john foran, taking power

(7): definition--social revolution = political change + structural transformation + mass participation [q. of the kind of cases we've excluded w/ the last factor]

(8): but Grenada 1979-1983 is included, even though it was a coup, b/c of "enthusiasm" [this is problematic]

(9): the 'J-curve', James Davies--growing prosperity followed by sharp downturn

(11): critique of Skocpol [largely uncompelling, about 'structure,' ideology]

(14): definition--'political cultures of opposition' -- 'value systems'/ideologies through which people make sense of world around them

(15): the who of revolution is coalitions/multi-class alliances [a la Parsa et. al.]

(15): Third World needs its own theory

(18): the model: (1) dependent development ('growth within limits') --> (2) exclusionary personalist/colonial state/or open polity (vs. Goodwin, here -- it's the middling regimes, the polyarchies, that are most stable) --> (3) political cultures of opposition (ways of seeing the world) all meet the triggers that are (a) economic downturn + (b) world-systemic opening ---> revolutionary outbreak

(23): again, the problem of the multi-class claim, like Parsa [he agrees that they are likely to fracture, but this doesn't preclude 'social revolution'; we must ask, though, what it means that they fail in their aspirations]

(35): Mexcio largely agricultural, in 1910

(36): 'growth within limits,' Mexcio

(37): Porfirian state slogan: 'Pan y palo'

(37): political cultures of opposition, Mexico [clear problem, here, of how to evaluate this claim. it is far too hand-wavy; but can it be made more definite?]

(40-41): multi-class alliance, Mexico [question of the nature of elite participation--is it that they stand aside? not much by way of active participation, it seems, though Foran concludes the opposite]

(43): failure of Villa and Zapata [there's a clear failure, here, so it's unclear why it's helpful to consider this as 'social revolution'. and auxiliary question of why they failed is interesting, but unaddressed b/c of the nature of his argument]

(44-45): more than a reform? [how can your evidence for this be PRI nationalization under Cardenas?]

(45): Gilly--a bourgeois revolution that was pushed, by radial peasants, to being more than simply bourgeois outcome [hmm]

(47): China as 'not feudal, not yet capitalist' (b/c share-cropping and wage labour were common, he argues)

(50): debate on peasant conditions in the 1930s, with some suggesting that they didn't worsen, but most agreeing that they did, including Foran.

(50): GMD regime alienated elites, depending almost wholly on the army. no social base.

(52): vs. Skocpol, emphasizes the organizational role of the CCP (Skocpol thinks that peasants had no alternative but to respond favourably to CCP; Foran's argument is that, had they not been effectively organized/political cultures of opposition present, the peasantry would not have flocked. a 'battle for ideological hegemony')

(53): Communist movement as a 'nationalist' movement

(54): a diverse social base to the side of the revolution, China [OK, to a point. but this is directly consonant with the limited goals, as they themselves stressed. it is quite another to make this into the general condition of social revolution, since they abandoned the NDR soon after taking power]

(57): Cuba as a 'willed' revolution? no.

(58): more Cadillacs sold in 1954 Havana than in any other city in the world

(58): dependent development, Cuba ('a textbook case')

(59): US control of Cuban economy very pronounced

(60): 20,000 Cubans died at hands of police/army/intelligence, between 1952 and 1959 [!]

(61): oppositional culture, Cuba [here it becomes quite clear that this is too 'post hoc'; it seems easy to make similar summaries in clear negative cases]

(62-63): w-systemic opening, Cuba (US backing-off from Batista in late 50s)

(65): middle-class populist coalition, Cuba [first, seems extremely strange to talk about a 'mass' movement but then use composition of 600 guerrilla members as main piece of evidence for its being middle-class; second, the actual evidence of cooperation across classes gives absolutely no sense of its significance--it's just a quote. third, and perhaps most importantly, again it's shown that elite dissension is important to regime downfall; but a 'social revolution'? you can't show this by saying that, prior to post-revolutionary social upheavals, elites were partial toward the revolutionaries]

(67): American interest in Nicaragua; though lowest rates of investment, large American multinationals were present

(67): dependent development, Nicaragua (q. of whether it was developed enough to be considered)

(68): incredible land concentration figures--1.5% had 40% of land, 78% had 17% of land

(70): oppositional cultures, Nicaragua [again, not convincing--no way of assessing the significance, easy to make similar point in negative cases. and this is meant to be his clearest case--but if you had evaluated this in the mid-70s, or before the earthquake, would you have made a similar case?]

(73): 50,000 people died, ion total

(72-73): w-systemic opening, Nicaragua [OK, but Carter's posture is quite uncertain -- proposing a peace-keeping force, looking for internal changes. Sandinistas very clearly say no to this. how much this helps is entirely uncertain? maybe 'opening' is better understood as the absence of a 'w-systemic closing'?]

