The hacendados or bosses claimed that the real exploiters were the arrendires; this was false, since the sum of the days that the relatives had to work for the arrendires was smaller than the days that the latter had to work for the bosses; the relatives worked on behalf of the arrendire on the landowner’s crops, so these arrendires agreed to the total disappearance of the condiciones, the days of work by the latter for the landowner and those of the relatives for them. (Blanco 27)
I want to highlight a fascinating mode of campesino resistance that Hugo Blanco describes in We the Indians. Basically, as arrendires (tenants) in an essentially feudal system, campesinos in the Andes had to work for landowners in exchange for land to grow their own crops. However, the campesino’s burdens were too great to tend to both the landowner’s and their own crops. So they worked around these impossible conditions by creating a system whereby they could share their responsibilites with their relatives and actually earn some respite. The landowners claimed that the tenants were exploiting their relatives, but it was actually a practice of communal labour which benefited all the campesinos. This practice of communal labour is perhaps a core part of Andean society organized around the ayllu, and perhaps aligns with Mariategui’s notion of Indian “practical socialism.” The campesinos cleverly achieved this without violating any of the rules of the landowners, much to their dismay. The landowners’ projection of the campesinos as exploiters is telling—they don’t understand kinship relations. Unfortunately, the landowners used their authority to strategically evict their tenants and reap the multi-year spoils of their labour. I wonder if any of you have encountered other instances in our readings where communal labour was used to combat colonial or feudal systems of exploitation.
2 replies on “XVI. Practical Socialism”
Heyy Adam,
Thats an awesome idea, of the revolutionary power of communal labour in the face of hegemonic division and control. I would say that the forms of sovereignty I recognise involve just that sharing of practice with the land, food production, and labour.
Interesting what you say about them just not getting it, that the sentiment or concept of kinship is so apart from a way of being in relation and ANYI exchange. Its very telling then, this piece that you’ve noted and pulled out, of how the approaches between haciendados and campesinos differ…
I guess we do all have to work together to combat exploitation in the various rungs of the system rooted in violent extraction from people and lands. A socialism that occurs on the interpersonal level..?
Hi Adam,
I think the key that makes this a form of resistance is the social solidarity about it. There’s a lot of instances in our readings where campesinos seem to act with one voice, and don’t leave people behind so to speak. I think that there’s also something cultural here. For many years, Latin Americans didn’t have social security nets through government policy, but rather through extended familial aid. This is a similar sort of behaviour here.
Gabo