[PEN-L:11659] Re: Role of Total Foreign Trade

[Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxx>]

At 04:14 PM 9/24/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>I don't know what your deal is, Ricardo, but you are stuck in the 1980s on
>a lot of these questions. I recall that you posted once on how the Mayans
>self-destructed because of anti-ecological farming practices. This too was
>an argument based on out-of-date evidence. More recent scholarship has
>refuted this claim rather definitively. I might add that Blaut takes up


Lou, this is not computer business - newer is not necessariy better - the
fact that someone came up with a new intellectual commodity (interpretation
of facts) does not mean it is any better than the "1980 stuff."  Not
everyone on this list is an economic historian cum cultural anthropologist
(I am ceratinly not) - so it would be useful to briefly state how the new
research is relevant to the argument at hand, instead of giving obscure
references.  I'm trying to do that in my postings.

>this question as well. It seems that part of the Eurocentrist arsenal is a
>belief that capitalism did not take hold in places like Africa and Central
>America because of "shifting agriculture" practices which involve burning
>fields and then moving on to new locales. It turns out that such practices
>do not damage the soil at all since fires were not allowed to get out of
>control and were appropriate to less than fertile soil conditions.


I do not understand why such a view is eurocentrist.  Slash-and-burn
agriculture does create a different institutional dynamics that can hve
impact on the stability of society.  First, slash and burn agriculture is
not "stationary" in the sense that the forest is burned every year or two
in a different location.  Second, this type of agriculture requires precise
timing - too early (too much moisture) makes burning difficult and seeds
can rot, too late (to dry) seeds may be burned.  That creates the need for
'intelectual property" - the knowledge of astronomy.  So the priests who
can tell the time from their astronomical observations give their
intellectual commodity to the peasant in exchange of food (that's what all
intellectuals do) - an dthat forms the basis for the urban development.

The problem is however, that when the burden of supporting the growing
cities becomes to heavy - the peasant can take their cultivation elsewhere,
especially taht after a while he can learn the secret of timing himself,
and is not dependent on the priests' 'intellectual property rights'
anymore.  Remember, that he has to slash and burn a new plot every year or
two - so all he needs to do is select a plot that is farther away inthe
forest away from the city's influence.  The peasant can sustain himself,
but the city cannot in a long run, and collapses.

That pattern is consistent with the fact that while the Mayan people
survived to this day, their cities collapsed well before any conquest,
European or otherwise.

what is so eurocentric about it?  If anything, it can teach Europeans and
US-ers a lesson or two - namely that dependence of 'intellectual property
rights' alone can be a very short lived strategy indeed.

wojtek