic :riteria in multiracial or multiethnic societies. But these strati~ cations have their origin in a class situation and can only Je understood in relation to this origin. The position of the ndustrial worker in a prestige scale springs from the situation >f the proletariat during the industrializing stage of developnent, and this position is still found rooted in a system of ralues despite changes in the objective situation of the proetariat that have taken place since that time. In the same ~ay, discrimination against black people in the United States -if we ignore for the moment its economic implications~ ew out of slavery, as well as the period of the development >f industrial capitalism in the United States after the abolition >f slavery. Thus the racial stratification of the United States ividently developed from and continues even today to rest m class.25 Stratifications frequently represent what we may call social ':fixations" or "projections," which at times become legally :odified and in any case psychologically internalized, as relections of certain social relations of production as expressed 11 class relationships. Other secondary or accessory factors e.g., religious or ethnic ones) may also play a part in these ocial :fixations and may act to re-enforce the stratification ystem. At the same time these factors perform the socio:, gical function of "liberating" the stratification from its ties e> the economic base. In other words, they tend to maintain b.e stratification system even when its economic base may :ave changed. As a result, stratifications may also be conidered as justifications or rationalizations of the established conomic system, that is, as ideologies.26 As with all phenomena of the social superstructure, strati34 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies fication systems acquire an inertia of their own which acts to maintain them, although the conditions that gave rise to them may have changed. As class relationships are modified by the dynamics of class opposition, conflict, and struggle, stratification systems tend to turn into "fossils" of the class relations on which they were originally based. For that reason they may cease to correspond to existing class relationships and may even enter into contradiction with them, particularly in the case of revolutionary· changes in the class structure. It is because of this process that certain kinds of stratification have no apparent relation with the economic base. Examples of this phenomenon are provided by certain social stratifications associated with European aristocracies or the remains of an ethnic stratification corresponding to the colonial epoch in some Latin American countries. · We may go one step further and suggest that stratifications, as phenomena of the superstructure and the product of certain class relations, react in tum upon these relations. They are not only a passive reflex. The middle strata of stratification systems tend to blunt the sharper oppositions that might exist between their two polarized extremes, when these extreme strata are at the same time social classes. In "open" systems of social stratification (i.e., where social mobility is possible), mobility performs the dual function of reducing the severity of opposition between classes while re-enforcing the stratification itself. Thus it is clear that stratification is an essentially conservative device of societal systems, whereru class . oppositions and conflicts are basically dynamic. At th~ same time that social stratification divides society into groups, it has the function of integrating society and consolidatinE given socioeconomic structures. From the point of view of the interests of social groups all stratification systems serve the interests of their uppe1 stratum, but only certain specific types of stratification servE the interests of the ruling class in society ( only those strati, fications that correspond to the socioeconomic structure) We see then that the ruling class and the upper stratum ar« not necessarily identical, as occurs when class relations hav« developed beyond the limits fixed by the existing stratificati01 systems. It would appear that the ruling class and the uppe: Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 35 stratum, when not identical, can coexist for some time and intertwine in the social structure according to particular historical circumstances. But sooner or later a new system of stratification will develop that more closely corresponds to the existing class structure. This tendency also explains the fact that multiple stratification systems may coexist in a society while only one class structure is possible within any given socioeconomic system. Classes are incompatible with each other, that is to say, they are mutually exclusive. But this is not the case with the strata of various stratification systems. Thus an individual may have various statuses in society; he may participate in several stratifications, but he may belong fully to but one class (which does not deny the possibility that an individual may change his class, or although a member of one class, he may consciously identify with another, for example, the case of revolutionary leaders of the proletariat or peasantry who are themselves of bourgeois origin). Whereas stratifications represent value systems which claim to have universal validity, class oppositions, on the contrary, create conflicting value syste:qis. As a result, the contradictions that may arise between a stratification system and a class structure imply multiple conflicts between value systems.21 CASTE, RAcB, AND MINORITIBS Social class and stratification systems are often complicated by the introduction of terms like "caste," ''race," and ''minority." In underdeveloped countries .and in some developed ones we hear references to ''racial stratification" or to "caste stratification" as opposed to a "class system." It thus seems appropriate to try to pin down the meanings of these terms and to consider the way in which they may form part of the theory of stratification and social classes. 1. Castes The discussions that arise among specialists over the meaning and sociological nature of castes or caste systems indicate that the essence of the phenomenon has yet to be fully understood and that scholars are divided as to the meaning and 36 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies nature of caste. There is a general consensus that caste systems are stratification systems, and that there is no sense in speaking of a "caste" without reference to a whole system of castes. But outside of this consensus two divergent tendencies have developed. The first group considers that a caste system is a special form of stratification characterized by various specific structural features (the rigidity of the system, ascription to a caste by virtue of birth, the impossibility of changing castes, the absolute hierarchy of castes in all fields, particularly in the system of values, and so forth). According to this school of thought, any system of stratification with some of these characteristics could be considered to be a caste system, or at least a variant of a caste system. This tendency views caste as an extreme, rigid, and immobile case of stratification, in contrast to a mobile, open stratification of "social classes/•2s The second school considers caste systems as cultural, specifically Hindu, phenomena rooted in a Hindu value system and philosophy, and incomprehensible outside of this frame of reference. According to this tendency we would be dealing here with a sui generis phenomenon not found in any other part of the world. 20 A compromise position between these two schools has been taken by certain British scholars who consider caste systems from the structural point of view, but believe them to be limited to the pan-Indian cultural area; In addition to the characteristics of castes already mentioned, these scholars insist above all (as do Cox and Dumont) that there are certain relational features of caste systems, sueh as the mutual rights and obligations of different castes, which make castes "functional units." Thus Leach sees in caste "a functional unit with a special series of cultural characteristics that distinguish it." And Bailey emphasizes the fact that caste systems are found only in small and simple societies (like Indian villages) and that they lose their structural characteristics within the nation-state and the political and economic complexity of modem society.so Whatever the situation in the pan-Indian cultural area, it is necessary to determine if the concept of caste · should be applied to other systems of stratification. Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 37 In our opinion, the use of the term "caste" has no real meaning outside of the pan-Indian area. If the use of this term serves to characterize a rigid stratification system in contrast to an open system of "classes,'' it seems to obscure and confuse more than it clarifies. A rigid stratification system can be part of a class system as we have defined this concept above. If, on the other hand, the concept of caste is used to characterize systems of relations which include different racial groups ( as in the United States ot South Africa) or different ethnic groups (as in Latin America), then its use in making implicit ·comparisons with the pan-Indian area also leads to confusion. This confusion results from the fact that such comparisons often ignore or obscure historical · factors that have played an important part in the establishment of systems of racial or ethnic relations, such as slavery, colonialism, military conquest, forced labor, etc. Yet these factors are associated with the economic expansion of Europe, and the development of the capitalist system. Thus we do not see any methodological advantage in the use of the term caste as an analytical category in the study of stratifications or of class systems outside of the pan-Indian cultural area. 2. Races and Minorities Race and Minority are concepts often mentioned in studies of class and caste and stratification in general, and it seems appropriate to try to establish their main characteristics. Sociologically speaking, ''race is a human grouping culturally defined in a given society,'' that is, distinguished from other groupings by biological characteristics which are attributed to it and which may vary from one place to another.s1 The concept acquires its full sociological meaning in a situation of "race relations," that is, a system of specific social relations that involve two or more groups, each one of which may be defined in racial terms. When two or more races, thus defined, interact in a system of relationships, it is always· necessary to determine the kind of· relations involved: political, economic, or social. Racial groups may confront one another in a class system ( as in the United States) and in colonial systems (as in colonial Africa), or in social structures that contain both kinds of relations (as in Latin America). Gen38 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies erally when referring to race relations we speak of domination and subordination, as well as of social, economic, and political conflicts among the racial groups, The object of these conflicts may be the maintenance or destruction of certain economic or political privileges of one of the races, or competition among racial groups for control of certain privileges or rights. Therefore, it is obvious that when we use the term ''race relations," it is important to discover the sociological essence of the ties that bind races together or the conflicts that separate them. "Minorities" is another term often used in the same context. A minority may be defined as a "subgroup of a wider society, whose members are exposed to incapacities which take the form of prejudices, discrimination, segregation, or persecution by another subgroup generally considered to be a majority."32 Minorities are distinguished, in addition, by their tendency toward intragroup marriage and, generally, for having their own cultural characteristics that transform them into subcultures. Minorities are often ranked hierarchically, and their members compete with the majority for status and privilege. Minorities can be national, linguistic, or religious. 33 As in the case of races, they may represent at the same time strata in a system of stratification, and power groups in political ( and at times economic) conflict with other minorities or with the dominant group called the "majority." The object of the conflict may be the emancipation or the assimilation of the group. Minorities cannot be considered to be classes principally because the basis of their integration is not their relation to the means of production, or their place in the production process. However, it is sometimes possible to find a minority in a class situation, and at times its political struggle against the majority may turn into a class struggle. Such cases should be analyzed in the light of specific empirical studies. But it is crucial that "minority" not be confused with "class" despite the fact that at times they may be intertwined in real life situations. CoNCLUSIONS The structural-historical or Marxist analysis of social classes is quite different from the study of "social classes" as they Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 39 appear in the analysis of stratification systems. Marxist class analysis is better suited for the understanding of the relationship between the economic and the social system, particularly in capitalist society, as well as in the study of social dynamics. It is our thesis that social stratification systems are built upon and reflect underlying class relations. Nevertheless, they acquire a dynamic of their own and in particular historical circumstances they enter into conflict with the class relationships that they represent. In multiple or plural societies, where social groups are also divided along cultural or racial lines, the study of stratification systems becomes more complex, particularly when the capitalist economy is not yet fully developed and when precapitalist modes of production still operate at the local level. The problems inherent in this approach will be studied in later chapters. CHAPTER 3 Social Classes and Underdevelopment SOCIAL CLASSES Af\!D STRATIFICATION IN UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES The analysis of social, class structures and stratification has been developed principally in the industrialized capitalist countries. Is this kind of analysis equally applicable to the underdeveloped world? It would seem that the theoretical problems we have already discussed become more complex when the theory is applied to underdeveloped countries. In the first place, the capitalist system has always served as the classic frame of reference for the structural analysis of social classes. However, capitalism is never found in a "pure" state in the Third World because it has been imported to these countries from the developed world. Capitalism in underdeveloped countries does not grow from internal development but is superimposed on previously existing structures. Furthermore, because a variety of economic structures and different stages of economic and social evolution coexist in the underdeveloped world, stratifications in these countries have many aspects that they lack in developed countries. Consequently, an analysis of social classes in the underdeveloped countries must necessarily proceed differently from one focused on the industrialized societies. In order to orient our discussion, it is important to bear in mind that the historical evolution of underdeveloped countries has been marked since the expansionist era in Europe by the development of the world capitalist system. Some underdeveloped countries ( e.g., Latin America) suffered the effects of this process earlier than others. But all of them have been touched by mercantilist expansion and the economic developSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 41 ment of the "central" countries. As a result, the evolution of class structures in the underdeveloped countries has also reflected the changing class relations in the advanced countries. However, the Third World is comprised largely of agrarian countries, and the traditional social and political . structures that existed before the first contact of these countries with the expanding capitalist system were agrarian structures. For this reason the agricultural population of underdeveloped countries plays a far more important role than does its. counterpart in advanced countries. Not only does it o~en represent the greater part of the population, but agricultural production is frequently the most important branch of the economy. As was pointed out in Chapter 1, underdeveloped countries are often characterized as unequally developed societies/ that is to say, as dual societies, in which a capitalist mod1::m sector coexists with a backward sector of subsistence production. This dualism is particularly sharp in agrarian structures. But it would be a mistake to suppose, as do some scholars, that we are dealing here with two independent societies or structures. The. economic ties between the modem and the traditional sector are very close; one could not exist without the other. However, in these apparently dual or even plural societies of the underdeveloped countries there coexist multiple stratification systems. Some of these systems may be considered as obstacles to development inasmuch as they correspond to precapitalist economic structures. In order to understand the dynamic of classes in today's underdeveloped societies, it is indispensable to review briefly some aspects of the socalled traditional structures that have been affected by the processes of change stimulated by European colonial expansion. ThADITIONAL STRUCTURES Without attempting to give a definition of traditional structures, we may say that they include forms of cultural and social organization that have remained at the margin of socalled Western civilization and the industrial economic system, as well as vestiges of pre-industrial systems. As such they include both "primitive" and "archaic"2 or tribal societies as well as the feudal or semi-feudal systems that existed before 42 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies mercantilist expansion, some of which persist today in modified form in certain regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In this inquiry, traditional structures will be important only insofar as they relate to social classes and stratification. Most primitive or archaic groups are preclass societies. Their social organization is based principally on kinship ties. Their technology is simple, and the units of economic production are small. Capital accumulation is weak and in the event that any member of such a society should amass more goods than others, the society has institutional means to prevent the excessive accumulation of riches and to assure a circulation of wealth.s Land, the principal means of production in these societies, is not privately owned, and the concept of private property is either non-existent or barely developed. Class divisions are thus unknown, although some specialization in the division of labor and certain kinds of economic oppositions among the members of the society may be considered as potential class oppositions. The study of the independent development of social classes in primitive or archaic societies is a historical or ethnohistorical question because at present the formation and evolution of classes in this type of society is the result of changes introduced from the outside. Although we cannot speak of real social classes in primitive, archaic, or tribal societies, we do find stratification. It is precisely in these primitive societies that we find stratifications that are independent of a class structure. These stratifications are not composed of a hierarchy of various superimposed layers, but rather of different statuses of individuals and lineages that may be linked to political, religious, or even economic pre-eminence. 4 Apart from primitive or archaic communities, which will not be examined in this work, class societies have existed in various regions of the underdeveloped world even before the expansion of capitalism. The general nature and the theoretical characterization of these class societies has been the subject of important discussions among scholars, discussions which at times reveal strong political implications. Karl Marx outlined the asiatic mode of production and Social. Classes in Agrarian Societies 43 the general characteristics of "precapitalist economic formations." 5 Nevertheless, a majority of Marxist scholars, following Morgan and Engels, have refused to see in the class societies of non~Westem countries anything other than slave or feudal systems, or else societies at the .stage. of barbarism or military democracy. The concept of the asiatic mode of production was revived some years ago by Karl Wittfogel within the framework of his. theory of hydraulic societies administered by enormous agrarian bureaucracies under the absolute power of oriental despotism-a theory that he attempts to apply to contemporary socialist societies.6 Notwithstanding his erudition, the theoretical contribution of Wittfogel appears somewhat weak. More recently, however, new discussions on this theme have taken place among Marxists, 7 and the notion . of the asiatic mode of production is used once more as a fruitful instrument of investigation. Maurice Godelier developed the hypothesis of the asiatic mode of production as corresponding to "a form of social organization belonging to the passage of classless society to a class society, a form that contains . the contradiction of the passage of the classless society to a class society." This form of social organization is characterized by ''the unity of communitarian structures and the embryo of an exploiting class."8 Whatever may have been· the situation in certain societies of the Far East or in pre-Columbian America, in other parts of the world, such as precolonial Africa or pre-British India, the existence of feudal or semi-feudal structures has been clearly demonstrated. We are employing these terms in a generic manner rather than giving them a rigorous definition. We are dealing here with social structures which, according to the expression of Maurice Dobb, are characterized by "an obligation imposed on the producer by force and independently of his own will, to satisfy a certain number of economic exigencies of a master, whether these exigencies take the form of services performed or tributes paid in money or kind , , ."o A few examples should suffice. 1. Pre-Columbian America: The Aztecs and Incas A particularly interesting example of organized states and 44 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies class structures which existed before the expansion of the West are the Aztec and Inca societies of Latin America. Neither Aztec nor Inca society survived Western expansion. Both were violently destroyed by the Spanish Conquest. Should these two forms of social organization be called "semi-feudal"? Or were they tribal societies, military democracies, or hydraulic societies? The question is still open.10 In any case we do know that they were highly centralized states with a social organization based on territorial clan communities (the calpulli and the ayllu respectively), and that they undertook large-scale military conquests. · The spoils of war and tribute collected by the Aztecs and Incas enabled them to establish political and economic power unrivaled in the pre-Columbian world, and a strict hierarchical class structure which was strikingly similar in the two societies. The principal social classes were the following: A. the nobility, with its four subdivisions: 1. the hereditary nobility which performed important functions for the supreme chief of state; 2. the "bureaucratic" aristocracy, created on an ad hoc basis to carry out the ever more complicated and important administrative functions stemming from the military conquests; 3. the aristocracy of conquered peoples, who were integrated into the administrative functions of the state at its lower levels; and 4. the clan nobility (that is, the members of the most prestigious lineages of the calpulli or the ayllu), who became increasingly subordinated as the state grew stronger. B. the clergy, or priestly class, who held considerable political and economic power and were tied to the aristocracy. · C. merchants and artisans, who were relatively free under Aztec rule but were subject to strict state control under the Incas. D. the commoners, members of the local clans who constituted the great majority of the population in the two societies. Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 45 E. the warriors, who occupied strictly regulated positions, with special privileges, including the possibility of becoming part of the aristocracy. F. the slaves, who, contrary to what might be supposed, were not prisoners of war (who were generally sacrificed by the Aztecs and set free by the Incas), but rather common people who had fallen into debt.11 It would appear that slavery never played an important role in these societies and that it was on the verge of disappearing at the time of the Spanish _ Conquest. The power of the nobility and the state was based principally on their military conquests. These became possible due to a division of labor which arose from the high agricultural productivity of ingeniously irrigated (Aztecs) or terraced (Incas) lands. The kinship organization of the clan coexisted for some time with a developing dominant aristocracy and a centralized state. Nevertheless it appears that the system of territorial clans was already in the process of disintegration when it was overwhelmed by the Spanish Conquest. In contrast, the merchant class, at least in Aztec society, was growing ever more important in the social organization at this time.12 One of the most intriguing mysteries of history is the question of what would have been the final development of these two societies had the Spanish Conquest not occurred. Whatever the answer, the conquest did, in fact, bring total disorganization to both the Aztec and Inca states. Clannic organization progressively disappeared and today only vestiges of it remain among certain marginal Indian groups in the Andes and in Mexico. For some time the indigenous aristocracy continued to enjoy certain privileges under Spanish· colonial administration, at least at its lower levels. But in general, during the colonial epoch, the indigenous population became the peasant base of a new class structure and came to occupy a specific position in a rigid system of stratification imposed by the Spaniards. From that time on the evolution of class structure in the countries of Latin America reflected, mutatis mutandis, the colonial economic development of Europe, p_articularly of Spain through the beginning of the nineteenth 46 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies century, and later that of England, France, and the United States. 2. Pre-British India In other parts of the world as well, feudal structures developed before contact with European culture. These structures have been transformed in various ways by European· expansion. The situation in India is a good example. "Ancient" feudalism in India was characterized by the absence of a landholding aristocracy and of private ownership of land.13 Land was the collective property of the rural community whose members were obliged to pay a regular tribute to a non-landholding feudal nobility. These nobles were charged by the king with the administration of his kingdom and the collection of taxes. Political power was based on military conquest, but apart from the payment of taxes, the rural community administered its own affairs, and maintained its traditional economy,14 This kind of feudalism was typical of India before the fourteenth century, and some historians have called it "feudalism from above."16 After the fifteenth century, a kind of "feudalism from below" emerged from the structural transformation of the rural community. What developed at this point was a class of owners ( or landholders) whose properties were worked first by slaves and later by landless peasants who, in effect, became serfs. The absence of hereditary political feudalism and a strict social hierarchy controlling the land at all levels of ownership, made possible the development of a ''village" class of feudal lords from which later sprang the zamindary system. The British were to utilize this system to establish large-scale capitalist ownership in agriculture. · In the sixteenth century under the rule of the Moguls, the principal form of land control was the dschagir, a state-owned property. The undifferentiated peasantry who worked these lands were obliged to pay rent to the direct representatives of the sultan, the mukta and the iktadare. The latter did not constitute a hereditary nobility. They supported themselves by the collection of rent and taxes, rather than through the direct exploitation of landholdings.is Thus for considerable time several systems of feudal or "asiatic" exploitation coSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 47 existed in India with a traditional communal economy and even with the beginning of a capitalist system of exploitation, the zamindariat. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century, state feudalism, or the "agro-bureaucratic" system, based on the collection of taxes and rent, was already disintegrating, This process was accelerated by the British colonial administration, which increased the taxation of the peasants, establishing it on a fixed monetary basis. This policy led to the economic ruin of the peasant masses. At the same time, through a program of "permanent settlement" which gave to the zamindars permanent and hereditary rights over the land they occupied, the British established the basis of capitalist agriculture.17 In some parts of India the British established another land tenure system as well. This was a system of small properties called ryotwari, under which the traditional peasant retained his rights to the land. This system spread until it extended over half of India.is However, both systems represented a deviation from the traditional system of the collective property of the rural community. "Thus," writes an Indian scholar, ''the British conquest brought about an agrarian revolution. It created the prerequisite for the capitalist development of agriculture by introducing individual ownership of land, namely peasant ownership and large-scale landlord ownership. This together with the commercial and other new economic forces which invaded and penetrated the village, undermined both the agrarian economy and the autarchic village of India of the pre-British period. This transformation of land relations was the most vital link in the chain of causes which transformed the whole precapitalist feudal economy of India into existing capitalist economy."19 From that time on, as had occurred in America two and a half centuries earlier, the development of the. social class structure in India has reflected the capitalist system imposed by British colonialism. 3. Madagascar ~ contrast to what occurred in Latin America and India, African traditional feudal structures have survived up to the present time with their own special characteristics. This is 48 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies doubtless due to the relatively late conquest of Africa by the colonialist nations of Europe. Madagascar, for example, before its definitive conquest by France at the end of the nineteenth century, was for a long time one of the principal and strongest feudal states in this part of the world. The M erina society was originally made up of three "castes": the nobies (andriana), the free men (hova), and the slaves (andevo). Slave trade and the introduction of a monetary system in the eighteenth century brought about the progressive enrichment of the hova. Two antagonistic classes developed: the chiefs and noble warlords, who lived from plunder and the sale of slaves, vs. the more peaceful merchants and craftsmen, who allied themselves with the peasantry. At the end of the eighteenth century, after years of struggle, the state managed to bring about some equilibrium between the two principal classes and a stratification system evolved which included the following categories: A. nobles (andriana), divided into several hierarchical "castes"; B. free men (hova), merchants who constituted an ascending social class; C. freed slaves (hova-vao); D. former hova now reduced to slavery by debt or sentence (zaza-hova); E. royal slaves (tsiarondahy); and F. slaves (andevo). During the years following initial contact with Europeans, the opposition between the classes grew sharper at the same time that the French were extending their influence. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century the merchant class took power and initiated a policy of collaboration with the French. After the definitive conquest of Madagascar, the economy was transformed into a typically colonial economy: the autonomous ruling classes began to disintegrate, and the exploitation of the landless peasantry increased. From that time on the evolution of the class structure in Madagascar followed the evolution of the colonial economy as it occurred in other parts of Africa. However, the existence of a relatively imSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 49 portant commercial bourgeoisie in Madagascar ( a class absent in most of Black Africa) antedates colonization by the French. Also, the importance in recent years of a national liberation movement (the popular uprising of 1947 was brutally repressed by French colonialism) is due in part to the existence of a strong national state that controlled important areas before the French conquest. 20 4. Precolonial Africa: Nigeria In other parts of Black Africa, feudal systems of a traditional nature have survived until very recently. A good example is the feudal kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria, which has been studied by the English anthropologist Nadel. Two clearly defined and opposing classes coexisted in the feudal system: a) the ruling class of nobles, absentee landlords involved at the same time in war and slave trade; and b) peasants and common citizens. Relations between the two classes took place within the framework of a series of specific rights and obligations of a cfientele system. In addition, there were two other categories in this social structure: the craftsmen of the cities and the Muslim intelligentsia. These classes and categories were relatively closed, strongly hierarchical groupings. Social stratification was maintained through a rigid system of etiquette. Some social mobility existed, but admission to the nobility (which had strong class consciousness) was gained only through formal investiture. In contrast, each of the classes was, in turn, internally arranged in a hierarchy according to a system of rank whose higher positions were theoretically accessible to all members of the class. At the level of the peasant community there were no class oppositions, but rather a stratification system. Competition for access to higher ranks tended to diminish opposition between classes to some extent. ''The hierarchy of ranks helps to preserve the precarious balance of power in the feudal state. It is an efficient weapon to safeguard • • • class privileges. "21 The feudal structure of the Nupe kingdom is an example of traditional social structure that felt the inevitable impact of national economic development (in the case of Nigeria), and, accordingly, has undergone profound changes. 50 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 5. Precolonial Africa: The Lake Kingdoms Another example of feudal structures that have survived to this day but have undergone some radical transformations as a result of the development of a colonial economy are the kingdoms of the lake region of East Africa: Ankole, Bunyoro, Ruanda, Soga, and Ganda, among others. In spite of some differences among these various states, they are characterized by virtually the same type of feudal system.22 This system differs from others in that cattle play an important role, not only in the economy, but also as the basis of a very . special kind of clientele system. The feudal structure is founded on two opposing· classes:. the cattleherding nobility, the bahima (in Ankole) or tutsi (in Ruanda) who own the herds and participate in the political and military organization of the state; and the agriculturists, the bairu (in Ankole) or hutu (in Ruanda), who are the serfs of the nobility. The herdsmen are tied to their sovereign (mugabe in Ankole, mu-ami in Ruanda, and mukama in Bwiyoro) by a voluntary clientele relationship which · is characterized by the homage and tribute paid to the sovereign in exchange for the privileges and protection he provides to the herdsmen. In this relationship cattle play an extremely important role as they are circulated as a sign of wealth and a symbol of social status. The nobility supply the officials that· run the local chiefdoms and · administer the kingdom. The relationship between the dominant herdsmen and the bairu or hutu agriculturists was originally imposed on the latter by the coercive force of the tutsi or bahima conquerors. But over time these relations have turned into patron-client relationships. The agriculturists pay tribute to the dominant herdsmen class and form the true economic base of this feudal structure because cattle, in this case, represent savings and capital rather than providing for consumption needs. In Ankole, as in Ruanda, agriculturists are not permitted to own productive cattle, or to fight as warriors, or to hold any kind of political status, On the other hand, the dominant herdsmen class is stratified according to their relationship with the sovereign and royal lineage, and according to the political and administrative function performed by its memSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 51 bers. In Ankole, apart from the bahima and bairu there were several other social groups: the abatoro, conquered bahimaa who occupied a slightly lower position than the latter; the mixed-blooded abambari, offspring of illegal unions between bahima men and bairu women, who generally shared the social position of bairu; and the slaves, or aba-huku, who were prisoners of war and belonged only to the mugabe or to certain powerful and rich cattle owners. Ankole society is rigidly stratified, while in Ruanda and Bunyoro the stratification is more flexible. The feudal political organization of the Bunyoro has been compared by one scholar to the political organization of England at the time of the Norman invasion. Some of the features described above have undergone change in recent years, especially in the countries that fell under English colonial rule. The circulation of cattle as part of a clientele system has grown less important. Tribute formerly paid by the peasant population in kind or in services became, under British rule, a monetary tax paid to the colonial administration. The power of the territorial chiefs diminished, and their real income now comes from a fixed salary paid to them by the administration. Wars of conquest and slavery have disappeared. While the economic bases of the class structure have been modified by the colonial administration, the political importance of the chiefs, and the rigidity of the social stratification persist. These are some aspects of the conflicts in the social organization and the value systems that characterize these feudal kingdoms at the present ti.m e.2 3 CONCLUSIONS Class societies similar to those we have just examined have existed in North Africa, in the Middle East, and in the Far East before their modification by European colonialism. What conclusions can we draw from this brief discussion of some traditional structures? In the first place, that in the underdeveloped world some traditional societies had class structures in which opposition, conflict, and antagonism based on the exploitation and economic and political domination of one class by another, took place. Next, that none of these 52 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies class structures has wholly resisted the modifying impact of European expansion. The violent destruction, by military conquest, of. an autonomous culture and social structure, as occurred with the Aztecs and Incas, is undoubtedly an extreme case. But we have seen that state feudalism in India was altered by the British conquest; that the class structure in the Merina kingdom of Madagascar was transformed in the process of struggle against French domination, and later against the establishment of French political power and economic interests; that the economic basis of feudal structures on the African continent was radically modified by the colonial administration and by the development of capitalism. Throughout the underdeveloped world certain processes set in motion by the colonial system have brought about radical transformations of the class structure and have led. to the appearance of new social categories that have become integrated or are becoming integrated into new structures. In contrast to class structures, the traditional systems of social stratification tend to resist economic and political changes and to maintain themselves as value systems long after the historical stage to which they originally corresponded has passed. Without doubt, the most. notorious example of this tendency is the persistence of caste stratification in India, even in the great industrial cities, where the functional division of labor implicit in the caste system no longer exists. The changing role of the traditional chiefdoms in Black Africa-and the conflicts of values produced by this transformation- is still another example. Certainly there exist other traditional structures: some forms of family organization, matrimonial relationships, customary law, and other manifestations of the cultural superstructure which survived the first contact with Western civilization. These persistent traditional structures tend to integrate themselves into the new socioeconomic system and come to form the basis of the well-known cultural synchretisms of underdeveloped countries. But the traditional (feudal or semi-feudal) divisions of social classes cannot resist the changes introduced by the colonial . system. Class is one of the first social structures to be modified or changed by colonialism and economic development. CHAPTER 4 The Process of Change The establishment of colonial systems and the expansion of capitalism in underdeveloped countries led to certain processes of social change which accelerated the disintegration of traditional structures and gave birth to new social categories and social classes. The processes of social change and acculturation currently under way in underdeveloped countries are varied and complex; here we will deal only with six processes that have been essential in the transformation of class structures and stratification. THE INTRODUCTION OF A MONEY ECONOMY Here we have one of the most important results of the implantation of capitalism in an underdeveloped country. The search for raw materials and markets, which constitutes the first objective of any new colonial capitalist system, makes the establishment of a money economy indispensable in places where such a system does not already exist. A money economy necessarily contributes to the disruption of the traditional village economy. It stimulates the development of commercial exchange and frees the labor necessary for capitalism. Let us analyze the main elements of this process. 1) One of the first acts of any colonial administration in an underdeveloped country is the establishment of monetary taxes. Thus, for example, in India the tribute traditionally paid in kind to the monarch was converted by the English into a monetary tax paid by the peasants to the colonial administration. The same transformation took place in Latin America during the colonial period. In Black Africa, the English and French colonial administrators placed the traditional chiefs in charge of tax collection. 54 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 2) At the same time wage labor is introduced. What has been said of Black Africa is true of other countries as well. • . . In order to secure labor from the very first days of colonization, the colonizers resorted to various pressures, from forced labor to taxes on the male population. Up to now, in his own local economy, the African has not been inclined to sell his labor for a wage. But pressures mounted with modem economic development, as a result of the growing desire of Africans to procure the products of modem industry, and the ever more precarious situation of the subsistence economy. • • . A continuous and growing supply of migratory workers are willing to work for wages and on a seasonal basis, and this supply is maintained due to the increased population pressure on the land and the simple nature of agricultural technology and also as a result of the need to obtain a monetary income in order to pay taxes and buy the goods offered on the market.1 It is interesting to note that the same process is still taking place today in some Indian areas of Latin America. And the development of a salaried labor force constitutes the very basis of the formation of a working class in the underdeveloped countries. 3) Another important aspect of the monetary economy is the development of commercial monetary exchange. The early establishment of barter trade, then of national markets, and later of commercial distribution networks imposed a system of monetary exchange on indigenous peoples who formally had only a barter system. The same· pressures that forced the members of traditional communities to sell their labor, soon forced them to dedicate themselves to commercial activides. In Black · Africa women played a very important role in the development of commerce. With the development of commercial monetary exchange we see the formation of new social categories such as merchants, middlemen, and traveling salesmen.2 The monetary economy is inseparable from the development of capitalism; together with other processes of change it has encouraged the rise of new social categories and the transformation of traditional social structures. Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 55 Tim INTRODUCTION OF PRNATE LANDOWNERSHIP AND COM• MERCIAL MONOCULTURE Here we are examining two processes which are different, but so intertwined through history that it is possible to discuss them together. Wherever capitalism has developed, it has stimulated individual appropriation of land. We have seen that in India, for example, the British established private landholdings through the zamindary system. In Black Africa, the process of disintegration of tribal land tenure and the formation of private landholdings among Africans has been under way now for many years. At the same time and as a result of colonization, land belonging to the native population was systematically expropriated and occupied by European colonists (as in North Africa, Kenya, and in South'Africa) or by foreign companies in the form of "concessions." In Latin America, the appropriation by colonists of huge tracts of land historically inhabited by indigenous populations took place from the :fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on (and in the Caribbean was accompanied by the extermination of the Indian population). However, in several Latin American countries, indigenous communal property was abolished by decree only in the last century. The concentration of land in the hands of a small minority has generally been the outcome of the establishment of private land tenure. This has been the case in Latin America, in North Africa, and in the Middle East. This process of expropriation, appropriation, and concentration of land that accompanies capitalist development in underdeveloped countries has given birth to new social categories: the peasant cultivator, the large landowner, and the landless peasant. We have noted before that one of the most characteristic features of the implantation of capitalism in underdeveloped countries is the transformation of subsistence agriculture into commercial, export agriculture. The widespread establishment of large-scale commercial monoculture (sugarcane, cocoa, cotton, coffee, etc.) in the tropical countries is inseparable from the individual appropriation of the soil.a This process, which has profoundly altered traditional social structures wherever it has taken place, has also given rise to new social 56 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies categories and represents an essential aspect of the formation of new social classes. · Later we will analyze in greater detail some examples that illustrate this process. MIGRATION OF WORKERS AND RURAL EXODUS The expropriation of land, the destruction of traditional subsistence agriculture, the impoverishment of the peasant masses, the demands of the monetary economy, and economic development in underdeveloped countries have all contributed to the creation of a demographic movement which became very significant in the twentieth· century. The seasonal migration of workers in Africa and in Latin America is 311 indicator of these radical changes in traditional economic structures as well as a powerful factor in the formation of new social classes. These migrations take place within or across national borders. In Africa migration has reached considerable proportions. Africans leave their rural homes to work in the mines, the farms, the plantations,· and the industrial and urban centers. At times they traverse tremendous distances, cross international boundaries, work for longer or shorter periods (according to the seasonal contracts which bind them), and return to their home villages for a short time only to resume their migrations once more. In this way an African worker may spend the greater part of· his life away from his home and community, roaming from place to place and from job to job. The mobility of African workers is geographical as well as occupational. Hundreds of thousands of Africans take part each year in these population movements. ·Some African countries regularly import a large amount of foreign labor. Among these countries are South Africa, Rhodesia, Uganda, Zaire, Liberia, Ghana, and others. Botswana, Mozambique, Malawi; · and Ruanda are some of the countries that regularly export labor. In Malawi, for example, in 1954, it was estimated that more than 42 per cent of able-bodied adult men were employed outside their own country. In Mozambique in the same year more than 50 per cent of the economically active population worked away from their home region during some part of the year. On the other hand, in 1957 two thirds of all African miners in South Africa came from other Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 57 African countries. Other examples could be given. J. Woddis has noted six characteristics of these migrations . of African workers: a) They are made up almost exclusively of adult men. b) The workers are generally contracted for a strictly limited period of time. c) The migration is repeated several times during the life of the rural worker. d) The workers generally travel enormous distances, often on foot. e) These migrations are tied to various kinds of recruitment, many of which are nothing more than disguised forms of forced labor. f) These migrations are of such large scale that they create a complete disequilibrium between the populations of the cities and the. countryside, which aggravates the already acute agrarian crisis, and totally destroys the economic harmony of the African countries and territories most directly affected. In addition, the instability of the labor force and the occupational mobility inherent in the migration system make it difficult for workers to upgrade their skills, make union organization virtually impossible, and, logically, tend to reduce wage levels.4 It is clear that these migrations have important consequences for the formation and development of a working class in Africa. In addition to seasonal migration, we must consider rural exodus, that is, the definitive migrations of rural populations to the cities. The causes of rural emigration are many, and they may be found mainly in the poverty of ·the· rural areas as a result of the processes mentioned before. Whereas seasonal migrations contribute to the instability of the labor force and of all forms of traditional social organization, rural exodus, in turn, creates new urban problems which will . be examined below. Seasonal migration also takes place in Latin America, although not to the · same extent as in Africa. In some countries, such as Colombia and the Northeast of Brazil, these migrations are brought about by special conditions, either 58 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies political or climatic. But generally speaking, seasonal migrations in Latin America are due to the nature of the land tenure system. In Mexico the seasonal migration of rural workers to the United States is called bracerismo, and it involves approximately half a million men each year, with important consequences for the Mexican economy and the transformation of traditional social structures. Unfortunately, the statistics covering internal seasonal migrations in Latin American countries are not very precise. But if seasonal migration does not play as important a role in Latin America as in Black Africa, on the other hand, rural exodus plays an even more dramatic role in Latin America than anywhere else in the world. Massive emigration to the cities and the amazing growth of urban population is one of the most important phenomena of recent decades in Latin America. The importance of migratory movements in the development of new social categories and new social classes ought not to be underestimated. URBANIZATION Urbanization is not merely a demographic process of the growth of cities and rural-urban migrations. It is above all a social and economic process which profoundly affects traditional socioeconomic systems and provides the context within which new social structures appear.0 It is often held that urbanization is equivalent to modernization of society, and to a certain extent this is true. But there are different kinds of urbanization processes, and different ways to measure the degree of urbanization of any given population. In the underdeveloped countries, the process of urbanization is a result of the development of colonial and dependent capitalism. Although some African cities have existed since precolonial times, 6 most of them were created by the colonizers to serve as commercial, administrative, or mining centers, and until very recently have maintained closer economic relations with Europe than with their own African backlands. 7 The migrations of rural populations to these urban centers take place within the changing economic processes which liberate manpower from the areas of subsistence agriculture Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 59 and draw it into. the money economy. But not all sectors of the economy absorb labor at an equal rate. Indeed, most rural migrants do not find stable, permanent employment in the cities; they tend, rather, towards the already disproportionately large tertiary sector, that is, the trades and services, characterized by low productivity, low incomes, and high degrees of underemployment and unemployment. Contemporary processes of urbanization simply transfer rural·poverty to the urban areas. The large cities of the Third World are increasingly populated by marginal masses of unskilled, untrained, underemployed, and underpaid workers, who live in the shantytowns and hovels-by now only too well knownwith all their problems of housing, sanitation, and urban services. Statistically speaking, many countries that used to be considered agricultural nations (mainly in Latin America) have in recent decades become ''urbanized." What this means,. actually, is that the development of capitalism has been able to uproot millions of rural peoples but has been unable to provide for them adequately in new, integrated, economic and social structures. Rural migrants and urban marginals do not turn automatically (except for a small proportion) into an industrial proletariat or a "rising middle class" as is so often argued. The nature of dependent capitalist development, through the modernization of certain branches of the economy and the further underdevelopment· of others, contributes to the increasing marginalization of the rural and urban populations. Thus the process of urbanization, which reflects this tendency, becomes the crucible in which existing class structures are redefined, new classes emerge, and new stratification systems develop.a INDUSTRIALIZATION One of the causes of the special characteristics of urbanization in underdeveloped countries is the fact that in contrast with the rise of the modem city in Western Europe and the United States, urban growth in the Third World has not been accompanied by a corresponding process of industrialization, The development· of industry in these countries is a recent 60 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies phenomenon, introduced from the outside, and is taking place at a time when the other processes of change mentioned above are already well under way. Industrialization is, of course, the key process in the development of a new social class, the industrial proletariat. But here again, the nature of dependent capitalism is responsible for the kind of industrialization which is taking place. For a long time, the establishment of industries in the colonies and underdeveloped countries was prevented by the manufacturing interests of the colonial powers. India's manufactures were destroyed by British imperialism, which transformed that country from an exporter of cotton goods to the whole world into an importer of cotton goods.o In Africa, during the colonial period, industrialization was never undertaken, because it would have led to the local accumulation of capital, which might in turn have produced a real increase in the salaries and rights of African laborers. Local industrialization · would have destroyed the colonial monopolies.10 In Latin America, early attempts at industrialization in some countries, toward the end of the nineteenth century, were frustrated by imperial power politics.11 By the fourth decade of the present century, due to the crisis of the world capitalist system, the beginnings of industrialization did take place in some underdeveloped countries. Since the Second World War, this process has been sped up under the aegis of the multinational corporations. In Latin America, this has been known as import substitution and consists essentially in producing locally some of the :finished articles which used to be imported before. Some African countries have taken this road to industrialization during the last decade. More recently, a number of manufacturing companies of the industrialized countries have set up plants in the underdeveloped nations in order to take advantage of tax exemptions, cheap labor costs, and raw materials, but the :finished or semi-finished product is re-exported back home. This kind of industrialization increases the underdeveloped country's dependence upon the industrialized nation, does not contribute to strengthening the internal market in the country in which it takes place, and due to modem, capitalintensive technologies, hardly contributes to an expansion of Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 61 the industrial labor force. Thus industrialization undoubtedly :figures among the most important processes that alter traditional class structures and provoke the development of new social classes, but it does · so within the general framework of dependent and underdeveloped capitalism. NATIONAL INTEGRATION OF UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES The countries of Latin America, with only a few exceptions, gained their political independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the majority of the states that exist today in this region have enjoyed more · than one hundred years of political autonomy. This, of course, is not the case in Black Africa. Not only is the African independence struggle still in progress, but the politico-administrative units that are currently either African colonies or independent states date only from the colonial conquests of the past· century. While in Latin America the process of national integration began with the Conquest and continued during three centuries of colonial regime and progressive intermixing of populations, traditional politico-administrative areas still persist in Black Africa in total contradiction with the political units formed by colonization. The process of national integration on. a political and psychological level, the regrouping, or in some cases the division, of the various tribal or ethnic groups are among the problems that affect the structure of social classes.12 Other problems of this sort are the establishment of administrative, fiscal, and communication networks at the national level and the establishment. of bureaucracies, military organizations, and a centralized authority for economic planning. For example, while only twenty years ago it . was still possible to speak of the economy of French West Africa, today one must distinguish clearly between the economic development of Guinea and of the Ivory Coast. As a result, social class structure, which can only be understood in the context of specific socioeconomic systems, would differ considerably between the two countries. The process of formation of new politico-administrative units is a very immediate problem for the new states of Black Africa. It has extremely important implications for the development of new social classes. 