Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Chapter 6 and 7

In this chapter Moore discusses the path to Indian democracy and how in hindsight achieving this democracy was very unlikely. During the Mogul and British rule in India the central government was largely superfluous and the local level of village community was the framework for all social activity. The presence of caste systems in society hindered any change through innovation and opposition by the creation of new sub castes hence any sort of opposition was very unlikely to emerge into a rebellion, as was the case in China. “Caste served, and still serves, to organize the life of the village community, the basic cell of Indian society and the fundamental unit into which it tended to disintegrate wherever a strong ruler was lacking” (Moore; pg 317)

The political and social system of the Mogul Era was agrarian bureaucracy, which weakened in the eighteenth century. One of the main reasons for the late growth of parliamentary democracy was due to the weakness of he national aristocracy.

Iran's Leader and the Importance of Clerics

An article published on October 21, 2010, was relevant to my research paper so I decided to post it tonight. My paper asserts that Shi'ite clerics possess an ability to dominate the political process in Iran. This article clearly portrays how Shi'ite clerics are essential to the stability and legitimacy of the Iranian post-revolutionary government. In many ways, Iran's present constitutional provisions guarantee that the nation will remain Shi'ite for quite some time. In way may seem very nostalgic, Iranian revolutionary leaders decided to continue the "Islamic Revolution" that succeeded in toppling the Shah's government in 1979 by establishing what is effectively a modern day theocracy. Shi'ism, which is the dominant Muslim sect in the country, is afforded special status in the constitution itself. This article gives credence to my claim that political leaders must ally themselves with Shi'ite clerics to exercise political power. In fact, the entire government may need clerical support to maintain its fragile hold on legitimacy within the nation. The article shows Khamenei in his recent efforts to end intra-government and clerical factionalism over the re-election of Ahmadinejad in 2008. He stressed the need to exude national unity in the face of foreign threats. This inherent fear of "foreign manipulation" is also part of my paper. Due to cultural factors and the history of the Iranian culture, contemporary Iranian leaders are able to galvanize support for the government and maintain legitimacy through both advertising the possibility of threats from foreign governments and receiving open support from Muslim clerics. I have included two links: one to the original article and one to Khamenei's personal website.



http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69K32Z20101021



http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1372&Itemid=2

Interesting pieces in today's New York Times

Of course there are always articles in the Times that are relevant to comparative politics, but there are two news pieces and an opinion piece that really jumped out at me today. One is on US moves to build an agreement on trade balances, the second is on the Greek economy, and the opinion piece is Krugman's take on the British austerity budget.

Enclosure of the Commons?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1861145,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7737643.stm

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Chapter Seven and Part III

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy is a very useful text in comparative government and politics. Its author, Barrington Moore, Jr, takes very serious the question why some modern nation-states---namely the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, China, and India---have become flourishing democracies, or brutal dictatorships. In Chapter 7 of his text, Moore chronicles the history of Indian politics, from as far back as the Mogul occupation through British colonialism to the present day. It is seemingly miraculous, in the author's opinion, that modern India is a functional parliamentary democracy. Moore explained his conviction when he wrote:

"If imperfect, the democracy was no sham. There had been a working parliamentary system since Independence in 1947, an independent judiciary, and the standard liberal freedoms...There is a paradox here...Political democracy may seem strange in both an Asian setting and one without an industrial revolution."

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: France, Chapter 2

In this Chapter, Moore is quick to contrast English and French politics pre-democratic era. The French Nobility lived off the peasants in France- they where reliant on the dues collected as opposed to being reliant on noble land like in England. They capitalized on the labor of the peasants and not their LAND. Their main source of income came from peasant dues and not from selling produce. The noble response to commercial agricultrle was also quie weak. The wine trade was internal and everyone produced itall over the country. It was not a resourceful commodity. In addition, their was a preexisting prejeduice that revolved around making money off the farm- royal power did not want nobility to challenge it by creating an independent economic base. To royal delight, landowners kept trying to extract more and more money from peasants. As long as they produced an income, they were usefull to noblemen.

The important thing is, that the fusion between countryside and town was taking place through the crown, not against it which would reap differnt political and ecnomic consequences from England. The main problem was that ecnomic changes that were taking place in France did not move AWAY from feudalism . Also, the sale of offices kept the kind independent from the aristocracy. Agrarian problems persisted but the French monarchy was strongly opposed to modernization- if internal barriers and the legal system would modernize, many things such as the sales of offices and other modes of corruption would have to end. In order for measureable change to exist, a violent end to the old regime would have to take place for a smooth road to democracy to move in. The radicalism that pervaded peasant and bourgeuoise classes was the main reason behind the long time it took to shape a new capatlist democractic system

FROM IMPUNITY TO ACCOUNTABILITY: AFRICA’S DEVELOPMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Center for Public Scholarship presents the 22nd Social Research conference
Thursday and Friday, November 18-19, 2010

I noticed a flier at my internship and I thought it might be handy for anyone who is researching issues in Africa or is simply interested in this topic.

Here's the link: http://www.newschool.edu/centers/socres/africa/

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Preface, Chapter 1 & 2

Preface:

Barrington Moore combines outlines of how he will discuss the numerous political roles played by the upper classes and the peasantry in the process of changing from an agrarian society to that of a modern industrial one. Specifically, he will does so by analyzing the historic conditions that permitted these countries to go in the direction that they ultimately did. Moore frames his analysis into two parts. In Part I, he discusses the route to democracy and capitalism for three different case (England, France, United States). Conversely, Part II covers communism (China), fascism(Japan) and the Asiatic version of democracy(India). Through these cases, Moore will demonstrate the similarities and clear differences in a comparative sense. Notably, his study will concentrate on certain stages in a gradual/ prolonged social process that has worked itself out in many countries.