(73): FSLN was tiny! 200 members in 1977, 5,000 in July 1979 (though many fought who weren't expressly members of the FSLN)

(74): m-class populist coalition, Nicaragua [problem here is simple, and familiar -- you can't use the evidence of m-class involvement to make the claim that all classes contributed equally. this seems singularly unhelpful. in all of these it seems the case that the m-class have to withdraw support from the regime; but whether this is best understood as their being active members of the coalition, as a class, is extremely suspect]

(74-75): vs. Skocpol--Iran not exceptional, but prototypical

(75): dependent development, Iran [again, the narrative is not unhelpful, but the more I read the more I think that a better 'test' would be to see what isn't dependent development in the Third World. b/c everything short of that, which is most, seems eligible for a description like the one offered here: 'there was growth, but there was also poverty+inequality'. I don't know if unbelievers would be convinced by the analysis here, in other words]

(77): Shah's Army budget at $10 billion in late 70s!

(78): w-systemic opening, Iran (from Nixon doctrine to Carter's inaction) [but again, he is showing that Carter had 'strong personal rapport and called him an 'island of stability'; support Shah after massacre of protestors. we risk elevating rhetoric to reality, unless this is framed as 'absence of w-systemic closing'; inaction is read as paralysis, but better read as unwillingness to 'interevene' b/c of w-historic moment, I think]

(78): May '78 cable suggesting Shah was stable

(81): v. different from Parsa--where Parsa stressed the marginality of the religious forces to the making of revolution, Khumaini and the clergy dominate Foran's portrayal of the revolutionary movement

(83): political cultures of opposition, Iran [another example of how difficult this is to evaluate]

(84): largest crowd in w. history, three to four million people in February 1979

(87): m-class alliance, Iran [again, difficult to celebrate this as source of regime's radical nature when the consolidation of the regime demands the denial of so many of the participants' aspirations]

(89): in colonial cases, a 'distinct variant' of dependent development
(90): because foreign, collective dictatorship by outsiders is personalistic (in emotional terms) [emotional terms???]

(90): imp--conjunctural factors end up being very important, to the spate of revolutions that occur in the 1970s (both w-systemic opening, in US after Vietnam, and Portugese revolution; and economic downturn + the two oil shocks)

(91): though downturn can be 'partly' a subjective factor (in Cuba, guerrilla struggles helped create it, for example)

(92): literacy in Algeria comparable to Fr. at time of revolution

(93): exceptional violence of French conquest, extraordinary massacres

(94): Tocqueville--'we have been more barbaric than the Arabs'

(94-5): dependent development, Algeria (a 'split society'--key to which was 'agricultural exp. on mass scale'; urbanization w/o industrialization, as people pushed from coutnryside)

(95): in 1954, 85% of population illiterate

(95): Napoleon 1865-- to become French, one had to give up Islam; 98 of 106 mosques in Algiers made into churches

(98): in 1937, PCF was counseling that Algerians had to wait for the revolution in France [!]

(102): 1956, FLN strength was at 8,500, w/ 21,000 auxiliaries [quite small, in relation to French forces--450,000!]

(103-104): class basis, Algeria: led by urban middle-class, but fought by youth from rural proletariat; involved most of Muslim population in urban areas [a bit snide to call this a coalition, and Foran's comments are very hurried]

(104): imp--Angolan revolution (1960-1975) is excellent example of Third World Rev touching off First World Rev

(108): brutal Angolan State, no health or education budget 1953-1958, forced labour

(108-109): three anti-colonial movements

1. MPLA, Pan-African and socialist
   
2. FNLA, non-communist nationalist--evolved in pro-Western direction by 1960s
3. UNITA, counter-revolutionary, especially after 1975-1976 civil war
   

(110): political culture, Angola: length of struggle into 1970s radicalized the MPA [interesting--if it is an underlying condition, how can it be explained as a result of the mobilization?]

(111): mid-1970s US pushing for UNITA-led independence

(112): guerrillas didn't win on battlefield, v. few Portuguese troops died

(114): broad coalition, Angola: if the three movements [!] are included, cross-class [this is utterly absurd--three movements that were hardly allies in the liberation struggle, and then fell upon one another are the source of this claim!]

(115): not clear that condition of 'significant social claim' is met--instead, what qualifies this as a social revolution seems to be the 'ideas' of the revolutionaries. but of course that's not what we're trying to explain.

(116): dependent development vs. underdevelopment, in case of Mozambique

(120): multi-class, Mozambique [again, this just seems absurd. a fringe of elite leaders is not enough to make a peasant movement multi-class. the claim is simply confusing]

(121): the West supported Portugal consistently; South Africa and Rhodesia even more so, of course

(121): economic downturn, Mozambique: both in Portugal and in Mozambique (created by guerrillas?)