62 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies Nevertheless, even in Latin America national integration is far from complete. Many Latin American countries are marked by regional and ethnic differences. Their well-known ''pluralism" and the asynchronism of their development often underlines these differences. In part these factors also explain the various forms of nationalism that have developed in Latin America, which, to a greater or lesser degree, condition relations among social classes in that region.is CONCLUSIONS The six processes of change that we have just examined: the introduction of a monetary economy, the introduction of private landholding and commercial monoculture, the migration of workers and rural exodus, urbanization, industrialization, and, finally, national integration, constitute, in our view, the essential conditions for the transformation of traditional class structures. These processes of change affect not only the class structure, but the entire social structure as a whole. Each of these processes should be more carefully analyzed from the point of view of its relations to a changing class structure. There are important studies which more closely examine these problems, especially the questions of urbanization and industrialization. Of the six processes outlined above, the first three have particular significance with respect to rural class structure. It is important to stress that, in a general way, these processes of change have proceeded historically in the underdeveloped countries according to the order in which they were discussed above (with the exception of national integration, which, from the administrative and political point of view, took place in Latin America long before urbanization and industrialization), Thus in Latin America the first three processes discussed have been developing over a long period of time, and in some parts of this region they are still going on. Therefore, the fact that they have their origin in the colonial era of the sixteenth century does not imply that they are not relevant to the changes that are taking place today. All the processes that have been analyzed one by one in this chapter in fact form part of a single and longterm sequence of structural change that we have divided into six categories only for the purpose of closer analysis. Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 63 We should also point out that this structural change has proceeded far more slowly in Latin America than in Africa, where the same development that took 400 years in Latin America actually occurred within the last century. THE CHANGING PEASANTRY CHAPTER 5 Agrarian Societies and Rural Class Structures To the extent that the agricultural economy is the basis upon which the major transformations of the underdeveloped countries take place, it is particularly important to define agrarian social structures and their changes. As we have seen in previous chapters, the extension of capitalism has modified agrarian structures and the nature of rural populations all over the world. In fact, these changes have shown the almost infinite variety of rural types and the different kinds of agricultural life in the underdeveloped countries, for nothing is further from the truth than the once widely held idea of the existence of an undifferentiated peasant mass, a homogeneous and unchangeable rural substratum upon which new, externally generated structures have somehow been grafted mechanically. Yet rural populations, whatever their differences, also have many common characteristics. In agrarian societies all over the world we find similar social structures, analogous collective and individual reactions in the face of new stimuli, social organizations, and institutions that may vary in form and content, but that often tum out to be surprisingly similar in their functions and social dynamics. Despite the changes brought on by the expanding capitalist system, which have been mentioned in previous chapters, the vast majority of the populations of agrarian societies still live most of their lives in small, relatively isolated and self-contained rural communities, with their own special cultural values and traditions. 1 A look at the ethnographic literature shows us that whatever the differences may be, the rural village has many common features whether it be in the Far East, in India, l 1 V 1' u lS c a: lO f; in io; 0 ef1 T OJ pe: Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 65 the Middle East, Central Africa, Latin America, Russia, or southern Italy . No matter how varied their respective backgrounds, traditional social structures are breaking down everywhere under the inJpact of the new economy and traditional precapitalist values are slowly disappearing. In the most diverse cultures, rural populations are :finding sinJilar responses and solutions in the face of similar problems. All over the world, :finally, we see the disappearance of integrative mechanisms based on kinship, locality, and prima1y relations, and the rise of new social mechan isms of integration, based on the market and the nation -state. It must be remembered that the vast majority of the world's population is rural and depends directly or indirectly upon agriculture for a livelihood . What are these rural populations like, as far as their social and economic structures are concerned? How can they be characterized and defined? Generically, rural populations may be referred to as peasantries, but the concept "peasant" is often given a specific meaning in sociological literature and does not always include all types of rural populations. A useful distinction is sometinJes made between tribal peoples, peasant s, and modern farmers. Tribal cultivators live in relatively closed, self-contained societies, and while they may engage in trade or barter with other groups, they are not economically integrated into wider social units. It might be argued that tribal cultivators (who are sometinJes referred to as "primitives" in ethnological literature) have not yet undergone the structural transformations which result from contact with capitalist economy. There still exist such marginal groups in some parts of the world, but their number is small, and in this book we are not concerned with them. In contrast to tribal or primitive peoples, peasant societies do form part of wider economic, social, and political units, with which they engage in special kinds of relationships. Anthropologists tend to consider peasants as members of "part societies with part -cultures," who can only be understood in relation and contrast to urban society.2 Peasant economy tends toward self-sufficiency and the household is the main unit for production and consumption, based on the intensive use of family labor.s t t SJ 68 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie~ be used for commercial crops. There is a poorly developec market in land, and neither the value of land nor the valm of labor is great. Labor is generally unfree, attached to th< estate through the tenure system or personal peonage. Th, landlord class disposes of almost absolute power over th peasants. The two principal classes of this system have ver different standards of living and legal privileges. The dom nated peasantry has virtually no political power or organiz1 tional capabilities. This system was characteristic of Europea feudalism and still exists in numerous underdeveloped cow tries, particularly in the Middle East and Latin America. 2) Family-size tenancy, in which the operative unit of agi culture is the family enterprise, but property rights rest wi rentier capitalists. Rents may be paid in kind or in mom and sharecropping arrangements between operator aowner are not uncommon. This type of system occurs usua when the following conditions are met: a) land has very hi productivity and high market price; b) the crop is higl labor-intensive, and mechanization of agriculture is little , veloped; c) labor is cheap; and d) the period of product of the crop is one year or less. Here commercial agricult in small parcels or plots predominates. The peasants' incc in this system is inversely related to that of the landowi and conflicts tend to arise between the tenant of sharecrof class and the owners, who frequently are absenteeist ur dwellers. This system is politically quite unstable and quently leads to peasant uprisings and fand reforms in wJ the landowning classes (which appear to the peasants t< alien, superfluous, grasping, and exploitative) are expropri1 Family-size tenancy is found in countries with high di graphic pressure: in the Orient, in India, in North Af 3) Family small holding is similar to the system of fa tenancy, from which it may have arisen in some conn It may also be the result of colonization of agricultural 1: as happened in the United States, or of the pressures o market in industrialized countries. Costs of productio1 generally fixed.: there is no rent to pay and no variable of labor (provided by the family). However, the fluctl: of the market price of agricultural products as well as th ,cial Classes in Agrarian Societies 69 ' credit weigh on the peasantry and, in consequence, the >litical movements of the peasantry in this system are genally directed against urban merchants and moneylenders, td finance capital is identified as the class enemy. 4) Plantation agriculture is characterized by commercial ops which require large, long-term investments. It is. assoated mainly with tropical crops in colonial or semicolonial ·eas, where labor is cheap and intensively used. The system 1ed to be based on slavery. Workers tend to be unskilled td their standards of living and legal prerogatives are much ferior to those of other strata of the population. The class ' landowners possesses the necessary managerial skills and >Ids political power. It is able to prevent the developD)ent : a class of smallholders on uncultivated lands, in order to aintain its own dominant position. 5) Capitalist extensive agriculture is based on wage labor, td is characteristic of areas with abundant, low-cost land td a free-floating, mobile labor force, which is generally asonal. The cost of labor is relatively high and there is a ndency towards mechanization. Distinctions in life-styles, gal privileges, and technical know-how between the ownerttrepreneur and the salaried agricultural workers are not rry marked. This general typology is a useful frame of reference, but it Duld have to be refined if it is to be applied in different eas of the world. Each one of the five large types could in m be subdivided, and other types would have to be created. 1e important point to remember is that the kind of agriculral enterprise which becomes the setting for specific kinds · class relations is the result not only of geographical and chnical factors (soils, climate, water, crops, available agriiltural technology, etc.), but also of historical and strucral conditions of the wider society and economy. Thus mily tenancy and family ownership are closely related to e political fortunes of the landowning classes in relation to e industrial and financial bourgeoisie.11 Plantation agriculre is typically related to colonial systems and multiethnic cieties. Capitalist extensive agriculture is linked to the avail- 1ility of industrial inputs, and so forth. 70 . Social Classes in Agrarian Societif RURAL SOCIAL CLASSES IN UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES To the extent that in the underdeveloped countries the cap talist system has been implanted upon pre-existing social struc tures, rather than arising out of them as was the case i Western Europe, and coexists with modes of precapitalist pre duction, the class structures in the agrarian sector will b complex and variegated and in a state of flux. Class Iimi1 will not be clearly defined, class relationships will be ambigt ous, structures that belong to different historical epochs wi coexist and cut across each other, and different and conflic :irig stratification systems will complicate the social scene11 It is therefore impossible tet establish clear1y a :fixed numbe of social categories that might be common to the peasantr of the underdeveloped countries. Students of agrarian stru< tures and rural areas in these countries have found a dive1 sity of social classes and strata which may range from simpl dichotomic divisions to the nine "socio-economic statuses which one research team found in rural Lebanon,12 not t speak of schemas containing multiple strata, castes, types, c subcultures of the peasantry. To this social diversity one may add the diversity of metl ods and procedures employed by the scholars in gatherin and analyzing their materials. It should be clear, of course that the number and varieties of classes and strata is ofte as much the result of a researcher's mental equipment as is of the reality he studies. This poses serious problems whe attempts are made to compare data from different parts c the world which have been gathered and analyzed with di ferent methods and within different theoretical frameworks. In the rural and plural societies of underdeveloped cow tries class structures are sometimes closely intertwined wit various kinds of stratification systems and it is not always po: sible, even in the most serious studies, to distinguish one fro1 the other. For example, in Latin America a number of a1 thors have identified the . three main racial components of t1J society-white, mestizo,· . and Indian-respectively with thre "classes": the upper, the middle, and the lower.18 In rur: Brazil social class stratification and racial stratification c1 across each other, but class stratification seems to be predon ~ial Classes in Agrarian Societies 71 nt in conditioning the nature of interracial relationships.14 Scholars in Africa have often identified the social groups of , colonial situation with social "classes."15 These groups, ne of which have arisen in the course of colonization, have ~ to struggle for power, as in Fang society in the .bon.1e While such struggles may be partially considered in , light of class conflict, they also represent struggles be= en different kinds of stratification systems. In India, the ,rarchy of castes and the division of social_c lasses are closely erwoven at the level of peasant society. After the British 1quest, new social classes emerged in agriculture, which tpted themselves at :first to the pre-existing caste system,1'1 t later the class struggle tended increasingly to cut a.cross : traditional caste hierarchy.is [n peasant societies, social classes are mainly defined in ms of their relationship to the land. The particular criia may vary according to the circumstances: the possession non-possession of the land; the size of agricultural enterse; the relationships between operator and owner of the m unit; the use or non-use of wage labor; etc. But other :ia1 categories, which may or may not be linked to the ss structure, are defined also in terms of other criteria. ey may be linked to cultural elements such as the so-called 1cated elites in colonial Africa 111 or the cholos and ladinos the Indian areas of Latin Am.erica;20 or they · may be ntified with certain religions, such as the Muslims or Chris- 18 in African countries; or else they may arise out of ral mixture in ethnically heterogeneous societies. f?or the purposes of this investigation, our interests lie with ,se new kinds of social categories that arise out of the 1ctural transformations of agrarian societies. What are se transformations and what kinds of groupings ( classes, tta) do they bring forth? These are the questions to which following chapters will be devoted; CHAPTER Agrarian Changes ar the Dynamics • Class in Black Afric In Africa south of the Sahara contemporary rural society the result of a mixture of traditional precolonial structur and the processes of · change introduced by the colonial m tropolis. We have already seen the difficulties encounterc by the anthropological use of the concept "peasant" in d scribing the agriculturists of Black Africa. There are sever problems in attempting to characterize rural Black Afri• in terms of class structures. In the first place we run into technical problems. Rur classes and other social categories have not been treated sy tematically in the sociological and ethnological literature < Black Africa. Anthropological studies are generally co cemed with a specific tribe or ethnic group, or with tl examination of specific changes in African society since col nization and their effects on rural life, or with problems , urbanization, the conflict between old and new systems values among the elites, the changing roles of tradition chiefs, etc. Secondly, some problems arise out of the ve conditions of development in rural Africa, and it would see that the relative paucity of literature dealing with class issu is chiefly due to the fact that it is still risky, even today, speak of a crystallized class structure in rural Africa, whe the economic and social systems are very much in a sta of flux. It seems in fact that with very few exceptions, rm Black Africa has not undergone the same development pre esses that have stimulated the evolution of a class structu in other parts of the world. Black Africa is, in fact, characterized by a number of si: cial features. In the first place, up to now there has been 1 1cial Classes in Agrarian Societies 73 :mographic pressure on the land similar to that which affects orth Africa, the Middle East, or most of Asia. And where rui kind of demographic pressure has recently begun to have ,me effect, it has been local in its impact, but has neverthess contributed to the development of social classes, as we ill see in later chapters. Secondly, traditional feudal political ructures in Black Africa have not been based on the difrential access to the land, but rather on control over herds : cattle. Thus the traditional classes of some of these African 'stems have been the dominant herdsmen, the subordinated :nculturists, and domestic slaves. Stratification systems arose ith respect to political power in the context of kinship strucires. Thirdly, before the European conquest, private ownertip of land was generally unknown and land was never >nsidered to have exchange value. To be sure, Jomo KenLtta has asserted that the Kikuyus bought and sold land as ivate property even before the arrival of the British.1 Howrer, thrui assertion is contradicted by other authors, who ~scribe the communal nature of property among African ibesmen.2 Although the concept of "property" had not ken root, there is no doubt that rights of possession over nd were exercised by certain lineages, families, or individlls even before the colonial period. What were not yet part : the rural African scene were the rental of cultivated or 1cultivated private land and· a population of landless peas- 1ts. Finally, the generalized subsistence agriculture prac~ d in these societies produced small surpluses which were :ed in some regions to support non-agricultural sectors of .e population such as the ruling political nobility, the war:> rs, the artisans, or the merchants. However, this kind of 1bsistence agriculture never represented a sufficient basis to ing about the internal differentiation of the peasantry. Apart from the traditional cultivators belonging to what tve been called "tribes without rulers" and the peasants of e traditional feudal states (neither of whom we will be studyg here), the new categories among African peasants are .e result of the European colonization. In a previous chapr we have already outlined the different processes that have .odified traditional class structures in the underdeveloped mntries. In Africa it is only relatively recently that these 74 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie processes have begun, and they show clearly how new socia categories among the peasants have arisen and continue t4 arise. One of the most important processes stimulating chang, was the expropriation of native land by the colonial settlen a phenomenon which operated with greater intensity in som regions than in others. In Kenya, expropriation was cata strophic for the native population, destroying the basis of th, traditional economy, reducing the African population to over crowded "reserves," and obliging them to seek work in th, cities or as cheap labor on European-owned estates.a In Bot swana native reserves were created before the turn of th, century and the African population had access to only 3' per cent of the protectorate's territory. The scarcity of lan1 for subsistence agriculture in this country is one of the fac tors which has stimulated the formation of new socfa classes.4 In the former Southern Cameroons (ex-Britisl mandate), the expropriation of land was begun by the Get mans and continued under English rule. Here again, · loca agriculture suffered, and new forms of work were impose, on the Africans. 5 In what used to be French Equatoria Africa and the Belgian Congo, and to a lesser degree ii French West Africa, the concessions of agricultural and fores areas to the Europeans displaced the African population an, altered the old structures. B In Liberia, the concessions wer given to an American company (Firestone rubber plantation) While the concessions and expropriations in Black Afric represented only a small percentage of total area, the Ian, taken from the Africans in this fashion was the most valuabl in terms of econoinic use. Population density per unit c cultivable land is high in Africa, and it was precisely thi land that was expropriated by the colonial powers. At the same time other processes accompanied the exprc priations of land. The establishment of monetary taxes wa one of the first acts carried out by the colonial powers in eacl case, and had a· sweeping effect on the life of African peas ants. These taxes have taken various forms,7 and in orde to pay them, the African cultivators have been obliged, o: the one hand, to raise commercial crops, and on the othe1 to work for a wage. The development of commercial crop iocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 75 :peanuts in Senegal, bananas in Guinea, coffee and cocoa in he Ivory Coast, cocoa in Ghana, palm oil in Dahomey, batanas in Cameroon, etc.) is in fact another process which >rofoundly changed the life of the peasants. When economic ncentives were not sufficient to transform the subsistence armer into a producer of commercial crops, the colonial Ldministration would apply a variety of different pressures to 'orce this conversion. Thus H. Labouret writes that the gov: mor of the Ivory Coast "imposed a genuine forced cultivaion of cocoa on the natives."8 The same procedures were 1sed in Guinea.9 As a result, several factors have operated n the agrarian transformation of Black Africa. Perhaps it s too soon to speak of a division of rural classes based on he extension of land ownership. The development of the totion-and of the legal fact-of private ownership of the and is a process which has only just begun.10 For this reason here are not sufficient statistical data on this issue to permit IS to make a detailed country-by-country analysis. To be sure, there is no lack of general essays of classificaion of the African peasantry. Thus Majhemout Diop disinguishes between rich and medium-sized farmers and poor ,easants or rural proletariat, and speaks of the existence of 'feudal" landholders.11 However, if such a classification may ,e considered valid for the countries in which differentiation >f the rural population has long since taken place ( as in :..atin America and North Africa), we must question whether t is valid for Black Africa, a region which is undergoing a ·apid process of transformation of its rural areas. Other :lassifications have been made on the basis of intensive local :ase studies. In Ghana four "classes" have been identified n a single cocoa-producing village. These are: 1) owners of :ocoa farms, 2) adults who receive a part of the harvest, I) agricultural workers under sharecropping arrangements, md 4) a small "class" comprised of annual and seasonal vage laborers.12 However, as J. Boyon has pointed out vith respect to these social categories, "in fact, in a more leveloped country they would constitute true social classes, mt here they are only subdivisions, the beginnings of a lifferentiation within the cocoa-producing community."1S 76 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie1 Rather than attempting to set up general classifications. which will not permit us to grasp the whole complexity oJ rural Africa's changing structures, it seems more useful tc analyze the emergence of new social classes as they aris( out of the change process itself. This process results, as W( have seen, from the colonial system, and it has given ris( to three new rural social categories, which are 1 ) the seasonal migratory worker, 2) the agricultural laborer on commercial plantations which produce export crops, and 3) th( individual farmer who produces commercial crops for export None of these three categories is homogeneous, and tht exact boundaries between one group and another are no1 always easy to determine. Nevertheless, there is no doub1 that if a new class structure is going to replace the tradi, tional feudal or family structures in rural Africa, it will bt through the impact of these three new social groups. Next to subsistence farming, commercial agriculture hru become increasingly important in Black Africa, and it is thii new agriculture which will retain our attention here. It ii difficult to determine with any precision the proportion oJ the population that lives from subsistence agriculture or itl relative contribution to agricultural output. In an early stud) on agricultural labor in Africa we read: A subsistence agricultural sector not linked to the capital, ist marketrepresents an obstacle to the constitution of wagt labor on a massive scale, the availability of which is om of the requirements of capital. If, on the other hand, thii agriculture improves its performance and comes to pro duce for local markets, there is then a risk that it wil begin to compete with capitalist agricultural production which has higher production costs. Capitalists will thu tend to develop market agriculture, i.e., commercial crops only if they can control the production process as well a: the marketing of the crops in order to assure a profit. Thi outcome of this trend is that the African cultivator, ever the "independent" one, at the same time that he improve: his level of production, will increasingly become chargec with debts, taxes and other obligations which in this systen constitute the price of development.14 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 77 Part of the marketable agricultural produce is obviously consumed in Africa itself. This is what occurs with the major part of all cereals, legumes, and tubers produced in Africa. However, the most important crops ate exported and the production of export crops is on the increase. These crops form the very basis of the economy of most African countries. Cocoa is the principal export product of -Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon; rubber of Liberia; peanuts of Senegal; and coffee of Guinea, the Ivory Coast; Kenya, and Uganda. It is not easy to find precise figures on the agricultural population of the various countries of Black Africa, due to statistical deficiencies. It is even more difficult to provide figures on the distribution of the agricultural population in the different types of agriculture. According to United Nations statistics, more than three fourths (77 per cent) of the labor force in all of Africa was engaged in agriculture in 1960, a decrease of four percentage points from the decade before.1° An ILO study of some years ago reported that 17 per cent of the labor force was engaged in the production of commercial crops and 60 per cerit in subsistence agriculture, while 13 per cent were agricultural wage workers.16 The proportion of wage workers in agriculture with respect to wage workers in general varied between around 25 per cent in Zaire and what used to be French Equatorial Africa, 40 per cent in Madagascar, 20 per cent in the countries of former French West Africa, 16 per cent in Ghana, 20 per cent in Ruanda, 40 per cent in Rhodesia, 45 per cent in Kenya, and 50 per cent in Tanzania.17 These figures attest to the importance of the emerging social category of agricultural laborers. Tim MIGRATORY WORltER The development of a migratory worker population is the direct result of the various processes of social change that we have described and discussed above. Migratory workers do not form a new social class but rather fall into a transitional category. We assign a. special place to this group because migratory workers reflect the transformation of traditional structures into emerging modern ones. Two different kinds of workers' migrations take place in Africa. The first 78 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies are the migrations to the industrial, mining, and urban centers, which are mainly found in southern Africa, in the "Copper Belt" of Rhodesia and Katanga, and in the mining and industrial regions of the Republic of South Africa. The other type are migrations to commercial agricultural regions, especially in East and West Africa. The first type of migration leads to the formation of an African industrial proletariat, while the second tends to build a rural proletariat. To the degree that migrant workers are generally on the move for limited periods at a time and tend to preserve their tribal and community basis, they also contribute to the rise of new social categories in agriculture. Labouret has shown how the migratory workers remained tied to their villages and cannot be studied except with reference to their. communities. The motivations that lead to migration are the same everywhere. In the first place there is the need for money to cover the deficit in the rural budget. It is said that in the past, the heads of families designated some young men who had to leave the village to seek work outside. These young men would regularly send their wages and savings back to the village, keeping only enough money to buy the gifts customarily presented by returning members of the community, or to invest in some business which promised greater profit. Today the head of a family does not intervene in this process. His authority is now diminished and disputed and no longer permits him to give efficient orders. Both young men and young women freely take off for distant work locations and for the cities. They do, however, continue to send money to their relatives in the community. • • • In the geographic zones where the seasons alternate and which provide the largest proportion of migratory workers, these leave to work for an average of six to seven months a year, from November to May; that is, just before the beginning of the rainy season.is We see that at least during the first stages of the development of the new social structures the migratory workers are, or continue to be, essentially agriculturists and members of peasant society, although their later development brings them closer to, and progressively integrates them into, the Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 79 more advanced capitalist structures. Among the Tonga in Nyasaland, although they may have lived for considerable time in the cities, migratory workers maintain very direct ties with their tribe and their rural community, and these pendular migrations have even been considered as a positive factor in the maintenance of tribal unity.19 Migratory labor, whether it be industrial or agricultural, is conditioned by the nature of agrarian society. Let us take a closer look at two cases of seasonal migratory labor. 1. Seasonal Migrations in West Africa In the countries that used to be known as French West Africa, the production of commercial crops has reached considerable proportions. Seasonal laborers regularly leave the regions where subsistence crops are grown (Mali and Upper Volta in particular) and set out for the peanut-producing regions of Senegal, or the cocoa and coffee farms of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. It has been calculated that between 150,- 000 and 300,000 laborers migrate to the Ivory Coast from other countries to work seasonally on the cocoa farms; 90 per cent of these workers come from Upper Volta.20 The Senegalese migrant workers are called navetanes, and generally come from Mali to cultivate peanuts during the winter season. Often they remain at their seasonal jobs for six or seven · months before returning to their homes. · The navetanes generally work on small farms under a variety of different contracts which tie them to the owner of the land. The farmer generally provides the navetane with housing, food, and seed as well as a small plot to cultivate on his own. In exchange the navetane works a fixed number of days on the plantation of his employer and, at harvest time, returns the seed lent him by the farmer while retaining the remaining produce of the plot he has cultivated on his own. Another kind of work contract obliges a navetane to work, not a certain number of days, but rather at specific work tasks on a fixed field. Still another kind of contract requires the· navetane to provide his own farming implements and seed and to pay the farmer a certain amotin:t of money in addition to contributing a certain number of days of labor. In return, the farmer provides the navetane with food and housing, 80 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies while the latter is allowed to retain all he produces on his rented plot. In some regions the navetane receives a :fixed wage for the days he works on the farmer's land. Clearly, the concept of land rent is developing here. 21 Similar work patterns are found on the cocoa plantations of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The navetane is tied to his employer through an oral and short-term contract. His situation includes some elements of sharecropping, tenancy, and wage labor but he is neither truly a sharecropper nor a tenant farmer nor a wage worker. He is not tied in a permanent way to the land he cultivates, or to the owner of the farm. The monetary income derived from his work on the land represents only a part-at times only a small fraction-of his income. The relationships between the employer and the seasonal worker are generally of a personal nature. When the navetane goes home to his village during some part of the year, he often returns to work for the same employer. Yet it is not unusual for a seasonal migratory worker to establish himself in the region where he has found employment, obtaining from the local farmers a plot of land and the right to cultivate it permanently. This kind of arrangement is possible so long as the notion of private ownership of the land has not been established. It seems clear that the seasonal migrant worker of West Africa is a new type of peasant, specifically tied to the development of agricultural capitalism in this part of the world. But these peasants should be considered a transitional social group whose members will inevitably become integrated into one of several developing social classes. 2. Seasonal Migrations in Botswana Migratory labor in Botswana, in . southern Africa, has also been studied, particularly with regard to its effects on tribal life.22 In this former British protectorate the seasonal migrant worker generally goes to the mining centers in the neighboring Republic of South Africa, where he may work as an unskilled laborer for less than a year at a time. While tribal agriculture in this region essentially remains subsistence agriculture, the requirements of the monetary economy introduced by the British dictated that a large portion of the active Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 81 population in the native reserves would regularly need to seek salaried employment outside the reserve. Thus, before a man can permanently establish himself as a farmer in the reserve, it is probable that he will have spent from six to ten years on the migratory circuit. Such migrants may return to the reserve for longer or shorter periods in order to take part in the agricultural labor of the local community, before leaving to return once again to their seasonal jobs elsewhere. The number of people who migrate permanently is very small, a mere 6 per cent of the total _migrant work force, Migrant labor is conditioned by the economic necessities of tribal life; for example, by the lack of arable land. As I. Schapera writes, "the native population as a whole depends upon labour migration in order to maintain its present standard of living."23 However, seasonal employment is not the principal source of income for the migrants. Their livelihood continues to come from agriculture. Despite the fact that during their migrations the peasants work mostly in industry, the Botswanan migrants form an essentially agricultural social category. It might be argued that because they work in the mines of South Africa, they should be considered a kind of industrial proletariat, a transitional category moving toward new economic structures. This impression is reinforced by Schapera, who enumerates the methods used at different times by recruiting agents of the mining companies, by the British colonial administration, and even by the local tribal chiefs in order to force the young men of the tribe to seek temporary employment outside their home community, But the temporary nature of this salaried labor is emphasized by the very same people who are most in need of· it. The mining companies and the administration have done everything possible to assure that the worker return to his reserve as soon as he fulfills the term of his contract It was always in the interest of the colonial administration and the mining companies that the migratory worker preserve his ties to his own community and its agricultural activities. Schapera cites the report of the Mine Natives' Wages Commission of 1944: "It is clearly to the advantage of the mines that Native labourers should be encouraged to return to their homes after the completion of the ordinary period of service. The maintenance of the sys82 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies tern under which the mines are able to obtain unskilled labour at a rate less than that ordinarily paid in industry depends upon this, for otherwise the subsidiary means of subsistence would disappear and the labourer would tend to become a permanent resident upon the Witwatersrand, with increased requirements • • ."24 In order to achieve this objective, the administration uses several different procedures. The work contracts are of strictly limited duration. Working and living conditions in the mines are such that the worker cannot think of bringing his family along. Once the worker returns to his home community, he must spend a certain amount of time -there before being allowed to leave for work in the mines once more. Anyone who does not have a contract is not authorized to live outside of the tribal territory. One part of the worker's salary is in the form of deferred pay which is only distributed at the conclusion of the contract, when the worker is about to leave for his community. Finally, the administration and the local chiefs do everything possible to prevent or to diminish the effects of "detribalization," that is, they attempt to keep the worker psychologically and physically tied to his tribe. Notwithstanding all these efforts, migrant labor tends to alter tribal life in many ways. The income brought in by the migrant workers contributes to the material well-being and purchasing power of the tribe. "In the main, however," as Schapera has pointed out, "migration has reacted unfavourably upon the traditional peasant economy of the Reserve. • • . Migration has actually tended to disorganize the traditional forms of economic activity."25 It has disrupted agriculture and brought about a decline in agricultural productivity and cattle raising. At the same time, migration has had unfavorable effects on the social organization of the tribe, especially on patterns of marriage, family life, traditional tribal hierarchy, health, and birth rates, among other aspects of social life. In conclusion, we can say that in Botswana as in West Africa, migratory and seasonal workers constitute a· new social category within the peasantry. However, this group is a transitional category which, in itself, does not constitute a new social class. In Botswana, the African population forms Social Classes in Agrarian Soc~ties 83 a reserve of cheap labor for the capitalist enterprises of South Africa. The capitalist system needs to preserve the old system of subsistence agriculture, and the social structures associated with it. However, the very demands of capitalist development tepd to destroy . these.26 The contradictions between tribal agriculture and the development· of industrial capitalism will surely have grown stronger since Schapera carried out his study. The migrant workers of Botswana are, from the point of view of their objective working conditions in the mines, an industrial proletariat and, at the same time, a· traditional peasantry in decline; As a result they form a partly rural, partly industrial semi-proletariat. 'Iim AGRICULTURAL WORKER ON THE PLANTATION In those regions of Black Africa where commercial export crop plantations were set up by colonial capitalism, the old economic structures .have broken down and a new social category of salaried agricultural workers has emerged to occupy an important place in the monetary economy. This social category is similar in many ways to the migrant workers. In fact the salaried agricultural work~r of.the plantation is often the same seasonal migrant worker described above. However, the plantation economy requires. a certain level of organization and in various parts of Africa the conditions of plantation work -have given birth .to a new rural stratum which can now be considered an agricultural proletariat. Two examples should suffice to give us some idea of the characteristics of this new social class. 1. Liberia Liberia provides a particularly instructive example of the·functioning of capitalism in Black Africa. Liberia is a politically independent country in which nevertheless a true "colonial situation" forms the sociological framework. In the case of Liberia, the· Firestone Rubber Company occupies the place of a foreign colonial power. The Firestone Company holds a ninety-nine-year lease on a large part of the best land in the country, and this land is devoted exclusively to the production of robber. This new activity has transformed traditional agriculture not only because the tribes have been despoiled 84 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies of their land on a large scale, but also because "the entire economic system must now adapt itself to the life of a forest region which no longer provides palm, cocoa, bamboo, cotton, wood for canoes, nor herbs for ritual or medicinal use."27 Wage labor on the rubber plantations has been the only economic solution for a large proportion of men in the tribes. In addition, the company occupies a position of key importance in the economy of the country as a whole. This implantation of Firestone, a true enclave in the heart of the Republic of Liberia, is exceptionally important. [The company] holds 835 thousand hectares, employs from 25 to 30 thousand salaried workers, acting as a source of income for the State and as a source of salaries and imported merchandise for the native population.2s While some of the plantation workers are seasonal, the great majority are permanent laborers. The proportion of permanent to migrant workers is continually increasing. Housing has been constructed on the plantations for the men of the tribes. The authorities hope that a stable salaried labor force will begin to form in these villages. Not only lodging, but also free medical service and education serve to attract and to stabilize the labor supply. The unskilled laborers (who represent the majority of workers on the plantations) are paid by piecework. Work is carried out under strict discipline and according to the most detailed organization. The concentration and control of the workers begins with the sounding of a gong at the break of day . . . the collection of latex lasts four hours and the head of the group must assure that all the trees are well cut, that the barrels of latex are carefully cleaned and empty and that both the waste and the latex that drops are recovered. • • . The workers are once again called together between 10 and 11 in the morning. • • • Every worker sits in front of the produce he has collected which is then weighed, measured and stored in cement caves . . • at this point the worker must see to the maintenance of his own trees. • • .20 The wages of these workers are judged to be low, and they are paid at the end of each month ( or else at the time they Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 85 wish to leave the plantation) according to days actually worked. The company exercises monopoly control over the supply of food and all commerce . on its plantations. But if wages are low, fringe benefits are appreciable and, in general, the laborers seem to think that they work under satisfactory conditions. Nevertheless, Liberia is a veritable economic colony of the United States, reserved for a single company. Recently, Firestone extended. its operation in Liberia, and for this reason, the agricultural working class is growing. there is no doubt that so.oner or later this class will become conscious of its objective condition, under the influence of the nationalist movements in neighboring countries, especially Guinea. The hierarchical nature of Liberian society (with its Americanized bourgeoisie almost totally detached from the rest of the population) provides the objective conditions for the spread of class consciousness. 2. Cameroon The formation of a rural proletariat has also taken place on the plantations of Southern Cameroon.so In this country the expropriation of tribal land . has been in progress since the nineteenth century. Prior to the First World W~, German companies already owned. hundreds of thousands of hectares of the best land in the country. Today the Cameroons Development Corporation, a governmental institution, administers the plantations on which bananas are produced as the prip.cipal crop, together with palm oil, cocoa, rubber, and other less important crops. The economic organization of the plantations is -a complex of different activities. About 75 per cent of all plantation employees are involved in agricultural labor. The volume of employment on the plantations undergoes considerable seasonal fluctuation because of variations in. the supply oflabor due to thewo r~ers· tendency to preserve their ties with their home community. The majority of the workers are unskilled. The organization of work is virtually the same as on the Liberian plantations described earlier. Wages are paid monthly on the basis of days worked, and the work week is forty-five hours, distributed over s~ days. 86 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies The plantation workers come from various tribes of Southern Cameroon and Nigeria. The demand for labor is greater than the supply, and workers come from distant regions because there is not sufficient labor supply locally. This labor shortage creates other problems as well. For example, the subsistence agriculture of the neighboring villages produces too little to feed the thousands of laborers who move into the region to work on the plantations. Thus the corporation has to import food for its own workers. For many of these, employment on the plantations represents the first wage ever received. And when they interrupt their work to return home they nevertheless tend to return to their old jobs on the same plantations. When this study was made, most of the plantation workers had, at one time or another, completed a· term of continuous service of more than one year. Many others, however, had yet to complete a full year of continuous service, but this was also due to the fact that so many of them were young men who had only recently been recruited. But there is a marked tendency toward stability on the job. The influence on the workers of their families and their home communities is obvious. These factors often determine when the worker will remain on the plantation, when he will interrupt his work to return to his community, etc. But while workers are generally forced to seek employment on the plantations because of economic conditions in the home community, the economy of the Cameroon communities does not seem to have been so negatively affected by the migrations as· were the tribal communities in Botswana. In Cameroon, for example, we do not find the same kind of demographic, economic, and social disequilibria. While these disequilibria are found on the plantation they are present to a far lesser extent than is generally believed. Although the contingents of single men are important, more than half of the plantation workers are married, and three fourths of the married men bring their wives and children to live with them on or near the plantation. In addition, according to interviews carried out among these workers, the majority have no intention of returning to their communities even if economic opportunities were to open up for them there. Some of the social problems Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 87 encountered on the plantations are similar to those found in the urban areas of Africa.st The living conditions on the plantations were considered by the interviewers to be unsatisfactory. Housing was insufficient and in bad condition, food was expensive and the majority of the workers and their families suffered from malnutrition, Economic necessity forces the workers to pursue secondary economic activities during ,their free time, or, alternatively, their wives work to supplement the low incomes received by the salaried workers. Despite the effort to earn more, the majority of these people live in a state of continual debt, and they often organize themselves into mutual savings associations of the type well kn.own in other African societies. These associations are often organized along tribal lines. Two examples are the esuau, based on the principle of rotation, and the "Christmas clubs," in which savings are generally returned to the members just before Christmas. Immigrant workers, especially those who are accompanied by their families, attempt to establish themselves permanently in the plantation region, In addition to their work on the plantation, it is not unusual for them to attempt to obtain small plots of arable land from the surrounding villages in order to carry on subsistence farming or to cultivate their own banana crop. Up to now there has been no shortage of land, and the neighboring tribes freely gave pieces of uncultivated land to anyone who requested a small plot. However, the contingents of immigrants and the increased extension of the plantations have changed this situation. The notion of private ownership of the land is spreading, and once the land tenure situation came to be one of scarcity rather than abundance, the local tribes began to sell rather than give the land to the immigrants, However, in contrast with the conditions that exist in Botswana, where salaried labor does not represent the principal source of income for the migrant farmers, in South.em Cameroon salaried work on the plantations is the most important and, at times, the only source of income for the agricultural laborer. This is the essential difference between migrant workers and the stable agricultural workers who in Cameroon, as in Liberia, may be considered as an emerging rural proletariat. 88 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 'fiIE CoMMERCIAL FARMER In the regions of Black Africa where European settlement took place, especially in South Africa and in Kenya, a class of white farmers established itself early in the areas where the native population was thrown off the land. This class, in contrast to other groups we have discussed, was imposed on African society from above, and belongs to the colonial society. In the context of this study, however, we are more interested in the social categories which have grown out of structural changes in African society, originating with the development of capitalism. In all parts of Black Africa, but especially in West Africa, the development of industrial crops and of commercial monoculture has brought about the emergence of the commercial farmer, a new category within the peasantry. African-owned commercial farms have been established in those regions where no large monopoly concessions were ceded by the colonial government to companies producing commercial crops. The commercial farmer is to be distinguished from the traditional subsistence peasant by the fact that he is principally (although almost never exclusively) engaged in the production of a marketable crop such as peanuts, cocoa, coffee, etc. In addition he is totally integrated into a market economy in which he sells his produce in order to buy what he needs. Such farmers employ wage labor with increasing regularity, and are moving increasingly from extensive to intensive agriculture through the use of the plow, draft animals, fertilizer, and other inputs. As a result of all these different tendencies in commercial farming, land is in~ creasingly considered to be a form of private property and the old forms of land tenure and land rights are disappearing rapidly. Thirty years ago, H. Labouret had already noted: The precarious, often collective possession of the land will be transformed into individual property, will probably modify rules of inheritance and the constitution of the family, and will lead to a complete evolution of the societies involvea. s2 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 89 Thus the farmer constitutes a new social category with its own sociological and economic characteristics. In Ghana this group has arisen from the deformation of the right of possession of land into a property right. With this, the framework of the extended family has been broken. This is the case particularly in the forest areas where the person who clears the land acquires certain rights over it, and in the areas where commercial crops are grown. It is said in the Ashanti language, "Cocoa kills the family." The penetration of Western culture has led to the development of the concept of private property which has progressively spread through the more developed regions of the country where property rights are based on the extended family or on individual ownership. This may be the basis for social differentiation due to the accumulation of capital. But in order for this change to take effect, it is essential that the society pass from a closed, seigneurial economy to an exchange economy open to the rest of the country and to foreign markets; that is, from an economy based on subsistence agriculture to an economy based on export or commercial agriculture. In this respect, the region which will probably be the scene of the development of a social stratification is the forest zone where cocoa is produced. Changes in world prices during the post war period have reinforced the rhythm and the magnitude of this stratification. Today it seems that cocoa farmers form a well-differentiated group that has its own interests and is conscious of those interests. In all of the Gold Coast, it is the only group whose real purchasing power has increased or at least the group in which it has increased in greatest proportion since the war. Geographically, the group is localized in a certain area. Cocoa farmers have a sense of their own interests, and these interests are more important than those that are determined and dominated by the existing tribal structure. It is significant that the first national reaction-one could even say, nationalist reaction-was a common boycott by the cocoa producers of Ashanti and the Colony in the face of the decline of prices paid by European buyers for their 90 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies products. Since the war, the cocoa producers constitute an interest group whose existence has been recognized by the public authorities. The Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB) includes three representatives of the cocoa farmers among its nine members.as Around 300,000 people in Ghana are involved in the production of cocoa, either as owners or tenant farmers. The farms are small, and rarely exceed 2.5 hectares, but often a single farmer owns several small farms. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, the development of cocoa farms has been spontaneous, without intervention from governmental authorities. It is significant that despite the considerable economic advantages of cocoa farming the majority of Yoruba still devote an important part of their time and land to staple crops. In addition, the pattern of land· tenure among the Yoruba has not been radically changed by the introduction of commercial crops, and despite the establishment of the farms and the individual appropriation of the agricultural produce, the concept of private ownership of land has not yet developed. Commercial farmers are nevertheless distinguished as a social class because their economic prosperity ( despite somewhat unfavorable agricultural conditions, both technical and geographic) is the result of the exploitation of a grossly underpaid immigrant labor force. Several characteristics of the traditional social organization . and culture of the Yoruba have contributed to the fact that the establishment of a new economy did not cause the breakdown of the traditional structures. 34 For our analysis it is important to know if the new category of commercial farmers is characterized by some internal differentiation based either on the size of landholdings or the volume of production. Unfortunately, these data are only partially available in published material. Thus it is still difficult to talk systematically of large, medium, or small farmers. However, differentiation according to size of property and production has apparently taken place. This socioeconomic differentiation within the category of commercial farmers is based on the different sizes of holdings among the cocoa growers, on ownership of the land, on the Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 91 form of labor relations, etc. A study carried out in Ghana showed that in one community the average yearly income obtained from cocoa was .£5.8 for a farm owner, £3.4 for a sharecropper, and £3.S for a wage worker,85 Among the Yoruba the differentiation among commercial farmers is very marked, Almost half of the farmers produce less than 10 per cent of the total cocoa crop, while 1S per cent of the farmers produce more than half of the total crop. Moreover, the members of the old dominant class, the warrior nobility and aristocracy, own the largest plantations and receive the highest incomes. The Yoruba provide an example of a new emerging class structure that has not immediately entered into contradiction with the pre-existing social stratification. The mutual adaptation between the old stratification system and the new class structure. is facilitated by the fact that the large Yoruba farmer does not automatically become a capitalist. ·Reinvestment in agriculture is low, and income obtained from the sale of cocoa is mainly spent on the purchase of consumer goods and the satisfaction of community and family obligations. The new social category of African commercial farmers will be the subject of a more detailed analysis in Part II of this book. CoNCLUSIONS Of the three new rural social categories in Black Africamigrant · workers, agricultural workers, and commercial farmers- the first is a completely transitional category. It appears where traditional subsistence agriculture has begun to break down in the face of both the stimuli and the new requirements imposed by the development of a monetary economy. At the same time, the maintenance of a subsistence economy and the need for a labor force to supply a capitalist economy give this category a transitional but not necessarily transitory character. The participation of these migrant workers in the monetary economy gives the category its class character. But the maintenance of a subsistence economy prevents its full. grown emergence, To the extent that the principal source of their income continues to be subsistence agriculture, and as long as they retain an essentially tribal way of life, migrant 92 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies workers certainly do not constitute a social class. The South African mining companies that employ Botswanan laborers have a strong interest in preseIYing precisely this situation. The other two. new social categories of rural Africa have more of a class character. The agricultural wage workers represent a new social class because they are integrated into a new· socioeconomic structure, a new mode of production in which they occupy a specific position. They sell their labor and they create a surplus. As a group they have common interests which derive from their common situation in the production process, and which unite them in the face of those who, because they occupy other positions in the production process, have different or even opposing interests. This is the case, for example, with the agricultural workers of the plantations of Southern Cameroon. But the class situation becomes definitive only when the new position in the production process is stable and permanent. And this is not always the case, because the plantation worker may often leave his work and return to subsistence agriculture in his own village. The third new social category, the commercial farmers, may become the basis of one or several new social . classes. Their number will depend on the development of agriculture in Black Africa. The commercial farmer is in a class situation in that he produces for the market, he is directly affected by the price fluctuations of his crops in the international market, and he employs the labor of others. The commercial farmer may be the origin of not only one, but several different classes, according to the extension of landownership (where landownership will develop), the size of the commercialized crop, and the use that the farmer makes of his monetary income. In summary, we can say that fully established class structures are not yet found in the African countryside. Many traditional structures have begun to be modified, while the new structures which have grown out of the development of capitalism are still in the process of formation. This transitional situation has been the case particularly since the majority of African states have won their political independence. Colonial rule has now disappeared, and social mobility has Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 93 increased. If we can speak of a class system, it is in the context of partial, not global, economic structures. The migrant worker is defined with respect to both a capitalist industrial system that requires his labor and the traditional subsistence economy. The agricultural worker of the large plantation is defined in relation to an economic structure which is characteristic of underdevelopment (i.e., export monoculture) but is, at the same time, only one aspect of the general economic framework of underdeveloped countries. And finally, the commercial farmer is defined not only with respect to the agricultural workers he hires (in his capacity as employer) but also with respect to the international market and to commerce (in his capacity as producer). In addition, he is defined with respect to other farmers with whom he identifies or from whom he distinguishes himself according to the factors of differentiation mentioned above. The new social groups in the African countryside will eventually give way to new rural class structures. But the form these structures will take will also depend on factors that cannot always be observed by studying rural society. To predict the form that African class structures will take we would have to know about the "style" of development chosen by each country, its relations with other societal units, and so forth. Bach of the three categories mentioned will have a future determined in large part by the particular evolution of each one of the African countries. