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.