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Summary review obtained from:

BARRINGTON MOORE, JR.

The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

The book compares revolutions and modernization in China, England, the United States,Russia, France and Japan, and develops a theory about when and why these processes

result in what kinds of political systems.

Moore studies three different 'social origins' of modern nations:1) Capitalist democracy (England, France, U.S.). Transition from bourgeois revolution.

2) Fascism (German, Japan). Capitalist, but, in the absence of a strong revolutionarysurge, it passed through reactionary political forms to culminate in fascism. Through a

revolution from above, industry did manage to grow and flourish.3) Communism (Russia, China). Transition from peasant revolution.

The methods of modernization chosen in one country change the dimensions of the

problem for the next countries who take the step.

WAY-SIMPLIFYING TWO BY TWO TABLE!!!

ELITES WEAKER ELITES POWERFUL

PEASANTS

Democracy Fascism

'Low' England Japan

France Germany

U.S.

'High' Russia

China

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The Democratic Route to Modern Society

Moore sees the development of democracy as a long and incomplete struggle to do threeclosely related things: 1) to check arbitrary rulers; 2) to replace arbitrary rules with just

and rational ones; 3) to obtain a share for the underlying population in the making of

rules. Some ''starting points'' with respect to structural differences in agrarian societies,while not decisive in themselves, are more favorable to democratic developments thanothers. Western feudalism contained certain institutions that distinguished it from other

societies in such as way as to favor democratic possibilities. The most important aspectwas the growth of the notion of the immunity of certain groups and persons form the

power of the ruler, along with the conception of the right of resistance to unjust authority.Together with the conception of contract as a mutual engagement freely undertaken by

free persons, derived from the feudal relation of vassalage, this complex of ideas andpractices constitutes a crucial legacy from European medieval societies to modern

Western conceptions of a free society. This complex arose only in Western Europe.Feudalism did arise in Japan, but with heavy stress on loyalty to superiors and a divine

ruler: it lacked an engagement among theoretical equals.

The persistence of royal absolutism, or more generally of a preindustrial bureaucraticrule, in to modern times has created conditions unfavorable to democracy of the Western

variety (eg, China, Russia and Germany). A decisive precondition for modern democracyhas been the emergence of rough balance between the crown and the nobility, in which

the royal power predominated but left a substantial degree of independence to thenobility. The notion that an independent nobility is an essential ingredient in the growth

of democracy has a firm basis in historical fact. If the nobility seeks freedom in theabsence of a bourgeois revolution, the outcome is highly unfavorable to the Western

version of democracy. This is one reason why a vigorous and independent class of towndwellers has been an indispensable element of growth in a parliamentary democracy

(Germany had very weak towns, apparently). No bourgeois, no democracy.

However, among the most decisive determinants influencing the course of subsequentpolitical evolution are whether or not a landed aristocracy has turned to commercial

agriculture,a nd, if so, the form that this commercialization has taken.

The advance of commerce in the towns and the demands of absolutist rulers for taxes hadamong their many consequences the result that the overlord needed more and more cash.

Three main responses to this occurred in different parts of Europe. (1) The Englishlanded aristocracy turned to a form of commercial farming that involved setting the

peasants free to shift for themselves as best they could (enclosures) (2) The French elitegenerally left the peasants in de facto possession of the soil. (3) In eastern Europe, the

manorial reaction: formerly free peasants were reduced to serfdom.

In England, the turn toward commercial farming by the landed aristocracy removed muchof what remained of its dependence on the crown and generated a great deal of hostility

to fumbling Stuart attempts at absolutism. Likewise, the form commercial farming tookin England, in contrast to eastern Germany, created a considerable community of interest

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in the towns. Both factors were important causes of the Civil War and the ultimatevictory of the parliamentary cause. Its effects continued to be important and to be

reenforced by new causes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

If the commercial impulse is weak among the landed upper classes, then the result will be

the survival of a huge peasant mass that is at best a tremendous problem for democracyand at worst the reservoir for a peasant revolution leading to a communist dictatorship.The other possibility is that the landed upper class will use a variety of political and

social levers to hold down a labor force on the land and make its transition to commercialfarming in this fashion. Combined with a substantial amount of industrial growth, the

result is likely to be what we recognize as fascism.