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION CHAPTER 7 Agrarian Structure · and Social Classes in Latin America As has been shown in previous chapters, some precolonial societies of Africa as well as Latin America were divided into social classes and were highly stratified. Both regions suffered the impact of colonial conquest, :first of the expansion of mercantilism and later of capitalist plantation agriculture. They are, furthermore, historically related through the institution of slavery: for three centuries African populations were transplanted to the American continent by the millions. Along the Atlantic coast of Latin America, from the Rfo de la Plata to the Caribbean, the cultural and racial influences of African origin are significant. The African factor is one of the three principal elements which, together with the Indian and the European, make up the population of Latin America. The slave trade may be considered as one of the historically unifying factors which have joined Africa and Latin America in their underdevelopment while at the same time contributing to the wealth and progress of the colonialist nations of Europe. Yet the structural differences between the two continents should not be underestimated. The conquest of America was carried out at the beginning of European mercantilist expansion, while the colonial conquest of Africa took place, after several centuries of slaving and trading along the African coast, during the classic period of imperialism. Thus, while in America the Spanish and Portuguese were still able to establish systems of agricultural exploitation based on slavery and serfdom, the new agriculture in Africa displayed more strictly capitalistic characteristics because it had to satisfy far more developed European economic interests: those Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 95 of the nineteenth century. Another important distinction to be kept in mind is that whereas the colonization of America resulted in the definitive destruction of aboriginal societies and their total or partial transformation during three centuries of. colonial rule, in Africa native social systems were able to survive much longer, some of them extending into the twentieth century. Consequently, from the cultural point of view, Latin America as a whole-including its Indian peasant populationsshould be catalogued within the currents of Western civilization to a much greater degree than the societies of postconquest Black Africa. Such cultural differences do play their part at the level of the rural village community, even when structural similarities and common processes of change are apparent. The Iberian conquest of what was to become Latin America had from the start, in the sixteenth century, an essentially agrarian component. The colonizers set about creating new agrarian structures, even as they retained, in some places and for varying periods of time, a number of native agrarian institutions, upon which they began to graft their own. The agrarian policies of the Spaniards and Portuguese contained two basic components: a land tenure policy and a labor policy. However, it would be a mistake to think that either Spaniards or Portuguese had a clear idea at all times of the kinds of agrarian institutions they were establishing. Rather, their agrarian policies pursued different objectives at different times, according to historical circumstances, and the land tenure systems that came to characterize Latin America at a later stage took several centuries to unfold. There were basically two sources of wealth in America which attracted the Spanish colonizers after the first source, the direct plunder of the accumulated riches of the Indian civilizations (mainly the Aztec and Inca ornamental gold), had dried up. These were the silver mines of the Andes and Central Mexico, and the products of the exploitation of the land. We are here concerned with the second of these aspects. It should be remembered that the Spanish conquest was not a planned state policy, but rather a series of private enterprises, called capitulaciones, which were carried out under 96 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies the Crown's supervision. By royal mandate, the conquistadores were enabled to. appropriate land, and to administer and distribute it as they saw fit. They thus became a· potent social force in the early sixteenth century, bent upon acquiring wealth, power, and social prestige. This they could obtain only by transforming the military conquest into a colonial economy and by establishing themselves as masters of the land. In order to extract wealth. from th.e land, it · became necessary to marshal the labor of the Indian populations. At first there were attempts to enSlave the Indians, but the Spanish Crown opposed· them for two principal reasons: a) because it wished to restrict the independent power of the conquistadores, and b) because its vision of empire rested on the incorporation of a large number of "free" vassals; A number of royal decrees in the 1530s and 1540s prohibited the slavery of th.e Indians, except under special circumstances such as during th.e "Just Wars" against rebellious Indians who refused to submit to Spanish authority. The demand for labor resulted in the development of a special institution known as encomienda · ( the origins of which are to be found in the Spanish wars of reconquista against the Moorish settlements in southern Spain). Through an encomienda grant the Spanish colonists were permitted to exact both commodity tribute and labor service from the Indians who were assigned to their jurisdiction. The encomienda was th.e most important system whereby the colonizers were able to exploit·lndian labor during th.e·first century of their rule. It had been designed as an instrument of colonization, and th.ough its beneficiaries fought to· maintain it from generation to generation, by the end of the sixteenth century it had begun to decline. However, it was formally abolished ofily in -the eighteenth century. The encomienda was not a land grant nor did it constitute th.e legal. basis for · the formation of the large estates which arose in colonial Latin America. Neither was it legally a form of serfdom and much less slavery. Indians who were encomendizdos retained-at least on paper-'-a certain amount of individual freedom and, principally, rights of possession to their ancestral lands. In fact, however, the Spanish encomendero class did use th.e system as a basis for th.e exproSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 97 priation and appropriation of Indian lands and the permanent subjection of the Indian labor force. When the encomienda finally declined, it was mainly because of the tremendous decrease in Indian population which followed upon Spanish conquest and which required the development of other agrarian institutions. As the extraction of surplus value of Indian labor through the encomienda system was rendered more difficult, the colonizers became interested in the direct. exploitation of the land, and a slow process of land accumulation and concentration began to take place which has lasted into modern times. The origin of private landholding in Spanish America is to be found in the land grants (mercedes) that the Crown distributed to its faithful servants, having :first appropriated the land itself by right of conquest. Mercedes took various forms and were granted in various sizes, according to the status of the beneficiary. The Crown was interested in the settlement of Spanish colonists and the development of a class of familysized agriculturists; but this objective was nevet attained, for the way to wealth and power lay not in working the land, but in owning it and having it worked by a servile Indian labor force. Not every Spaniard became a landowner, of course, for early in the colonial period a class of large landowners was able to bar effectively access to land to competitors. This became particularly important in the later colonial period, when competition for increasingly scarce Indian labor increased. Aside from mercedea, land accumulation took place through direct acquisition or by taking it, by hook or crook, from the Indian communities. Conflicts over land titles were a common occurrence in colonial times, and the Spanish administration periodically set about -to straighten things out ·through arrangements and settlements called composiciones. These usually led to confirmation of the colonists' land claims, revenues for the administration, and loss of lands for the Indians. A similar process of land accumulation took place in Brazil, where the Portμguese kings divided the newly discovered territory into a number· of capitanias as early as 1534, which were adjudicated to an equal number of highly placed "captains" who took it upon themselves to colonize, the country. 98 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies They, in turn, were authorized to distribute land grants under the name of sesmarias. The sesmaria was only granted to colonists who had a certain amount of capital and a minimum number of slaves to work the land. It became the basis for Brazil's large estates, the f azendas. Smaller land grants to agriculturists from Portugal or the Azores were given the name of data da terra. Inasmuch as Indian labor was not as readily available in Brazil as elsewhere in Spanish America, nothing like the encomienda system developed here. The basis of Brazil's agricultural economy became slavery, which lasted until the end of the nineteenth century. Aside from their prestige value, large landholdings were useless without a permanent supply of labor. The main concern of the estate owners in Spanish America from early colonial times to the present has been the search for such a supply. After the decline of the encomienda system, a number of mechanisms developed to satisfy the increasing demand of the landowners for labor in the face of a diminishing Indian population. An important system of compulsory labor allocation and distribution was made up of the repartimientos, or corvee labor, whereby a local authority, usually called juez repartidor, allotted Indian workers to haciendas or mines, on a rotational basis for specific periods of time. Indian villages were forced to provide able-bodied workers and the estate owners competed for the available labor supply. The repartimientos constituted an extreme form of exploitation and met with the resistance of the Indian populations. On the other hand, the estate owners, particularly the more powerful hacendados, attempted to tum repartimiento legislation in their own favor, by trying to hold down labor permanently on their properties. This became the dominant tendency in the later colonial period, and as repartimiento slowly declined because it was increasingly difficult to operate, the attachment of permanent, serf-like labor to particular estates, i.e., peonage, became the principal mode of production in Spanish American agriculture. The particular forms of peonage and the circumstances of its development varied from region to region and received local. names, such as yanaconaje in Peru, colonato in Bolivia, inquilinaje in Chile, pongueaje in Ecuador, conSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 99 certaje in Colombia, peonaje in Mexico, etc. It is this peonage as the basis of labor relations in the . countryside which has led many authors to speak of a feudal system in Latin America. To be sure, the conditions of servitude of the Indian population on the haciendas do remind one of medieval serfdom, but it must be remembered that this development took place within the framework of an export-oriented, mercantilist, colonial economy. Furthermore, the peonage system, as we shall see below, became even more entrenched during the nineteenth century expansion of capitalist agriculture. Many Indians preferred peonage-under the guise of a "free" labor contract-to the rigors of the repartimientos, and sought protection on the haciendas from the forced conscription of repartimiento labor. In other cases, the estate owners circumvented repartimiento and held on to their Indian workers. In still others, hacienda owners usurped Indian communal lands to force the population into the haciendas as laborers. In general, the destruction of the ecological basis of the Indian agricultural communities ( deforestation and erosion due to the introduction of cattle, destruction of native irrigation arid terracing systems, etc.), accompanied by the drastic demographic decline of the Indians, transformed peonage into the most efficient system whereby the landlords could control a necessary supply of labor. Debt-slavery, physical coercion, and denial of economic alternatives for the Indians were some of the means employed by the landholding class in order to maintain the Indians in subjection. · All during the colonial period, the Indian communities waged a losing battle against the encroaching haciendas. Nevertheless, Spanish colonial policy did attempt to protect Indian communal landholdings, at first through the forced settlement of Indians on villages known as congregaciones or reducciones, which also facilitated military control, the process of Christianization, and forced labor conscription, and later by setting aside special lands for such communities, the resguardos, to which the villages received royal titles. A voluminous and complex body of laws, decrees, and rules developed throughout the colonial period, known as Legislaci6n de lndias, in which the rights and duties of the Indians were codified. Despite these tutelary policies, however, the haci100 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies endas and peonage developed, whereas the traditional Indian communities ( and their population) declined. By the end of the colonial period not only had private property of land become a permanent feature of agrarian structure, but it was also characterized by concentration in large estates, many of which belonged to the Church. Indeed, the Church had become the most important single landowner in the colonies. The principal forms of land tenure were the large, privately owned haciendas; the smaller agricultural properties of Spanish settlers (which never really became a significant factor in the land tenure system); the communal landholdings of the Indian communities; and :finally the extensive holdings of the Church, which were legally mortmain (manos muertas), i.e., once held by the Church they could not again be sold or subdivided. This represented a problem for the development of capitalism which was to explode in full force by the middle of the nineteenth century. The main social categories which had arisen in the agrarian . structure during the colonial period were: a) the private estate owners (hacendados, estancieros, or fazendeiros), who constituted the white Spanish, or criollo, colonial aristocracy; b) their administrators or high-level employees, often racially mixed, or mestizos; c) the small, independent Spanish, or criollo, farmer (numerically weak, generally located near an urban market, such as the owners of chacras-farms-in Central Chile); d) the servile peons of the haciendas, generally Indians or, later, of mestizo origin; e) communal Indians not yet separated from their communities who worked the collectively held village lands, but who might also work as occasional laborers on nearby haciendas; and f) the African slaves of the plantations of the eastern seaboard ( and occasionally elsewhere) .1 Independence from Spain did not bring any fundamental changes as far as the agrarian structure was concerned. To be sure, slavery was abolished in most countries (in Brazil it lasted until 1888), but the power of the creole landed aristocracy was, if anything, strengthened in the absence of controls from Spain. Unclaimed lands, or tierras realengas ( over which the Crown had exercised control), rapidly passed Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 101 into · private hands and were · concentrated within a small elite. The lands that Bolivar distributed among his soldiers after the wars of independence in South America were soon grabbed up by the landed oligarchy. The exploitation of the Indian peasantry became· intensified with the disappearance. of the colonial tutelary policies and the Indians' new status as "free and equal citizens." During the middle of the nineteenth century, a number of Latin American governments expropriated the mortmain properties of the Church and threw them onto the free market. They were soon incorporated into the private estates of the oligarchy. At the same time, the corporate communal landholdings of the Indian villages were transformed-under the aegis of economic liberalism~into the private properties of their members, who, in turn, usually lost them to the expanding haciendas. · The extension and improvement of the means of communication, and the demand for new cash crops ( e.g., coffee) in the international market made for the consolidation of large landholdings and the ever more intensive exploitation of peasant labor through peonage, debt-slavery, and wage work, accompanied by the expropriation of small, independent peasant holdings and the remaining communal lands of the Indian villages; Peonage increased during·. this period of the capitalist expansion of agriculture in Latin America. In Mexico, the most intensive exploitation of peasant labor occurred precisely during the latter half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, at a time when haciendas modernized and extended their operations in answer to . the growing demand of the national and international market. This process resulted in numerous local peasant uprisings and general social unrest in the rural areas. Similar situations are reported in other Latin American countries. The economic evolution of the Latin American countryside has not been a continuous or unilinear process. On the contrary, alternating with eras of economic expansion in the eighteenth century, and again toward the end of the nineteenth century, there were periods of economic depression and stagnation of commercial and plantation agriculture. This cyclical development affected the peasant economy of Latin 102 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies America to the extent that certain peasant communities which practiced commercial agriculture for external markets during some periods closed themselves off during others and returned to the cultivation of food crops for subsistence. The unequal development of the agricultural economy of the different countries of Latin America has contributed to the great diversity of types of peasants on this continent. The new categories of peasants that can be studied today emerged mainly after the abolition of slavery and the land tenure reforms of the nineteenth century, which abolished communal landholdings and Church property and opened the door to the capitalist concentration of the land. Several types of peasants have been identified in Latin America:2 1) In the highlands of "nuclear" Latin America live peasants who carry on intensive cultivation of food products mainly for consumption. Yet they sell at least 25 per cent of their produce and the market economy occupies an important place in their life. The villages they inhabit have been called "corporate" communities. Usually there is some sort of community control over distribution and ownership of land. A rigid political and religious hierarchy binds members together. At times ceremonial expenses (a prestige economy) contribute to a leveling of the socioeconomic status of individual families. Such communities also have communal means of resolving conflicts and maintaining the corporate identity of the group. Finally, kinship ties play an important role in group solidarity. But what gives the community its structural characteristic is, above all, its collective relationship to the land. From the cultural point of view, indigenous elements persist together with Spanish elements from the colonial era. The communities generally,include two distinct ethnic groups with important cultural differences. Often the interethnic relations that are established between them represent only the cultural aspects of class relations in the community. 2) On the lower slopes of the Latin American mountain ranges and in the humid tropical regions of the lowlands live peasants who are engaged in the cultivation of commercial products such as sugarcane, coffee, bananas, cocoa, tobacco, and other tropical crops. Although they retain some part of their production and cultivate food products for subsistence, Social Classes in Agr_arian Societies 103 approximately half of what they produce is destined for the market. These peasants are tieq to the capitalist system through external :financing. Their agriculture is commercial, their attitudes are individualistic. Here land is essentially private property. However, their primitive technology and the very conditions of tropical agriculture do not allow them to achieve high levels of capitalization. The main purpose of farming continues to be consumption, not reinvestment. We are still dealing here with ''poor peasants." Nevertheless, the corporate community is not characteristic of this type of peasantry. Their community is "open" to foreign influences and to change. Accc,rding to Eric Wolf, these two types of peasantry constitute historically the two pillars of the Latin American rural environment. Cyclical changes in the economy that have characterized the development of Latin America have, according to this author, also produced cyclical changes from subsistence to commercial agricuiture. Wolf offers the hypothesis that the "corporate" communities have been transformed into "open" communities and retransformed into corporate communities according to the oscillations of the agricultural economy.a 3) Alongside these two kinds of peasantry we also find in Latin America small and medium-sized independent landowning farmers who resemble far more their counterparts in the United States than the peasant types mentioned above. In the Spanish-speaking regions they · 'are usually known as rancheros, while in · Brazil they are called sitiantes. From the cultural point of view European influences predominate among these cultivators. 4) Two other types of agriculturists are to be found· among the workers on large commercial plantations, especially in Brazil and in the Caribbean.4 On the one hand there are the laborers of the traditional · sugarcane plantations (ingenios, or engenhos), owned by patriarchal families who generally form part · of the "old aristocracy" of these countries. The relationship established here between the cultivator and the patron is of a personal and close nature, and social stratification is rigid. Today these plantations are disappearing and are being replaced, especially in Brazil, by the modem 104 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies usina: the capitalist, mechanized plantation based on salaried labor and contractual relationships. The patriarchal family has generally disappeared, and either the landowners Jive in the cities or the plantation is owned by a foreign capitalist corporation. Where this has occurred, a rural proletariat is forming. In order to judge to what degree these general peasant types constitute elements for an analysis of rural class structures in Latin America, let us look briefly at a number of particular cases. MExlco Until the Revolution of 1910, the pattern of land tenure in Mexico was characterized by a concentration of landownership in the hands of a very few large landowners who controlled almost all of the cultivable land, while the mass of poor peasants held no land at all. The agrarian reform, formally initiated by decree in 1915, has moved forward over the years with stronger or weaker impulse, and has totally transformed the agrarian structure of Mexico and produced new social categories in the .countryside. The most important results of the agrarian reform are the following: 1) A more equal distribution of landownership.fl 2) The disappearance of the latifundio as the predominant form of land tenure. 3) The appearance of a new form of land tenure called the e;ido. Under this system of landholdings, possession but not ownership of the land is given by the government to an agricultural community, whose members have the right to cultivate individually a designated plot of land. While e;idal lands are held collectively by the entire peasant community, in the strictest economic sense, most ejidatarios should be considered minifundistas, that is, farmers of dwarf-sized holdings.o 4) An increase in the number of minifundios. In 1960, 67 per cent of all private landowners held only 6.4 per cent of the cultivable land. More than fifty years of agrarian reform have produced great disparities in the Mexican countryside. One per cent Social . Classes in Agrarian Societies 105 of the economically active population in agriculture still holds almost 30 per cent of all arable land, from which they derive 46 per cent of the total income of the non-ejidal agricultural sector. On the other hand, one half of the active agricultural population possesses no land whatever, and falls into the categories of day laborers, sharecroppers, or unpaid family helpers. A classification of private properties indicates more explicitly the situation of the peasantry. Sixty-six per cent of all owners hold less than five hectares of land, On these generally arid and infertile plots the peasants usually carry on subsistence farming at low technological levels. From the economic point of view, these small parcels of land are insufficient to maintain an average family. Underemployment is pervasive and in addition to farming their own small plots, these peasants are generally forced to seek work as salaried agricultural laborers on larger agricultural properties. They may also work at handicrafts or trade for small additional monetary income. · Above the minifundistas, on the scale of private property owners, we :find those who own landholdings of five to twentyfive hectares. In Mexico this group is small and represents only 17 per cent of all private landlords. The property of these owners, in contrast to that of the minifundistas, is generally sufficient to provide for the subsistence of a peasant family and for the sale of surplus produce in the market, These people constitute the true middle class of the peasantry. A third category of landowners includes all those who hold between twenty-five and two hundred hectares. While these people represent only 13 per cent of all private landowners, they receive one third of the total income earned by the private agricultural sector, Landholdings of this size are generally worked in a commercially intensive way em-. ploying · salaried labor and mechanized agricultural equipment. Part of such landholdings may be rented to landless peasants. The owners of twenty-five to two hundred hectares could be characterized as the peasant or rural bourgeoisie. Aside from agriculture, they may also be involved in commercial activities such as moneylending, agricultural credit, or small local trade, any of which may become a principal source 106 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies of income. Such commercial sidelines are also the means through which the rural bourgeoisie exploits the small minifundista. The last group of landholders are those who own more than two hundred hectares of land. The situation of such landowners is exceptional, because the Mexican constitution prohibits the ownership of more than two hundred hectares of cultivable land, except under particular circumstances. Nevertheless, this group holds 24 per cent of all arable land in Mexico. Such lands are generally given over to highly mechanized capitalist farming and a large part of the crop is produced for export. Strictly speaking this group of cultivators cannot be classified as part of the peasantry. They belong, rather, to the Mexican bourgeoisie and form part of the ruling class of the country. It is only because members of this group figure prominently within the ranks of the ruling class that they are able to retain landholdings whose size violates the agrarian law as set down in the Mexican constitution. Apart from the ejidatarios and private landholders, more than half of the active agricultural population is comprised of landless peasants who generally hire themselves out as day laborers. Many of them are migratory laborers who work on the large capitalist agricultural enterprises in northern Mexico, while approximately half a million to a million seasonal workers, known as braceros, cross the border illegally into the United States to supply cheap labor to the farms in the South and Southwest. The system of contracted bracero labor was suspended in 1964, but illegal ''wetback" emigrations take place on a large scale. The migratory agricultural workers form the beginning of an agricultural proletariat in Mexico. We have now outlined six different social categories found in rural Mexico. They are the minifundistaa, the middle peasantry, the peasant bourgeoisie, and the large landholders in the private sector; the ejidatarios, who have a special legal status but whose real-life situation closely resembles that of the minifundistas or middle peasantry; and, :finally, the landless peasants or agricultural day laborers, among whom we find both the migratory workers and the braceros. These groups and categories are more than a simple arbitrary classification of the agricultural population. In effect they repreSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies .107 sent dynamic social forces in Mexico. As in other underdeveloped countries, modem capitalist agriculture coexists with a traditional, backward peasant sector. These two kinds of agriculture are found in different regions of the country. The modem sector is concentrated mamly in the Northwest of Mexico and on some commercial plantations (sugarcane, coffee, and henequen) in the South and Southeast. The traditional sector is found in the mountainous regions of central and southern Mexico. While the agrarian reform brought about a more equal distribution of land and eliminated the latifundio system, it was unable to modify some essential characteristics of the traditional rural structure. 7 In the framework of this structure, the minifundista peasants, who are principally involved in subsistence farming, are inevitably linked by market and labor relations to the agrarian bourgeoisie, which, in certain areas, constitutes truly a regional ruling class. What we have here, then, are indeed relations of opposition and exploitation which place these two social classes in positions of confrontation in precisely the sense that class opposition was described in Chapter 2. The survival of a regional structure of semifeudal exploitation also requires the maintenance of the "corporate" structure of the peasant community. The cultural content of this community structure is often "indigenous" (or Indian), and at the level of social relationships the most noticeable are the interethnic relations between Indians and mestizos ( often referred to as ladinoa or gente de raz6n). In this way a stratification system is established which is principally based on cultural and ethnic factors (see Part m of this book). Outside of this traditional structure, which still includes a significant percentage of the Mexican peasant population, totally capitalist class relations have been established in the modem agricultural sector. Here medium and ·large landholders employ salaried labor whose ranks grow at an increasing rate due to the economic insufficiency of the minifundio and the ejidal system,' permanent underemployment, and demographic pressure. As a result, we see the development in Mexico of a rural semi-proletariat of migratory workers, who to a large measure· still maintain their ties to the small landholding or minifundio.s 108 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies CENTRAL AMERICA Let us look now at the agrarian situation in Central America. In Guatemala, 9 the latifundio has always been the principal form of agricultural exploitation. Private property is highly concentrated and, in addition, there are large expanses of national territory which are not cultivated at all, or which are administered by the government Seventy-two per cent of all land is occupied by only 2 per cent of all agricultural units, and 13.4 per cent of the land is owned by just twenty-two estates. From the end of the eighteenth century and especially during the nineteenth century, commercial export agriculture became the predominant economic activity. Coffee at first and later bananas became the principal crops. Coffee is most often cultivated on large estates owned by Guatemalans, but bananas were grown almost exclusively on the immense plantations of the United Fruit Company, a United States-owned multinational corporation. Foreignowned properties comprise 25 per cent of the total arable land surface of Guatemala. After the revolution of 1944 some efforts were made to carry out land reform. However, this agrarian reform never really affected the latifundio structure and was wiped out by the counterrevolutionary governments that followed the coup of 1954. Several social categories are found in the Guatemalan countryside. From the cultural point of view, more than half of the population is classified as Indian, and in Guatemala, as in Peru and to a lesser degree southeastern Mexico, the relations between ladinos (mestizos) and Indians characterize the social universe. As in other places, the Indians belong to the exploited classes of society but do not constitute an undifferentiated homogeneous mass. 1 ) Almost half of the rural population is composed of minifundista peasants who hold less than seven . hectares of land. As elsewhere in Latin America the minifundistas live in great poverty; cultivating their small plots for subsistence. These peasants are found in the most backward areas of the country. Instead of a real agrarian reform, the governments which have followed one another in power since 1954 have occasionally distributed uncultivated portions of national terSocial Classes in Agrarian Societies 109 ritory, and in this way the number of minifundistas has grown. 2) In the backward regions populated by Indians, some forms of communal land tenure still survive. Around 10 per cent of the rural population are comuneros, that is, peasants who enjoy the use of communal lands. Their living conditions are similar to those of the minifundista. Tak.en together, these two categories of peasants constitute the traditional sector of subsistence farming in Guatemalan agriculture. It is in this sector that we :find the corporate communities which form the basic units of a complex regional system which will be analyzed in Part III. 3) A considerable part of the rural · population in Guatemala is landless. One of the most important categories among these people is the mozos colonos, agricultural workers permanently attached to the coffee and banana plantations. They are generally found on plantations of more than one hundred hectares controlled by absentee landowners. Their shacks belong to the plantation,10 their salaries are low and paid irregularly. At times they receive payment in cash, while at other times they are given the right to work a small plot. Tak.en as a whole, the poverty in which they live and the exploitation to which they are subject, together with the possibilities they have of organizing themselves, make this category of peasants a potentially revolutionary element in the Guatemalan countryside. 4) More than 200,000 landless men, women, and children comprise a migratory labor force that travels the circuit of agricultural regions each year at the time of the coffee harvest. Some of these migratory workers clandestinely cross the border into southern Mexico, where they offer their labor at a price even lower than that paid to Mexican agricultural workers (who, as we have indicated, migrate to the North of Mexico and to the United States, where they, in turn, tend to depress the level of agricultural wages). The life of the Guatemalan migratory workers, who are in reality little more than nomads, is totally disorganized and their income level is undoubtedly the lowest of all categories of rural population in Guatemala. 5) Approximately 10 per cent of the rural population is made up of sharecroppers, tenants, and other kinds of peas110 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies . ants who farm on an individual basis land that they do not own. Such people are tied to the landowner through a variety of contracts or agreements. These peasants cultivate subsistence crops and, while they live in the same conditions of poverty as the minifundistas, they are the object of direct, undisguised exploitation and, as such, they constitute a far more unstable social group with perhaps greater revolutionary potential. The number of peasants who work the land as sharecroppers, tenants, etc., is declining because the government has initiated a program of agricultural modernization which tends to increase the number of both minifundistas and migratory agricultural workers. 6) Another group of independent farmers are those who hold more than seven hectares of land and who usually employ no more than five permanent agricultural laborers. These farmers mainly produce food crops for national consumption. This category is not very large nor does it play a very important role in the Guatemalan countryside . . 7) The peasant bourgeoisie is made up of the owners and managers of · plantations ( especially coffee plantations) that employ from five to twenty-five permanent agricultural workers. This group is similar to its Mexican counterpart. It is involved in both agriculture and commerce, in finance and usury. These people represent the other pole of the traditional agricultural sector. 8) Finally, in Guatemala there exists a stratum of large (generally absentee) landowners, their administrators and managers. These people control the greater part of the cultivable land in Guatemala, which they exploit in the form of commercial plantation agriculture. Generally, more than twenty-five permanent agricultural workers are employed on such plantations and the land is given over to the cultivation of bananas or coffee. The plantation owners and managers may be either Guatemalans or foreigners, but this social category is completely international in its social orientation and its economic situation depends almost entirely on foreign markets, especially that of the United States. In Guatemala, as in other Latin American countries, traditional subsistence agriculture coexists with commercial farming. But both sectors are equally responsible for blocking the Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 111 evolution of progressive and national capitalism in agriculture. In the case of the traditional sector, minifundism, backward technology, the semi-feudal structure of work and of local markets, all contribute to the retardation of capitalist development. In the case of export agriculture, both monoculture and the dependence of this sector on foreign markets contribute to underdevelopment. Of the eight social categories of rural Guatemala, three (the minifunilistaa, the comuneros, and the sharecroppers and tenants) form the foundation of a traditional structure similar to that of Mexico. These three groups are in opposition to the traditional peasant bourgeoisie. Another two groups, the permanent plantation workers (mows colonos) and the migratory workers, form the base of the capitalist sector, in which they are exploited by the large landowners, both national and foreign, and by their representatives ( the administrators or managers of the plantations). The plantation workers, however, do not yet constitute a modem agricultural proletariat because their working conditions under the present political system of Guatemala (since the counterrevolution of 1954) places them in a situation similar to that of Mexican peons before the Revolution of 1910. The intermediate category of independent farmers does not play as important a role as it does in some other Central American countries. In Costa Rica the greater part of the rural population traditionally owned some land. But the extension of the monoculture of coffee for export stimulated a series of structural changes. Thus subsistence agriculture began to lose importance and the larger coffee plantations began to absorb the smaller landholdings, Today three types of properties exist in Costa Rica: the large coffee plantation; the middle-sized independent holding (the owner of which is called a gamonal); and the minifundio, whose owners actually work as peons on the large estates. The effects of the extension of monoproductive agricultural capitalism and. change in the class structure were studied by two American scholars who indicated at the time (about 1950) that Costa Rica appears to be in a transitional phase in which peasant properties are being progressively suffocated by th~ huge plan112 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies tations and corporations which reduce the status of the people from that of a peasantry to that of . peonage . . • an increasing number of persons are transformed into laborers and work for a subsistence wage as peons. for the large landowners.u Altogether in Central America we find landownership extr~ mely concentrated. On the one hand, 90 per cent of all farms control only 20 per cent of the land; while 1.4 per cent of the farms control 52 per cent of the total land surface. 12 Marroqwn classifies the Central American rural population as falling into three large strata: . 1) The dominant class,. which represents 5 per cent of the rural population and includes both the traditional large landholders and the agricultural entrepreneurs (including foreign companies) • 2) The middle class (15 per cent), which is comprised of small and middle-sized landowners, sharecroppers, and tenants, as well as rural merchants and government officials. 3) The lower class (80 per cent), composed of rural wage workers, mozos colonos, and small craftsmen. CoNCLUSION In Latin America four centuries of agrarian history from the time of the Spanish Conquest have produced a polarization characterized by the existence of many people who hold very little land and a few people who control a great deal of land. This concentration of landownership has determined the relationship among social classes in the countryside and has strongly influenced social stratification systems. A recent study of seven Latin American countries which had not yet carried out agrarian.reform demonstrated the.4egree to which the. latifundio-minifundio complex inhibits economic and sociai development of the agricultural sector, and how the rural class and power structure is dominated by the large landowners. is This study distinguished four kinds of agricultural enterprise· in the seven countries studied. According to the size of tbe farm units they are: Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 113 1) The sub-family farms, which are not large enough to provide full employment or an adequate standard of living to a peasant family which has a capacity for employment of two man-years of labor ( the minifundio). 2) Family farms, large enough to meet the needs of a peasant family and provide work for from two to four persons per year. 3) The middle-sized multi-family farms, which require the labor of from four to twelve people per year. 4) The large multi-family farms which employ more than twelve persons per year ( the latifundio). In the seven countries included in this study the agricultural units are distributed in the following way: RELATIVE NUMBER AND AREA OF FARM UNITS BY SIZE GROuPS Multi- Multi- Country Sub-family Family family family Total Medium Large ARGENTINA Number 43.2 48.7 7.3 0.8 100.0 Area 3.4 44.7 15.0 36.9 100.0 BRAZIL Number 22.5 39.1 33.7 4.7 100.0 Area 0.5 6.0 34.0 59.5 100.0 CHll,E Number 36.9 40.0 16.2 6.9 100.0 Area 0.2 7.1 11.4 81.3 100.0 COLOMBIA Number 64.0 30.2 4.5 1.3 100.0 Area 4.9 22.3 23.3 49.5 100.0 ECUADOR Number 89.9 8.0 1.7 0.4 100.0 Area 16.6 19.0 19.3 45.1 100.0 114 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies Multi- Multi- Country Sub-family Family family family Total Medium Large GUATEMALA Number 88.4 9.5 2.0 0.1 100.0 Area 14.3 13.4 31.5 40.8 100.0 PERU Number 88.0 8.5 2.4 1.1 100.0 Area 7.4 4.5 5.1 82.4 100.0 In these seven countries, multi-family farms (which employ wage workers in addition to family labor) control more than half the land, but represent less than 25 per cent of all farms ( except in Brazil, where they represent slightly over a third of all farms). In five of the countries they account for less than 10 per cent of all farms and in three of the countries they represent less than 5 per cent. In two countries these huge estates control more than 90 per cent of all the land. In contrast, in three of the countries family farms represent almost 90 per cent of all agricultural enterprises but control less than 20 per cent of the land. In the four remaining countries, land belonging to family farms represents less than 5 per cent of the total area in farms and in two of the countries it accounts for less than 1 per cent of all the land. We find the most drastic concentration of land in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Peru. In all of these countries landownership conveys great economic and political power as well as social status. The authors of the seven-nation survey have classified the agricultural population into three socioeconomic categories: 1 ) The upper stratum, which includes the operators of large and medium farms. 2) The middle stratum, composed of the administrators of large and medium-sized farms and the owners and tenants of family-sized farms. 3) The lower stratum, which includes the operators of sub-family-sized farms as well as landless agricultural workers and "communal" owners. Social Classes in Agrarian Societies 115 The distribution of these strata is given in the following table: Argen- Colom- Guate- Status tina Brazil Chile bia Ecuador mala Upper 5.2 14.6 9.5 5.0 2.4 1.6 Middle 33.9 17.0 19.8 24.8 9.5 10.0 Lower 60.9 68.4 70.7 70.2 88.l 88.4 (Operators of sub-family farms) (25.9) ( 8.6) (23.1) (47.0) (53.6) (63.6) (Landless workers) (35.0) (59.8) (47.6) (23.2) (34.5) (24.8) TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 N .B. The data for Peru were not comparable and were excluded for this reason. The figures in parentheses are partial percentages which are included in the category "lower status." We note that the lower stratum is numerically the largest in all seven countries, and that the number of landless workers ( day laborers, agricultural wage workers, sharecroppers, etc.) is high in relation to the bther social categories, especially in Brazil and in Chile. However, social stratifications in rural Latin America do not rest exclusively on the agricultural economy. As we will see later when we take a closer look at a specific region of Mesoamerica, other factors (ethnic and cultural) influence the formation of social stratifications. In an article which gives a general view of social stratification in Latin America, Ralph Beals14 asserts that a feudal system of two opposing classes, whites and Indians ( or, in other cases, whites and blacks), characterized Latin American society over a long period. However, with the appearance of the mestizo this dual scheme was transformed into a system of three classes in which the mestizo occupies the position of a middle class. However, as Beals affirms, the attitudes of a two-class system persist and the mestizo middle class tends 116 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies to identify with the upper .class from which it is generally descended. · This oversimplified view of Latin American society does not permit us to understand the full complexity of the class structure and stratification systems of the region. As far as rural society is concerned, relations of production bring into confrontation various social categories which cannot be reduced to simple "upper" and "lower" classes. In addition, stratification systems in Latin America are multiple and often contradictory. In these stratifications we :find different cultural types, physical types, and socioeconomic categories all ordered hierarchically. Specific cultural and racial types which abound in Latin America (such as the ladino, the cholo, the caboclo, the Indian, etc,) do not constitute social classes in the sense that we have dealt with the concept of class in this book. Nor do they always represent precise elements in a social stratification system when we consider that they constitute local, relative, and subjective categories which vary greatly in content from place to place. Racial and ethnic relations in Latin America tend to reflect class relations. However, they should not be confused with class relations. Moreover, they have their own dynamic and can be studied by themselves, although they should not be considered independently of. their basis in the class .structure. It is notsufficient to establish "hierarchies of prestige" based on race as has been done, for example, in Brazil.lo We must not forget that in Latin America, as Juan Comas has pointed out, "the idea of race has served,. and unfortunately continues to serve, as a justification for the socioeconomic and political exploitation of large sectors of the Latin American population. "16 In analyzing the rural class structure in Mexico we have not . taken · into consideration relations between Indians and mestizos because at this· level of our analysis it would have distracted us from the determination of the socioeconomic categories that constitute the true elements of a class_ structure. However, we will return to this question later on. PART II Commercial Farming and Class Relations in the Ivory Coast CHAPTER 8 The Agni of the Ivory Coast The forest belt of West Africa extends from Guinea to Nigeria along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. In this entire region only Liberia has· ceded rights of exploitation to foreign companies. Along this coastal strip commercial crops have been grown since the tum of the century. Coffee and cocoa are the principal crops of the region, but cola nuts, palm, and bananas are also grown. These crops are produced by African farmers who have increasingly turned from traditional subsistence to commercial agriculture. This change bas modified the class structure of these countries. New social categories have developed, and new stratifications have been substituted for the traditional stratifications and hierarchies. Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and other countries are undergoing fairly similar processes of socioeconomic change. However, there are some significant differences from country to country which are due to variations among the old traditional structures, the colonial systems imposed by the English and the French, and other secondary factors. While we will be drawing on examples from the entire region, we will focus on the case of the Agni farmers of the lower eastern part of the Ivory· Coast. The Agni, . who are related to the Ashanti of Ghana, have been extensively studied by ethnographers. 1 The traditional economy of the West African forest zone was a subsistence economy whose · characteristics are well known. Yet even before the introduction of commercial crops, this . economy was neither closed, isolated, nor self-sufficient. On the contrary, commercial relations were commonly carried on among the different tribes in West Africa as well as with the people of the trans-Saharan region or with European 120 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies commercial houses established on the coast. Among the Agni, commercial exchange with the Dutch, English, and French began during the seventeenth century. A caravan route extended from the Coast to the interior of the Sudan, and over several centuries traveling traders crossed the region on this route, until the importance of the caravan was reduced by the introduction of rail transport from Abidjan to the north. "At :first," writes G. Rougerie, "this commercial route carried only iron and tools, and at times, slaves in one direction and gold dust and cola in the other • • • but it gave to the chiefs of the comm.unities [ on the banks] of the many rivers that bad to be crossed, the right to collect tolls and to carry on commercial activities in the rest stops •••• " (P. 89). The economic activity of the region first developed toward the end of the nineteenth century with the growing demand for rubber. Then the rhythm of life among the Agni changed profoundly. • • • To the modest transactions of the local markets which had only provided utensils and cloth for the family unit, to the organic currents that emerged from contact between complementary ways of life, to the activity of the merchants of the Coast, was now added typical colonial trade. Trading posts were established to acquire the agricultural products needed by the metropolitan economy and to begin the spread of European merchandise throughout the interior of the country. [P. 92] The collection of wild rubber and, later, the commercial exploitation of lwilber in the forest regi.on contributed to the transformation of the life-style of the forest people, even before the introduction of the plantation economy. "By the beginning of the twentieth century," Rougerie asserts, "the plantation economy was about to flourish in the Agni world ••• the men were already pre-farmers" (p. 92). PoLmCAL ORGANIZATION Agni society was a warrior society organized into kingdoms having centralized and strongly hierarchical political power. The kingdom of Sanwi in the South seems to have been more centralized than Ndenie in the North. The organization of the Agni was quite similar to that of the Ashanti of Commercial Farming and Class Relations 121 Ghana, to whom they are tied by common origin. The Agni country was conquered by people who came from the east and northeast probably during the seventeenth century. Several other groups living in the region were subjected to the rule of the Agni, as were immigrants who arrived later and voluntarily accepted the sovereignty of the Agni kingdom. However, as we will see later, the immigrants who arrived during the twentieth century did not accept Agni rule, and, unlike those who had come before them, they have questioned the ancient rights of the Agni. The Agni state was not highly structured. The king and his court were installed in the capital while village chiefs occupied local "stools" and, one notch below them, lineage chiefs enjoyed some autonomy and authority over the lands and populations that fell to their charge. The political integration of the Agni kingdom was strong at the time of the military conquests, but had progressively deteriorated throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The bonds of vassalage between the central power (made up of the king, his council, three lieutenants, and occasionallythe consanguineous princes) and the chiefs of the provinces, villages, and lineages underwent changes over the years. But in general, the king concentrates in his hands power over the preservation of tradition, justice, the distribution of land, and of course, military affairs. He delegates some of his powers, principally those that have to do with justice and the distribution of land, to his lieutenants and to the provincial chiefs who, in turn, o~rate in the same way with respect to the village chiefs.2 The relatively integrated political structure and the comparatively pacific colonial penetration of the French permitted the traditional chiefs to retain some measure of native political power. As Kobben has pointed out, The Agni are organized in small solidly constructed states that offer serious resistance to the destructive work of new times and that have, as a result, preserved to this day their true value as political institutions. The French administration that, in general, does .not apply the system of Indi122 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies rect Rule, here had to recognize the traditional chiefs and leave them in their posts, although subject to [French] control.a So it is that the council of chiefs and the traditional courts ( especially those dealing with litigation over landholdings) still function today far more effectively than the courts established by the colonial administration. Like all political systems, the Agni system contains contradictions and tensions and, as Dupire has pointed out, "the French administrative organization, in bringing together new and old authorities, did nothing more than reinforce the oppositions inherent in the traditional political system" (p. 153). The traditional socioeconomic structure of the Agni was a class structure in which nobles, freemen, and slaves occupied three distinct positions in a network of social relationships. The nobles, provincial, village, and lineage chiefs (who occupy the "stools") express their loyalty to the king through tribute, gifts, and labor contributions such as the preparation of fields for sowing. The freemen, who do not occupy "stools," are placed under the authority of their chiefs, to whom they must also provide tribute, gifts, and labor services. Though subsistence agriculture predominated in the economic life of the Agni, these labor services were used to increase the wealth of the lineage, administrated by one of the chiefs, which was used in turn for ceremonial exchange on the occasion of weddings, funerals, etc. In some regions, in the absence of a centralized political structure like that of the Sanwi, the lineage constitutes the real unit of the social system in which certain specific hierarchical relations existed. "At the head of the lineage, the heir of the principal branch held authority over all members of the lineage; his power has religious, judicial and economic bases, the symbol of which was the stool or 'Bya.' "4 But, as we will soon see, when the expansion of the capitalist system introduced the plantation economy, the labor services rendered to the lineage or village chiefs began to express new class relations. Slaves were generally the descendants of foreign tribes subjected by military conquest to the authority of the Agni. While slaves were obliged to perform very hard work and did not Commercial Farming and Class Relations 123 enjoy the same civil rights as Agni citizens (for example, rights of inheritance), they were, nevertheless, relatively integrated into Agni lineages and families, and "their lot is really not lamentable nor has it ever been."5 Today, now that slavery has been abolished, the descendants of the slaves still occupy an inferior social status. "The members of the tribe that were not uterine descendants . . . were always considered to be the servants or clients of the noble lineages. Movement from one social category to another was unthinkable."6 SOCIAL STRATIFICATION Traditional Agni society, warlike a,nd based on slavery, was, like other African societies, a class society. Its wealth, appropriated by the nobles and the royalty, was the product of military conquest, labor services of freemen, and the work of slaves. But military conquests and slavery have disappeared and a different economy has given a new economic base to this society. However, the traditional structure was the· basis for a hierarchy or stratification which still exists today and is only changing very slowly. This traditional · stratification-the expression of class relations that have all but disappeared-is composed of the following categories: At the top we :find the royal family, uterine descendants of the first chiefs of the tribe . . . the class that has the greatest prestige and possesses the total land surface in which the Agni world is installed. Directly below this class come the great men of the kingdom, also uterine descendants, whether it be of the chiefs of the various groups which make up the tribe, or of war chiefs. . . . The king has distributed his territory to these men: under his high authority they enjoy the prestige linked to his stool, which is testimony of the nobility of his family, and they possess rights over the strictly defined portion of territory that has been conceded to them by the sovereign. Next come those whom we may consider small nobility; great warriors to whom the king has given a drum (Abua-panther) as an insignia, chiefs of small recently arrived groups, and chiefs of villages that are formed as a result of the breakup of a 124 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies group. These people have some authority and prerogatives, and, in their circumscription, they enjoy rights to land. The mass of the Agni population is made up of freemen. 