�Problems with the Moral Economist view of Peasant Society

By Quynh Bliss

Drafted 15 November 1999

Traveling along the sporadically paved roads that extend from the city of Dha-Nang to the village where my relatives reside, a foreigner would easily notice the vast rice fields. These features are obvious in the agrarian region.� But along this route there is another sight to behold.� Amongst the rice fields, there stand thin trees (some needed support to stand upright) every 50 feet or so that hold insulator blocks and thinly insulated electric wire. It is hard to associate this wire with technology, especially for a westerner that is accustomed to seeing the advances of big-city technology at every turn.� This thin wire does, however, represent technological progress for the village I visited.� The moral economist would be likely to state that such progress was a threat to the utopian way of life of the peasant.� The political economist would be more likely to favor technological progress even if represented only by a thin wire.� This is true for several reasons.

Technology is a technical way of achieving a practical result. Such technology would be inappropriate in some countries if the people there are not ready for the technological progress.� A country would fall into this category of it did not meet these conditions. It should possess: 1) a stable government that is capable of protect the rights of the people in regards to investments, intellectual property, and copyrights; 2) an educated work force; 3) appropriate raw materials; 4) suitable infrastructure; and 5) the desire to the concerned society to adapt.� With technology comes the need for change.� This change is not only in mindset but also in the everyday patterns of life.� Moral economists believe that peasants are beyond these changes.� Moral economists feel that peasant society is pro-feudal and anti-capitalistic, that capitalism will not aid in reforming their current way of life.

�If a given developing country met the above criteria, and was ready to modernize, the political economist would think this was a logical and advantageous progression of society.� Technology brings with it the ability to work more efficiently.� If peasants work more efficiently, they are able to reach higher levels of profit.� This profit provides security to the peasant in retirement, and that is a condition preferred by the peasant.� There is risk involved with adapting technology, but the political economist would believe that the future-minded peasant warrants this risk as acceptable.

The moral economist would feel that the threat posed by technology would be too much for the peasant to risk unless his survival was at stake.� Change does occur in peasant society, however, but the moral economist feels the intent of the change is to return to some glorious past when life was better for the community.� He would also feel that the motivation to revert back to some former system was based in selflessness for his community as opposed to the political view of individual needs taking the priority.

There are some examples of societies that appear resistant to change, but when you look at them closely, they do not support the moral economist's opinions.� India still maintains a caste system.� Those individuals in lower classes remain in the same class throughout their lives because they cannot even marry out of it.� Although India has the potential to be competitive in terms of production and advancement, she is hard pressed to be considered "cutting edge" because her society is still caught up in the caste system.� The caste system, along with some autarkic policies in place earlier in this century, has prevented India from making the technology advances she could have made.� These changes were missed not because the people wanted to cling to the past, but because they were held back from the future. China's fixation with communist ideology has her leadership practicing "pure power politics".� Because of this mindset, any type of technology that is considered a threat to the current system is either eliminated or is not permitted to operate in China.�

These are examples of leadership preventing advancement, not the people doing so as the moral economist would believe.� The political economist would be more likely to support technological advancement and so would I, presuming the country in question was adequately prepared for the change in society that such changes would bring.