Dorset,Kincardine and peasant crisis: A comment on David Craig

David Craig's paper ‘Novels of Peasant Crisis’ is to be warmly welcomed. But Craig provides no adequate analysis of the peasant crises underlying the novels which he considers. This paper considers one of Craig's novels; Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song. Craig's explanation of this book in terms of depopulation and the destruction of the Kincardine peasantry from outside is seen to be inadequate. Sunset Song is about the crumbling of a peasant mode of production through the working out of internal contradictions within that mode of production. As an introduction to this discussion of Sunset Song Craig's dismissal of the utility of Thomas Hardy's work for the analysis of rural class relations is argued to be distinctly premature.     

Social change and social conflict in nineteenth century England: A comment

This article addresses the potential for food movements to bring about substantive changes to the current global food system. After describing the current corporate food regime, we apply Karl Polanyi's ‘double-movement’ thesis on capitalism to explain the regime's trends of neoliberalism and reform. Using the global food crisis as a point of departure, we introduce a comparative analytical framework for different political and social trends within the corporate food regime and global food movements, characterizing them as ‘Neoliberal’, ‘Reformist’, ‘Progressive’, and ‘Radical’, respectively, and describe each trend based on its discourse, model, and key actors, approach to the food crisis, and key documents. After a discussion of class, political permeability, and tensions within the food movements, we suggest that the current food crisis offers opportunities for strategic alliances between Progressive and Radical trends within the food movement. We conclude that while the food crisis has brought a retrenchment of neoliberalization and weak calls for reform, the worldwide growth of food movements directly and indirectly challenge the legitimacy and hegemony of the corporate food regime. Regime change will require sustained pressure from a strong global food movement, built on durable alliances between Progressive and Radical trends.     

Organizing a wildcat: the United States postal strike of 1970

This article, part of a larger work in progress, uses archives, key secondary sources, and oral histories from participants in the 1970 United States postal wildcat strike for better pay and working conditions to argue that this was a monumental event both unique and representative of the times. It was a rank-and-file effort that began in New York City – with a history of labor militancy – and rapidly spread across the country. The strike defied federal statute outlawing federal employee strikes, and also union leaders who opposed striking. A spike in 1960s hiring of blacks, veterans, women, and young people, combined with established labor unity tradition, a nationwide workplace and long-simmering frustrations produced the strike. But its dual character (both spontaneous and organized by local union officials and activists) allowed it to grow and maintain for eight days with no central coordination. Besides winning a living wage, the strike triggered the transformation of the US Post Office Department into the US Postal Service (USPS) with full collective bargaining rights for postal unions representing its employees. Moreover, it brought rank-and-file politics into postal unions while contributing to the increased strength of postal unions, public union organizing, and the labor movement in general.     

Finance capital and peasants in Colonial West Africa: A comment on Cowen and Shenton

The presence of finance capital in colonial West Africa was predicated on the presence of imperial administration and merchant capital. From these it derived its profits. Cowen and Shenton suggested finance capital was seeking to diversify its sources of profit by engaging cocoa farmers in credit. While this may have been true for the period of cocoa boom before the First World War, it is argued in this piece that in 1938‐more than 20 years later ‐ the banks’ motivation was entirely defensive. No diversification was intended, and the action was directed at salvaging current business. This comment does not question Cowen and Shenton's ‘Fabianism’ thesis but substitutes merchant for finance capital as being in conflict with Colonial Office attitudes.     

集体劳动关系转型环境中的雇主策略选择

随着市场经济的不断发展,中国的劳动关系作为整个经济社会转型中的重要一环,也正在经历着由个别劳动关系向集体劳动关系的转型,劳动关系环境也增添了新的变数。而雇主的应对策略在转型过程中有着至关重要的作用,无论是主动的改变,还是被动的接受,雇主已经在劳动关系集体化转型的当下做出了相应的劳动关系策略选择。     

A comment on Meillassoux and some notions about an agricultural state

Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1750–1911 by Wang Yeh‐chien. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973. Pp. xiii + 172, 36 tables, 7 figures.

An Estimate of the Land‐Tax Collection in China, 1753 and 1908 by Wang Yeh‐chien. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973. Pp. xi + 57, 27 tables.

Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism and Lineages of the Absolutist State by Perry Anderson. New Left Books, 1974; pp. 304, £5.00 and pp. 573, £8.50.

Contrasting Communities: English Villages in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Margaret Spufford. Cambridge University Press, 1974. Pp. xxiii + 374, maps, tables, graphs; £7.70.