7 The three upper strata mentioned here constitute a traditional dominant class, characterized by rights and obligations essentially defined in order to make the political and administrative organization function. Its members possess cultivable land, which is farmed by the obligatory work, on a strict rotational basis, of the inhabitants of the villages. Income is derived from the collection of taxes, [the administration of] justice, toll bridges and fishing. The freemen, in turn, live from agriculture. At the bottom of the traditional social stratification we find the descendants of slaves. The work formerly carried out by slaves is now performed by salaried agricultural workers, whom we will discuss later. Thus the traditional stratification includes five categories. The three upper strata form a dominant class who exercise their traditional control over the land, over the work of the freemen, and over military activities. The majority of the people form a class of free agriculturists "with no more prestige than being the head of a family or of a lineage or simply a member of one or the other," who represent the intermediate stratum. Finally, there is a lower category of slaves and their descendants. While the economic bases of this hierarchy have almost totally disappeared, stratification, as a system of values that conditions the social behavior of the members of a society, is still a living thing. Everyone who has studied the Agni agrees on this point. Apart from the categories mentioned, the. Agni area includes among its inhabitants members of foreign tribes who have settled peacefully within the Agni territory. Rougerie states that the installation of a foreigner or a group of foreigners was carried out with no formalities other than [personal] presCommercial Farming and Class Relations 125 entation before a local chief or before the king himself if a significant group was involved. The chief who received these immigrants ceded to them a territory free of charge, on which they could henceforth live as free men, equal to the Agni, but not considered to be Agni subjects. [P. 65] However, without the right to participate in the political organization of the society, the . foreigner Qccupied de facto an inferior position to that of the free Agni in the system of stratification. We shall see how the increasing immigration of foreigners into Agni land, under these circumstances, has been one of the factors in the transformation of the class structure and traditional system of stratification of Agni society. In effect, if the foreigner earlier occupied some status, some place in the society, be it that of slave, client, or an assimilated person, today "the foreigners arrive en masse, not with the intention of assimilating, but rather to earn their fortunes." 8 They no longer become integrated, as before, in: the social structure of the host society. THE LAND TENURE SYSTEM Private ownership of land does not exist among the Agni. Instead, land tenure rights are held collectively. In principle, the entire Agni society, represented by a king whose authority is sanctioned by religion, collectively holds the territory under its control. In fact, it is the village and lineage chiefs who control the land, who are the "lords of the land." In societies where individual property is not consecrated by law, it makes sense to speak of "ownership" · or "possession" of the land only if we determine the activity with respect to which this property or possession is established. Traditionally in Agni society, land was not an object of exchange to be bought or sold. "One of the essential principles," says Boutillier, "is that everyone has access to the land, that is to say, the right to cultivate a piece of land that will permit him to live decently with his family" (p. 57). Consequently, the possession of land is established as a function of agricultural labor. But while not all the land is cultivated, there is never any ownerless land because the land belongs to the ancestors and, as such, to the community or the tribe as a whole. 126 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies On the other band, those who till the soil gain certain rights over the land that they cultivate. While in principle only the king in accord with his advisors can dispose of the land, in fact it is the rural community that controls that part of the territory over which the "stool" bas total authority. Direct ''possession" of the soil is only conveyed by individual or family use. Thus the Agni recognize three or even four different levels of land possession which traditionally were never in opposition, but which are increasingly in contradiction today. The land rights which overlap among the Agni are: the rights of the entire Agni society to all the lands of the kingdom (represented by the king); the right of the village chief who occupies the "stool"; lineage rights; and finally, the right of individual usufruct. Family or individual possession of the land is only possible when the holders recognize the authority of the village chief. This "possession" or usufruct of the land can be transmitted despite the fact that the soil itself is inalienable. The leveling of the forest traditionally conferred the right of ''possession" over the land and, as such, this right could be extended over fallow land and uncultivated forest up to the point where the agriculturist might find himself infringing upon the lands held by another agri:. culturist of either the same or a neighboring village. Traditionally conflicts over land were less frequent within a community than between communities. The installation of foreigners on Agni land was a relatively simple process. To those who requested a plot, the king and the village chiefs conceded land without rent in exchange for the customary gifts or a small token payment. This payment was neither a sale nor a rental of land, but rather a sign of recognition of the sovereignty of the "stools," not so much over the soil itself, but over him who cultivated it. Usufruct rights obtained in this way by the foreigner could be transmitted only with the consent of the village chief. This situation, which, in principle, still governs relations between foreign agriculturists and the Agni, bas been modliied in the face of increasing immigration and the progressive disappearance of cultivable land. As we will see later, such modifications of tradition have created grave problems in Agni soCommercial Farming and Class Relations 127 ciety. Still, it is clear that it was not the "ownership" of the soil which conferred on the individual or the family the right to establish themselves in Agni society. On the contrary, it was the incorporation of the individual or family into Agni society ( through pledges of loyalty to the king and recognition of the sovereignty of the village chief) that conceded usufruct rights, that is, possession of the soil, on immigrants. The relations between the Agni and the foreigners were established directly, not through the land. The reputation and the power of the Agni kingdoms depended on the number of people over whom their authority extended, and granting possession of the land to immigrants was a means to this end. Royal policy was essentially directed at the growth of the kingdom through the increase of the numerous clients whose descendants assured not only the extension of the communities and the cultivation and enrichment of the territory, but also the security of the borders, the continuity of the ancestor cult and, as such, the renown of the kingdom of Sanwi. 11 The situation was similar in the kingdom of Ndenie.10 However, the introduction of commercial crops has profoundly changed this state of affairs, as we will see later, and the traditional principles of land tenure have entered into conflict with the new socioeconomic situation. At the same time, foreigners find it increasingly difficult to obtain land and, as a result, the relations between the Agni and the foreigners established in their midst have changed. Agni society is matrilineal and the inheritance of goods and of the usufruct rights to land takes place collaterally from mother's brother to sister's son, At the same time, the residential principle is patrilocal, which contributes to a dispersion of Iineages.11 These traditional principles of social organization are currently in contradiction with recent socioeconomic changes. We will discuss some of the conflicts that have grown out of this situation in later chapters. As long as subsistence agriculture predominated in Agni society, the concept of private ownership of land could not develop or become the basis of a differentiation into social 128 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies classes. But the changes that have taken place since the beginning of this century have transformed the relations between man and land and among men. At the same time, they have put into question virtually every principle of social organization among the Agni. CHAPTER 9 The Commercial Farm Economy THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLANTATION ECONOMY In Sanwi, the transition from forest agriculture to commercial farming did not take place spontaneously. Various economic and political factors had to intervene before commercial crops could be definitively established in this region. In 1903, the status of protectorate was abolished and the French established their direct administrative rule over the area. The people were obliged to pay a direct tax to the colonial administration, and at the same time, a substantial part of the income of the Agni king was cut back. This led to a power crisis and a progressive weakening of the royal family. During the First World War, the price of rubber collapsed, and the effect was immediately felt by the Agni who lived from gathering latex. At the same time, the Agni lost their monopoly control of the caravan routes when the railroad from Abidjan to Bouake was opened. These events stimulated the emigration of population to the Gold Coast, a movement which reached considerable proportions when military recruitment began among the Agni in 1916 and 1917. From 1915 onward, the French administration was establishing the cultivation of cocoa as a new base for a profit economy. At first the peasants refused to cultivate the commercial crop, and they destroyed the plants before they could grow to maturity. But commercial cultivation persisted, and when the emigrants returned to the country after the war, commercial agriculture spread throughout the country. While the same immediate factors did not operate in the Ndenie area, in Ghana, or in the forest region of Nigeria,! nevertheless, the same general evolution from subsistence to commercial agriculture took place. And today, throughout 130 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies this region of western Africa, the cultivation of cocoa and coffee forms the basis of the national economy of various countries. With the establishment of these crops, the subsistence cultivator was transformed into a commercial farmer or planteur. 2 This process cannot be understood in isolation. Certain prior conditions were necessary in order to bring about the metamorphosis of the traditional society. These conditions were: 1) the opening of the country to the outside world, through the establishment of commercial enterprises by the colonial metropolis and the extension of trading activities; 2) the weakening of traditional political organization . due to the establishment of direct colonial administration (in the French territories), or the subordination of traditional power to metropolitan administration (the indirect rule of the British); and 3) the imposition of a monetary economy, which stimulated the extension of commercial crops, in the form of taxation and labor services paid to the colonial administration. This process of change has produced profound alterations, not only in the economy itself, but also in the forms of work, the organization of the family, and the system of values. Let us analyze in greater detail some of the effects of this transformation and their relationship to the class structure and stratification. Traditional subsistence agriculture was of the itinerant slash and bum type. In contrast, coffee and cocoa are permanent crops. Three to four years are needed for these plants to reach maturity and bear fruit. But once they reach this stage, if well cared for, they bear fruit for approximately thirty years. It is clear that this situation totally alters the relations between man and the land. Commercial crops require far more abundant labor supply than subsistence food crops. However, this labor supply is seasonal and concentrated during the harvest period, generally from October to February. This is also the time of greatest trade, the season of the year when economic activity intensifies throughout the region and commercial exchange accelerates. The people have money, and they spend it. The rhythm of life throughout the country is stepped up. Once this period of intensified economic activity is over, the rhythm slows once again. Thus a new Commercial Farming and Class Relations 131 annual cycle considerably different from the cycle associated with subsistence agriculture has evolved in coffee- and cocoaproducing countries. But perhaps the most important effect of the commercial farming economy is that which it has had on the subsistence food crops. During the first years of the preparation of a coffee or cocoa farm, it is possible to grow the traditional subsistence crops at the same time on the same plot of land. But once the farm begins to produce, this is no longer possible. The farmer has to use other parcels of land to produce staple crops, or he must abandon their production altogether. In the cocoa-growing region of Nigeria, the agriculturists have completely abandoned subsistence farming and buy food in the market for their own consumption. Here a monetary economy has completely taken the place of sut,.. sistence agriculture.a In other regions the changes have not been as radical. In a cocoa growing village in Ghana, most of the subsistence crops were still produced in the community during the 1930s.4 And in the Agni kingdom of Sanwi, according to Rougerie, traditional subsistence agriculture has remained, underlying modem farming; there has not been substitution, but rather superimposition; it even seems that the Agni of Sanwi have a more balanced regime and are today better supplied with food products of local origin than are their brothers in Ndenie.5 But for this to be the case, special conditions were needed because there exists, after all, a basic contradiction between commercial and subsistence crops. However, in this region of the Agni country, the land has been abundant enough, at least up to the present time, for commercial export crops and subsistence farming to coexist. In addition, labor has been supplied by immigrant workers from the North of the Ivory Coast, from Upper Volta, and even from Mali. LAND AND FAMILY LABOR The Agni farmer, exercising his rights to possess and use the land he has cleared, has generally been able to expand his farms. However, this expansion is limited by two factors: the availability of land near the village, and the supply of family 132 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies labor. The agriculturist extends his fields until he finds further extension blocked by the expansion of other farmers. Thus he is obliged to move further and further from his village and to .clear new lands in distant forest areas. When we take into consideration the distances, the available time, the multiplicity of tasks that he has to carry out, and the number of family members who are able to assist in this process, we see that the average agriculturist finds it difficult to build up a large number of commercial farms. Small farms still predominate in this country. In Sanwi, the cultivated area amounts to 1.8 hectares of commercial crop land per rural inhabitant. In Ndenie, cultivated surface equals 1.2 hectares per rural inhabitant. In the Bonguanou region, further west, the cultivated area is larger, reaching an average of 5.3 hectares. In Ghana and Nigeria, the small farm of less than one hectare of land is the average holding. But this situation is in no way permanent. The average size of the farms rises over the years, while the variation of size among farms is greata problem to which we will return later. The availability of family labor is the second important factor which affects the new commercial farming economy. The traditional economic unit of Agni society is the lineage or the part thereof that occupies a "rectangle" or "compound" (Auro). The Auro was composed of the chief of the rectangle, his family, and several subordinate families. In Bonguanou, a medium-sized compound generally included about twenty-five people of three different families. Consequently, there was a sufficient labor supply for the production of subsistence crops. Once commercial crops were planted, family labor was dedicated to their cultivation. But a commercial farming economy is a monetary economy, and the farmer sells his cocoa and coffee in the market. There he receives money that he is free to use as he wishes, choosing among a variety of possible alternatives. Above all he may accumulate money, invest it, spend it, or purchase consumer goods with it. At this point, the cohesion of the lineage as a unit of production and consumption breaks down .. The young people realize that with a cocoa or coffee farm, they can receive an income, money of their own that they can spend as they like, Commercial Farming and Class Relations 133 thus freeing themselves from the authority of the elders. Given the ease with which a member of the community can acquire usufruct of the land, the young men of the village generally want to establish their own farms and break away from the rigid organization of the lineages. Once this occurs, the farmer who is head of a family or a lineage finds himself with an insufficient supply of family help, and must resort to the use of immigrant wage labor. His capacity for further expansion is dependent upon his :financial possibilities. The Agni farmer is thus transformed into an employer.a The corollary of this situation is that once agricultural produce is sold on the market and an income is received by the head of a lineage, family members who contribute their labor ( especially those who are also themselves heads of families) realize that their labor can be measured in monetary terms. At this point, the relations of production within a single lineage take on the characteristics of class relations. As long as each Agni farmer has the right to cultivate a plot of land-that is, as long as the concept of private ownership of the land has not been established- he prefers to become an independent farmer rather than remain in the employ (even if remunerated) of the head of the lineage. This preference is strengthened by the belief that, according to the system of values of the traditional hierarchy, an Agni must never occupy the inferior position of employee. THE INHERITANCE OF PLANTATIONS This new family situation produces other problems-in particular, problems related to the inheritance of goods. As we have seen, traditional inheritance is transmitted from the maternal uncle to sister's sons. However, because residence is partially patrilocal, at times very close personal relations are established between fathers and sons. This situation contains the seeds of conflict (matrilineage versus patrilocality) and creates a state of crisis in the commercial farming economy. In effect, while land is not transferable merchandise, the farm is. Furthermore, the farm represents important capital, given the years of work that are absorbed in its preparation. The Agni agriculturist finds it difficult to respect a tradition that dictates that his farm, which is in such large part the product 134 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies of the labor of his own sons, be passed on not to those same sons, but rather to a nephew, to whom the farmer feels less attached. On the other hand, the young men who have participated in the creation of a farm have no way of knowing if the farm they will inherit from their uncle will be equal to the one on which they have labored throughout their youth. As a result, it is increasingly common that the farmer. gives a piece of his own farm to his sons during his lifetime, subtracting this land from the legacy he is obliged by tradition to leave to his nephew. Aware that this situation is unfavorable to them, many young men begin to establish farms on their. own long before the question of inheritance comes up, and in this way, they limit the possibility for . the expansion of their father's or their lineage chiefs farms. Among the Bete of the Ivory Coast, a similar situation has developed. While the Bete are a patrilineal people, traditional inheritance takes place collaterally. Here the agriculturist is obliged by tradition to pass his farm on to his younger brother, rather than to his son. But in the case of the Agni, this situation has changed since the introduction of commercial crops. 7 On the other hand, given that • many legacies are hamstrung with corresponding familial obligations, here also some of the young agriculturists openly reject their inheritance and prefer to work individually on their own farms. Thus we see how commercial farming breaks down the traditional family organization, and how this breakdown in tum stimulates the extension of this form of economy. The process is not simple and unilateral but rather complex and involved. It contributes to the formation of a new category of farmers, of individualistic agricultural entrepreneurs, and thus to the rise of the spirit of capitalism. TuE NEW SOCIAL CATEGORY OF COMMBRCi:AL FARMERS The situation. that we have just described does not occur in exactly the same way in all the different regions, and the changes that we have highlighted do not take place in a single stroke. In fact, while a new economy has come to replace the traditional subsistence economy, new principles of social organization have not yet completely replaced the old. Instead, new principles are found in a state of formation. In Commercial Farming and Class Relations 135 some places, the traditional chiefs have understood the process very well-perhaps under pressure from the colonial authorities- and, taldng advantage of their superior position, they have been able to build up sizable commercial farms. Boutillier has written, Thus, certain structural characteristics of Agni social organization have favored the category of commercial farmers that includes village and lineage chiefs. The size of their family groups and, most important, the free labor that members of the community, members of the lineage and descendants of former slaves are traditionally obliged to render, have made these chiefs masters of a sizeable labor supply that they were able to utilize before the war, to create fairly large farms. [P. 67] In this case the new economic situation has reinforced the traditional hierarchy. The dominant class in Agni society has proved capable of adapting to new economic conditions. But the traditional hierarchy could not persist in the long run because the traditional social organization was incapable of adapting to a profit economy without changing dramatically. On the one hand, after the Second World War, the colonial administration abolished the practice of traditional obligatory labor services. On the other hand, students of Agni society tell us that the Agni do not like to work for wages ( and we must stress that once we begin to talk of a monetary economy, the labor services rendered to a traditional chief no longer have the same social and communal character that they had formerly). However, other structural factors have also intervened. Given the principles of land tenure that characterize Agni society, although the chiefs control all access to the land, they cannot prevent a member of an Agni village from taldng advantage of the right of usufruct he is guaranteed by tradition. As a result, if at the beginning of the development of commercial farming, the traditional chiefs ( or at least some of them) could still exercise some pressure over the servile labor force within their jurisdiction, eventually these laborers were able to gain some independence because of their free access to the land in accordance with the traditional rights of 136 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies land tenure. The very principles of land tenure have thus prevented the traditional chiefs (with very few exceptions) from using their dominant position in the traditional hierarchy to transform themselves into large commercial farmers. In contrast, in other places the traditional and traditionalist chiefs, perhaps fearful that the introduction of commercial farming would sooner or later spell the end of their authority, refused to become involved in the new form of agriculture. In these regions it was most often the descendants of the former slaves and captives, people of inferior status who, being perhaps more susceptible to the pressures of the French administration and moved by the desire to gain economic freedom, managed to build up farms of considerable size. In these cases, -the old hierarchy has been transformed. The new agriculturists have adopted the values of a monetary economy, so much more eagerly because it has succeeded in emancipating them from _th eir ascribed condition of inferiority. In this way there developed a category of new men who "manage to elevate themselves in wealth to a position higher.· than that of_ the nobility _ and who thereby acquire gre~t .economic and even s.ocial influence."8 The value system of · these men is in conflict with that of the old stratification and a power struggle between the old and the new elites has been_ unleashed. "As a result, a new social group has been born, which stands alongside of and in opposition to the old groups. _ The prestige of this new group is _ not based on birth but rather on money acquired thanks to commercial crops."9 CHAPTER 10 Inter ethnic and Class Relations THE FOREIGN IMMIGRANT AS COMMERCIAL FARMER In the last two chapters we have been discussing the internal changes in Agni society brought about by the development of a monetary economy. We have also mentioned the immigration to the Agni region ofpeople from the northern areas of the Ivory Coast and even from beyond its borders. This migratory movement affects the economic and social terms of the. development of social classes.1 We have noted that the settlement of outsiders in the Agni area is not a recent phenomenon. However, since the spread of commercial farming the jfow of migrants to the forest region has reached significant proportions, and today the · economic activities of the region are, in large part, based on the foreigners who reside in the area. Among the Agni a foreigner is anyone who was not born in Agni territory and ''who does not have hereditary rights of access to authority and to the land."2 Two kinds of immigrants are found here. There are those who have come to install themselves on a plot of land in order to establish a commercial crop farm, and those who come as seasonal wage laborers to work on the farms of the Agni or other foreigners. The first type of· immigrant is characteristic of the early stages of the monetary economy, while the second is inseparable from the present stage, in which commercial crops have become fully established . . We have already noted that, in order to establish himself as a farmer, the foreigner had only to ask permission of the local chief who distributed land rights. In this way a good portion of Agni land was ceded to foreigners and requests 138 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies for land became increasingly frequent as commercial farming spread. Except for certain taxes and gifts, the immigrant agriculturist had no other obligation to the traditional chiefs. While the land was free and uncultivated, foreigners came individually or in small groups to -install themselves, and establish their own communities or camps in the woods that they labored to clear. Those who arrived first were soon followed by their relatives, friends, and other people from their home villages. Very soon the new immigrants no longer sought permission from the traditional chief before going ahead to establish themselves on the land. Instead, they received the authorization to install themselves from the original immigrant, who, by now, had become the chief of the new community. The foreign settlers, generally patrilineal, passed their farms from father to son. In addition, upon leaving the area they would sell their farms to other foreigners, although the land, according to customary law, should have reverted to the Agni. Thus, in some regions and localities, immigrant farmers have become an important minority, and in some places even the majority of the population.a At the same time, in certain regions land has become scarce and, with the spread of the commercial farms; it has acquired an exchange value. Today the Agni find it increasingly difficult to cede land to foreigners, and in some regions they have completely given up the practice. But the situation is now out of their hands. By now the immigrant farmers have become a social force who demand their own rights and refuse to recognize Agni supremacy in the area. "Some form of control was adopted by the natives only after this situation [i.e., foreign immigration] had become an accomplished fact." The foreigner, "from a client tied to the fate of his host, has become an equal or an exploiter because today he usurps the rights that were not freely given to him."4 The growing social and economic importance of the foreigners tends to undermine further the traditional structures of Agni society. The immigrants no longer accept the principles that govern land tenure. They consider land as private property, as salable merchandise, as capital. They attempt to obtain property titles recognized by the national (formerly colonial) administration. At the same time, in order better to Commercial Farming and Class Relations 139 defend the rights they demand over the land they occupy, they refuse to integrate themselves into Agni society, or even to accept its values, or co-operate with it. Instead, they maintain their own cultural and social identity. This effort is made easier by the fact that a multiplicity of cultural characteristics distinguish the Agni from the other peoples of the Ivory Coast. Not only does the matrilineal principle of descent of the Agni contrast with the patrilineal descent of the immigrants, but a great number of the latter, especially the Mossi of Upper Volta, are Muslims whose customs and habits clash sharply with the Christianity . or traditional religion of the Agni. In addition, the Agni have always. considered the foreigners to be. their inferiors, even when the latter have integrated or assimilated into Agni society. · · In the face of the separatism of the immigrant communities, which the Agni consider to be an attack on their sovereigrtty within . their very own country, the Agni try· at all costs to maintain their traditional principles· of land tenure. However, they are unable to make.the foreigners respect them. We have noted that within Agni sociefy itself, new social and economic forces are already undermining . the traditional structures. The foreign agriculturists have come-either consciously or unconsciously-to take · advantage of the internal conflicts within Agni society, and the presence of immigrants in their midst tends to sharpen these internal conflicts, The foreigners, who have been attracted by the advantages of commercial agriculture, see in the establishment of commercial farms the essential reason of their settlement in the Agni country.6 Consequently, they have a strong interest in the establishment of new principles of land tenure that would definitively recognize and protect private land ownership. In this sense, it might be said that the foreigners are moving with the current of history. In contrast, the native Agni are swimming against the current and are tied in that position by adherence to principles which are replete with internal conflict. They try to reinforce their traditional land tenure system in opposition to foreign immigrants. However, at the same time, they recognize the need for new legal principles governing land tenure and inheritance that would correspond to the requirements of the new economy. As a result, the immigrant agriculturists 140 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies (Diola, Baoule, and, to a lesser extent, Mossi) tend to form a new social category. This has led to a growing conflict between the Agni and the communities of immigrants which has economic roots, but tends to develop into an interethnic conflict. '"Ihe cultural divergencies between native and foreign groups became irreconcilable when the foreigners ceased to be isolated clients and became sufficiently numerous and economically independent to demand complete socioeconomic autonomy."6 In effect, ''the natives and the foreigners have become two poles that · repel one another because they demand the same quality of rights in a global society whose traditional hierarchical values are disappearing" (p. 22). These same ethnic problems that develop from foreign immigration into the forest regions where commercial agriculture has taken hold are found also in other parts of the Ivory Coast and in Ghana. At times these conflicts grow sharper, but. in other cases the relations between the immigrants and natives are more cordial. In the region of Divo, for example, as well as among the Gouro (a neighboring ethnic group), conflicts arose when immigrants refused to pay for the right to use the land. In contrast, in the Gagnoa region, the chiefs sell land easily to the immigrant farmers. Raulin writes, Thus, we can conclude that tensions are not carried to the extreme, and the equilibrium between the native population and the immigrants is not broken except in those regions where competition for the land has become very sharp and then only when the agglomeration of the immigrant population in one place appears to constitute a threat to the political independence of the native population. [P. 93] Throughout this part of Africa, the immigrant farmers appear to be more dynamic than their native counterparts. Their farms are more productive, and they accumulate more capital than do the indigenous farmers. In the forest region of Akim Abuakwa in Ghana, the immigrants were, in fact, the :first to establish cocoa farms. 7 And among the Gouro, immigration increased with the extension of commercial agriculture, and the Mossi immigrants, for example, "are today found among the largest producers of coffee in the region." 8 Commercial Farming and. Class Relations 141 'fHB FOREIGN IMMIGRANT AS DAY LABORER While the migratory current we are examining is composed in part of foreign cultivators who hope to settle among the Agni, the group also includes a totally temporary and unstable labor force without which the Agni farms could never have reached their present stage of development. The migrant laborers who work the coffee and cocoa farms generally come alone, unaccompanied by their families, for only a limited time and with no purpose other than to earn a little money and return to their homeland. However, during their stay among the Agni their situation may change. For many of these "temporary" workers the months turn into years and some ·even manage to obtain their own farms and settle permanently in the region. Whether this occurs depends in large part on the kind of work contract through which the migrants are brought to the farms. There are several kinds of work contracts, and they are associated with different types of work. 1. The Abusan Contract The most common form of work on the commercial farms is the abusan contract (abusa in Ghana), the Ashanti term meaning a "third share." There are several forms of abusan, and it seems that the term originally referred to a form of sharecropping in which the agriculturist received from the "stool" a plot of land in return for which he was obliged to give over -to the chief one third of his harvest. Today, reduced to its simplest.form, this-kind.of work contract ties the worker to the owner of a coffee or cocoa farm. The worker is committed to cultivate the farm or a part thereof over a certain period of time ( the length of the contract varies) until the crop has been harvested. At this point the laborer is entitled to keep one third of the harvested crop. Under certain circumstances· he may receive up to one half of the harvest when the yield has been low and the work particularly hard. When this occurs, the system is referred to as abudian, meaning "_divided in halves." The specific customs governing the abusan system vary. At times the farm owner works side by side with the laborer. In 142 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies general, the abusan system allows the sharecropper some initiative and leeway to decide the amount of coffee or cocoa he will cultivate, the hours he will work, and the way in which his tasks will be organized. According to local conditions and particular circumstances, the boss may or may not give food and lodging to the worker. In Ghana, this type of worker is called a "caretaker." Among the Agni, he is generally considered to be a kind of sharecropper (Dupire). However, this term is not completely accurate, because the worker usually begins work on a farm that is already producing a crop and remains there during a single agricultural cycle. At no time does he take ''possession" of the land, as is the case with a true sharecropper. On the other hand, the system has also been characterized as a type of piecework.9 To the degree that the farm is a capitalist enterprise, we may say that there is a kind of profit sharing. Owners and workers each find certain advantages in the system. For the owner this system implies fewer risks because he closely associates the worker with the success or failure of the harvest and the :fluctuations of the market, and the owner is not obliged to spend any fixed sum of· money to employ the services of his farmhand. Likewise, the system guarantees that the worker will have an interest in producing the largest possible crop. This would not be the case were he working on a salary. In addition, the owner is relieved of the tasks of control and supervision of the worker's labor because the latter has his own direct interest in the product of his work. The worker, in turn, generally considers the abusan system to be superior to simple wage labor. He often views this kind of employment as a stepping-stone to obtaining his own farm. It gives him the opportunity to develop independence and initiative. However, when the price of cocoa or coffee is low, the worker makes very little from this system; and when the price of these crops is high, then it is the owner who prefers to hire wage labor, rather than divide his profits · with a sharecropper. The abusan worker is generally allowed to cultivate certain subsistence food crops on his own. A worker of this type is guaranteed the produce of two hectares of commercial crops which, for a season .of from four to six months of work, Commercial Farming and Class Relations 143 provides him with an income of from forty to sixty dollars. However, it has been calculated that the workers reduce their expenses to a minimum during their stay among the Agni and save an average of 25 per cent of their income to send or carry with them to their homeland. The abusan contract generally ends with the sale of the produce, and during the i,lack season between harvests~ the worker often seeks some other form of employment. 2. Other Kinds of Contract There are other kinds of work which are remunerated in money. In Ghana, under the nkotokuano system, the laborer is contracted to work through the harvest season and receives a sum which corresponds. to the weight of the cocoa he has harvested. In this case, the workers have the same obligations as those involved in the abusan system, but they are generally more mobile and less stable, and may be employed in other work at the same time. The remuneration they receive varies according to the price of cocoa and the supply of labor, and it commonly represents from one eighth to one fifth of the price obtained by the owner for the cocoa harvested by the worker. As a result the nkotokuano worker occupies a place on the social scale well below that of the abusan worker. This situation is essentially due to a surplus of labor in Ghana, which does not reach the same proportions in other regions. · Among the Agni, in addition to the abusan system, there is another common form of employment in which the worker is paid according to task, based on a. working day of eight hours, supervised and controlled by the owner. This system is most commonly in practice during the period between harvests. However, it is sometimes substituted for the abusan system during the harvest itself. A study carried out in the Ivory Coast has shown that men employed in commercial agriculture seem to be satisfied with either one of these two systems. In contrast to what we find in Ghana, the monetary wages received by these workers are more or less equal to the income of abusan . laborers. In addition to occasional and seasonal labor paid by task or by the day (sixty cents per day or thirty cents if food and lodging are provided), a 144 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies man may also work as a salaried laborer in a far more stable situation based on a monthly or annual contract. This type of work is what most workers seek. Unfortunately, it is the hardest to find. Aside from the work contracts we have already described, many immigrants work as "contractors." Contractors are commonly employed in the establishment of new farms. These men specialize in leveling and clearing . the land and other tasks related to the establishment of a farm. They are paid more than ordinary day laborers because the work they carry out is considered to be highly skilled. In Ghana, the establishment of a new farm is a specialized job which may not be entrusted to just any worker who might come along seeking employment. In fact, formerly the worker so skilled as to be able to perform this difficult task was entitled to half of the harvest on the land cleared for the owner. However, today it is increasingly common to pay workers who prepare the land for new farms on a piecework basis. THE FORMATION OF A NEW SOCIAL CLASS The number and variety of different work forms illustrates the complex character of the farming economy and indicates that the West African forest belt is in a period of transition. Both the abusan system and the practice of withholding salary from seasonal workers until the end of the harvest are due to the fact that during the slack season there is a general lack of money. It is probable that to the extent that a monetary economy develops and farmers dispose of more cash throughout the year, money wages will become increasingly common. The immigrants tend to prefer the abusan system to simple wage labor, especially when the latter is seasonal and occasional. Many immigrants begin as occasional workers, later manage to get work as abusan laborers, and eventually come to own their own farms. But if we look· at the development of the region as a whole, it seems probable that wage labor will increasingly be substituted for the system of abusan. This will occur in part because of the increasing availability of money throughout the year. It will also occur because continued immigration increases the supply of labor 145 a --g reat-er .... ~t. . . . Thanks to favorable concfitR>ns-or--m~~ - _ __ us group of more dynamic farmers comes to establish sizeable farms and achieves a high standard of living. [P. 103] Other agriculturists have attained the same objectives in the context of the extended family. For example, a group of _-'='-_'=-_:__~---==~=~- = ~= ....::-_-------=-=----_- ----- I I ....-;- _ 11. 148 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies e repayable in coffee or cocoa on the basis of the lowest rate of the preceding harvest. The merchant makes a good profit, but the farmer grows poorer and thus, must necessarily get a new loan to begin the new agricultural cycle.1 Indebtedness is general and represents one factor of the grow- . · · '' - - ~,.,,"" o farmers. In his study of this probi I, 0 re d, pe is nd on; mg or rner · of mts, sons ~ of conCHAPTER 12 The Maya Highlands of Chiapas (Mexico) and Guatemala The mountain region of Guatemala and of Chiapas in southeastern Mexico is the home of indigenous groups whose various languages (Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Quiche, Chorti, etc.) all belong to the Maya family. The region has often been characterized as a cultural unit.· In spite of the political border. that $eparates · Mexico from. Guatemala, which imposes certain differences on. the people who live on either side, similarities in economic, political, and social structures, as well as a common colonial history, fully justify. treating the two populations together. Culturally, the Maya area belongs to the Mesoamerican region. From the time of the Spanish Conquest, distinctive characteristics have persisted here; due to the fact that the social and economic organization of the native Indian population and that of the Spanish conquistadores was very similar, "both being based on intensive agriculture and the exploitation of a huge class of agricultural laborers. Political. and religious aspects of both cultures not only had local manifestations, but also were organized into hierarchical bureaucracies. "1 As a result, the Spaniards were able to establish themselves in this zone with greater ease, and without provoking the profound changes that characterized the Spanish conquest of the plains and the coastal regions. In the Mayan cultural area-as in all of Indian America-the Spaniards established their encomiendas and their tributes, and gained complete control over the labor force. With regard to matters of state, ''they quickly placed themselves at the top of the hierarchy and governed the mass of the population through native intermediaries in the lower echelons of the bureaucracy."2 164 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies The Spaniards, writes one author, as a colonizing people had a clear political vision of the function that they could play in the process of incorporating the Indian into the colonizing work of Spain ••• [by] utilizing the old native hierarchies. They also followed a policy of gaining control of the most docile chiefs through corruption and bribery, allowing them to maintain their personal privileges so that they could be led to serve the cause of the colonizer.a Some forms of pre-Columbian and colonial social organization have survived in these regions to the present day. THE COMMUNITY AND THE MUNICIPIO The people of these mountain regions of Mesoamerica live dispersed in small, more or less self-sufficient communities tied to one another and to urban or semi-urban centers through economic relations and political dependency, These people are only slightly integrated into national structures, and their dynamic is based on regional forms of economic and political organization. Ecologically, it is possible to distinguish three types of community: 1) The dispersed community with a politico-religious ceremonial center in which public buildings ( a town hall, church, school, etc.) are located, but in which the population is small and made up only of those people who are directly involved in public functions. The greater part of the population lives dispersed in small villages which surround the ceremonial center. On market days and fiestas, the center hosts a large :floating population from the countryside. It appears that this form of geographic organization has its origin in pre-Hispanic times. 2) The "compact community," which is undoubtedly the result of a Spanish policy of regrouping the native population. The people of such communities live in a village which is generally laid out according to a geometric plan, divided into neighborhoods which often have important religious or political functions. The agricultural fields are located at some distance from the village. Here the agriculturists often construct little huts in which they spend the night when work in Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 165 the fields does not permit them to return to the village. The public buildings stand in the center of the community. Often the socioeconomic status of members of the community is made explicit by the specific arrangement of houses in the village: the people who enjoy high status occupy homes close to the center, while lower status individuals occupy homes farther away, with the socioeconomic level of homeowners decreasing in proportion to the distance of living quarters from the village center. This type of community also includes a certain number of non-agricultural specialists like artisans, merchants, officials, etc. In these communities two ethnic groups generally reside: the Indians and the non-Indians: 3) The third type of community is a combination of the two communities described above. · Generally one part of the population ( often one of the ethnic groups) lives in a concentrated form, while the other dwells · dispersed in houses constructed in the middle of small plots of land~ but at the same time within the administrative limits of the community.4 The Maya highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala have the peculiarity that each local community constitutes a cultural and social unit which is distinguished from other similar communities, and whose limits, furthermore, coincide with those of modem political-administrative units called municipalities or municipal agencies. Thus· the Indian population of every municipality ( or municipal agency) can be distinguished from others through their clothing, dialect, membership and participation in a religious and political structure of their own. This usually involves economic specialization, as well as a developed feeling of identity with other members of the community, reinforced by a somewhat generalized endogamous system. Aside from being an administrative unit integrated in Mexican and Guatemalan national political structures, the municipality represents in this region the · framework of the Indian population's social universe, which has been called "tribe" by some ethnologists, and which others have even termed the germ of the "nation."5 This coincidence of modern municipal· institutions with traditional Indian structures, resulting from the particular historical evolution of the region, has allowed the survival of the latter within the framework of the modem national state. 166 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies INDIANS AND LADINOS In the entire region and in almost all of the local communities there coexist two kinds of populations, two different social groups: Indians and ladinos. The problem of the relationships between these two ethnic groups has been. approached in different ways by anthropologists. Only a few of them, however, have attempted an interpretative analysis within the framework of the global society. It is a well-known fact that biological factors do not account for the differences between the two populations; we are not dealing with two races in the genetic sense of the term. It is true, of course, that in a general way the so-called Indian population answers to biological traits corresponding to the Amerinds, and equally that the so-called ladino population shows the biological traits of the Caucasoids. But even though ladinos tend to identify with whites, in fact they are generally mestizo. It is the social and cultural factors which are taken into account to distinguish one population from the other.a For a long time it was common practice to draw up a list of identifiable cultural elements in order to distinguish both groups: language, clothing, agricultural technology, food, religious beliefs, etc. The advantages of such a list are that it allows an easy quantification of Indian and ladino populations, and that census returns which include some of these elements -principally the language-can be profitably used. Thus, using these indices, Whetten was able to speak of the ''Indo-colonial" population of Mexico.7 Confronted with the obvious insufficiency of this procedure in terms of a deeper analysis, it came to be recognized that these cultural elements were integrated within cultural complexes. Alfonso Caso used as his point of departure the fact that Indian populations live in communities which can be easily distinguished from one another, and he thus offered the following definition: "an Indian is one who feels he belongs to an Indian community, and an Indian community is one in which there exists a predominance of non-European somatic elements, where language is preferentially Indian, which possesses within its material and spiritual culture a strong proportion of Indian lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 167 elements, and finally, which has a social feeling of being an isolated community within surrounding ones, which distinguishes it from white and mestizo villages."8 This definition considers the Indian no longer as an isolated individual, but rather as a member of a well-defined social group. The author limits the quality of being Indian to a subjective feeling, and introduces racial considerations when distinguishing the Indian community from ''white and mestizo" ones. We do not find in this definition the elements needed for an analysis of the existing relationships between Indians and ladinos; on the contrary, Caso's definition stresses the idea that we are dealing with two autonomous cultural worlds whose coexistence is almost a matter of chance. The importance attributed by ethnologists to cultural elements of Indian populations has long concealed the nature of socioeconomic structures into which these populations are integrated. Sol Tax, for instance, while studying Indian economy in Guatemala, chooses a community in which one third of the population is ladino, Yet Tax describes only the Indian aspect and leaves aside the mestizo population as though the community's economy were not a complex and integrated whole. When he is forced to describe the inevitable interaction taking place between Indians and ladinos, he does so as though he were dealing with external relations of Indian society.0 Siverts, when speaking about monetary exchanges between Indians and ladinos, even uses the term "foreign trade."lO The same orientation is found in studies based on the concept of the folk-urban continuum developed by Robert Redfield. Certain recent ethnographic studies, and primarily the needs of lndianist activity in Mexico, have shown the weakness of approaches based exclusively upon analysis of cultural factors, not taking into account historical evolution. Eric Wolf has declared that "the condition of the Indian does not consist in a discreet list of social traits; it lies in the quality of social relationships found among communities of a certain kind and in the self-image of the individuals who identify with those communities. The Indian condition is also a distinctive historical process, since these communities originate at a given moment, grow stronger, decline again, and main168 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies tain or lose stability in the face of attacks or pressures coming from the larger society."11 Thus it is no longer the cultural patterns but the community structure, the relationships between its different parts, which are significant. The Indian condition is to be found in the closed "corporate" communities, whose members are bound by certain rights and duties, having their own forms of social control, particular political and religious hierarchies, etc. According to Wolf, these corporate units are the result of Spanish colonial policy, having suffered successive transformations under the impact of external influences. Wolf admits that these units, which are neither totally isolated nor completely self-sufficient, take part in wider economic and political power structures. The Indian communities are related to national institutions and include groups oriented toward both the community and the nation. These groups perform roles as political "power brokers" between traditional and national structures.12 Wolf's analysis of the Indian supplies historical depth and structural orientation which were lacking among earlier cultural anthropologists. However, while he clearly recognizes the existence of the corporate community's· external relations, the community seems to respond mechanically to impulses originating in national and regional sources of power. Wolf does not speak about the relationships between Indians and ladinos. In our opinion, as long as the problem is placed only in the context of the community as an autonomous and limited social system, the analysis is incomplete. Tax and Redfield do, to be sure, admit the existence of external relations, but for these authors, the controls imposed upon the population from outside the local community "have their origin in natural law."18 Indianist action in Mexico has forced ethnologists to restate the problem in different terms. There has been a shift from the sphere of the Indian community to that of the intercultural region where Indians and mestizos coexist. This region possesses the characteristic of having an urban center inhabited mainly by a ladino population and surrounded by Indian communities which are its economic and political satellites. Alfonso Caso, in describing the change in orientation, says, lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 169 " ... we speak now, not only of indigenous communities, but of indigenous regions, that is, of more or less extensive regions that are characterized ,by their integration of numerous indigenous or indigenous-mestizo communities that depend economically, culturally, socially, and politically on a mestizo town which we call the metropolis of the indigenous region in which it is located." 14 This new approach allows a better analysis of socioeconomic structures. and of relationships between human groups. We no longer speak of acculturation alone, but of the Indian's integration in the nation, which is precisely the stated purpose of Indianist policy. The ecological relationships b_etween the metropolis and its satellites are only a part of the complex system of social relationships characteristic of this region. The theoretical frameworks used until now in the study of these relationships have proved insufficient for their full interpretation. Tomin speaks of a caste system in Guatemala which, according to him, is found in a state of "equilibrium in motion." 