peasantry

[man in the red suit]

me and gacky have been arguing a lot over the last week as to whether of not the peasants are a proletariat.

MITRS: NOT PROLETARIAT

GACKY: IS IS IS!

we don't know who is right so we want your opinions.
To be quite honest, I have know evidence to prove my point. I am starting to agree with Gacky.

take into consideration that peasants farm and grow produce. That does contribute to society.

I on the other hand believe that peasants are basically bums and do nothing. Of course like everything else I talk about here, I have no evidence to prove this. So before I go making any blatantly stupid presumptions, I would like to hear your take on it first. Help please

[Mazdak]

I believe the oppressed are proletarian. Peasants if necessary. I do not understand how peasants, who are probably more oppressed then factory workers, are not considered proletarian

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from Mazdak on 2:41 am on Sep. 5, 2002
I believe the oppressed are proletarian. Peasants if necessary. I do not understand how peasants, who are probably more oppressed then factory workers, are not considered proletarian

proletariat is not just oppressed. A proletariat is someone who sells his wage-labour. By wage-labour, he is contributing to society. I can be an oppressed hobo but that wouldn't make me a proletariat. What I am asking is if you think peasants are bums or farmers.

[Mazdak]

hmm.... both i guess.

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from Mazdak on 2:46 am on Sep. 5, 2002
hmm.... both i guess.

lol. let me refrase that. do all peasants participate in the art of agriculture? Do peasants plant crops and harvest them when nessecary? And I need proof, not a guess.

[Pinko]

The peasants are the workers that put the food on the table of the bourgeoise. They graft and work for their entire lives to produce food for their family and the state. It the peasantry are not the proletariat then nothing is.
At the very least they are self sufficient and pay a tax to the state. They are the backbone of many countries, they are the non-capitalist farmer, the non-capitalist industrialist, they are core of society.
Do not mix up the peasantry that are the base line people and the insult peasant, which has been spread since the popularisation of capitalism.

(Edited by Pinko at 3:36 am on Sep. 5, 2002)

[Menshevik]

Exactly. Farmers are just as vital to the functioning of a country as the factory workers. MITRS, why would a peasant be a lazy bum who does nothing? If a peasant did no work he would starve.

[Ian]

If I wanted to be pedantic I would say proletarians are the wage-slaves etc... but generally, when I consider a Proletian in my own mind I think of;
-A Man, with only shoes, clothes and a bottle of whiskey in a brown paper bag
-An immigrant single mother working 12 hours a day in a sweatshop to provide for her children
-A farmer driving around country towns in his truck, trying to sell his produce to people because the market just isn't 'ready' for that fruit or their is too little demand (This I have seen as a man comes around every year to sell oranges)
- A man in blue overalls raising a hammer over his sweat-drenched body and smashing down on a gun to fight a war against someone he has never met and cares little about ie. Hussein
- A young petit girl standing on a street corner in an out-of-character outfit, her first night of prostitution, alongside drug dealers and junkies, just so she can pay her rent
- Men draining out of a coal mine, their faces forlorn, after their mine has been closed

Anyway, I have blabbed, Those are people I call Prole

[Revolution Hero]

Proletariat is the working class, presented by the workers.
In it's wide meaning proletariat can include peasants too. For example : the dictatorship of the proletariat, doesn't mean only workers' dictatorship, but the peasants' also.

[komsomol]

" A member of the class constituted by small farmers and tenants, sharecroppers, and laborers on the land where they form the main labor force in agriculture."

Peasants working on other peoples land are of course proletariat, as for the ones that work thier own plot...

I think they are niether, but are on the proletariats side if they only employ themselves. For example, a farmer has access to the means of production i.e his land, this would make him a bourgeois would it not? However, the farmer sells his labour to himself, is he proletarian? He is self-employed.

