Download or read book The Rational Peasant written by Samuel L. Popkin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popkin develops a model of rational peasant behavior and shows how village procedures result from the self-interested interactions of peasants. This political economy view of peasant behavior stands in contrast to the model of a distinctive peasant moral economy in which the village community is primarily responsible for ensuring the welfare of its members.

Download or read book The Moral Economy of the Peasant written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1977-09-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James C. Scott places the critical problem of the peasant household—subsistence—at the center of this study. The fear of food shortages, he argues persuasively, explains many otherwise puzzling technical, social, and moral arrangements in peasant society, such as resistance to innovation, the desire to own land even at some cost in terms of income, relationships with other people, and relationships with institutions, including the state. Once the centrality of the subsistence problem is recognized, its effects on notions of economic and political justice can also be seen. Scott draws from the history of agrarian society in lower Burma and Vietnam to show how the transformations of the colonial era systematically violated the peasants’ “moral economy” and created a situation of potential rebellion and revolution. Demonstrating keen insights into the behavior of people in other cultures and a rare ability to generalize soundly from case studies, Scott offers a different perspective on peasant behavior that will be of interest particularly to political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and Southeast Asianists. “The book is extraordinarily original and valuable and will have a very broad appeal. I think the central thesis is correct and compelling.”—Clifford Geertz “In this major work, … Scott views peasants as political and moral actors defending their values as well as their individual security, making his book vital to an understanding of peasant politics.”—Library Journal James C. Scott is professor of political science at Yale University.

Download or read book The Moral Economy of the Countryside written by Rosamond Faith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows the 'moral economy' of early medieval England transformed by 'feudal thinking' in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest.

Download or read book Weapons of the Weak written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weapons of the Weak is an ethnography by James C. Scott that studies the effects of the Green Revolution in rural Malaysia. One of the main objectives of the study is to make an argument that the Marxian and Gramscian ideas of false consciousness and hegemony are incorrect. He develops this conclusion throughout the book, through the different scenarios and characters that come up during his time of fieldwork in the village. This publication, based on 2 years of fieldwork (1978-1980), focuses on the local class relations in a small rice farming community of 70 households in the main paddy-growing area of Kedah in Malaysia. Introduction of the Green Revolution in 1976 eliminated 2/3 of the wage-earning opportunities for smallholders and landless laborers. The main ensuing class struggle is analyzed being the ideological struggle in the village and the practice of resistance itself consisting of: foot-dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance and sabotage acts. Rich and poor are engaged in an unremitting if silent struggle to define changes in land tenure, mechanization and employment to advance their own interests, and to use values that they share to control the distribution of status, land, work and grain.

Download or read book The Moral Economy written by Laurence Fontaine and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-21 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Moral Economy examines the nexus of poverty, credit, and trust in early modern Europe. It starts with an examination of poverty, the need for credit, and the lending practices of different social groups. It then reconstructs the battles between the Churches and the State around the ban on usury, and analyzes the institutions created to eradicate usury and the informal petty financial economy that developed as a result. Laurence Fontaine unpacks the values that structured these lending practices, namely, the two competing cultures of credit that coexisted, fought, and sometimes merged: the vibrant aristocratic culture and the capitalistic merchant culture. More broadly, Fontaine shows how economic trust between individuals was constructed in the early modern world. By creating a dialogue between past and present, and contrasting their definitions of poverty, the role of the market, and the mechanisms of microcredit, Fontaine draws attention to the necessity of recognizing the different values that coexist in diverse political economies.

Download or read book The Moral Economy and Popular Protest written by Andrew Charlesworth and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1999-09-20 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book developed from a conference held in 1992 to mark the 'coming of age' of E.P.Thompson's seminal concept of 'the moral economy'. The collection provides a critical evaluation of the original concept and of its application to a wide and diverse field of scholarship, drawing together specialists from social and labour history, legal history, social, anthropology and historical geography who examine the developing utilisation of the concept of 'the moral economy' in different historical and societal contexts.

Download or read book The Art of Not Being Governed written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.