15 His interpretation is inspired by the treatment that some American sociologists give to the relations between blacks and whites in the United States. For various theoretical reasons which it is not possible to discuss here, the caste system approach is inadequate for Mesoamerica, as it is, for that matter, in discussing the situation in the United States. Other students of interethnic relations between Indians and ladinos confine themselves to a description of these relations without offering a more detailed analysis.16 THE COLONIAL PERIOD CHAPTER 13 The Historical Background of Class. Relations We can understand the class structure of any given society only through the analysis of its total socioeconomic structure. Class relations in the Indian regions of Chiapas and Guatemala cannot be understood simply by examining cultural · differences between the two ethnic groups that make up the population or by observing the different social situations in which the two groups interact. Rather, class relations are defined by the distribution of land as a means of production and by the labor, commercial, and property relations that link one sector of the population to the other. From the time of the Conquest, the Spaniards' "Indian policy" laid the basis for the present class structure. For both military and economic reasons, the Spanish ordered the residential segregation of Indians into areas known as reducciones. However, although this policy of segregation facilitated the political and religious control of the conquered populations, it was not always rigorously applied. The policy was, in part, responsible for the survival of the Indian cultural and social characteristics of this zone. The Indian communities farmed subsistence crops and worked at various specialized economic activities which tended to stimulate the growth of important regional markets (which had already existed in pre-Hispanic times). Under Spanish rule, the comuneros were obliged to pay tribute and donate services to the colonizers. Thus the once autonomous indigenous communities became labor reserves for the colonial society. This situation was aggravated by the evolution of a new system of land tenure. Once the Spaniards gained possession of huge tracts of land (through the system of the enlnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 171 comiendas and mercedes), the Indians were left with only relatively scarce communal lands, over which they exercised usufruct, but not personal ownership. As a result, the Indian occupied an inferior social position in the rigid stratification of the colonial world, and he became the subject of specific tutelary legislation from the Crown. Thus the Indian was never totally integrated into colonial society, and lived apart from that society, but always dependent on its colonial authorities. During the colonial period, the Indian communities were not homogeneous. The Spaniards maintained the preColumbian aristocracy in its former position of power and prestige. They used this nobility to govern the native population, collect tribute, and carry out the recruitment of a labor force. Often political and agrarian struggles broke out between the Indian masses and the privileged aristocracy, whose effective power was considerably less than it had been before the coming of the conquistadores. The Spanish authorities arbitrated these conflicts and, at times, ruled in favor of the Indian masses. New authorities were named and then progressively substituted for the old caciques. This marked the beginning of the evolution of forms of government specifically designed for the Indian community and comprised of elements from both Spanish and Indian cultures.1 The old class structure began to lose its economic base once the Spanish began to appropriate the economic surplus of the Indian communities through the collection of tribute and the practice of forced labor. By the end of the sixteenth century, the native aristocracy had all but disappeared. Under the Spaniards' "indigenous policy," the Indian communities became "folk" societies, i.e., relatively closed corporate units. However, to the degree that these communities participated in a wider economy, they became integrated into a class society. The Indians who filled the labor requirements of the Spanish constituted a working class. Others who managed to enrich themselves in commerce or handicrafts could be considered as a class of entrepreneurs. But given the restrictions of the tutelary legislation applied to the Indian population, it was difficult for any individual to integrate himself into a class society and, at the same time, preserve his "In172 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies dianness." Indigenous traits came to be characteristic only of the traditional subsistence communities. This tendency accelerated during the Independence period. The maintenance of the cultural characteristics of the Indian (language, dress, participation in the corporate community, etc.) could only take place if, on the one hand, he remained apart from the new class structure and, on the other hand, retained his juridical status as an indigenous person, ·· that is, his position of social and legal inferiority. Those Indians who JDaQaged to separate themselves from the community, or who were forced to do so by the Spanish, lost these characteristics and were integrated into the developing national society as they took part in the process of biological and cultural miscegenation. It is not surprising that it turned· out to be almost imposStble to maintain a rigid stratification based on blood and social. "condition," or to apply the often contradictory legal dispositions imposed by the Spanish Crown over three centuries of colonial rule. Thus the Spaniards as well as the new social categories (mestizos, ex-slaves, castes, etc.) came to occupy positions above that of the Indian, who was always bolind by "protective" legislation. It did not take long for new social groups to establish themselves in the indigenous communities, where they soon began to command the dominant positions. Thus Indian society, which had been a class society before the Conquest, ceased being one during the colonial period, even though it contained a number of stratifications. However, under certain circumstances, the Indian lived in a class situation. He was interacting with people who dnfered from him as much economically as ethnically or juridically. As a result, throughout the colonial period, the class relations of the indigenous population retained their interethnic character. This was due, of course, to the colonial situation. lnterethnic relations were essentially relations between. the coloniz.ers and the · colonized. And although a national society· had already begun. to develop during the colonial period, even today the marginal indigenous regions display the essential characteristics of a colonial situation. lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 173 THE PERIOD OF INDEPENDENCE The political independence of New Spain brought equality under law for all citizens. The legal obstacles which prevented the integration of the Indians into national life disappeared in one stroke. Yet integration did riot take place. The effective economic and social inferiority of the Indians placed them in a disadvantaged position, and the acquisition of legal equality only worsened their situation. The new equality had two immediate consequences: the Indian was allowed to sell his labor on the market, and the land he occupied became his private property. The economic liberalism that prevailed in the nineteenth century brought the communal lands of the Indians onto the open market. The possession of land titles and the freedom to sell land was thought to be a great benefit to the agricultural population. In fact it was during this century that the immense private latifundios were created at the expense of the Indian population. Property titles held by Indians soon passed into the hands of the latifundists and even without legal changes in landownership, the Indians were progressively despoiled of their communal lands. The scarcity of land forced the Indians to become peons on the large landholdings of others. In this way, many independent farmers fell into a state of semiservitude. Others continued to be recruited as seasonal forced labor.2 This new trend was consolidated at the end of the nineteenth century with the political victory of conservative forces in Mexico as well as in Guatemala. In the course of the nineteenth century, coffee, the new commercial crop, reached the indigenous zones of the two countries. The coffee fincas became work centers for a great mass of Indians who were recruited from the communities by both legal and illegal means. At the same time the first products of industrialism began to penetrate even the most isolated villages in the form of merchandise carried by ladino traders who spread these goods throughout the indigenous region.s Through this kind of trade, new economic relations were established between the Indians and the rest of the population. Purely ethnic relations were transformed into class relations. The Indians, who during the colonial epoch were a 174 Social Classes in Agrarian Societiea subjugated ethnic group, became a subjugated class of poor peasants-all without modifying their ethnic characteristics. During this period, the isolation and self-sufficiency of the indigenous communities came to an end. Oliver La Farge writes, From the conquest to recent times, with only a few lapses, there has been a constant tendency toward the destruction of the ownership of the Indian's great land expanses, which represents the physical and economic basis of the solidarity of the tribe and of the Indian's · freedom to abstain from working for the non-Indians ••.. As a result [of the extension of the coffee economy] two methods have been employed to gain control over the great supply of labor in the highlands: violence, and the destruction of the eco. nomic base that permitted the Indians to refuse to work in the lowlands.4 PRODUCTION RELATIONS A. Subsistence Agriculture CHAPTER 14 Land and Class Relations The basis of regional production is agriculture, and the basis of agriculture is maize (com), principally for domestic consumption .. Even when other crops are cultivated, maize is the primary agricultural product without which the . rural family, the productive unit, would not survive. The soil is poor, agricultural techniques are primitive, and yields are therefore small. Rainfall allows two harvests a year in some regions. The farmer devotes a great part pf his time to subsistence farming with the participation of family labor. Produce is consumed by the family. Sometimes, when the farmer needs money, he sells part of the harvest, but later, when his reserves are exhausted, he must buy his com back again. In his position as a maize producer, the farmer remains isolated and does not enter into relations with other sectors of society. There are exceptions to this situation. Some communities in the area have become specialized in maize production to the exclusion of any other important agricultural activity. Santiago Chimaltenango, in Guatemala, regularly produces a surplus of maize which is sold at the local markets.I In this case, the subsistence farmer becomes, in part, a peasant producing for the market. I say in part because due to the fact that the bulk of his production is consumed at home, he remains within a subsistence economy. It is important to stress the fact that maize is grown almost exclusively by the Indians. Even though the majority of the communities also have a ladino population, these rarely grow maize. When they devote themselves to agriculture, it is usually to produce cash crops. 176 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies We :find here a :first element for differentiation of the population into social classes: one part of the population predominantly devotes itself to subsistence maize farming-even while it sells some surplus-and another sector does not participate in subsistence agriculture. B. Commercial Agriculture Almost all of the rural communities also participate in agricultural activities whose purpose is not domestic use but commerce. The subsistence farmer is also a producer for the market. Even while he may not devote the greater part of his time to this activity, it allows him to obtain the money he needs. At altitudes lower than 5,000 feet, the maize economy is complemented with that of coffee, a cash crop par excellence. There are also cocoa, onions, and vegetables of all kinds; at higher altitudes there are fruits. All ofthese food products are destinecl for sale, and the different communiti~ s specialize in production of one or the other. Maize and coffee (within their geographic limits)_ are found everywhere. Coffee is destined to national and international markets, while the majority of the other products appear only in local markets. The coffee-growing communities are usually richer than those which, located on higher and poorer lands, do not grow· it.· But the subsistence farmer who_ grows some coffee or other products for the market does not neglect growing his maize, partly because he cannot buy it elsewhere. Besides com, in Panajachel, Guatemala, the Indians are able to grow both vegetables and coffee.2 They grow mainly vegetables, notwithstanding the fact that these pay less than coffee. Coffee is a perennial plant, and the establishment of plantations requires time and capital. Since the Indians lack the means, they prefer· to grow vegetables, with which they are able to obtain quicker, if smaller, benefits. Sol Tax describes the Panajachel Indians' economy as being a "penny capitalism," because they produce cash crops for the market, because they are oriented toward a profit economy, and because they like to make "a good deal." Nonetheless, Tax himself shows · that their economy is dominated by the needs of maize farming, and that they prefer to grow vegetables rather than coffee, although coffee pays more. The reason for this lnterethnic ami Class Relations in Mesoamerica 177 apparent contradiction lies in the fact that the Indians lack capital. and credit .institutions. As ·Wolf has pointed out,s it is precisely these two factors-non-existent in Panajachelwhich define a capitalist system. The Panajachel Indian is integrated into . the · capitalist system through the. sale of his coffee and acquisition of industrial products, but not in the sense suggested by Tax. The subsistence farmer, the Indian, is not the "capitalist" in this case. On the contrary, . he is placed at the opposite pole. His agricultural labor is not essentially a commodity, and the money he earns through the sale of his vegetables is not reinvested but spent in current consumption. There is no accumulation of capital. In contrast to the Indians, Iadinos do. not grow maize but only cash crops .. They settled in the region in. the course of the past century, following the expansion of coffee. In the rural communities the ladino farmers are few in number, and farming is never their only occupation. In Panajachel, they grow the greater part of the coffee, ·and their farming is exclusively commercial. The coffee producer · always employs salaried labor; he therefore has the necessary capital available. He is, in fact, a capitalist farmer, and he is able to afford it because, irl contrast to the Indian, he does not devote his time to subsistence farming. The growing of coffee, as well as those who grow it, were introduced from outside. The Indians have accepted this new kind of farming only as a complementary economic activity. · Here . we have a second element for the differentiation of social classes. We distinguish, on the one hand, the faniier devoted to commercial agriculture as · a . complementary · activity, and who obtains from it only minimal profits which are wholly destined for consumption; and on the other, the farmer (especially the coffee. grower) who accumulates capital, employs labor, and who usually also performs other nonagricultural activities. Again, the former are Indians and the latter ladinos. · C. The· Agricultural Workers Until now we have spoken only about independent farmers, but a large part of the farming population is composed of day laborers~ In Jilotepeque (Guatemala), day laborers con178 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie5 stitute 90 per cent of the active population, of which only 9 per cent are ladinos. All of the wage laborers work for ladinos; there is not one Indian in this community who employs wage labor.4 In the highlands of Chiapas, the peasants regularly work as wage laborers in the big coffee plantations, where they spend many months a year. Until recently, this was forced or semi-forced labor, and the contract and employment conditions were notoriously bad. At present there exist lab01 unions of Indian workers, and the Mexican Governmen1 has taken measures for the protection of migrant workers. Nonetheless, recruitment of laborers is still done by pressure! and coercion which sometimes exceed the legal limits of wha1 is called a free contract. Of an Indian population totalin! 125,000 persons in this area of Chiapas, 15,000 laborers art employed on a seasonal basis.5 In Guatemala's coffee planta· tions compulsory labor for Indians existed until recently, UI to a maximum of 150 days per year, depending upon tht amount of land which they possessed. The pretext for thil recruitment was the fight against vagrancy; yet no ladinos not even those possessing no lands, were forced to. perfom this kind of work. These laborers are not separated from the social structur1 to which they belong; they remain subsistence farmers. The~ go in search of wage work only when their com crop is se cure. Writing about the Chamulas, Pozas says that they de not like to work in coffee plantations, and that they do so onl) when compelled by economic needs. 6 In Guatemala, tempo rary migrations in search of work annually affect 200,00( Indians,7 and more than one half of the big plantations' la borers are migratory. "This recruitment," one author says "is the means by which the plantations have extended thei influence over virtually every Indian community in Guate mala."8 Insofar as the monetary needs of these rural communitie are concerned, wage labor has in some of them the sam1 economic function that commercial agriculture has in others From the point of view of the global economic structure, th, self-subsisting community functions as a reservoir of labor. The degree of economic exploitation inflicted upon this labo force is shown by the following item: in Jilotepeque, a la Commercial Farming and Class Relations 145 and reduc1;1sth e land available for new farms. At the same time effofts have been made in the Ivory Coast, as in other cocoa~'and coffee-producing countries, to stabiliz.e the prices of these products and thus reduce the risks run by the agriculturist. All this inevitably leads to the spread of wage labor and a relative drop in the participation of the worker in the profits of the farm ( as is already the case of the nkotokuano worker in Ghana). The various forms of work described above represent many different relationships between the farmers and the workers they employ. Thus it is not yet possible to speak of a single social category of agricultural workers, or, much less, of a rural proletariat. On the Agni farms, the immigrant worker often has a status similar to that of a "client." "The Agni are always distant in their relations with their workers because of their ancestral custom of employing their inferiors to carry out work which would dishonor an Agni."10 In contrast, when the laborer works with an agriculturist of his own ethnic group, the relationship is more familiar, and Dupire considers that "these personal relationships of a patriarchal nature have, up to now, impeded the birth of class consciousness among the rural workers" (p. 41). However, there is no doubt that the relations between agriculturists and workers are those of a class situation. Dupire has pointed to the exploitation of the workers by their employers. Often the farmer first satisfies his personal and family needs, leaving for later the payment he owes to his worker, who, in the hope that he will one day receive the money he is due, continues in the service of the farmer. [P. 39] In the Agni region, "there is no trace of a syndical organization of workers."11 However, in Ghana, there are syndicates of foreign workers, and these syndicates have demonstrated the all-important fact that when workers refuse to sell their labor for low wages, the agriculturists are obliged to raise their pay.12 The different types of workers thus constitute a class in formation within which some factions will naturally develop more rapidly than others. While the opposing interests of workers and the farm owners who employ them 146 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies are essentially economic, ethnic factors also play their part. And given that these factors also intervene to distinguish the farmers themselves from each other, we see that the picture of new social relationships grows ever more c~~ INDEBTEDNESS CHAPTER 11 Social Class and the Farm Economy As the administrator of a commercial farm, the Agni farmer faces problems that he never knew as a cultivator of subsistence crops. One of the most persistent problems is that of balancing a budget. The majority of cultivators live on their projected future income, that is, long before the harvest or sale of produce, the agriculturist contracts debts which must be repaid out of the proceeds of the harvest. Approximately 30 per cent of this debt is comprised of the wages that the farm owner undertakes to pay his workers at the end of the agricultural cycle. Once the sale of the harvest is underway, merchants and speculators from outside the area pour into the region. Among the people who swell the population at this time are buyers from the European companies that deal in coffee and cocoa in West Africa. These firms maintain commercial houses in the coastal cities of the region, but hardly ever establish branches in the interior. In addition, the region :fills with salesmen who peddle manufactured goods to the farming population. The coffee and cocoa market provides rich profits, and, therefore, in addition to agricultural labor, many of the farmers become involved in this kind of trade. Some become small industrialists by purchasing a small coffee- or cocoa-shelling mill with which they process the produce of numerous clients. But these people are only a minority; most of the farmers never become really independent. The expenses incurred put some farmers into debt. The commercial houses provide them with short term loans 148 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies repayable in coffee or cocoa on the basis of the lowest rate of the preceding harvest. The merchant makes a good profit, but the farmer grows poorer and thus, must necessarily get a new loan to begin the new agricultural cycle.1 Indebtedness is general and represents one factor of the growing differentiation among farmers. In his study of this problem in Ndenie, Kobben writes: There is only one factor that brings about the economic dependence of the less fortunate, and it is their ever increasing tendency to borrow from the rich which, in the long run, always places them in the inextricable situation of debtors with respect to the wealthy. [1956, p. 41]. Only in the Bonguanou region is debt relatively rare.2 In this region the average size of the farms is larger, and the standard of living higher than in other parts of the Agni country. In contrast, debt in Ghana has become a permanent part of the money economy, and leads the indebted agriculturist to mortgage his farm in exchange for cash loans. Thus approximately half of the Ghanaian farmers are also creditors, while the other half work mortgaged farms.s In Akokoaso, more than 60 per cent of the farmers are in debt, and of many of them W. H. Beckett has said, "their income is such that they can never aspire to escape from the vicious circle of debt."4 In Nigeria the situation is eve:n more difficult for the majority of cocoa farmers, and as a result, usury is very common. Here, • • • the intermediary occupies a very powerful position; the cocoa harvest of his debtors is often mortgaged long before it reaches maturity, and the plantation itself, or some part of it, may be mortgaged in order that its owner may meet his obligations. • • • Thus, a good number of land holdings are acquired by African cocoa merchants, while the owner of the . property is dispossessed, his sons becoming servants of the creditor with little or no hope of salvation.II THE SIZE OF FARMS Commerce and debt are the most important factors that· conCommercial Farming and Class Relationa 149 tribute to social differentiation among African commercial farmers. In addition to these factors, the- size of farms and variations in yields make for different levels of income derived from farming. We have already noted that some traditional chiefs, taking advantage of the labor obligations owed to them by the people of their districts, have been able to build up sizable farms. For example, in Bonguanou, "the chief of a 'rectangle' who is favored by the inheritance system, often controls sizeable farms and disposes of a significant income •••• "8 However, the chiefs are not the only people able to establish large farms. Inasmuch as new principles governing land tenure have not yet been definitively established, the small Agni cultivator may "increase the size of his farm in the same way that the new gentry have done, on the condition-and this is an important restriction-that he devotes to it the same intelligence and energy."7 Because the purchase and sale of farms is not yet a common procedure, the older farmers generally hold the largest farms, which they have built up with their own labor over the years. In contrast, young men who have freed themselves of family control necessarily begin with small farms. However, we have seen how debt and commerce, as well as the modification of traditional agrarian law, continue to alter this situation. The Agni country is still in a stage of development in which personal initiative, individual capitalist spirit, and progressive attitudes permit the farmerentrepreneur to acquire a personal fortune. If he knows how, the commercial farmer can benefit as much from the outside pressures of ''Western" culture as from the progressive transformation ( that is, from the progressive weakening of the traditional social structures) of Agni society. Thus, as Boutillier points out, from the mass of farmers arises a type of elite that has a greater understanding of the mechanisms of the market. • • • Thanks to favorable conditions of land tenure, this group of more dynamic farmers comes to establish s~ able farms and achieves a high standard of living. [P.103] Other agriculturists have attained the same objectives in the context of the extended family. For example, a group of 150 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies brothers under the direction of a family elder may develop such a co-operative enterprise. These large farm units, when they are well managed, combine the advantages of Western technology and legislation with traditional work methods adapted to meet local needs: partial mechanization, permanent and seasonal labor, multiple cropping, cooperation, and landholding titles, go hand in hand with the maintenance of family collaboration and piece work within a system of periodic remuneration .... s Studies carried out in the Agni region give only general information and do not provide statistics on the inequality of property holdings and standards of living. In Bonguanou, 60 per cent of the agriculturists have commercial farms of less than five hectares, 28 per cent hold farms of from five to ten hectares, and 12 per cent have farms of more than ten hectares. Income distribution is similar: 36 per cent of the farmers have an annual income of less than $300, 51 per cent receive an annual income of $300 to $400, and 13 per cent receive an income of more than $400. In the Sanwi region, 3.5 per cent of all farmers hold agricultural units of more than twenty-five hectares and control one fourth of_ all cultivated land. In contrast, 33 per cent cultivate less than two hectares of land, which, taken together, accounts for only 6 per cent of the land area that is farmed. In this region Dupire has identified three strata of farmers: 1) the small family farmers who, at times, employ a single agricultural laborer, hold less than five hectares, and represent 64 per cent of all farm operators; 2) middle-sized farmers who hold between five and ten hectares of land and represent 22.4 per cent of all farm operators; these people use on the average two wage workers in addition to their own labor, but tend not to work when the number of wage laborers increases; and, finally, 3) a class of cultivators who hold more than ten hectares and are generally absentee landowners, employing a large and permanent labor force-these people control 13.6 per cent of all holdings. In Ghana, as well, the inequality among farmers is great with respect to both production and income. In certain parts Commercial Farming and Class Relationa 151 of this country the average amount of cocoa harvested is twenty-five bushels, while in other regions, the harvest is more than 100 bushels. On the average about half of all cocoa farmers produce less than forty bushels each season while 20 per cent, who harvest more than 100 bushels, account for more than one third of all cocoa produced. 9 With regard to income, Hill has distinguished four classes of fa.rmers: 1) the small farmers with a net annual income (after the payment of wages to agricultural laborers) of less than £ 100, who represent more than half of all cocoa farmers; 2) medium-sired farmers, with an annual income of £ 100 to £ 199, who represent a third of all cocoa farmers; 3) the large farmers who enjoy an annual income of from £200 to £300 and whose proportion varies from one half to one fourth of all cocoa farmers, according to the region; and 4) a few very large farmers whose income exceeds £500. 10 Economic variation within the population is also evident when we study the distribution of debt. Thus, in Akokoaso in Ghana, where debt is considerable among the greater part of the population, one fourth of all indebted families together share 4 per cent of all the debts in the community, while 10 per cent of the families together account for 60 per cent of all debts.n SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND CLASS SITUATION OF FARMERS In what sense can we say that the different categories of cultivators in the Ivory Coast represent social classes? Several scholars have indicated that such "classes" of agriculturists are independent of one another, and that their relative degree of wealth or poverty depends on nothing more than the initiative and energy that each one displays.12 However, if these categories are independent of one another, then they cannot be called "classes" in the sense that we have given this word. They would be nothing more than groupings or strata defined according to the size of landholdings, the quantity of cocoa harvested, or the total income received. And if these strata: have quantitative limits, then there is no a priori restriction on their number and distribution. In order 152 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies to be able to use the term "class," we must consider other factors in addition, but related, to the quantitative factors. We have noted that the farmer who obtains a certain level of monetary income has many different ways of disposing of his revenue. In general, however, the Agni tend to use their monetary income to increase their standard of living, spending money on various forms of consumption. The Agni differ in this way from other people of the Ivory Coast, for example, the Bete. Among the Bete, increased monetary income from the farm economy is spent within the traditional and ceremonial economic circuits.is For the Agni, on the other hand, higher monetary incomes lead to higher levels of consumption, and from the mass of cultivators emerge new social categories whose distinguishing sign is a higher socioeconomic status. This is also the case in Ghana, where the prevalence of debt is due more to high levels of spending than to low income. However, the farmer disposes of his income also in other ways. Many farmers save their money, and prefer to purchase gold, which represents a symbol of power as well as a source of prestige.14 But if we wish to describe the elements of a new social class among African farmers, we do not find it in current consumption patterns, but rather in the productive use of savings. Thus, when the farmers' incomes rise, an increasing proportion is used to establish new farms, the production from which pushes income up still higher, which, in turn, stimulates a new cycle. However, reinvestment may often take the form of mechanization of agriculture, and the establishment of shelling mills. Thus some farmers establish small mechanical coffee- or cocoa-shelling devices and build up a regular clientele. A similar process leads some of them to become either merchants who purchase the harvest of several cultivators and sell the produce to commercial houses established in the cities; or truckers, when they buy their own vehicles; or moneylenders who reap profits from the seasonal variations in economic activity. Because the period of commercial activity alternates . with a period of economic stagnation, the moneylenders are able to lend money at high rates of interest and take as collateral future harvests and, at times, even whole Commercial Farming and Class Relations 153 farms. It is in this way that groups with high incomes cease to be· simple statistical categories or social strata and become social classes. Through the processes of commercial exchange, milling, and moneylending, "the rich" and ''the poor," originally independent of one another, become tied through relationships ·of dependency and exploitation. Consequently, there are categories of agriculturists not only defined according to the size of their farms, their harvests, or their incomes, or according to their socioeconomic status measured through their levels of consumption, but also those whom it is possible to define according to their position with respect to the means of production and with respect to other social categories in the society. The most important means of production in this case is not land, because up to now everyone has had free access to it; but rather the available capital to finance wage labor, commerce, and credit. On the basis of the arguments given above it is impossible to determine the number of classes among Agni cultivators particularly because Agni social structures, as we have seen, are still in a state of transition, and the classes-if they exist at all-are still in the process of formation. At the same time, it seems that studies that have been carried out in the region are much more explicit when they deal with "strata" and with "status" than when they deal with groups that are formed around specific relationships to the means of production. In each region it is easy to distinguish the large, middle-sized, and small farmers. The difficult task, however, is to define classes according to qualitative criteria. We might begin by placing in one category the farmer-owner who operates his enterprise with only the help of members of his family, perhaps adding the farmer who occasionally· employs a wage worker. According to the statistical studies cited, these agriculturists represent about half of all farmers, and may hold up to three hectares of commercial farmland, although the average is less. It is more difficult to distinguish categories among all the other agriculturists if we do not wish to fall into a simple quantitative classification according to the number of wage workers they employ or the size of their landholdings. But if we consider the propensity of certain agriculturists to engage in commerce, moneylending, and mechanization, and 154 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies the specific relations that are established among cultivators on the basis of these new activities, we can distinguish at least one more category, We would characterize this category as a "rural bourgeoisie," similar to its namesake in other parts of the world. It draws its members principally from those farmers who possess the largest holdings and employ the highest number of wage workers. Finally, there is also an upper stratum of agriculturists who have become absentee landowners and whose interests are largely oriented toward urban activities. This group is not large, but it occupies an . important social and economic position and represents a link between the village and the city. We cannot describe the relationships between this stratum and the urban social classes, and'therefore it is impossible to define its characteristics as a social class. However, it is clear that the commercial farmers, taken as a whole, do not constitute a homogeneous category. Although commercial farmers differ from subsistence cultivators . ( only a small number of whom are left in some communities), and from the agricultural wage workers, it is also possible to distinguish among them various strata and classes. In addition to the differentiated groups mentioned above, the immigrant cultivators who have established themselves among the Agni and who maintain their distance from the traditional social structures of the latter, rejecting traditional Agni principles of land tenure, are likewise differentiated as a social category from the. mass of Agni cultivators. However, in the face of the problems associated with production and marketing, both the Agni and the immigrants identify with one another as producers, i.e., they react as . a class. Thus, in the Ivory Coast and in the other cocoa- and cofl;ee-producing countries, associations of producers have formed with the object of defending the common interest of members. Throughout this part of Africa, on several occasions when th~ price of commercial crops has fallen, the farmers, as a group, have withheld their produce from the market in an attempt to boost the market price. However, these efforts at organization have been local and- temporary. An analysis of the political and economic action of these associations and a study of the efforts on the part of governCommercial Farming and Class Relations 155 ments in each of the countries to organize production and stabilize prices are beyond the limits of this study. CLASS STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AMONG THE AoNI The economic and social situation described in this study underlines the fact that certain conflicts and contradictions are inherent in Agni social structure. These conflicts were already part of traditional Agni society; but have been aggravated by the appearance of a monetary economy that has produced new conflicts and tensions to add to the old. Among the most significant conflicts are those that arise between the Agni and the immigrant cultivators. Even when they take the form of an interethnic conflict (some authors even speak of the "racism" of the Agni with respect to the foreign immigrant agriculturists), there is no doubt that these conflicts have their roots in the economic factors which we have highlighted earlier. These are: the progressive disappearance of available land for the establishment of farms, the conflicts over agrarian rights, and. the growing independence of the immigrant cultivators which endangers the supremacy of the Agni and transforms the traditional stratification. The ethnic character of conflicts in Agni society tends to be re-enforced by the presence of foreign merchants and middlemen, who generally live in their own neighborhoods ( called diulacro) within the Agni communities. Another antagonism which has developed within the Agni society itself is the contradiction between the needs of the new cash crop economy and the traditional family structure, that is, between the group of money-minded farmers and the traditional elite ( chiefs of extended families, lineages, and villages). Yet another contradiction, clearly of a capitalist nature, arises between the farmer-employers, and those who labor as wage workers on the holdings of others. This contradiction is expressed in its clearest form in the class relations of the new farm economy. Another contradiction which goes well beyond the limits of Agni society pits the farmers as producers against the merchants who represent the foreignowned commercial firms in Abidjan. It is these foreign companies that establish the prices on commercial crops-or, 156 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies at least, are perceived by the farmers as doing so.15 Finally, oppositions arise among the farmers themselves because of debt and other ties of dependency that are an inevitable part of the development of a monetary economy. At this point we can list the new social classes that have emerged in Agni society. 1) The first class is made up .of the small independent cultivators who rarely or never employ wage labor,· hold less than three hectares of farmland, and have great difficulty in making ends meet. These agriculturists live from the proceeds of future harvests, easily fall into debt, and never manageor only slowly manage-to raise their standard of living. 2) The· middle-sized and large farmers who regularly employ wage laborers and productively reinvest a variable proportion of their income comprise another class. These agriculturists ·· may become merchants and millers, and acquire social status and a higher standard of living as well as a prominent economic position in the society. The new elite of Agni society is recruited from this class, which we have called the "rural bourgeoisie." Between this class and the small cultivators there may be found several intermediate strata that have a higher standard of living than the former but do not enjoy the prominent position attained by the latter. On the other hand, an upper stratum of. ''very large" absentee landowners who have close ties with the urban bourgeoisie . emerges from this class. At this level of analysis we cannot differentiate between the native and foreign farmers, although economic conflicts do develop between the two groups. In any event, the foreign agriculturists represent no more than a fraction of either of these new social classes. 3) The third group is made up of agricultural laborers. This grouping includes all those foreigners among the Agni who, while they do not yet constitute a rural proletariat, hold a position in the socioeconomic structure of the country sufficiently homogeneous to designate them as a social classCommercial Farming and Class Relations 157 or at least as a "social class in formation." Generally these people are immigrants. They rarely sever their ties with the home community to which they return at times, after a stay of several years among the Agni. They do not hold land in the Agni country, although this is what they aspire, and may some day be permitted, to do. The economic relations that tie the foreigners to the Agni farmers are many, and determine the formation of the two strata we find within this class. The two groups. are the abusan workers, who receive one third of the harvest, and the wage workers, who, in turn, are divided into several categories ( contractual workers, seasonal workers, monthly and annual workers, etc.). Conceivably these two groups may develop into two distinct social classes. But we do not anticipate this kind· of development because the mobility between the two groups is great, and a single worker may be employed at times as a sharecropper, and at other· times as a wage laborer. In addition, the tendency of the economy is toward increasing monetarization: Thus, rather than · develop into two· distinct social classes, it seems more likely that this group will become increasingly homogeneous, and will take · on more· and more of·. the · characteristics of a social class. 4) The last class is made up of foreign merchants and middlemen, mainly of Diola ethnic_ stock. (There are also some Lebanese and a few Europeans.) This class is the inevitable by-product of the expansion of cash crop farming. Its composition and activities are foreign: to Agni society itself, but it has now become an integral part of the new global society. In describing the anarchical conditions in which the commercialization of the products of the Bonguanou .region and, more generally, of the entire Ivory Coast, takes place, Boutillier writes, · The middlemen are very numerous and they run the entire gamut of buyers from the traveling Diola merchant who moves from camp to camp with his scale on his back, to the representative of the commercial or export firm equipped with several trucks in which he crosses the jungles to buy the greatest possible quantity [of produce] when 158 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies market conditions are favorable. In addition, there are a large number of Syrio-Lebanese merchants, commercial transporters who serve as intermediaries between the agriculturist and the important firms established in Abidjan ..•• [P. 126] CONCLUSION We may conclude that in the rural areas of the Ivory Coast, capitalism has created four new social classes and several fractions of classes as well as intermediate strata. The traditional social structure has been transformed. The specific relations that are established between the new classes are of a dynamic nature because they are based on certain oppositions and conflicts whose resolutions will inevitably lead to new changes in Agni society. The new economic structure also tends to produce a new social stratification which likewise enters into conflict with the traditional hierarchy. New criteria of stratification have been superimposed over old criteria identified with the feudal type of stratification that had formerly prevailed in Agni society. Thus the amount of monetary income, objective indicators of a higher standard of living (such as type of house construction, possession of certain imported goods, etc.), and level of instruction and Westernization in general, are all indicators in the new system of stratification. Here conflicts between two systems of values arise. The traditional chiefs compete for social prestige with largescale farmers who are of common ancestry. The descendants of clients and slaves struggle to erase all traces of their former servile condition through the display of new signs of prestige like high monetary income, schooling, and so forth. In confronting foreign immigrants, the Agni (including even the modem farmers) attempt to maintain certain aspects of the old hierarchical structure, while the foreigners emphasize the virtues of the new national society, and adopt the values of the new stratification system. Of this tendency Dupire has written, The refuge that the Agni seek, to resolve this conflict through both a confirmation of the old traditional principles and in mechanization designed to replace manual Commercial Farming and Class Relations 159 labor, testifies, by· its rigidity, to the extent of the conflict. [P. 226] The new stratification of Agni society was described by Rougerie in the following way: • • • in short, a society composed of a native Agni aristocracy, in turn divided into classes according to the degree of success, [ with] foreign cells independent of Agni elements but easily subordinated and segregated and, finally, a lower class of foreign wage workers. [P. 136] If this conception of social stratification among the Agni appears too simple, we may turn to Dupire's description: • . . a rural community of the Lower Coast, which is dedicated to commercial agriculture, may be divided roughly in the following manner: At the top of the ladder are some large-scale farmers, mostly natives, [but including] some foreigners, who, thanks to the capital that they invest, enjoy an economic independence that confers on them a preponderant influence in the social life [of the community]. At the next level we find the mass of middle-sized and small farmers who have moved progressively from the level of family enterprise to that of employers of wage labor, economically dependent on the African or Syrio-Lebanese merchants and middlemen, due to the small size and uncertainty of their income. Next, the workers of foreign origin who are more or less tied to the life of the community, essentially unstable because of the interaction of supply and demand, but not detribalized. Often seasonal, these migrant laborers send their savings back to their home country, but are always able to sink roots when the circumstances permit. Finally, there are the marginal people, those who wander from one job to the next, the artisans, small peddlers, or established traders, foreigners of diverse origins, attracted by the influx of money among the farmers. Three new professional categories: farmers, workers and intermediaries among whom no social barriers exist. Movement from one class to the other depends only on the dynamism and 160 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies the opportunity of these new adventurers of the "jungle rush." The number of small itinerant or established merchants who have become commercial farmers is large, as is the number of workers who have progressively acquired the status of sharecroppers and, later, farmers. To all, indigenous or foreign, noble, descendent of slaves or of castes, access to the highest levels of the new economic scale was wide open. There is not a single a priori insurmountable obstacle that separates the small from the large-scale farmer, and if opportunities at first are unequal, perseverance and courage can overcome the difficulties. • . • The breakdown of the hierarchy by the appearance of this new social scale has followed the adoption of the economic values imposed by the cultivation of cash crops. [Pp. 224-- 25] This brief analysis of the new social structure of the Agni differs somewhat from our own, but illustrates the way in which, on a traditional system of stratification, a "new stratification system with diametrically opposed principles has become grafted," to use Dupire's phrase. PABT III Interethnio and Class Relations in Mesoamerioa Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 179 dino laborer earns 50 per cent more than an Indian laborer, yet the cost of supporting a mule is even higher than a ladino's wage110 It can thus be seen that wage work and commerce notwithstanding, the structure of self-subsisting communities has not been · wholly broken. In Cantel, a Guatemalan community, only when the farmer does not possess enough land to feed his family does he seek work in thefocal textile factory. The industrial worker remains integrated in the structure and values of his community. The new class relationships produced by local industrialization have only partially modified traditional structure. Here industrial work has the same function as migratory work and commercial agriculture in other communities. 11 · Wage work represents a third element in terms of class differentiation in the area. The monetary income obtained by farmers in the manner· described above represents the complement to a subsistence economy. We find here new production relations, in which the Indian is always the employee and the ladino usually the employer. When there are ladinos. employed by other ladinos, they occupy higher positions and receive higher salaries than .the Indians. We are now ready to attempt a first generalization. At the level of agricultural production, the relationships between fadinos and. Indians are class relationships. The former produce exclusively for the market, while the latter produce primarily for their own consumption; ladinos accumulate capital, Indians sell their farm products only in order to buy goods for consumption; .ladinos· a. re employers and Indians are· laborers. These relationships will be seen with greater clarity when we consider land tenure. LAND TENURE A Traditional Communal Proper'Y. Ever since pre-Hispanic times have there been communal landholdings in this region. Though the land reforms of the nineteenth century did contribute to their progressive disappearance, several communities . still possess communal lands at the . present time. There are various forms of collective Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 205 for a ladino, the main point is not the interethnic relationship but the labor relation. During the decade of the thirties, the Indians of Chiapas organized to defend their working conditions in the coffee plantations, not as Indians, but as workers. During the years 1944-54 there were also labor unions of Indian agricultural workers in Guatemala. They have also become organized in their struggle for land, under the agrarian reform programs, not as Indians but as landless peasants. These relationships sometimes assume cultural forms. The struggle for land, for instance, is carried on in the name of restitution of communal and clan lands, At times there have also emerged messianic movements against ladinos. Yet it was always a matter of structural changes within the traditional community. lnterethnic stratification no longer completely corresponds to the new class relationships which have developed along with a monetary economy. "Colonized" Indians are not a social class as such. We are not saying that Indians and ladinos are simply two social classes. This would be oversimplifying a deeply complex historical situation. During the course of economic development (or more precisely, of economic underdevelopment, as a result of a colonial economy), various new social classes emerge. They are not yet totally formed, because "colonial" relationships still determine the social structure at different levels. The Indian participates in various kinds of socioeconomic relationships. He holds various occupational roles at the same time, He may be a small farmer in the communal lands, an ambulant trader, a salaried worker during different periods of the year, or during the course of his life. These different kinds of class relationships contribute to separate the individual from his corporate community. The community's corporate structure is breaking up. Should it disappear, interethnic stratification will have lost its. objective basis. Nonetheless, the interethnic stratification system which, like every stratification system, is deeply rooted in the values held by the members of the society, is an essentially· conservative force within the social structure. While it reflects ,a situation of• the past ( the clear dichotomy between Indians and ladinos in every area of social, economic, and political life, 206 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies characteristic of the colonial situation), it curbs the development of new class relationships. We should not forget that the landless peasant and the salaried worker are also Indians. Even though relations of production will determine future transformations in the region, ethnic consciousness may weigh more heavily than class consciousness. Thus, exploited or poor as a ladino may be, he feels privileged as compared to the Indians, even those who may have a standard of living higher than his own. Indians, on the other hand, tend to attribute all of their misfortunes to· the ladinos as such ( a position which, incidentally, is shared by certain romantic lndigenista intellectuals), an attitude which contributes to the concealment of objective relationships between classes. This range of problems has been little studied in the region and it represents, in my opinion, an interesting field of research. To the extent to which class relationships become more clearly defined, there emerges a new stratification based on socioeconomic indices. This stratification already exists among ladinos, and is progressively expanding to the Indians. The status symbols of the ladinos are beginning to be valued by the Indians too. It is no longer sufficient-or even desirablethat the Indian should become "ladinoized". The situation will have radically changed when social stratification includes ladinos and Indians independent of their ethnic characteristics. Ideally this would mean the maintenance of Indian cultural identity independent of stratification. To what degree this situation is workable depends on many special factors. It has been noted that in Quezaltenango (Guatemala) something of the sort is taking place, and this also seems to be the case in Mexico among the Maya of Yucatan, the Zapotec of Oaxaca, and the Tarascans of Michoacan. But such a situation would also depend on the attitudes and reactions of ladinos, whose position is not stable within the class society. Ladinos have always accepted (at least from one generation to the other) the admission of acculturated Indians into their group. It is difficult to foresee reactions of the ladino community faced with two hypothetical alternatives of the interethnic stratification system's evolution: on the one hand, the complete assimilation of Indians (which is rather unlikely); and, on the other, a general economic rise lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 207 of the Indian ethnic group as such (which would be a challenge to ladino superiority). Development of a class society leads toward either of these hypothetic situations. The :final result will depend on how class conflicts are solved. Contemporary interethnic relations partly result from past colonial policy. They also represent the disintegration of that policy and are a function of present economic and class structures. As has been shown by various economists, underdeveloped economics tend to polarize into areas of growth and· structurally related areas of stagnation. The Maya region of Chiapas and Guatemala constitutes such an area of stagnation, as do other Indian areas of Mexico. The "marginal" populations inhabiting these areas are growing in absolute numbers, despite national,, economic development.5 The regional ruling class, represented by ladinos, is not necessarily the dominant one in the national society. In Guatemala, since the defeat of the nationalist bourgeoisie in 1954, the regional and the national ruling groups have in fact become one. There is no contradiction between landowners, commercial bourgeoisie (particularly coffee traders), and foreign capital. 6 But in Mexico the situation is different. National power is held by a bureaucratic, "developmentist" bourgeoisie, a product of the 1910 Revolution. This bourgeoisie has displaced latifundists. on a national level, but in more backward regions, such as Chiapas, it tolerates them while seeking the support of a new rural bourgeoisie composed of traders, neolatifundists and public employees. 