[Marxman]

No. Peasants ain't the proletariat! Where did you get the idea like that? Look, the proletariat are the wage workers in factories that wield the means of production and make all kinds of of products (dishes, furniture, cars, processors,...). They use the means of production but don't own them. The burgeois own the means of production. The work that the proletarian does is called wage and that work is being sold to the burgeois as the proletarian has no choice if he wants to have money to survive. The peasants do not use the means of production but use the means of making food. They use the products that the proletariat has produced. In capitalism they are dependent on proletariat, but in socialism they would be on workers who own the means of production (proletariat ceases to exist in socialism). The peasantry in the socialist revolution must collaborate and be partners with the proletariat if the revolution wishes to succeed. The great example can be seen in the October revolution. The socialist revolution MUST be made by the proletariat with the alliance of the peasantry, otherwise it fails like the French revolution where the main tasks were done by the burgeois. And as we all know the nature of the burgeois is counter-revolutionary. Now, why do the proletariat have a socialist conscious? Please, go to POLITICS and in the topic "Reply to MIM..." by Turnoviseous. Please, read it and you shall see that the proletariat are the key to the socialist revolution and the peasantry as an alliance.

[Pinko]

By the strictest definitions of the words that is correct. But you have to examine the roll and meaning of the word peasant.
The peasantry have had extensively changing rolls throughout history and the governmental spectrum.

In feudal times, the peasantry were land workers. The land was owned by the feudal land-owners and the peasants produce was the property of the land-owner. The peasants were allowed to take from the food they produced enough to live on (as wage), the rest was sold and the money went to the landowners. The peasants were nothing more than indentured servants. Hence in this role, they are proletariat.

In modern capitalist countries there is no such thing as peasantry. A farmer owns land and runs a business. He/she employs the proletariat to work on that farm, the farmer becomes the bourgeoise.

In the non-communist/non-capitalist developing world, the peasantry do not own the land, but live upon it. Their work serves no-one but their own survival. However, they can be evicted from the land at a moments notice by the government in power.

Your use of the word peasant is so loose and ambiguous, that a proper discussion on the subject is impossible. You define proletariat and other such Marxist terms with such clarity but then throw into the mix a totally undefined term like peasant and expect to be correct. Until you define exactly what you mean by peasant, there can be no resolution of opinion.

My dictoinary defines peasant as follows:
Noun: A member of a lowly class of small holders (1). A person who works on the land (2). A person who lives in the country, a rusic (3). An ignorant or uncultured person (4).

1) This definition depends on the definition of small-holding. Again this has changes through history and location. This definition is ambiguous.
2) This applies equally to the proletariat farm worker and the capitliast farm worker alike. This applies to my father who rents an allotment from the council, to grow his own food for the table. Again an ambiguous definiton.
3) This applies to anyone living in a rural area, by the strictest definition of the words used. Again ambiguous.
4) This is the insulting form of peasant. This can be applied to proletariat worker or boureoise alike, if they are uncultured or ignorant.

So, I propose that you stop using the word peasant and couch your arguement in more specific terms before you start lecturing people on the validity of it.

[Marxman]

I see. Peasant word makes you feel like it's slandered but it's not. They were never the proletariat, where did you hear that? The definition of the proletariat is so much different than what you said. I suggest you look into it. I'm only going to emphasize that proletariat wields the means of production, peasants have never wielded the means of production. Peasants make food, not useful products. Peasant hasn't got a socialist conscious, by the way. Proletariat has got a genuine socialist conscious, as every proletarian works collectively, peasants bother themselves with land division.

[man in the red suit]

Marxman, your words are like music to my ears. you have put into words, everything I was trying to explain to gacky. thank you. Your help is appreciated

[Anonymous]

Food isnt a useful product? you must be joking right? And by your definiton peasents are some dung old blind workers that dont know nor want to know what socialism is, so what you are basiclyy saying is taht the proletariat works eficiantly since they unite and the peasents dont? well my friend you are wrong! you arent custumized with famring life! if you notice farmers help each other although they dont necessarly work in the place they do have a common goal, Marx may not referred them as proletariat ,if he dindt then he was wtong, bercause the farmers work is so or even more imporatnt than the factory worker, you may not consider them proletariat, ok its fine and you ,may be rightm but still is not only arrogant but very umtrue to say that the proletariat work is more important than the farmer work!

[Marxman]

But you still don't get it. Food is not a product of the means of production. Peasants use the products that the proletariat make. I suggest you read more about the Narodniks. They were the one who made up "peasantry socialism" and it totally confused. They spent months and months studying and living with the peasants. They tried to encourage them with revolutionary upheaval but they found out that peasants don't have a socialist sonscious and Marx knew that years ago. Marx knew exactly the situation of the proletarian and a peasant. While peasants are maximum 10 working on one farm if it's big but the proletarians are working with maximum of thousands and who do you think has a more collective conscious? And you should also know that proletarians are more educated.

