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Peasant Consciousness and Agrarian Reform in Chile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David Lehmann
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Extract

A process of Agrarian Reform offers a unique opportunity for the observation and analysis of the subjective world of a peasant population. Class conflict is often intensified, and the peasantry is brought into contact with previously remote or even unknown state institutions; some of the most fundamental assumptions of peasant culture are questioned and thus brought to the surface by new institutions, new patterns of authority and mdependence, and new economic and social relations within the peasantry itself. A variety of forms of economic organization, political relationships with landlords and with the outside world, either co-exist or emerge in rapid succession, creating a comparative framework ready-made for at least an approximation of the relationship between changes in institutions and economic structures and changes in consciousness, despite inevitable overlap and lag between different forms of consciousness.

Type
“A Sack of Potatoes”?
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 1972 , pp. 296 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1972

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References

(1) The dialectical relationship between subjective knowledge and social struc-ture, in particular the distribution of power, is an underlying theme of Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas, The Social Con-struction of Reality (Haidmonsv/otth, Penguin Books, 1971). Despite this recognition, theirwork is almost exclusively devoted tothe creation and maintenance of the indisubjective vidual's conceptual universe by direct proture, cesses of socialization, with relatively little analysis of how socialstructure impinges upon these processes. It is this relationship which we seek to illuminate here with reference to the peasants' conceptual universeGoogle Scholar.

(2) A similar concern is expressed by Alain Touraine: Touraine chooses ‘work’ as the centre of his analysis of industrial society, because le travail d non seule- Develment un fait, mais des orientations normatives de l'action […] le travail apparait Desarcomme une forme de l'action, comme une relation entre l'sprit et l'objet auquel applique son activate.Sociologie de l'action, (Paris 1965), pp. 56–57Google Scholar.

(3) This section, of necessity, summarizes those aspects of the Reform relevant to the present subject. Another account, in terms of another problem, is found in David Lehmann, Political Incorporation versus Political Stability: the case of the Chilean Agrarian Reform, Journal of Development Studies, VII, (1971), 365–395Google Scholar. A comprehensive account is to be found in Alaluf, et al. , Reforma Agraria Chilena: Seis En-sayos de Interpretaciin (Santiago, Icira, 1970)Google Scholar. A general survey is available in Lehmann, David, Social Structure and Agrarian Reform in Chile (Brighton, Institute of Development Studies, 1970) [rnimeo]Google Scholar.

(4) Comite Interamericano de Desarcomme rollo Agricola (CIDA), Chile: Tenencia de la Tierra y Desarrollo Socio-Economico del Sector Agricola (Santiago 1956), p. 42Google Scholar.

(5) Ibid. p. 293.

(6) Ibid. pp. 291, 293 and 337. The reader is referred to the CIDA report for more detailed analysis of the agrarian system and its history. Other useful studies are: Baraona, Rafael, Aranda, Ximena and Santana, Roberto, Valle de Putaendo Estudio de Estructura Agraria (Santiago 1961)Google Scholar and Borde, Jean and Gongora, Mario, Evolucion de la Propiedad Rural en el Valle del Puangue (Santiago 1956)Google Scholar.

(7) Gay, Claudio, Historia Fhica y Politico de Chile: Agriculture(Paris 1862), vols. I and IIGoogle Scholar. For earlier origins of inquilinaje see Gongora, Mario, Origen de los Inquilinos en Chile Central (Santiago 1960)Google Scholar. See also Schejtman, Alejandro, El Inquilino del Valle Central (Santiago, Icira, 1968)Google Scholar.

(8) See below, p. 315.

(9) Inflation has averaged 29.3 % between 1963 and 1970 according to the official cost of livingindex, which is considered an underestimate.

(10) Especially when the one easily sanctioned weakness which adversely affected productivity—drinking—was common to the majority rather than to a minority of asentados, at least on the asentamientosin the Santa Cruz area.

(11) Up till then the government had proceeded under the 1962 law, which was far less harsh on expropriated landowners.

(12) We describe here the ideology of the asentados. Their statements have little to do with thequestion whether, objectively, they “worked hard”.

(13) Not that there are not frequent betrayals, in the sense of murmurings against the leaders, for whom the visiting outsiderprovides an ideal outlet. This situation, however, may prevent the outsider from getting at dissenting groups.

(14) Unemployment is perceived by workers to create a great deal of dissension among them, asdoes inequality of access benefits provided by any institution, latifundio, or cooperative, in which they are involved. Prosperity is classed by us as individual because the general trend of responses classed it in this way.

(15) The conceptual patterns described in this section have much in common with those described by Foster, George in Peasant Society and the Image of the Limited Good, American Anthropologist, LXVII (1965), p. 279Google Scholar.

(16) See Foster, George, The dyadic Anthrocontract: a model for the social structure of a Mexican Peasant Village, American Anthrocontract: pologist, LXIII (1961), pp. 1173–1192CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(17) The practical difficulties of locking someone into an open field are obviated by the fact that the gates were probably designed to prevent thieves from entering.

(18) But there are some exceptions, such as the movement of La Convencion in Peru, 1962, led by Hugo Blanco. Anibal Quijano claims autonomy for the Bolivian peasant syndicates, but there is evidence that they have become a government clien- tele organization since the Agrarian Reform in 1952–1954. Hugo Blanco himself, of course, was an urban-based trotskyite leader, although his movement seemsto have been quite independent. See Anibal, Qui-Jano O., Contemporary Peasant Move- ments, in Lipset, and Solari, (eds), Elites in Latin America (New York, OUP, 1967)Google Scholar;Neira, Hugo, Cuzco, Tierra o Muerte (Lima 1963)Google Scholar;Hobsbawm, Eric, Problèemes agraires a la Convencion, in Problèemes agraires en Amirique latine (Paris, Cnrs, 1968)Google Scholar;Craig, Wesley, From Hacienda to Community: an analysis of solidarity and social change in Peru, Cornell University Latin American Studies Program Dissertation Series, No. 6, 1967Google Scholar.

