karl kautsky, the agrarian question

(95): in short (theme of the chapter)-- once you get capitalism, there are efficiency gains to size. large farms apply machinery, etc. much better than small farms.

(100): large farms take better advantage of division of labour, adaptation/specialization of tools, etc.

(101): the division between mental/manual labour

(104): small estates might not be better off than peasantry, since it might be burdened by costs of management, etc. -- but the large estate certainly is

(104): advantages of credit and commerce, too

(106, 108): indebtedness as a regular part of capitalist business (different from peasant, and pre-capitalist era)

(110): key--peasants have two weapons against large

1. overwork
2. underconsumption

(111): a medieval golden age?

(111): peasants and schooling--few benefits for rational peasant

(121, 125): imp--large farm have advantages in forming cooperatives (more so than small farmers)

(122): nice--cooperatives, anyway, are an advance towards capitalism, not socialism

(123): lack of uniformity of produce makes small farm cooperatives difficult to sustain

(126): R. Owen example

(130); peasants can't make the jump to cooperative production [but here the suggestion seems to be that they are systematically irrational -- 'peasant property fanatcism']

(131): the w-class much more disposed to cooperative production

(132): nice passage on peasants and socialism, and the necessity of a 'transitional stage' (ambivalent)

(134): barriers to expropriation of peasants

1. military needs
2. petty-bourgeois prejudices [hmm]
   

(139): imp--ambiguity re: whether small is being supplanted by large, in data (this will be shown to be product of tendencies and counter-tendencies)

(141): large vs. small in industry is very clear -- the small will not outcompete the large, even as the small might for a while find functional niches when the large emerges (so you can't conclude from its existence that it is more competitive, or that the matter is unclear. something similar applies to agriculture, he will argue)

(143): petty bourgeoisie functional for capitalist rule, particularly in period of intense class struggle

(145): in short--the demise of the small enterprise is a highly "involved" process, with many countervailing tendencies (more so in agriculture)

(145-146): (1) prime reason that agriculture is subject to greater countervailing tendencies is the finite limits to accumulation -- at a certain point landholders can only accumulate through concentration, which is untrue for industrialists (no fininte limits). this will demand naked expropriation, which becomes difficult in the mature age of capitalism.

(147): also (2) larger farm isn't necessarily better, unlike industry -- there are difficulties having to do with supervision, transport, etc.

(148-151): within this, intensive vs. extensive farming (latter is limited by soil; former is only more productive up to a certain acreage). this difference won't be revealed in acreage stats.

(151): (3) where landowners have wage-workers, you don't need to see larger farms. landowners will buy more farms

(159): (4) the necessity of a workforce in agriculture; without a labourforce, capitalist agriculture is impossible.

(160): this will involve the separation of the household and the enterprise --which is crucial to building w-calss power

(163): imp--for this reason, in fact, large farms will often need small farms in the surrounding area--these do a much better job providing labour-power (small farms as functional for labour-power needs of l. farms)

(166): in sum--again, none of this means that small farms are equally competitive. just that they will persist for a variety of reasons.

(169): population decisions by peasantry always rational -- can be both

(170,175): as peasants are semi-proletarinized, they neglect their housheholds (while clinging to them). this will lead to fragmentation.

(171): for the small farmer, the land will be more valuable (because law of value doesn't operate)--it is indispensable source of means of subsistence, in an uncertain environment

(172): inadequacy of very small farms

(173): again--vast majority of agricultural population becomes buyers of foodstuffs and sellers of labour-power, rather than sellers of foodstuffs

(175): fragmentation presupposes opportunities for sec. employment

(178): capitalists--from "more land," to "more capital!"

(179): general summary--trends towards centralization and fragmentation are not exclusive, but often work alongside each other.

(183-185): domestic industry on peasant plots -- lovely bonanza for capitalists

(185): agriculture directed at needs of household is not subject to competition (it becomes a 'conservative force')

(186): barriers to concentration of ind. in cities

1. raw materials in rural areas
2. low cost of maintaining labour power in rural areas
3. lack of demand for labour
4. development of transportation systems

(195): again, co-existence of large enterprise and small enterprise (both in town and country, industry and agriculture)

The important point is that liberalism emerged as part of the same historical moment as the development of capitalism, the rise of European colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade and race 'science'. Liberalism was always implicated in these processes, from Locke to Tocqueville. US liberals of the Progressive era were generally explicit imperialists and white supremacists, none less than the paladin of 'liberal internationalism', Woodrow Wilson. What you refer to as the "bombing Left" is part of the same history. Large parts of the developing left and labour movements in the 19th Century partook of the colonial triumphalism and associated doctrines such as 'social Darwinism'. The regnant view was that much of the human race was bound for extinction if it wasn't possible to civilize them. Thus Karl Kautsky argued in 1882 that: "In so far as they cannot be assimilated by modern culture, the wild peoples will have to disappear from the surface of the earth."
(...) Left-wing apologists for imperialism also borrowed a chauvinistic version of humanitarianism from the liberals, namely the idea that - as Eduard Bernstein put it - the "savages" under colonial rule were "without exception better off than they were before". The Fabians similarly believed that self-rule was as useless to non-white people as "a dynamo to a Caribbean" and that for their own benefit it was necessary to impose the "grandmotherly tyranny" of colonialism. Labour's 1919 manifesto, radical in so many other ways, continued to enjoin Britain's duty to the "non-adult races". The Russian Revolution, and ensuing national liberation struggles often fought under the impress of some kind of marxism, put those explicitly advocating empire on the back foot: they had to change the terms of their argument, and they did so with reference to the exigencies of containing communism. Even then, the racial and colonial aspects of American dominance took a while to be suppressed. The USSR was itself considered an "oriental despotism" resulting, according to George F Kennan, from "a century-long contact with the Asiatic hordes" whose effects had only been concealed by the "Westernised upper crust of the Tsarist elite". Of especial concern was the commie attempt to weaken the power of Western states in colonised nations, which produced a fear of "premature independence" for those not yet adequately schooled in the arts of government by whitey, who might prove easy meat for the Muscovite menace.