Download or read book Seeing Like a State written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

Download or read book Domination and the Arts of Resistance written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Play fool, to catch wise."--proverb of Jamaican slaves Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception--the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage--what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, Scott examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. Scott describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups--their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater--their use of anonymity and ambiguity. He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally, he identifies--with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign--the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power. His landmark work will revise our understanding of subordination, resistance, hegemony, folk culture, and the ideas behind revolt.

Download or read book Agrarian Studies written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an account of an intellectual breakthrough in the study of rural society and agriculture. Its ten chapters, selected for their originality and synthesis from the colloquia of the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University, encompass various disciplines, diverse historical periods, and several regions of the world. The contributors' fresh analyses will broaden the perspectives of readers with interests as wide-ranging as rural sociology, environmentalism, political science, history, anthropology, economics, and art history. The ten studies recast and expand what is known about rural society and agrarian issues, examining such topics as poverty, subsistence, cultivation, ecology, justice, art, custom, law, ritual life, cooperation, and state action. Each contribution provides a point of departure for new study, encouraging deeper thinking across disciplinary boundaries and frontiers.

Download or read book Soldiers of the Virgin written by Kevin Gosner and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 1992-07-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early summer of 1712, a young Maya woman from the village of Cancuc in southern Mexico encountered an apparition of the Virgin Mary while walking in the forest. The miracle soon attracted Indian pilgrims from pueblos throughout the highlands of Chiapas. When alarmed Spanish authorities stepped in to put a stop to the burgeoning cult, they ignited a full-scale rebellion. Declaring "Now there is no God or King," rebel leaders raised an army of some five thousand "soldiers of the Virgin" to defend their new faith and cast off colonial rule.Using the trial records of Mayas imprisoned after the rebellion, as well as the letters of Dominican priests, the local bishop, and Spaniards who led the army of pacification, Kevin Gosner reconstructs the history of the Tzeltal Revolt and examines its causes. He characterizes the rebellion as a defense of the Maya moral economy, and shows how administrative reforms and new economic demands imposed by colonial authorities at the end of the seventeenth century challenged Maya norms about the ritual obligations of community leaders, the need for reciprocity in political affairs, and the supernatural origins of power.The first book-length study of the Tzeltal Revolt, Soldiers of the Virgin goes beyond the conventions of the regional monograph to offer an expansive view of Maya social and cultural history. With an eye to the contributions of archaeologists and ethnographers, Gosner explores many issues that are central to Maya studies, including the origins of the civil-religious hierarchy, the role of shamanism in political culture, the social dynamics of peasant corporate communities, and the fate of the native nobility after the Spanish conquest.

Download or read book Customs in Common written by E. P. Thompson and published by New Press/ORIM. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “meticulously researched, elegantly argued and deeply humane” sequel to the landmark volume of social history, The Making of the English Working Class (The New York Times Book Review). This remarkable study investigates the gradual disappearance of a range of cultural customs against the backdrop of the great upheavals of the eighteenth century. As villagers were subjected to a legal system increasingly hostile to custom, they tried both to resist and to preserve tradition, becoming, as E. P. Thompson explains, “rebellious, but rebellious in defense of custom.” Although some historians have written of riotous peasants of England and Wales as if they were mainly a problem for magistrates and governments, for Thompson it is the rulers, landowners, and governments who were a problem for the people, whose exuberant culture preceded the formation of working-class institutions and consciousness. Essential reading for all those intrigued by English history, Customs in Common has a special relevance today, as traditional economies are being replaced by market economies throughout the world. The rich scholarship and depth of insight in Thompson’s work offer many clues to understanding contemporary changes around the globe. “[This] long-awaited collection . . . is a signal contribution . . . [from] the person most responsible for inspiring the revival of American labor history during the past thirty years.” —The Nation “This book signals the return to historical writing of one of the most eloquent, powerful and independent voices of our time. At his best he is capable of a passionate, sardonic eloquence which is unequalled.” —The Observer

Download or read book Rumours of a Moral Economy written by Christopher Lind and published by Fernwood Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of capitalism--with its mathematical equations and laws of supply and demand--its champions have claimed that studying the moral aspects of the theory interfere with its natural function. Yet, as this ethicist and theologian argues, economies are always deeply integrated in social relationships, in morality, and in ethics. Using historical examples, the book argues that when economically hard-pressed people come together to defend their common rights, they are giving voice to the principle of a moral economy that does not cheat the lower classes. Particular attention is paid to the 18th-century English food riots, the spontaneous resistance of 20th-century Malaysian farmers, and the North Americans who picketed the homes of Wall Street bankers in 2008 and 2009.