7 In both Mexico and Guatemala the regional ruling class is composed of "power seekers"-to use Wolf's termB-of mestizo origin who have come to fill the power vacuum left by the old feudal type landowning aristoc ·racy. For purposes of analysis, four elements may be isolated in the current interethnic situation: colonial relationships, class relationship, social stratification, and the acculturation process. These four · elements constitute interdependent variables and with them we may attempt to build .a hypothetical model of interethnic relations at the present time. A. Colonial Relationships These relationships are a function of the structural 208 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies development-underdevelopment dichotomy and they tend to be in force for as long as the dichotomy persists •. As long as there are areas performing as internal colonies in underdeveloped countries, the relationships characterizing their· inhabitants tend to take the form of colonial relationships. These are strengthened where there exist, as in the Maya region, marked cultural differences between two sectors of the population, leading to a rigid. stratification defined in cultural and biological terms (which is sometimes called caste). Colonial relations tend· to limit and prevent acculturation, or cultural ladinoization, and to maintain a rigid stratification. There exists an obvious interest on the part of the dominant ethnic group (ladinos) in maintaining colonial relations, especially when their predominance depends on the existence. of cheap and abundant labor. This is the case when the possibilities of expansion of the regional economy are limited, when agricultural productivity is low, when the labor-capital ratio in agriculture is high, when there is no, or hardly any, local or regional industrialiiation, and when regional economic demand is weak. Consequently, the maintenance of colonial relations is a function of economic development at the national level and not merely the result of local or regional decisions. In contrast to ladinos, the Indians-the subordinate ethnic group-derive no benefit ·from the colonial situation and may try various forms of reaction to it. The first is withdrawal into the corporate. community, both physically and socially. As Wolf pointed out, this has happened on various occasions in the history of the region:, and it represents on the part of the Indian ethnic group a latent tendency which becomes manifest when the economic and political situation allows it Next to withdrawal, the Indians also react to the colonial situation in terms of "nationalism." This form of reaction may have as its objective the strengthening of the Indian government (Regional Council), and possibly the struggle for the Indians' national · political representation. It also shows in measures adopted to encourage education in the Indian language and development of Indian culture. It sometimes comes through an extreme anti-ladinoism and resistance to ladinoization. Other counter-acculturative factors such as messianism and, on certain occasions, armed uprisings and other Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 209 forms of violence also play a role here. Finally, there is a third form of reaction to the colonial situation, and this is assimilation. It is an individual pro.cess which, as has been seen, represents a separation from the corporate structure of the community. From a cultural point of view it represents ladinoization. From a structural point of view it means that the individual becomes integrated into the class structure, no longer as an Indian (that is, colonized person), but rather as a worker, a laborer, a sharecropper, in other words, in terms of his relationship to the means of production. Ladinoization, as we have seen, may be the result of upward mobility in the socioeconomic scale. But generally there is no such upward mobility and ladinoization actually means the proletarianization of the Indian. Of the three main types of reaction to the colonial situation, the :first one, withdrawal into the corporate community, does not appear to be very effective at the present time. While some of the older, traditionalist members of the community may prefer it, others know that there are more efficient means for combating the negative effects of the colonial relationships upon the Indians. The reaction which we have described as "nationalistic" (for lack of a better term) appears under various guises. Some of these are spontaneous and respond to special circumstances, such as armed uprisings or messianic movements. Others have been induced by external agents of cultural change, such as the literacy campaigns in the Indian languages. Still other reactions may result from an increasing political consciousness within the Indian communities, and may lead, for example, to the election of a member of the civil-religious political hierarchy to a post in the legally recognized municipal government. At the present time, the main forms of "nationalistic" reaction have been stimulated unwittingly, at least in Mexico, by the specialized agencies of the national government. Measures such as literacy in Indian languages and the promotion of the adequate political representation of the Indians in regional government testify to the fact that the people responsible for the formulation and application of Indianist policy in Mexico recognize the essentially "colonial" character of interethnic relationships. Yet officially the problem has never been stated in these terms by those 210 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies responsible for indigenismo, and even the idea that the Indian ethnic groups might represent something akin to "national minorities"· has been severely criticized.9 In fact, these measures ai:e generally considered to be simply a means to an end which is-their direct opposite, that is, the incorporation of the Indians into the mainstream of national life, or the eventual disappearance of the Indians as such. Formal schooling in the Indian languages is seen simply as a first step toward the acquisition of Spanish at a later stage. There are reasons, however, for this seeming paradox. Full national integration can be achieved only if the inherent contradictions in the colonial relationships are overcome. And this can be achieved only by suppressing one of the terms of the contradiction, or else by qualitatively changing the . content of the. relationship. When Indianist policy promotes "nationalistic" measures it attempts to do the latter (i.e., it attempts to liberate the Indian from colonial domination) . But in the long run, it will only achieve the former (i.e., the Indians will disappear). When the inherent contradictions in. the colonial relationships between Indians and ladinos are resolved, a larger contradiction is resolved at the same time, to wit, the contradiction between the very existence of colonial relationships and national integration (insofar as the latter cannot really be achieved without the suppression of the former). In other words, it should be recognized that national integration may be achieved not by the disappearance of Indians but only by their disappearance qua colonized human beings. This means that Indian cultures must not only not disappear, but can, on the contrary, flourish within the framework of national development. Yet despite the timid application of "nationalistic type" measures by Indianist policy makers, the objectives of this policy still remain basically "assimilationist." B. Class· Relationships We cannot overemphasize that the class character and colonial character of interethnic relations are two intimately related aspects of the same phenomenon. They are separated here only for the purpose of our analysis. Class relationships have developed parallel to and simultaneously with colonial lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 211 relations and tend to displace them more and more. But the colonial character of interethnic relations impresses particular characteristics upon . class relations, and tends to retard their development. In this context, class relations mean mutual interactions between persons holding opposed economic positions, independent of ethnic considerations. These relations develop together with the region's economic development. As agricultural production increases, as the market for industrial products expands, as the monetary economy develops, and as the labor market expands, colonial relations lose their importance and give way to the predominance of class relations. The development of the latter also depends, to a great degree, upon structural factors of the national economy and is not the result of decision making at the regional or local levels. At any rate, the development of class relations between Indians and ladinos is associated with the development of capitalism while the ''feudal" or "semi-feudal" aspects, so frequently indicated in the literature, tend to disappear. Consequently, measures for local or community development such as improvement of agricultural techniques, establishment of production co-operatives, etc., may change colonial relations into class relations, but will not necessarily do so. This transformation can take place only if such developments are accompanied by the parallel development of the regional economy as a whole, and particularly of its ladino metropolis. If such is not the case, the likelihood is that the fruits of local development will enter the traditional socioeconomic circuits without modifying the regional structure. It has already been seen that on certain occasions ladinos are interested in maintaining colonial relations. There also exist circumstances in which they are interested in strengthening class relationships over and against colonial relationships. This happens particularly with the development of the productive forces: when ladinos are presented with new opportunities for investment; when they need seasonal labor which can only be obtained through monetary incentives; when they require non-agricultural labor (for certain manufactures or construction work in the cities or on the roads); or, finally, when they need to develop new regional markets and strengthen the Indians' demand for industrial goods. The 212 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies ladinos' interest in the development of class relations also arises when the agrarian reform really manages to break the land monopoly, and when the possession of his own land can turn the Indian back to subsistence farming. In this case, class relations develop particularly through the marketing of crops and agricultural credit structure. On the other band, ladinos may be interested, under certain circumstances, in slowing down the development. of class relations, as, for example, when the establishment of foreignowned plantations changes the status quo and attracts the labor force away from the traditional haciendas by offering better pay and incentives, as has occurred in Guatemala. This can also occur when the overall economic development of the region contributes to the mobility of the Indian laborers, thus forcing the ladino landowners to apply scarce capital for the improvement of their agricultural technology. The Indians, in turn, may benefit from the development of class relations because these imply better economic opportunities and alternatives. On the other hand, however, they also suffer from such a development because it tends to destroy the subsistence economy,. create economic and psychological insecurity, and further the proletarianization and the deculturation of the Indian population. The development of class relationships implies new forms of social organization. New social categories and institutions arise. Class relations tend to weaken the rigidity of traditional social stratification and modify the bases upon which it rests ( a change from ethnic to socioeconomic indices) ; at the same time they lead· to the Indians' acculturation (ladinoization). C. Social Stratification Insofar as the regional system of social stratification has only two strata based essentially on ethnic characteristics it tends to maintain the appearance of a colonial situation. At the same time, as class relations develop, it tends to change into a clearly defined socioeconomic stratification. The already existing stratification among the ladino ethnic group expands to include both ethnic groups. Perhaps the day will come when both ethnic groups-:-independent of their cultural . characteristics- will be included in a. single stratification system, based Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 213 exclusively on socioeconomic criteria, The old stratification system, based on ethnic characteristics, tends to conflict with the development of class relations and the socioeconomic stratification based on them. Thus, for instance, an Indian trader or landowner receives discriminatory treatment from ladinos who are in a socioeconomic situation inferior to his own, while Indian day laborers tend to receive smaller wages than ladinos who are in the same position. Among the ladinos there exists an obvious concern over maintaining the bases of ethnic stratification; this is especially true among the lower strata of the ladino population, wlio in this way avoid competing with socially mobile Indians. This is the same phenomenon as that of the poor whites in the South of the United States. The Indians' upward vertical mobility in the socioeconomic scale is accompanied by a certain degree of ladinoization, but, as has already been pointed out, not all of the aspects of Indian culture . change at the same rate. Development of class relations tends to facilitate the Indians' upward mobility, since an ascent in the socioeconomic scale renders more precarious the conservation of a low status based upon exclusively ethnic criteria. Upward rri.obility, as much in the socioeconomic scale as in the shift from the Indian to the ladino ethnic group, is a function of the transformation of the colonial situation into a class situation. D. Acculturation The process of acculturation of the Indian is hard to place in a structual analysis, since it is used in the literature to refer to processes which are highly varied in content. In a general sense it means the adoption of ladino cultural elements by individuals or communities of the Indian ethnic group. Thus the change in dress, the substitution of scientific medicine for folk medicine, and the change of occupation, to take only three examples, are all part of the process of ladinoization. Yet the structural significance of each of these three examples is very different. Without considering for the moment the motivational determinants leading to a change in dress, this by itself has no consequence for the social structure-except if, carried out collectively . by the Indians, it should lead to certain changes in the value systems of both ethnic groups, which 214 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies in turn might influence the systems of mutual action and interaction, thus affecting social structures. But this kind of chain argument does not lead to a better understanding of the phenomena under study. The second example-the shift from traditional to modem medicine-does not by itself represent a structural change either. But it may lead to demographic consequences which will have important structural results. Change of occupation, on the contrary, can only be understood within the frame of a structural analysis. The above shows that· the concept of ladinoization may mean anything from a simple change in the daily use of an object ( e.g., using a spoon instead of a tortilla to eat soup) to a complete change of the Indians' life and world view. Within · the limits of this study, concern over the process of ladinoization is meaningful only insofar as it has immediate structural implications. · If the problem is seen in this fashion, we may put forth the hypothesis that the process of ladinoization will not occur if the colonial situation persists without change (which is of course not the case, nor has it been so historically). On the · other hand, it will occur in the class situation and it accompanies the upward mobility of individuals along the stratification scale of socioeconomic indices. It may also occur without upward mobility, and then we speak of the Indians' proletarianization, or perhaps even of a process of lumpenproletarianization. This is actually what is happening in many Indian areas of Latin America where the corporate community and its accompanying cultural characteristics are breaking down and the Indian ethnic groups are· becoming part of the so-called marginal populations of the rural and urban areas. · Yet we may also envisage the possibility that certain aspects of Indian cultures which are not directly related to changing structural elements may survive the development of class relations and the individual's upward social mobility in the stratification system. Thus ladinoization does not necessarily have to occur if efforts are deployed not only merely to save Indian cultures from destruction, but also to stimulate their growth and development. Up to a point this takes place spontaneously due to the internal dynamics of Indian cultures, but it might Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 215 also occur, ideally, within the framework of a pluralistic national structure in which the development of Indian cultures would be one of the objectives of the Indianist policy. This is not, unfortunately, the case at present. In conclusion, it must be repeated that the contemporary scene involves a complex combination of elements. Using the analytic concepts of "colonial relationships," "class relationships," "social stratification," and "acculturation" helps us understand the dynamic processes at work, and relate them to historical antecedents as well as contemporary events. EPILOGUE Agrarian Structures and Capitalist Development: A Reconsideration At the end of our comparison of agrarian structures and rural class systems in Africa and Latin America (with occasional reference to the Asian situation), what conclusions can we reach? Any consideration of the problem of social class in agrarian societies must necessarily be based on analysis of the structures of production at the local level within the economic, social, cultural, and political context of the village community. But the village level by itself is not a realistic framework, and we must also consider the regional level, the nation-state, and even the international system. If a comparison between underdeveloped countries is to be at all useful in this sense, then it must also be placed within a historical perspective. Within this framework, we have seen the various kinds of "traditional societies" which existed in underdeveloped countries prior to colonial contact and which may also be referred to as "precapitalist modes of production." We then reviewed the particular nature of the colonization process and its effects on some African and Latin American rural structures. We have seen the ways in which the expanding capitalist system succeeded in using, transforming, subordinating, and incorporating the pre-existing modes of production into new kinds of agrarian structures, and how this process has affected the changing nature of social class relationships and the changing dynamics of social stratification systems in the rural areas. Let us briefly review these conclusions. PRECAPITALIST MODES OF PRODUCTION Aside from nomadic and seminomadic tribes of hunters and Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 217 gatherers or primitive tribal cultivators isolated in their tropi~ cal jungles (which did not concern ris in this investigation.), precolonial African and Latin American economic structures were based on the prevalence of self-su:ffici('llt village communities engaged in subsistence agriculture. While the agricultural technology was primitive by modern standards, a variety of production techniqμes did enable many such communities to produce surpluses over and above_ their need for subsistence and reproduction.. Whether full advantage was actually taken of such techniqμes or not, and the use to which the economic surplus was put, depended· upon the social and political organization of the people involved. Thus, in speaking. of precolonial Ghana, Hymer points out that J\frican agricultural technology was the result of economic choice .ratlier than ignorance of alternatives. "In point of fact," he states, ''West African farmers used a variety of agricultural techniques simultaneously, ranging from intensive year-round cultivation of small plots around the compound, using fertilizer, .. to extensive bush-fallow cultivation, using much land and little labor. On numerous occasions, they were easily able to produce a surplus for the market, when they wished to do so. There may have been some groups which could just barely produce enough .food to . support themselves. and where the possibility of a more complex division' of labor did not exist, but in the vast majority of cases potential agricultural surplus existed and was not appropriated only because of the organization of society."1 In parts of Latin America, sophisticated techniques of irrigation ( as in Mexico) or terracing ( among the Inca), or intensive horticulture ( as in Venezuela and among some Amazonian peoples), were able to provide for considerable surpluses. These allowed for the rise of what have been called the higher civilizations of pre-Hispanic America with a division into clearly defined social classes and the emergence, in ·some· parts, of centralized state structures. Among the Inca, the state drew upon surplus agricultural production not on'ly to feed the "non~productive" classes, but also to provide. for the.people in time of need.Jt·also organized the J]lassive forced labor (mita) of the population for public works and monumental constructions. Among ·the Aztec a similar situation pre218 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies vailed, with slight variations in the form of political and social organization. Among scholars an active discussion has been taking place for several years concerning the characterization of these various precolonial modes of production in Africa and Latin America. A penetrating study by Catherine CoqueryVidrovitch suggests the existence of an "African mode of production" prior to European disruption of the African economies. This system was based, on the one hand, on the self-sufficient, subsistence village economy which did not in itself generate any accumulation; and on the other, on the long-distance trade controlled by a number of well-organized "states," combined occasionally with raids and direct plunder of neighboring tribes, which did permit such accumulation and the emergence of social class divisions. The specific nature of the African mode of production is thus to be found in the combination of a patriarchal economic system and the exclusive control of long-distance trade by a particular group of people. At a given moment of time, the form of authority depends on the nature of this group; if the leaders come from the patriarchal heads of the self-subsistence economy at the village level, their authority is then unquestionable: in the case of the Fangs and Bonbanquis, it was threatened only by the rivalry among the small groups involved in the same enterprise; in the Middle Congo, the system only collapsed through external pressure: the intrusion of Europeans who took over control of the main trade, to their own profit, thus eliminating the traditional brokerage of the trade. On the other hand if, withio a more graded political system, a privileged group fa. voured through hereditary recruitment on a caste system 01 pn the basis of embryo capital accumulation happened tc gain control of long-distance trade, the regime reveals E more or less clear synthesis between the tribo-patriarchal system and territorial ambitions of a new type.2 But in some parts of Africa (the eastern lake region, Dahomey, and the Muslim Arab states) some form of feudal type structures had also emerged before the advent of the Europeans. Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 219 In pre-Columbian America the situation appears to be quite different In Central Mexico a complex sociopolitical structure became necessary for the creation and maintenance of. important works of irritation managed by a centralized, hierarchical bureaucracy. In outlying. areas of Mesoamerica, less important irrigation systems formed the basis of a number of relatively independent "city-states.'' Here the system has.been variously described as semi~feudal, ot as an American variant of the "Asiatic mode of production," or again as falling within the .general category of the "hydraulic empires" described by Wittfogel. s · · Among the Inca, bureaucratic centralization had achieved an even higher degree t1ian in Central Mexico, but in both these areaofs p. re-Hispanic America the basis of agricultural production was the local kinship community over which the state exercised· some sort of direct control. Of course; in other parts of America · social organization had not · achieved the same· degree of complexity, and in these areas the independence of local units was much greater. 1)m CoLONIZATION JlROCESS Latin America was conquered and· colonized at a time when European mercantilism was just beginning its worldwide expansion, • but feudal elements were still strong in Spain.. The nature of the colonization process in Spanish America became . a mixture between the· demands of, the emerging capitalist · economy and the adaptation of feudal institutions, transferred from. Spain, to the specific conditions of colonial. production. As occurred later in <>ther parts of the Third World, the first phase after colonial contact consisted of the dil:'ect plunder of the accμmulated wealth of the• conquered peoples. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spaniards developed a number of institutions in the areas of greate11t concentrJ!,tion of Indian populations, whereby the surplt!S ·product and labor of-the peasant communities were transferred to the conquerors without basically affecting the productive. organizatu>n of the local agricultural communities. The Spanish encomienda became an important instrument for marshalling wealth and manpower by·. imposing tribute .and labor services on the indian peasants to the benefit .of a privi220 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies leged class of Spanish colonizers, the economenderos. Forced labor was also recruited for mining activities, construction of churches, public works, and even elementary industrial production through a system known as repartimientos, whereby the Indian comm.unities were made to provide periodically · a certain number of able-bodied laborers according to the needs of the colonial administration. Similar systems characterized the early phases of direct colonial administration in various African territories. The repartimiento was not much different from the massive labor recruitment which had existed among the Inca and the Aztecs in pre-Hispanic times (mita and cuatequitl, respectively), though in this case, of course, it was managed in the benefit of an externally imposed, colonial society. It has been argued, indeed, that the relative ease with which the Spaniards were able to impose such mechanisms of exploitation on the Indian population was due to the fact that they simply substituted themselves for a preexisting ruling class. Partly as a result of the catastrophic demographic decline of the Indian populations after the Conquest (it has been estimated that in New Spain alone the population decreased from around thirty million at the beginning of the fifteenth century to one million a century and a half later; and in Pero the population declined by about 50 per cent within thirty years of the Conquest), and partly as a result of the needs of the changing colonial economy, the economienda and the repartimiento, as well as other similar institutions, became less important by the end of the seventeenth century . .Agricultural production became organized in the form of large estates, base4 ·on a permanent or semipermanent supply of labor. The Indian peasantry was attached to the. estates (haciendas) through the system known as peonage (with many local variants), which has often been likened to medieval European serfdom. "Free" Indian communities which were able to maintain their communal lands either were absorbed by the haciendas and came to lose their · 1ands and their independence, or else they became dependent upon the estates as a source of occasional employment and, in fact, were transformed into labor reserves for the expanding hacilnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 221 encla system, which became the predominant form of agrarian organization in Latin America (usually known as latifundismo). In Brazil, due to the scarcity of a pre-existing Indian population, the large estate (plantation) was based on slave labor until the end of the nineteenth century, and also became the predominant form of agrarian organization in that country. It has often been stated that the organization of the hacienda was in fact a feudalsystem in terms of its internal structure and the relations of production which took place within its limits. On the other hand, however, while a good part of the produce generated by the estate was consumed locally by its own population, the driving force behind the expansion of the hacienda as a system of production was the demand of the European market, either directly (as in the case of sugar) or indirectly ( as in the case of wheat and other products needed by the population that labored in the mines). At this point it seems futile to go into the discussion of whether the Latin American colonial system as a whole should be characterized as "feudalism" or as "capitalism."4 It seems clear that feudalism and capitalism interacted at different levels and at all times during Latin America's colonial history (and even later, during the nineteenth century), and that the precolonial modes of agricultural production were :first incorporated and then transformed by the general system of colonial exploitation. However, it also seems clear that the colonial system as a whole played a very important role in the worldwide process of capitalist accumulation, and that the various modes of production at the local level (haciendas based on peonage, slave plantations, small peasant production by Indians on communal lands, etc.) were ail subordinated to, and harnessed in the interests of, capitalist development. At any rate, by the time the Latin American republics achieved their political independence early in the nineteenth century, an agrarian structure had developed in which the large estate based on servile labor had become or was becoming the predominant form of agricultural production; small independent peasant farming either on individually owned or communally held village lands was no match for the dominant 222 Social Classes in Agrarian Societiei estate system, and was either entirely destroyed or becamc dominated by the hacienda system during the nineteenth an< twentieth centuries. In contrast to the process of agr~ revolution in Lam America, the expansion of European mercantilism did no directly produce changes in the forms of agricultural produc tion in Africa. European commerce; based on the slave trade modified to a certain extent and competed with traditiona forms of precolonial trade, but did not basically affect th1 productive organization of the agricultural subsistence com munity, except insofar as the drain of able-bodied men repre sented a social and biological loss which many communi ties were not able in the long run to overcome. While th1 Atlantic slave trade developed, it appears that slavery as ; mode of production also became more important in the Wes African interior. Thus slavery in West Africa was twofold. On the one hanc it provided the commodities of the Atlantic slave trade; 01 the other the producers of goods involved in the inter Af rican trade. Due to the danger of social deterioration inherent in th selling and exploitation of human beings, slavery came ti rely in West Africa on two institutions which were at on and the same time complementary and contradictory-wai fare and trade. In West Africa, neither free commoneI nor slaves bom in captivity could be alienated. The onl: persons who could be sold were those snatched from thei homes and families through capture. Communities coul1 not sell their own members nor their domestic slaves, no breed slaves for sale. In these circumstances slaves wer only produced through war or plunder. In protecting them selves against the social disintegration which would resul if they sold their o~ subjects, the slaving communities a1s found themselves in an inevitably insecure position. • , The warrior and the brigand are thus the primary agen1 in the traffic in slave merchandise which fed the Atlanti and Saharan trade as well as internal requirements • . Warfare and trade are complementary and opposed. Tb former feeds the second, uses it as an outlet, yet withdra\11 Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 223 men from production. Hence two classes develop which are both solidary and antagonistic-a class of warrior aristocrats and a class of merchants. 5 The abolition of the slave trade early in the nineteenth century had far-reaching effects in West Africa. The patterns of external and internal trade were modified and, as a result, changes in the organization of production took place. Slaves were substituted for cola, palm oil, and other commodities, and the production of these goods took precedence over the previous emphasis on war and plunder. Many previously selfsufficient agricultural communities became producers of cash crops without any apparent violence to their social and political organization. In Dahomey, for example, "land was substituted for warfare. Military aristocrats were converted into planters, and slave merchandise into producers. At the same time the mass of the common people were introduced to oil production and its commerce."6 In other areas, the economic transformation was associated with a decline of the traditional ruling classes and the emergence of Muslim traders as an important social and economic group. However, while the coastal areas in West Africa came under the domination of the European economy, trade in the interior remained to a fairly large extent solely inter-African. This was considered by the Europeans (particularly the British) as an obstacle to the conquest of the African market by European goods. Therefore, "colonial penetration was to be an indispensable instrument for destroying this autonomous economy which had developed outside European infl.uence."7 In terms of agrarian systems and production relations in agriculture, the establishment of colonial administration in Africa produced some very profound changes in traditional patterns of social and economic organization. These can be summarized under three main headings: 1) the emergence of an itinerant rural semi-proletariat; 2) the emergence of the cash crop farmer; and 3) the establishment of plantations as enclave agricultural economies. 1) The introduction of the money economy and the establishment of monetary taxes by the administration forced an 224 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies increasing number of workers from the subsistence economy to seek wage labor in the capitalist sector (plantations, mines, urban centers, etc.). Most villages became dependent upon the cash income of some of their members in order to fulfill their obligations vis-a-vis the administration and in order to satisfy their increasing demand for industrial products. Whereas at first wage labor outside the community was but a complement to traditional subsistence agriculture, later subsistence agriculture itself became simply a complement ( albeit a necessary one) to wage work in the capitalist sector. Indeed, in many areas, the subsistence economy functions as a labor reserve for the capitalist sector, as security for the non-permanent workers in this sector, and as an instrument whereby the capitalist sector is able to keep labor and "social" costs lower than they would be if the subsistence economy had disappeared altogether. Thus capitalism has had a contradictory effect upon the traditional agricultural economy. While on the one hand it tends to destroy it, on the other it maintains and subordinates it to its own needs and interests. In a way, the capitalist system in Africa has achieved what the large estate based on peonage accomplished during an earlier period in Latin America: it is able to drain off the surplus labor of the subsistence peasantry. In the African case, capitalism incorporates the labor force of the subsistence economy into the monetary circuit without directly expropriating the peasants' means of production, yet limits them to such an extent that incorporation has become necessary to them for survival. In Latin America, on the other hand, capitalism physically incorporates the peasants into new agrarian structures. At the present time temporary labor migrations from the subsistence to the capitalist sector are widespread all over Africa and are often cross-national in character. Some countries ( e.g., Upper Volta) actually seem to play the role of labor reserves with regard to the commercial agricultural areas of the coastal zones of Western Africa. The actual economics of temporary labor migrations does not yet seem to be too well known, but their social effects on the local community as well as upon the society as a whole have been considerable. Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 225 As a result of temporary· labor migrations, new class structures have emerged in rural Africa which are rapidly changing the traditional structure of many agricultural villages. 2) As was noted above, the change from traditional subsistence agriculture to cash crop farming began to take place · even before the establishment of the colonial administration, due to changes in long-distance trading patterns under the impact of expanding world capitalism. During the colonial period, the European administration systematically introduced cash crop farming in many areas. This was at first done by coercive methods and frequently met with the resistance of the peasants. It became more and more widespread, however, through the operation of the market economy and the progressive transformation of communal tenures into private individual holdings. In some cases, such as the mailo system in Uganda, individual freehold was introduced by the British at an early date.a In other cases, individual title to land was granted only after the more or less spontaneous growth of cash cropping made it practically inevitable. In Kenya, the acute agrarian crisis among the Kikuyu which resulted from the establishment of the "White Highlands" and the expropriation of the peasants' land led to a land consolidation scheme in the early fifties. o In West Africa the development of a cash crop agriculture in the forest area has not yet systematically led to the emergence of individual landholdings, but this is certainly the general tendency and differential access to commercial farmland as a potent factor in the increasing social differentiation among West African farmers. Cash crop farming, being essentially a commercial enterprise, has modified traditional production relations in agriculture. The division of labor inherent in the extended family as an economic unit is breaking up, relations between family heads or lineage chiefs and the young adult members of the kinship group are becoming strained; traditional hierarchies have been upset and new dimensions in social stratification have arisen; economic gain has become a powerful drive for individual advancement in competition with, or even in opposition to, established value systems. Capitalist relations of production (wage labor, capital accumulation, marketing, 226 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies credit, mortgages, sales of farms and even land, etc.) are progressively expanding. The commercial farmer represents the rise of a new social class in African agriculture which is not only playing an economic and a social role, but in many countries has a political role to play as well. Cash crop farming is leading to the emergence of new agrarian systems with the rise, in some areas, of a landlord class and the development of a rural proletariat. It would be premature to say that such a system will lead to a "Latin American" type of agrarian structure, but such a tendency should not be discounted beforehand. 3) Plantation agriculture was established by the colonial administration or directly by foreign capitalist corporations (e.g., Firestone in Liberia) in some areas only. Plantations are large, complex business enterprises which involve an advanced division of labor, a large organized work force, some sort of structured system of labor relations, the use of modern, specialized technology, bureaucratic administration, well-developed accounting systems, and considerable economic investments, and which presuppose direct involvement in the capitalist world market. By their very nature and the fashion of their establishment in colonial or underdeveloped countries, plantations constitute typical enclave economics. They represent the "modem" sector in the well-known but misnamed "dualistic" economies of many underdeveloped countries. The establishment of plantations has usually meant the expropriation of peasant holdings of cultivable tribal lands, and the alteration of the ecological basis of pre-existing traditional subsistence agriculture. It has generally had a negative effect upon this agriculture, and thus upon the liv~lihood of the populations who depend on it. Plantations, as enterprises, are usually directly managed by foreign companies and respond principally to the interests of the metropolitan country. This "extraterritoriality" has important economic and political consequences for the country in which they are established, particularly after independence. The management and higherlevel specialized personnel tend to be foreigners (expatriates), and between them and the majority of the locally recruited lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 227 labor force large social and economic differences are characteristic. The work force may be divided into different categories according to· occupational specialization and pemianence on the job. Many plantations have a relatively small number of permanent employees for specialized tasks but depend in large measure on a seasonal labor force for essential agricultural activities. During the early stages of their development plantations used to recruit labor from nearby; as they expanded, however, temporary or permanent migrant labor from outlying regions would become attracted. Wages are the characteristic form of payment on plantations, but a certain number of facilities ( such as housing, for example) may also be provided by the administration. Work on plantations tends to separate the laborer from subsistence agriculture, and while cases occur in which a plantation worker is also able to tend a subsistence plot on the side, the separation from his means of production becomes increasingly permanent. Plantations are therefore a characteristic environment for the development of a rural proletariat, union organization, and class consciousness among agricultural workers. While plantation workers represent only a small proportion of the total labor force in agriculture in African countries, the importance of plantations is of a special nature because of the fact that these enterprises belong to foreign companies which are in an unusually strong bargaining position vis-a-vis not only their workers, but also the governments of the nations in which they operate. They occupy not only a powerful economic position, but a political one as well. The Development of Agricultural Capitalism In preceding pages we have already. seen how capitalism had penetrated the traditional agricultural sector in colonial times. By the middle of the twentieth century it became obvious on a worldwide scale that a grave agricultural crisis was occurring in most of the Third World. Many underdeveloped countries, which were traditional exporters of primary products to the industrial nations, were faced with a declining production of foodstuffs and at the same time with rising populations. Dire neo-Malthusian predictions of forthcoming famines were voiced in various quarters, and concentrated efforts were be228 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies gun at all levels to raise agricultural production and productivity in the underdeveloped countries. The general belief was that the back.ward subsistence agriculture of these countries was responsible for such a situation, and that it was necessary to change this agriculture into modem, technological commercial farming in order to produce the desired development. How to change a traditional peasant into an enterprising market-oriented farmer became the main task of many an international assistance program. There were few who pointed out that the "crisis" was perhaps due not so much to subsistence farming as such, as to the structural maladjustments produced precisely by the uncontrolled growth of a primary export sector along capitalist lines, whose existence has become an obstacle to the balanced development of an agriculture geared, above all, to satisfying growing internal demand for foodstuffs and other products. The drive for a rapid rise in overall agriculture output inevitably led to an emphasis on "modernization," and inputs of all sorts were channeled at an increasing rate into the sectors most likely to respond rapidly and efficiently. This process has become accelerated over the last few years as a result of the so-called "Green Revolution," whose effects (both positive and negative) have been felt principally in Southeast Asia. In Latin America, the political and social tinderbox rep, resented by the hacienda system began to worry policy makers as the first shock waves generated by the Cuban revolution reverberated across the continent. At the same time, public concern regarding the poor performance of the agricultural sector led many specialists to take a closer look at the Latin American agrarian structure. Agitation for agrarian reform became widespread: from below, the peasants demanded land and the abolition of oppressive systems of exploitation; from above, technicians and students of agrarian questions suggested that the main obstacles to agricultural development were to be found in the institutional arrangements governing land tenure systems and relations of production on the land.lo Agrarian reform did not, however, sweep across Latin America, as had been expected in the early sixties, mainly because the agrarian oligarchy and its national and international allies lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 229 were sufficiently powerful to block it at various levels. By the end of the sixties, it became apparent that the land reform issue was mainly political: for the peasants and their allies agrarian reform was a political demand, and for this very reason the ruling classes were against it. It has by now become clear that the economic crisis of agriculture (low rates of growth) can indeed be solved by the bourgeoisie within the framework of the present agrarian structure and at the expense of the peasants. This is indeed what has been happening in most Latin American countries. The modernization of agriculture (including technification, mechanization, introduction of. highyielding varieties and other improved inputs, agricultural extension services, etc.) has been occurring more or less rapidly in various countries, but ( and this is the important consideration) it has tended to benefit only a small, privileged proportion of farms which are increasingly contributing to the rise of overall growth, and which concentrate the larger part of agricultural income. This has been happening even in countries that have already carried out land reform, such as Mexico, in which agricultural development over the last three decades has been extremely polarized. The majority of the smallholders and land reform beneficiaries in that country have been relegated to a marginal position in this process. In their efforts to "get agriculture moving" in the aggregate (i.e., to raise overall output, increase the supply of agricultural products, and improve the balance of payments of the countries involved by pushing exports of agricultural products or at least decreasing the countries' dependence on imports of such products), the Modernizers are consciously supporting the large estates at the expense of the smallholders and the peasant economy. The results of these policies in the next few years will be disastrous for the majority of the peasant population. As one expert puts it: The outlook now for the 1970's is that, in the aggregate, the status of Latin America's peasants will not change for the better. In fact, there is strong evidence that it will deteriorate. Access to land is more closed than ever. Unemployment appears to be rising. Real wages and incomes are 230 . . Social Classes in Agrarian Societie:t declining. Security of tenure becomes shakier. Peasant organisations are not only discouraged, but repressed. Worst of all, however, is the widespread acceptance by national governments, private entrepreneurs and international agreements, of agricultural policies and programs which, in the name of "agricultural development," only aggravate an already intolerable situation.11 Such policies are being fostered through two-pronged programs: "(l) programs to strengthen the latifundio sector by pumping more modem inputs into agriculture and thereby improving the poor performance of this sector,· combined with so-called economic incentive measures to call forth a greater effort of the landed elite; and (2) marginal or fake programs of land tenure improvements in an attempt to keep the peasantry happy."12 The result is the increasing marginalization of the peasantry and the emergence, on a widespread scale hitherto unknown, of a sub-proletariat which is being pushed out of agriculture but cannot be incorporated into productive occupations in the non-agricultural sectors due to the characteristics of the process of industrialization in the system of underdeveloped, dependent, and peripheral capitalism. In this context, land reforms that simply redistribute land to smallholders on micro-plots (minifundistas), such as those in Mexico and Bolivia, will be mainly stopgap measures. To be sure, land redistribution in favor of the peasantry increases employment opportunities and agricultural output, given the essential inefficiency of the large estate (latifundio) system.13 But it is precisely the fear of land reform and of losing their political and economic power which has pushed the landed elite, in recent years, to update its operations. Through more capital-intensive production, easy access to cheap credit, and control of marketing systems, the landed elite is able to improve its position even as it becomes willing, for political reasons, to tolerate certain kinds of land tenure reforms. To what extent these tendencies will remain politically feasible in Latin America over the coming years is a matter for speculation. In Africa the tendencies which strengthen agricultural capitalism, initiated during the colonial period, are continuing Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 231 after independence. The emphasis placed in most countries on one or two cash crops for export has created problems for agriculture which are not easily solved. In the first place, many countries which could expand the production of foodstuffs have to import them. In the second place, the deterioration of the terms of trade has affected negatively the export sector, and consequently the whole national economy. Thirdly, the development of the cash crop export sector has favored an increasingly powerful class of rural, capitalists, linked to import-export activities and to the government bureaucracies, and directly or indirectly dependent upon foreign companies (or governments) for their economic and political support;14 It seems unlikely, however, that this development will lead to an agrarian structure similar to that of Latin America. First, land tenure institutions are still largely related to social organization at the village level. Secondly, governments in Africa seem to be aware of the dangers inherent in allowing the process of land concentration in a few hands to go unchecked. Thirdly, capital accumulation in the cash crop sector does not require the direct appropriation of land in the form of large estates by the capitalist class, as long as the control of capital, credit, and technology under various kinds of flexible tenure arrangements (sharecropping, tenancy, pledging, etc.) is possible. Fourth, the articulation of peasant interests and the political expression of their grievances and demands are more likely to be effective as a counterweight to such tendencies at an early stage of capitalist consolidation of landholdings, than at a time (as in Latin America) when the agrarian structure has acquired deep historical roots and is imbedded in the overall social and political institutions of the country. Agricultural development in African countries seems more likely to remain associated ( and become increasingly so) with regional development plans and settlement or colonization schemes under government supervision. Into a number of such areas (e.g., Office du Niger) considerable investments will be channeled (under international technical assistance, and therefore control), new land will be opened up for cultivation, river systems will come under control, irrigation and drainage works will be carried out, new technology will be used, high232 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies yielding varieties will be introduced ( e.g., rice, wheat, maize), supervised credit will be provided, etc. This will contribute to raising overall output and productivity within a relatively short time. Agriculturists from the target areas or. from other regions will receive land under various kinds of supervised tenure arrangements and will, so it is hoped, benefit shortly from higher outputs. Aside from the problems inherent in all such regional planning efforts (including bureaucratization, corruption, and other avoidable and inevitable factors), it appears certain that such projects will be able to absorb only a small proportion of the rural population of the countries involved. Furthermore, despite specific policies designed to guarantee equal access to land and resources for all participants, it appears that an accelerated process of social and economic differentiation is in fact already taking place in the . areas covered by such programs. This means that. a minority of well-endowed entrepreneurs will be able to make rapid progress, while a growing class of pauperized peasants will become increasingly dependent upon, and indebted to, the former. A class of large or medium-sized landowners linked to the development of commercial capitalism will become the . principal beneficiaries of such regional development programs.lo At the other extreme, the large masses of the rural population will continue to be associated with the subsistence economy, providing labor reserves for the modem agricultural, and the non-agricultural, sectors of the economy. Many of these rural workers will continue to emigrate to the cities, partly due to increasing population pressures on the land and the progressive fragmentation of family holdings in many areas.is Thus the African peasantry is undergoing a process of marginalization similar to that which, under different historical circumstances, is taking place in Latin America. As long as the majority of the countries in these two continents, linked as they are by historical circumstances ( the triangle trade of colonial times based on slavery), k~ to a capitalist development strategy, it is likely that the main problems of· the rural populations will not be solved, but will, on the contrary, be aggravated. For such a strategy means "growth without development" or "extraverted developlnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 233 ment,"17 i.e., it is designed to raise overall growth rates and output by strengthening the export sector and, at best, by developing some kind of import-substituting industrialization. This strategy, as has been amply demonstrated by the Latin American experience, and by some African cases ( e.g., Ivory Coast, Zaire), benefits a small but growing ruling class and its middle-class bureaucratic dependents, but excludes the large masses of the population. This polarized development has all the characteristics of an internal colonial situation. Inasmuch as in the African countries, and in many Latin American nations as well, the majority of the population is linked to agriculture and rural life in general, it will be the peasantry (and its offshoots among the marginal urban masses) that will suffer most the brunt of this development strategy. NOTES Chapter 1 1. For a thorough analysis of the concept of underdevelopment and its uses, see Jacques Freyssinet, Le Concept de sous-developpement (Paris: Mouton [Publications de la Faculte de Droit et des Sciences ~conomiques de Grenoble], 1966). 2. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Contents and Measurement of Socio-Economic Development, an Empirical Enquiry (Geneva, 1970). See also Bruce Russett et al., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1964). 3. The catchy term "Third World" for the underdeveloped countries was coined by the French sociologist Georges Balandier. See his Le "Tiers Monde": sous-developpement et developpement (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Demographiques, 1956). See also Peter Worsley, The Third World (London: Weidenfeld, 1964); and Irving L Horowitz, Three Worlds of Development (New York: Oxford, 1966). 4. See, for example, Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1960); David Apter, The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965); G. A. Almond and S. B. Powell, Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, 1966). 5. A good beginning has been made by Andre G. Frank, "Sociology of Development and Underdevelopment of Sociology," Chapter 2 of his Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution, (New York: Monthly Review, 1969). 6. An important contribution to the study of the world system and the way it has shaped the underdeveloped economies is Samir Amin's L'accumulation a l'echelle mondiale. Critique a la theorie du sous-developpement (Paris: Anthropos, 1970). A pioneering and by now classical analysis, which has inspired much of the recent reinterpretation of these problems, is Paul A. Baran, The Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review, 1957), which may be usefully supplemented with a collection of pertinent essays: Robert I. Rhodes, ed., Imperialism and Underdevelopment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970). On Latin America, the reader may refer to Andre G. Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967); and Celso Furtado, Obstacles to Development in Latin America (New York: Anchor Bks., 1970); as well as the same Notes 235 author's Development and Underdevelopment (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1964). 7. A typical expression of this point of view is the following passage by an American anthropologist: "The 'developed' and the 'underdeveloped' nations existed side by side through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries · and into modem times. In tlie developed societies the industrial revolution became a revolution of sorts against poverty. However, the pervasive philosophy of colonialism inhibited its spread to the less fortunate nations. It was not until after the Second World War that the more fortunate nations of the world became sensitive to the problems of their underdeveloped neighbours. Since then, however, certain political and moral imperatives have emerged to link both in common cause and to draw attention especially to developmental change" (Art Gallagher, Jr., ed., Perspectives in Developmental Change [Lexington: Univ. of Ky. Press, 1968], p. 2). . 8. See Andre G. Frank, "The Development of Underdevelopment," in Rhodes, op. cit., as well as Amin, op. cit., and Rodolfo Stavenhagen, "Seven Fallacies about Latin America," in J. Petras and M. Zeitlin, eds., Latin America: Reform or Revolution? (Greenwich: Fawcett, 1968). · 9. See, for example, J. L. Zimmerman, Poor Lands, Rich Lands (N.Y.: Random House, 1965). 10. Pierre Jalee, The Third World in World Economy (New York: Monthly Review, 1969). 11. United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America, Economic Survey of Latin America 1969 (New York: United Nations, 1970), Pt. ill. 12. Lester B. Pearson, Partners in Development: Report of the Commission on International Development (New York: Praeger, 1969). 13. United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America. Economic Survey of Latin America 1970 (New York: United Nations, 1971), Pt. ill. 14. S. Herbert Frankel, The Economic Impact on Underdeveloped Societies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), p. 68. 15. Lester Pearson, op. cit., p. 74. The same report concludes: "The indebtedness of the developing countries imposes a large burden of debt service. There has already been a sequence of debt crises in the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's, and even a cursory inspection of the situation suggests that the debt servicing problems of the low-income countries will become even more serious in the years immediately ahead" (p. 72). 16. Raul Prebisch, Change and Development: Latin America's Great Task (Washington: Inter-American Development Bank, 1970), p. 60. 17. The discussion on actual and potential economic output is taken from Baran, op. cit., pp. 23-24. 236 .Notes 18. A good review of dualistic theories can be found in Gerald M. Meier, Leading Issues in Development Economics (New York: Oxford, 1964), Pt. II. 19. See Frank, ''The Development of Underdevelopment"; and Rodolfo Stavenhagen, op. cit., and "Changing Functions of the Community in Underdeveloped Countries," Sociologia Ruralis 4, no. 3/4 (1964). 20. Rostow, op. cit. 21. Simon Kuznets, "Underdeveloped Countries and the PreIndustrial Phase in the Advanced Countries," in A. N. Agarwala and S. P. Singh, eds., The Economics of Underdevelopment (New York: Oxford, 1963). 22. See, for example, Gabriel Ardant, Le Monde en friche (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), Chap. 1; and Paul Bairoch, Revolution industrielle et sous-developpement (Paris: S.E.DJU.S., 1963). 23. See, for example, Ronald Dore, "Latin America and Japan Compared," in John J. Johnson, ed., Continuity and Change in Latin America (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1964). 24. Gunnar Myrdal, Asian· Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations (New York: Twentieth Cent. Fund, 1968)~ 1, pp. 673- 74. 25. Ibid., pp. 698 and 700. 26. United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America, Economic Survey of Latin America 1970. 27. The importance of a Protestant ethic in capitalist development was first suggested by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958 [first published in 1904]). A good general review of the Weberian thesis in connection with the underdeveloped countries can be found in S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Protestant Ethic and Modernization (New York: Basic Bks., 1968). The importance of values in Latin American development is stressed by Seymour M. Lipset, "Values, Education and Entrepreneurship," in S. M. Lipset and Aldo Solari, eds., Elites in Latin America (New York: Oxford, 1967), p. 44. 28. Ibid., pp. 44--45. 29. United Nations, Towards a Dynamic Development Policy. for Latin America (New York, 1963), p. 6. Chapter 2 1. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, "Some Principles of Social Stratification," American Sociological Review 10, no. 2 (1945). 2. Alain Touraine, "Classe sociale et statut socio-economique," Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie 11 (1951). 3. Talcott Parsons, "A Revised Analytical Approach to the Theory Notes 237 of Social Stratification," in R. Bendix and S. M. Lipset, eds., Class, Status and Power (Glencoe: Free Press, 1953). 4. This. is a critique that has been made of the Warner approach. See Walter Goldschmidt, "Social Class in America: A Critical Review,'' American Anthropologist 52 (1950). . . 5. This point is made by T. H. Marshall, "A General Survey of Changes in ~ocial Stratification in the Twentieth Century,'' in International Sociological Association (ISA), Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology (Amsterdam, 1956). 6. Cf. Kingsley Davis, "A Conceptual Analysis of Stratification," American Sociological Review 7, no. ·3 (1942). The term "status,'' however, does not always imply a stratified system. For common anthropological usage of the term see Ralph Linton, The Study of Man (New York: Appleton, 1936); and iμso the discussion by T. H. Marshall, "A Note on Status;'' Ghurye Felicitation Volume (Bombay, 1954). Some students consider the family, and not the individual, as the unit of stratification. . 7. A useful synthesis is found in Gerhard Lenski, Power and Privilege, a Theory of Social Stratification (New York: McGraw, 1966). 8. Max Wel:,er, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Free Press, 1947). 9. Marshall, "A General Survey ••. " H). See ibid., and also A. Touraine, op. cit., and S. M. Lipset and .R; Bendix, "Social Status ·and Social Structure: A Re-examit).ation of Data and Interpretations,'' 1'he British Journal of Sociology 2 (1951). . 