(19) Mainly in the Central Valley provinces. In the South communications are far worse, farms more isolated, and administration is spread more ‘thinly’.

(20) For an account of similar process worin pure ‘patronage’ terms, see Silverman, Sydel, Patronage and Community; national relationships in Central Italy, Ethnology IV(1965), pp. 172–189CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weingrod, Alex, Patrons, Patronage and Political Parties, Comparative Studies in Society and History, X (1968)Google Scholar.

(21) The strike involved some 7,000 worin kers in some 200 farms. (El Siglo, 9th August 1969).

(22) The cooperative would, under normal circumstances, have drawn up a contract between itself and the committee guaranteeing the rights of usufruct of the latter. The attempt to prevent the committee from owning the land itself aimed at avoiding subdivision of the land, and at integrating its plans at a local level. As it turned out, the latter was to occur anyhow, insofar as it was feasible in theexisting political and administrative conditions.

(23) It was called, in symbolic support of a national wage claim, but also in order to test its strength, by the National Confederation ‘Ranquil’, controlled by the Communist and Socialist Parties.

(24) One of the criticisms made by the left-wing parties of the 1967 Rural Union Legislation was that it allowed the formation of unlimited numbers of Confederations. In industry, unions are divided because the law forbids strong organization above plant level, but the law also forbids competition among different unions for the same group of workers. As a result candidates of different political tendencies compete at the ballot box, and must co-exist in the relaleadership. See Angell, Allan, Labour and Politics in Chile, in St Antony's Papers Latin American Affairs, XXII (1970), 107–135Google Scholar.

(25) Patronage and canonization are linked in the English expression Patron saint J. In Mediterranean culture God and the saints are often seen as standing at the top of a chain of patronage reaching down to the individual. See Boissevain, Jeremy, Patronage in Sicily, Man, I (1966), 18–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A similarpoint is made for Brazil by Hutchinson, Bertram, The Patron-dependent relaleadership. tionship in Brazil”, Sociologia ruralis, VI (1964), pp. 3–30Google Scholar.

(26) The electoral reforms introduced just before the 1958 general elections, in which Allende came in with only 30,000 votes less than Alessandri, the winner, consisted basically in the abolition ofthe private distribution of ballot papers by parties and individuals, and in strict guarantees of the new secrecy of the vote. See Gil, F., The Political System of Chile (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1966), pp.220–224Google Scholar.

(27) For a preliminary analysis on the difference between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ patronage systems, concentrating more on changes in the political structure than in thedistribution of power within rural society, see Alex Weingrod, Patron Patronage and Political Parties, Comparative Studies in Society and History, see over

(28) According to Anibal Quijano, although the Peruvian peasant movement was initiated either byoutsiders, or, among Indians, by ‘cholos’—Indians with some European blood and highersocial status than others—the spreading of the movement was largely a spontaneous process. See Quijano, Anibal, El movimiento campesino del Peru y sus lideres, America Latina, VIII (1965), 43–64Google Scholar.

(29) See Affonso, Almino, Klein, Emilio, Gomez, Sergio, Ramirez, Pablo, Movimiento Campesino Chileno, (Santiago, Icira, 1970), 2Google Scholar vols, especially section by Emilio Klein. This study sustains the thesis that rural workers are oriented to wage increases rather than to ownership of the land in their demands. The conclusion is slightly predetermined, however, by the fact that Incorthe study concentrates on unions, whose function is to present wage claims and which are indeed closely watched by admin-istrative authorities whose duty it is to see that they keep to that role. Another work which reaches a similarconclusion is Urzua, Raul, La Demanda Compesira (Santiago 1969). The reader is referred to a polemic between Urzua and the present writer in Cuadernos de la Realidad National, January, 1970Google Scholar.

(30) See David Lehmann, Political Incorthe poration versus Political Stability: the case of the Chilean Agrarian Reform, loc. tit.

(31) In field work in an irrigated community of smallholders in Putaendo, I observed an extraordinary degree of mistrust over the distribution of water. Each holder of water rights was convinced thatif he did not watch carefully when his turn came round, or pay a man to go and watch for him, then someone would deprive him of his rightful share. See also Baraona, et al. , Valle de Putaendo (Santiago 1961)Google Scholar.

(32) This statement has behind it a false conception of how cooperative joint farming really should work in Cora'S model since obviously any such organisation takes measures so that those who worklessreceive less money; there seems to be a disbelief that such measures can be really enforced, which prevents the peasants from allowing for such institutional measures.

(33) During a visit to Chile in 1972 I found, in general, that the trends described here havecontinued, and have in some cases been reinforced by the acceleration of expropriation under the Allende government. While the national leaders of the Confederation of Asentamientos are strongly opposed tothe government, they are unable to mobilize their membership against it, while the asen-tados themselvespursue a course of passive resistance and avoidance of debt repayment, sale of their products to the State and so on. Despite attempts to make more open and more ‘socialist’ organizations, out of newly expropriated farms the Unidad Popular parties still find it exceedingly difficult to prevent the continuation of privileges and clientelism on the asentamientos.

(34) See Baraona, et al. , op. cit., and Lenin, , The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Moscow 1964), Chapter 11Google Scholar.

(35) For an excellent analysis of the political consequences of a middle-class inspired reform which achieved its aim of neutralizing the peasantry politically see Tarrow, Sydney, Peasant Communismin Southern Italy (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967)Google Scholar.