1) the form of commercial agriculture was just as important as commercialization itself2) the failure of appropriate forms of commercial agriculture to take hold at an early point

in time still left open another route to modern democratic institutions (eg, France, US). Inparts of France, commercialization left peasant society largely intact, but took more out

of the peasantry, thereby making a contribution to revolutionary forces; over most ofFrance the impulse among the nobility toward commercial agriculture as weak compared

with england. BUT, in France the revolution crippled the aristo. and opened the waytoward parliamentary democracy.

How do we explain the ways in which the transition to commercial agriculture took place

or failed to occur? Difference in opportunities to adopt commercial agriculture, such as,above all, the existence of a market in nearby towns and the existence of adequate

methods of transportation. The bourgeoisie once again lurks in the wings as the chiefactor in the drama. Political considerations have also played a decisive role. Where it has

been possible for landlords to make use of the coercive apparatus of the state in order tosit back and collect rents, a phenomenon found widely in Asia and to some extent pre-

revolutionary France and Russia, there is clearly no incentive to turn to less repressiveadaptations. By and large, the elimination of the peasant question through some

transformation of the peasantry into some other kind of social formation (eg, theEnclosures) appears to augur best for democracy (otherwise, there is a massive reservoir

of peasants to serve the reactionary ends of the landed upper classes (German and Japan)or provide the mass base for peasant revolutions (Russia and China)). Part of the cause of

the instability of democracy after the revolution and in the 19th and 20th centuries wasrooted in this problem of a massive reservoir of peasants.

Thus we have three major variables: the relationships of the landed upper classes with the

monarchy; their response to the requirements of production for the market; and therelationship of the landed upper classes with the town dwellers. Also,

1. A fusion needs to take place between the landed aristo. and the upper classes in the

town in opposition to the royal bureaucracy (rather than in opposition to the peasants andworking classes).

2. The commercial and industrial leaders must be on their way to becoming the dominantelement in society. Under these conditions the landed upper classes are able to develop

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bourg. economic habits. This makes it easier for the landed upper classes at a later stageto hold the posts of political command in what is basically a bourg. society. If there is a

substantial degree of antagonism between commercial and industrial elements and theolder landed classes, and if the landed classes maintain a fairly firm economic footing,

the upper class is prevented for forming a solid form of opposition to demands for reform

and a certain amount of competition for popular support is encouraged (competitionbetween town and country elites).

Conditions of development of democracy:1) development of a balance to avoid too strong a crown or too independent a landed

aristo.2) turn toward an appropriate form of commercial agriculture, either on the part of the

landed aristo or the peasantry.3) weakening of the landed aristo.

4) prevention of an aristo-bourg coalition against the peasants and workers.5) a revolutionary break with the past

Revolution form Above and Fascism

The second main route to the world of modern industry we have called the capitalist andreactionary one, exemplified most clearly by Germany and Japan. There capitalism took

hold quite firmly in both agriculture and industry and turned them into industrialcountries; but, it did so without a popular revolutionary upheaval.

In the process of commercialization, a landed upper class may, as in the case of Japan,

maintain intact the preexisting peasant society, and introduce just enough changes in ruralsociety to ensure that he peasants generate a sufficient surplus that is can appropriate and

market at a profit. Or, the landed upper class may pursue a policy of ensurfment. Or,something in between. Moore calls such systems ''labor repressive.'' He wants to show,

then, how and why labor-repressive agrarian systems provides an unfavorable soil for thegrowth of democracy and an important part of the institutional complex leading to

fascism.

Common Factors:

1. A commercial and industrial class which is too weak and dependent to take power andrule in its own right and which therefore throws itself into the arms of the landed aristo

and the royal bureaucracy, exchanging the right to rule for the right to make money.However, even if the commercial and industrial element is weak, it must be strong

enough to be a worthwhile political ally. Otherwise, a peasant revolution leading tocommunism may intervene.

