Robin Hahnel: >I have no disagreement with much of the rest of the above. And I have >been made aware that the ecological technology present throughout the >Incan empire in many ways was more advanced than any found in the same >places today. [My daughter is an archeologist currently studying >potentially superior ancient agricultural techniques of pre-Columbian >Andes civilizations.] However the word "combined" in the above account >can disguise a world of imperial sins. I might also note that among >Peruvian archaeolists of my acquaintance the Incans themselves -- the >conquorers from the Cuzco area -- were generally considered to be less >advanced not only culturally but also in agricultural technology than >many of the civilizations they conquored. However, as one Peruvian >friend of mine put it, "there should be no doubting that the Incans did >know how to make other people carry rocks for them." As I already pointed out, my statement about the Incan "relatively light touch" was overstated and I appreciate Robin's correction. Although I appreciate his serious and measured response, which I received privately yesterday, I still think there is a fundamental difference in methodology. I regard the Incan empire and the Spanish colonial empire in a completely different manner, as I already tried to make clear yesterday. This is the basic difference which has divided folks. Jim Devine nailed the differences on the head by pointing out the unique forms of exploitation that attend commodity production as opposed to the tributory economy of the Incan empire. The other thing that must be kept in mind is that the Incan empire has remained a symbol of anti-imperialist resistance through the centuries from the first 18th century peasant revolt to the modern Tupac Amaru guerrilla front in Uruguay. This is not simply reactionary longing for monarchies. This is what I wrote about the 18th century struggle: The colonial administration ruled without much native resistance until the 1700s, when armed movements broke out over a fifty year span. What is remarkable about these movements is that they had no use for the "enlightenment" values that were inspiring revolt in Europe or even in Haiti. These peasant rebellions called for a return to the old ways of the Inca empire, which now seemed like a golden age. José Gabriel Condorcanqui led the most important rebel movement. He was a trader and Indian noble who took the name Túpac Amaru II, after the last Inca executed by the Spaniards. He claimed to be a descendant of this chief. Túpac Amaru's rebellion covered the entire Southern Andes, roughly 200,000 square miles. Alberto Flores Galindo's article "The Rebellion of Túpac Amaru," also contained in the Peru Reader, details the scope of this powerful movement, which at its height drew support from 100,000 Indians. Túpac Amaru was also known as "the Inca." The rebellion, according to Galindo, was a product of sharp economic contradictions brought on by a recovery in the southern Andes, when new supplies of silver were discovered. Stepped up production and commerce flooded the local economies with new cash goods that the Indians could not afford. They also had to pay onerous taxes, while lacking access to the labor market and its cash wages. After the Spaniards captured and executed, Túpac Amaru, they decided to wage a campaign against Inca culture. They prohibited Inca nobility from using titles, destroyed their paintings, and forced the Indians to dress in European clothing. They hoped to assimilate the Indians in this manner, but it had the opposite effect. The hatred of the European deepened. Túpac Amaru has been a symbol of 20th century anti-imperialist struggles. Armed groups in Uruguay in the 1960s, and Peru in the 1980s and 90s, appropriated his name. It is certainly odd to see Marxist organizations use a figure of Inca nostalgia for their own struggle, which is supposedly about modernization and progress. What could be more backward-looking than to yearn for Inca past, that by any standards was not egalitarian or democratic? These contradictions are at the heart of the Peruvian class struggle, which has always defied schematic answers. Starting with the interaction between Spanish colonial-feudalism and Inca tributary modes of production, you encounter a clash between two systems that really do not fit neatly into a Marxist textbook. While Inca society might have been tributary, at the local kinship level of the ayllu, the tribe owned the property communally and made decisions collectively. As long as the local unit could satisfy the requirements of the imperial state, the social organization of the village could adhere to its own standards. The Inca state, while imperial, was not totalitarian. The Spanish colonial administration was not a pure case of feudalism either. Its purpose was to organize and regulate wage labor for the needs of commercial-capitalism in Europe. Hence, the relations between lord and serf were not as organic and traditional as those that had evolved in Europe over centuries. Alienation and hatred characterized the relationship between ruler and ruled. Racism and religious bigotry were the root causes. Centuries of meztiso attempts to wipe out Indian identity have not pacified them, as the recent Maoist rebellion proves. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