11. S. H. Miller, "The Concept .and Measurement of Mobility,'' in ISA, Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology, 3, p. 144. . 12. Cf. S. M. Lipset and H. L. .zetterberg, "A Theory of Social Mobility," in ISA, Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology. · 13. Much of the empirical literature of American sociology on social mobility shows how individuals rise in the social scale thanks to education, economic opportunities, individual effort, and so forth (and, by implication, thanks to the free enterprise system!). "Social descent" of many self-employed people to the statusof employee or manual laborer-so characteristic of capitalist development, particularly in its early stages-seems to have been ignored in such studies.· 14. Cf. Lipset and .zetterberg, op. cit.; and also S. M. Lipset and R. Bendix, Social Mobility in Industrial Society (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1959). 15. See, for example, F. van Heek, "Some Introductory Remarks on Social Mobility and Class Structure,'' in ISA, Transactions, who suggests that such studies should be policy-oriented. The same implication runs through the essays in N. J. Smelser and S. M. 238 Notes Lipset, eds., Social Structure and Mobility in Economic Development (London: Routledge, 1966). 16. See for example, A Boiarski, "A propos de- la 'mobilite sociale'," P:tudes Sociologiques, Recherches lnternationales (Paris) 17 (1960). 17. See, for example, the "exhaustive definition" given by Georges Gurvitch, Le Concept de classes sociales de Marx a nos jours (Paris: Centre de Documentation Universitaire, 1954); as well as Pitirim Sorokin, ''What is a Social Class?" in Bendix and Lipset, Class, Status and Power, whose definition does not differ greatly from that of Gurvitch. However, these definitions leave some of the principal problems aside, namely, the relationships between classes, their societal function, their dynamic evolution, and, principally, the factors that distinguish one class from another. 18. Which are to be found mainly, ·respectively, in Marx's early writings (till The Communist Manifesto), in Capital, and in his historical analyses (The Class· Struggle in France, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, and The Civil War in France). See Raymond Aron, "Social Structure and the Ruling Class/' The British Journal of Sociology 1 (1950). 19. There exist numerous analyses of the Marxist conceptiqn of class. Some of the more recent are to be found in: Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in ln,dustrial Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), Chap. 1; G. Gurvitch, op. cit., Pt. I; R. Bendix and S. M. Lipset, "Karl Marx' Theory of Social Classes," in Bendix and Lipset, Class, Status and Power; R. Duchac, "Bourgeoisie et proletariat a travers l'oeuvre de Marx," Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 30 (1961); E. de Grolier, "Classes et rapports de classes dans les premieres oeuvres de Karl Marx," and "Classes et rapports de classes dans la theorie marxiste ( de 1859 a 1865)," Cahiers lnterrtationaux 6, nos. 55 and 60 (1954); S; Ossowski, "Les differents aspects de la classe sociale chez Marx," Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 24 (1958). 20. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Weber, however, did not have the same conception of the economic order that Marx had. 21. P. Sorokin, toe. cit. 22. For example, Dahrendorf, op. cit. 23. V. I. Leni1i, "A Great Beginning," in Selected Wqrks (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1952), Vol. Il, p. 224. 24. The development of class consciousness and the transformation of a "Klasse an sich" into a "Klasse fur sich" is one of the more difficult problems of the theory of social classes. In the works of Marx this problem is referred to in concrete historical analyses but not in a general theoretical manner. The notion of the "latent" and "manifest" interests of social classes has been developed by Dahrendorf, op. cit., on the basis of Parsons' theory of action and the functionalist analysis of Robert K. Merton. Notes 239 25. The thesis that racial discrimination in the United States constitutes a system · of economic exploitation was considered for a long time as anathema, by most American sociologists, who preferred to look for psychological and cultural factors. Since the rise of the Black Power movement many sociologists are having second thoughts. For an ~ly brilliant developD1eilt of this thesis see Oliver Cromwell Cox, Caste, Class .and Race, a Study in Social Dynamics (New York: Monthly Review, 1959). 26. There is no contradjction in considering stratification as a social reality (when it implies certain forms of behavior and determines standards of living), as a hierarchy of values, and as an ideology (in the sense of a moral, political, religious, or philosophical evaluation or interpretation of a social situation). We may take the .situation in South Africa as an. example, where an ethnic stratification system places the whites at the top, the "coloured" (East Indians and mulattoes) in the middle, and the blacks at the bottom. Here class structure corresponds roughly with social stratification. The Africans are the exploited proletariat of the mines and industries and the domestic servants. The system of apartheid is an instrument used by the white dominant minority to maintain its exploitation of the black population. The coloured· population actually· constitute the middle strata of the economic system: the petite bourgeoisie of manufacturing, commercial and services sectors. The whites are the owners of the means of production, of .the country's wealth. and also possess political power. All of this is held together by a racist ideology which masquerades behind the concept of cultural relativity, and justifies the legal creation of vast labor reservations called Bantustans by appeals to the Africans' "tn"bal traditions." Another example is given by W. L Warner in his Yankee City studies. See W. L. Warner and .P. S. Lunt, The Status System of a Modern Community (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1947), and W. L. Warner, Social Class in America (Chicago: Soc. Sc. Research Assn., 1949). Here the system of stratification (to the extent that it is a social reality and not the product of the author's imagination) includes criteria as diverse as the antiquity of family lineage, education, religion, national· origin, area of residence, etc. All of this is expressed in the dominant hierarchy of values and sanctified by the ideology of the "ADierican Way of Life.'' But here the stratification system no longer corresponds to economic reality and the tendencies of the class structure are increasingly separated from the established stratification system. 27. The more a stratification system: ceases to be congruent with the underlying class relationships, the less it is accepted as a value system by all . the strata, some of which will attempt to impose their own values. Thus there arises a multiplicity of conflicts between different value systems in a society which is at the same time multistratified and divided into social classes. See W. F. Wertheim, 240 Notes "La societe et les conflits entre systemes de valeurs," Cahiers Internationawr: de Sociologie 28 (1960). · 28. This tendency is represented by A. L. Kroeber, "Caste," Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, 1930), as well as by such authors as w. L. Warner, A. Davis, and G. Myrdal, who regard the race relations in the United States as a kind of caste system. The Indian sociologist G. S. Ghurye also takes this position; see his Caste and Class in India (Bombay, 1957). The British anthropologist S. F. Nadel expresses the same ideas in his Foundations of Social Anthropology (London: Cohen & West, 1957). 29. This tendency is represented mainly by Cox, op. cit., in the United States, and by Louis Dumont in France; see his "Caste, racisme et stratification," Cahiers lnternationawr: de Sociologie 29 (1960). 30. E. R. Leach, ed., Aspects of Caste, in South India, Ceylon and North-West Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960), Introduction; and also F. G. Bailey, "Social Stratification in India" (Mimeographed paper University of Manchester, 1961). 31. P. L. Van den Berghe, "The Dynamics of Racial Prejudice: An Ideal Type Dichotomy," Social,Forces 37, no. 2 (1958). The anthropological criteria of race are of course quite different. 32. Marvin Harris, "Caste, Class 1and Minority," Social Forces 37, no. 3 (1959). In general, Am~rican sociology includes races among minorities. · 33. The numerical connotations of the terms "minority" and "majority'' are unfortunate. In fact these terms refer to groups that participate more or less in a dominant culture, independently of their numbers. For Harris, the sequence caste-minority-class forms a continuum. Thus a caste system in which the castes begin to compete with each other will become a system of minorities which, in turn, will change into a class system. According to the author, this is happening in India and occurred in feudal Europe. Chapter 3 1. See, for example, Jacques Lambert, ''Les Obstacles au developpement provenant d'une societe dualiste," in Centro Latino Americano de Pesquisas em Ciancias Sociais, Resist2ncias tl Mudtmfa (Rio de Janeiro, 1960). 2. For the various usages of these terms, see Jean Cazeneuve, "Le concept de societe archaique" in G. Gurvitch, Traite de sociologie (Paris, 1960), Vol. Il, as well as Claude Levi-Strauss, "La.notion d'archaisme en ethnologie" in Anthropologie structurale (Paris: Pion, 1958) (English translation available) Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963); and Emilio Willems, "Primitive Gesellschaften" in Rene Konig, ed., Soziologie (Frankfurt: Fischer Lexikon, 1958). 3. A number of institutions that carry out this function have been Notes 241 reported in ethnographic literature. In Africa, Balandi~r has studied the Malaki and the Bilaba systems, which serve to strengthen social ties in a society and to prevent the formation of a social class with superior economic power within the social group. Through these systems, economic superiority of a Un,eageo r an individual is transformed into social prestige. See Georges Balandier, "StnicttJres sociales traditionnelles et changements economiques," Cahiers d'£tudes Africaines 1 (1960); and also "Phenome'nes sociaux totaux et dynamique social~," Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 30 (1961). - _ 4. Research in Africa provides examples of such pre-eminent statuses, _ even though .the systematic analysis of stratification in classless societies does not occupy an important· place in most studies. See M. Fortes and B. E. Evans-Pritchard, African Political Systems (London: Oxford, 1950); J. Middleton and D. Tait, Tribes Without Rulers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957); and Georges Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de l'Afrique Noire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955) (English translation available) The Sociology of Black Africa, London, 1970. 5. Karl Marx, Grundrisse der K.ritik der Politischen lJkonomie (Rohentwurf) 1857-1858 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953) (English translation available: Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations [New York: Int. Pubs., 1965]). · 6. Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1957). · · 1. See the French journal La Pensee, no. 114 (April 1964). 8. Maurice Godelier, ''La notion de 'Mode de Production Asiatique' et les schemas marxf,stes d'evolution des societes" (Paris: Centre d'~tudes et de Recherches Marxistes, n.d.), p. 28, italics added. 9. Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (New York: Int. Pubs., 1947), p. 35. 10. With respect to Mexico, see Friedrich Katz, Sitμaci6n social y econ6mica de los az.tecas durante los siglos · XV y XVI (Mexico: UNAM, 1966); Manuel Moreno, La organizaci6n social y politica de los az.tecas (Mexico: _Instituto Nacional de Antropologia, 1961); and Mauro Olmeda, El 4esarrollo de la sociedad inexicana (Mexico: M. Olmeda, editor~ 1966). · 11. Katz, op. cit., Chap. 13. See also Sally Moore, Power and Property _in Inca Peru (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 19.58); and Alfonso caso, lnstituciones indfgencis en la epoca precolombina (Mexico: Instituto Nacional indigenista, 1954). 12. Katz, op. cit., and "The Evolution of Aztec Society," Past and Present, a Journal .of Scientific History 13 (1958). 13. See A. R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism (Bombay:-Popular Book Depot, 1959). In his letter to Karl Marx of June 6, 1853, F. Engels writes: "The key to the whole East is the absence of private property in .land. . • ." See Marx and En242 Notes gels, On Colonialism (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, n.d.). 14. Karl Marx, in his Capital, wrote: ''Those small and extremely ancient Indian communities, some of which have continued down to this day, are based on possession in common of the land, on the blending of agriculture and handicrafts, and on an unalterable division of labour. , ." (Karl Marx, Capital [New York: Modem Lio.J, p. 392). 15. D. D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1956). 16. K. A. Antonowa, "Die Hauptformen des feudalen Grundbesitzes im Mogul-Indien des 16. Jahrhunderts," in W. Ruben, ed., Die Okonomische und soziale Entwicklung lndiens 1 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1959). 17. E. N. Komarow, "Zur Einfii.hrung der stiindigen Veranlagung durch das Semindari System in Bengalen," in Ruben, op. cit. See also R. P. Dutt, India Today (Bombay: People's Publishing House, 1949). 18. See Dutt, op. cit., who points out, however, that: "In practice, through the process of sub-letting and through the dispossession of the original cultivators by moneylenders and others securing possession of their land, landlordism has spread extensively and at an increasing pace in the Ryotwari areas . . • This extending chain of landlordism in India, increasing most rapidly in the modern period, is the reflection of the growing dispossession of the peasantry and the invasion of moneyed interests, big and small, which seek investment in this direction, having failed to find effective outlets for investment in productive industry" (p. 221). 19. Desai, op. cit., p. 37. 20. Pierre Boiteau, Madagascar. Contribution a l'histoire de la nation malgache (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1958). 21. S. F. Nadel, A Black Byzantium. The Kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria (London: Oxford, 1942). 22. See the following studies: J, Beattie, Bunyoro, an African Kingdom (New York: Holt, 1960); K. Oberg, "The Kingdom of Ankole in Uganda," in Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, op. cit.; J. Maquet, "Le probleme de la domination tutsi," Zaire 6 (1952). 23. In Ruanda, after independence, the tutsi overlords were overthrown by a hutu rebellion in the early sixties. In Burundi, the tutsi ruling class bloodily suppressed a hutu uprising in May 1972. A similar feudal structure, but different in that the cattle owners occupied an inferior position to the dominant cultivators, existed in Dahomey. See J. Lombard, "Un systeme politique traditionnel de type feodal: les Bariba du Nord-Dahomey. Aper~u sur !'organisation sociale et le pouvoir central," in Bulletin de l'IF AN, Serie B., nos. 3-4 (1957); and ''La vie politique dans une ancienne societe de type feodal: les Bariba du Dahomey," Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 3 (1960). Notes 243 :Chapter 4 1. Presence · Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1952), chapter on "Travail, salaires et prix." 2. For a statement on the importance of the monetary economy in development see B. F. Hoselitz, "The Market Matrix," in W. E. Moore and A. S. Feldman, eds., Labor Commitment and Social Change in Developing Areas (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1960). 3. In some parts of Black Africa and Latin America it is still possible to find transitional forms between tribal tenure and private property of land, particularly the private appropriation of trees such as the coconut palm tree, whose produce is exportable. See Rene F. Millon, "Trade, Tree Cultivation and the Development of Private Property in La.lid," American Anthropologist 57 (1955). 4. Jack Woddis, Africa, the Roots of .Revolt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1960). 5. Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," American Journal of Sociology 44, no. 8 (1938). For a recent examination of Wirth's theories, see R. N. Morris, Urban Sociology (London: G. Allen, 1968). 6. W. Bascom, "Urbanization among the Yoruba," American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 5 (1955). 7. Daniel McCall, "Dynamics of Urbanization in Africa," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1955. 8. See, for example, Darryl C. Forde, ed., Social Aspects of Industrialisation and Urbanisation in Africa South of the Sahara (Paris: UNESCO, 1956); Kenneth Little, "West African Urbanization as a Social Process," Cahiers d'~tudes Africaines 3 (1960), and West African Urbanization (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970). On Latin America, see P. M. Hauser, ed., Urbanization in Latin America (Paris: UNESCO, 1961); Glenn H. Beyer, ed., The Urban Explosion in Latin America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1967); Richard M. Morse, "Recent Research on Latin American Urbanization: a Selective Study with Commentary," Latin American Research Review 1, no. 1 (1965); and J.E. Hardoy & C. Tobar, La urbanizaci6n en America Latina (Buenos Aires: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1969). 9. Dutt, op. cit., Pt. Il. 10. Pierre Naville, "La structure de l'industrie et du commerce," in Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire. 11. Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. 12. I. Wallerstein, "Ethnicity and National Integration in West Africa," Cahiers d'P,tudes Africaines 3 (1960). 13. Roger Bastide, "Les mythes nationaux en Amerique Latine," Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 33 ( 1962); Helio Jaguaribe, Desenvolvimento Economico e Desenvolvimento Politico (Rio de 244 Notes Janeiro: Fundo de Cultura, 1962); Alain Touraine, ''La :industrializaci6n y los movimientos sociales," :in Anthony Leeds, ed., Social Structure, Stratification and Mobi1ity, (Washington: Pan American Union, 1967), Studies and Monographs, vm. Chapter 5 1. For a classic anthropological appraisal of such communities see Robert Redfield, The Little Community (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 19S3). 2. Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1956). 3. See A. V. Chayanov, The Theory of Peasant Economy (New York: Irwin, 1966). For an analysis of Chayanov's theory, see B. Kerblay, "Chayanov and the Theory of Peasantry as a Specific Type of Economy," :in T. Shan:in, ed., Peasants and Peasant Societies (London: Penguin, 1971). · . 4. Eric Wolf, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PrenticeHall, 1966). 5. See Henry Mendras, La Fin des paysans (Paris: s.E.D.E.I.S., 1967), for a discussion of this process :in France. 6. Shanin, Peasants and Peasant Societies, Introduction. 7. Eric Wolf, ''Types of Latin American Peasantry: A Preliminary Discussion,'' American Anthropologist 51, no. 3 (1955). 8. L A. Fallers, "Are African Cultivators to Be Called 'Peasants'?" in Current Anthropology 2, no. 2 (1961). 9. John S. Saul and Roger Woods, "African Peasantries," in Shanin, op; cit. 10. Arthur L Stinchcombe, "Agricultural Enterprise and Rural Class Relations," American Journal of Sociology 67, no. 2 (1961). 11. See Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and D-emocracy; Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). 12. G. K. Hirabayashi and L. Armstrong, "Social Structure and Differentiation bl Rural Lebanon," bl ISA, Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology. 13. Ralph Beals, "Social Stratification in Latin America," American Journal of Sociology 58, no. 4 (1953). For the situation m Peru, see Richard N. Adams, "A Change from Caste to Class :in a Peruvian Sierra Town," Social Forces 31, no. 3 (1953), and F. Bourrlcaud, "Quelques caracteres originaux d'une culture metisse en Amerique Latino-'lndienne;'" Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 18 (1954). As regards Mexico, an early statement is by Andres Molma Enriquez, Los grandes problemas nacionales (Mexico, 1908). 14. Charles Wagley, ed., Race and Class in Rural Brazil (Paris: UNESCO, 1952). 1S. See, for example, Kenneth Little, "Social Change and Social Notes 245 Class in the Sierra Leone Protectorate," American Journal of Sociology S4, no. 1 ( 1948). 16. Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de l'Afrique Noire. 17. Desai, Social Background of- Indian Nationalism. 18. Kathleen Gough, "Caste in a Tanjore Village" in Leach, Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon and North-West Pakistan. 19. See Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de l'Afrique Noire, and Kenneth Little, "Structural Change in the Sierra Leone Pi:otectorate," Africa 2S, no. 3 (19SS). 20. See Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris, "A Typology of Latin American Subcultures," American Anthropologist S1, no. 3 (19SS). Chapter 6 1. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, London, 1938, Chap. 2. 2. V. Liversage, Land Tenure in the Colonies (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1949); Daniel Biebuyck, ed., African Agrarian Systems, (London: OXford, 1963), p. 14; Raymond Barbe, ''Les problemes agraires dans les ex-colonies fran~aises d'Afrique Noire,'' in Recherches Intemationales (Paris) 22 (1960); Henri Labouret, Paysans d' Afrique Occidentale (Paris, 1941), Chap. 2. 3. Fenner Brock.way, "Les revendications agraires africaines au Kenya,'' in Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire; and Kenyatta, op. cit. 4. I. Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life (London: Oxford, 1947). S. S. Ardener, E. Ardener, and w. A. Wormington, Plantation and Village in the Cameroons (London: Oxford, 1960). 6. See Barbe, op. cit.; and Pierre Gourou, Les Pays Tropicaux (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), who writes: "The large concessions of French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo and the forced collecting activities which they imposed on the dispersed native populations, impoverished and depopulated the areas in which· they were established." 7. For example, the head tax, the hut tax, the tax on ,cattle, on polygamic marriage arrangements, on the right to a place in the market, etc. .See Werner Maas, "Die Besteuerung der Eingeborenen in Afrika," in H. A. Bernatzik, ed., Afrika, Hanbuch der angewandten Volkerkunde (Graz, n.p., 1947). 8. Labouret, op. cit., p. 243. 9. Jean Suret-Canale, "La Guinee dans le systeme colonial," Presence Africaine 29 C-19S9-60). 10. In some countries, private landownership was introduced by the colonizers earlier than in others. In Uganda, the mailo system of private ownership was established by the British in 1900, and has been the basis for a new hereditary ruling class. See Audrey L Richards, "Some Effects of the Introduction of Individual Freehold into Buganda," in Biebuyck, op. cit. 11. Majhemout Diop, Contribution. a l'etude des problemes politi246 Notes ques en Afrique Noire (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1958). For similar approaches, see also Osende Afana, "Les classes sociales en Afrique Occidentale," Partisans (Paris) 10 (1963); and Raymond Barbe, Les classes sociales en Afrique Noire (Paris: Economie et Politique, 1964). For a sociological discussion of the problem of social classes in Africa, see Georges Balandier, "Problematique des classes sociales en Afrique Noire,'' Cahiers lnternationaux de Sociologie 38 (1965); and Claude Riviere, "De l'objectivite des classes sociales en Afrique Noire,'' Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie 47 (1969). 12. W. H. Beckett, Akokoaso, a Survey of a Gold Coast Village (London: London School of Economics, 1956) (Monographs on Social Anthropology, 10). 13. J. Boyon, Naissance d'un etat africain: le Ghana (Paris: Armand Colin, 1957), p. 112. 14. Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire, p. 196. 15. International Labour Office, Labour Force Projections 1965- 1985, Pt. II (Geneva, 1971). 16. Bureau International du Travail, Les Problemes du Travail en Afrique, (Geneva, 1958). 17. Institut International d'Etudes Sociales, Problemes sociaux et du travail en Afrique Noire francophone. L'homme au travail (Geneva, 1971); and Babatunde Williams, "The African Revolution,'' New University Thought 1, no. 3 (1961). 18. Henri Labouret, "Sur la main d'oeuvre autochtone," in Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire, pp. 128-29. 19. Van Velsen, "Labour Migration as a Positive Factor in the Continuity of Tonga Tribal Society,'' in Aidan Southall, ed., Social Change in Modern Africa (London: Oxford, 1961). 20. Jean Rouch, "Second Generation Migrants in Ghana and the Ivory Coast,'' in Southall, op. cit. 21. Labouret, "Sur la main d'oeuvre autochtone." 22. Schapera, op. cit. This study was published before Botswana and South Africa became independent countries, and the data collected by the author refer to the period before the Second World War. In summarizing the situation we use the ethnographic present, even though the overall situation does not seem to have changed appreciably. 23. Ibid., p. 141. 24. Ibid., p. 204. The same role is played at present by the Bantustan reserves set up by the white supremacist government of South Africa. 25. Ibid., p. 163. 26. One expert on African questions has written: "From the point of view of the employer and of the economy which he represents, the migrant labour system has several advantages. First of all, it provides a large reservoir of unskilled labour from which the employer can select the able-bodied ancl the fit and reject the aged Notes 247 and infirm. Secondly, the labour force is too unstable to exert an effective collective bargaining power. Thirdly, it has a supplementary source of income in village subsistence production, which can be used to support the worker's family or the labourer himself when unemployed or on holiday, and this may permit the individual to accept less than a full living wage. Fourthly, the tn'bal connexions provide an independent system of social security which enables the employing economy to avoid direct liability for maintaining the unemployed or retired worker'' (Lord Hailey, An African Survey Revised [London: Oxford University Press, 1957], pp. 1277-78). 27. George Brown, Economic History of Liberia, quoted in Georges Balanclier, "La main d'oeuvre chez Firestone-Liberia," in Presence Africaine, Le Travail en Afrique Noire. 28. Ibid., p. 347-48. 29. Ibid., p. 351. 30. See Ardener, Ardener, and Wormington, op. cit. 31. Edwin Ardener, "Social and Demographic Problems of the Southern Cameroons Plantation Area," in Southall, op. cit. 32. Labouret, Paysans d' Afrique Occidentale, p. 238. 33. Doyon, op. cit., pp. 11-12. On the problem of cocoa in Ghana, see Bob Fitch and Mary Oppenheimer, Ghana: End of an.Illusion (New York: Monthly Review, 1966). 34. Pierre Goqrou, "I.es plantations des cacaoyers en pays yoruba: un exemple d'expansion economique spontanee," Annales. Economies, societes, civilisations (Paris) 15, no. 1 (1960), 35. Reported in Doyon, op. cit., p. 112. Chapter 7 1. A good summary of Spanish colonial policy is to be found in Charles Gibson, Spain in America (New York: Harper Totchbooks, 1966). For the situation in Brazil see Manuel Diegues Junior, Populafao e propriedade da te"a no Brasil (Washington: Pan-American Union, 1959). 2. Wolf, "Types of Latin American Peasantry." 3. Ibid. For a model of the social relationships in the open peasant communities as against the corporate communities, see George Foster, "The Dyadic Contract: A Model for the Social Structure of a Mexican Peasant Village," American Anthropologist 63, no. 6 (1961). 4. An overview of the plantation in America is to be found in Plantation Systems in the New World (Washington: Pan-American Union, 1959), particularly in the article by J. H. Steward, "Perspectives on Plantations." 5. In 1960, 42 per cent of the labor force in agriculture was composed of farm owners or title holders in land reform communities, as against only 5 per cent before the Revolution. 6. Ejidatarios own an average of 6.8 hectares of cultivable land. 248 Notes They represent 25 per cent of· the agricultural labor force, and possess 43 per cent of the arable land. 7. See Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, Democracy in Mexico (New York: Oxford, 1970), who analyzes the "marginality" of the rural population in Mexico. 8. For a fuller treatment of land reform in Mexico, see Rodolfo Stavenhagen, "Social Aspects of Agrarian Structure in Mexico," in R. Stavenhagen, ed., Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America (New York: Anchor Bks., 1970). 9. See Mario Monteforte Toledo, Guatemala, monograffa sociol6gica (Mexico: UNAM, 1959); Inter-American Committee for Agricultural Development (CIDA), Tenencia de la tierra y desarrollo socioeconomico del sector agricola: Guatemala (Washington: Pan-American Union, 1965). 10. During the democratic period of 1944-54, the land reform program gave the agricultural workers ownership rights to these shacks. The counterreform after 1954 returned them to the landowners. For an analysis of revolution and counterrevolution in Guatemala see Thomas and Marjorie Melville, Guatemala-Another Vietnam? (Penguin, 1971). 11. Charles P. Loomis and Reed M. Powell, "Class Status in Rural Costa · Rica: a Peasant Community compared with an Hacienda Community," in Materiales para el estudio de la clase media en America Latina, 5 (Washington: Pan-American Union, 1950). 12. Alejandro Marroqufn, "Cambios en la agricultura y sus repercusiones sociales," America Latina 8, no. 3 (1965). See also Tenencia de la tierra y desa"ollo rural en Centroamerica (San Jose, Costa Rica: EDUCA, 1973). 13. See the studies of the Inter-American Committee on Agricultural Development on land tenure and the social and economic development of the agricultural sector in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Pern, published in seven volumes by the Pan-American Union, Washington, 1965-66. For a critical appraisal of the results of these studies see Ernest Feder, The Rape of the Peasantry (New York: Anchor Bks., 1971). 14. Beals, "Social Stratification in Latin America." 15. See Wagley, Race and Class in Rural Brazil. 16. Juan Comas, ''Latin America," in International Social Science Journal, 8, no. 2 (special number on recent research on race relations [II]) (1961). Chapter 8 1. The analysis of West African rural society is based on the following studies: Ivory Coast J. L. Boutillier, Bongouanou, Cote d'Ivoire (Paris: Berger Levrault, 1960). Notes 249 J. Causse and J. Gauthier, Enqu§te agricole due ]Bf' secteur de la Ctite d'Ivoire, 1957-58 (Abidjan: Republique de la C6te d'Ivoire, Ministere du Plan). M. Dupire, Planteurs authochtones et etrangers en basse Ctite d'Ivoire Occidentale (Abidjan: Etudes Ebumeennes, 8, 1960). A. Kobben, "Land as an Object of Gain in a Non Literate Society. Land Tenure among the Bete and Dida (Ivory Coast, West Africa)," in Biebuyck, African Agrarian Systems (1963). A. Kobben, Le planteur noir (Abidjan: Etudes Eburneennes, 5, 1956). Claude Meillassoux, Anthropologie economique des Gouro de Ctite d'Ivoire (Paris: Mouton, 1964). Henri Raulin, Problemes fonciers dans les regions de Gagnoa et Daloa (Paris: Mimeographed paper, 1957). G. Rougerie, Les pays Agni du Sud-Est de la Ctite d'Ivoire forestiere (Abidjan: Etudes Eburneennes, 6, 1957). Ghana Beckett, Akokoaso, a Survey of a Gold Coast Village. Boyon, Naissance d'un etat africain: le Ghana. Polly Hill, The Gold Coast Cocoa Farmer (London: Oxford, 1956). Polly'Hill, "Three Types of Southern Ghanaian Cocoa Farmers," in Biebuyck, op. cit. (1963). Nigeria D. C. Forde and R. Scott, The Native Economies of Nigeria, (London: Oxford, 1946). Pierre Gourou, ''Les plantations des cacaoyers en pays yomba: un exemple d'expansion economique spontanee,'' Annales. Economies, societes, civilisations (Paris) 15, no. 1 (1960). 2. Rougerie, pp. 62-63. 3. Kobben 1956, p. 37. 4. Boutillier, p. 31. 5. Kobben 1956, p. 38. 6. Dupire, p, 224. 7. Rougerie, p. 64. 8. Dupire, p. 22. 9. Dupire, p. 158. 10. Kobben 1956, Chap. 8. The same situation existed among the Ashanti of the Gold Coast. 11. Boutillier, p. 32. Chapter 9 1. Among the Yomba commercial farms developed spontaneously. See Gourou, op. cit. In southern Ghana groups of immigrants settled freely, having been attracted by the posSI'bilities of gain with cocoa farming. See Hill 1963. 250 Notes 2. The French word for commercial crop farmer, planteur, was used as an officially recognized title by the French colonial administration, and was given to all those cultivators who planted at least four hectares of coffee or cocoa. See Rougerie, p. 96. We will use the term farmer here to refer to cash crop agriculturists. 3. Forde and Scott, pp. 86-87. 4. Beckett. S. Rougerie, p. 98. In nearby Bonguanou, cash crops also displaced subsistence agriculture, and nowadays local cultivators spend more than 30 per cent of their income on foodstuffs. See Boutillier, p. 85. 6. Among the matrilineal families of southern Ghanaian cocoa farmers, Polly Hill noted that there was no co-operative labor among the members of the lineage (p. 212). Among the Gouro, families do co-operate for cash crop farming and this eases the transition to wage labor. See Meillassoux, p. 328. 7. Kobben 1963. 8. Kobben 1956, p. 9. 9. Ibid., p. 40. Among the Gouro, "however, this tendency towards the generalization of commercial farming takes place very unevenly, and there occurs a process of differentiation which is based in large measure on the social and political hierarchy· inherited from traditional society, which has been reinforced or altered by colonial institutions and which now becomes perpetuated through material success based on the establishment of new relations of production" (Meillassoux, p. 336). Chapter 10 1. These migrations must be seen as part of the large-scale, extensive labor migrations of the African continent to which reference was made in a previous chapter, and which can only be understood within the framework of the colonial situation and the continent's underdevelopment. However, for the purposes of this analysis, we shall consider migration only in terms of its effects upon Agni society in the Ivory Coast. 2. Dupire, p. 21. 3. In one area of the Agni country, foreign farmers represent 30 per cent of all cultivators (Dupire), and altogether the immigrants (farmers, laborers, traders, and craftsmen) make· up about one third of the population of the Sanwi kingdom (Rougerie). 4. Dupire, pp. 182, 185. S. For the moment we are not considering foreign immigrants who are not commercial farmers. 6. Dupire, p. 208. An example of conflict that may influence the formation of social classes is provided by mixed marriages. If, for example, a Diola man (of patrilineal tradition) marries an Agni woman (matrilineal), the couple's children would, in principle, Notes 251 inherit from both parents. On the other hand, if a foreign woman from a patrilineal group marries an Agni man, the children may be in danger of not inheriting anything. Consequently, the accumulation of wealth through inheritance is distributed very unequally. Mixed marriages do not appear to be very common, but the conflicts they generate are not rare. 7. Hill 1963. 8. Meillassoux, pp. 52, 59. 9. Causse and Gauthier, p. 22. 10. Dupire, p. 40. 11. Boutillier, p. 182. 12. Hill, Chap. 2 (1956). Chaper 11 1. Rougerie, p. 126. 2. Boutillier, pp. 98-99. 3. Hill, Chap. 5 (1956). 4. Beckett, Chap. 5. 5. Forde and Scott, pp. 252-53. 6. Boutillier, p. 108. 7. Kobben (1956), p. 41. 8. Dupire, p. 193. 9. A bushel of cocoa weighs sixty pounds. 10. Hill 1956, Chap. 8. 11. Beckett, Chap. 5. 12. Kobben (1956), p. 41; Rougerie, p. 135. 13. See Kobben 1956, Chaps. 5--7. But among the Yomba conspicuous consumption seems to be the rule. See Gourou, op. cit. 14. Boutillier, p. 99. 15. The important role of the traders has been underlined also among the Yomba by Gorou, op. cit., and among the Gouro by Meillassoux, op. cit. Chapter 12 1, Elman R. Service, "Indian-European Relations in Coloriial Latin America," American Anthropologist 57 (1955), p. 416. 2. Ibid., p. 418. 3, 1. M. Ots Capdequi, El regimen de la tierra en la America eapaiiola durante el perfodo colonial (Santo Domingo: Montalvo 1946), p. 102. 4. Sol Tax, "The Municipios of the Midwestem Highlands of Guatemala," American Anthropologist 39 (1937); Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran and Ricardo Pozas, lnstituciones indtgenas en el Mexico actual (Mexico: lnstituto Nacional lndigenista, 1954). 5. Tax, op. cit., and Henning Siverts, "Social and Cultural Changes in a Tzeltal (Maya) Municipio, Chiapas, Mexico," Proceedings 252 Notes of the 32nd. International Congress of Americanists (Copenhagen, 1956). 6. Aguirre Beltran states emphatically that "the Ladino does not belong to White stock." See Formas de gobierno indigena (Mexico: UNAM, 1953), p. 112. See also Julio de la Fuente, "Ethnic and Communal Relations," in Sol Tax, ed., Heritage of Conquest (Glencoe: Free Press, 1951), who writes, referring to Mesoamerica in general: " ••• race is a construct derived predominantly out of cultural differences, racial terminology is vague and inconsistent, and many Ladinos are not categorized within any race" (p. 77). 7. Nathan Whetten, Rural Mexico (Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 1948). 8. Alfonso Caso, ''Definici6n del indio y lo indio," America lndigena 8, no. 5 (1948). 9. Sol Tax, Penny Capitalism. A Guatemalan Indian Economy (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, 1953). 10. Siverts, op. cit., p. 183. 11. Eric Wolf, "The Indian in Mexican Society," The Alpha Kappa Deltan 30, no. 1 (1960). 12. Eric Wolf, "Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society: Mexico," American Anthropologist 58 (1956). 13. Robert Redfield and Sol Tax, "General Characteristics of Present Day Mesoamerican Indian Society," in Tax, Heritage of Conquest. 14. Alfonso Caso, "Los fines de la acci6n indigenista en Mexico," International Labour Review 72, no. 6 (December 1955). 15. Melvin Tomin, Caste in a Peasant Society (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1952). 16. B. Colby and P. Van den Berghe, "Ethnic Relations in Southeastern Mexico," American Anthropologist 63, no. 4 (1961). Chapter 13 1. See Jose Miranda and Silvio Zavala, "Instituciones incligenas en la Colonia," in Metodos y resultados de la polftica indigenista en Mexico (Mexico: Memorias del Instituto Nacional Indigenista, VI, 1954). 2. See Calixta Guiteras Holmes, Perils of the Soul (Glencoe: Free Press, 1961), who writes: "As the years went by more than half of the lands belonging to the Pedrano Indians were acquired by wealthy and influential outsiders. • • • The man who purchased the land acquired the right to exploit those residing on it" (p. 14). And: ''By 1910, Indians on their own lands had not only lost them but had become moms (serfs)" (p. 16). About another community, Siverts writes: ''The legal backing allowed them ( the Ladinos) to expropriate great areas of arable land and force the original owners to work for them as peones Notes 253 or tenants" (op. cit, p. 183). The same process has been reported in Guatemala by Tax (Penny Capitalism), Tomin (op. cit.), and Charles Wagley, Santiago Chimaltenango (Guatemala: Seminario de Integraci6n Social Guatemalteca, 1957). 3. S. A. Mosk, "Economfa cafetalera de Guatemala durante el perfodo 1850-1918," in Economta de Guatemala (Guatemala: Seminario de lntegraci6n Social Guatemalteca, 1958). 4. Oliver La Farge, "Etnologfa maya: secuencia de culturas," in Cultura Indtgena de Guatemala (Guatemala: Seminario de Integraci6n Social Guatemalteca, 1959). Chapter 14 1. Wagley, Santiago Chimaltenango. 2. Tax, Penny Capitalism. 3. Wolf, "The Indian in Mexican Society." 4. Tomin, op. cit. 5. A. D. Marroquin, "Consideraciones sobre el problema econ6mico de la region tzeltal-tzotzil," America lndfgena 16, no. 3 (1956). 6. R. Pozas, Chamula, un pueblo indio de los Altos de Chipas, (Mexico: lnstituto Nacional lndigenista, 1959). 7. Monteforte Toledo, Guatemala, monografia sociologica. 8. A. Y. Dessaint, "Effects of the Hacienda and Plantation Systems on Guatemala's Indians," America lndigena, 22, no. 4 (1962), p. 338. 9. Dessaint, op. cit., writes: "obtaining an adequate labor supply to work cash-crop fields has been of prime importance ever since the Spanish Conquest" (p. 326). 10. Tomin, op. cit. 11. Cf. Manning Nash, Machine Age Maya: The Industrialization of a Guatemalan CommunitY (Glencoe: Free Press, 1958). 12. See Antonio Goubaud's intervention in the discussion of Sol Tax's paper "Economy and Technology," in Tax, Heritage of Conquest, p. 74. 13. Ibid. 14. Guiteras Holmes, op. cit. 15. Tomin, op. cit.; John Gillin, San Luis Jilotepeque (Guatemala: Seminario de Integraci6n Social, 1958). 16. Tax, Penny Capitalism. 17. Wagley, Santiago Chimaltenango, p. 67. 18. Pozas, op. cit. 19. "La situaci6n agraria de las comunidades indfgenas," Accion Indigenista, no. 105 (March 1962). Chapter 15 1. In the sense given to this sociological term by Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris in their Minorities in the New World (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1958). 254 Notes 2. Robert Redfield, "Primitive Merchants of Guatemala," The Quarterly Journal of Inter-American Relations 1, no. 4 (1939). 3. Tax, Penny Capitalism, p. 13. 4. A. Marroquin, "Introducci6n al mercado indfgena mexicano," Ciencias Politicas y Sociales, no. 8 (1957). 5. Cf. B. Malinowski and J. de la Fuente, La economia de un sistema de mercados en Mexico (Mexico: Acta Anthropologica, ENAH, 1957); Alejandro Marroquin, La ciudad mercado (Tiaxiaco, Mexico: UNAM, 1957); G. Aguirre Beltran, El proceso de aculturaci6n (Mexico: UNAM, 1957). 6. Lately, the Indians who come to the market no longer use the traditional footpaths but ride on buses over newly built roads which link their villages to the city. The atajadoras are thus conveniently eliminated. 7. Pozas, op. cit., p. 111. 8. Guiteras Holmes, op. cit. 9. On the "rural-urban conflict" in this area see the controversy between B. Colby and P. Van den Berghe, op. cit., and V. Goldkind, "Ethnic Relations in Southeastern Mexico: A Methodological Note," American Anthropologist 65, no. 2 (1963); as well as the formers' "Reply to Goldkind's Critique of 'Ethnic Relations in Southeastern Mexico,"' American Anthropologist 66, no. 2 (1964); and also R. Stavenhagen, "Further Comment on Ethnic Relations in Southeastern Mexico," American Anthropologist 66, no. 5 (1964). Chapter 16 1. See Chapter 2. 2. Aguirre Beltran, Formas de gobierno indigena. 3 F. Camara Barbachano, "Religious and Political Organization," in Tax, Heritage of Conquest. 4. Aguirre Beltran; Formas de gobierno indigena. 5. Pozas, op. cit. In an interesting essay, F. Cancian shows that in Zinacantan (Mexico), the prestige of a position depends on various factors which are difficult to measure, among them the cost of the. position, the authority it conveys, and "idiosyncratic" factors, Cf. F. Cancian, "Informant Error and Native Prestige Ranking in Zinacantan," American Anthropologist 65, no. 5 (1963). See also his Economics and Prestige in a Maya Community (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1965), for a detailed analysis of the system. 6. Cancian, loc. cit., suggests that in Zinacantan there does exist a rudimentary "economic stratification." 7. Aguirre Beltran, Formas de gobierno indfgena, p. 103. 8. Ibid. 9. In Chiapas, Mexico, the lnstituto Nacional Indigenista (a government department) is training young Indians as municipal secreNotes 255 taries for the positions held by the ladinos. In Guatemala, the penetration of the national political parties into the Indian communities during the democratic regimes of the 1944-54 decade modified the traditional structure. See: Political Changes in Guatemalan Indian Communities (New Orleans: Tulane Univ. Press, 1957). . 10. Richard N. Adams, Encuesta sobre la cultura de los ladinos en Guatemala (Guatemala: EMEP, 1956). 11. Tumin, op. cit. 12. Tax, Penny Capitalism. 13. Colby and Van den Berghe, op. cit. 14. Ibid. 15. Robert Redfield, "The Relations Between Indians and Ladinos in Agua Escondida, Guatemala," America lndigena 16, no. 4 (1956). Chapter 17 1. Angel Palerm, "Notas sobre la clase media en Mexico," Ciencias Sociales (Washington) 14, no. 15, and 16, no. 17 (1952). 2. For a general discussion of the colonial system see Gibson, Spain in America. · 3. On the concepts of relation of dependence and relation of order and their· application to the study of class structures, see S. Ossowski, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963). 4. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova also brings forth the existence of internal colonialism in Mexico. The present essay presents a particular case, which may be considered within Gonzalez Casanova's general approach. See his study "Internal Colonialism and National Development," Studies in Comparative International Development 1, no. 4 (1965), as well as Democracy in Mexico. See also R. Stavenhagen, "Seven Fallacies about Latin America"; and "Estructura social y subdesarrollo," Dialogos (Mexico) 16 (1967). 5. Cf. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, "Sociedad · plural y desarrollo: el caso de Mexico," America Latina 5, no. 4 (1962). 6. Jaime Diaz Rozzotto, El caracter de la revoluci6n guatemalteca (Mexico: Horizonte, 1958). Also see Richard N. Adams, "Social Change in Guatemala and U.S; Policy," in R. N. Adams (ed.), Social Change in Latin America Today (New York: Random House, 1960). · 7. Cf. Stavenhagen, "Social Aspects of Agrarian Structure in Mexico." 8. Eric Wolf, Sons of the Shaking Earth (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1959). 9. See Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, Regiones de Refugio (Mexico: Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, 1967). 256 Notes Epilogue 1. Stephen Hymer, Economic Forms in Pre-Colonial Ghana. (New Haven: Yale University, 1969) (Economic Growth Center, Center Discussion Paper No. 79). 2. Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, "Research into an African Mode of Production," (Dakar, 1969 [IDEP/Reproduction/251/1971]), 3. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism. 4. For recent discussions on these problems see, for example, Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America; Ernesto Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America./' New Left Review, no. 67 (May-June 1971); Enrique Semo, ''Feudalismo y capitalismo en la Nueva Espana (1521-1765),'' Comercio Exterior (Mexico) 21, no. 5 (May 1972). 5. Claude Meillassoux, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London: Oxford, 1971), pp. 54,..:.55. 6. Ibid., p, 59. 7. Ibid., p. 60. 8. Richards, "Some Effects of the Introduction of Individual Freehold in Buganda," in Biebuyck, op. cit 9. M. P. K. Sorrenson, Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country (Nairobi, London: Oxford, 1967). 10. Stavenhagen, Agrarian l'roblems and Peasant Movements in Latin America. See also Solon Barraclough, Agrarian Structure in Latin America (Lexington: Heath, 1973). · 11. Feder, The Rape of the Peasantry. 12. Ibid., pp. 278-79. 13. International Labour Office, Agrarian Reform and Employment (Geneva, 1971). · 14. Samir Amin, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa (Middlesex: Penguin [Penguin African Library], 1973); Rene Dumont, Notes sur les implications sociales de la revolution verte en quelques pays d'Afrique (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1971). 15. See Dumont, op. cit, for more information on the Office du Niger development scheme. 16. For a study of Eastern Nigeria, see, for example, William P. Huth, Traditional Institutions and Land Tenure as Related to Agricultural Development Among the Ibo of Eastern Nigeria (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1969) (Land Tenure Center Research Paper No. 36). · 17. Amin, L'accumulation a l'echelle mondiale. Abi,san contract, 141-43 Acculturation in dynamics of· interethnic. relations, 213-15 factors opposing, 2011c-9 μpward mobility as pro~ of, 197-98 Actual economic surplus, defined, 11 Adams, Richard N., 197 Agrarian reform in l.,@.tinA merica, l04, 107, 108, 181 .Agrarian societies, rμral class structures an4. 65-71 .Agrarian structures . capitalist development and, 215- 33 colonization ,process, 219-33 development of agricultural capitalism, 227-33 precapitalist modes of production, 216-19 defined, 67 .Agricultural capitalism; · · development of, 227-33 .Agricultural economy; ~ill social classes and, 67-70 Agricultural enterprise, Central American, 112-13 Agricultural proletariat African, 83-87 Central American. 111 in formation, 104 .Agricultural worken African INDEX foreign immigrants as, 141-44 growth of, 77 land use among .Agni,and, 125 on plantation, 83-87, 141-46 seasonal, 83-86 ~ social class, 156-57 Latin American, i09-12, 177-79 distribution of, 115 · interethnic relations and, 204- 5 .Agijculture African commercial, see Plantation economy capitalist extensive, 69 in In~ 46, 47 See also Agrarian structures commercial, see· Coniniercial · · agriculture; Monoculture; Plantation· economy family farms,. 113 pre-Columbian, 45 subsistence, see Subsistence agriculture techniques in, providing for surpluses, 217-19 See also Land Archaic societies, 41-42 Aristocracy pre-Columbian, 171 bureaucratic aris~, 44 Spanish colonial, 100 See also Nobility Asiatic mode of production, 43, 219 Assimilation, 209-10 258 Beals, Ralph, 115-16 Beckett, W. H., 148 Beltran, Aguirre, 193 Bendix, R., 23 Bourgeoisie African, 85 Latin American, 207 national, 15 peasant, 110, 111, 153-54, 156 as Western social class, 14-15 Boutillier, J. L., 125, 135, 149, 157-58 Boyou, J., 75 Capital (Marx), 26 Capital, finance, family smallholding and, 69 Capital formation accelerating rates of, 10-11 ruling elites and, 17 Capitalism agrarian structures and, 215-33 colonization process, 219-33 development of agricultural capitalism, 227-33 precapitalist modes of production, 216-19 capitalist agriculture capitalist extensive agriculture, 69 in India, 46, 47 colonialism, see Colonialism dependent growth of dependen~ 11-13 middle class and, 15 modernization of elites and, 16-17 factors blocking evolution of, 110-11 transformations wrought by, 18 "penny," 176 and structural analysis of social classes, 40 . and subsistence agriculture, 76, 82-83 underdeveloped countries and history of, 5-7 underdevelopment and development of world, 40-41 See also Mercantilism; Monetary economy Cardenas, Lazaro, 181 Caso, Alfonso, 166-69 Index Castes, 35-37 African, 48 Latin American, 169 Centripetal organization, 191 Class conflict conflicting value systems and, 35 and fossilization of stratifications, 34 Class consciousness, 30-31 Class struggle, 31-32 Clergy, pre-Columbian, 44 Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB), 90 Colonialism, 5-6 in Africa Agni and, 121-22 compared with colonialism in Latin America, 94-95 compulsory labor abolished, 135 expropriation of land under, 74 in Liberia, 83-85 plantation agriculture under, 69, 83-87 class societies modified by, 51- 53 effects of, 11 internal, 204 and introduction of money economy, 53-54 introduction of private landownership and monoculture under, 55-56 in Latin America class relations undermine, 201-2 compared with colonialism in Africa, 94-95 development of agricultural capitalism and, 227-33 in dynamics of interethnic relations, 207-10 evolution of colonialism, 94- 104 historical background, 170-72 process of, 219-33 and migration of workers and rural exodus, 56-58 new social categories arising from, 76 urbanization and, 58-59 See also Dependent capitalism; Spanish Conquest Index Comas, Juan, 116 Commercial agriculture in Africa, 119-60 in Latin America, 110-11 cyclical development of, 101- 2 development of, 176-77 peasantry and, lOOr-3 See also Monoculture; Plantation economy Commercial-capitalist system, free. ing the land and expansion of, 182 Commercial relations, 18S-S9 · regional markets and interethnic, 18S-87 Commoners, pre-Columbian, 44 Communal property brought into market, 173 traditional, 179-81 Community Indian class relations and, 202 compact and dispersed, 164- 6S corporate, 191-92 defined, · 166-67 interethnic stratifications and, 205-6 ladinoization and, 197-98 of Maya bjgblands people, 164-6S redistn"bution of wealth in, 192-93 Spanish Conquest and, 200-1 and weakness of cultural factors as analytical tool, 167-69 Constitutional Council, · 193 Consumption class and patterns of, 1S2, 1S3 per household average, in Latin America, 17 Contractors,. iminigrants as, 144 Coparenthood, ritual, 187-88, 197 Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine, 218 Cox, Cromwell, 36 Cultural factors conceal socioeconomic structures, 167 · to distmgujsh populations, 166 as essential to stratification, 196- 98 maintenance of, 172 259 weakness of, as analytical tool, 167-69 Culture, Indian, 202, 208 Indianness, 171-72 Davis, Kingsley, 19, 20 Day laborers, foreign iminigrants as, 141-44. See also Agricultural workers Debt service, 196S-67, 10 Dependent capitali$m growth of, 11-13 middle class and, 1S modernization of elites and, 16- 17 transformations wrought by, 18 See also Colonialism Development-underdevelopment dichotomy, colonial relationships and, 207-8 Diop, Majhemout, · 7S Discrimination against blacks, 33 against Indians, 196 Dobb, Maurice, 43 Dominant class distribution of, 114-lS in rural population,· 112 Dual· societies, underdeveloped countries as, 41 Dumont, Louis, 36 Dupire, M., 122, 142, 14S, 1SO, 158-60 Economic surplus, actual, defined, 11 Engels, Friedrich, 2S-26, 31-32, 43 Entrepreneurs in colonial period, 171 Expropriation of land, 74-7S Extended · family in plantation economy, 149-SO Fallers, L A., 66-67 Family extended, in plantation economy, · 149-50 use of land and Agni, 125-27 Family farms, Central American, 113 Family labor in family-size tenancy, 68 in family smallholding, 68 260 land and, among Agni, 131-33 in peasant economy, 65-66 Family-size tenancy, 68 Family smallholcling, 68-69 Farmers African class structure and social stratification in plantation economy, 155-58 commercial, 88-91 social differentiation and si7.e of farms of, 148-51 socioeconomic status and class situation of, 151-55 commercial, 137-40 African, 88-91 Latin American, 176-77 See also Commercial agriculture distinguished from peasants, 65- 67 Latin American, 100, 110 commercial, 176-77 subsistence farmer, 175-76 Farm si7.e, social differentiation and, 148-51 Farm units, relative number and area of, by si7.eg roups, 113- 14 Feudalism, 43 African based on cattle herds, 73 in Lake kingdoms, 50-51 in Madagascar, 47-49, 52 in Nigeria, 49 European, 67-68 in India, 46-47, 52 Latin American colonial system as, 221 of opposing classes, 115-16 Spanish Conquest and, 200 Finance capital, family smallholding and, 69 Firestone Rubber Company, 83- 84 Folk societies, 171 Folk-urban continuum concept, 167 Forces of production, class struggle and, 31-32 Foreign investment increasing underdevelopment in Third World, 9-11 Frankel, Herbert, 10 Index Franklin, Benjamin, 15 Freemen, Agni, 122, 124 Godelier, Maurice, 43 Gross National Product (GNP), as indicator of underdevelopment, 3 Holmes, Guiteras, 188 Hydraulic societies, 43, 219 Hymer, Stephen, 217 Immigrant workexs, 87 as commercial farmers, 137-40 as day laborexs, 141-44 and formation of a new social class, 144-46 as social class, 156-57 Imperialism, effects of, 11; see also Capitalism; Colonialism Income per capita, 3 in plantation economy, 151 Indebtedness in plantation economy, 147-48 Independence, national, 173-74 lndo-colonial population (Mexico), 166 Industrialization, 59-61, 179, 203- 4 Industrial proletariat in Africa, 81, 83 industrialization and, 60 Inheritance of plantations among .Agni, 133-34 Interetbnic relations, 163-215 among .Agni, 137-46 commercial relations and, 185- 89 . constellation of regional markets and, 185-87 dynamics of, 199-215 acculturation, 213-15 class relationships, 210-11 · colonial relationships, 207-10 contemporary processes, 204- 15 historical trends, 199-204 social stratification, 212-13 historical background of class relations and, 170-74 colonial period, 170-72 period of independence, 173- 74 Index land and class relations, 175-84 land tenure, 179-84 production relations, 175-79 among Maya . highlands people, 163-69 community and municipio, 164-65 Indians and ladinos, 166-71 social stratification in, 190-98 interethnic stratification and mobility, 194-98 intraethnic stratification, 190- 94 Kenyatta, Jomo, 73 Kinship organization, pre-Columbian, 4345 Kobben, A., 121-22, 148 Kuznets, Simon, 13 Labor in capitalist extensive agriculture, 69 for commercial food crops, 130 family in family-size tenancy, 68 in family smallholding, 68 land and family· 1abor among Agni, 131.;.33 in peasant economy, 65-66 forced, 98, 171, 220 abolished, 135 Indian, 9&-101, 220-21 in manorial system, 68 Mexican, 107 peonage, 68, 98-100, 220, 224 in plantation agriculture, 69 Spanish Conquest and, 200 See also Wage labor; Workers Labor unions, 145-46, 178, 205 Labouret, H., 75, 78, 88 LaFarge, Oliver, 174 Land in Africa Agni, 121, 124-28, 137-38 commercial farms and, 88-90 expropriation of, 74-75 family labor and, 131-33 in family-size tenancy, 68 in family smallholdin& 68-69 lack of demographic PJ'C!lllure on, 7'2-73 social classes defined in terms of (in peasant societies), 71 261 in capitalist extensive agriculture, ·69 introduction of private ownership of, 55-56; see also Private property in Latin America Central America, 108-14 class relations and, 175-84 communal lands brought into market, 173 encomiendas, 9&-97, 163, 170-71, 200, 219-20 grants in, 97, 170-71 individual property in land, 203 multi-family farms, 113, 114 process of accumulation of, 9&-100 private property in, 97-100; see .also Private property production relations, 175-79 Spanish gain possession of, 170-71 in manorial system, 67-68 in pre-British India, 46 in primitive societies, 42 relative number and area of farms, by size groups, 113- 14 social differentiation and farm size, 148-51 sub-family farms, 113, 115 Landowners absentee, in plantation economy, 154, 156 in Central America, 110 emergence of, 97-100 in family-size tenancy, 68 introduction of private ownership and, 55-56; see also Private property in manorial system, 68 in Mexico, 104-7 in plantation agriculture, 69 Land reform, 104, 107, 108, 181 Land tenure in Africa, 47 Agni, 125-28, 139 new social category of commercial farmers and, 135- 36 in Latin America, 100, 179-84 Central America, 108-12 colonial, 95 262 interethnic relations and, 179- 84 in Mexico, 104-7 in manorial system, 68 Leach, E. R., 36 Lenin, Vladimir L, 27-29 Lipset, Seymour M., 16, 23 Lower class, 112, 114-15 Marroqufn, Alejandro, 112, 186 Marshall, T. H., 23 Marx, Karl, 15 asiatic mode of production outlined by, 43 and economic basis of class, 27 history of class struggle and, 31- 32 social classes and, 25-27 Marxism class analysis in, 38-39 and social classes, 25-28 Matrilineal society, 127 Means of production class, plantation economy and, 153 class struggle and, 31 in social class, defined, 28-30 Mercantilism, 219, 222 spread of, 200-1 Merchants as class in plantation economy, 157-58 Madagascar, 48-49 p~lumbian, 44, 45 primitive, 185, 186 Merlna society, 48 Metropolis/satellite chain, 12-13, 16 Middle class in Central American rural population, 112 distn"bution of, 114-15 effects of rise of, 7-8 as integrated into dependent cap, italism, 15 in social stratification, 115-16 of Western and underdeveloped countries, compared, 15-16 Migration, colonialism and work.er, 56-58 Migratory workers African, 77-83 abusan contract for, 141-43 seasonal, 79-83 lndt!l Latin American, 109, 111, 178 Mine Natives' Wages Commissioll (1944, South Africa), 81-82 Minorities, 37-38 Mobility interethnic stratification and, 194-98 social, 23-25 Mode of production asiatic, 43, 219 precapitalist, 216-19 Monetary economy emancipatory qualities of, 136 established, . 