Re: Ron Arnold's reply

[boddhisatva <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

                Mr. Proyect,



        I don't work at Columbia, if that is what you mean.



        You wrote:


"This society is divided in many different ways. The only way these
divisions can be overcome and unity accomplished in a struggle against a
common enemy--the capitalist class--is through the growth of a socialist
movement. This movement does not have to put the small rancher or farmer
in its gunsights."


        First, please don't be so general and sweeping, I've told you about
that.



        This is a Marxism list.  I would think that a little polemical
overstatement would not be so shocking here.  Of course I sympathize with the
small farmer.  I'm related to one.  I also believe that his role as a petit
bourgeois is, first, doomed, and, second, likely to foster reactionary
thinking.


        I knew someone who did a little consulting for Cabot Dairies in
Vermont.  I absolutely flipped when I learned that they were thinking of
creating a collective with vertical integration, including possible
involvement with Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  If these food producers were
willing to take on some of the farmers' debt structure, the collective could
really have been a tremendous experiment.  Unfortunately, (as I understand
it) the producers (Cabot and Ben and Jerry's) balked a little at getting into
all that illiquid land, and the farmers didn't;t like the sound of changing
production methods when they had called the shots for so long (except for the
umpteen USDA, and state program requirements - big independence).


        They may have worked something out


        
        Who is going to understand proletarian revolution more, a farmer who
is living on a smaller spread with the government regulating more of his
techniques, or a farmer who owned a spread and now drives a combine for
somebody else?  Clearly, parts of the bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie
can be moved to support the dialectic.  We disagree as to whether their
relationship to the means of production is more likely to influence them pro
or con.





        peace





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