Barrington Moore: Preface, Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Barrington Moore’s work is detail oriented with broad themes. As I believe several people will be writing about this topic I will try to avoid repetitive details as much as possible. Moore writes his work seeking to “understand the role of the landed upper classes and the peasants in the bourgeois revolutions leading to capitalist democracy, the abortive bourgeois revolutions leading to fascism, and the peasant revolutions leading to communism” In his preface Moore outlines what his work will consist of. He seeks to prove that social structure determines what path a nation travels. For examples, he uses Britain, France and the United States as capitalist democracies, Japan as a fascist dictatorship, and China as a communist regime. The first two chapters detail the experience of Britain and France. Moore attempts to show that even though France and Britain have similar democratic capitalist systems in place, they arrived to the same location via incredibly different paths.

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: PREFACE AND CHAPTER 1

Hello class,

I am assigned Preface, Chapter 1 AND 2. Reviews for the preface and Chapter 1 would have to do for now being that I did not get through Chapter 2.

Preface.

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by Barrington Moore describes the relationship between the upper class and the peasantry in the transformation from an agrarian to industrial society. He illustrates the important stages that took place in a social process that worked it self out in several countries. He describes the innovations that lead to political power, through violence or other ways in countries that have or had political power in a global context. Part I of the text analyzes the democratic route of France, England, and the U.S. He identifies three historical routes that lead to preindustrial to modern world. (1) Bourgeois revolutions are those that have a group in society with an independent economic base which "attack obstacles to a democratic version of capitalism that has been inherited from the past". This means that in countries where historical circumstances have been an obstacle to democracy have an upper class with economic means who try and successfully alter it. (2) the Capitalist and Reactionary Form have weak industrial and commercial classes that rely on older and dominant ruling classes to put together political and economic changes necessary for modern industrialization to take place. The outcome is usually a brief period of democracy followed by fascism. (3) the last is communism which asserts that an agrarian bureaucracy inhibits commercial and industrial change. The urban classes are far to weak to modernize and a huge peasantry remains. India does not fall into any of the categories outlined. Addressed is the issue of how the upper class and peasants reacted to the challenge of commercial agriculture and how that determined political outcomes.

NOTE: COMMON and words like common fields and common cultivation refer to a piece of open land for public use. You will see it a lot in the discussion below and its worth clarifying since I didn't know what a "common" was as I was doing the reading, until it was so overwhelmingly obvious that I should look it up.

Part One: Revolutionary Origins of Capitalist Democracy

Chapter 1: England and Contributions of Violence to Gradualism

Before the English Civil War, a few changes that were taking place a few centuries back emphasized the increasing importance of commerce and a push away from feudal order was taking place o the countryside and in the towns. Commercial life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were mainly in opposition to the crown. The Tudor Dynasty, by consolidating royal power pushed landowners towards commercial agriculture alongside the growing importance of the wool trade. Changing views about economic action and agriculture became increasingly important. People began to view agrarian problems as a way of investing capital as opposed to the best method to supporting people. Enclosures, which encroached upon the rights given to the population of people working on the manor, established "legal and semi legal ways to deprive peasants of rights." Another group with a strong influence of English political life during this time were to yeomen who owned small plots of land. They were small very aggressive capitalists who used enclosure through mutual agreements with peasants or by eating away at big landowner's commons and fields. They promoted agrarian capitalism along with the landed upper class. Meanwhile, the peasantry large and powerless as it must have been, were not in favor of capitalist changes. They had cooperative and coordinated interests in commons and did not like new techniques that would hurt the way they lived under the old system. Modern and social change where in the hands of men of commerce in the countryside and towns. These innovators with new economic ideas in mind where directly opposed to the royal monopolies that sought to protect peasants from eviction by enclosure. The clash between royal policy and those commercially minded and financially able led to Civil Wat that overcame divine policy and promoted production of use that was individually profitable. Opposed to the idea that aristocratic landowners destroyed the peasantry, Moore emphasizes that enclosure destroyed the structure of the English peasantry in traditional villages. Parliamentary control over the processes of enclosure after the civil war was now open and democratic. The increase in size of farms with new agrarian techniques in mind yield higher profits at lower costs of larger units. Older methods, where common cultivation was important (especially for peasants), slowly became less applicable to the new situation. In this way, landowners where pushing away peasants to pave the way for new agrarian methods. The rural capitalists had two important actors: the big land owner, who dealt with the legal and political aspect and the large tenant farmer who made the economic contribution. Consolidation of holdings, enclosure, and replacement of leases for years where important policies that emphasize the affects of making away commons. By doing it legally, cottagers and peasants were stripped from the opportunity to make a living the way they were used to while being given NO alternative. As commons disappeared and new economic systems based on money came about, old peasant life disintegrated. The most important effect of enclosure is that it strengthened the land owners and hurt the peasantry as to remove them from English political life.

The violence that took place in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries happened in two ways and prepared the nineteenth century for peacefulness: it was open and revolutionary (the Civil War) and concealed and legal (enclosure and other policies that hurt the peasantry). The strength of Parliament lies in the economic values and actions that took place before the war. The landed upper class where important political actors that advanced for commercial and industrial capitalism. The destruction of the peasantry as brutal as it was contributed to a peaceful democratic transition. A political order and modern state that was rationalized before made it possibile for England to play a significant role in industrialization globally. The nobility and gentry maintained tremendous political power on local and national levels. Englands progress towards democracy is essentially a result of the violence that led to a strong independent Parliament and commercial and industrial interests that did not see peasants as a serious problem. The landed upper class could transition simply because the economic position could be moved from base to base without much difficulty. It eroded slowly and they were still able to maintain political power even as transition was taking place.