132-33; see alsG Plantation economy indebtedness in, 147-48 introduction of, 53-54, 223-24 stimulates extension of commer, cial crops, 130 Monetary exchange, developmenl of, 54 Monoculture development of, 74-75 introduction of, 55-56 in Latin America, 108-12 penetration by, 173 See also Plantation economy Monopolistic structure of Indim: markets, 185, 186 Moore, Wilbert E., 19, 20 Morgan, Lewis H., 43 Multi-family farms, 113, 114 Municipio, 164-65 Mutual savings associations, 87 Myrdal, Gunnar, 14 Nadel, Siegfried F., 49 National integration, 61-62, 207- 10 Nobility African, 91 .Agni, 121-24 in Lake kingdoms, 50-51 Madagascar, 48 and new social category o: commercial farms, 134-36 Nigerian, 49 Latin American, p~lumbian ..44, 45 pre-British Indian, 46 See also Aristocracy Parsons, Talcott, 20 Pearson report, 10 Index Peasant bourgeoisie, 110, 111, 153- 54, 156 Peasantry African changing, 65-67 distinguished from tribal cultivators and farmers, 65-67 essays of classification, 75-76 in family-me tenancy, 68 in family smallholding, 68-69 in Lake kingdoms, 50-51 Madagascar, 48 new categories among, 73-74 Nigerian, 49 seasonal workers and, 79-83 Latin American Central American, 108-12 Indian, 98-101, 173-74 and introduction of private landownership and monoculture, 55 Mexican, 104-7 peasant defined, 66 types, 102-4 in manorial system, 68 in pre-British India, 46, 47 ,in underdeveloped countries, 70- 71 "Penny capitalism," 176 Peonage, 68, 98-100, 220, 224 Per capita income, as indicator of underdevelopment, 3 Plantation economy agricultural workers in, 83-87, 141-46 in Central America, 109-12 class structnre and social stratification among the Agni in, 155-58 colonialism and, 69, 83-87 commercial farmers in, 88-91 in commercial farming, 76-77 development of, 129-31 cyclical development, 101-2 established, 120-21 foreign immigrant as commercial farmers in, 137-40 foreign immigrants as day laborers in, 141-44 formation of a new social class in, 144-46 indebtedness in, 147-51 inheritance of plantations, 133- 34 263 land and family labor in, 131-33 new social category of commercial farmers in, 134-36 peasantry in, 103 socioeconomic status and class situation of farmers in, 151- 55 Political organization of Agni. 120-23 Political-religious hierarchy, 191 Potential economic surplus, defined, 11 Pozas, R.; 178, 183, 187 Precapitalist mode of production, 216-19 Prestige, stratification and, 20 Primitive societies, 41-42 .Private property, 203 among Agni, 125 introduction of, 55-56 in Latin America, 98-100, 108, 181-84 Producers' associations, formed, in plantation economy, 154-55 Production asiatic mode of, 43, 219 forces of, class struggle and, 31- 32 interethnic relations and, 175-79 precapitalist mode of, 216-19 See also Means of production Production relations among Agni, 133 in interethnic relations, 17 5-79 land and, 175-79 social class and, 31-32 Proletarianization of Indians, 214 Proletariat. agricultural African, 83-87 Central American, 111 in formation, 104 industrial in Africa, 81, 83 industriali7.ation and, 60 Property communal brought into market, 173 traditional, 179-81 concept of, in black Africa, 73 See also Private property Protestant ethic, 15 Public bureaucracies, effects of modernizing, 7 264 Race relations, 37-38 in Latin America, class relations and, 115-16 Races, defined, 37 Racial criteria in stratification, 33, 195, 197 Racism, and plantation economy, 155 Raulin, Henri, 140 Redfield, Robert, 167, 168, 185, 186, 196 Regional markets, 185-87 Rentier capitalists in family-size tenancy, 68 Ritual coparenthood, 187-88, 197 Rostow, Walt W., 13 Rougerie, G., 120-21, 124-25, 131 Rural bourgeoisie, 110, 111, 153- 54, 156 Rural exodus, 56-59 Rural proletariat. See Agricultural proletariat Rural villages, common features of, 65-66 Saul, John S., 67 Schapera, I., 81-83 Serfs, 50-51 Shanin, T., 66 Sharecroppers and abusan contract, 141-42 in Latin America, 109, 111, 115 Siverts, Henning, 167 Slavery, 43 African under Agni, 122-24 in Madagascar, 48 Latin American, 45, 69, 94, 100, 221 in plantation agriculture, 69 in pre-British India, 46 Slave trade, 48, 222-23 Social classes, 19-41 consecutive phases in development of, 31 as defined in contemporary sociological literature, 22 mobility and disappearance of antagonism in, 24-25 stratification and, 26 relations between class structure and, 32-35 in underdeveloped countries, 40-41 Index See also Stratification structural and dynamic conception of, 25-32 See also Aristocracy; Bourgeoisie; Castes; Commoners; Dominant class; Farmers; Freemen; Landowners; Lower class; Merchants; Middle class; Nobility; Peasantry; Peonage; Serfs; Sharecroppers; Warriors; Workers; Working class Social factors in definition of community, 166- 67 to distinguish populations, 166 Social :fixations (projections}, 33 Social mobility, 23-25 Socioeconomic categories of Latin American agricultural population, 114-15 Spanish Conquest, 44, 45, 95, 96 ease of Spanish establishment after, 163 historical development of, 199- 204 Indian segregation policy and, 170 State, the, 32, 43-45 Stinchcombe, Arthur L., 67 Stratification in Africa, 73 of Agni, 123-25 class structure and, 155-60 in Lake kingdoms, 50-51 land tenure and Agni, 125-28 mutual adaptation between new class structure and old, 91 in precolonial Nigeria, 49 castes as systems of, 36 defined, 19-23, 195 in Latin America among ladinos, 193-94 breakdown of interethnic, 204-5 colonial character of, 202-3 in dynamics of interethnic relations, 212-13 of Indian society, 172 interethnic stratification and mobility, 194-98 intraethnic stratification, 190- 94 Index oversimplified views of, 11S- 16 in primitive, tn"bal or archaic societies, 42 racial, 70-71 racial criteria in, 33, 19S, 197 social class and, 26 relations between class structure and, 32-3S in underdeveloped countries, 40-41 See also Social classes social mobility and, 23-2S Sub-family farms, 113, US Subsistence agriculture Agni, 73, 76-77, 86 capitalism and, 76, 82-83 communal land used for, 180 cycle of, differentiated from that of commercial farming, 130-31 expropriation of land and, 74- 7S; see also Land of Indians, 170 indigenous traits and, 171-72 Latin American, 108-11 nutl7.e in, 17S-76 peasantry in, 102; see also Peasantry as traditional economy, 119 wage work and, 179 Subsistence cultivators, 66-67 transformed into commercial farmers, 130 Tax, Sol and cultural elements in analysis, 167, 168 and Indians in capitalist system, 176, 177 and ladino classes, 194 and land use, 180, 182 and market system, 18S, 186 Taxes and money economy, S3, 74 Technology, economic develop. ment and, 13, 14 Tenants in Central America, 109, 111 Touraine, A., 20 Trade slave, 48, 222-23; see also Slavery terms of, deteriorating for African and Latin American 265 countries (19S0-68), 9 Traditional structures, 41-Sl Tribal cultivators, 66-67 Tribal life, effects of seasonal workers on, 80-83 Tribal societies, 41-42 Tumin, Melvin, 16!>, 1!>4, l!>S, 1!>7 Underdevelopment, 3-18 defined, 3-8 dynamics of, 8-13 obstacles to development, 13-18 United Fruit Company, 108 Urbanization, S8-S!> Urban-rural confilct, 189 Usufruct right, 126, 127, 13S Value systems, stratifications and, 20, 3S Wage labor African abusan contract compared with, 142 in African commercial farms, 88 spread of, 144-4S Latin American, 178-79 for Central American agricultural workers, 109 Indian, 203 money economy and, S4 Wagley, Charles, 182-83 Warner, W. IJoyd, 20 Warriors, pre-Columbian, 4S Weber, Max, 23, 27 Whetten, Nathan, 166 Wittfogel, Karl, 43, 21!> Woddis, J., S7 Wolf, Eric, 103, 167, 168, 177, 207, 208 Woods, Roger, 67 Workers African agricultural foreign immigrants as, 141-44 growth of, 77 land use among .Agni and, 12S on plantation, 83-87, 141-46 seasonal, 83-86 as social class, 1S6-S7 in capitalist extensive agriculture, 69 immigrant, 87 266 as commercial farmers, 137- 40 as day laborers, 141-44 and formation of a new social class, 144-46 as social class, 156-57 Latin American agricultural, 109-12, 177-79 distribution of, 115 interethnic relations and, 204- 5 Latin American landless, 115 Index migration of, 56-58 migratozy abusan contract for African, 141-43 Latin American, 109, 111, 178 seasonal African, 79-83 in plantation agriculture, 69 See also Labor; Proletariat; Wage labor Working class, 171 World Bank, 9 Lo SOCIAL CLASSES IN AGRARIAN SOCIETIES RODOLFO STA VENHAGEN is a Mexican citizen who is currently director of the Department of Sociology at El Colegio de Mexico. He is the co-editor of Doubleday's publishing program in Latin America, and is the author of the Anchor Press book, Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America. 180 Social Classes in Agrarian Societiei tenure and the legal nature of these lands is not always clearll established. Sometimes the land belongs legally to the muni, cipio; at other times it is nationally owned land over whicll the community exercises traditional usufruct rights, but with, out actually holding a title. Occasionally the lands do indeec belong to the community as such, through legal title given. m colonial times which may have been revalidated by succes, sive national governments. Exact :figures are dfflicult to come by, but it seems that communal landholdings of the traditiona: type are not very numerous in the region. In western Guate mala a survey of eighty communities showed that only om still had communally owned lands.12 In Mexico, the agra.riaI reform has modified the nature of the collective landholding: in a large number of communities. The still existing collective property is generally compose< of poor soils, hardly useful for farming, and of minimal pro, ductive and commercial value. These lands are usually use< for pasture, and for gathering wood and wild fruit. All mem hers of the community have a right to use these lands. Sometimes communal· 1ands are also used for subsisten~ farming. Where this occurs, the size of the communal land holding is never enough to satisfy the needs of all the loca peasants. Therefore, it can only absorb a part of the avail able manpower. On rare occasions communal lands may be used for cash crops, but when this occurs the developmen of commercial farming tends to destroy communal tenure Sol Tax mentions the case of privately owned fruit tree: planted on communal land, which may be bought or sold evei though the land itself rem.ams inalienable.18 In a comm.uni~ in Cbiapas the Indians collectively bought a private haciendi and incorporated the land into the commwμtl holdings of th1 lineage.14 Generally, however, communal landholdings ar1 very old. A community still possessing communal lands. is also a tra ditional community, relatively well integrated from a socia point of view and more or less homogeneous from an etbni1 point of view, for if land cannot be sold, it is unlikely tha ladinos will be allowed to use it. It is also a poor comm.unit; with a subsistence economy, since fertile soils and the possibil ities of commercial agriculture attract the ladinos and ten1 lnterethnic and Class Relations in M esoamerica 181 to transform collective property. In other words, traditional collective lands are infrequent and do not perform an important role in the economy and social organization of the Indian i::ommunities of this region. B. The Ejido Agrarian reform in Mexico reached the Indian region of Chiapas during the regime of President Cardenas (1934-40). [n some communities traditional collective lands were transformed into ejidos; in others, some of the latifundia were expropriated in behalf of the peasants. In general, the distribution of ejidos respects ethnic differences, so that each ejido includes in effect members of a homogeneous and socially integrated ethnic group, which accentuates its character of Jeing communal property. . In Guatemala the existence of communal lands may be :onsidered as a tenacious defense of traditional Indian comillunities against the economic system represented by private ,roperty and by the ladino group. In Mexico, on the con~ ary, the new communal lands, the ejidos, are the result of m active struggle for the land by the Indians against the arge landowners, a struggle which has often taken the shape >f an interethnic conflict. Though they are collective property, ejidal lands are tilled ndividually, or rather by the family group. In Chamula, where ill of the land is ejidal, the families control their plots as hough they were private property, yet by law are not allowed :o sell them. These plots can be inherited by sons and daughers alike, and this has produced a progressive atomization of 'amily "property," the result of which has been the emigraion of a large number of .. Chamulas in search of lands in he neighboring municipalities. In other communities, the 'armer is entitled to· the use. of ejido lands only as long as he ·egularly works them. This condition is characteristic of tradiional communal organization and follows the Mexican naional agrarian reform legislation. ~. Private Ownership of Land l"his is the more usual form of land tenure. It was introduced ,y the Spaniards and spread greatly after the nineteenth 182 Social Classes in Agrarian Societie century's liberal reforms. Under that legislation Indian com munities were forced to transform their communal lands int individual property, which often led to the loss of their land to outsiders. Private property means that land has an economic valu and that it has been transformed into a commodity. It als means the emergence of social and economic inequalities o: the basis of different farm sizes, and new social relationsbip1 the basis of which is private property of land: sharecroppini tenant farming, wage labor, sale, mortgage, etc. In Panf jachel, writes Tax, the land is fully integrated in the comme1 cial cycles which characterize "penny capitalism." But th process is not yet :finishedT. ax states that in this comm.unit land is not considered to be a capital investment but only consumption good. In Chamula, as we have seen, the Ian is collectively owned ( ejido), yet the concept of private pro1 erty ( even without its juridical manifestations) is developinJ The land can be inherited and divided, but not sold. It doc: not produce rent, but it can be mortgaged under certai special conditions . . . In the Indian area, private landownership has stimulate ladino penetration. First attracted by the new coffee cro during the past century, ladinos later took to other kinds c commercial agriculture. Freeing the land in fact accelerate the expansion of the national commercial-capitalist systen In Jilotepeque, eastern Guatemala, the Indians have progrei sively lost. their lands to such a degree that now only 5 p€ cent of the Indians possess enough land to satisfy their need while 95 per cent of them must rent land from the ladino Seventy per cent of the land belongs to the ladinos, wb represent only 30 per cent of the population; this land is pr marily tilled by Indian sharecroppers or hired laborers. n ladinos own an average of 57.3 acres of land, and the Ii dians 13.2 acres.1° In Panajachel, the Iadinos represent or third of the population, but they own 80 per cent of the lan4 The average ladino owns more than eight times as much Ian as the average Indian. In addition, the ladino often owi lands in other municipalities.16 How did it come about th: the ladinos have been able to take possession of such a lari amount of land? Charles Wag).ey tells us: "The inevitab lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 183 result of the series of laws extolling private property in compliance with modem conceptions was that many Indians who were unable to seize the meaning of the · new private documents failed to register their lands, and these were often sold to the big plantations as non-validated lands.''11 Pozas cites the case of a governor of Chiapas who took advantage of the reform laws during the nineteenth century to claim non-validated communal Indian lands and thus became their legal proprietor.is These examples show that private landownership benefits the ladinos and harms the Indians. The private appropriation of land by ladinos is a one-way process. However, in Mexico it has been possible to slow it down partially through the agrarian reform legislation. There is a basic difference in the way Indians and ladinos conceive of land. The Indian is integrated in his traditional community, which is tied to the land. The Indian tills the soil; culturally and psychologically he ceases to be an Indian when he becomes separated from it. The tilling of the soil is intimately related to the group's social organization (lineage or tribe), and to its religious organization and belief. The Indian needs the land because without it he loses his social and ethnic identity. It does not matter whether this land is communal, ejido, or private. In any case, it will be property but not merchandise, It is a means of production, but it is not capital. It is a source of income, but not of rent. For ladinos, the private ownership of land has a different meaning. It is associated with commercial farming ( especially coffee), with a monetary economy, with wage labor (including a type of servitude) of the Indians, and, finally, with prestige and personal power. For the ladinos land has a commercial value, independent of the group's own family and religious organization. The ladinos' primary goal is to accumulate land and to work it through the use of wage labor. The ladino is contemptuous of manual labor; his property serves the purpose of obtaining an income which allows him to devote himself to commerce and politics. We have already seen that the majority of the lands now belonging to the ladinos were obtained by them at the time of the coffee boom, during 184 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies the past century. Ladinos use their accumulation of lands to obtain and control cheap labor.111 This brief analysis has shown that the private ownership of land has different economic and social functions among the Indians and the ladinos. It is a social institution linked to the capitalist development of the region. But it primarily benefits the ladino group, and is used by them as an instrument of exploitation of the Indians, The private ownership of land, introduced by the liberal regimes who, ironically, wanted the greatest good for the greatest number, has only served to dispossess the Indians of their lands, thus forcing them to go in search of wage work. The private ownership of land, therefore, constitutes one more element for the differentiation of the social classes of the region. There are also important differences within the owners' group, but we do not have the data which would enable us to study them in relation to ethnic differences. The ladino owners generally possess more lands than the Indian owners. Yet within each of these ethnic groups, the size of properties varies a great deal. Minifundia are many in number, and latifundia, though small in number, comprise the greatest part of private lands. The great latifundists are always ladinos, of course, and the Indians cluster along the base of the pyramid. But there are some ladinos who own only very small parcels of land, while, on the other hand, there are a few Indians who possess, as in Chimaltenango, fifty times more land than others. The greater part of Indian owners do not possess enough land to meet their basic needs, and there are those who sell their minute properties and become day laborers in order to earn a little more. CHAPTER 15 Commercial Relationships The · Indian economic world is by no means closed. Indian communities are isolated only in appearance. They participate in regional systems and the national economy. Markets and commercial relationships represent the primary link between the Indian community and the ladino world, between the subsistence economy and the national economy. It is · true that the major part of the Indians' agricultural produce is consumed by them. It is also true that the · income generated by the Indians represents only a minimal part of the gross national product· ( even in Guatemala, where the Indian population comprises more than one half of the total). However, the importance of these relationships should be measured not by the . amount of com.mercialized products or by their monetary value, but rather in terms of the quality of commercial relationships. · These are the relationships which have transformed the Indians into a "minority''l and which have placed them in the condition of dependence in which they now find themselves, Markets and commerce in the region have their background in the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods. Their importance in some places is such that Redfield even speaks of a "primitive merchant society;"2 Tax calls the system "capitalist" because it rests on a . "monetary economy organized around single · households which are units of production and consumption, with a strongly developed· market which tends to be perfectly competitive."3 Such does not seem to be the case in other areas of the region, where the Indian market shows strongly marked monopolistic elements.4 THE CONSTELLATION OF REGIONAL MARKETS Indian markets and the "constellation of regional markets" have been described in· many contexts ( especially in Mex186 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies ico) .5 The role of the Iadino city as the center of a region, and its position of economic, political, social, and religious dominance with respect to satellite Indian communities, is very well known. Between the city and the communities there develops a network of close and complex commercial relationships. In the city there is a weekly market of regional importance, and regular and perm.anent commerce in the stores and in the daily marketplace. At the weekly marketplace there is an influx of thousands of Indians from the surrounding region who come to sell their handicraft and farm products, and to buy manufactured and handicraft goods at the commercial establishments of the city. Some Indians are full-time traders who participate in the cycle of regional markets; it is these traders whom Redfield has called "primitive merchants." But the majority of Indian producers carry their products to the market themselves, usually accompanied by their families. Commerce is so organized that the Indian always leaves behind his small monetary income. He sells cheaply and must buy dearly; thus the ladino trader gets a double profit. Ladinos not only cater to the Indian's immediate and individual needs but also provide the services and goods necessary to satisfy the requirements of the Indian's political and religious organization. Despite Tax's :findings in Panajachel, there seems to be a general tendency toward a monopolistic structure in the Indian markets, in which the Indian producer-seller is in no way able to influence the price level. Trading of food products ( the basis of Indian production) is controlled by a few ladino monopolists from the city. As Marroqufn has pointed out, the well-known bargaining of Indian markets is an instrument used by ladinos in order to depress price levels of Indian products. In San Crist6bal las Casas, Chiapas, for instance, the same effect is achieved through the performance of the atajadoras, the ladino women who place themselves at the city's entrance on market days and almost violently force the submissive, incoming Indians to sell them their wares at prices that they impose and which are lower than those which prevail at the market These varied forms of exploitation which victimize the Indian trader, both as seller and buyer, lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 187 are due to economic and political dominance of the urban ladinos. This power is reinforced by their cultural superiority as expressed by their knowledge of price-building mechanisms, of the laws of the country, and above all, of the Spanish language. It is obvious that under these conditions the Indian has no access to national legal institutions to protect his individual rights. o OTHER KINDS OF CoMMERCIAL RELATIONSHIPS Not only in the city but also in the "satellite communities" commerce is usually in ladino hands. Ladinos are also moneylenders, which is an important function in societies where there is no accumulation of capital and where political and religious life demands considerable expenses. In order to pay their debts, Indians often mortgage their harvest (but seldom their property) and go to work on the coffee plantations. Among the different kinds of relationships which take place between Indians and ladinos, commercial relationships are the most important. The Indian participates in these relationships as producer and consumer; the ladino is always the trader, the middleman, the creditor. The majority of the Indians enter into economic and social relationships with ladinos at the level of commercial activity, not at the level of wage labor. It is precisely the commercial relationships which link the Indian world to the socioeconomic region in which it is integrated, and to national society as well as to the world economy. Often commercial relationships go together with other kinds of social relationships such · as interfamily relations. Pozas writes that ''inter-dependence between Indian and Ladino individuals and families constitutes the real basis of relationships between the Ladino urban complex and the Indian rural village."7 These relationships between families can take the form of compadrazgo (ritual coparenthood). Although at first sight compadrazgo may appear to be an institution in which Indians and ladinos face each other on a level of equality, in fact it contributes to accentuate the Indians' condition of inferiority and dependence. Compadrazgo is one among many institutions in a complex system which keeps the Indian subordinated to the ladino in all aspects of social and economic 188 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies life. In fact, compadrazgo between Indians and ladinos is purely a patron-client relationship. Indians seek out ladino godfathers for favors, loans, gifts, and protection. Ladinos like to surround. themselves with a number of Indian proteges and clients to enhance their prestige and political power. Indian coparents and godchildren also provide cheap or free services when so required. Visiting anthropologists in Indian villages are often asked to become godparents to local children, and are then expected to provide help and gifts over the years. Many .ladino traders in the city surround themselves with a permanent_ clientele of Indian families who. come to them not only to trade, but also for help, advice, credit, lodging, and other minor services. Guiteras Holmes found that contact between Indians and ladinos in one peasant community was generally limited to commercial relationships.8 CONCLUSIO?ITS The conjunction of all these commercial relationships allows us to carry our analysis further. It is obvious that Indian communities are not economically self-contained. On the contrary, they are linked to regional. structures by means of which they participate in the national and world economy. They are the weakest link of the national economy. On the other hand, these commercial relationships are only a part of the Indian community's economic system, but they are the part which places the Indians in a specific -and special situation with respect to the ladino population: a class situation. Commercial relationships between Indians and ladinos are not relations between equals. The Indian, as a small producer, small seller, small buyer, and :finally as a small consumer, can influence neither prices nor market tendencies. The ladinos, on the contrary, hold a privileged situation in the region. The ladinos, small in number, are the traders and middlemen. The city, populated . by ladinos, is monopolistic. Regional production and distribution are concentrated there. True, these activities are a function of regional cities throughout the world. But here the economic inequalities between the city and the region are accentuated by the low level of agricultural production, the high cost of goods brought from other regions, and by all the other means of political, religious, and social lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 189 power which the city exerts over the neighboring rural environment. There may be those who see in this situation only an ecologic relation, an "urban-rural" conflict. Others will see only a situation . of contact between two cultures, between two ethnic groups with different economic resources, which would explain or even justify the pre-eminence of one ethnic group over the other. Yet these would both be mistaken views. The city's privileged position has its origin in the colonial period. It was founded by the conqueror to fulfill the very same function it still fulfills: to incorporate the Indian into the economy which the conqueror had brought and his descendants developed. The regional city was an instrument of conquest and is still an instrument of domination. It is not only a matter of "contact" between two populations: the Indian and the ladino are both integrated within a single economic system, in a single society. It is for this reason that inter. ethnic relations, insofar as cemmercial activities are concerned, bear the characteristi~. of class relations. The ecologic· aspect of interaction between city and countryside, or between urban metropolis and community, in fact conceals specific social relationships between certain kinds of persons who hold differential positions with respect to the means of production and the distribution of wealth.9 CHAPTER 16 Social Stratification There are essentially two ways in which to consider the social relationships between Indians and ladinos: that which considers only two ethnic groups, two cultures brought to relatively close contact, which might be called the culturalistic perspective; and that which talces as its point of departure the existence of the total society, of a single socioeconomic structure in which these two ethnic groups perform differentiated roles, and which might be called the structuralist perspective. The analysis made thus far is from the latter perspective. Yet this does not mean to deny the value of the culturalist approach. On the contrary, the perspective of cultural anthropology is valid when the analysis of social classes is set aside in order to consider other aspects of the relationships between the two ethnic groups. In every society there may exist various systems of social stratification ( that is, hierarchies of prestige and authority defined by cultural values) .1 Here it is possible to distinguish three systems of social stratification, that is, three social universes with respect to which stratification may be studied: the Indian group, the ladino group, and the total society in which Indians and ladinos participate ( that is, the interethnic system). We may speak of two kinds of stratification: intraethnic and interethnic. INTRAETHNIC STRATIFICATION Indians and ladinos represent two different cultural communities. Each has its own value system. To the extent that the value systems of these two communities are different, so too their systems of stratification will be different. A. The Indian~ Social Hierarchy The Indian community is not stratified. All of its effective Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 191 members equally participate in the same value system, and they are all equal with respect to each other. To participate in an effective manner in the Indian community means that Indians fulfill their duties in the community's political and religious structure. The corporate Indian community controls its members through control of its resources and the periodic redistribution of wealth. This is brought about by the cycle of religious festivities and the structure of local government. Community government has traditionally been in the hands of principales, family and lineage chiefs who enjoy special prestige due to services rendered to the community, and sometimes due to special supernatural powers which are attributed to them by other members of the group.2 The council of principales is a group of elders who enjoy an individual pre-eminence; it is not a social stratum. This form of government is linked to the original kinship organization, which is now disappearing. Its real power is decaying, and effective government is in the hands of the so-called Regional Council. This is the pinnacle of the double political-religious hierarchy (also called centripetal organization),3 in which individuals climb to higher status by alternately holding civil and religious positions in the course of their lives. The individual named by his peers to hold a public position within this system is forced to accept it under the threat of strong social ostracism. Public functions imply a series of very heavy duties and monetary expenses. The selected individual (who always tries to escape from his functions before having been elected, but must rigorously submit to his duties once he bas forcibly been sworn in) must not only abandon his farming, leaving it to the care of his family or even hired laborers, but must also spend large sums for festivities and ceremonies. Passing through the hierarchy means years of indebtedness for many. When the public position is well performed it is a source of prestige and moral authority, but it does not bring material rewards. Personal power is strictly limited by the collectivity; authority is exercised for the benefit of the whole community and not for any restricted particular group. It has been said that the expenses involved in festivities 192 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies and ceremonies represent a prestige economy, that distribution of wealth ( similar to Canadian potlatch and African bilaba) is the source of prestige.4 Another author offers an opposite interpretation, which seems closer to reality: it is not wealth as such, but services rendered to the community which create prestige, yet a certain amount of wealth is necessary to carry out these services adequately. Thus there is not, strictly speaking, a prestige economy, since economic preeminence is not automatically translated into prestige. On the contrary, if. a poor man performs his public functions well, he may achieve a status of great prestige in the communitythat is, if he finds the means to finance the festivities and · ceremonies which are his charge, even when this may mean running into debt.5 Apparently economic pre-eminence of individuals is not favored by the community. We have seen that the means available to the Indian for accumulating capital are strictly limited. Also limited are the possibilities of investment. Basically, it is the corporate community itself which limits the economic possibilities of its members. In Chamula, members of the Council sometimes purposefully choose for the presidency individuals whose relative wealth is well known. This is obviously justified by the fact that wealthy persons can more easily perform their duties. But the social consequence of this act is the redistribution of wealth and maintenance of . the "principle of equality" in the group's social organization. Under these conditions it is impossible for a social stratum that stands out among the rest of the population to emerge in the traditional corporate community.a Individual economic pre-eminence is not transformed into prestige. It arises, individually, through positions held in the political-religious structure, The political organization of the community is a way to redistribute wealth and channel people's energy into service to the community. It is important to qualify the phrase ''red.istnbution of wealth." In effect, a fictitious redistribution occurs. It is nothing but elimination of likely economic pre-eminence of those individuals who for some reason have been able to accumulate a greater amount of goods than their peers. This wealth is not reabsorbed by the community. It is consumed in liquor, lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 193 ceremonial clothing, fireworks, and in hundreds of articles employed in what one observer has called "institutionalized waste."7 These expenses required by the ceremonial pattern associated with the functioning of the political and religious organization are transformed into income for those who provide these articles for the community. The purveyors are urbanized Iadinos, many of whom are craftsmen specializing in the kinds of articles consumed by Indians. Aguirre Beltran even states that trading of these ceremonial articles is, in Chiapas, "the real source of life" in a city of 18,000 inhabitants. a We may thus conclude that the structure which maintains equality within the Indian community, preventing the emergence of social classes, also contributes to the whole Indian community's dependence on the city, that is, to the differentiation of social classes between Indians and ladinos. There exists in the region yet another form of government: the Constitutional Council, which is a part of the national political regime and the only "legal" government, from the point of view of the national constitution. This is the link which unites the community to other political institutions such as political parties, regional and national legislatures, and national executive power. It is the means employed by national governments to extend their administrative and political control over Indian populations. The Constitutional Council is generally controlled by ladinos, even though the municipal president may be an Indian. Local Indian government will surely disappear in time, to be substituted by the Constitutional Council. To the extent· to which the Indians participate more and more in national politics and in official governmental organisms, the Constitutional Council is likely to become a means of social differentiation within the Indian community, perhaps creating a higher stratum of "court clerks" and functionaries.9 B. Social Strata Among Ladinos Ladino society, like every ''Western" society, is stratified. This stratification is influenced by such factors as landownership, income, occupation, education, and family lineage. The ladino city is highly differentiated in terms of these diverse criteria, even having its own local "aristocracy" descending 194 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies (in fact or in fiction) from important colonial families. The status indices are correlated with one another. The family line, large landownership, big business, and participation in locai politics go together. But on the other hand, a high level of education ( especially university) is more typical of the "new rich," the professionals (physicians, lawyers, engineers) who are new to the region but are developing some traditional interests, and thus frequently associate with the older families through marriage. The number of strata used in describing ladino society is an arbitrary matter. For Guatemala, Adams uses five "primary economic types" and four general strata or "classes."10 On the other hand,. in describing the ladinos of Jilotepeque, Tomin uses a statistical index of standard of living to delimit three "classes," but then adds that the populace itself recognizes but two levels: the elite, called "society," composed of twenty families (less than 20 per cent of the ladino population), and the "people.,. At the lowest level of the ladino ethnic group, it is difficult to distinguish clearly a ladino from an Indian.11 Tax also speaks of two ladino classes in Panajachel: the ''upper urban bourgeoisie" and the "lower rurai "1 2 Ladinos place high value on wealth and property, which are one of their raisons d'etre. These values constitute the foundation of all of their economic activity, and there is no competing system of politico-religious offices to equalize property and prestige. Ladino society is mobile; and opportunities for upward mobility exist, in principle, for everyone. In contrast to the Indian, the ladino. perceives his own sodety as a stratified system. Certain activities, especially manual occupations, belong to an inferior order and must be avoided; there are others, especially commerce, to which they aspire. Finally, the position of landowner is the most envied. "Good family" background plays an important part in these provincial societies, and the fact of being related, through kinship, marriage, or compadrazgo, to important families is obviously a way of acquiring a high social status. Ladino culture, as opposed to Indian, is highly competitive and authoritarian.111 INTERETHNIC STRATIFICATION AND MOBILITY Stratification means that certain characteristics or variables lnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 195 are unequally distributed among individuals. The combination of some of these characteristics and the value attributed to them by members of society account for the existence of a scale or continuum in which individuals occupy higher or lower positions with respect to one another. If a set of individuals have in common a set of these characteristics which distinguish them from other groupings, and if this is recognized as such by society, we may then speak of a stratum. Ladinos and Indians hold different positions in the stratification scale, according to such well-known variables as income, property, degree of education, standard of living, etc. Given the fact that ladinos concentrate along the scale's upper ranks and Indians along the lower ones, the two ethnic groups may be considered as separate strata within one stratified system. They are in effect the only strata in this system, because in the value systems of both groups ethnic characteristics ( cultural and sometimes even biological) play a more important part in stratification 'than do other criteria. Ladinos not only hold a higher position in the objective scale of socioeconomic characteristics, but they also consider themselves, qua ladinos; as being superior to Indians. They are contemptuous of the Indian as such. The latter, on the other hand, are conscious of their social and economic inferiority. They know that those traits which identify them as Indians place them in a position of inferiority with respect to ladinos. Even while stratification is objectively presented as a scale or continuum, it in fact functions socially as a· system with only two strata which are characterized in cultural and biological terms. Ladinos make use of physical stereotypes to affirm their ''whiteness" in contrast to the darker Indians. As TUmin has pointed out, it is a matter of ideal types, since the ladino population is in effect a mestizo one. This fact notwithstanding, one of the most valued criteria among the higher ladino strata is that of their supposed "Spanish blood." Other observers have noted that, in San Crist6bal las Casas, there appears to be a coincidence between the socioeconomic scale and the biological continuum,14 Racial criteria, nonetheless, do not perform a crucial role, precisely because it is impossible to classify the population in either ethnic group on an exclusively physical basis. 196 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies Cultural indices are essential to stratification:. most important are language and dress, followed by self-identification and personal classification by others. Thus mastery of Spanish and changes in dress do not ipso facto tum the Indian into a ladino, Essentially the Indian;s condition lies in bis being integrated into his Indian (corporate) commuμity, and participating in the traditional social structure (kinship groups, civic-religious hierarchy). It is the "cultural" and not the "biological" Indian who constitutes the lowest stratum. The Indian is conscious of this situation. Learning Spanish represents for him not only a means of upward mobility, but also an instrument of defense in bis daily relationships with ladinos. The adoption of ladino dress styles also reduces the stigma of.bis inferior condition in his relationship with ladinos. The • definition of the two ethnic groups depends upon stri~tly cultural factors which, due to their historical importance in the region, subsume and impose themselves upon all other factors of stratification. While it dichotomizes social relationships, ethnic stratifica.tion diminishes the importance of the socioeconomic. scaie .· or continuum based on quantitative indi~, so that· many Indians and ladinos share the same socioeconomic level without the disappearance of ethnic stratification. Robert Redfield noted that in a Guatemalan village, "the greater the Ladinos' upward . mobility, the more they tended to be contemptuous of the Indians and . to identify lower-class Laqinos with Indians.••15 And, naturally, those "lower-class" ladinos considered themselves superior to Indians. These cultural values are reflected jn interethnic relations. Ladinos always behave in an authoritarian or paternalistic manner toward Indians. The latter are treated with familiarity, yet it is expected that they show · signs of respect· and s1,1bmission .. Unskilled manual labor is considered an attribute of the ·India>nN. otwithstanding legal equality proclaimed in the Constitution, Indians are subject to discriinination, particularly in the cities, where they are exposed to all kinds. of . arbitrary and humiliating behavior by the . ladino population. Effective social contacts between Indiap.s and ladinos, with the exception of the already-mentioned economic relations, are very limited. There exists no real social interaction beJnterethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 197 tween the two ethnic groups. Traditional religious and political activities are performed separately; common participation at parties and sports is almost non-existent The only non-economic relationship in which Indians and ladinos formally participate is compadrazgo, yet as has akeady been pointed out, here too the Indian's inferiority is obvious, and here too there are economic implications. There is some upward mobility from the Indian stratum to the ladino; but its nature and characteristics are by no means simple and they vary from region to . region. A public opinion poll carried out by Tomin in Jilotepeque showed that there are relatively more Indians than 'ladinos who believe that movement from one group to the other is possible. Indians tend to believe they can achieve this through the accumulation of wealth, while ladinos believe that the modification of cultural characteristics is needed. Given the ladinos' superiority, they 'have an interest in checking ,the Indians' mobility, Adams has pointed out that in a community where cultural differences between Indians and ladinos are small, the latter resort to a whole series of ruses in order to maintain their superiority-even the invocation of "racial" factors where no biological differences exist. Upward mobility among Indians represents a process of acculturation. But learning Spanish and adopting ladino dress styles are insufficient. The Indian· must also become socially (generally meaning physically) separated from his community. In order to become a ladino, the mobile Indian must cut his ties with the social structure of his corporate community. He must not only modify his cultural characteristics, but also his "social;' condition as an Indian. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for an. Indian to become a ladino in the midst of his own community, for the ''ladinoized" Indian is a marginal man. The Indian's upward mobility means both a process of acculturation and an elevation · in the socioeconomic scale. It is neither the poorer Indians nor the subsistence farmers who become ladinos. To become a ladino in a cultural sense also means being a trader or regularly producing for the market and, in general, acquiring a higher standard of living. This does not mean that all of those who become traders or sell 198 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies their produce in the market or who achieve a better standard of living necessarily become ladinos. Nor does it mean that ladinos who descend the socioeconomic scale become Indians. In effect, a ladino will always be a ladino, low as he may fall in the socioeconomic scale. But an Indian, provided that he ascends the socioeconomic scale, may become a ladino; what is more, he will never be a ladino unless he does ascend the socioeconomic scale. According to the point of view one wishes to take, interethnic stratification may be seen as a scale composed of a number of steps or as a continuum of quantitatively different positions, or else as a dichotomy. In real life these perspectives cut across each other. For the upwardly mobile Indian, interethnic mobility represents both a gradual or quantitative evolution (his income rises, his standard of living improves, he learns to read and write in Spanish) and a radical change, a qualitative "leap" (he leaves his community, he becomes a wage worker in town, he marries a ladino woman, he denies his Indian origins). At what point in the individual's cultural evolution does this metamorphosis take place? This varies according to the circumstances. When the upwardly mobile Indian starts at a high socioeconomic level the ethnic transformation may be accomplished with relative ease. If, on the other hand, the upwardly mobile individual begins at a lower level, the process may be accelerated if he breaks once and for all with his community and, say, moves to another area. But in this case he places himself outside of the local stratification system and his transformation may not, strictly speaking, be considered as upward mobility within a given system of social stratification. The frequency and speed of the rate of mobility vary also according to other factors: the rigidity of traditional communal social structure, the rigidity of the ethnic barrier maintained by the ladinos, the economic situation of the region, and last but not least, the effectiveness of Indianist action by the national governments. CHAPTER 17 The Dynamics ·of Interethnic Relations: Classes,. Colonialism, and Acculturation Let us pull together the different threads in this analysis and attempt a general formulation of the system of relationships between Indians and ladinos. Our historical point of departure -will be the Spanish Conquest, although we do not deny the importance of pre-Hispanic social processes in the subsequent character of the Mayan region. The Spanish Conquest was a military enterprise, part of the. political and economic expansion in post-feudal and mercantilist Europe. The Conquest was fundamentally influenced by commercial factors- the lust for gold and spices. As a military enterprise the Spanish Conquest was a violent confrontation of two societies, two different cultures. The weaker one-the Indian-succumbed. HlsTORICAL TRENDS At first, the Indians received from the conqueror the treatment accorded to the vanquished since ancient times: looting, · dispossession, slavery, even extermination. Yet the Conquest of the New World was not like preceding ones. In Spain, deep transformations -were taking place due to the expulsion of the Moors. The American continent was to perform an essential-role in Europe's new economic development, and the native populations were necessary to that role; for various political and economic reasons, the destruction and enslavement of the Indians had to stop. The military conquest was transformed into a colonial system. As in other colonial systems which the world has known since then, this one was managed over three centuries on behalf of the interests of certain powerful social classes of the mother country, and their ·representatives in New Spain. The Crown's policy reflected these changing and often conflicting interests. 200 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies At first the Indian chiefs and aristocracy were kept in their positions, which suited the colonial administration's Realpolitik. But toward the end of the sixteenth century the Indian communities had become socially and economically homogeneous. Their internal social differentiation was no longer in the interests of the colonizer, Residential segregation of Indians (through settlements of converted Indians and other mechanisms) and the encomiendas (lands which the Crown granted as trusteeship to the conquistadores) were the first instruments used by the conquerors to levy taxes and services. Part of the Indian society's wealth was · simply transferred to the conquering society. The Indian communities were transformed into labor reserves of the colonial economy. Serfdom and forced labor in plantations, mines, and workshops constituted the basis of the economic systems. Colonial society was the product of mercantilist expansion: of the dawning of the bourgeois revolution in Europe. Its structure still retained much from the feudal era, especially in the nature of human relationships. Some researchers even affirm that feudalism grew stronger in America after it had begun to decline in Spain, and that America ''feudalized" Spain once again.1 Exploitation of the Indian population constituted one of the main goals of colonial economic policy. In order to maintain the labor reserve, it was controlled by a complex of laws, norms, restrictions, and prohibitions which kept accumulating during three centuries of colonialism, and which resulted in the corporate "folk" communities. Under the Legislation of the Indies strict control was exercised by the colonial administration over all aspects of Indian life: communal land tenure, local government, religion, technology of production, economic activity, trade, residential patterns, matrimony, education, dress, and even the use of language. Whereas in Spain the nobility, the landowners, the financiers, and the petite bourgeoisie of the towns were struggling over their respective interests, sometimes in conflict, sometimes in association with each other, in New Spain a rigid social hierarchy based upon centralization of political and economic power and validated by law kept the natives in their position of inferiority with respect to all of the other social strata.2 Interethnic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 201 The colonial system worked on two levels. The restrictions and economic prohibitions which Spain imposed upon. her colonies ( and which later had the effect of fomenting the independence movements) were repeated, often aggravated, in the relations between the colonial society and the Indian communities. The same commercial monopolies, the same restrictions on production, the same political controls which Spain exerted upon the colony, the colonists imposed upon the Indian communities. As Spain was to the colony, so the colony was to Indian communities: a colonial metropolis. Thus mercantilism penetrated even to the most isolated villages of Spanish America. The social groupings in New Spain which took part in the process of production and circulation of economic goods and services that sustained the Spanish empire participated in the class structure of the colonial system. Likewise, the Indian population participated in the clas.s structure of the colony. Thus it may be said that colonial relationships as well as class relationships underlay interethnic relations, but in different ways. In terms of colonial relationships, the Indian society as a whole confronted colonial society. Contact was defined .by ethnic discrimination, political dependence, social inferiority, residential segregation, economic subjection, and juridical incapacity. But class relationships were defined in terms of labor and property relations. These relations were not defined in ethnic, social, or residential terms. Judicial coercion (supported by military power) as well as other economic and extra-economic. pressures intervened in the establishment of labor. relations. Labor relations were not between two societies, but only between two specific sectors within one society. Colonial and. class relationships appear intermixed throughout this period. While the former primarily answered to mercantilist interests, the latter met the emerging capitalist ones, and conflicts developed between them. The development of class relations undermined the maintenance of the colonial relationships. Indian communities were constantly losing members to the emerging national society. Despite tutelary legislation,. biological and cultural mixing was a constant process which kept producing new problems for colonial society. Those 202 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies Indians who for various reasons were absorbed by the larger society, therefore, quit the colonial relationships to become integrated into the class structure. In consequence, they were no longer Indians, but simply peasants or workers. These two kinds of socioeconomic relationships in which the Indian ethnic groups were involved received moral sanction through the rigid social stratification in which the Indian (biologically, culturally, and juridically defined) was always at the bottom (with the exception of the slave). From these conditions there emerged the corporate community and the formation of Indo-colonial cultural characteristics, which we today call Indian culture. Ethnic relationships of the period thus· presented three main aspects: two kinds of relationships of dependence ( colonial and class) and one kind of relationship of order (stratification).8 The dynamics of these systems of relationships were varied. The colonial relationships between Indian communities and the larger society tended to strengthen the Indian communities and foment their ethnic identity. The subordinate group usually reacts to a dominant-subordinate relationship of the colonial kind with a struggle for liberation, and in fact the colonial period was not devoid of native rebellions. But conversely, class relations contributed to the disintegration of the Indian community and its integration within the larger society. Both kinds of relations complemented each other in terms of the Indian's oppression. But the opposed tendencies which they engendered explain why certain Indian communities survived, while others were transformed into enclaves of peasants in the haciendas which displaced the encomiendas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Colonial relationships usually dominated class relationships. It may be argued, of course, that within a wider perspective colonial rela. tionships were only one aspect of the class structure that the mercantilist system was creating on a worldwide scale. Indeed the class relations between Indians and Spaniards generally took the form of colonial relations due to the nature of the colonial · economy. The social stratification system (which, because of its rigidity, has been called a caste system) reflected · more the colonial character than the class character of the Indian's subjugation. The stratification system, in turn, exerted lnteretlznic and Class Relations in Mesoamerica 203 its own influence upon the development of class relationships. Political independence· from Spain in the early nineteenth century did not basically change the relationships between Indians and the national society. Despite the legal equality of all citizens (including Indians), various factors joined to maintain the "colonial" character of these relations. There were internal struggles which lasted many decades, and there was economic depression during the :first half of . the nineteenth century. Both helped to keep Indian communities marginal, isolated from the outside world, and turned inward. Another reason should also be taken into account. At the beginning of the colonial period tutelary laws were established because it was considered that Indians were inferior beings. But by the end of three centuries of colonialism, these laws had served to maintain and fix that inferiority. In consequence, when legal equality was. declared, the Indian was effectively in a condition of inferiority to the rest of the population, in every area of. economic and social life, and thus unable to act as a free and equal citizen. The first effective changes occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century: :first with the Reform Laws stressing individual property in land, and later with the introduction of new cash crops (principally coffee) into the Indian region. Both phenomena, of course, are closely related· to one another. Legal equality of men and the breakup of communal land had two immediate consequences: the Indian could now freely dispose of himself in the labor market, and the land he held could become private property. In fact, this did not take place in the abstract, but in the specific situations that have already been mentioned: extension of commercial farming; penetration by ladinos into communities inhabited by Indian ethnic groups; appropriation of land by Iadinos; formation of great haciendas .and the Indian's wage labor on these properties. Coffee plantations became working centers for a considerable mass of Indians, legally or illegally recruited from their communities. At the same time the first products of industrialization penetrated into the more distant villages of the Indian region in the form of goods carried by ladino traders. In this way new economic relationships were 204 Social Classes in Agrarian Societies established between the Indians and the rest of the population. Expansion of the capitalist economy during the second half of the nineteenth century, together with the ideology of economic liberalism, once again transformed the quality of ethnic relationships between Indians and ladinos. We consider this stage a second form of colonialism, which we will call internal colonialism. Indians of traditional communities found themselves once again in the role of a colonized people: they lost their lands, were forced to work for the "strangers," were integrated against their will into a new monetary economy, and fell under new forms of political domination. This time, colonial society was national society itself, which progressively extended its control over its own territory.4 Now there were not only isolated Indians who, abandoning their communities, joined the national society; but Indian communities themselves, as groups, were progressively incorporated into expanding regional economic systems. To the extent to which the national society extended its control, and the capitalist economy dominated the area, relations between colonizer and colonized, between ladino and Indian, were transformed into class relationships. CONTEMPORARY PROCESSES The corporate community has been characteristic of traditional colonial society in Indian America. Corporative social structure has an ecologic and economic basis. When colonial society is transformed into ''underdeveloped" society, when the economic structure of the corporate community is modified (loss of lands, wage labor, commercialization of agricultural produce, etc.), then it is rather unlikely that the corporate quality of the community's internal social relationships can survive for long. As we have seen, some of the Indians' cultural characteristics are bound to the highly structured -corporate community. If this structure should progressively disappear, these cultural characteristics would become weaker. Ethnic stratification in the region is the result of this historical evolution. It reflects the "colonial situation" which has been maintained to present times. Behind interethnic relationships, which show themselves as a stratification system, there is a social class structure. When an Indian works