(123): creating an opening through disruption? (a la Cuba and Angola(

(125-126): dependent development, Rhodesia

(126): US circumventing sanctions it formally supported, to import minerals

(128): in 1971, Britain promising 'majority rule' in 100 years. Smith agreed.

(128): ZANU emerged successful over ZIPA and ZAPU b/c of appeal of its vision, more effective recruitment (winning support from the people) [this is less an 'ideology' issue, than an 'organizing' issue]

(129): radicals had been sidelined; this was the National Democratic Revolution

(130): conjunctural factors, Zimbabwe: impact of late 1970s--world-systemic opening (though ambiguous), and the independence of Mozambique and Angola

(131): 30k Africans died in Zimbabwe struggle

(132): Vietnam as best case--all factors come together, in 1945

(132, 139-141): imp, question re: Foran's use of political cultures, here [here it means something different than a 'historical endowment'; means something contingent, subject to organizing success. see also his explanation of later movement, which is a 'historical endowment' argument--'fusion' of indigenous and Marxism. entirely q-begging]

(135): dependent development, Vietnam: exporting raw materials, limited industrializatoin

(135): imp, some recognition, here, of importance of wider class base --> less radicalism (a non-communist alternative, had there been a middle-class][possible tension in larger argument]

(138): 1965-1973, USA dropped triple the bomb tonnage dropped on Europe, Asia, AFrica on an area the size of Texas

(139): at least 1.5 million dead Vietnamese; along with Mexico, biggest toll in all of the revolutions

(142): m-class, Vietnam: won the middle-class by not being too radical (a la Race) [but didn't this, simultaneously, have something to do with its failures post-revolution? and the vast majority of the rank and file were peasants; we need some way of deciding when the fact of overall, average composition ceases to be significant, if that's ever the case]

(144): Nixon's rearguard strategy for 'peace' w/ honor, a la Obama in Afghanistan today (Nixon Christmas bombing in 1972, for example, after breakdown in negotiations)

(151): imp, here looking at 'reversed revolutions' that weren't able to live up to their promise--but a central issue is that the claim of 'radical social transformation' in the 'successful' cases hasn't really been substantiated

(152): vs. Goodwin, the examples of Chile, Jamaica, and Iran as situations where revolutionary challenge launched through political process

(153): Bolivia in 1952--a revolution that was rolled back ever so slowly, after 18 months of radical reforms, thanks to US pressures (here discussion of 'coming to power'

(158): Army stands aside in 1952

(159): Chile is Foran's key argument against Goodwin -- a truly democratic polity undergoing dep. development is vulnerable to revolution (it's the in-betweens that aren't amenable to rev. challenge)

(159): strong existence of working-class parties explains the comparative strength of democratic institutions (four decades of democratic rule); though the electorate was considerably narrow, even in 1971[!] (only 28.3%???)

(161): strong labour movement --> strong political consciousness [again, q-begging]

(162): gradualists (CP, Allende's wing of SP) vs. radicals (MIR, etc.) -- UP as fragile center-point between these views

(163): key--more generally, ec. downturn matters only in context of ongoing dependent development

(167): 46 men in Granada! [again, raises question about the 'movement'--here, it's popular sympathy that's enough to make this into a case of revolution. but that's a bit of a stretch]

(170): in sum, revolutionary failure--the same factors that brought these movements to power worked to unseat them: dependency was restraint, democracy opened up space for the right, economic difficulties, intervention of empire

(170): in Bolivia, MNR leads social revolution

(171): LR, though, touched only 8 of 36 million hectares [for Foran this is enough, b/c it's 'popular']

(171-172): but, w-systemic closure brought MNR rev to knees [example, possibly, of the State being brought to heel by Capital]. 1956 as turning point.

(173): JFK's Alliance for Progress in Bolivia was culmination of US efforts to bring Bolivia back in line

(175): Chile LR touched 1/2 of all land

(175): Korry quote--'we will do all in our power to condemn Chileans to utmost poverty'

(176): CIA study: US has no vital interests in region--but Chile would represent a 'psychological set-back' to US, and 'psychological advantage' for Marxism

(177); State structure was never in Allende's hands: no majority in Congress, no support from judiciary, no loyalty of civil service or Army. no control of mass media.

(178): Allende in Aug 1972, amidst heightening class conflict, split w/ MIR: 'the fact that you have to get up at dawn to get to work, whlie I ride in a car...' [brilliantly tragic]

(180): imp--the middle-classes and the CD were the social base for the coup, hit hard by inflation/shortages. of course the landowners/industrialists/army were the prime movers. but their support was critical.

