Marx On Peasant Consciousness

One of Marx's to a greater extent than of import pieces of political writing is the The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1...

One of Marx's to a greater extent than of import pieces of political writing is the The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1851) (pdf). Here is his analysis of the causes of the specific nature of peasant political consciousness leading to the election of Napoleon III:

The small-holding peasants cast an enormous majority whose members alive inward similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations amongst each other. Their trend of production isolates them from 1 some other instead of bringing them into usual intercourse. The isolation is furthered past times France‘s miserable agency of communication as well as the poverty of the peasants. Their plain of production, the pocket-sized holding, permits no sectionalization of undertaking inward its cultivation, no application of science, as well as thus no multifariousness of development, no multifariousness of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each private peasant menage unit of measurement is almost self-sufficient, direct produces most of its consumer needs, as well as thus acquires its agency of life to a greater extent than through an telephone commutation amongst nature than inward intercourse amongst society. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 pocket-sized holding, the peasant as well as his family; beside it some other pocket-sized holding, some other peasant as well as some other family. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 few score of these constitute a village, as well as a few score villages constitute a department. Thus the smashing majority of the French field is formed past times the elementary add-on of homologous magnitudes, much every bit potatoes inward a sack cast a sack of potatoes. Insofar every bit millions of families alive nether conditions of beingness that dissever their trend of life, their interests, as well as their civilisation from those of the other classes, as well as order them inward hostile opposition to the latter, they cast a class. Insofar every bit at that topographic point is only a local interconnection amid these small-holding peasants, as well as the identity of their interests forms no community, no national bond, as well as no political organization amid them, they attain non constitute a class. They are thus incapable of asserting their score involvement inward their ain name, whether through a parliament or a convention. They cannot stand upward for themselves, they must live represented. Their instance must at the same fourth dimension look every bit their master, every bit an say-so over them, an unlimited governmental ability which protects them from the other classes as well as sends them pelting as well as sunshine from above. The political influence of the small-holding peasants, therefore, finds its lastly aspect inward the executive ability which subordinates social club to itself.

This a especially interesting analysis of the social psychology of grouping solidarity, as well as 1 that has contemporary significance every bit well. It sheds a lot of low-cal on how Marx thinks almost the formation of score consciousness -- fifty-fifty every bit it significantly misunderstands the agency of rural people.

What are the limitations of the French peasantry, according to Marx here? They are isolated, burdened, unsophisticated, primitive, apolitical, as well as ignorant of the larger forces roughly them. Therefore, Marx says, they cannot constitute a unified as well as purposive political force. (The photograph of a battalion of Vietnam Minh troops inward Indochina just a century afterwards refutes this conception.)

From this description nosotros tin describe several positive ideas almost the foundations of collective solidarity. Here are the elements that Marx takes to live crucial inward the formation of collective consciousness inward this passage:

1. The grouping needs to possess "manifold relations" to each other.
2. There needs to live effective communication as well as shipping across space, non just local interaction.
3. There needs to live a score of economical interdependence.
4. There require to live shared cloth conditions inward the scheme of production.
5. There needs to live an shrewd appreciation of the social as well as economical environment.
6. There needs to live organization as well as leadership to assist articulate a shared political consciousness as well as agenda. 

And Marx seems to receive got something similar a necessary as well as sufficient relation inward heed betwixt these conditions as well as the emergence of collective consciousness: these conditions are jointly sufficient as well as individually necessary for collective consciousness inward an extended group.

There are several crucial ideas hither that last into electrical flow thinking almost solidarity as well as mobilization. So Marx's thinking almost collective consciousness was prescient. It is interesting to consider where his thoughts almost collective solidarity came from. How did he come upward to receive got insightful ideas almost the social psychology of mobilization as well as solidarity inward the outset place? This isn't a topic that had a history of advanced theory as well as thinking inward 1851.

Two sources seem likely. First is the tradition of French socialist stance inward which Marx was immersed inward the 1840s. French socialist thinkers were inward fact interested inward the interrogation of how a revolutionary spirit came to live amid a grouping of people. And instant is Marx's ain sense of working people inward Paris inward 1843-45. He writes of his ain observations of working people inward the Economic as well as Philosophic Manuscripts inward 1844:

When communist artisans associate amongst 1 another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their outset end. But at the same time, every bit a final result of this association, they larn a novel require – the require for social club – as well as what appears every bit a agency becomes an end. In this practical procedure the most fantabulous results are to live observed whenever French socialist workers are seen together. Such things every bit smoking, drinking, eating, etc., are no longer agency of contact or agency that select them together. Association, social club as well as conversation, which 1 time again has association every bit its end, are plenty for them; the brotherhood of adult man is no mere phrase amongst them, but a fact of life, as well as the nobility of adult man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies.

Here Marx gives every bit much importance to the noun relations of friendship as well as everyday association every bit he does to shared cloth interests inward the formation of the score consciousness of French workers.

Marx's misunderstanding of the political capacity as well as consciousness of peasant communities has been noted past times many scholars of rural revolutions. James Scott 1 time opened a populace lecture on the revolutions of the twentieth century past times maxim that his lecture would exclusively process the peasant revolutions of the century. But he so paused as well as laughed, as well as said, this isn't much of a limitation, because they were all peasant revolutions! Marx's supposition that exclusively urban workers were capable of revolutionary consciousness was a serious misreading of the coming century of anti-capitalist as well as anti-colonial struggles. (Here is an before post on Scott's studies of peasant politics. Scott's accounts tin live establish inward Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance as well as The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion as well as Subsistence inward Southeast Asia. Eric Wolf's Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century picks upward similar themes.)

Also interesting inward the Eighteenth Brumaire is Engels' tilt on the police delineate of history every bit score create out inward his preface to the tertiary edition of the book:

In addition, however, at that topographic point was silent some other circumstance. It was just Marx who had outset discovered the smashing police delineate of displace of history, the police delineate according to which all historical struggles, whether they locomote along inward the political, religious, philosophical or some other ideological domain, are inward fact exclusively the to a greater extent than or less clear aspect of struggles of social classes, as well as that the beingness as well as thereby the collisions, too, betwixt these classes are inward plough conditioned past times the score of evolution of their economical position, past times the trend of their production as well as of their telephone commutation determined past times it. This law, which has the same significance for history every bit the police delineate of the transformation of unloosen energy has for natural scientific discipline -- this police delineate gave him here, too, the primal to an agreement of the history of the Second French Republic. He order his police delineate to the examination on these historical events, as well as fifty-fifty after thirty-three years nosotros must silent enjoin that it has stood the examination brilliantly.

Engels manifestly endorses the stance of laws of displace of social club as well as the stance of score conflict every bit the primary motor of historical change. "History is a history of score struggle." There is non much room for contingency or conjunctural causation here! But this is a dimension of Marxist theory that is manifestly incorrect. Far amend is to empathize history inward a to a greater extent than multi-factoral way inward which contingency, conjunction, as well as agency all play a role.