Download or read book Peasants in Power written by Philip Verwimp and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how Rwanda’s development model and the organisation of genocide are two sides of the same coin. In the absence of mineral resources, the elite organised and managed the labour of peasant producers as efficient as possible. In order to stay in power and benefit from it, the presidential clan chose a development model that would not change the political status quo. When the latter was threatened, the elite invoked the preservation of group welfare of the Hutu, called for Hutu unity and solidarity and relied on the great mass (rubanda nyamwinshi) for the execution of the genocide. A strategy as simple as it is horrific. The genocide can be regarded as the ultimate act of self-preservation through annihilation under the veil of self-defense. Why did tens of thousands of ordinary people massacred tens of thousands other ordinary people in Rwanda in 1994? What has agricultural policy and rural ideology to do with it? What was the role of the Akazu, the presidential clan around president Habyarimana? Did the civil war cause the genocide? And what insights can a political economy perspective offer ? Based on more than ten years of research, and engaging with competing and complementary arguments of authors such as Peter Uvin, Alison Des Forges, Scott Strauss, René Lemarchand, Filip Reyntjens, Mahmood Mamdani and André Guichaoua, the author blends economics, politics and agrarian studies to provide a new way of understanding the nexus between development and genocide in Rwanda. Students and practitioners of development as well as everyone interested in the causes of violent conflict and genocide in Africa and around the world will find this book compelling to read. .

Download or read book Peasant Classes written by Hermann Rebel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on peasant family life in Upper Austria, this study moves beyond generalizations about the growth of the modern state to ask what social relations existed in the early modern period and how they worked. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book Two Cheers for Anarchism written by James C. Scott and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-10 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spirited defense of the anarchist approach to life James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, Two Cheers for Anarchism is an engaging, high-spirited, and often very funny defense of an anarchist way of seeing—one that provides a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions. Through a wide-ranging series of memorable anecdotes and examples, the book describes an anarchist sensibility that celebrates the local knowledge, common sense, and creativity of ordinary people. The result is a kind of handbook on constructive anarchism that challenges us to radically reconsider the value of hierarchy in public and private life, from schools and workplaces to retirement homes and government itself. Beginning with what Scott calls "the law of anarchist calisthenics," an argument for law-breaking inspired by an East German pedestrian crossing, each chapter opens with a story that captures an essential anarchist truth. In the course of telling these stories, Scott touches on a wide variety of subjects: public disorder and riots, desertion, poaching, vernacular knowledge, assembly-line production, globalization, the petty bourgeoisie, school testing, playgrounds, and the practice of historical explanation. Far from a dogmatic manifesto, Two Cheers for Anarchism celebrates the anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to exercise their creative and moral capacities.

Download or read book The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China written by Philip Huang and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1985-06-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author presents a convincing new interpretation of the origins and nature of the agrarian crisis that gripped the North China Plain in the two centuries before the Revolution. His extensive research included eighteenth-century homicide case records, a nineteenth-century country government archive, large quantities of 1930's Japanese ethnographic materials, and his own field studies in 1980. Through a comparison of the histories of small family farms and larger scale managerial farms, the author documents and illustrates the long-term trends of agricultural commercialization, social stratification, and mounting population pressure in the peasant economy. He shows how those changes, in the absence of dynamic economic growth, combined over the course of several centuries to produce a majority, not simply of land-short peasants or of exploited tenants and agricultural laborers, but of poor peasants who required both family farming and agricultural wage income to survive. This interlocking of family farming with wage labor furnished a large supply of cheap labor, which in turn acted as a powerful brake of capital accumulation in the economy. The formation of such a poor peasantry ultimately altered both the nature of village communities and their relations with the elites and the state, creating tensions that led in the end to revolution.