(181, 186): imp--failure of New Jewel Movement in Grenada shows causal importance of political culture. this was the explanation of breakdown. Coard vs. Bishop [seems question-begging, at some level--fragmented despite everything else being in place]

(182): FDI went up during NJM tenure

(185): Carter's FP was hardening, after 1979 revolutions--Grenada, Nicaragua, Jamaica were defined as threats

(185): Bishop on Reagan--'he's readying himself to drop into what he thinks is his bathtub!'

(189): US invasion of Grenada was not principal cause--it followed the break-up of the revolutionary coalition

(190): imp--after taking power, Sandinistas did their best to pursue a 'mixed economy', trying to keep national bourgeoisie and even foreign capital happy--big public sector, investing in basic needs, took over about 1/5 of arable land. as Foran puts it, basically took over Somoza's place in the economy. btw 1979 and 1983, this worked 'quite well'

(191): 1984 elections, they won 2/3

(191): coalition starting to fragment in mid-1980s [not well-explained--partly defection of industrial and agricultural elites]

(191): closure of w-systemic opening, with Reagan. US 'created' Contras out of Somoza's NG

(192): 30,000 Nicaraguans killed as result of Contra war

(192-193): in response to Reagan, Nicaragua kept civil liberties open--tried to push date of elections forward

(193): by 1987, were spending 60% of budget on military--US aid cut off, as was IMF/World Bank, active intervention in the banks

(194): Sandinista economic policy played a part? agrarian reform jeopardized agrarian exports, which put pressure on foreign exchange. this, plus falling commodity prices in the 80s, was big issue

(195): Sandinistas forced to implement austerity in 1988-1989, after economy brought to its knees in '85 to '87 period

(196): voting them out of office in 1990 was rational, given US posture

(197): ag. reform 'failed' in Guatemala, for reasons of complexity of existing tenure

(197): Manley government undermined, after nationalizing bauxite--again, US involved, according to Foran, in sanctioning gov't, which then turned to IMF/WB

(200): imp point against Goodwin--'open democratic polities' can be challenged [Iran, Chile, Jamaica, and Guatemala after Arevalo]

(202): post-Rev, becoming more democratic actually made these States more vulnerable

(200, 202-203): summary of argument re: reversals: dep development, open democracies, attenuation of political cultures, closing of w-systemic window. these four factors are found in all seven cases.

(205-206): studying the negative cases--attempted revolutions, political revolutions, non-revolutions, revolutions from above

(207): Salvadoran dictatorship favored by JFK, as bulwark against Communism

(208): El Salvador: it lacked the breadth of the movement in Nicaragua (also, stable nature of 'crisis'--things always very bad. regime well supported. w-systemic closure.

(208-216): other cases here [many of these are very underdeveloped

(218): final table

(222): here, in China 1911, w-systemic opening becoming a bit like 'political opportunity' [very underdeveloped and imprecise]

(222): imp--logic of book is that dependent development is expected to produce a cross-class coalition [hmm]

(223): Aristide is simply a political revolution. but surely as radical as some of the examples that have been considered social revolutions. [and, in any case, how do we measure whether dep development has gone 'far enough'?]

(223): odd--in Philippines, NPA is too narrow to produce a 'social revolution' [this encapsulates some of the problems with 'broad-based'. if it were to have reached out to m-class elements, it would have retained its social revolutionary commitments? come on]

(225): pol rev in SA--very forced, doesn't really make sense, to me

(231, see 257 for sum of PC): Iraq was non-attempt b/c no political culture [great place to show that this basically begs more questions than it answers. tautological]

(232): imp, w-systemic opening, Egypt [what, in general, are the mechanisms by which the w-systemic opening/closure makes itself felt?]

(234): Cuba and culture [pop consensus? but come on...]

(235): key--in SK, no revolution b/c they didn't enlist the middle-class [great place to expose this problem]

(235): advantages of real development

(242): m-class becomes part of the prescription for how to make revolution [ugh!]

(244): w-systemic opening and 'political culture' his two most important, for explaining failure [happily, they're also the two most poorly defined]

(253): key--what a good political culture should do, in short, is facilitate a broad-based cross-class coalition [ouch!]

(259): w/ Selbin, against Goodwin -- inequalities rising, and also possibility of democratic route to power

piven and cloward, poor people's movements

---

[1] organization -- very clear that their argument doesn't target the fact of organization, but rather the kind of organization, and its tactics. organization (in the sense of 'coordination') ends up being indispensable to their stories of success--they say as much, even if they're not as clear as they could be.

in short, where they attack organization, they're not in fact attacking the fact of organization, nor even a form of organization ('formal mass-membership', they sometimes say), but--it seems to me--a particular tactic [Communists, in "Pop Front" era, were not the inevitable result of the Communist Party]

(another way of saying the above is that the fact of organization, and even the mass-membership form of organization can actually help coordinate disruption--why not? what they're worried about is mass-membership organizations becoming electoral machines, rather than mechanisms for co-ordinating disruption. and fair enough).

