At 02:33 PM 2/9/99 -0500, Lou wrote: >The actual historical record is that peasants in what Michael calls >"self-provisioning" economies resisted proletarianization with all the >force they can muster. It was normal for peasants in the 17th century to >have the skills and raw materials to fashion their own shoes, for example. If memory serves, that is what A.V. Chayanov argues re. Eastern Europe in _The Theory of Peasanr Economy_ (Madison 1986). But there is a big difference betwenn the 18th century "satanic mills" and the 20th century maquilladoras. The later are certainly horrible if compared to, say, Western European factories, but they may offer advantages to people who want to flee the "rural idiocy." I often meet Polish immigrants, esp. women, who preferred to stay in the US where they working and living conditions were substantially below what they had left in the socialist Poland. However, the slums of New York, Chicago or Boston offer these women what they did not have under Eastern European rural patriarchy: the freedom to earn and spend their meager income as they wanted, go where they wanted, dress as they wanted, sleep with whom they wanted, and not being asked to sacrifice for the "holy family" (read: their stinking and drunken husbands). Regards, Wojtek
