Moore, Barrington.1968 Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.
Reading Week 3: Part 3 Chpt 7 pp413-432.
Available - SSL - HN15.MOO .
Notes
Chapter VII is called "The Democratic Route to Modern Society".
(413)
The combining of capitalism and parliamentary democracy after a series of revolutions - this is the route of "bourgeois revolution". Occurred in England, France and US but the societies came from different starting points.
Capitalism that passed through reactionary political forms became fascism.
Peasant revolutions became communist societies in Russia and China.
(414)
These three forms are historical stages and they "display a limited determinate relation to each another".
However, the democratic revolution in England did affect what happened subsequently in Japan and Germany (particularly the availability of the "reactionary methods" which otherwise would not have been possible).
"The historical preconditions of each major political species differs sharply from the others"
Method of analysis - looking at "agrarian social features"
Definition of democracy - purpose of it - a long and incompete struggle to...
1. check arbitrary rulers
2. replace abitrary rules with just and rational ones
3. obtain a share for the underlying population in the making of rules
Bear in mind this definition of Moore's when considering his work and when considering other defnitions of democracy. He does not require universal suffrage to consider a state democratic. The clauses are slightly vague - we can think of degrees of democracy and democratisation as a gradual process rather than flicking a switch.
(415)
Question: are there structural differences in agrarian societies that might in some cases favour certain development paths?
Starting points are not decisive in themselves but can influence.
Believes there is a convincing case to be made that Western Feudalism contained institutional features that predisposed it towards democracy including growth in the notion of immunity of certain groups and persons from the power of the ruler [and] the conception of the right to resistance of unjust authority [plus] conception of a contract as a mutual engagement freely undertaken by free persons (feudal notion of vassalage)
This complex arose only in Western Europe.
(416)
In Russia there did develop a system of estates the soslovii but Ivan the Terrible "broke the back of the nobility".
Bureacratic China developed the concept of the Mandate of Heaven that ligitimised some resistance to unjust oppression, but w/o a strong notion of corporate immunity
Feudalism arose in Japan but with heavy stress on loyalty to superiors and divine leader
Lacked conception of engagement among theoretical equals (e.g. vassalage)
Traditional despotisms may arise where a central authority is able to perform a variety of tasks or supervise activities essential to the working of the whole society (e.g. controlling Water supply, see Wittfogel, but probably too narrow a notion).
(417)
The persistence of royal absolutism or preindustrial bureacratic rule has created conditions unfavourable to Western democracy.
Even though these royal absolutisms or agrarian bureacracies did exist in the countries that subsequently did democratise.
Strong monarchical institutions checked the turbulence of the nobility. Strong state that gradually democratised.
Another precondition: balance of power between the crown and the nobility. Agrees with the "pluralist notion" that an independent nobility is important.
(418)
Achievement of this balance is usually the result or aftermath of a large amount of violence.
If nobility seeks freedom in the absence of a bourgois revolution - highly unfavourable to development of democracy.
Agreement with the Marxist thesis that a vigorous and independent class of town dwellers an "indispensable element".
(419)
Decisive determinant (key variable) has the landed aristocracy acquired commercial traits?
Feudal system: landowner, serfs work his land and keep some of the produce, with some common land
Advance of commerce in towns and demands of absolutist rulers for taxes meant landed required more cash. Three main responses to this problem
(420)
English turned to a form of commercial farming allowing the peasants more autonomy.
French left the peasants in de facto possession of the soil, then took a percentage and marketed it.
Manorial reaction in E.Europe. E.German Junkers reduced peasants to serfdom in order to grow and export grain. Similar process in Russia due to political causes.
In England this turn to commercial farming led to less reliance on the crown, reaction against fumbling Stuart attempts at absolutism. It also created a strong link to the towns.
Where there's a weak commercial impulse among the landed upper classes, there remains a huge peasant mass which creates problems for democracy creation.
So commercialisation was important - but for the peasants as well as the landed. Where they got more opportunity to generate their own wealth this may have been an important factor.
(421)
Maintenance of plantation slavery in the US was an obstacle
Landed upper class requires a state with a strong apparatus of repression, imposes climate of political opinion opposed to human freedom.
Encourages the preponderance of the countryside over the towns which remain shipment centres to overseas territories.
Brutalising consequences of the elites relationship with its workforce.
Question: Why/how did this transition to commercial agriculture take place?
(422)
There were differences in opportunities to develop commercial agriculture, e.g. existence of a market in nearby towns and adequate transportation. Role of population density and geography?
Transformation of peasants into some other form of social grouping augurs best for democracy.
(423)
For peasants living at the margin of physical existence, modernisation might be too risky, particularly if the profit is likely to go to someone else. (The peasants had to take some risk).
Two variables so far: relationship of landed aristocracy to the monarchy and the commericial impulses (requirement of production for the market) [plus third variable] relationship of landed upper classes with town dwellers (upper stratum: bourgeoisie).
The coalitions and countercoalitions among these latter groups created the framework and environment of political action. What situations contributed to the development of a free society?
Natural lines of cleavage - requirement of cheap food / cheap goods. Class differences can cut across rural-urban cleavage (Marxist)
(424)
Convergent interests between upper ranks of town dwellers and landed upper classes occurred in Tudor and Stuart England. The convergence led both groups to oppose the royal authority. English bougeoisie was trading with foreign markets whereas the French were reliant more on arms trade with the king, meaning they were more dependent on the crown.
Height of English bourgeoisie power was between the 17th and 19th century - foreign and domestic rivals not yet brought to their full powers.
(425)
Also important for the commercial and industrial leaders to become a dominant element in society. Allows landed upper class to take on a "bourgeois hue"
England's "final solution" to the peasant question - the sheep enclosures. No massive reservoir of peasants to serve the reactionary ends of the landed upper classes. Instability of French democracy in the 19th and 20th centuries partly because it didn't escape the peasant problem.
The brutality of the enclosures reminds the limits to peaceful transitions to democracy. Moore is saying the enclosures were a necessary step towards democracy. They reduced subsistence farming and increased the number of labourers available to industry, and increased the commercialisation impulse of the landed upper classes.
The Civil War checked royal absolutism and gave the aristocracy more power to destroy peasant society.
(428)
Conception of a "bourgeois revolution". No seizing of the reins of power. The aristocracy in Britain retained control of the political machinery through the 19th century due to the importance of capitalism in the countryside.
(429)
The key elements to a bourgeois society are the right to vote, representation in a legislature that is not just a rubber stamp, an objective system of law without privileges by birth, property rights, free speech, freedom of assembly.
(430)
Argument: landed upper classes either helped to make the bourgeois revolution or were destroyed by it. Resisting capitalism meant they were swept aside by its convulsions. The capitalist and democratic tide is one and the same.