[Anonymous]

Thats Balantly wrong! Farmers maynot be considered proletariat, i understend that! But nowdays Agruculture is higlhy industrialized, every farmer nowdays has expensive machines, and it isnt peasents antmore, its farmeres, see nowdays if you want to work on a farm you have to know how to drive a expecialyzed machine, you muswt know all the crops "tricks" etc.... and saying that a farmer is less educated than the proletariat is wrong, because i know many farmeres that are more educated than many proletariat nowdays! i know farmers that actualy went to college, and most of the proletariat didnt! the type of peasents you are refering is the 1900´s peasents, nowdays its diferent, without theyr work the big corporation will surly fall, if it wasent for hundreds and hundreds of american potato farmers Mc Donalds would surely fall, farmers pruduce one of the most needed and basic product, wich is food.

[Marxman]

Why do you think it says:"Dictatorship of the proletariat (with an alliance of peasantry!?)" I've never said the role of the farmer isn't important. Of course it is, they must be on the side of the workers and the victory of socialist revolution is definitely won. Like it was in the October revolution. But proletariat is strictly the one, who runs the country. Farmers are not suppressed nor non-granted. Farmers also have big wishes that must be fulfilled and they can also decide to overthrow certain workers who aren't suddenly greedy or being evil to the society as a whole. Like I said, dictatorship of the proletariat is DEMOCRACY, far better than we can imagine.

The advancement of technology doesn't change the role of peasantry a bit. They are now still what they were in the 20th century, no matter how many machines they got.

[AladdinSane]

"I on the other hand believe that peasants are basically bums and do nothing."

Are you friends with peasants too?

[RedRevolutionary87]

no they are not!!!!! god damn it people get it through your head, the peasant owns the means of production, now the farm hand that is not part of the farmers family and workers for the farmer is a proleterian. just becuz you are opressed doesnt mean your a proleterian!

[Marxman]

Exactly. Peasants are petty burgeois actually because they own some means of production. They are now deviously exploited by the burgeois as petty burgeois peasants must join the burgeois farms. In the EU, that is especially evident. Little farms are being abolished. Food is sold and produced at a colossal waste and mismanagement.

If only the peasants would know the true meaning of an alliance with the proletariat.

[oki]

Quote: from Marxman on 5:24 am on Sep. 11, 2002
But you still don't get it. Food is not a product of the means of production. Peasants use the products that the proletariat make. I suggest you read more about the Narodniks. They were the one who made up "peasantry socialism" and it totally confused. They spent months and months studying and living with the peasants. They tried to encourage them with revolutionary upheaval but they found out that peasants don't have a socialist sonscious and Marx knew that years ago. Marx knew exactly the situation of the proletarian and a peasant. While peasants are maximum 10 working on one farm if it's big but the proletarians are working with maximum of thousands and who do you think has a more collective conscious? And you should also know that proletarians are more educated.


damn,you don't learn anything from discussions,do you?
I told you this before.the spanish revolution was for the greater part a peasant revolution,the whole anarchist and communist movement and awareness in spain was build by pesants.and you say it's a fact that pesants don't have a contious?do you think that that's geneticly or something?.farmers are lazy and stupit?you are biggot.I suggest you go spend some time in the country and learn to respect humans that live there,work their ass off their whole life,and run buisnesses.and like someone else said,back in he days you were eighter a landowner,or a slave to the landowner.they were underpaid and working 16 ours.they produce a product and this product belongs to the landowner.fits your own definition perfectly.you should loose that idea that a certain class is smarter then the other,becaus that's allmost facist thinking.

[RedRevolutionary87]

you are only a proleterian if you do not own the means of production, and work for someone. if you own a farm you are a bourgois, in agriculture the main means of production is the land itself, if you own it, you are not a proleterian. the only agricultural proleterians are the farm hands working for the landowner.

[Marxman]

Exactly, Redrevolutionary.

I kind of expected this from non-marxists. I expected the immediate judges against me as some hater of the peasants. I am only saying that the proletariat must run the state after the socialist revolution and now oki looks at me as a fascist. Oh boy, now I'm suddenly a fascist.

