Think of the village shoemaker & the urban printer in English radical history. In manufacturing, relatively skilled workers were often the leaders of radical organizations in the UK. Were the Irish at the forefront of radical organizations? In the US, my understanding was that the early Irish immigrants tended to resort to arson & the like as a protest rather than organizing.
Writing from relative ignorance... In the US, matters are complicated because of the massive immigration of workers. On Mon, Apr 16, 2007 at 07:54:21PM -0400, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > > About peasants, I remember a good article in an old issue of Socialist > Register that confirms your point about the more privileged sectors of > peasantry being more politically active, at least in the initial stage > of social change: Hamza Alavi*, "Peasants and Revolution" (1965), > <http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1965_Alavi.pdf>. > Highly recommended. What's true of peasants may be also true of > educated proletarians, and there may be work that can empirically > confirm it in resource mobilization theory literature. > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
