Re: [Marxism] Not 'RoP' but '% of total profits' - duh. Re: US profitscollapse in 4th qtr

[J.M.P.Cloke@xxxxxxxxxxx]

When I used to do interviews (2000) with the campesinos 
around the comarcas outside Masaya, the average experience 
of a jornalero (day labourer) was typified by this bloke: 
3.00 am - get up and walk one hour to the finca of a 
wealthier farmer where he stayed working until about 
midday. 12.00 - walk one hour home and then have lunch and 
a short siesta. 14.00 get up and work on his own land 
until the light went; having no electricity in their 
vicinity and no running water, the day tended to end quite 
shortly after 16.30 - 17.00 when the light went, all other 
forms of light (battery-powered, oil/kerosene lamps etc.) 
being quite expensive.

None of the people I knew who used to talk about 
sustainable rural livelihhods could explain to me what it 
was about keeping that guy on his land that would make his 
life better, never mind improve it for his children, plus 
which most of the academics involved in that area were 
themselves urban dwellers who'd never had to live that 
kind of life and who knew nothing about it. If you talked 
to men and women like that, they spoke as if their lives 
were effectively over and that life was all they were ever 
going to have, which was probably quite true - 
nonetheless, *the idea* of land, the ownership of 
property, a tierra, finca, granja, even for city dwellers 
(nearly half the population of Nicaragua these days) was 
something almost sacred.

A bit like the miners I used to know in Stoke-on-Trent who 
hadn't worked in the mines for many years after the 
closure of Silverdale and Trentham, but were fiercely 
attached to the idea of still being a miner, to the point 
where it made them unable/unwilling to work at anything 
else. At the same time, if you asked them if they wanted 
their children/grandchildren to become miners, they looked 
at you as if you were stupid - they wanted something far 
better for their kids.


-- 
Jon Cloke



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