[1b] Michels -- their argument seems to be that the rise of an internal oligarchy is an invariable result of the waning of mass protest. in other words, organizations will be co-opted by elites, who have recovered capacity, as the basis for mass disruption dissolves. it would have been helpful, though to specify whether this is an endogenous fact about organizations (which seems to be what is suggested by the attack on organization), or an exogenous fact determined by the changes in social structure?

[2] winning -- when they say that disruption forced concessions, the implied definition of victory is 'concession'. but is this tenable? is it the case that organizations of the oppressed that have organized differently -- say, through political parties -- haven't won concessions. even in the US it seems difficult to make the case (and they admit something like this, re: unions), but what about in Europe and Social-Democracy?

two things here, then:

(a) the great counterfactual that they give no mind to, in their account, is the possibility of a third-party being organized in the 1930s -- particularly, it's often argued, for the 1938 election. whether or not this was possible is a question I don't think is that important. their suggestion, though, is that there were two options open to the mass movement -- continued, disorganized disruption, or cooption by political elites. but what about this third alternative--considering this in more detail would help sharpen their discussion.

I think there's no question that something like this is our way out of the conundrum that their argument leaves us with. the suggestion being that, absent the large, uncontrollable social changes that explain mass willingness to be disruptive,

(b) if you want to salvage the idea that disruption is essential, their definition victory needs to be more precise. we need something that will exclude instances where lower-class has won concessions without disruption/active threat of disruption. maybe what we're interested is not 'concession,' but the build-up of working-class power, or the progressive accumulation of capacity (so other tactics can win you concessions for much longer and more successfully than they think, but in a way that forfeits power over the long-run). [is this different from saying that they underestimate what political organizations can win you in the short-term, even as they seem to be correct about them, over the long-run?]

[3] disruption -- the definition of disruption needs to be a bit sharper. to be clear, I think they basically have the right idea; but the idea of 'mass defiance of what's normal' too readily collapses different degrees of power into the same category. mass protest on the streets (stepping out of line as a member of civil society) and a mass strike (stepping out of line as a worker) are both instances of 'mass defiance of what's normal' that imperil the normal operation of society, but one a kind of structural power that the other doesn't, I would argue. we could think of this as having been demonstrated in Egypt; if you buy one account of the regime's fall, workers were the straw that broke the camel's back.

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)

de janvry, peasants, capitalism and the State in latin american culture

(391-392): three near-universal features of peasant production

1. family-based nature of production motivated by rationality of ensuring unit's reproduction (safety-first, etc.)
2. subordinate position of peasants, which requires them to surrender a portion of the surplus
3. discontinous and often defensive collective action strategies

(393): three facts about LA

1. dependent development, growth that was inequalizing of income
2. failure of real wages to revive
3. most rapidly growing sectors of economy oriented to luxury consumption and capital goods

(393): characterized by extreme inequality in assets; surplus labour; unfavourable terms of trade

(394): two observations

1. systematic undervaluation of agricultural commodities, in order to produce cheap food (overvalued exchange rates, trade restrictions, price fixing) [this is a tax on agriculture, effectively, designed to serve industry]
2. permanence of a large peasantry (often growing)

(395): despite cheap food policies, institutional rents allow well-off peasants to do ok; meaning that poor peasants bear the brunt.

(395): hypothesis of 'functional dualism', for four reasons

1. peasants can provide particularly cheap food, thanks to their capacity to exploit themselves to a point where they're more productive than their capitalist counterparts.
2. they can also be a source of rent (why we see share-cropping, in his argument).
3. a source of cheap labour, since part of their costs of reproduction don't need to be paid
4. land acts as a social safety net that the State can't provide

(397): noting that off-farm sources of income are quite high for peasants (based mostly on figures collected in the 80s) [suggests that 'depeasantization' might need better theorization)

(398): despite their functional position, poverty makes their state very unstable

(399): anti-feudal land reforms forged a dualistic agrarian structure: -- an expansive capitalist sector and a growing semi-proletarian peasantry (absorbed labour, politically stable)

(402): peasantry finds itself in a contradictory class position

(403, FN): nice description of backward-linkages (the demand generated for input-suppliers), and forward-linkage (the supply generated for output-consumers)

de janvry, the role of land reform in economic development (1981)

(386, 388): land reforms create a reform sector, and a nonreform sector. most have sought their economic impact in the later, but the political payoff in the former.

