I. Weapons of the Weak: Words

A. Sedakan losers: accuse rich of being stingy, unconcerned for peasant welfare, immoral, untrue to Islamic ideals
B. Sedakan winners: justify actions in terms of moral economy
C. Scott: everyday resistance is class struggle, done covertly
D. Deference challenges and reinforces class structure
E. Peasants as weak, but not passive

 

II. Intent, Action, and Outcome: Scott's Critique of Hegemony

A. Marx: superstructure serves interests of dominant classes
B. Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)

1. Hegemony, ideological dominance
2. Poor buy into the system, false consciousness

C. Scott: hegemony is part of public transcript
D. Private transcript: poor voice fact that they don't accept subordination
E. Scott's arguments against Marx and Gramsci

1. Subordinate classes see and critique the prevailing ideology
2. Acceptance of the inevitability of a socio-economic order and their own dependence prompts peasants to pursue subtler strategies of resistance
3. Ideology creates the terms for its own resistance by publicly justifying its power in ways which can be contested
4. What makes revolution revolutionary is its means (violence), not its goals
5. Dominant ideologies are broken by new forces, such as capitalism, not by lower classes

F. Invisibility and failure of everyday resistance reflects peasants' material limitations, dependence, not lack of desire to resist

 

III. Evaluating Scott's Moral Peasant

A. Demolishes "sack of potatoes" characterization
B. Problem of proving peasants' intentions: why is private transcript "true"?
C. Can classes and moral economies co-exist?
D. The Romance of Resistance

 

IV. Samuel Popkin's Answer to Scott: The Rational Peasant (1979)

A. Rational peasant: formalist model, peasants = self-interested actors
B. Like Scott, looks at Vietnam
C. Popkin's view of traditional village

1. Landlords were "monopolistic patrons" (1979:4)
2. French colonialism and capitalism created village society, inequality between rich and poor
3. Moral economy didn't really exist

D. Capitalism with democracy can be good for peasants
E. Peasants as self-interested actors

1. "I argue that peasants are continuously striving not merely to protect but to raise their subsistence level through long- and short-term investments, both public and private. Their investment logic applies not only to market exchanges but to nonmarket exchanges as well."
2. Strive to improve positions, get surplus

F. Assessing Popkin

1. Convincing history: inequality of village society, kinship and moral ideology used to naturalize inequality
2. Too far to other extreme? Neglects communal spirit of village, fact that capitalism today creates much greater inequality than ever before

 

V. Making Sense of the Popkin-Scott Debate

A. Substantivists-formalists revisited, only with specific example of Vietnam
B. Fundamental philosophical issue: are we moral or rational?
C. Toward a combined explanation, peasants as both economic and moral

1. Economics might best explain Scott's everyday resistance
2. Moral economy might explain riskier acts of violent rebellion
3. Ultimately, rebellion involves promises of economic gain AND a vision of a more just society, both moral and economic. Example of communism in Vietnam.

 

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