2. Japan and Germany, trying to modernize without changing their social structures,

needed militarism which united the upper classes, and a strong central governments/stateapparatuses. These systems turned in to fascism, before their ultimate failure.

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3. Plebeian anticapitalism is the feature which most clearly distinguishes 20th c. fascism

from its predecessors, the 19th c. conservative and semi-parliamentary regimes. It is aproduct both of the intrusion of capitalism into the rural economy and of strains arising in

the postcompetitive phase of capitalist industry. Eg, Nazi propaganda romanticizing ''the

free man on free land'' was appealing to small peasants who suffered under the advanceof capitalism, with its problems of prices and mortgages that seemed to be controlled byhostile city middle men and bankers.

The Peasants and Revolution

The process of modernization begins with peasant revolutions that fail. It culminatesduring the 20th c. with peasant revolutions that succeed.

A large rural proletariate of landless labor is a potential source of insurrection and

revolution. Which types of agrarian and promodern societies are more subject to peasantinsurrection and rebelling than others, and what structural features help explain the

difference?

A highly segmented society that depends on diffuse sanctions for its coherence and forextracting the surplus from the underlying peasantry is nearly immune to peasant

rebellion because opposition is likely to take the form of creating another segment. Onthe other hand, an agrarian bureaucracy, or a society that depends on a central authority

for extracting the surplus, is a type most vulnerable to such outbreaks.

Turning to the process of modernization itself, the success or failure of the upper class intaking up commercial agriculture has a tremendous influence on the political outcome.

Where the landed upper class has turned to production for the market in a way thatenables commercial influences to permeate rural life, peasant revolutions have been weak

affairs. If this doesn't happen, the landed aristo may leave beneath it a peasant societydamaged but intact, with which it has few connecting links. Meanwhile, it is likely to try

to maintain its style of life in a changing world by extracting a larger surplus out of thepeasantry. By and large this was the case in 18th c. France and in Russia and China

during the 19th and 20th c's.

Where there is a strong link between overlord and peasant community, the tendencytoward peasant rebellion is weak. Two conditions are probably essential for this link to be

an effective agent of social stability: 1) there should not be severe competition for land orother resources between the peasants and the overlord; and, 2) political stability requires

the inclusion of the overlord and/or the priest as members of the village community whoperform services necessary for the agricultural cycle and the social cohesion of the

village, for which they receive roughly commensurate privileges and material rewards.The contributions of those who fight, pray and rule must be obvious to the peasant.

Generally, the creation of centralized monarchy has meant that the peasants' immediate

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overlord lost his protective functions to the state, while the peasants still had obligationsto the overlord. The failure of commercial farming to take hold on any very wide scale

meant that there was scarcely any alternative to squeezing the peasant.

Peasant solidarity is an important determinant of whether there will be any political

action. In a rebellious and revolutionary form of solidarity, institutional arrangements aresuch as to spread grievances through the peasant community and turn it into a solidarygroup hostile to the overlord. The opposite kind of solidarity, the conservative one,

derives its cohesion by tying those with actual and potential grievances into theprevailing social structure.

Most important causes of peasant revolution:

1) Absence of a commercial revolution in agriculture led by the landed upper classes; and2) the concomitant survival of peasant social institutions into the modern era, where they

are subject to new stresses and strains.

Moore believes that the costs of modernization have been at least as atrocious as those ofrevolution. The comforting myth of gradualism (smooth, gradual modernization and

democratization), he says, should be recognized as such. In the Western democraticcountries, revolutionary violence was part of the whole historical process that made

possible subsequent peaceful change. In the communist countries too, revolutionaryviolence has been part of the break with a repressive past and of the effort to construct a

less repressive future.

Also, it is well to recollect that there is no evidence that the mass of the populationanywhere has ever wanted an industrial society, and plenty of evidence that they did not.

At bottom of all forms of industrialization so far have been revolutions from above, thework of a ruthless minority.

Source url: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/socsja/SPCnotes/Moore.html