(388): most common LRs have been (1) antifeudal reforms seeking to implant a capitalist elite, farmer class, or free peasantry, or (2) reforms seeking to dispossess a larger capitalist elite in favor of farmers or peasantry.

(388): they've typically required an economic incentive, aside from their political importance -- achieving thus both equity and efficiency gains

(389): the GR served as a surrogate to antifeudal reforms

(389): today (80s), a further set of LRs is clearly needed; but this is unlikely, for four reasons:

1. the political alliance is exceptional -- it is difficult to generate a coalition to oppose the landed elite, typically requires revolutionary pressures
2. the same alignment of equity and efficiency is not necessarily present (hmm); any drastic land reform implies short-term costs
3. countries have industrialized to serve foreign markets/luxury markets; not interested in building the domestic market
4. LRs are typically limited only to their political purpose--they will be as limited as possible while creating a supportive political minority

(390-392): four types of LRs

1. conservative: purely legitimizing purpose, the least that can be done to create a supportive minority
2. national bourgeois: LR seen as a way of expanding the domestic market for wage goods, disposessing feudals
3. populist: give the land to the peasants (premised on efficiency on sm. farms, which have zero social opp cost for labour)
4. radical: (not specified well, at all)
   

radical protest and social structure, michael schwartz

Chapter 6: Growth and Merger

(91): Alliance absorbing two different streams

1. large organizations of small yeomen/tenants, whose goal was to use local actions to reverse tenantization
   
2. small groups of large farmers/planters

(93): imp--expansion within country limits was natural; but further growth was 'unwieldy', required a statewide organizing apparatus (this becomes an important part of the story for the organization's failure -- this is probably the best explanation for why the org. starts to disintegrate. it needs larger-level organization to be effective, but this larger-level organization becomes the source of weakness, in turn)

(94): Clebourne --> Waco. at Waco, Macune's logic: exchange strategy + political strategy

(95): key at Waco was the institution of a program that offered the promise of successful reform (i.e. exchanges + political action)

(97, 100, see 102): infiltration of more prosperous farmers, landlords in mid 1880s [again, here there isn't much that explains, concretely, why they would accept the more prosperous elements, when their arguments about farmer misery are so pathetic. why accept elite leadership, if rational? why not retreat altogether?]

(98): again--as soon as Alliance programs required support above local level, real problems arose.

(100): planter class stronger in South Carolina and Mississippi, and there it had less need for the Alliance. it was where they need the support of less prosperous elements that they entered the Alliance.

(101): race--the Wheel accepted black members. quite advanced for the times -- "undertook to create unity"

(103): imp--graph of organization's evolution [here he speaks of the 'possibility of leadership domination', but in the narrative it seems more like the 'inevitability'. the counterfactual (revival of mass activity) is belied by his own presentation of the group's logic]

(102): imp--two factors explain the influx of elite elements into Alliance leadership

1. very rapid growth
2. state organizations became important centers of power and prominence (and previous point about limitations of local activism explains why they needed State organizations)
   

(103-104): here, a push and pull argument [this seems entirely inconsistent with what's argued later]

1. difficult to settle on practicable economic programs--made member less enthusiastic
2. elite leadership energetically built Populist party

(104): important graph of two leadership strategies [failure in both cases]

Chapter 7: Structure and Structural Tension within the Alliance

(105): structure of alliance a response to

1. structure of tenancy system
2. programs of the organization

(108): the Alliance was meant to exclude all 'enemies of the working farmer'; but some places it was stretched to allow merchant-landlords (NC)

(110): imp--activism took place at the level of the county, leadership at the level of the State

(113): strong in cottonized areas

(114-115): white and yeomen beginnings, but in 1887-1888 spread to Black Belt, after Clebourne

(118): roughly 1/3 non-elite in leadership (emergent possibilities in this split, which will get activated only when the differing interests get activated) [but isn't their activation inevitable?

(118): newspaper was a force for moderation

(124): key--outside aid hurt the organization, because it didn't have to undertake fundraising among the membership. this 'freed' the leadership from boosting/testing membership commitment

(125): key, in sum: Alliance responded to the tenancy system, but also contained the contradictions of the system from which it sprung. different groups were absorbed into the group, which has a result contained conflicting interests. the contradictions of the system resurfaced within Alliance. pressures for expansion led to promotion of elite individuals, and led to a centralized structure which made this possible. in short, "the class make-up of the leadership became more elite as the organization became more dependent upon leadership."