Learn from history and you shall see that proletarians succeeded in many more occassions than the peasants. Peasants suffered and suffered from feudalism but that doesn't mean they have the greatest socialist concious, better than proletariat. Study it dialectically and you'll see quite clearly how many times did the peasants sided with the exploiters.

If you study the peasant rebellions in the Middle Ages, you shall find each and every one of them unsuccessful of making socialist tasks i.e. tasks of internationalism, organisation,education... Only the industrial workers were the first that succeeded in rebellions and started making grounds for the revolution.

Spanish revolution failed!

[oki]

I said that what you said was ALLMOST facist,which gives you the benefit of the doubt.
I think it's kind of weird to exclude any class,and put one class over another,when you are a communist that is against classes.I for one don't really care whether peasants are or are not proletaliat,I don't believe that this group is more blessed then the others,or that the people in seperate groups are fundamentally different.

[RedRevolutionary87]

you dont exclude, you convert...turn the farms into factory like things and you get a peasant proleteriat.

[Marxman]

Being a marxist also means that you're smart enough to understand that communism doesn't convert the society into a classless one overnight!

[oki]

3rd world farming IS like factory's.one owns all the land,the others come there to work and get payed.or at best they use a piece of land for themself and that is just a trick of the land owner to give them the illusion they have something.just like factory's puts some people in charge of others so they feel responcible for something that's not theirs.

on the other end:companies and factory's usually give out shares to their workers,which makes them parcial owners,just like the farmers that use land.it's exactly the same thing,in a different form,the repression of the common people by the powerfull.factory workers dream of beeing boss,owning their own factory or whatever,peasants dream of owning a lot of land,beeing boss and have others work for them.

[Marxman]

Inborn tendency of a farmer is not socialist if you consider that he owns some means of production and has land.

Workers owns nothing and has no control over anything.

But wait, the EU will eventually turn farmers into one big proletarian-like society with a socialist tendency. Soon little farmers with little land will disappear and they will work for a gigantic owner of thr land that can be considered as a burgeois. On that land hundreds of farmers will make a living making food and they will not own any means of productio nor own any piece of land, so they shall become like the proletariat, which is excellent if you look at it from another perspective.

This is exactly why Marx considered capitalism as something very good for socialism. It creates more and more of the proletariat and now something even more fruitful will happen for the socialist tendency - proletarian-like farmers! Even Marx didn't predict that farmers will develop such a tendency and look at that, the cappies forced them to develop it!

[RedRevolutionary87]

ok heres the thing tho...if the peasant lives on the land owners farm, and is given a piece of land he will do anything to fight for that lant, most peasantry are after one thing and that is land, if they fight it is to fight for land to farm on...and this goes completely against that little tiny ity bitty detail that marxism forms its basis on known as the abolishment of private property. one however that lives in a village and goes to a farm to work is a proleterian, but one that has land(even that tiny wee bit given to him) is not a proleterian

[RGacky3]

In my opinion there are only 2 classes in a cappitalist socialiety, the exploiters and the exploited, AKA burgeoise and the proletarian. The pesantry ae part of the exploited, for the most part they don't own land. It really does'nt matter weather they are proletarian or not they are exploited by the burgeoise thus they should be included in any socialistic movements. However farmer that own and work their own farms, thats a different question.

[oki]

Quote: from RedRevolutionary87 on 9:30 pm on Oct. 1, 2002
ok heres the thing tho...if the peasant lives on the land owners farm, and is given a piece of land he will do anything to fight for that lant, most peasantry are after one thing and that is land, if they fight it is to fight for land to farm on...and this goes completely against that little tiny ity bitty detail that marxism forms its basis on known as the abolishment of private property. one however that lives in a village and goes to a farm to work is a proleterian, but one that has land(even that tiny wee bit given to him) is not a proleterian


so what a factory worker wants money,not socialism.and to get the hell out of the factory which is destroying his health

[RedRevolutionary87]

ABOLISHMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY thats the key phrase there, if you are striving constantly to own land, then you are striving for private property, then y would you side with communists if they intend to take away your familly owned land and let everyone tend to everyone elses land? then only farmers that are proleterians are the farm hands working for the farmer that owns the farm.