Chapter 8: Defining the Farmer's Alliance

(129): two features of protest organizations:

1. a basis in conflict
2. derivative of a parent structure

(130): institutional (the State, landlords) vs. noninstitutional power (tenants) (attempted shift from latter to former is the history of this movement, in Schwartz)

(132): begins as attempt to use farmer's non0institutional, structural power, for which 'mass organization' and 'organizational discipline' is indispensable

(133): seven point summary
Chapter 9: The Parameters of Organizational Behaviour

(135): rational doesn't mean correct; rational individuals can often be wrong. ('at least as rational as those who study them')

(136): 'social psychology' explanations

(139): vs. Smelser, who thinks that all action outside of moral and legal restrictions is 'irrational'; but this would require a whole group of people acting irrationally in unison, and would imply that people continually pursue strategies that damage their interests

(140-141): vs. Obserchal, and 'arationality' (certain things are beyond rationality); but clearly people don't act on these always, and people are not affected equally

(142): rationality is also not 'superrationality'. social systems obscure sources of problems, etc.

(143): important--for rational people, many different options are open -- many different solutions can be reationally defended in any given context (this is why informational exchange is very important, can lead to convergence of opinion)

(148-149): important-- complexity to structure that is reflected in complexity of reactions of rational individuals to the structure. it's not (just) excessive misery that gives rise to protest organizations.

(151-152): important-- this problem is compounded by the phenomenon of "structured ignorance" -- social systems obscure problems, many different interpretations (and corresponding programs) seem plausible. these typically have a 'pro-elite' character ('ideology'), because of differential access to antidotes.

Chapter 10 and 11: Determinants of Organized Protest

(155): seven factors

1. the class makeup of the organization (155-159): class refers to the role that members play in the social structrue; class interest does not mean that all will have the same opinion; this also means that orgs will suffer from internal contradictions
   
2. the internal structure of the organization (159-162): vs. Michels, saying you need to look at 'outside' interests/structure, which he doesn't do--this is what will determine patterns of oligarchization; depends on whether group uses leadership organizing or membership organizing
   
3. the nature of active and potential opposition (162-164): success of org will depend on the structural position of opposition -- rigidity of contending forces, their capacity to escalate, and the organizability of the opposition
   
4. the nature of active and potential support (164-169): will depend on demographic variables (its size, its physical arrangement), its experience and understanding, its organizational discipline (vs. Olson--you can discipline people to combat the 'free-rider' problem. but not much of an objection), the nature of its potential support
   
5. structural position of the organization's membership in the structure to be challenged (171-177): talking about the basis of power of its base--the question of structural power (given by the routine operation of the system), and leverage (organized use of this specific power--this is why protest organizations are critical). additional claims here, most important of which is that 'effective protest will rely on 'noninstitutional power' (not institutional power) [always?]
   
6. the prevailing analysis (177-188): the development of a realistic, accurate analysis of the situation is critical (again, here vs. Smelser et. al.); this is tested by how well the tactics/strategy that follow from this address grievances (mistaken perspectives do not usually survive; receive feedback). this is made more complicated by the fact that leadership is usually the agent of hypothesis testing/promulgation of new ideas, which Schwatz calls 'structured inefficiency'. this also determines who the organization manages to attract.
   
7. previous actions and outcomes (189-192): organization's subject to demoralization of their members if they don't successfully address grievances, evolve to face challenges; they need to maintain the loyalty and discipline of their membership. leadership will prefer to use 'past membership discipline'.

Chapter 12: The Life of Protest Organizations

(193): four conditions for success

1. changes must be beneficial to membership
2. group must use its latent structural power
3. group must activate enough people to give its activism a mass character
4. group must develop organizational discipline

(197): imp--the question of origins is actually a 'process' question (why do small groups grow/not grow)

Later Chapters

(202): different groups have different orientation toward marketing programs

(203): crop lien system gave unique power to boycott

(210): escalation of wholesalers defeats supply scheme

(213): imp--escalation defeats most local initiatives

(218-219): Alliance Exchange (at State level)--had two successful years (as a response to the failure of more local schemes) and then was escalated against, successfully.

(220): Waco as crossroads, after local failures--which is when AE was forged

(223): counterinstitutions require a different kind of activism (routinized) than pressure tactics (which require nonroutine acts). [this is an advantage for leaders, but not really for the group as a whole--seems to contain the seeds of membership disaffection, in that they are relatively passive]

(229): in short--the ultimate counterinstitution was defeated by the ultimate escalation

(231): a failure of analysis, in explaining rise/fall of AE[?]

(233): would have needed to create a 'countereconomy'

(240): boycott vs. exchange (boycott requried more 'effort'

(244): key--oligarchy of the alliance defeats the 'jute boycott'

(262): NC leadership learning from difficulties the AE had in Texas -- creation of 'structured ignorance', among members

(266): local groups getting sidelined as leadership -- who were needed for economic coordination -- confront failure of Exchanges, move towards politics

(269): shift into politics as the "utlimate expression" of its complex structural logic [degree of contingency here--much more than Michels, for sure]

(270, 276): key, counterfactual-- it was an attempted escalation, but through institutionalization [the alternative, for Schwartz, would have been a revival of local action--but it's not clear that this would have saved them?]

(274): State structure/leadership favored activities that didn't require active membership activity--just the threat of their existence (lobbying, etc.)

(277-278): summary of oligarchization

1. local boycotts meet escalations, state structure needed
2. resources available for state structure
3. elite elements enter state leadership
4. leadership-membership conflict
5. state leadership grows stronger
6. 'solution' of reviving membership off cards for leadership -- they have different class perspective
7. favore entry into politics
8. leadership pursues its own interest

(282-284): crushing of populism integral to Jim Crow, 1890 as key year

(285-286): using Moore--planters' pact with weaker industrialists, that black tenants would be kept on farms by being prohibited from industrial employment. so planters weren't defeated, and authoritarianism was a result

war comes to long an, jeffrey race (1972)

(40): key to the resistance to the French had been the economic revolution -- what it had meant for peasants, in daily life

(42): in 1956, gov't advantages: (1) operate openly; (2) military force; (3) foreign resources; (4) nationalist heritage vs. Party advantages: (1) strong local organization, based resolutely in broad social base

(52): elections too dangerous because communists would win , 1957-1961

(55-60): imp--failure of gov't sponsored land reform, 1956-1968 (compare with Taiwan/Japan!). high threshold, very little implementation, etc.

(70): revolutionaries' land reform much more impressive -- distribute it 'fairly'

(98): not advocating 'collectivization', but property

(99): 1959 marked the darkest period in Long An, after serious repression (but this, he argues, actually laid the foundation for their revival)

(109-110): an armed struggle did not mean guerilla warfare--its principal purpose was to make politics possible, in essence [this is helpful, in guarding against some elementary peacenik criticisms of 'violence']

(112): Mao on fireflies

(119): against adventurism -- being careful with the new policy, calling for a general uprising can be 'speculative adventurism'

(121, 125): important--need for a national front was a product of careful strategic thinking and historical reflection (on the Nghe An soviets, from the 1930s). a need to form temporary alliances with intermediate classes. the Party as brain, Army as muscle, and Front the way of fracturing the society...

(128): the National Democratic Revolution -- demands were, as befit the balance of forces, more moderate in the South than in the North

(133): 1961-1963 reprieve for gov't

(140): by 1965, though, the revolutionary forces had won

(141): three kinds of differences, between communists and the Gov't

1. (141-159) strategic -- because they saw revolution as a stage-by-stage process, involving the (a) concept of class (society founded on classes); (b) concept of contradiction (classes fight); (c) concept of force (need to muster willing base, that is willing not b/c it's coerced); (d) concept of balance of forces (be wary of adventurism/reformism; (e) concept of security (sympathetic environment is critical); (f) concept of victory (through overwhelming balance of forces). the sum total of this is that a purely military strategy is unworkable. critical: Party's strategy was preemptive (i.e., a line that prevented the gov't from coopting other classes--the crux of this is the Front, which seeks not to alienate middle/rich peasants--see p. 157), and thus entailed a social strategy, while gov'ts strategy was reinforcement-based (a military defense of the existing distribution of 'values'). the take-away is that--had the gov't been communist!--they might not have lost]
   
2. (159-165) organizational -- the gov't's polcies were (1) conflict-aggravating; (2) based on numerical weakness; (3) critical: implemented through highly centralized bodies. revolutionaries were the opposite.
   
3. (165-174) policy -- revolutionaries pushed policy that (1) redistributed wealth; (2) redistriubted status/power; (3) provoked gov't, protected people (?)
   

(174-176): critically (what he calls another way of thinking about the above, through three summary themes: (1) contingent incentives -- people would only have access to certain benefits (land, upward mobility) that depended upon their participation in the movement. the gov't, through its idiocy, produced this contingency (because the only way to have land was to join the revolution).

(177-178): (2) assimilation of forces -- rural Vietnam as decisive area, broad social base of support

(179-180): (3) building nationalism through 'communalism'/local -- it was through harnessing the local interests of the population that the Party succeeded in building a larger organization.

---

[1] the framing of the counterfactual -- had the gov't been communist! -- belies his own approach to social classes/social conflict. groups work from their interests. not terribly important, but worth noting (see p. 159, p. 267)

[2] take-home: organizations are not superior by virtue of 'organizing better' in some abstract sense, but because--in a definite social context--they speak to the individual interest of those that they are trying to organize. this is why, I think, Olson's account was so unhelpful. without some understanding of who you're trying to organize and the context in which you're operating, you can say very little about what is likely to make 'free-riders' contributors, etc. (see p. 165)